Not a bad review. Much as I like the game for what it does, the combat to me is definitely not the greatest. And it can be boring running trade runs all day or tending to the farm.
But what I like is the fact that I can do those things in addition to PvPing or farming tokens or running dungeons. And since I discovered Arenas, I have a decent way to earn honor points for gear.
Whats the point of trade packs? I can turn 100 iron ingots into a trade pack which makes me walk at the pace of a snail or I can run around with over 1000+ ingots in my inventory with no negative effect to my movement. Where's the common sense in that?
Edit: By the way I agree with the review but would have it scored slightly less. I've called time on the game when I realised I was saving money to get a thunderstruck log so i could build a farm cart to make trade runs slightly more effective. I think one of the major issues which will hurt the game is the lack of land. I'm patron and all of got is my 8x8 in the temp farming area, looking at endless trade runs to afford the prices to buy a bigger plot of land. I've got better things to do with my time.
the grinding yes is, indeed real. if you are use to old korean mmos, then this should not be any different. you basically grind everything in any profession. and most things are needed from grinding the materials via farming, gathering, logging, mining, etc. of course you can just buy all the things you need with gold. but now you need a gold steady income. you can choose to grind trade runs all day everyday or do fishing or work the market, even crafting stuff to sell works sometimes; depends on what your doing. i do love this game at the current time, and will continue to play so i can experience more content later on.
I agree a hundred percent with the review. I like the game, it's not awful, but it's nothing to work as hard as you need to. I don't mind spending hard core time on a game but not when the half of the game I want is just mediocre.
Agree with this review. I was a patron player and like many didn't get any land. Without land you are at a substantial disadvantage in terms of making money and afording end game gear. So you are stuck grinding to get money at a much slower rate and eventually buying land but by than it's been so long that it isn't even interesting anymore as you have just burned out on the grind.
I played from launch to just a few days ago before calling it quits. Just too frustrating and full of people telling you just work for your land. Course those are the people that got it for free when they managed to get logged in through the queue and bought up several plots to sell back to use you need to work for it crowd...
Requesting a RE review . Put some realy MMORPG vet on this title please who understands to honer ALL the features Archeage offers and put that in perspective to what litle generic so called "MMORPG's" offer.
Archeage gameplay is the only MMORPG desrving a 10 in gameplay.
No. There isn't any category by which I'd call this game a 10. It has a number of major flaws. Bots and Hacks are countless and that alone ruins the game. But the lack of land and the tedious tasks that need to be done countless times to ever hope to get ahead and to the point where you can start building and accomplishing things kills this game dead. I'd say a 7 on the review was generous.
I agree with this post. AA is like many western MMO's in some regards...too much boring and repetitive gameplay. It is not all bad but after a while you just want to fall asleep at the switch. I can't count the number of times I have been sheparding my donkey on a trade run to only find myself verring off course because I nodded off. Do trade-runs that can take anywhere from 10 to 25 minutes and multiply that by a factor of anywhere from 3 to 6 and you can see where boredom creeps in. Lately, I have limited my play time in AA only because I fear I am approaching a certain burn-out on such things. AA is not a bad game as the review says. AA just suffers from too much grind and a lack of (at times) fun. At the moment, I am subbed up till Jan. 2015. I may or may not stay. We shall see.
Echo of Soul is another game made by Lineage 2 developers which is much better then ArcheAge and has already surpassed ArcheAge in Korea in popularity. ArcheAge is slowly fading in Korea and will eventually die in America
Originally posted by Gruug AA is not a bad game as the review says. AA just suffers from too much grind and a lack of (at times) fun. At the moment, I am subbed up till Jan. 2015. I may or may not stay. We shall see.
"Not a bad game as the review says" yet "AA suffers from too much grind and a lack of (at times) fun".
Isn't the latter basically the same conclusion the review came to?
I really like the game, I definitely agree with a lot of the review but I will be playing it for a long time yet.
There is a lot of content the west doesn't have yet that is actually fun. The PvE improves a lot, and the variety in things to do to progress increases.
The problem of everyone above is their singleplayer-in-a-crowd (aka WoW) mentality. This game is not about your progrsssion its about how powerful as a team (guild/alliance) you can become.
