September 2014

How Does your Garden Grow

stargrace September 20, 2014 1 Comment

The situation with queues has been pretty bad this weekend, I don’t think anyone will deny it. Even as a patron, I had a 3 hour queue on Thursday night, as well as Friday afternoon. By the early morning hours the queue nudges down to an hour or so on the weekend. During the weekdays I’m not seeing much of a queue. This is after two more new servers were added. I know Trion is probably reluctant to add new servers, after all ArcheAge is at its core a PVP game and people don’t want to PVP on empty servers (let WildStar fans tell you about that) but you have to make a decision, what is worse. Losing players now because they can’t even log in to play and / or spend money on your game, or losing players later.

In any case, I did manage to get past the queue monster a few times and play. My paladin is now level 28, and I decided to completely respec my cleric to a daggerspell. I also finished building my first house. It was a mixture of purchasing goods and those that I had farmed. I needed to buy 50 of the wood component and 50 of the stone, which cost me about 30g or so. I debated whether or not I wanted to build the house or just hang onto it or sell the plot, and in the end decided that building it would be best. I’m glad I did, because I learned a few things. Number one, you can plant along the perimeter of your house. This includes before the structure is built, but the space at that time is quite small. Once the house is completed you’ll have a lot more room to plant some goodies. I also purchased a mailbox, and made it a recall point.

I’ve been learning to manage my farm space much better. You can probably fit more than you think on it, and of course it’s best to take advantage of that space. In my farm pictured above I have 4 yew trees, 4 potato, and 4 strawberry bushes all growing in an 8×8 farm (the small beginner one). A mixture of items and figuring out what placements work best so you can get the maximum return is ideal. I’m contemplating taking the house down once I get my 16×16 farm, but I haven’t decided yet. The chances that I’ll make it over to the PVP area in one piece are pretty slim. Aside from the queues, I’m having a great time

Into Sharpwind Mines

stargrace September 17, 2014 No Comments

Around level 20 you’ll run into your first dungeon in ArcheAge, though it may be earlier / later depending on how much ‘stuff’ you do while leveling. My paladin obtained the quests for this zone at 22, which is a pretty comfortable level. The game does a good job of getting you used to dungeons from the get go – they have one daily quest players can do that requires mentoring or being a mentor to the dungeon. That means ideally your first time through you’re with a player who has been there before, and who is higher level than you. I don’t know if all dungeons are the same, but this one consisted of three players. It was myself at 22, and two others, level 20 and 36. Unfortunately I did not get the mentor quest completed because the 36 had already completed theirs for the day, but it was still a good run.

Loot is a bit weird, it’s not NBG (need before greed) but a simple roll / pass concept. I imagine this may be frustrating to some players but because everyone can all use anything (even if it’s not optimal) it doesn’t bother me too much. If I want something I’ll roll on it, if I don’t, I decline. It may also encourage players to talk to one another and find communities to play with so that you’re less likely to run into the sort of player who simply rolls on everything and doesn’t discuss whether or not they’re willing to trade an item to someone who can use it.

That being said, I won the neat scepter below. No one in the group could use it, we were two tank-esc characters and a melee dps. The gear is also bind on equip, which means technically I could sell it but I’m not sure if I will bother. I may just save it and pass it to an alt. I love the fact that it has three sockets, though I have not come across one of the items that goes into those sockets yet.

The dungeon was pretty short and simple, which I think is great for an introduction. Because there’s no way (that I know of) to double tap to dodge out of the way I do find it a bit difficult to avoid creature attacks, and it can be frustrating to move out of the danger zones on the ground, but I managed to survive (my two party mates each died on the final encounter). This dungeon is also where you’ll find your first cloak if you didn’t happen to get one in a founders / starter pack. In a game where dungeons are NOT the main point of the game (I still consider PvP / Trade / Politics to be the point) I think the very simplified PvE themepark content is wonderful so far.

As always, happy gaming no matter where you find yourself!

Classes.. Classes Everywhere..

stargrace September 16, 2014 No Comments

One of the most difficult aspects to ArcheAge I have had to deal with so far involves picking a class to play. There are 120 class combinations and of course some are going to be better suited to your play style than others. There are of course “recommended” paths, but what fun is that.

As I have mentioned a few times now, I started out with two characters. One on the East, and one on the West. On the East my character eventually went down the cleric path, and I have to say – I don’t like it. The heals are mediocre, killing is slow, and while I do have survivability, the class is just not speaking to me. Reading forum posts it seems that healers should wear a mixture of cloth and leather to make the best of their skills (and not be quite as smushy), and use a shield / scepter combination. There’s no way you can unlock all the skills in each branch, which is something I wasn’t aware of from the get-go so I wasted a lot of my skill points (thankfully you can re-set them for a small fee). You also don’t need to purchase any skills in order. Your best bet is to look up an ArcheAge build generator, and mess around with the options there. You’re also not locked into the class you play (thankfully). I’m pretty sure I’ll be swapping around my cleric to something more of my liking. I’m not really sure why it’s not speaking to me, normally I really enjoy playing healer-esc classes, but this time it’s just not good.

