Our last article was focusing on Trion Worlds stating they'll be making their way to the Game Developer Conference, going on for the next few days. This time around we have a two new topics to delve into, IP blocking and a new promising Community Manager on ArcheAge! Many of the things we discuss in today’s article were confirmed earlier this week in the exclusive MMORPG.com interview with Trion CEO Scott Hartsman.
We'll first discuss the IP blocking in place by XLGames that kicked off a few days ago. Bear with me as most of the information I've been able to gather has been in Russian. XLGames made the decision to close off the Russian open beta to specific regions(Blog post in Russian). This has led to some players outside of those regions having their IP banned. From what I've been able to discover in my researching, it appears if you're a player outside of those regions but had an account before this was in place, you should be okay. The region lock is primarily applying to newly registered accounts, although there have been situations where people have had their access restored.
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Otherwise, XLGames has stated(Blog post in Russian) they're still negotiating the specifics of the IP blocking, “Please note: The final results of the negotiations will be announced soon . Following the publication in the news on our website, not to miss information.” While there hasn't be a specific reason noted for the IP blocking, it's believed it has to do with a large amount of Korean players jumping ship to the Russian version due to the dreaded 1.0 patch.
Now let's hop into some bright cheery positive news for ArcheAge! Trion Worlds has hired two new Community Managers, Evan Berman aka Scapes and Eric Cleaver aka Ocho. Evan Berman is our main focus as he's now heading the Defiance and ArcheAge communities. Eric Cleaver is primarily in charge of Rift and Trove.
Evan Berman has experience working with the community on TERA along with working at Meteor Entertainment on Hawken, “Originally a Hellgate: London fansite operator, I used my new official role to liaise between players and developers for the improvement of the game. Most recently, I championed the TERA community as one of the first employees at En Masse Entertainment, grew a vast army of mech pilots for Khang Le’s twitch shooter HAWKEN for Meteor Entertainment and Adhesive Games, and ushered in a new generation of independent developers onto Microsoft’s next generation Xbox One console as part of the ID@Xbox team.”
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Eric Cleaver also showed he has interest in ArcheAge as well, “Of course the main games I’m playing right now are RIFT and Defiance, but I’m hugely excited to see ArcheAge and Trove as well.”
Now what's great is that Berman has already made his way over to the ArcheAge Source fansite. Upon being announced as the new Community Manager on ArcheAge he introduced himself there while also answering questions people have. Granted, people asking when they can get their hands on ArcheAge of course didn't get us an answer! But it was worth trying I'd say. While ArcheAge's western version is currently in its Friends and Family Alpha, Berman mentioned, “"...we plan to expand the alpha in coming weeks following GDC this month."
Some other information touched upon is “pre-launch packages” similar to founder packs we've seen in the past for other titles. Berman is also aware of the 1.0 patch situation, but can't say too much on the decisions of XLGames for their regions. Although he did state that Trion Worlds and XLGames will continue to aim for, “No Tricks, No Traps” regarding development as a whole. Regarding that, XlGames has already agreed to have racial quests grant experience and gear from the cash shop be less superior to crafted items.
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Berman also mentioned that they have a fifteen minute press demo being shown at GDC. Therefore, among the information people that should be unraveling over the next few days, keep an eye out for hands on coverage! Better yet, the demo will be livestreamed publicly on March 21st. In addition to this, he also stated they plan to, “...add ArcheAge as a recurring feature of our Twitch channel.”
There you have it folks, news on the Russian front and a new Community Manager to hear your voice and listen. Here's to the information to come from GDC! Tune in April 1st for your bi-weekly fix on ArcheAge.
