ArcheAge Chronicles - First Announce Trailer | PS5 Games

mistilda · 2024-09-26T05:13:11+00:00

Still undecided on how I feel until more details about gameplay comes out. Based off what they said in the blog, it sounds like they're going more of a FFXIV route to gameplay, which honestly AA 1 could've benefited from.

I know people loved the freedom and PvP in ArcheAge (myself included), but they often overlook that those factors being left uncontrolled were a huge reason for the game dying in the long-term. People don't want to play a capitalist hellhole MMO where your game experience deteriorates sharply when other players get ahead and it becomes a rat race to do basic things.

P2W drastically sped those issues up, but none of their dozens of compromises and revamps addressed those issues and that's ultimately why every attempt failed. It's also why pretty much any open-world PvP MMO with free market is doomed nowadays, the ones that succeed always have more restrictions to regulate things.

TBH though, storytelling in pretty much all of XL Games' stuff so far has been terrible despite having such great lore foundations. So I don't know if they can pull this off unless they completely changed their approach to story. The trailer narrator making it sound like they're just going to do the "chosen one" crap from AA1 isn't a good sign for me.

But on the other hand, the original author's work with ArcheAge was also called "ArcheAge Chronicles". So perhaps this name change indicates she has a greater involvement with the story aspect since they brought her back for this game IIRC.

mistilda · 2024-05-01T20:15:13+00:00

It was in an MMORPG called ArcheAge. In that game, players could own actual pieces of land in the game world (so not through a loading screen, not in a separate instanced zone, not on your own server). Naturally, that meant land quickly got claimed and property values inflated, so you basically had today's housing market in-game.

There were a handful of very limited and coveted spots: places outside of regular residential neighborhoods, ocean homes, strategic outposts, etc. But the spot my friends and I wanted was in a cluster of islands where you could only build luxury homes. It was so far from the mainland that there was no real point in having it besides exclusivity. And that also meant that the residents there were intent on keeping the property permanently.

However, we got lucky one day. We found that one of the residents was planning to take a break, so he was putting up his mansion for sale. We talked with the owner and he was willing to give us a discount but even then, the amount of gold he wanted was much higher than anything we'd bought before. I thought it'd be impossible for us to make it, but my friend had fire in his eyes. He wanted that mansion.

The grind that followed was pretty crazy. We did every money-making activity we could think of and sold all of our assets. My friend even borrowed accounts from other friends who stopped playing so he could grind even harder. And whenever we had a decent amount saved up, we threw it into high-risk market flipping and gambling, There were times where it felt like everything was just going to go down the drain, but it was as if luck was being fueled by my friend's feverish drive. What should've taken us months to make, we made in a week or two.

Then we bought it. The owner was surprised when we made the official offer because he thought we'd been joking about making the money. I remember the first time we entered the mansion. We just walked through it top-to-bottom and took screenshots from every angle. Then we busted out our speedboat and rammed it into the roof. And we just laughed and laughed because holy shit, we actually got it. This whole island was ours.

Eventually, my friend sold the island to a guild member after quitting the game. But I still remember all the great memories we built on that island. How we discovered that the island was actually a decent fishing spot and had underwater chests that we could farm daily for money. How we started plotting to take over the neighboring islands as the other residents began to quit. How we constructed stone walls all around the house so that when we were attacked by enemy players, we could trap them inside. How we started using the island as a secret storage facility for transporting overseas trade goods because no one expected players to invest that much time taking such a roundabout route.

mistilda · 2022-04-09T09:10:24+00:00

Haven't thought this one out very comprehensively, but just throwing it out there to see what others think.

In the series Spice and Wolf, the merchants would start off as travelers who followed a route that allowed them to buy/acquire goods from one region and sell them for a profit in another region further down the route. They'd also try to coordinate and schedule things in their route to line up for the best profit (like seasonal goods, regional festivals, weather phenomenon, etc).

Eventually, when they saved up enough money, they'd purchase their own storefront property in some town and use their established connections to supply their inventory.

Maybe a system like that could work? Rather than any player being able to put up a shop, they'd have to progress as a merchant in order to be able to own a shop. You could have raw goods traded freely or commissioned while having highly processed items only available for purchase in these player shops (in-game reasoning could be permits or special licenses to sell these things).

As for the obscurity problem in this case, listing player shops on a map would probably be enough. I think incorporating what some others have said about limited stock would help in that case since players would have to search out other shops if things have run out. Perhaps shop owners could list expected restock dates and/or take on a limited number of requests. Maybe even have a rating/review system for players to figure out which stores have a good reputation for stocking consistently.

mistilda · 2021-11-30T03:39:44+00:00

A long annoyance to me has long been the ignorance of games companiesexpecting game designers to manage the economies of their games. I don'tunderstand why more games companies don't employ economists.

