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Some quick questions before purchase.
Rinswind89
Member UncommonPosts: 19
Hey guys, so umm I haven't purchased or played ArcheAge yet or anything but I am very interested in what I've seen so far. There are however a few things which I'm wondering about before I move forward with my decision to buy a founders pack. Bare with me as this might be a lot of text, sorry in advance!
1. First of all, I am pretty much only a PvE player, I try to stay away from PvP whenever possible, now I know this game and it's economy sort of thrives on the PvP part of it but I dunno by how much. Will PvP be required to actually fully play the game, to earn a decent amount of in-game currencies or build houses/farms/ships? If I suck at pvp and exclusively play solo, will I be unable to enjoy the game properly?
2. Will anything I work hard to build just be destroyed by enemy players for no reason, constantly? Are there any safety nets for my property and such?
3. Is there actually underwater exploration and giant sea beasties lurking beneath? And will I be able to explore these things solo or with a friend without dieng in one hit?
4. One of the largest factors that has me wanting to play, is the ability to craft and sale your own ship, the Black Pearl ship in particular. Can I only build this ship as a pirate or do I just need the recipe? Will I be able to build a ship (Galleon) by myself, and sale it by myself or with one other person?
5. If I manage to build a ship, and I am by myself, will this just be attacked and destroyed or stolen by other players, making all the work and resources I put into building it completely wasted?
6. I read once that being a Pirate basically makes you unable to explore and play the majority of the games locations, is this true? Is it meant only for people who wish to PvP exclusively? Will I be able to freely switch between a Pirate and normal citizen or is this choice permanent?
7. As this game is originally from Asia, is the game going to be a huge chore or grindfest in order to make any sort of reasonable progression?
8. I keep hearing about how this Cash Shop and Labor Points or whatever, is making this game slightly Pay to Win, is there any fact in this? How heavily does the game rely on Labor Points, and how easy are they to obtain in game VS outright buying them for real money? The time investment required is what will qualify this as Pay to Win for me, personally. For example if you can circumvent 2 months of hardwork with the press of a Paypal button, that's Pay to win in my book.
9. As far as the combat system goes, is this game actually fun, fluid and responsive with a lot of impact? Sooo many games out there bore me to death after several hours of play simply because they lack any kind of impact to the animations or sound effects on abilities and weapon attacks. For example lightning coming out of the sky that just sounds like a taser, devoid of any rolling thunder. Bleh.
10. Like above, are the animations of abilities any good (including sound effects)? I know some can be seen on YouTube but it's never really a clear showcase from what you actually see in-game, sometimes what you think looks good, with a closer look is actually not really that great. I'm a big fan of magic in particular, and from that mostly stuff like lightning storms (or any lightning from the sky, especially if it has thunder clouds), air magic, earth magic, and water magic (WATER...not ICE, there is a difference). Will there be a good setup for me available to play and enjoy?
That's it for now, thanks for taking the time to read through it all for those of you that did, and I would love to hear some answers from you guys if that's not too much trouble, thanks!
Comments
you should probably stay away from archeage especially if you wanna play it solo or with one other friend, to build a ship would literally take you months todo solo, it's designed primarily as a guild mechanic, lots of hands make light work.. the PvP griefing will run rampant, after level 30 all zones are basically contested so you wont be able to continue doing your thing without running into opposing faction, basically in all honesty you should look at a different game.
Plus why would you buy it, when it launches it's free to play you dont have to purchase the game at all.
I am not strictly opposed to the whole PvP scene, it's just that I'm not very good at it, and I'm not a min-maxer who plays only the best cookie cutter builds, I tend to just use what I think is cool. If the PvP is there and as long as the rest of the game is enjoyable enough I will just play through it. Equally I'm not opposed to joining or even making a guild, it's just that during general questing/exploring and crafting and things like that I play mostly solo.
Do guilds actually help each person make a ship or do they only focus on giving the leaders/officers ships or something? I would have no problem joining up with one if they can lend a hand with helping me build one.
Also about buying the game, well I like to support devs when I can and the founders goodies look decent enough as well, if it turns out to be an awesome game, I will have kicked myself for not taking the chance to get one. That's why, besides the whole PvP thing, I would like to know about the stuff above
1. PvP is a huge aspect of the game post level 30. If you don't enjoy pvp I don't recommend playing until it's free. A guild will go a long way to help you enjoy the game. Find one and join them.
2. If you've got a shiny new boat and you head out into the waters or enter a pvp zone, they can destroy your property. There is no safety yet. You also lose EXP on death but you can get some of it back.
3. There IS underwater exploration and there are giant sea beasties like the Kraken and the Levithan(coming soon). They will gimp you in one hit. These are large scale bosses/raid type deals.
4. I can't answer this one for you, I don't know.
5. It can be destroyed. Not sure on the stolen bit, probably? I'd think anything goes once you're out in the oceans.
6. From what I've gathered and what's been said in chat multiple times is that to become a pirate means you're dropped from your guild. Life becomes difficult.
