Mystic Worlds

ArcheAge - Husbandry Profession

One of the more unique ArcheAge crafting professions is Husbandry.  Primarily, the profession consists of caring for, harvesting from or butchering livestock. It also includes the opportunity to breed two types of battle pets or mounts – Polar Bear and Yata.  This is the first MMO I’ve played with a crafting profession revolving around working with animals and had to give it a try.

The Basics

Players are introduced to husbandry in the early levels via a Blue Salt reputation quest that has them care for chickens in order to obtain trimmed meat.  The infant versions of livestock such as baby chicks, goslings, etc., are all purchased from the Livestock NPC.  The prices ranges from 2 silver up to 4 gold. To pursue husbandry you need to own land, preferably a 16x16 farm at a minimum.  An 8x8 will work for all but a few of the livestock.  However, it will be hard to house the livestock and produce the grain and/or combined feed necessary to sustain them on a single 8x8.

There are (4) basic interactions when caring for livestock.  Performing each of these provides increased proficiency (XP) in husbandry

• You feed them grain or combined feed depending on the animal.
• You gather/harvest items from there such as eggs from chickens, feathers from ducks, fur from bears. 
• You slaughter them for various types of meat.
• You cure them from diseases when they’re sick.

 Making Money

You can make good money using the husbandry profession by simply selling off what you gather from them such as eggs, leather, milk, feathers and fur.  Many of the items are required materials in other crafting professions so are in high demand.  If you’re going to do livestock and also crafting armor, be sure to include livestock to support your profession.  Fabric can be made from sheep wool.  Leather is produced from turkeys and pigs.  Yarn comes from Yata fur + bear fur + goat wool.

You can also slaughter your livestock to sell the meat.  Eggs, meat, milk and feathers are used in trade packs and as a result, are always in high demand.  Meat is used for cooking recipes and trade packs and is equally profitable.  When you’re trying to raise your husbandry proficiency however, I found slaughtering them for the meat was more expensive and time consuming.  Buying and placing them again was more effort and cost. Consequently, I took selling trimmed meat out of my rotation. 

Even with slaughtering for meat removed from my options, I still have two very profitable outlets from husbandry – trade packs and raw materials.  I consume whatever results in the highest cost trade pack turn-ins and then sell the other products on the Auction House.

Make Animal Pens

As you progress in proficiency, you can start crafting and selling animal cages – coops, cages and pens.  These allow players to house multiples of the same type of animal in a single feeding trough, cutting down the time it takes to feed and gather from livestock.  The chicken coops, duck cages and goose cages seem to sell quickly but are the least profitable, at roughly 1.5 g profit each.

Due to the cost, people don’t move their goat, sheep and cow pens around much. You buy it once and leave it there until it completely breaks or you move on to something else.  Also it’s not much of a bother to feed 4 cows individually versus 50 chickens or ducks. Depending on your server you can net from 3.5 to 5 gold per pen on the Auction House – if it sells the first time you list it.

Breed Pets or Mounts

Beyond the life of being a livestock manager, you can dabble in the highly random act of breeding battle pets and mounts. The bear mounts in particular are in high demand but are VERY hard to produce.  Breeding requires that one of your cubs becomes a male, from there becomes a stud and then impregnates a female.  I’ve been attempting to breed bears for several weeks and have only reached the stage of having a single male. 

In my case I had 10 bears being raised at any given time.  I would slaughter and replace half the females hoping to get another male.  All the while hoping the one male I had would become a stud.  After doing this for weeks I still only have one male and never a stud.  The sheer randomness of breeding makes it a very expensive undertaking. 

The larger animals take up more space on a farm and cost considerably more to purchase.  With space being a premium, using farm space for breeding is costly in and of itself.  Add to that the random nature and needing to slaughter females to increase your chances of getting a stud by having more males, it’s not something you should do unless you have gold and farm space to spare.  I’ve recently reduced my operation down to just 4 bears and 2 yatas, reclaiming the other space for livestock that will generate gold.

Be a Beekeeper

The last part of husbandry I’ve yet to try is beekeeping to produce honey.  Honey is expensive and used in alchemy and higher tier cooking recipes.  This activity requires you to create nets, go out into the world to catch bees and then care for them in a beehive.  Like breeding, this can be an expensive undertaking because the hives consume a lot of farm space.  And while I have multiple properties, I only have one 16x16 farm plot which is currently housing all of my livestock.  If I’m able to place a cottage sized farm house in Auroria, I may move smaller livestock there and give beekeeping a try.  Or if/when I give up on the bears. *smile*

40K/60K

A few days ago I reached 40K husbandry which is no easy feat.  It required a LOT of livestock management – time and gold commitment.  One of the biggest challenges is maximizing your property as you gradually add livestock and produce to your repertoire, which typically happens over a period of time.  As such, it won’t make the best use of the space because things vary in size and putting them down wherever you have space at the time, isn’t going to make best use of space.  With produce, it’s not as big a deal because you harvest them regularly, completely removing them from the farm in cycles, which allows you do construct a new layout.

