Guildies and I were discussing this a came to the conclusion that Smithing was a useless waste of time. We only play HC, so no gold RMT sales. The random crap that comes out of Smithing makes it far more efficient to just sell the Blue/Yellow on the AH or to a vendor and skip the BS BS.. :)  

Now Jewelcrafting while coin expensive, it produces real and actually useable items.

Very useful and very amusing at the same time!

Ridem Pony!

Originally posted by AmbrosiaAmor

Yeah I signed up as well. I hope I get in! I wonder how long CBT5 will be and what the remaining schedule will look like. If they need a CBT6 to keep working at it, then so be it, no need to rush. Unless your name is Rush Limbaugh, then in that case…

I both want them to take their time and do it right, and I want it in my hands yesterday... :)  So starved right now for a decent MMO

Originally posted by synn
Signed up a few days ago. I think I put my wrong cell number on app though.

Has to be a Chinese Cell # for the Chinese beta.  Or a Korean Social Security Number (KSSN) for the Korean beta. Certain media members have exceptions and get review access.  Spoofing the above is possible but NOT legal!!

Just wait a bit and play the NA/EU betas when they come. Meanwhile chill and wait on the posts and videos...

Sorry, apparently I cannot edit my post/comment...

Regarding the Auction House, at least in Hard core, is MASSIVELY broken. Down for hours at a time. Taking your coin for purchases that never arrive. Items that cannot be listed for sale. The limit of 10 items per account, and then not having the ability to cancel an un-bid upon sale.

Not fun...

As far as difficulty, normal on HC is more risky and satisfying than the "Oh I died and rez back 10 steps" easy mode.

Played Softcore to L10 just to enable Hardcore;

Demon Hunter -> 7  (too young to handle the Skeleton King lol )

Demon Hunter -> 14 (got carless and over confident)

Demon Hunter -> 21 (died to a game bug, logged out alive, logged in the next day dead)

Monk -> 25 (overconfidence)

Monk -> 32 (...and still kicking )

Since GameBreaker removed the video, it would seem to be merely rumored. NOT a fact.

Originally posted by stealthbr

If ArcheAge's combat system borrows some elements from Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, such as chain abilities, combos, parry abilities, critical hit abilties, etc. then I won't be worried.

For those of you that don't know about Vanguard's little twists on standard tab-target combat, basically there are a lot of reactionary abilities. If you block, an ability lights up and can be activated during a brief period of time. Same thing if you crit, parry, dodge, etc. Furthermore, certain reactionary abilities chain with others, like a finisher, adding another interesting dynamic. You can also use abilities in a specific sequence which leads the target to suffer some condition. For instance, as a Ranger, if you use Blade of Winter 2 or 3 times in a row, the enemy becomes temporarily frozen.

These nice little additions add an entire new level of interactivity to combat making it much more engrossing. In short, the tab-target system can be fun, all it needs is a dose of creativity.

While not 100% like Vanguard, from looking at the skills lists over on ArcheAge Source, http://archeagesource.com/forum/17-new-articles-guides/  , it can clearly be seen that several skills are based on status effects on the target.

For example the L1 skill in the Magic tree

Lvl 1; CT 1.5; CD 0s; range 0~28m
Deals magical damage and add the "burnt" effect on the target.

Combos:
-[frozen target]: damage increased by 30%.
-[burnt target]: adds a strong burning effect (description doesn't say what this effect does, but i'm guessing DoT?).
-[Conjury: lvl 2 skill DoT]: Absorbs 50% of the damage dealt into MP.

So, if caster #1 Freezes a target, either they or caster #2 might be able to capitalize on the extra 30% damage.

Now now, not guaranteed to be in game, just a graphics test so far.

But cool none-the-less!

Notice the other things on his blog pages though, the galleon rocking with the waves, improved animations for other things, yeah, looking good.

They just pulled the "playable  German demo" at the Cologne show. And now seem to be avoiding any questions about when.

The biggest things still mising from the game, that I know of, is 4 races. Dwarves. Faries, Warborn, Returned. 

A few of the skill trees seems to be short a few skills, pets aren't here. Other than that I would guess it is all balance and bugs.

50v50 was chosen in game to test the mechanics. They had stated they wanted more, but even then like 100v100 or something. This is the beta number and  mechanics and so all could change, but just from they many various factors they have in place it feels very much like they WANT sieges limited. The 2 hour time window, prior declaration, world/raid boss drop needed to initiate a siege, all these to me point to a desire to keep things tamer and limited. I am guessing that they also don't want the mass mindless zerg fest that some L2 sieges became, when it wasn't 1000v1000, but more like 1000v200, those are fun for no one.