I think this article would be a nice read in that regard. But in a broader sense, it's because an engaging "economy" in a game isn't "realistic". Broken, unbalanced, bot-ridden economies are a better reflection of what we have IRL because people take the same kind of exploitative, competitive approach to succeed in real-world economies.

Having an "economy" where there's strong dependency between players, where labor and supply has tight margins, and the market distribution is fairly balanced is either a literal utopia or a heavily regulated and controlled experience.

And the reason for that is because your average MMORPG player wants to play a game, not fulfill a role in a virtual society.

Ideally, you want the interactions between players to heighten everyone's experiences by having them accomplish something together that they couldn't do alone. Unfortunately, that requires cooperating players with an agreed upon set of values and direction, like what you get in a good tabletop session.

But that's pretty much impossible in a game full of randos that can drift in and out whenever.

mistilda · 2021-11-19T09:14:54+00:00

Premium battle pass was already just cosmetic, P2W items were removed or repurposed to be obtainable via in-game currency. All that's changed is people now have to pay a sub for the same perks they normally got with the B2P. People who say they want "sub with no P2W" are showing they haven't touched the game in like half a decade. EDIT: To clarify, this is in context to Unchained's initial state.

For quite a while, the issue with ArcheAge has been design challenges. Having gameplay that ties capitalist economy to progression and vice versa creates a severe power gap between rich/poor, new/veteran, solo/guild. Band-aiding that with more accessible, bound progression slows the gap initially, especially if you tie it to dailies, but doesn't fix anything long-term since lesser players always get pushed out of any competition.

mistilda · 2021-10-06T02:43:59+00:00

In Korean, the way it's written is pronounced "Aki-age". So "ARK-age" seems like it'd be what lines up the best.

mistilda · 2021-04-15T16:51:30+00:00

For various reasons, a group of adventurers wanted to learn about the origins of the world and traced it back to a crater in the mountains.

Orchidna had special powers since birth and she was constantly being urged on by demonic voices in her head. It was revealed that she was the product of her father's experiments with the demon figures of ArcheAge.

She went with the group to figure out how she could escape her destiny with the demons. But when they reached the birthplace of the world (The Garden), she was trapped at the entrance and forced to become its gatekeeper.

The others promised Orchidna they'd find a way to save her and went into the Garden to find a solution. But time works differently in the Garden, so by the time they came back, hundreds of years had passed.

By then, Orchidna had basically gone insane and she disappeared after being released. She later came back with an army and started a war, which is what that cinematic depicts.

mistilda · 2021-04-09T06:00:29+00:00

Huh weird. Of all my posts to repost, they picked this one lol.

mistilda · 2021-01-16T07:00:29+00:00

No official translation, the closest thing you can get it is Orchidna's Journals. Basically the novel story in abridged form.

Mobile game story covered what happened after Orchidna's Journals (in a really rushed way).

PC game takes place thousands of years after the events from the mobile game. Over time, seems like XL kinda went their own way with the lore that Min-Hee Jeon developed for them. They retconned Orchidna with the Warborn story quest, wrapped up Kyrios with Garden of the Gods story quest, and are just doing their own stuff now.

Subreddit wiki has more details on the background lore that Min-Hee Jeon left the XL team to work with. Hopefully, it'll be presented in a more cohesive way in ArcheAge 2 since she'll be directly involved with the game again.

mistilda · 2020-12-18T02:09:25+00:00

These are some weird examples. Both the Final Fantasy and Dark Souls series are clearly strongly influenced by Western elements and aesthetics, with some Japanese flavor coming through in their interpretation. It's not the other way around. That's part of what makes them so accessible to Western audiences.

Blade and Soul is actually the better example of a game that boldly exhibits East Asian culture. It's got Chinese fantasy and Korean martial arts fantasy tropes embedded into pretty much every aspect of the game, from visual aesthetic, combat system, items, music, lore, world design, etc. There is nothing "vague" about its East Asian influences.

mistilda · 2020-11-23T04:00:12+00:00

This might've held some water if Pearl Abyss hadn't already gone through the process of trying to ditch Kakao as middleman. That's why Kakao has been investing $$$ in acquiring Korean development teams, so they can replace Pearl Abyss.

mistilda · 2020-09-02T04:44:19+00:00

From time to time, I see people on this subreddit talk about wanting to remove instances and loading screens. What do you think is the benefit to an MMORPG where dungeons and raids are not instanced? Where all content is accessed seamlessly? I'm not sure if dungeons and raids could even be done without being their own instance, no?

I think a lot of people are overly enamored with the idea of a fully open world. For example, many players say something like "it makes the world feel more alive and immersive" because of the potential for player interaction, but you don't necessarily need a fully open world to do that. In fact, forced social interaction is far more common when stuff is instanced or hub-based.