To maximize space with livestock means slaughtering them and waiting for them to mature all over again, which in some cases, is 2 days or more.  As I added more livestock, I’ve had to slaughter my whole farm twice to move things around to get the best use of the one 16x16 farm I have available.  That’s not cheap.   The cages to bigger livestock are 2g – 4 g a pop.  By the second time, which was earlier this week, I had enough proficiency to make my own coops and cages so that saved money.

It’s a Fun Profession

I’d recommend husbandry to anyone that would like to try a more novel profession.   However, you have to be playing often enough to feed them on a regular basis.  That or you could trust a friend to care for them when you’re not on by making a family and giving family members access to your farm.  A few of our guild members do that to help each other out during the week.

ArcheAge Alpha - Blog or Play?

Still having a Blast

I’m still heavily invested in playing ArcheAge even though I’m not blogging about it as much.  The reason for that is very simple.  When I have free time it becomes a choice between playing AA or blogging about it.  As you can see, playing is winning in most cases.  *Smile*

The AA game I’ve elected to play, farming and trade, comes with a decent amount of resource management.  It’s not a matter of collecting materials and crafting them whenever I have the time or the mood strikes. On the contrary, it requires a consistent commitment to tending livestock, planting/harvesting crops and watching the trade market to know what’s most profitable for crafting into trade packs versus selling the raw materials to other players on the Auction House.  Trade pack profitability can change hourly.  And while the AH market changes more slowly, you have to watch the trends to get out ahead of them or end up losing profit.

The Inevitable

Besides my end game of farming and trade, I’m also working on getting into higher tier armor.  I’m not much of a gear whore.  I’m perfectly fine with have “decent” gear. Unfortunately, in a PVP environment, gear is more important than it would be to me otherwise. I want to have a reasonable chance at surviving unexpected encounters. Naval PVP is a lot of fun and I want to be a competitive contributor in those situations.  AA is no different than other MMOs in terms of what you have to do to obtain the better gear.  Having really good armor and weapons requires grinding.  Be it instances, mobs or other players, there’s a time commitment required and I’ve only just begun.

Between property management, farming instances for gear and amassing gold for gear, I haven’t had time for much else.  Don’t take my lack of posts as a declining interest.  It’s quite the opposite.  I’m digging in, in an attempt to bridge the gear gap I have before the release of Auroria.  The highly coveted and brutally contested 24/7 PVP landmass being opened up on November 4^th.  Auroria is the only landmass with no housing zone guidelines (size or type).  It’s also the only continent where you can grow and harvest one of the critical resources used in crafting armor and weapons, Archeum.

Waffling about Class Spec

Beyond “getting ready” to duke it out in Auroria, I’ve taken the lead in working with an alliance of other guilds in our faction to do another Naval PVP event. I’ve also started leveling three other skills trees. I’m still undecided about my final to class specs. I think I have eliminated melee altogether which would mean Paladin is now off the list. 

My favorite in terms of play style is Justicar, which was severely nerfed, making it subpar for PVE and PVP.  Justicar swaps the Battlerage (melee) tree for the Occultism (magic) tree. From a combat/skills perspective the moves feel most natural to me.  Another strong contender is Cultist (Occultism, Sorcery, and Vitalism) which is decent DPS for PVE but is tricky to do in PVP because of the long cast times. Lastly, Battlemage is on my radar because it’s a good compromise between mobility for PVP and DPS for PVE, with survivability in both by replacing Vitalism with Defense.  None of these combinations have strong escape mechanics which is a definite concern for PVP.

Missing Multi-Class Mgmt Features

None of these builds I'm considering are the current cookie-cutter win or even preferred builds. Even though you can play all classes, I don’t like the constant trips to swap between very different roles on top of carrying around multiple gear sets and weapons, when there are NO FEATURES to assist with managing any aspect. Consequently, I’m picking what feels good to me, comfortable for the way I approach combat and only requires carrying two sets of gear + weapons options + changing skills ad hoc + changing around your skill bars. That's enough in and of itself.

Without features to manage at least storing two builds, button click gear swapping and saving hotbar skill combinations, this is as far as I'm wiling to go. Yes, I’m making the choice to limit my options over the hassle. Other players are doing the same and only rolling variants that use the same armor and weapon combination because changing them around is annoying and expensive.  I'd be more willing to suffer the cost if it was minus the annoyance.

Other Stuff and Halloween!!

Lots of other things have come and gone since I last posted.  A few TIIL members have achieved crafting larger ships – cutter and merchant class.  We had our first “all hands” guild meeting.  I reached Veteran level in husbandry and commerce. I have to decide the third I want to advance to that level and which of those two to advance to Expert.  The contenders are farming, harvesting and tailor, all of which are close to Veteran already. To help with crafting I also crafted a Regal Tailor workstation and Cooking Pot for my house.  Both offer a few speciality recipes and eliminate the need to travel into a major city to craft even the basic recipes, as most small towns and outpots don't contain these workstations.

Thanks to guild members, I've also started a plushie collection of bobbleheads.  Having to find a way to display them caused me to finally complete redecorating my main house.  It cost a bit more than I wanted to spend but I did craft a majority of the items myself which always makes me smile.

