LOL Quest hubs driven gameplay??

Didn´t expect that.... :/

After playing more dinamic games i think i can never go back to that.........

I´ll give it a try anyway if there is some kind of trial someday.....

but not that much interested in it anymore really.

OP...thank you very much for an infomative read. Your write-up will be a big help to all that are interested in this title.

I was curious about two aspects of the game, and you answered my concerns. If the crafting is nothing new/special, there is no reason for me to even try it. And, I am very disappointed that they are going with a leveling system. I long for a new MMO that does not have a max level to grind to.

Thanks, was an excellent review. This is one of the titles ive been following for some time now, and was on the fence about it. Unfortunately your detailed review only showed me that I dont need to follow this one anymore. Sadly, im not looking for another quest hub themepark. Gw2 broke me of that. At least I can still look forward to ESO. 

And theres no way im dealing with subpar gameplay just to get to the "good" sandbox at the end. And even then, its 100% gank fest PVP. If anyone watched the videos of people trying to turn in supplies for the "sandobox" components, unless you run with your entire guild, you arent likely to ever actually get a house built. Yup, easy pass for me, but excellent review :)

Originally posted by Zierrity

Originally posted by Sovrath

Originally posted by Zierrity

 

The zones takes about 7 - 15 minutes to ride through, then again, no loadings between the zones, only change of maps.

And I am glad you liked it :)

Well, that might not be too bad.

Are they literally in a straight line or can one just go in any direction?

 

You can pretty much go where you choose, but following the quests you kind of have a route allready planned out (if that makes any sence)

It does make sense.

Now here's a question, do I have to do the quests? Or can I just go out into the world, do my own thing and buy good gear from player crafters?

Originally posted by Zzad

LOL Quest hubs driven gameplay??

Didn´t expect that.... :/

After playing more dinamic games i think i can never go back to that.........

The questing is like in every other MMO, its boring, there are no exceptions after you played a few of them. Think of it as a tutorial phase what you need to pass to get to the real content, just like in every other MMO (it doesnt take long to do them).

One simply does not play an MMO for its questing/story, for that there are many single player RPGs. Play MMO for the group content.

Originally posted by Sovrath

Originally posted by Zierrity

Originally posted by Sovrath

Originally posted by Zierrity

 

The zones takes about 7 - 15 minutes to ride through, then again, no loadings between the zones, only change of maps.

And I am glad you liked it :)

Well, that might not be too bad.

Are they literally in a straight line or can one just go in any direction?

 

You can pretty much go where you choose, but following the quests you kind of have a route allready planned out (if that makes any sence)

It does make sense.

Now here's a question, do I have to do the quests? Or can I just go out into the world, do my own thing and buy good gear from player crafters?

You can skip quests completely, and kill mobs for XP, gather mats for XP, craft for XP... for every action you are rewarded with XP. But the questing is the fastest way to reach the endgame.

Originally posted by LlexX

Originally posted by Sovrath

It does make sense.

Now here's a question, do I have to do the quests? Or can I just go out into the world, do my own thing and buy good gear from player crafters?

You can skip quests completely, and kill mobs for XP, gather mats for XP, craft for XP... for every action you are rewarded with XP. But the questing is the fastest way to reach the endgame.

It is exactly as LlexX said, couldn't have said it better myself :) You don't have to, but it's the most effective way of leveling.

Originally posted by wizyy

For dissappointed people - read

http://archeagesource.com/topic/1275-after-playing-archeage-what-are-your-thoughts/

it has opinions from the people who actually played beta. Every one of them has their share of positives and negatives to say, but pretty much ALL will play ArcheAge on release, some won't even wait for English version, but will play Korean version with some translated stuff.

Are you saying I didn't? 0.o j/k

Thank you for sharing the link, I tried to redirect people to the very same discussion earlier, hopefully your post will do a better job :)

People should really read this because it has some feedback from players who got further into the beta than I did :)

As far as questing goes, to some extent skipping out on it entirely might cause inconvieniences. Your first, Glider, Mount (Donkey) and Boat (rowboat) all come from quests. Not sure if the Rowboat and Donkey are available outside of questing, but you could just walk until later and buy a Mount and Ship.

If what one of the streamers was saying is correct the Donkey is the only mount that can be used during the transport of packages. (Trade and Construction bundles)

Originally posted by CyclopsSlayer

As far as questing goes, to some extent skipping out on it entirely might cause inconvieniences. Your first, Glider, Mount (Donkey) and Boat (rowboat) all come from quests. Not sure if the Rowboat and Donkey are available outside of questing, but you could just walk until later and buy a Mount and Ship.