On the West, I’m playing a paladin – and I love it. One really important thing to keep in mind is that each skill you use can set off a combo. For example my paladin build has 8 combinations that I can trigger. It’s a pretty generic PvP build, but it’s got good DPS (at least so far, I’m level 19) and great survivability. Plus I get to wear plate, and hey, what lady doesn’t look amazing in a shiny set of armour. Each character is inching towards 20 since I have been swapping back and forth on them and playing each faction. The two sides are different enough that it’s actually holding my interest for now. I expect that some time in the future I’ll get tired of one side or the other and start to focus on “just one” character. So far that hasn’t happened.

The game is incredibly complex, especially if you do more than just follow the quest chains (which are pretty generic kill 10 rat quests). The politics involved are astounding, and I’m loving every second of it.

Lets Talk “Illegal” Farms

stargrace September 15, 2014 1 Comment

You may have heard the term “illegal farm” in ArcheAge while you have been playing. What is it? It’s anything you (or another player) happens to plant that is 1) not in a public farm and 2) not on a designated farm plot. These are farms that you plant anywhere you want, which means other players can come along and harvest them any time they want (including when they’re in the sprouting stages). These farms are not technically ‘illegal’ by game rules, you’re able to plant where ever you want. They’re termed this by other players, most notably those who come along and uproot things after you have planted them.

There are two ways to handle this. One, don’t plant anything you mind having removed, and two, you can report players who uproot things that don’t belong to them. They will then (after accruing points) go to trial – there’s ups and downs to the trial process when it comes to illegal farms. I’m not sure if it’s the same for every server / faction, but on mine most people do not find these players guilty if they are dealing with illegal farms. Why? Well their explanation is quite simple.

• People who use illegal farms are “evading” the tax system.
• It’s a method of balancing the economy (keeping items ‘valuable’ instead of letting players plant 10,000 items anywhere they want.

The above are the two most popular reasons I have heard so far regarding not guilty charges against someone who has ‘stolen’ crops. Everyone of course has their own opinion. On one hand sure, it really sucks to have a stranger come along and remove things you have planted, but there are ways of keeping your stuff safe and if you choose not to use those methods, well the blame lays on your shoulders. The other side of this argument is that right now there appears to be very little space for players to purchase farms / housing plots, thus more people resort to illegal farming. Is it really ‘their fault’ when they’re forced into the action in order to experience this side of the game. The whole ordeal is fascinating to me, and while most of the trial battles I have witnessed so far are pretty cut and dry, some times an interesting case does come along. Players who really get into defending their stance and awaiting the verdict can become quite passionate. In most cases as I said on my server at least, players uprooting illegal farms are doing a service to society and are found not guilty. Pirates and other pvp battles on the other hand, are a mixture of guilty and not guilty depending on the whims of the jury.

Just one more of the many reasons I’m having so much fun.

My Experience is Probably Not Yours

stargrace September 14, 2014 1 Comment

Headstart for ArcheAge began a few days ago, letting me finally make use of the $150 Archeum pack I purchased months ago. Sort of. As with any head start or game release these days, Trion was plagued with DDoS attempts, server queues, and unstable authentication problems. None of these were new to me, in fact we went through pretty much the exact same thing when WildStar launched a few months back. Ah, memories.

Despite all of the issues that plagued servers and players, I did manage to create two characters on the Naima server. I first created East, because that’s what I had played in my very limited alpha / beta experience. I reached level 15, purchased an 8×8 farm plot along with a 16×16 house plot, and all was well. I didn’t realize at the time just how difficult it would be to obtain land just a few hours later.

After playing for a few hours I also realized that a number of my friends were playing West, and so I decided to create a tank class (my first character being healer-esc). I absolutely fell in love with everything. The world, the quests, the character.. it is completely different than my experience playing East. The only downside is that this character is now 17 and I haven’t been able to find a spot of land anywhere. It’s not a huge deal because (for now at least) I have been able to plant things on my old character and ship them off to my alt. I’m thinking that 16×16 housing plot will actually become my larger farm plot, so I will have to do the secondary quest that rewards me with the larger scarecrow. Eventually.

I’m having a LOT of fun. A lot more than I thought I would. I have been trying to meet up with a guild and get involved in some of the more social aspects of the game, but so far that hasn’t been working out too well for me. I suppose it’s due to the time that I’m online, or the fact that pretty much everyone requires you to use TS or ventrillo, and honestly I’m just not THAT social. I’m hoping I find my own little niche to call home soon, and I can certainly see me sticking around ArcheAge for quite some time to come.

I know my experience probably doesn’t match that of the majority out there, at least not if you go by the attitude on social media. I’ve heard many people upset about the lack of land and the connection troubles they have been facing. I can’t say I blame them, but I do think that if I am patient, I’ll find my “dream home” eventually.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!