Over the weekend I ran Greater Howling Abyss (GHA) with a few guild members and am now in 3/7 of the best instance armor available.  GHA is a heroic dungeon and its armor is second only to crafted sets. It’s also way past time for me to start farming tokens in Hasla for the best in slot weapons and accessories.  *shudder* Hasla is PVP zone where even same faction players will often Bloodlust to harass/kill each other on top of having to deal with the enemy faction.

Time to Decorate

Halloween came and I spent money in the Market Place for themed items.  I’m a sucker for costumes!  I’m not a fan of them only being available as random chest items.  I decided up front how many chests I was willing to buy for a chance at getting one.  Luck was on my side.  I looted the Bloody Ball Gown in my second chest, having purchased 10 out of the gate.  I elected to wear mine even though they’re selling for 1k+ gold on the auction house.  From the 10 chests, I also received a dozen of the various hats going for 7+g each.  I sold 8 and gifted 4 to guild members.

The MP chests and in-game quests have also provided a healthy supply of high stat potions I’m saving for special circumstances and lots of stat boosting candy. Beyond the chests, I had a ton of fun decorating my secondary house and one of my farms really cute items, including a coffin with animated bats and takes the place of a labor boosting bed.

Whew!

That about catches things up to where I am now. I really want to post more specifically about the crafting professions I’m doing that aren’t common place features in other MMOs. Along with discussions about the economy, trade market and the importance staying diversified in your pursuits.  Hopefully, I can squeeze in time this week.  In the meantime, here’s a selection of screenshots I’ve been holding on to for posts that never materialized. *sigh*  Until next time!

 

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AA: Trade Routes bring life to the roads and waves

ArcheAge - Getting Started Guide Part 2

Link to Part 1

Here are other questions I see new players ask on a regular basis or things I learned the hard way.

Public Regal Stations

Some crafting recipes require regal workstations.  Typically, these workstations are crafted by players specializing in that profession and placed in their homes.  Each faction has one set of public regal workstations available to the general population.  For the West Faction, public Regal Workstations are located in Wardton, Solzreed.  You’ll see a cluster of houses together with workstations on the porch and some inside.  Those are regal workstations you can use.

Farm Cart is Stuck or Intentionally Blocked

On some servers setting up blockades in an attempt to extort a toll charge is common place.  You can escape this little trap as well as your cart being stuck by using the “Rider’s Escape” command. This command is in the Skills Window | Basic Commands section.  Use Owner’s Mark before exiting the farm cart so no one can driver off with it.  Move to a better position (not more than 20 meters from current location) and initiate Rider’s Escape.  Your farm cart AND the two trade packs secured on it will spawn at your new location.  One known issue is this won’t work consistently on bridges.  You’ll get the “not enough room…” message.  If that happens, DO NOT accept party invites from strangers. Anyone in your party has access to your trade packs on the farm cart.  Ask two people you trust to come and help you.  Invite them to a party to remove the packs from the cart.  Move to a better location and resummon the cart.

Hidden Weapon Passives

In addition to the stats displayed on the weapon, the various weapon types have hidden proc attributes that may sway your decision of using one versus another. For example, a 2H staff has a chance of healing the wearer.  A full list of these attributes can be found here.

Guilda Star (GS) Dailies

There’s never a shortage of reasons to want or need GS. From building another house, bigger ship and other vehicles, players are always chasing them.  Several of the instances have quests that can be completed on a daily basis for GS.  And there are repeatable standalone quests out in the world.  Here’s a list of the known GS dailies.

ArcheAge: Naval Combat Adventure

Last night was my first experience doing naval combat in ArcheAge.  Lag aside, it was a resounding success and some of the most fun I’ve had in the game to date. A big thanks to the Praetorian guild for organizing the event and inviting The Immortal Imperial Legion.

I made a quick trip to the Priestess to change my build back to Justicar before meeting up with our guild.  Earlier in the day I’d exchanged two class trees. I’d swapped in Battlerage to begin leveling my Paladin build and Songcraft, the second healing tree.  Deciding to level both at the same time, I was in an ineffective melee build that definitely wasn’t safe for PVP.

Felt like EVE Online

I had no idea what to expect when the call went out to join up for the event. Our guild portaled together into Two Crowns.  As we rode down to the docks, we were met by a sizeable force of bodies jostling each other while things were being organized.  The event leaders began grouping people into specific teams within the raids that were being formed.  People were asked to self-identify a role within their party.  Cannonballs were being handed out.  Players who could apply buffs were shouting where to find them if you wanted to be buffed. It was fun chaos and not unlike forming roam fleets in EVE Online. 

As teams were assigned to ships, they were given call signs and specific roles.  We were advised to listen, stick to the roles and stay with the assigned ship. The ships were spawned and we loaded up. Our composition included two cutters and five clippers. The cutters were our gunships.  The clippers were for tackling and scouting. Yep, this was EVE but on the water.

One in Every Bunch

I suppose you can expect to have assholes in every bunch.  I was assigned to the cutter owned and being captained by our guild leader, Fannel.  Things were settling down when I saw people’s health dropping. I was confused as to why. There were no enemy ships near us.  We were just leaving the docks.  I started casting AOE heals and putting HOTs on individual targets, all the while wondering WTF.