If what one of the streamers was saying is correct the Donkey is the only mount that can be used during the transport of packages. (Trade and Construction bundles)

Actually the donkey isn't the first mount anymore, at least not for Ferre or Hariharan, not sure about Nuian or Elf though :) tbh I'm not sure how to get the donkey ;P You can also use other mounts for transportation, at least transportation quests, the donkey is faster than the other mounts though, while you are transporting something :)

Its a large open world, you telling me the only way to level is by quests only? Or just people didnt bother trying to go outside the normal themepark mentality and grind on random mobs? Trying to understand having an open world but it serves no purpose, defeats the purpose honestly. I like open worlds, but having only a quest line to advance you is pretty horrible.

If questing is the most efficient way to level, and the "sandbox" elements in the game are really only for people level 40+, that means questing is all but forced and necessary to advance to "the good stuff."

Which is about as old and tired and worn out of a game design philosophy as you can find.

Why don't MMO devs get this?

Make the XP and skill ups etc. come from doing stuff, from action, and make the "quests" and story just guides and lore not required.

i.e. REMOVE the XP for completing quests. And most of the rewards. Make it more like Skyrim questing.

It's there, it gives you something to do / direction if you need it, but is in no way required.

DUH!?!

And if no one does the quests if there isn't bonus XP and loot, then you know what?

Just goes to show how tired and old and worn out the entire idea is in the first place!

Originally posted by Onomas

Its a large open world, you telling me the only way to level is by quests only? Or just people didnt bother trying to go outside the normal themepark mentality and grind on random mobs? Trying to understand having an open world but it serves no purpose, defeats the purpose honestly. I like open worlds, but having only a quest line to advance you is pretty horrible.

 

While I can't say for sure, Questing seems to be the most effective and fast way to level up, and as other have stated, you'll get a lot of stuff through questing, armours, weapons, mount and rowboat. Sure you can level up by farming mobs and by gathering but it'll take a lot longer. Not sure about leveling through exploring, it might be a possibility, but I can't say for sure.

Again, there might be other ways that I'm not sure of, but so far I haven't heard anything about that from any the other, more experienced, players than myself.

Originally posted by Zierrity

 

Originally posted by Onomas

Its a large open world, you telling me the only way to level is by quests only? Or just people didnt bother trying to go outside the normal themepark mentality and grind on random mobs? Trying to understand having an open world but it serves no purpose, defeats the purpose honestly. I like open worlds, but having only a quest line to advance you is pretty horrible.

 

While I can't say for sure, Questing seems to be the most effective and fast way to level up, and as other have stated, you'll get a lot of stuff through questing, armours, weapons, mount and rowboat. Sure you can level up by farming mobs and by gathering but it'll take a lot longer. Not sure about leveling through exploring, it might be a possibility, but I can't say for sure.

Again, there might be other ways that I'm not sure of, but so far I haven't heard anything about that from any the other, more experienced, players than myself.

BTW, nice review. You stated the good with the bad. Not one sided as many do here. It was a good read and i enjoyed the pictures.

Originally posted by Onomas

Originally posted by Zierrity

 

Originally posted by Onomas

Its a large open world, you telling me the only way to level is by quests only? Or just people didnt bother trying to go outside the normal themepark mentality and grind on random mobs? Trying to understand having an open world but it serves no purpose, defeats the purpose honestly. I like open worlds, but having only a quest line to advance you is pretty horrible.

 

While I can't say for sure, Questing seems to be the most effective and fast way to level up, and as other have stated, you'll get a lot of stuff through questing, armours, weapons, mount and rowboat. Sure you can level up by farming mobs and by gathering but it'll take a lot longer. Not sure about leveling through exploring, it might be a possibility, but I can't say for sure.

Again, there might be other ways that I'm not sure of, but so far I haven't heard anything about that from any the other, more experienced, players than myself.

BTW, nice review. You stated the good with the bad. Not one sided as many do here. It was a good read and i enjoyed the pictures.

Thanks :) I'm happy to hear you enjoyed it :)

Originally posted by Grotar89

So, on rails quest grinder with tab target 1+2+3+4 combat. Move along ppl nothing to see.... I predict game will fail worse than Aion in west or TERA....

Pretty much what i expected from looking few livestreams.

Except for people like myself who want this kind of game and don't mind Tab target combat and who like quests and then boom at level cap the game opens up into it's awesome sandboxiness to actually keep me playing instead of unsubbing like every other MMO in the last 8 years.  Can't wait till this hits western shores.

