Trion started the demo off with showing the shear depth of the world they created in ArcheAge. Folks, let me just say that the game featured some of the sharpest graphics I’ve seen to date in an MMO. The first world they took me to in the demo was ‘eastern’ themed, sporting off some large asian-esque structures that seemed to go on forever. The developer running the demo jumped off a tall mountain , gliding our character around in attempts to display how massive the world was in ArcheAge. In the background of this particular eastern map the demo was on, they had sprawling mountains surrounded by a foggy weather effect. Also highlighted in this glide was the ocean and dock area below, as it contained massive amounts of detail from far away — which was very impressive to witness. What was also impressive to witness was the lack of pop-ups in the background (all in real-time, no backgrounds popping up — they were already there) and no rendering as the character moved through the sky.
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As I watched this display, I thought to myself, World of Warcraft better get going with graphical improvements or games like ArcheAge are going to snag some of their market. Tis’ true.
Outside of graphics, the developers explained how things were built in the world. First, players can acquire large amounts of land, go Minecraft on them and build large structures and sustain a kingdom. All of which sounds impressive. They also mentioned that players must get their building material together to make the structures happen and that doing it alone, while not impossible, would be a feat and a half. So, this tells me a few things about ArcheAge, the most important of which is that it’s better to play with a team than it is to explore, and survive, on your own. Survival is key, especially since your kingdom can be snatched right from under you by an invading enemy army.
This need for teamwork was further explained when the developers started talking about ship construction and manning. Yep, ‘ship construction’ and ‘ship manning’, which means that sailing and fighting on the open seas is very much part of the game. So, for those of you who love Assassin’s Creed III’s ship fighting mission, you’re going to REALLY love what ArcheAge has in its ship delivery system. If you ever wanted to be a pirate not named Guybrush Threepwood, then this is your chance.
Now having said that, this brings up another aspect of the game I found extremely cool. Should you become a pirate in ArcheAge then you must take the following into consideration — there will be consequences if you pillage, loot, steal or kill. Harsh consequences. How harsh? Well, how about your peers deciding your justice in the game. Yep, should you get caught and brought to justice in the game, you will go to trial. The jurors are your peers in the game. Should they find your actions particularly distasteful and reckless then you have the potential of being exiled from the online community and forced to live a hard life of a criminal. This means never finding a home in a town, trading in towns and only being able to trade on a pirate island full of terrible criminals like yourself. Color me optimistic, but this sort of thing makes me happy, as there are far less chances for a LEROY JENKINS type situation.
As the demo was wrapping up, the devs explained how big the world was going to be (it’s going to be huge) and how well it has done in beta in South Korea (#2 on the charts — probably behind Starcraft). Anytime an MMO can make it in South Korea then there is hope for it in the rest of the world.
Trion hasn’t made a bad game yet, so ArcheAge appears to be on track to be one of their best MMOs to date. Can’t wait to see more of it when it fires into beta.