Ah ha, realization dawns when I see purple names. Motherfuckers! We have PKers onboard – players who “bloodlust” to kill their own faction.  It’s such an asshole and cowardly move.  Done by players who don’t have the balls to fight pirates or the enemy faction where their intention is obvious because they’d be flagged red. Whatever – they were roffle stomped into the deck without killing a single one of us. Thanks “Winning Everyday”, the easy honor points were much appreciated. Now go die in a fire why dontcha. 

 

On our way after killing raid members who were chickenshit PKers

Sailing in formation looking for targets

Big Badda Boom

It took a little while to find targets. Sailing in our winged formation – the 5 clippers like an arrow in front of the cutters, takes time and coordination. None of us had ever worked together before and many people have only sailed their ships to do solo trade runs. In a fleet you have to perform as a team and follow explicit directions.

Killset and others man the cannons

The Fleet Commander was calling out directions to scouts (clippers) and waypoints for the gunships (cutters). It took about 15 minutes before we encountered our first enemy ship, a poor lone clipper.  I knew we’d kill him and take their trade pack.  Reds do that to us on a daily basis.  It wasn’t until the command went out to start firing cannons that I realized we were going to sink all ships regardless of size. 

My first reaction was “Wait…what… we’re going to destroy his ship??” Ouch! Having your ship destroyed is such a kick in the nuts.  Poor clipper splintered in a matter of seconds. I suppose all is fair in war. It’s not like reds don’t do the same to us.  We were attacked by a large ship and clipper loaded with reds during our guild fishing event. Not much you can do to fight back wearing a fishing rod and sitting in a rowboat. 

The area became more target rich as we moved deeper into contested waters. I have to admit being flustered during the first encounter. I have a fear of heights that persists in games. Being near the edge on a cutter is scary on its own. Combine that with collision detection/body bumping from a couple dozen people squeezed on board and lag, moving at all feels very precarious to me.  There’s an instant of true fear my intellect can’t control. 

The cutters are intentionally separated at this point having been sent to different waypoints.  Our ship is positioning itself to fire on a clipper containing several enemy players. I always insist on pulling my weight so I move to the ship’s bow and try to help get the ship into combat which prevenst the owner from de-spawning it.  The jostling up front is a scary thing but as ranged DPS, I’m able to target and help destroy the ship since the cutter maneuvers to slowly to align it for cannon fire. 

WHEW!  I didn’t have to stay at the bow very long.  As soon as the ship went pop, I went back to the middle of the deck. I watched the retrieval team swim around collecting the scattered trade packs. Once everyone was back onboard, we proceeded to the next location.

Go Big or Go Home 

I didn’t like fighting at the edge of the ship.  *Shudder* I made a decision to go big or go home.  Even though I only consider myself to be an average PVP player, I changed my raid designation from defender to attacker.  Standing on the edge casting spells wasn’t going to work for me. 

We’re on the move again with an enemy location identified. We arrive and align for cannon fire. Several reds are on board and there are trade packs. We get closer and the FC tells attackers to get ready. I exchange my plate boots for swimming fins.  I hear GO and jump off the cutter.

Launching my glider, I'm first in the air flying toward the enemy target. Uh, this might hurt landing first and alone but there’s no turning back now. I hear Killset encouraging my insanity on TeamSpeak shouting, “Go Aly, go!”  I float down into the center of the reds. I do AOE stun followed by AOE DPS. Other friendlies land alongside.  We dispatch the reds with ease. SCORE!! The surge of adrenaline when facing off against other players has no equal in gameplay. 

Docked at Crescent Throne to unload our first wave of booty

Searching for more targets - 2nd from left is me wearing my swimfins

Definitely Successful 

The rest of the evening progresses in the same fashion.  During the 2.5 hour event we kill lots of ships, several in multi-ship battles and ran into a recognized Twitch streamer named Pace22, known for his privateering antics.  We join efforts in an attempt to maneuver a Lutesong Junk out into contested waters but they’re able to slip by. I know they were shitting a brick during the attempt that lasted for several minutes and was very close to tipping them over. 

 

Watching the fleet's attempts to box in the Lutesong Junk

Trying to block one of its escape routes

We're up against a cliff but our weight starts to submerge the Lutesong

Hope we do it Again

It was definitely a successful event. The tally of enemy ships destroyed when I left was 6 fishing boats, 4 cutters, 16 clippers and lots of red corpses.  We lost no ships and had no deaths until the last yolo fight, where we were warned going in it would likely result in our deaths. It was as the end of the event - actually past the time allotted.  We’d lost half the fleet and had condensed down to one raid on a single cutter when a group of fishing boats with clippers was spotted. 

The FC asked if we wanted to give it a try and those of us still there said yes.  We destroyed their ships and went FFA in the water. Dozens of players everywhere fighting any and all takers.  Like an idiot, overly excited, I got out ahead of our pack trying to slow fleeing players.  Brokenwind and Killset nearby when we got swarmed. Yeah, this is gonna hurt. There’s too much chaos going on for anyone to resurrect me before the re-spawn timer expires. The game resurrects me in Crescent Throne which is leagues away. I call it quits for the night. 