While I am NOT in beta, this is what I have gathered.

There is a Labor Point systems that limits and controls crafting and gathering. Players earn 1 Laobr point every 5 minutes real time. Only 1 character on an account will earn Labor points at a time, you can select which at the character select screen. So a player will earn 288 Labor Points a day, no idea what if any cap there is on stored Labor points. So no crafting alts, without a seperate account. Every Crafting or Gathering operation consumes some number of Labor Points.

In CBT4 crafting would earn skill, and from what I can decipher, at 0 skill the Labor costs would be doubled, at max skill the Labor would be half base. There seemed to be 1000 points on the skill bar to max, but there seemed some discussion to make that 10,000 come live. In CBT4 it was stated as taking 3.5 days concerted effort to max a skill, so if it does gor to 10K that would be ~35 days.

All items have a durability and receive damage from usage. Quested items cannot be repaired. Regular items can be repaired, taking a vendor bought item, a Player crafter and of course Labor points.

Here is a guide from the Russians - http://forums.goha.ru/showthread.php?t=740065

Basically there are 8 tiers, each tier consumes an item of the previous tier in its recipe. So you make a raw T1 dagger, to make a T2 takes resources, vandor items and a T1 dagger. Stats can be assigned during crafting. Additionally items in a tier can be upgraded, although the exact procedure is uncertain, so Common to Uncommon to Rare to ....

Fido and his guild have done some incredible work with the "Let's Play" series. These two tour films nicely highlight the size and the grandeur of AA's world.

Thanks for the glorious break from tedius linear worlds.  Just wish the included an english commentary notes, but they aren't really needed.

Historically the introduction of a new technology did not immediately completely replace earlier things.

Gunpowder, caused major changes, yes. But it took hundreds of years before it replaced the swords, spears and lances. Cannons existed alongside catapults, often because the cannons had to be moved to a new site, the catapults and trebuchets could be built on site. Catapults and Bows and Swords were cheap to produce and easy to maintain, gunpowder was rare difficult and dangerous to manufacture until much later.

Personally I dislike the steam tractor, but hey, if I can suspend disbelief long enough to accept Magic, walking and talking Cats (Ferres), trees being grown in a few days and a mount that is an animated temple statue, well then, I can hope to stretch it a little bit futher.

I agrre with most of your Pro's and Con's as is.

For me though the biggest turn off is the total lack of cross team reputation. All my foes have to fear is a 'Red Invader', all I will see is a 'Green' or 'Blue'. No reputations to earn or lose. No names to spark fear and urge a response to swarm on.

Secondly, Imbalances,  these always lead to optimized play, and if severe enough you will be pretty much be forced into X, Y or Z builds for WvW. Other builds need not apply,  Especially if the WvW population limit is significantly lower than the players trying to get in.

(Humor on, you know, that laughing stuff... and no not the guy being torn apart by lions laughed at)

Innovative... doesn't that mean "Old and tired rehashed mechanic we will dress in pretty new cloths"

Revolutionary... done before 20x but we will convince the fanboi's we were there first

Paradigm Shifting... Umm, err, we ran out of Innovative and Revolutionary tags and made some new ones...

(humor off)

I just want XL to pump out a stable and sane game that isn't pushed out too early, isn't too feted by fanboi superlative comments.  So far I have been pleasantly surprised, but also somewhat depressed. Swimming and Tractors are cool and all, but what about the other half of the races and such.

So, I will remain fighting myself daily... Fanboi! Rational! Fanboi! Rational! Idiot! Moron! ...sigh...

At no point did the storyline feel even remotely exciting or engaging.  It was the same old recycled drivel every MMO out there has dragged out to the point of agony by the over usage of cutscenes.

It is bad enough to see the text box giving pointless reasons why I need to go kill 10 Womp rats, now I need to watch and listen to the drivel as well? <space><space><space>

The I finish the great innovative and involoving storyline and they tell me I am the unverses one and ONLY appointed saviour, and they give me a title to prove it. Then 5 minutes later I have seen the 20th other person run past with the same 'unique' title...

OH, where did the "your choices will influence the storyline" part get lost? 

Sorry, the 4th Pillar is a 2D cardboard cut-out, totally lacking in any degree of depth.  Hell, Diplomacy in Vanguard tells 10x the story for a fraction of the effort, and everyone knows what a shining star VG is these days, eh?

You do know that a day/night cycle isn't even remotely new?  Most games removed or never implemented it in response to player complaints.

But step back to EverQuest in 1999, the nights there were black as sin and without a light source or a source of night vision you basically couldn't play for a third of the day cycle.  DAoC, Vanguard, Horizons, Asheron's Call, so so many others had day/night cycles as well.