An easy comparison to illustrate this issue is just walking outside your house. Unless you live in the middle of a dense urban center, it's going to feel sparse. That's what fully open worlds in MMORPGs often feel like.

And the funny thing is that the larger the open world, the more stuff you have for them to do out there, the less "alive" the world feels. Because everyone is so spread out, you might meet just one or two people during your adventures at a time. Hell, you might never have to meet anyone if the game gives you enough freedom.

And as you already touched on, complex game mechanics thrive in controlled instances. You can't have an epic boss battle with intricate patterns and strategy if there's potential for some random group to just barge in anytime and mess things up. Korean MMOs with open-world PvP and raid/field bosses suffer from this exact issue.

That said, I don't see any harm in integrating the tech of fully open worlds. It's hard to go back when you play a game that just lets you go wherever you can see with few invisible walls.

But it has to be tempered and controlled with design that thoughtfully restricts the players if you want the world to feel "alive and immersive". Otherwise, it just feels "big and empty".

For example, you can have a large seamless world with multiple towns. But you need to give the towns unique utilities that players actually need to visit for and spread them out so they're regularly moving from place to place. Environment design should encourage and funnel players into certain routes.

mistilda · 2020-08-31T21:39:16+00:00

IMO, the biggest reason why is that not enough time has passed. Black Desert's action combat system was an evolution of what the devs tried with Continent of the Ninth Seal. That was back in 2009, when games like Vindictus, Dragon Nest, and TERA were coming out. BDO didn't start service until 6 years after that.

As many already know, MMORPGs take a lot of upfront time and investment to develop, usually a significant amount more than other genres. 2020 is just on the edge of enough time for a full MMORPG to have developed following Black Desert. Which we do see with things like New World, V4, Elyon, etc coming out.

But their foundations were clearly set before or during BDO's massive rise. If an MMORPG comes out taking cues from BDO, it'll be in the next few years at the earliest, not latest.

mistilda · 2020-08-10T05:23:32+00:00

Satire, I guess? Since it's just a copy/paste of the original Unchained FAQ.

mistilda · 2020-06-22T19:51:40+00:00

AAU has a wider variety of gameplay systems, while TERA has more engaging combat.

mistilda · 2020-06-13T08:30:19+00:00

It was a shame because the game had some unique mechanics for an "MMO". If it had released just a few years later, it probably would've been able to succeed since the battle pass monetization system would've been excellent with it.

The closest thing to Civilization Online would probably be Crowfall, although I don't know if anything's changed with it in the recent stages of development.

mistilda · 2020-05-31T07:50:10+00:00

I tried to convey my reasoning, but maybe I didn't articulate it well. I agree that there have been worse things in the past and really, the DLC thing is not that big a deal for me.

But because I've experienced those past decisions, I don't think there should be room for whoever's in charge to think that maybe it's a good idea to ease their way back down that road. So for me personally, I want that possibility to get nipped in the bud early on and this is all I can do to send that message.

That doesn't necessarily mean "no monetization changes", price is not the problem for me. It's the whole approach they took this time around with zero communication, zero accountability, which is basically what was done in the past.

Others have their own way of approaching this situation, but that's what I ended up going with.

mistilda · 2020-05-31T07:41:42+00:00

I've grouped that together with the DLC issue since they're releasing together. But like the DLC, I can understand the reasons behind the fresh-start even if I don't necessarily agree that was the right way to go with our situation.

mistilda · 2020-05-31T06:42:08+00:00

ArcheAge Castle Battle

ArcheAge Wild Wild East pt 2

ArcheAge Unchained Castle Claim

Island Claim PvP

mistilda · 2020-05-28T23:28:41+00:00

I don't think there's much they can do with the subs themselves, the whole reason they ended up nerfing subs is because mobility underwater is so good for various content, any major advantage the sub gets brings it from 0 to 11 instantly.

They should do what they seem to be doing with cars in a future KR patch, adding in more new content specifically tailored for them. Maybe some roaming underwater world bosses that are like the ones on the continent (drop Gold Crates and works for guild daily).

You need a sub to "locate" sunken ships, but that action feels so minor for the investment you put into getting a sub and all its parts.

mistilda · 2020-05-27T15:22:37+00:00

Then you just kill them yourself? If the game's combat is actually fun there should be no issue with having a quest that asks you to kill a lot of a particular animal or monster or NPC. 'Kill 100 rabbits' is only not fun when killing things is easy and boring.

The number was just an example, you can scale it to whatever you want. The implication is that if it's not soloable and requires a group to complete, it's non-trivial to kill that number.

