Gods, so hard to pick 'favorites'. Not all new or first in AA, but done refreshingly. 

-Planting crops, both on land and underwater to insure resource availability

-Viable and necessary crafting system as more than just a tacked on mess

-PvP with a reason beyond just 'cuz. Sieges, Trade Piracy for two favorites.

-More Class/Skill combos than can be realistically counted, not all viable I am sure.

All in a large, explorable world, dive the seas for treasure, climb a mountain and glide down, find hidden POI's, travel the world on a mount you raised and trained yourself with a pet at your side you also raised and trained.

Originally posted by CyclopsSlayer

Gods, so hard to pick 'favorites'. Not all new or first in AA, but done refreshingly. 

 

-Planting crops, both on land and underwater to insure resource availability

-Viable and necessary crafting system as more than just a tacked on mess

-PvP with a reason beyond just 'cuz. Sieges, Trade Piracy for two favorites.

-More Class/Skill combos than can be realistically counted, not all viable I am sure.

 

All in a large, explorable world, dive the seas for treasure, climb a mountain and glide down, find hidden POI's, travel the world on a mount you raised and trained yourself with a pet at your side you also raised and trained.

 

That sounds nice actually

I look forward to having my own plot of land, building boats and going exploring at sea. Two things I haven't had in an MMO in a long time, will be very refreshing. The last few MMOs I played, par GW2, actually didn't even allow underwater swimming.

I don't look forward to the linear questing up until the sandbox elements though, but i'm sure I can level through crafting or something anyways instead.

Beyond a slew of wonderful features - I'm mostly looking forward to having a REASON to stay in the game after reaching level cap. I'm so sick and tired of there being nothing but endless cyclical themepark rides to upgrade my gear (or in GW2 - the appearance of my gear). I want a real reason to stay in the game and that's something ArcheAge looks to provide in spades.

I'm talking about a meaningful economy, an elaborate crafting/housing system, PvP with meaning and consequences, and stuff like that. Something that makes it feel like an alternate reality - which is why I got excited about the genre in the first place, with Ultima Online. The concept of roleplaying and doing things that you can never do in reality - whilst having meaning and consequences.

That sounds like a sandbox, but the difference between ArcheAge and a sandbox is that they have the budget to make the whole thing worthwhile and to make it stable and reasonably balanced, if they want to. Usually, sandboxes are made on a tiny budget and you have to sacrifice so much for that kind of feature-set. Also, it's a hybrid themepark/sandbox which - in theory - should lure a lot more players into trying it. You need that themepark experience to get the amount of players required for a large playerbase and perpetual development.

Now, there are no guarentees - and ArcheAge might fail miserably. But from what I've seen - it's definitely the most promising MMO in many, many years.

Originally posted by MMOExposed
Concerned about the FfA this game has. How will it work?

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/572/view/forums/thread/375505/Some-more-information-about-Archeage-Prison-system.html

This sums it up pretty well

Originally posted by MMOExposed
So what's been some of the new feature that has you interested the most?

 The only system they have that is unique, new and intriguing is the criminal/prison system

Saw a video the other day, Apparently they simplified class creation/options is there any truth to this?

Originally posted by Nitth

Saw a video the other day, Apparently they simplified class creation/options is there any truth to this?

Simplify? To a degree. Still the same complexity, they just don't thor it at you all at once.

There are 10 skill schools each with 11 active and 5 passive skills. The active skills are unlocked coresponding to the schools skill level.  The passives unlock based on points spent in the school.

At level 1 you choose your first skill school, they off 4 basic ones as starters, but you are allowed to choose from all if you wish.

At level 5 you pick a second school to complement your first.

At level 10 you pick the third school.

Also after level 10 for a fee you can reset 1 or more of your skill schools. The new school will need to be levelled up to match your current character level which only happens for doing XP content, or you could be stuck as a L50 character with L1 skills.

-Housing

-Its a god damn sandobx!

They're not new features but...

I'm looking forward to living on pirate island.

I also want to see the prisons.  I'll pretend I'm Papillon.