Originally posted by Zierrity
I also want to say that I can not promise that I accessed everything to do at the levels 1-25, as the game is in korean it's hard to wander of the "rail" and figure out if there is anything else to do. And my korean is practically non-existent,

Thanks for clariftying that and awesome review.  I wish everyone would review games in a similar fashion and be less hyperbole in their statements.  I'm looking forward to this game.

Something else that bugs me about people and their early opinions of games.  Sometimes they forget that these are MMORPGs and that they grow over a period of years and many things get added or changed in that time, growing the game.  So something that may be missing at launch might come later.  All I ask for is a solid base game to play until those things and new lands are added and it looks like ArcheAge has this in place.

Originally posted by Biskop
@ Llexx

The fact that the quest-based leveling and endgame-heavy design is the same as in every other game is EXACTLY what irks all those who hoped AA would be something new and different.

We don't want the same old linear themepark with a new skin, we want innovative, open games. One would have thought that it'd be clear by now that repeating the WoW formula isn't working anymore.

When im searching for an MMO to play, im looking at the endgame (by endgame i meaning reaching the max level, and finish with the quest line) and what features it has to offer at endgame to make me busy for years. Questing in MMO is not important for me since it takes just a few week(s) to complete it, and the real game starts after that. And the endgame in AA is different from the casual themeparks, it has many options unlike most of the MMOs where you just farm instance repeatedly countless times for items, do arena PvP... Endgame in AA is much more complex and whats the most important to me, its not instanced.

Ive played so many RPGs both MMO and single player, that i simply can't enjoy questing anymore, simply there is nothing new left to show to me, probably many of you feel otherwise, but the fact is that i had enough of the same repeated questing.

Originally posted by BadSpock

If questing is the most efficient way to level, and the "sandbox" elements in the game are really only for people level 40+, that means questing is all but forced and necessary to advance to "the good stuff."

Which is about as old and tired and worn out of a game design philosophy as you can find.

Why don't MMO devs get this?

Make the XP and skill ups etc. come from doing stuff, from action, and make the "quests" and story just guides and lore not required.

i.e. REMOVE the XP for completing quests. And most of the rewards. Make it more like Skyrim questing.

It's there, it gives you something to do / direction if you need it, but is in no way required.

DUH!?!

And if no one does the quests if there isn't bonus XP and loot, then you know what?

Just goes to show how tired and old and worn out the entire idea is in the first place!

 

Ehm, what?

This way you get two very different and yet interesting experiences and much more bang for your buck.

I love the leveling game where you learn your abilities and you start to get comfortable with the mechanics. It's like a driven tutorial with a nice flow to it.

Then, at cap - the game opens up and you've become attached to the world and you understand the mechanics.

I think the way a game like GW2 handles it is AWFUL and overly simplified. You know pretty much all there is to know about the game at level 30 - and the game doesn't change much by that point. Sure, you don't have to level to experience all the game has, but the problem is the game didn't have much. Content isn't enhanced by shoving it down your throat. Content can never stay perpetually interesting without a strong player influence. That's where GW2 failed and sandbox elements have the potential to succeed.

I love a slow burning experience and I love being able to grow and evolve over a long period of time.

Then again, I've never considered any of that "work" - because if a game feels like a job, I just quit playing. A lot of themeparks feel that way - but that's not by design, that's because they lack that special something to keep you interested while developing your character.

ArcheAge seems to combine a fantastic world with a wonderful feature set - and is exactly the kind of thing I've been waiting for.

Sometimes there's a reason a design works - and sometimes streamlining and simplifying everything isn't the best way to enhance a design.

Originally posted by elocke

Originally posted by Zierrity
I also want to say that I can not promise that I accessed everything to do at the levels 1-25, as the game is in korean it's hard to wander of the "rail" and figure out if there is anything else to do. And my korean is practically non-existent,

Thanks for clariftying that and awesome review.  I wish everyone would review games in a similar fashion and be less hyperbole in their statements.  I'm looking forward to this game.

Something else that bugs me about people and their early opinions of games.  Sometimes they forget that these are MMORPGs and that they grow over a period of years and many things get added or changed in that time, growing the game.  So something that may be missing at launch might come later.  All I ask for is a solid base game to play until those things and new lands are added and it looks like ArcheAge has this in place.

Thank you, really :) I'm very happy that you liked my review ^^,

While many seem to be disappointed, I truly do believe ArcheAge will get a solid playerbase and do well in the West.