I would definitely do that again and hope it becomes a regularly scheduled event. I see the attraction. I felt the lure of naval combat and understand why many players have made this their end game. It’s exciting, challenging and ever changing. Please sir, I want some more.

 

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ArcheAge: Op-Ed - They were not prepared

Obviously, everything in this post is my personal opinion based on what I’ve experienced firsthand and have seen with my own eyes or have read about on the official forums and Reddit.

Oh Trion, you were not prepared. I think the interest in the Trion published version of ArcheAge greatly outweighed their expectations.  Not even the thousands of players who paid $150 dollars to be in the Alpha gave them a sense of the masses waiting in the wings.  The hype train gathered steam very quickly, going from zero to Mock 5 in a flash.

Players have already lived through the debacle of QueueAge which lasted the entirety of head start through the first few weeks of release. This was rapidly followed by LagAge, CrashAge and DailyMainteanceAge. It’s been a very rocky start for an extremely promising sandbox MMO.  AA absolutely has the potential and legs to be Fantasy EVE Online but with bigger numbers.  And while EVE’s subscription base might not impress some, it has managed to remain a subscription MMO for years where many newer games have failed. Clearly CCP/EVE is doing something right. *Double snap*

Dont Let this Happen to You

Unfortunately, Trion’s AA player base has slammed into their world en masse and they are not prepared to handle the onslaught – not in infrastructure or personnel.  I hope Chris Roberts is taking notes because he’s generating a quantum leap in hyped players foaming at the mouth to take a bite out Star Citizen when it releases. His crowdfunded scifi MMO + RPG has surpassed 5.5 million dollars in funding. If SC has ¼ the problems of the NA AA launch… I don’t even want to think about it.  The internet will go super nova, obliterating life as we know it. 

A Peak at some of the Bigger AA Issues

• Ban the fuckers!
• Additional land expansion is pointless with current hacks
• Community Manager update on common issues and complaints

ArcheAge - Stop the Madness

I’ve been working on a variety of goals since my last post.  First and foremost was to start saving gold again.  After obtaining a level 50 plate set via questing, I started the expensive process of building up a cloth set.  This is not a trivial effort, as each tier builds on the previous one.  This means to have a level 50 crafted armor set, you have to start at T1 for each piece and slowly upgrade/craft the next tier.

I opted to have my cloth set as crafted gear because the crafted versions provide more upgrade options.  The quest set can only be upgraded via socketing lunagems or using upgrade scrolls, whereas crafted gear goes 4 tiers beyond that point AND can be socketed with enhancements and upgraded with scrolls.

Ouch, that hurts!

Crafting a full cloth set up to T4 bankrupted me again.  T9, Delphinad, is the highest tier. When it was all said and done, I only had 8 silver to my name.  This wasn’t the worst thing that could happen. I keep a healthy surplus of produce to craft into Trade Packs, which thus far, has been my primary income stream.  At a minimum, I turn in 6 packs per day, which yields 42+ gold. If I’m in the mood, I can turn in 9 without blinking an eye about having the components. 

Some days I also help others transport their trade packs since I’m one of the only two people so far with a Farm Cart and am on regularly.  It’s fun and I don’t mind helping. Lots of laughs and foolishness along the way. On those days, I only get in two runs for myself then I’m off to tend my farms and feed livestock.

Another significant expense is socketing your gear with Lunagems.  These don’t come cheap.  My Bright Future’s set, which is roughly equivalent to crafted T5.5, has 21 slots available + 3 on my staff.  Applying them also has a random chance of failing, causing you to lose the Luna you were attempting to socket.  That means 24 Lunagems is the minimum I need. I can only afford to socket “blue” quality at the moment but even that will run 216 gold on the LOW SIDE. I have to balance the cost of that with getting the components for my Conqueror’s cloth set (T5 ) which will set me back 350 gold – if I’m lucky.

550+ gold to socket the plate set plus craft the T4 cloth set, is a lot of money.  To put it in perspective, I could purchase a 24x24 Farm/Cottage sized property from someone for a similar amount. And you know how important property is in AA. Someone put together a spreadsheet of the various crafted gear sets and the materials needs.  You can check out the cloth progression here to see what I'm up against.  Note that the Moonlight component goes from roughly 6G each (dust) to 10G each (Shard) to 15g+ each (Crystal). Yeah, it's brutal. Trying to accumulate this much gold so quickly was starting to feel stressful and not exactly fun.

ArcheAge: Guild Fishing Event

Wearing Bright Futures lvl 50 Set

On Saturday, The Immortal Imperial Legion had its first formal social event. We gathered up and went sports fishing in ArcheAge. There are two types of fishing that can be done in AA. Basic fishing can be done from any body of water using a fishing pole and bait.  You can even set it to auto-cast and just stand there collecting fish.  Common uses for basic fishing are XP gain and crafting resources.

Sports fishing requires interactive participation.  In addition to a fishing rod, you also need lures and chum.  The game automatically applies lures to the rod for as long as you have them in your inventory.  Chum is chucked into a school of fish to attract them.  You can purchase chum and lures from the Blue Salt President in Windshade if you’re playing for the West faction.