Similar game but made by wester company and of course far more polished and beter class/combat design would be prety close to my ideal MMO.
Actually, the game is a progression game. It's just that the method you use to progress is a bit different (grouping with others to craft and PvP in order to get better gear instead of grouping with others to raid in order to get better gear. Though most MMOs that are not Wildstar find more casual avenues of fighting monsters to get better gear too, of course). When most people join a guild, they do so for the sake of their own progression (IE, resources and labor points as a group to get better gear, strength in numbers to win zerg battles to get resources for better gear, etc. Castle sieges get you tax gold to use to get better gear, etc).
Many people tried the PvP and crafting and found that, honestly, constantly zerging others, running across large stretches of land playing paper-boy with tradepacks, and literally watching grass grow to get materials to then just point and click to make randomly generated items is a lot more boring than fighting monsters (either alongside a team of other people in a raid or small party or solo)
If anything, another major problem for the game is that, like Wildstar, you're FORCED to group to progress in any meaningful way. Again, you're just grouping to PvP and craft instead of to raid, and there's nothing for the solo player here. Given how well that worked for Wildstar, it's no wonder the game's only niche at best in other regions.
It was your choice to be the paper boy of the server probably 'cos thats what you know (or were "trained") by the WOW/EQ clones. Meanwhile the big players on your server do runs consisting of tens of ships carrying cargo equal to literary hundreds of $.
After a decade of WoW we forgot what it is even relatively limited freedom that AA offers. We now just wait to be handheld trough content.
If you dont want to be FORCED i heard Skyrim have beyond infinit number of mods to entertain you for years.
BTW will you then QQ that Skyrim FORCES you into singleplayer? Because thats how you sound now :P
It was your choice to be the paper boy of the server probably 'cos thats what you know (or were "trained") by the WOW/EQ clones. Meanwhile the big players on your server do runs consisting of tens of ships carrying cargo equal to literary hundreds of $.
After a decade of WoW we forgot what it is even relatively limited freedom that AA offers. We now just wait to be handheld trough content.
If you dont want to be FORCED i heard Skyrim have beyond infinit number of mods to entertain you for years.
BTW will you then QQ that Skyrim FORCES you into singleplayer? Because thats how you sound now :P
Folks like yourself will never get it, it has nothing to do with grouping, single player, etc.etc,etc,etc... It has everything to do with execution. PEople don't play games like WOW because they don't have to group, people don't play them because they're easy, people don't play them because they're linear. They play them because they offer well executed content. IF the biggest gripe against a game is the content sux... that game is going to have some issues retaining people, even if it offers a lot of freedom, community aspects, danger...etc...
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I think this is a pretty fair review. The author pen pointed a lot of issues that need to be worked on. I'm a subscriber to AA and will continue to be so, even though I feel like they jerked us a round a lot with the founders and "starter" pack changes.
The one thing that the author of this article hits on that rings true, is the lack of social options. And what I mean by that, is there is no way other then picking the "Guild" option in your chat box to communicate with your guild members in game. There is no way to communicate in mass to your guild, there is no real guild interface beyond the "members list" and "permissions". There is no "Buddy or Friends list" chat option to talk with your buddy list only.
In a game which I've found to be most enjoyable when playing with other players, being able to communicate with other players is key. Being able to leave a Guild Message about a meeting or trade run at a certain time, would be ideal. Instead you have to trust "word of mouth" amongst your guild mates or in game mail to spread the word to players that might not have been on to see the announcement, instead of just clicking a few buttons to open the "Guild window" to check.
Tons of games have better social interfaces and options that this game lacks. When even MapleStory has a better Guild and Friends list interface and options, you have a problem.
Thanks for the review (may it be biased or not, as some people whine). I will pass on this one. I imagine in the right sized guild in coop one can accomplish a lot and relatively fast. But for solo or duo.... I done EVE chores more than enough, as well as SWG (though, SWG was.... well, SWG).
Would be nice to have a comment with SWG in comparison. All of us who played SWG hype it to the stars, but if you are honest, it had more than some flaws and by todays standards it probably wouldn't get 7+ rating easily?
btw,
That said, I’d love it if Trion made a “Subscription Only” server where the cash shop was completely disabled. Trion has to make money to keep the lights on, but I’d have loved to avoid the hassles faced with F2P servers by having the option to play on a subscriber only server.
