ArcheAge RU – Foreign Invasion
690 words.
In a burst of ambition, I installed and played the Russian version of ArcheAge for a little while. You have to sign up for a Mail.ru account (which I guess is the Russian version of Google Mail) and then you can download it. At least you could over the weekend, I don’t know if it still works. I used these handy instructions: http://www.mmocast.com/featured/archeage-ru-account-registration-guide-english-patch/
Not being able to read or speak Russian hampers the experience a bit, but not as much as you might think. If you’re an MMO veteran you should be able to figure out which buttons to press. The only thing I wasn’t able to find was an invert mouse feature, which served to remind me again that I should strongly consider re-training myself not to need it. I play shooters and MMOs a whole lot more than I ever play flight simulators.
So about the game. It was … well … kind of disappointing. After the initial movie, which was pretty cool, the game’s graphics were not nearly as good as I expected. One of the things that attracted me to this game in the first place was the incredible screenshots I’d seen. In reality it looked a bit like Fallen Earth. Which is not a compliment.
However I should say that, to my eye, most Russian-style games look like Fallen Earth. They have a quality that is hard for me to define. They often look like they have no anti-aliasing, or that someone has sharpened the entire picture to an extreme. It’s as if they are intentionally trying to make the game look like it came from the days when 3D was done in software, before graphics cards. Perhaps they tweaked ArcheAge to look like that for its Russian audience.
I could forgive so-so graphics if the gameplay was really great. (Fallen Earth, for example, is kind of fun, if you like gaterhing and crafting.) But the ArcheAge gameplay was … ordinary. Of course I only played to level 2, so take that with a huge grain of salt. I played a spell-caster. I had one fire spell that worked exactly like you’d expect. Visually the casting animation looked a bit like the Loremaster in LotRO, that is, my guy looked like he was pitching a flaming baseball at his enemies.
(Interestingly, my spell-caster also had a bow and could shoot arrows right away. That was probably the most intriguing gameplay mechanic I saw in the first two levels.)
You start out standing in front of a quest-giver, just like every other MMO ever. Obviously I have no idea what he or she was saying, but you can just click the button to continue. Your first quest is to go to a second quest-giver, as I recall. Then you go kill some monsters wandering around nearby. Pretty much exactly like every WoW-clone ever. I killed some thingys and leveled up to 2, and then I logged out because I hate playing anything without invert mouse.
The world looks like it’s built in the same way as TERA and Aion. That is, it looks like a big world, but you’re actually just following a path from the start of the zone to the end of the zone, and you’re boxed in on either side by mountains or forests or whatever.
So after my first impressions, I can see why Trion isn’t rushing this game to market. Rift is a far better experience in the first two levels, and it’s free. Whatever strengths ArcheAge has are not at all apparent in the beginning. I think they’re going to need to bring out those strengths more if they want it to have any kind of mainstream appeal.
But having said all those negative things, I do want to play and explore ArcheAge some more. I wasn’t left wanting to rage-quit and un-install it. I was mostly left being frustrated that I couldn’t find an invert mouse feature. :) (I have seen mixed reports about whether it has one or not, but after clicking every single checkbox, I suspect it doesn’t.) Stay tuned to see if I get any farther.
Archived Comments
Aenaon 2014-03-19T03:05:16Z
Dear friend, First of all there is a patch out that translate your client from russian to english. Second… i bet your pc is crappy or you dont know how to maximize your graphics. The game is enjoyable but since you are an FPS person you better don’t play it . This game is not a wow clone, is not for noob players, its really based on player interaction with the word and the economy. Do not even try to compare it with Tera or Aion. Tera can not rich Aion cause its an unfinished crappy game and Aion is a totally different game than Archeage in many ways (aion players since 2009 till today) . Archeage world gonna be huge … think that Archeage in russia is only the 30% map and feats as open beta. Another thing which makes you wrong… this game have quests but limited. You start with a quest so you will be able to understand the game. The quest does NOT mean that it will lead you on the level up as many players are used to it.
No … The quests will show you how to play and after that you are alone!!!!!!!!its not grind. Its craft and war.
You build, you craft, you repair. You have a nice huge ship and you wanna show off to your friends?????Then you get attacked from the pirates (Criminals real players) Your ship get wrecked and ofc….. You have to repair it. It costs ofc to make everything in the game. But there goes in the Guild system which some of your mates can really help you repair,craft or whatever in the game. PvP , Right now PvP is limited in Archeage because its open beta and the Admins locked Areas and Castle sieges and much more feats from the game until they make sure that everything gonna work as it should (think about that the world map is 30% only ).
And finally about Trion
Trion Trying to bring the game more to EU/USA standards and thats because the game is really needy in many ways. For an example in order to do anything in the game you need Labor points. You need them to craft, to rez your self , to gather to trade packages in other regions etc…. In Russian Archeage Labor points are tough shit because i wanna build a more advanced ship in order to stop going from one place to the other with a simple boat and i have to plant trees (cost 0 labor points), gather 1 (costs 10 labor points) need 100 woods 1000 x 10 labor points and plus i need to craft them in something else (click and 3 labor points) and much more needed. In russian Archege if you are freemium you get 1 labor point per 10 mins if you are online and 0 points if you are offline. With premium account you get 5 labor points if you are online and if you are offline too every 10 mins. So … back to the point … Trion stucked with the micro trasactions because they want to follow Rifts career. Which rift so far have one proven amazing system . Free to play and premium have small differences and only visuals plus % xp bonus (who cares).
If you go in Russian Archeage servers … you will notice that is harder than korean version just because the economy for a free 2 play char is really hard time in game. At least for me which i don’t consider to pay for Russian games.
Its what they need. Its how they want the games there. So Trion would had it already out but XL asks to plug the korean their economy system in…
So far so good though just because we are able to play unlimited Archeage in russian servers.
PS: im playing from a laptop… graphics are full with direct x 11 mods… 40 fps and the detail and physics are so amazing and really i didn’t saw it in Tera or Aion that kind of detail. So i would suggest you to take a breath and look one more time your gfx settings and one more tip is to override the settings from graphic card like AA etc because russians apparently don’t spend that much money to buy new computers so they made settings that way so they would be able to play it.(thats why i said i added mods from cry3 and i adjusted the settings by my self and looks way better than Tera or Aion in full gfx)
PS2: Its a fact that if you enjoy FPS games you aint gonna like MMORPG that much. PS3: same goes to MOBA. PS4: Archeage is not pew pew . Its compination of multiple games , with the pvp from Lineage 2 , farms from farmiville etc :P
ultrviolet 2014-03-19T14:31:38Z
Deep breaths. :) I realize I was too harsh on it in this post so I wrote a followup here: http://endgameviable.com/archeage-ru-growing-on-me/
I actually like the game and I’m looking forward to the US version.
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