7. As far as 'Asian Grinders' go, I'd say Archeage is one of the BEST I've ever played. I don't make that claim lightly, within an hour if you know the starting little quest chain (and I'm talking hub to hub, this is the same ol' same ol' boring stuff that you're used to in almost every other MMO) you'll burn through it and hit level 12-15 in a few hours. There are some neat cinematics and story elements to watch/read as you go through though.
8. It's not pay to win. Those who pay will be able to do more things more often, but they will never have a distinct advantage over the free user. They'll just get there a helluva lot faster. If you're a part of a large guild this pretty much becomes a moot point.
9. Spells and combat has IMPACT. The spell animations are fantastic and I rarely ever go with being a caster. I've had a lot of fun with the class system. Fireballs take time to wind up and then smash into the enemy, setting them on fire. Frost arrows hit with just as much impact but actually cover them in ice and cause them to stop in their tracks. With 120 classes it's hard not be impressed by all the attention to detail.
10. Magic is great in this game, I've only experienced the first two tiers of spells but they're well executed in both animations/sound effects and the feeling of real impact.
Awesome to hear bout some of that stuff, thanks for answering! The Kraken fight sounds pretty amazing, reminds me of getting a bunch of people together to defeat Lusca in City of Heroes, only with the graphics and ships in this game I can only imagine how much more epic it will be.
I probably will try to join a large guild in this game, especially if they can help make me a ship!
If anyone else wants to chime in on some stuff that wasn't answered it would be greatly appreciated. 
Your farm ...house or whatever you want to build can be built in pve zones in safe area's with 0 chance of anyone destroying anything or stealing anything . You can make trade runs 100% in safe zones to make a little cash flow at the start but the riskier the run the greater the pay
AA is a bit less brutal than EVE I'd say, the "safe areas" are actually safe !
But unless you really thrive on trading and farming, there's not much else you can do without being exposed to PVP. Being killed in PVP is not very serious, as there is no corpse looting, but it can waste a lot of your time, bruise your ego and possibly prevent you from completing certain activities. The only thing that can be looted is Trade Packs, because those are carried on your back and dropped when you die. Anyone can pick up a Trade Pack if they find it lying on the ground in the world.
Afaik, ships, mounts and vehicles can be destroyed, they despawn from the world and only come back once they are repaired (which can be expensive). But nobody can take them from you. Houses and farms cannot be damaged.
Yea I think I will try to join a guild before I start, and that way I can learn the game better and stuff before it launches. From everything I've been hearing so far it's a game that really only works well when you play with others so I'll just have to do that.
Also I don't really care much about dieng or being ganked or anything, I was just wondering about the housing situation because if they get destroyed easily and often I'd rather not waste the resources to build one in the first place. ;P
Interesting....thanks for the info!
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
In my opinion , it won't be the LP issue that will tank this game , it's going to be the community. That being said , I'm still on the fence about it.
This could end up being very interesting.
I'm level 42 in alpha and have never attacked another player. I've been ganked 3 times, always because of trying to sail packs into contested ports. My last 5 dings were during non-combat activities, not because I'm avoid questing in PVP lands but because of my infrastructure goals.
Nope, as has been mentioned, infrastructure dama
The things that can kill you in one hit are rare spoiler mobs like the Kraken. You're not going to get one-shotted at 50 except in extremely rare scenarios.
You can do all these things yourself, but it will take a long time without help.
You will get attacked on the high seas from time to time, but the repair bill will be the main issue, and those aren't that big.
You only technically become "Pirate" if you repeatedly kill and steal from members of your own faction. If you do that often enough you get kicked out of your faction and become KOS on both mains continents. There is however a long quest to regain faction with your home side once you've become a Pirate.
No, it's very easy to level to the cap, the grind only comes in if you want to be a top-of-the-line crafter.
If you get a subscription, only a truly hard core crafter will run out of labor points. You can easily play 5-6 hours a day and never run out as long as you spend some of the time fighting.
This is really a matter of personal taste. I myself enjoy it. It's similar to WoW.
I don't see many complaints about the spell effects. And the ocean water is frankly spectacular.
All PVP-oriented games tend to come with a liberal sprinkling of "scum-of-the-earth" type of players. F2P ones even more so, because there's no barrier to entry, which means it's a magnet for 14-year old males with "something to prove"...
But you will also find some really good people about, you just have to look harder.
Perfect, thanks for all the replies! I learned everything I wanted to know and will do a bit more research and watch some more videos, but I think I decided to invest in the game, and join up/play with a large guild and such.
As a side note, Songcraft, Witchcraft (epic mudgrip and water bubble
), little bit of Sorcery and Occultism (yay ravens!! 
) all look pretty awesome to me so I will probably play around with those trees 
My main goal in the game will be to become a solid crafter, and work towards eventually owning a Galleon (or Black Pearl if I'm really lucky) and other cool water, land, air, and underwater mounts and exploring the oceans depths!
Thanks for all the help answering my questions everyone, I really appreciate it, and hey maybe we'll see each other in-game some day