Off the bat, we’ve got three things to cover since the last ArcheAge column went up... okay, technically four... but it seems unreasonable to pepper you with a ton of videos. Instead, I’m going to go and embed two videos here that I found to be rather intriguing and link to two commercials for ArcheAge Japan that were put up by Cinderboy from MMO Culture that are just bloody hilarious.
Before the big bit of news... a video of Jeon Eunjin singing what I’m guessing is either a promotional music video or the ArcheAge theme song. Again, this was found on Reddit and posted by a Polish fan site, so I have no idea what the context is. Sorry about that!
Elrar Asks for Patience
James “Elrar” NIchols, Community Manager at Trion Worlds, released an announcement on the ArcheAge Source forums. The message was simple: gamers eager for ArcheAge to come out need to be a bit more patient. Trion Worlds and XL Games have to get a number of important things in place before anything else can be done.
From the post:
There’re many things we need to accomplish in order to successfully release ArcheAge to players in North America in Europe. Some hurdles are bigger than others and, in some cases, determine our ability to move forward towards launch.
The first really big one, in progress right now, is working with XL to integrate the game itself with our account/billing platform. This is essential to enabling server access for anyone outside of our office – we do not pass GO, we do not collect $200 until this very important phase has been completed. It is the top priority but, as you can imagine, it is extraordinarily complex with many people and moving parts involved.
To a similar end, XL Games is coming over here very soon and is helping us to set up our server architecture to run ArcheAge according to its design.
Elrar also put in a few words regarding how localization works in this case. One thing for the purists might be that localization will entail minimal Westernization of terminology. The primary focus of the localization will be to adapt the game concepts to Western language, so while the lore remains intact, it’s the game terms which might get some tweaks to be better understood by English readers and speakers.
He also mentioned that it was a million-word script in play... so yeah, that’s not going to be easy. Making sure that everything is understood is one thing. Appealing to Western sensibilities with the localization and acknowledging the cultural differences and compensating for them is important.
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Regarding gameplay, Elrar wants us to keep our expectations realistic. “Don’t expect entirely new features exclusive to the NA/EU release or sweeping changes to mechanics,” he writes. Instead, we will likely get tweaks to how existing features function, and they want to make sure the game is feature-rich at release, having as many of the introduced features in play as possible. Don’t expect overhauls to game mechanics and systems.
To that end, while we can look forward to some kind of content rollout in a few weeks, as well as the possibility of some livestreams, but beta testing may remain closed for a few months still, according to the post.
The Long Slog to Factionalization
Player factions, a feature we covered rather recently as well, seems absolutely awesome when you’re finally a faction. The problem is that creating a faction is apparently a slog on the Korean version.
KeksX on the ArcheAge Source forums adapted a primer posted by LlexX from the Russian community for getting player faction capabilities. “To create a player faction,” he writes, “you need to accomplish 6 tasks which involve crafting and farming.”
Oh, we’re not talking about the turnip farming... we mean hardcore mob-killing and loot acquisition. The six tasks include talking to a starting NPC called the Lord of Liberty Island for a quest, getting a tank, a black pearl, three specific glider types, a RED race car, a blueprint of a guild mansion and 5000 casino coins (that appear to only be acquired via an event on the northern continent. Doing it solo, that last bit means you need to either open up 5000 small chests (at one casino coin per chest) at most or 1000 big chests (at 5 coins a chest) at least.
The estimated gold cost of acquiring everything is around 26,000 gold. You’re not done though. You still need to find 5 NPCs in different parts of the world, then going back to the Lord to get him to make a flag (apparently your battle standard) for you. You can then take the flag to your territory to create your faction. Why you don’t threaten this lord with the pointy end of a spear is beyond me.
To end today’s ArcheAge column... let’s go back to that song I posted earlier. There’s a more ArcheAge-y epic orchestral version below! Enjoy, and I’ll update you with what Elrar and Friends have in store in two weeks!
Victor Barreiro Jr. / Victor Barreiro Jr. maintains The Devil’s Advocate and ArcheAge columns for MMORPG.com. He also writes for news website Rappler as a technology reporter. You can find more of his writings on Games and Geekery and on Twitter at @vbarreirojr.
Read more about ArcheAge:
- Let’s tackle ArcheAge’s Trion Worlds connection
- Bill Murphy discusses ArcheAge’s jump from East to West
- Our earlier coverage of ArcheAge’s Player Factions
