ArcheAge’s next big update hits this weekend on December 10th with the launch of 3.0 – Revelation. Not only are there going to be brand new fresh start servers, but there are two new races, five new zones, and major changes to the marketplace based on player feedback.
The new races, for the uninitiated are the Dwarves of Nuia and the Warborn of Haranya. The Dwarves are exactly as you’d expect, though the females don’t have beards so it seems that even Trion’s own resident dwarf couldn’t get her way. The Warborn are massive, horned, demon-like folk. Both have their own new starting zones, racial stories to take them from level 1 to 30, housing styles, capital cities, and so forth.
There’s a metric ton of new content with the update, most of which can be read about here. But for our tour, Merv and Amanda (Producers) wanted to focus mostly on the fresh start servers, the marketplace changes, and the release schedule for Saturday the 10th.
Legacy Servers, including now the fresh start servers from 2015, will be offline for around 12 hours as the patch is deployed. Trion wants to give everyone a heads up on the timing, because the land rush for the new zones’ houses, and the old zones’ will be one of the most important aspects of the initial 24 hours.
With that in mind, here’s what the downtime looks like:
EU Servers: Down at 3am UTC, back online at 3pm UTC
NA Servers: Down at 1am PST, back online 1pm PST
However, the servers won’t all come up right away. Because they expect a mass rush to log in, Trion will be staggering how they come up. They’ll be available in groups of 1-3 at a time: Legacy Evolution servers will be first – then the original Legacy servers, and finally fresh start servers from 2015, and lastly the fresh start servers for Revelation: NA – Reckoning , and EU is Prophecy. They’ll be brought online every 8-10 minutes, so you won’t have to wait long after the maintenance window for your server.
It’s also worth noting that Fresh Start servers really are fresh start servers this time – the only way you can play on them is if you’re using a new account (either an existing Glyph account that never logged into AA before, or a brand new account). Merv and Amanda admit it’s not the most graceful way to separate the servers, but to make sure people can’t bring over their legacy benefits this is what needed to happen. It’s worth noting that founder accounts from the game’s original launch will be emailed a special item code they can use on the legacy servers to recognize their loyalty there too.
Big important news for folks who’ve always been turned off by the marketplace choices in ArcheAge? It’s been dialed back a ton for 3.0 on both Legacy and Fresh Start servers will see changes the core fundamentals of the MP.
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The shortlist:
- No longer sell labor potions. The only way to improve your Labor is through patron or a 30-day Labor Stipend (mini-subscription that gives you 1,000 bonus labor a day
- Archeum supply crates no long supply archeum, it can only be obtained in the world itself.
- Rumbling Sapplings do not exist, no way to get them. Thunderstruck now happens by pure chance only.
- Expedited progression is gone (wood stone stuff, removed).
- Buyable houses removed from fresh start, though eventually will return.
- 4 slot haulers only on Fresh Start.
Revelation is seen as an opportunity for players to try ArcheAge from the ground up, with Trion and XL’s lessons learned from the past couple years of ups and downs. While some of the above store stuff will make its way back into the marketplace when the Fresh Start servers mature, there will be no more labor potions in Legacy OR Fresh Start from here on out. The Labor Stipend may still cause some people alarm – but since it’s the cost of 5 labor potions were previously, and is basically the same labor as Patron Status, perhaps they’ll let this slide.
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I’m curious to see just how crowded the new servers are, how easy it is to get housing in the Dwarf zones (I’m definitely trying one out), and to see how far the game’s come since my initial review back at launch. Revelation adds and tweaks a lot of AA’s main systems, and we’ll be sure to let you know how we feel it plays as the launch happens and the servers settle into their groove.