This is a good idea for any f2p game, problem though is, I guess, they can't do additional cash in from subscribers and if you want to return after some time without subscribing (right away) you couldn't access your previous characters.
Probably overrated even here. Issue with the game is there isn't anything to do at all, outside grind like all korean mmorpgs, sure it's fun for a while because things are new but after a month 90% of the playerbase will leave.
After reading this review and reading many others, and watching a few videos on it. I think it's finally time for me to download this game and give it a try. It looks brilliant, so I cannot wait to get on it.
Your review was my experience with this game all the way till you got to combat. Maybe it was just the class I played but combat was nothing short of slow and painful. Too few resources to actually have any fun. Maybe adds to planning your attack but takes away a lot of fun.
Originally posted by Rastan1 Your review was my experience with this game all the way till you got to combat. Maybe it was just the class I played but combat was nothing short of slow and painful. Too few resources to actually have any fun. Maybe adds to planning your attack but takes away a lot of fun.
If you don't have sorcery, archery or battlerage as one of your combat abilities for PvE - it's going to suck big time for you.
There are about half a dozen PvE-combat builds - I think folks who are new to the game simply pick BAD builds that are not suited for PvE combat and yes it will be torture.
You want ez-mode PvE - try Primeval (also ez mode PvP) or Demonologist, any battle/shadow if you want melee - you're welcome
Just don't make the mistake I did and start off as a healer....
God, leveling was painful then.
But if you do like having some way to heal yourself you could go Ranger (archery/shadowplay/vitalism).
It was your choice to be the paper boy of the server probably 'cos thats what you know (or were "trained") by the WOW/EQ clones. Meanwhile the big players on your server do runs consisting of tens of ships carrying cargo equal to literary hundreds of $.
After a decade of WoW we forgot what it is even relatively limited freedom that AA offers. We now just wait to be handheld trough content.
If you dont want to be FORCED i heard Skyrim have beyond infinit number of mods to entertain you for years.
BTW will you then QQ that Skyrim FORCES you into singleplayer? Because thats how you sound now :P
You see, posts like these aren't helping your case and clearly showing your bias. I explicitly mentioned IN THE SAME SENTENCE several other activities to do in AAA besides being a paper boy that people also hated in AA yet you reply as if the only activity I stated was being a paper boy.
Way to try to mutilate the context of a post just for your own biased agenda. Hell, your reply didn't even touch upon what was CLEARLY the main point of that particular post you were replying to (that AA is a progression game) and instead made up an argument ("that you can only be a paper boy", when my post never said that and in fact mentioned several other things you can do in AA in the same sentence) just so you could counter it on your own terms despite how I never made that argument in the first place.
Anyways, in retrospect, the game Paper Boy was actually fun. As inferred from my post, the problem with Archeage is:
You can be a paper boy, but the game does it poorly (Paper boy is more fun. Here you just move like a snail. If you get ambushed, you temporarily suspend the Paper Boy and PvP instead, as opposed to the two melding together. There aren't any Benny Hill music "dodge obstacles as you dash away from those angry bandits chasing you" paper boy chases in this game... actually, that would make any MMORPG pretty awesome if they had that and it was done well, come to think of it)
You can farm, but the game does it poorly (farmville is more in-depth and complex).
You can PvP, but the game does it poorly (too CC based and the mechanics of PvP where CC is king and AoE is terrible make it too zerg friendly. In other games you can sometimes counter zergs under the right circumstances in ways that make them not so lopsided via chokepoints, divide and conquer tactics, and AoE abilities).
You can PvE, but the game does that so horribly that the vast majority of Archeage fans don't bother defending it (and the select few ones that do make this a clear "ridiculously biased grasping at straws" indicator)
You can jury duty but the game does that poorly (just a popularity contest which you can cash shop your way out of, anyways)
Etc etc etc.
....basically what the review said. Much to do, but not always worth doing.
It was your choice to be the paper boy of the server probably 'cos thats what you know (or were "trained") by the WOW/EQ clones. Meanwhile the big players on your server do runs consisting of tens of ships carrying cargo equal to literary hundreds of $.