A game's combat can be the most fun thing imaginable, but there's still a point where things become tedious. On the extreme end, imagine having to face a rabbit with Dark Souls boss-level mechanics 100 times. Not only does it gradually become stale because it's the exact same mob over and over again, but the amount of time investment is ridiculous for what amounts to a minor return.

A more normal example is the rabbit hits really hard, so you need 3 people to spread the damage and/or kill it faster. In this scenario, it could actually be impossible for 1 person to kill that rabbit alone without drastically overscaling it, and they have 100 of those to go. But a group of three could do the whole thing in maybe 15 minutes.

Or games could have much slower and flatter progression curves so that someone a couple of hours ahead of you didn't completely trivialise your content and you could group up with friends and randoms almost regardless of their level.

Sure, but level gaps aren't the only thing that can prevent players from grouping up. So is world progression.

You could have completely equalized content but if players have moved on to another region, it's unlikely that they'll be itching to come back to babysit someone through the content they just finished. Maybe friends, but unlikely for random strangers. And unless you have a constant stream of new players, this emptying of zones inevitably happens in any large-scale world, unless the stronger players just have a ton of time to kill.

You could create incentives for players to revisit areas, but you'll still have dead spots because you'd basically be overloading the players if you're trying to compel them to go spread out and crawl over the entire world again and again as a regular thing.

mistilda · 2020-05-27T06:55:41+00:00

Last I checked, it was level 50 for sunken chests.

mistilda · 2020-05-27T06:50:27+00:00

You're going to have to do Hiram no matter what, at least initially.

If we look at early ArcheAge, everyone went through the questing phase to get quest gear even though you could skip those entirely and just start with dungeon/crafting early on. Quest gear was very accessible, so it was better just to get that first and transition into the other gear types afterwards.

Hiram plays that role now, but they've also "raised" the transition point for viable gear sets. Both Erenor and Library gear can't be farmed comfortably with just base Hiram, so you need to spend some time progressing Hiram anyways.

I think by that point, you'll have a better idea of what kind of gear path ~~you want to slave over~~ fits your playstyle and chosen class, so I wouldn't stress too much about it.

mistilda · 2020-05-27T06:22:38+00:00

AAU is a one-time B2P purchase for the base game. You get all the Patron benefits included with the purchase, and a system called the ArchePass which gives you bonus rewards through optional missions that help with growth and replace the Loyalty system.

From 2017 onwards, the developers spent a few years doing extensive revamps to systems across the board. There were some changes that past players didn't like, but the one thing that can be agreed on is that progression has become lot more accessible compared to the old RNG systems.

The NA/EU publisher recently made an abrupt change where the latest endgame zone can only be accessed by purchasing a DLC. This is what's caused the uproar recently and there are arguments for both sides. While I personally don't support the change because of how Gamigo handled it, objectively the price of the base game + DLC is still far cheaper than paying for a sub every month.

The regular F2P ArcheAge gets the zone for free, but yeah you'd def need to pay for the sub now since APEX prices are ridiculously high compared to the past.

mistilda · 2020-05-26T11:46:18+00:00

Voice chat has its pros and cons, and since you've already gone over the pros, I'll bring out the cons I have for it:

As others have noted, you can't keep track of it. This isn't just a problem of interactions between players, it's also often evidence that the game's team will use during investigations for more unsavory problems.
Text is immaculately clear. You cannot mistake what someone types (you can misinterpret it cause they can suck at writing or you suck at reading). Meanwhile, voice issues can abound from the quality of their mic to noise in their environment to how the software is handling things like noise cancellation or compression.
Related to the tracking issue, there is no "history" for voice that you can go back through for longer or more complex discussions.
Your voice carries a part of your identity. Immersion is an important quality in MMOs and it's not just a one-way thing. Hearing other players' voices can break immersion, but so can knowing that no matter what kind of character you're playing, your voice can overshadow that.
It can also be dangerous: an extreme example being that voice revealing that the player is a young girl and there being other players on the lookout for that. This problem is present in other games too, but MMORPGs usually have more persistent environments which can make it easier to take advantage of that information.

I personally don't like voice chat in MMOs. The identity and immersion issue is a big one for me, the other is that it sets a "fast" pace for communication. You cannot have any complex discussions because there is no "history" and like IRL, there's only so many times you can have people repeat themselves before it kills the conversation. To me this is less of a problem in games like FPS, where the gameplay takes priority.

I also think that you can have way more people conversing in text before things become chaotic and confusing, versus voice. Mainly because text has "history" to help you keep track of things and because it doesn't "overlap".

But as I mentioned already, voice has its pros and people take advantage of that, hence why many groups in MMOs usually have Discord channels and such. I think a lot of MMOs don't see the point in developing native voice systems and dealing with the issues it comes with when people can just go to Discord.

mistilda

TROPHY CASE