ArcheAge has been growing on the site a lot lately. The sandbox style game coming out of Asia has garnered some support from our fanbase so we thought to discuss what we know so far and what we expect from the game. ArcheAge has some interesting points and some throwback style game play that we all love as MMO players. However, will it work with the Western audience? More importantly will their player trial system work?
The game itself does not yet have a North American publisher. However, it is generating enough buzz on the sites to get one. Why has no one jumped? I do think this is a great game to bring to the west, mostly because of the free-for-all PvP system. I cannot think of too many MMOs that have this set up, or set up correctly. The sandbox can be a tough place to play, but it’s worth it. I think there will be a lot of people who have both regular and criminal characters. I say criminal because they will hopefully be put on trial.
With ArcheAge this trial system will create a very interesting play environment. The big question is how will the interface work? When you die by a player’s hand does a pop up open which says: Send player to trial? Then a poll is created among players on the server to vote whether or not the character goes to jail? Or will the character have to be caught? Either way it almost seems like a slippery slope for a community to go down. Some players will go through great lengths to exploit the game. Others will really want to be part of a community that repects the laws of justice. Regardless depending on how the system works, it will be difficult to decide until we see the UI for the trial system.
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Jake Song spoke in the interview that they really want players to build their own world to play in. The class and skill system gives a ton of options for creating your character and allows for a very free system. Wll this philosophy carry over into the entire game? It looks like the ArcheAge team is doing what they can to keep the system open for players. Sandbox games are great and give a lot of choices, but it seems like the last few we have seen did not go as well as expected. Earthrise is a good example, and while the game has an active audience, it still has not reached the success that something like EVE has.
There are a few milestones that ArcheAge needs to hit before we can really start getting excited for this game. The largest is finding a North American Publisher. Once that is established it will be great to see how the game makes the trip across the pond. Once developers get their hands on the game over here, it will be interesting to see what changes are made. I do believe the game will do well and I too am looking forward to trying it out.
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For now we just have to wait and see what ArcheAge will bring. If anything it is great to see a game trying the sandbox system again and really giving players the tools to make it work. The more of these we see coming to market, the more we are likely to get one that everyone can enjoy. Best of luck to the ArcheAge development team.