After a decade of WoW we forgot what it is even relatively limited freedom that AA offers. We now just wait to be handheld trough content.
If you dont want to be FORCED i heard Skyrim have beyond infinit number of mods to entertain you for years.
BTW will you then QQ that Skyrim FORCES you into singleplayer? Because thats how you sound now :P
You see, posts like these aren't helping your case and clearly showing your bias. I explicitly mentioned IN THE SAME SENTENCE several other activities to do in AAA besides being a paper boy that people also hated in AA yet you reply as if the only activity I stated was being a paper boy.
Way to try to mutilate the context of a post just for your own biased agenda. Hell, your reply didn't even touch upon what was CLEARLY the main point of that particular post you were replying to (that AA is a progression game) and instead made up an argument ("that you can only be a paper boy", when my post never said that and in fact mentioned several other things you can do in AA in the same sentence) just so you could counter it on your own terms despite how I never made that argument in the first place.
Anyways, in retrospect, the game Paper Boy was actually fun. As inferred from my post, the problem with Archeage is:
You can be a paper boy, but the game does it poorly (Paper boy is more fun. Here you just move like a snail. If you get ambushed, you temporarily suspend the Paper Boy and PvP instead, as opposed to the two melding together. There aren't any Benny Hill music "dodge obstacles as you dash away from those angry bandits chasing you" paper boy chases in this game... actually, that would make any MMORPG pretty awesome if they had that and it was done well, come to think of it)
You can farm, but the game does it poorly (farmville is more in-depth and complex).
You can PvP, but the game does it poorly (too CC based and the mechanics of PvP where CC is king and AoE is terrible make it too zerg friendly. In other games you can sometimes counter zergs under the right circumstances in ways that make them not so lopsided via chokepoints, divide and conquer tactics, and AoE abilities).
You can PvE, but the game does that so horribly that the vast majority of Archeage fans don't bother defending it (and the select few ones that do make this a clear "ridiculously biased grasping at straws" indicator)
You can jury duty but the game does that poorly (just a popularity contest which you can cash shop your way out of, anyways)
Etc etc etc.
....basically what the review said. Much to do, but not always worth doing.
So a more accurate summary would be:
Much to do............ but the game does it poorly
I made it to mid teens but really have had no impulse to log back in. I didn't enjoy my play (however brief it was) but rather played to try and see what the fuss was all about. From my perspective, the PVE was absolutely dreadful and the questing was worst than Tera's. So it sort of did the opposite of what AoC did.
It was your choice to be the paper boy of the server probably 'cos thats what you know (or were "trained") by the WOW/EQ clones. Meanwhile the big players on your server do runs consisting of tens of ships carrying cargo equal to literary hundreds of $.
After a decade of WoW we forgot what it is even relatively limited freedom that AA offers. We now just wait to be handheld trough content.
If you dont want to be FORCED i heard Skyrim have beyond infinit number of mods to entertain you for years.
BTW will you then QQ that Skyrim FORCES you into singleplayer? Because thats how you sound now :P
Folks like yourself will never get it, it has nothing to do with grouping, single player, etc.etc,etc,etc... It has everything to do with execution. PEople don't play games like WOW because they don't have to group, people don't play them because they're easy, people don't play them because they're linear. They play them because they offer well executed content. IF the biggest gripe against a game is the content sux... that game is going to have some issues retaining people, even if it offers a lot of freedom, community aspects, danger...etc...
Im not blind i can see the shitload of problems AA have. But i will take a decent unpolished concept any day. If the alternative is merely a small scale multiplayer combat game pretending to be the MMO it once was. Because if we are honest WoW now is combat lobby game with maps consisting of 3 - 25 people and one huge useless world serving no purpose . Aside of combat maps everything else is striped down. They now even take money to spare you that boringness called the "tunnel" quest chain 1-90.
Or in other words one is much much better as MMO, the other is lightyears ahead as combat goes. Thats why i personly prefer AA over modern themeparks - they are multiplayer combat games with everything else almost completely removed.
Comments
Not a bad review. Much as I like the game for what it does, the combat to me is definitely not the greatest. And it can be boring running trade runs all day or tending to the farm.
