Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
It can't really be THAT bad, can it?
I mean, everything I've seen online personally implies that it is, but they get enough people to play it still, somehow?
If you don't mind, any examples of 'unforeseeable mistakes'? (I'm assuming that was sarcasm, if not, ignore me)
There are many reasons why I consider that a bad thing, not a good thing, so I don't really understand the sentiment.
If a game manages to attract a lot of people who play bad games... That's a type of success, true, but...
Ah, ok. I'll see if @grisu educates me a bit more about the bad parts.
But keep in mind, that the version of AA you're going to experience in it is worlds apart different from the version Steven Experienced and was inspired by.
For people like me who already experienced AA in it's glory days and understands how it is nothing but a hollow shell of its former self, playing in this fresh start would be for nothing but blind nostalgia.
Aren't we all sinners?
Like James said though, I don't even know how much of it is true to form anymore from it's original vision.
One of the videos that inspired me to buy the game back then, courtesy of Bikeman. lol
Define THAT bad in a gaming industry where unfounded hype building, false promises, real life gambling, "whales" as a normal integral term of a business model and so on are common place.
I honestly do not want to spend any energy on this, but also how can I say no to an honest question.
So, compromise, I will shorten and paraphrase just some quick things to paint a picture you can research in further detail and will ignore that I open myself up to nitpicky "aKTcHuAlLY"s based on a technicality.
In no particular order aside from contextual necessity.
1. Korean MMOs are build differently. Korean society is different, values differ, if you want to play mmo, you sign up with your social security number tied to the account you create.
2. This was not the first Korean MMO in existence/ ported to the west, we have seen the designs that come along with it, like labour systems, low anti cheat measurements since well, you hand over your identity when signing up and so on in Korea. One would imagine you understand that some changes are needed to address such differences. I'm sure they knew and just saw an opportunity instead like all the others before and since.
3. Archeage was heavily p2w /gold seller reliant which they promised to address with unchained.
4. Unchained will be a one-time purchase only, with just vanity items in the cash shop. Quoted extensively in interviews and hype building.
5. Do I need a point 5 to tell you that 3 and 4 didn't happen?
6. Introducing the Archpass influxing gold amongst other things for paid service.
7. Ignore 5, here comes - labour potions, landrush, no anti bot-ing practices, paid dlc of areas that can not be accessed otherwise, paid labour buffs, whatever the fucking the leaf or blessing was called, optional subscription blablabla.
8. Introductions of things past the launch date to mask their practices from initial reviews.
9. Labour system is your money maker, anything you do costs labour, so what do you do if you have limited labour even tho you pay for enhanced regeneration and refills? Heeeyyy here comes the 2nd/3rd/4th... paid account to have more labour every day. Such a shift from relying on scummy goldsources outside of your normal playtime to advance your gear kekw.
I could harper on and on about points of times where they "made a mistake" that just happened to enrich them real quick beyond the already mentioned. I mean, ArcheWORLD is a thing now. Just, kek-double-u all the way. What else do you need to know?
Kakao games and their practices of making mandatory, I mean "oPTiOnAl", purchases in a buy to play game to stay competitive? Paid costumes with buffs to conserve money in a game that purely relies on heavy rng fuelled by TONS of money to advance your gear? Check. How about enhance crafting? Check. You gonna love this one, making a hack and slash game where you kill HORDES of enemies quickly with MOUNTAINS of individual drops on the ground that you have to pick up manually, one by one, in a nice juicy animation when you are competing for farming grounds with everyone else constantly... oh wait buy 3 pets... that you can upgrade with more pets to do it for you. "oPtiOnaL" sub for more money saving benefits, selling above said costumes for gold in game.
I'm SURE none of it will see introductions/ re-emergence in this instalment of unchained.
Oh boy oh boy "It's not like that now, you haven't kept up with it" aha, sure they didn't use every dirty little trick in the book over the years and they surely stopped now relaunching the same thing for you to drop a subscription in. Who needs new content when you can just relaunch the same product anyway for the x-th time and make people pay for it again?
People gonna pay in new ways, it's totally different and good now. aha sure buddy
Imagine this being JUST the shortened version of parts of it. There is more sinister nuances to some of it as well as left out parts not touch on yet, but it's too much effort to contextualize it all and dig up all the dates and quotes and so on. You get the point.
I hope you understand that this is as far as my compromise is willing to go especially this late as I feel my contempt leaking through more and more and my sheer unwillingness to clean it up. Either way I won't debate this any further. I feel like I provided enough points to justify a simple:
"Hu, maybe there is something fishy about this game and the companies involved. Maybe I should look into it before I touch it."
@Azherae
I can be a life devouring nightmare. - Grisu#1819
I genuinely thank you.
I have always understood ArcheAge to be close to the BDO model even if not in every way, making it more possible to quickly switch closer to it, with Ashes intending to pull further away from it.
My interest in this game has always hinged on it being 'Lineage that goes in the direction of FFXI' rather than 'Lineage that goes in the direction of BDO'.
That's somewhat unrelated, but I am also ignorant about the 'boots on the ground' FEELING of playing ArcheAge, and I've played enough BDO to know that it's not really easy nor possible to explain just how bad it feels to someone who doesn't play it, because a lot of what it does sounds fine or even good, theoretically.
I am willing to basically just trust your words since you feel strongly enough about it to push through the potential derision. I know the feeling. What you said matches everything I find when I do look myself, so I will consider myself informed for the time being.
God I miss this game.
Not gonna lie, nostalgia hits hard asfk, simple messing around in the sea with my friends was amazing.
I played the First Kakao Unchained Fresh Start last year(8.0 version), the game is extremely different from older versions(Pre-3.0) may it be Class Balance, Gearing, Crafting, Questing(DailyAge), Alt Dependency(AltAge), Across the sea trading and and sea content in gerenal far less valuable(other than the world bosses), Farmland management automization(Farmhand) alot of things changed.
Labor dependency is still the same old bad game design tho
Aren't we all sinners?
https://www.mmorpg.com/news/kakao-and-xlgames-confirm-archeage-2-is-still-in-development-coming-2024-2000126116
Lets hope for Q1 2024
Aren't we all sinners?
I hope you're a glorious Colonial, rather than dirty Warden filth. I mean, daaaayum, they're even worse than Tulnar.
that is before AoC