The quality of your rod + your fishing proficiency will determine how big a fish you can handle, which equates to how much damage you’ll be doing to the fish in order to kill it – catch it.  Fish caught in open waters with sports fishing can fetch a good price. At the docks of any port, you can using the fishing scale to sell your fish or mount it to hang in your house.

Guild Shenanigans

Our small but boisterous group gathered in Feuille Sound and went out in multiple boats looking for schools of fish. This was my first time fishing in the open waters having only tried basic fishing in Alpha. Fannel and Brokenwind where already out searching when I arrived. I hopped in my clipper and sailed straight west.  A few seconds after setting sail I saw a large group of seagulls circling an area in the distance. I asked in chat if that was a visual indicator for a school of fish and they replied yes.  Sahweet, I’d found a school of Bluefin Tuna.

The raid converged on my location.  Brokenwind handed out bamboo fishing rods and we were off to the races.  At first, I had no idea what I was doing.  I’d snag a fish.  I’d wrestle with it for a few then it would get away from me.  Boo!! It wasn’t until after the fact, that I realized my resolution is set so high and my interface is reduced to 80% (to aid in blocking gold spam) that I couldn’t really see the buffs on the fish in order to apply the corresponding fishing pole maneuvers like pull left, right, hold your ground, etc.

The three serious contenders in the first group who joined the event were Weegee, Fannel and Brokenwind.  They each hooked fish regularly and battled them for quite a while.  Weegee, Brokyn and I were fishing off of my clipper.  Fannel had ditched his clipper in favor of a rowboat.  Brokenwind was alone on his clipper – I think.  Others joined over the course of the next couple of hours and there was a lot of shuffling around.

Weegee was the first to catch a fish.  Woot!  After retrieving it he had to be taken ashore to put it down since it becomes a pack on your back once get it out of the water.  Brokenwind caught one next and his was bigger than Weegee’s, igniting a race between these two.

Multiple rowboats were out, guild members kept trickling in to participate and fun was being had by all.  Jokes and lots of teasing banter.  Brokenwind was fishing directly in the water and everyone was having a good time.

Party Poopers

Clearly, we were having so much fun we’d forgotten what game we were playing.  We didn’t have anything of value so weren’t being particularly aware of our surroundings.  Fannel saw a fishing boat coming near and mentioned it.  However, not having anything of value we didn’t expect anything to come of it.  But the fishing boat kept coming and without preamble, crashed through our circle of clippers and rowboats.  A clipper full of red named players came out from behind the larger ship. Aww shit, in come the party poopers.

Reds were gliding and dropping into the water around us. I was certain we were all going to die. Most people hadn’t remembered to swap back to weapons. I could see their fishing rods on their backs as they tried to escape.  I immediately de-spawned my ship, dropping Weegee, Brokyn and I into the icy waters.  Poor Weegee didn’t stand a chance at level 20-something.  I tried my usual – stun those around me and dive.  Unfortunately, that doesn’t stop the ping-ping of arrows in my back. I’m dead. Our crumpled bodies appear at the nearest resurrection point.

Never Surrender

AA can be a dog-eat-dog world if you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time.  There was no monetary gain for them attacking us but that’s part-n-parcel of a PVP game.  We didn’t let it wreck our fun. We hopped back in our ships and started again.

A few more guild members were now in on the action.  We were out looking for yet another school of fishing, having exhausted our previous location.  Fannel was now amongst those who’d caught a Bluefin.  Brokenwind was on his second and Weegee was determined not to let Brokenwind win the event.

I was alone on my clipper when I heard Fannel talking about another clipper being near him.  Ever the pot-stirrer, he decides to pretend he’s going to attack them.  He sails close, I think he boards them or says hi or something then leaves.  A little while later I see the clipper sailing toward me. They come along side and suddenly, cannon fire is being lobbed in my direction. WTF!  There’s three of them on their ship and just me.

I tell people in voice chat that I’m under attack.  I was probably talking VERY LOUD. *LOL* I start evasive maneuvers in an attempt to get out of range and change position.  That’s right, I played Pirates of the Burning Sea for a hot minute.  I know to get perpendicular to your ship so you can’t fire and since you have cannons, you don’t have a harpoon.  We circle each other while the nubcakes keep firing. Me, they can kill if they can catch me, but to hell with them downing my ship.

Brokenwind responds he’s racing in my direction. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a TIIL crest on the sails of ship. Strength in numbers - once the ship is close enough I jump in the water and attempt to de-spawn my ship and join the other TIIL vessel.  No can do! It’s under attack so can’t be de-spawned. I race back to my ship and get it moving again.

The other TIIL ship engages aggressively causing the nubcakes to change targets. I de-spawn my ship and sprint swim to them. I board and see Wolfie is captaining so perhaps Brokenwind jumped into Wofie’s or whatever the hell is going on but the fools with the cannons are still at it.

All’s Fair in Love and Gank

The ship we’re on has a harpoon instead of cannons.  We harpoon them and Brokenwind jumps in the water to attack.  I cast attacks from the deck and watch Broken’s health.  He moves out of healing range. I yell for him to kite them toward us but he’s getting low.  I jump into the water to stun and get off a quick heal.  Next thing I know I’m trapped/stuck under the hull of the ship with my oxygen fading quickly. I’m scrambling and panicking, trying everything I can to get unstuck before I start to suffocate.