But what I like is the fact that I can do those things in addition to PvPing or farming tokens or running dungeons. And since I discovered Arenas, I have a decent way to earn honor points for gear.
Whats the point of trade packs? I can turn 100 iron ingots into a trade pack which makes me walk at the pace of a snail or I can run around with over 1000+ ingots in my inventory with no negative effect to my movement. Where's the common sense in that?
Edit: By the way I agree with the review but would have it scored slightly less. I've called time on the game when I realised I was saving money to get a thunderstruck log so i could build a farm cart to make trade runs slightly more effective. I think one of the major issues which will hurt the game is the lack of land. I'm patron and all of got is my 8x8 in the temp farming area, looking at endless trade runs to afford the prices to buy a bigger plot of land. I've got better things to do with my time.
the grinding yes is, indeed real. if you are use to old korean mmos, then this should not be any different. you basically grind everything in any profession. and most things are needed from grinding the materials via farming, gathering, logging, mining, etc. of course you can just buy all the things you need with gold. but now you need a gold steady income. you can choose to grind trade runs all day everyday or do fishing or work the market, even crafting stuff to sell works sometimes; depends on what your doing. i do love this game at the current time, and will continue to play so i can experience more content later on.
Asdar
Agree with this review. I was a patron player and like many didn't get any land. Without land you are at a substantial disadvantage in terms of making money and afording end game gear. So you are stuck grinding to get money at a much slower rate and eventually buying land but by than it's been so long that it isn't even interesting anymore as you have just burned out on the grind.
I played from launch to just a few days ago before calling it quits. Just too frustrating and full of people telling you just work for your land. Course those are the people that got it for free when they managed to get logged in through the queue and bought up several plots to sell back to use you need to work for it crowd...
Anyway I'm done with it....
---
Ethion
No. There isn't any category by which I'd call this game a 10. It has a number of major flaws. Bots and Hacks are countless and that alone ruins the game. But the lack of land and the tedious tasks that need to be done countless times to ever hope to get ahead and to the point where you can start building and accomplishing things kills this game dead. I'd say a 7 on the review was generous.
---
Ethion
Let's party like it is 1863!
"Not a bad game as the review says" yet "AA suffers from too much grind and a lack of (at times) fun".
Isn't the latter basically the same conclusion the review came to?
There is a lot of content the west doesn't have yet that is actually fun. The PvE improves a lot, and the variety in things to do to progress increases.
It was your choice to be the paper boy of the server probably 'cos thats what you know (or were "trained") by the WOW/EQ clones. Meanwhile the big players on your server do runs consisting of tens of ships carrying cargo equal to literary hundreds of $.
After a decade of WoW we forgot what it is even relatively limited freedom that AA offers. We now just wait to be handheld trough content.
If you dont want to be FORCED i heard Skyrim have beyond infinit number of mods to entertain you for years.
BTW will you then QQ that Skyrim FORCES you into singleplayer? Because thats how you sound now :P
Folks like yourself will never get it, it has nothing to do with grouping, single player, etc.etc,etc,etc... It has everything to do with execution. PEople don't play games like WOW because they don't have to group, people don't play them because they're easy, people don't play them because they're linear. They play them because they offer well executed content. IF the biggest gripe against a game is the content sux... that game is going to have some issues retaining people, even if it offers a lot of freedom, community aspects, danger...etc...
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I think this is a pretty fair review. The author pen pointed a lot of issues that need to be worked on. I'm a subscriber to AA and will continue to be so, even though I feel like they jerked us a round a lot with the founders and "starter" pack changes.
The one thing that the author of this article hits on that rings true, is the lack of social options. And what I mean by that, is there is no way other then picking the "Guild" option in your chat box to communicate with your guild members in game. There is no way to communicate in mass to your guild, there is no real guild interface beyond the "members list" and "permissions". There is no "Buddy or Friends list" chat option to talk with your buddy list only.
In a game which I've found to be most enjoyable when playing with other players, being able to communicate with other players is key. Being able to leave a Guild Message about a meeting or trade run at a certain time, would be ideal. Instead you have to trust "word of mouth" amongst your guild mates or in game mail to spread the word to players that might not have been on to see the announcement, instead of just clicking a few buttons to open the "Guild window" to check.
