Just a stone’s throw from level 50, I should be saving every copper toward crafting my Conquerors plate armor set. Meh, that behavior sounds much too practical for being in an Alpha! I was processing hide into leather when I noticed the recipe for crafting Bakehan’s Swimfins. Hmm, I thought, I have the expertise points to make those. That jogged my memory about having seen pictures of players wearing dive helmets. A quick search of my metalwork recipes showed that I could craft that too. That’s all she wrote, I was off and running toward a new adventure!
Ouch
I had 75% of the crafting components needed to make the diving helmet and the fins. Unfortunately, one the items is the same one needed to craft upper level gear. Consequently, what I didn’t have was going to cost me a fair amount of gold – 80G to be exact. Ouch! But what’s an Alpha for if not to experiment, goof around and have fun? Oh yeah, and test stuff. Suuure.
Hrm, what’s going on down here?
After crafting my fins and helmet, I set out off the coast of Two Crowns just to see what I’d see, underneath the sea. It was a bit murky until I remembered lowering the water effects to minimum quality during the recent lag issues. A quick adjustment and ah, that’s better.
I swam around for a little while but didn’t see very much. I guess I was subconsciously hoping for GW2 under water level of content. But to be fair, that’s not a realistic expectation as they’ve never implied it. Still with these sorts of items available for crafting, including a submarine, there must be something under here worth seeing. A quick ask in guild voice chat and I had a volunteer to take me treasure hunting. Woot!
Brokenwind picked me up in his clipper to go treasure hunting
Sunken Treasure
Brokenwind, a guild cohort you’ve seen mentioned here before, took me out in his clipper to look for sunken treasure. We sailed much further out than I would have thought or dared to go alone. We headed deep into PVP waters, where enemy players and pirates aren’t the only baddies you encounter. *shudder*
His boat and I had several encounters with deadly Jellyfish. Ya know, the elite flavor of formerly innocuous creatures devs love putting in games to harass and scare the bejesus out of you. I was like honey to a bee, attracting their agro from a far and chased forever. Grr! Luckily as a Paladin I could heal myself, pop damage barriers and keep swimming while Broken tried to distract the nasty beasts. After a few of those encounters we were able to dive deep under the sea looking for treasure.
We find a shipwreck but no treasure yet
The combination of my helmet, fins and diving tanks from Borken’s ship, we were able to stay underwater a good amount of time. Once we weren’t being chased, it wasn’t long before we found our first treasure chest. After you find one you have to use the interaction available to release it to the surface. Too cute!! The chest floats to the surface using balloons and then you open it hoping for lots of goodies.
Ah ha! Treasure at last. One of five we found during our exploration
Not rich but worth it
In about a 30 minute time span, we found 5 treasure chests that we alternated opening for booty. All told what I claimed netted me a little over 8G. Broken made out with just over 6G. I’ve heard that there are chests out there worth 40G in a single pop. It would sure be nice to run across one of those.
All in all, it was worth the money I invested in crafting the two pieces. I will definitely go out again looking for sunken treasure. I’ll even brave it alone. What’s the worst that can happen? *smile*
Now I have to add crafting a submarine to my other end game goals for the live version. That goes along side having the multistory Stone Manor house that looks like a mini castle. If you’re a fan of the original Highlander movie, it looks like the one he lived in with his wife. I am a fan and that house is on my “must have” list after I’ve secured what I need for normal trade and commerce production.
Good stuff. Fun stuff. The variety of activities is what I enjoy most about ArcheAge. And to think, I haven’t seen hardly any of the PVE content yet. Haven’t visited a single dungeon. Even if the PVE is only marginally good, it’s still another whole layer of things to do and experience. COUNT ME IN!!
You got to 50 scarily fast it seems. Isn't that the level cap?
Is this the kind of game that doesn't "start" until max level? (Which I could see with a wider variety of things to do than most.)
Posted by: Kinless.wordpress.com | August 22, 2014 at 02:10 PM
Yes, it did feel very fast and I wasn't trying to reach level cap. I'm not level 50 and have done one dungeon up to the final boss and parts of another.
This is a game that starts a level one. You can stay on the rails and let it lead you from quest hub to quest hub and see the zones as they're introduced to you. Or you can go do what you want to do - open world PVP, crafting & trade, arena type PVP or mix-n-match.
Posted by: Alysianah aka Saylah | August 22, 2014 at 02:16 PM