Let me clarify this: There's no actual rule telling you to wait until level 30.
This game makes it easier on you if you decide to follow, at least some, of the quests, but it's not mandatory. For instance:
With quest: At level 10 or so, you quest to raise a horse.
Without quest: Mirage Island sells mounts for a few Gilda, which you can get with trade pack runs (see below).
With quest: A simple quest line gives you access to your first legal farm - you set permissions and can safely grow crops.
Without quest: Find a hidden part of the world and plant your own garden, free of taxes.
With quest: Around level 30, when you finish the main quest, you have about 50 Gilda to buy a boat with.
Without quest: Craft trade packs you make out of ingredients in your illegal garden, then pay for passage overseas to trade in your goods for Gilda until you save enough up for a boat.
You'd be a complete fool for choosing not to quest, but the game is still very playable without doing any questing. You even get a good amount of experience crafting, farming, gathering and mining if you choose to avoid questing... and even .fighting altogether!
This is what actually makes this game better than any "Themepark" MMO available and a step in the right direction for most "Sandbox" games as well. You can choose which rules to follow, which to bend and which to ignore entirely. All they do is give you a guideline and say "within these boundaries... have at it!". This beats the crap out of the "real" sandbox games like... Xsyon, Mortal Online, Darkfall, etc.... where it's total chaos and a free-for-all from the start and the entire game is set in a constant state of anarchy.
There's also open world PvP in this game. You can fly across the ocean, land in enemy territory and murder whomever you like. You can also sail out to neutral territory and murder your own faction members, outside the law of your own lands. The PvP is controlled enough to actually make sense, and still makes it difficult to be a gank-fest. And those who do PvP get thrown in jail if they die in battle if they've broken enough laws or killed enough people.
This is 1,000 times more balanced than any system you'll find in those FFA Sandbox games, and also 1,000 times more open than anything you'll find in a themepark game.
Thank you Lerxst for the well-written, thoughtful posts.
I played Archeage a couple times before in past beta events and couldn't get in to it. I'm a firm believer that if the game can't grab you within the first ten levels than it just isn't worth it. I gave it a third chance solely because of your posts. This time, everything finally clicked and the quality of many of the sandbox elements is amazing.
I think it's unfortunate it's giving such a wrong impression at the beginning but now that I've taken the time to learn it all, I think it's an important extended tutorial. I just hope more people take the extra time to dig deeper and see the extent of what you can do in the game before writing it off.
Comments
There will be 50s within 24 hours of release.
For those of you who call this a grind I would have hated to see what you would have said about Lineage 2 when it released.
The will never know what it's to grind on the same mob for 8 hours straight and gain less than 10% of required xp for one level.
I remember one night thinking my exp bar was not moving, got a felt tip made a little dot on it.
An hour later was looking at it and thought I think it only moved two pixels.
Let me clarify this: There's no actual rule telling you to wait until level 30.
This game makes it easier on you if you decide to follow, at least some, of the quests, but it's not mandatory. For instance:
With quest: At level 10 or so, you quest to raise a horse.
Without quest: Mirage Island sells mounts for a few Gilda, which you can get with trade pack runs (see below).
With quest: A simple quest line gives you access to your first legal farm - you set permissions and can safely grow crops.
Without quest: Find a hidden part of the world and plant your own garden, free of taxes.
With quest: Around level 30, when you finish the main quest, you have about 50 Gilda to buy a boat with.
Without quest: Craft trade packs you make out of ingredients in your illegal garden, then pay for passage overseas to trade in your goods for Gilda until you save enough up for a boat.
You'd be a complete fool for choosing not to quest, but the game is still very playable without doing any questing. You even get a good amount of experience crafting, farming, gathering and mining if you choose to avoid questing... and even .fighting altogether!
This is what actually makes this game better than any "Themepark" MMO available and a step in the right direction for most "Sandbox" games as well. You can choose which rules to follow, which to bend and which to ignore entirely. All they do is give you a guideline and say "within these boundaries... have at it!". This beats the crap out of the "real" sandbox games like... Xsyon, Mortal Online, Darkfall, etc.... where it's total chaos and a free-for-all from the start and the entire game is set in a constant state of anarchy.
There's also open world PvP in this game. You can fly across the ocean, land in enemy territory and murder whomever you like. You can also sail out to neutral territory and murder your own faction members, outside the law of your own lands. The PvP is controlled enough to actually make sense, and still makes it difficult to be a gank-fest. And those who do PvP get thrown in jail if they die in battle if they've broken enough laws or killed enough people.
This is 1,000 times more balanced than any system you'll find in those FFA Sandbox games, and also 1,000 times more open than anything you'll find in a themepark game.
Thank you Lerxst for the well-written, thoughtful posts.
I played Archeage a couple times before in past beta events and couldn't get in to it. I'm a firm believer that if the game can't grab you within the first ten levels than it just isn't worth it. I gave it a third chance solely because of your posts. This time, everything finally clicked and the quality of many of the sandbox elements is amazing.
I think it's unfortunate it's giving such a wrong impression at the beginning but now that I've taken the time to learn it all, I think it's an important extended tutorial. I just hope more people take the extra time to dig deeper and see the extent of what you can do in the game before writing it off.