Tons of games have better social interfaces and options that this game lacks. When even MapleStory has a better Guild and Friends list interface and options, you have a problem.
Thanks for the review (may it be biased or not, as some people whine). I will pass on this one. I imagine in the right sized guild in coop one can accomplish a lot and relatively fast. But for solo or duo.... I done EVE chores more than enough, as well as SWG (though, SWG was.... well, SWG).
Would be nice to have a comment with SWG in comparison. All of us who played SWG hype it to the stars, but if you are honest, it had more than some flaws and by todays standards it probably wouldn't get 7+ rating easily?
btw,
That said, I’d love it if Trion made a “Subscription Only” server where the cash shop was completely disabled. Trion has to make money to keep the lights on, but I’d have loved to avoid the hassles faced with F2P servers by having the option to play on a subscriber only server.
This is a good idea for any f2p game, problem though is, I guess, they can't do additional cash in from subscribers and if you want to return after some time without subscribing (right away) you couldn't access your previous characters.
--------------------------------------------
Youtube newb:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC96N3cxBuqKTPV2BQNlzGUw
Just don't make the mistake I did and start off as a healer....
God, leveling was painful then.
But if you do like having some way to heal yourself you could go Ranger (archery/shadowplay/vitalism).
It's at most a 5. Fun at first, boring as hell later on.
This is assuming you're kind of casual/time-constrained/online at random times and don't want to spend every second logged in in TS or other voip
You see, posts like these aren't helping your case and clearly showing your bias. I explicitly mentioned IN THE SAME SENTENCE several other activities to do in AAA besides being a paper boy that people also hated in AA yet you reply as if the only activity I stated was being a paper boy.
Way to try to mutilate the context of a post just for your own biased agenda. Hell, your reply didn't even touch upon what was CLEARLY the main point of that particular post you were replying to (that AA is a progression game) and instead made up an argument ("that you can only be a paper boy", when my post never said that and in fact mentioned several other things you can do in AA in the same sentence) just so you could counter it on your own terms despite how I never made that argument in the first place.
Anyways, in retrospect, the game Paper Boy was actually fun. As inferred from my post, the problem with Archeage is:
You can be a paper boy, but the game does it poorly (Paper boy is more fun. Here you just move like a snail. If you get ambushed, you temporarily suspend the Paper Boy and PvP instead, as opposed to the two melding together. There aren't any Benny Hill music "dodge obstacles as you dash away from those angry bandits chasing you" paper boy chases in this game... actually, that would make any MMORPG pretty awesome if they had that and it was done well, come to think of it)
You can farm, but the game does it poorly (farmville is more in-depth and complex).
You can PvP, but the game does it poorly (too CC based and the mechanics of PvP where CC is king and AoE is terrible make it too zerg friendly. In other games you can sometimes counter zergs under the right circumstances in ways that make them not so lopsided via chokepoints, divide and conquer tactics, and AoE abilities).
You can PvE, but the game does that so horribly that the vast majority of Archeage fans don't bother defending it (and the select few ones that do make this a clear "ridiculously biased grasping at straws" indicator)
You can jury duty but the game does that poorly (just a popularity contest which you can cash shop your way out of, anyways)
Etc etc etc.
....basically what the review said. Much to do, but not always worth doing.
So a more accurate summary would be:
Much to do............ but the game does it poorly
?
Im not blind i can see the shitload of problems AA have. But i will take a decent unpolished concept any day. If the alternative is merely a small scale multiplayer combat game pretending to be the MMO it once was. Because if we are honest WoW now is combat lobby game with maps consisting of 3 - 25 people and one huge useless world serving no purpose . Aside of combat maps everything else is striped down. They now even take money to spare you that boringness called the "tunnel" quest chain 1-90.
Or in other words one is much much better as MMO, the other is lightyears ahead as combat goes. Thats why i personly prefer AA over modern themeparks - they are multiplayer combat games with everything else almost completely removed.
Stonearrow
Your summary is right, things was make poorly .
7.3 is pretty high ,
IMO , AA only about 5 to 6 at max .