Blog Post #1 - ArcheAge Launch!

Tuesday September 16 was the official launch date for the game ArcheAge. Whether you are familiar with MMO games (massively multiplayer online) or not, you won't be able to disagree with what we have to say about it. Before ArcheAge launched you could gain early access to play the game. They offered a $150 Alpha pack that let u buy into a server during the months in advance. This gave you a chance to play anytime you wanted to with the known fact that all your progress would be whipped for the official launch date. There was also a $100 and $50 pack that let you buy into the closed beta events. This was basically the same thing is the Alpha pack, but only on set days you could play the game. With every pack you also received items which varied on which pack you purchased. You were also free to upgrade your current pack at any time. The biggest selling point for me was that they all had a four day head start. Meaning that anyone who bought a pack could access that game on Friday September 12. This was a huge advantage as people could get in and claim land, for giant guilds to battle for land against other guilds, and everything else that there is to do in game.

Before we head into the gameplay aspects, we
will discuss some things you should know before you start to get into the game. There are two factions which are the Nuia (American based) and the Haranya (Chinese based). Both currently have two classes each to pick from which range from humans to elves. They each have their own continent with a third continent where guilds from opposing factions fight to conquer land. There are also little islands to explore out at sea and around the world. This is the basic of how the game world is setup.


Now lets discuss what makes ArcheAge such a great game, and why you should play it. Besides the obvious factors that most MMO games have to offer such as combat, dungeons, questing, adventure. ArcheAge has much more to offer. In game there are different houses that you can purchase with what are called guilda stars (obtained from special quests and trading goods across sea). They houses vary from two different styles which are based off of American and Chinese culture. Of the two different styles you can have a small house, a two story house, a mansion, a farmhouse, a beach house, and much more! Don't get it mixed up though, once you buy the house you have to do a lot of work to gather materials to make it. Bought a stone house? You will need to mine a lot of stone to fully build it. Bought a wood house? You will do the same thing only with lumber from trees. Lets not forget about farming. Farming is a huge aspect of the game. There are different sized plots in which the players can grow goods and sell or trade them in game. Depending on what your growing and which climate your farm is located in, will depend on how long (in real time) the crop will take to grow. You can also raise animals for produce, butchering, or mount purposes. Now with all of this talk about houses and farms, I bet your wondering where will they be? The cool thing about ArcheAge is that throughout the world there are housing locations in which players can place their homes and farms. Some are more private and rare, while others are busy with lots of neibours. Didn't find the perfect location for your dream house? Don't worry! The more land that people own, the more taxes they will have to pay each week. This means that land is bound to clear up from time to time. You can even have your own castle with your guild!

Besides owning a house and decorating it to your style, lets talk about being our at sea. There are also a variety of boats to choose from ranging from a simple tiny rowboat, up to a giant ships. There are also specialty ships that are meant for fishing. With boats you can sail the seas, defeat giant sea monsters, and take your goods across sea to earn a lot of gold or guilda stars. Some trips you make you wont get attacked by anyone, others the Kraken could poop out to completely destroy your ship. Sea monsters aren't the only thing to worry about out at sea. Pirates are players who have been exiled from their faction. Stealing crops, murdering your fellow faction members, growing crops on public property will all get you criminal points. Once you earn a certain amount of criminal points you will go to trial. Trial is judged by real in game players and will land you a spot in jail for a certain amount of real time. There isn't much to do in jail unless you want to get more criminal points then you can try to escape from jail. Once you have a big enough criminal record, you will eventually be exiled from the faction entirely and be forced to live on a secret pirate island. There you will find other players like yourself who travel the sea looking to take down other players boats at sea, looking for things to steal, and people to murder. It can be a fun play style, but its nice to have a faction to back you up and give you a nice place for a home.

 These are just a few simple reasons as to why ArcheAge is a great game. Owning a house, traveling the sea, becoming a criminal, and much more lead this game to be highly unique compared to the typical combat and questing MMO games. It's free to play with some cash shop items that you could either purchase with real money or in game currency. I give this game a perfect 10 and in my opinion it will go very far in the gaming world.

 With all that said here is a link of 25 tips to explain ArcheAge's mechanics for new players. Happy gaming!

 http://www.tentonhammer.com/guides/archeage/25-tips-explain-archeage-mechanics-new-players