ArcheAge Review (PC Launch)

Trade Packs & the Sea

Probably one of the greatest features within ArcheAge are the tradepacks. These are packs created by combining items that you’ve gathered, grown, or bought. You can then transport these packs to various locations that have special Traders that will accept them for rewards. These rewards can be the obvious gold, Gilda Stars (used to purchase things like Ship or house blueprints), or even crafting components.

Though, for some of that, you’ll need to make a trip across the sea, usually in a boat. It’s time to enter the world of pirating. As the game is currently, anyone can kill you in the open sea – even the person you thought was your friend. They can then take that pack and turn it in for the reward you would have gotten. Fear not, though, as they will only receive 80% of the reward, with the 20% that is left going to you. This means that, while it is something you want to avoid at all cost, it’s not the end of the world if you lose your tradepack. Unless you died from sea bugs and your pack is left at the bottom of the ocean to rot.

Which brings up my favorite feature in the game – ships. I instantly fell in love with the ships in ArcheAge back when I first saw a video of them from the Korean beta. My time spent with them in both the Russian and North American betas has just reinforced my love for them. The ability to hop in a ship with friends and just explore the sea and visit some of the various islands – a lot of which can have houses placed on them – is just amazing. When combined with the possibility of some epic sea battles, especially when the large galleons are involved, it adds a whole other dimension to the game. I want to mention that I found it highly disappointing that about the only place you can go to make a decent profit when it comes to Gilda Stars is Freedrich Island – if you take a trade pack over to the other continent, a majority (if not all) of them will get you just a single Gilda Star per pack. Needless to say, not even worth the trip, really. This is an unusual design choice as cross-continental trips are often more dangerous due to the flagging system within the game.

This is a biggish topic and I actually wrote a whole guide on the various ships in the game. I welcome you all to check it out here. if you’re interested in learning more about the various ship options in the game.

One neat thing I would like to mention is the exploration aspect that the sea in ArcheAge offers. Not just in the ability to wander around and find remote islands, but there’s also under-water ruins with hard monsters to kill or interesting things to find. And, while the rewards for it seem to have been nerfed quite hard, you can find ship wrecks with treasures in them that you can raise to the surface using a balloon. And besides exploration, there’s a whole slew of underwater “crops” that can be grown and harvested, such as coral. For those inclined, there are houses and aqua farms that can be bought and built. A lot of my friends look forward to having a house in the water, simply for how picturesque it seems.

Last, I want to mention the fishing. A lot of people really enjoy the fishing in ArcheAge. There’s two types, the “farming” kind and the “sports fishing.” Sports fishing is the more enjoyable of the two, as you might imagine. In this, you can catch fish of various sizes and then turn them in at ports for rewards – some of which can be quite hefty. There’s even a fishing boat which is basically a decently sized ship dedicated solely to fishing. There’s also regular fishing competitions held in the Mirage Isle.

F2P vs Patron

Chances are, if you’ve read up on ArcheAge, you’ve probably heard of Labor Points. This is the system which is used to restrict the material gathering and crafting progress of players so someone with no-life and the ability to multibox can’t instantly ruin the server’s economy. It’s also the source of much strife within the ArcheAge community, due to the difference between Free-to-Play (F2Ps) accounts and Patrons. F2Ps gain five Labor Points every five minutes, but only while online. Patrons, on the other hand, gain ten Labor Points every five minutes while online, but also get five points every five minutes while offline. So you can see where F2Ps have a disadvantage when it comes to the Labor Points system, even with the various methods in the game that will give you more Labor Points besides the passive recharge system.

This is frustrating to a lot of people when you consider that just about everything besides combat makes use of the Labor Points. Heck, even your loot costs Labor Points. ArcheAge does away with the “old” loot system that most MMORPGs use and instead drops almost nothing but Coin Purses. These purses can then be opened for a chance at some items along with some money. The most basic of these take as little as two Labor Points to open, with the higher end purses taking over a hundred.

Other than that, the major difference between F2P and Patron is that a F2P cannot own property. This isn’t the end of the world, as there are plenty of public farms and you can easily make friends with a patron, then ask to use his farm (or pay him, even). And, thanks to the awesome farming system in ArcheAge, you can even put crops wherever you like to create an “illegal” farm. You usually want to put these in a hard-to-get to or hidden location though, as anyone can come up and take your crops if they’re not on a safe property.

Conclusion: Excellent

ArcheAge is a massive game with so many things to do that it’s hard to talk about them all. I’m sure I missed some neat features that really deserve a mention, which is something amazing when you think about it. Sure, there are some issues in the current iteration of the game – namely with the dreaded Archeum Drought of 2014 still being a bit of an issue, even after the updates. I do have hope that further updates in the future will be able to completely fix the issue. But there are still plenty of awesome things in the game that have persuaded me to spend hours upon hours playing. And, after all those hours, my hype is still quite high, and I’m looking forward to the launch of the game as much as I was a few years ago when ArcheAge in North America was still just a dream. Definitely check this game out, as it’s a wonderful blend of Sandbox and Themepark that everyone should at least try!

Features: 4.5/5 – There’s a lot of them and they’re all fantastic. Except Archeum…
Customization: 5/5 – ArcheAge has a ton of this – including the ability to import your own images into the game to put on clothing, sails, and more.
Graphics: 5/5 – The game looks amazing. Prepare to live in a masterpiece painting.
Controls: 4/5 – Good, but not as responsive or modern as they could be. With some proper keybinding tweaks you can have an enjoyable time though.
Community: 4/5 – It’s impressive, to say the least. Perhaps overwhelming though communities usually are at launch.

Overall: 5/5 – Quite simply the best MMORPG I’ve played in years.