GRR!! I double tap as if attempting to launch a glider. That somehow frees me from the geometry. I swim down and sideways to get out from under the hull. Panting, I scramble back on board.  Our three would-be assailants are dead. Fucking scrubs. Brokenwind killed them all singlehandedly.  We regroup and fish a bit more but people’s attention is starting to drift.  I volunteer to take Weegee’s latest catch to shore on my way to check my livestock.

Not on my Watch!

Shortly after landing in Gwen Pumpkin Garden a group of reds come sauntering through.  This is a “safe” area for us.  They can’t attack us unless we attack them but screw that shit.  It’s bad enough they camp us at their docks and we don’t do much of the same.  I’ll be damned before I watch them walk our streets unaccosted.

I ask for guild members to come fight. Fannel and Brokyn portal in.  We have three to their five.  The first attack isn’t coordinated enough. We kill one of them but we die in return.  The second attack goes much better. Killset has joined us. We kill each of them but still lose Fannel in the exchange.  They resurrect and come back.  We murder their arrogant asses again. They decide it’s best to go elsewhere.

There are no Fair Fights in War

Later that day, I’m out doing my level 50 starter gear quests in Karkasse Ridgelands.  I’m careful as I go.  I find a place where there’s a large mountain at my back.  To come at me sideways you have to make it through a cluster of mobs.  Unless you come in using stealth, you’ll pull aggro, alerting me to your arrival.  And even stealthed, we’re gonna do the aggro dance when you get near me because I’m squeezed in between mobs.  You might kill me but you’re just as likely to die.

I go about the slow process of collecting 12 skulls while fighting in a small corner. I watch my surroundings and I see a red clearing his way in my direction.  Now – he might not have had killing me on his mind but I can’t be sure of that.  I watch him die to mobs twice because the Orcs are clustered close and hit hard. Screw it. I decide he’s encroaching and I’m not waiting to see what’s going to happen.  That shit on the water while we were out having our little guild event reminded me of the first strike rules from EVE Online.  Pew-pew first and ask later.

I watch him try to figure out how to attack the mobs with them all being so close. I’m thinking, “You should have come from the other side dumb ass.  And now it’s time for you to die.” I launch Ollo’s Hammer knocking him to the ground. I combo that with Crippling Mire to slow him and do extra damage.  When he hops back up he moves sideways trying to figure out where the damage is coming from.  Oops, now you have aggro from the mob near you. I shoot him in the face with a few Mana Stars while the big ass Orc starts pounding on him.  Little furry creature’s health is getting low. I slowly drain the rest of his life. My bad, you’re dead. Ktnxbai.  I collect the rest of my skulls and turn in my quest.

Great End to a Fun Weekend

The first ever guild event was a hit.  Even after the initial group of us bailed, others came on and went fishing on their own or in pairs trying to beat Brokenwind’s catch.  It was not to be.  At the end of the evening Broken still had the largest catch of the day.

After the fishing event, I finished 2 parts of the level 50 starter gear on Saturday and completed the remainder unmolested on Sunday.  It’s nice to be in a full set of level 50 armor and weapons!  I’m spending gold to insert lunagems into the available slots to buff magic defense, healing and magic damage.  Wow, the cost of these enhancements HURT.  However, it’s worth the expense. I’ll be wearing this set until I can get a level 50 set of cloth crafted and beyond.  Just getting a cloth set to Conqueror’s is bankrupting me.  This is going to take time which makes investing in the plate set worthwhile.

 

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ArcheAge PSA: Property Buyers Beware

ArcheAge is considered a sandbox MMO and with that comes the freedom to come off the PVE questing rails to do other things in the name of character progression, which includes becoming a pirate or scam artist.  For the former to be successful there must be gullible players in the form of sheep.

The dominant scam being run right now on new and inexperienced players is duping them out of their gold during scam property sales.  Land is a finite and much coveted resource in ArcheAge.  The lack there of is causing some people to act without caution in their attempts to claim a piece of the pie.

AA provides two safe and fool-proof methods for players to participate in land brokering.  The easiest method is to interact with your property information icon and type in the name of the person you want to sell the property to and the sale amount.  That specific person only can then interact with the same icon to purchase the property for that amount.  No fuss, no muss – safe sale to a specific person.

The second mechanic requires purchasing a Market Place item (cash shop) called an ‘Appraisal Certificate’.  The current CS price is 300 gems.  However, don’t forget that you can have another player purchase the item on your behalf in exchange for in-game gold.  This transaction would happen safely via the Trade window.

ArcheAge: Boom 50

Boom, my main character is level 50 and I'm among the last to hit 50 in our guild.  There are a few stragglers behind me.  However, most people that started playing with us during head-start are already at max level.

Gotta Cut it Loose

Yesterday I decided to give up my 8x8 farm to another guild member and use the returned farm design to craft a farmer’s workstation.  First and foremost, I was starting to feel the grind of managing 4 different properties spread across 3 different zones. 

