Introduction to ArcheAge MMORPG

Archeage is upcoming MMORPG which is currently in closed beta status in Korea.  Archeage is being developed by a Korean gaming company known as XLGames.  Jake Song is the man behind XLGames, and is very know in the MMORPG industry.  Jake Song has worked on project like Nexus, The Kingdom of Winds, Linage, Lineage 2, Tabula Rasa, Aion, etc.   NCSoft has published many of these titles and were a big hit thanks to Jake Song.  With tension increasing within NCSoft, Jake Song left and found his own company XLGames.  In February 2010 XLGame annouced Archeage.

Not many recent mmorpg recent has been a big success, most of them lack anything that would grab and hold the players interest.  Archeage is taking the best of mmorpg games and through into one game, with the ability for the players to decide the faith of the game.  Yes, it’s true.  You as the player will decide how Archeage will be.

Detailed game world, high quality graphics, massive pvp and seiges, interesting quest, raid dungeons, possiblity to build your own houses and towns are just a few interseting aspect of Archeage.  You as a player will be free to do just about anything you want in the game world.  This type of gaming is also known as a sandbox game.

There will be races in the world of Archeage divided by 2 fractions, East and West.  Total of 8 races, including humans, elves, dwarfs, ferre (catlike humans), and few more which are not annouced yet.  The player enters Archeage few thousand years later after the catstrophe.

Archeage is being developed with CryEngine 2 technology.  If you know about or have played Crysis was game built upon cryengine 2 technology.  The same technology will exist in Archeage, so you can expect to play a game with some amazing graphics.

Archeage game world exceeds the size of the World of WoW including all the expansions and interactivity of the world in Archeage is very high.  The ability to cycle through day and night, which may require players to carry a torch in case you get caught in dark places. Developer also mention season cycles, which means you can be playing in rain or snow.  In one of the interviews, Jake Song asked to image a lake, created after someone casted a meteor to hit the ground in a battle a week ago.  It is possible, that things like this awaits us in Archeage.

Control of character will also be unique compare to other mmorpg games.  Image the ability to fight on mounts, climb walls and tree, ropes and build houses.  In Archeage, trees can grow and have many different stages of growth as do in real life.  Players can then chop down trees and build say a house for them self.

In game transportation looks pretty interesting as well.  There are two type of transportation; public and private.  You can ride on public carriage or on a horse or sail your boat.  Teleportation will not be implanted as developers felt that would ruin the feeling of a magnificent world.  This actually may solve problems when top guilds dominating all over the map.  It will be much harder to hold castle situated long away apart from each other simultaneously.  Lineage 1 and Lineage 2 had this effect with the top guild.

XLGames set a goal to solve all the problems in MMORPG games.  There many issues in all MMORPG games such as:

1. Dominating clan/player wouldn’t let other player or new player devleop due the amount of control they had in lands, etc.
2. Ability to buy ingame currency with real currency

XLGames states problems like these in modern MMORPG are not solved but rather bypassed or ignored.  For example, to bypass total chaos in pvp, World of Warcraft made fractions.  Another example in world of warcraft has instances of the game’s world, many copes of the same dungeon, so that there would be no guild that dominates the entire world, so that every player has a chance to get good gear.  Modern MMORPG games are amusement parks, you ride on one attraction with your firends, and the developers invent a new one for you.  But players don’t have an actual choice to make, no freedom.  They can only follow scenario set by developers.

Archeage will push these limits to the max.  Players will make their own world.  If I don’t like some player, I will kim him.  If he doesn’t understand the lesson, I will then burn his house down, trample his crops and eat his horse’s corpse for weeks!. Archeage is made FOR players, not to get alot of money instantly.

Rumors has it that Archeage will not have an auction based economy.  But rather the old traditional method of player buy and sell system.  Everything can be either bought or sold from house to crops; from food to weapons, etc.  Which makes it pretty unique, as you can even sell your map! As there is no mini map in Archeage, map will be needed.

That is all I have about this great game right now.  I will update my blog with more information as soon as I get them and give you more information on this game.