Properties cost money in the form of weekly tax payments. If I am going to pay the bill, I want each location to pay its way and doing so requires a considerable amount of oversight.  While I really enjoy farming, I don’t want it to be the only thing I have time and labor to do.

Secondly, the farm cart I recently crafted at considerable expense and effort, moves slower than a donkey unless you use Eco-Friendly Fuel.  An average trade run from my properties require 4 injections of Eco Fuel which is roughly 4.75G or more per trip, if purchased from the Auction House. With a Farmer’s Workstation, I can produce my own fuel amongst other things I need.  Giving up my smallest property in order to have a Farmer’s Workstation lessens my farm management load and makes me self-sufficient in other aspects. Win! 

Doing the PVE Content

As a result of my heavy investment in farming and establishing my character’s “world”, my XP level always outpaced my ability to actually do PVE content at the intended level.  Consequently, I hit 50 but only made it through the level 30ish PVE content. A side affect of this, is that I'm walking around in level 24 gear.  Not to worry.  I can quickly close the gear gap using quests in Karkasse Ridgelands and Hasla that when completed,provide a full set of level 50 starter armor and weapons.

In preparing to do more questing and crafting in my main profession, I'll start planting longer gestation produce and doing trade packs using my backlog of raw materials.  This will save time and  free up a lot of labor.

Crafting

I’ve had a hard time narrowing down which professions I want to pursue in earnest.  When I looked at how I’d spent my labor thus far, commerce, husbandry and tailoring (from processing fabrics) are the highest, followed by metalwork and carpentry.  Commerce doesn’t yield any highly coveted bonuses for maxing that profession so I won’t use it as one of the two I can progress to max.  I will definitely go with tailoring and husbandry because I do them a lot and will benefit from the bonuses provided.

I'm likely to continue dabbling in carpentry for furniture and wood based weapons. I'd really like to do cooking.  I pick cooking in every MMO that has it.  Unfortunately, I'm disappointed in cooking thus far in AA.  

Given the breadth of produce being farmed in AA, I'm shocked by the limited number of cooking recipes.  We don’t even have recipes that use seafood in a game that has fishing!!??!!  Consequently, leveling cooking feels like a grind because you have to create the same stuff ad nauseam. Even though what you’re creating is useful, if feels like a snoozefest.

PVP Incoming

Once I have level 50 gear, I will use the PVE in the lower zones to level up other skills trees.  In AA you can train all skill trees and consequently, play all classes on the same character.  I don’t plan on taking it to that extreme.  However, I do want my original Paladin build on this character which means leveling the Battlerage tree and I may want Auramancy.  Even though I’m not partial to it at all, Auramancy does have a couple of good situational skills. 

Questing through the zones I missed means I’ll be in PVP areas, some of which are PVP all the time.  We’ll see how that goes. If it’s too annoying I can advance other skill trees via crafting. 

There are two unavoidable PVP zones if you want the best end game weapons and accessories.  Doing the war event in Halcyona and farming tokens in Hasla, are necessary evils if you are going to do any sort of PVP – ever.  Even if your version of PVP is simply protecting yourself and/or others during cross continental trade runs or sailing on the open seas.  Be prepared to get owned most of the time if you don’t have end-game quality weapons and gear.  People in our guild farm these areas regularly so I won't be out there alone.

 

The Beats

Farming, daily trade runs, working on tailoring and getting into level 50 gear is what I’ll be focused on the next few weeks.  I’m actually looking forward to the adrenaline rush of doing the Halcyona event with guild members after I’m out of my scrub stuff.  I’m probably going to give 5v5 PVP arenas a run at the point too.

Chilling up high in Karkasse Ridgelands to avoid gank squads

 

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ArcheAge: Ding, Level 48

Has it really only been 17 days since the crazy head-start land rush and kick off of QueueAge rage? The time has passed in a blink.  And yet, here I sit at level 48. Yawza!

Similar to my experience leveling in Alpha, my infatuation with farming and commerce level me faster than I can quest in any zone.  I did see more – do more, in the lower quest areas than I’d done previously which was by design.  Questing areas that I enjoyed, I completed considerably more content than before by doing quests even though they were gray to me.  Places I didn’t care for, White Arden I’m looking at you again, I skipped for the second time.

Sitting at 48, I’ve already bypassed in level the vast majority of the PVP enable questing areas too.  I have quested in Halcyona.  In fact, I completed most of the quests there excepting annoying ones.  It was peace time whenever I was running around the zone which meant being ganked wasn’t an option.

I have since had guild members provide me with portals into all the other PVP zones. I will take a look around, explore and do some of the available PVE content even though I don’t need the XP reward.  Poking my head in I saw two zones whose theme suits my preferences so am likely to spend more time there and less time in the murky burned out zones like Cinderstone Moor.

Questing wise, it’s also time to start doing the war in Hasla for tokens to craft end game weapons and accessories.  I’ll also do the quest chains in Karkasse Ridgelands for the purple armor set but I’m undecided if I want it as plate or cloth at the moment.  Right now I’m leaning toward getting plate from Karkasse because I also want a Stonecloth set which has to be crafted. 

 

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