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
The Rest of the Story
Having survived the previous "Ages", I’m now in the midst of a frothing community playing SpamAge, BotAge and HackAge. It’s unfortunate and disconcerting if you’re a legit player trying to enjoy the game. Especially a game that is at its core about controlling territory. Be it temporary by restricting access to vital ports via naval combat or permanent by amassing property. It’s hard to compete when the game is being hacked to death by illegal behavior and Trion has debacle after debacle in managing the issues. Mass bans have ensnared innocent players. Miscommunication between policy makers and customer support seem to have let some hackers get away with murder. All of this is compounded by what appears to be a lack of Trion staff to manage the volume of issues and offenders.
LX Games is also accountable for the state of the game. It’s their code, their systems that are seemingly easy to infiltrate, leaving legit players, especially paying customers, ass out. Let’s not forget many of the systems that should have been in place as common sense these days in any MMO were lacking such as limits on how much text can be entered in chat, how quickly you can spam chat and that spammers can actually mask their name to avoid being blocked. Seriously WTF XL Games!!?!! This is all exacerbated by the slow turnaround time in responding with fixes for Trion to apply. It’s like a laundry list of “shoes untied sun in your eyes faux pas parties” on a weekly basis. Twitch streamers showing off using hacks and yet they still have accounts, flies in the face of all reasonable excuses. Sure they’re fixing it but is SHOULD NOT BE!
Honest players won’t stick with competitive games that are hack havens. There’s no point. I’ve worked so hard for what I have and feel a real sense of accomplishment for having achieved it. However, it is soured by seeing the game’s economy and acquirable land put into a choke hold by players who are cheating. I’ve seen gold spam before. I’ve played MMOs where the amount of people buying gold was soup du jour. However, I have never witnessed them take such obvious control over game play in any AAA MMO, which is because this is a sandbox game. Yeah, got it. Memo noted. However, it’s rather mindboggling that XL Games’ implementation is so poor for such a lovely and compelling game. For me much of it falls into have you never played a MMO before??!??
I'm Still having Fun!
I have not given up on AA. I’m still among the lucky players who have land and know enough about the game to still progress and reach my goals. However, the bickering and fighting amongst players that are really angry and rightfully so, seeps into the general atmosphere of the community as a whole, causing a ricochet effect of the pent of hostility, which is often unleashed on each other.
I feel confident that Trion and XL Games will eventually get things under control. I think players having the option of a traditional subscription or paying for a sub with in-game gold via APEX or plain ole F2P will keep new players testing the waters. I don’t believe the numbers will take a big dive anytime soon. I’m not convinced they’ll experience a mass exodus for the next WOW expansion either. I think it’s a smaller overlap in target audience than the average new fantasy MMO on the block. I for one, am still dug in like a tick.
Next time we return to happy posts as I do a part II to my "ArcheAge Getting Started Guide".
Glad I got out when I did. Queueage was enough to wear down my enthusiasm for a new title that was kinda meh to me in OB. I can only imagine the rage for folks who genuinely like and enjoy the game.
I wonder if a bunch of the hacks etc were mitigated in patches yet to be implemented. If the Korean version has the same issues, there are some huge issues indeed.
Posted by: Sarzan | October 14, 2014 at 09:38 AM
I love the blog btw. Also I dont think they did so terrible. If they would of had more servers you would beg them to take them off later on so it is just something they have to do.
Posted by: Nekroz | October 14, 2014 at 10:54 AM
Based on heresay, the Asia market behaves a bit differently than us NA and EU heathens. They aren't facing the hack and bot issues. However, the Russian servers are supposedly a cesspool in this regard but who knows.
Posted by: Alysianah aka Saylah | October 14, 2014 at 10:58 AM
I don't think it's acceptable that:
1. Headstart people were in 6 hour queues when the number of those players was a known quantity
2. Servers like Kyrios with 8+ hour queues should have been locked on release day to avoid it getting worse. GW2 had to do this. Trion didn't respond fast enough making the first week on the top pop servers a nightmare.
The hack and botting issues can be laid at XL Games' feet for sure but it seems Trion is understaffed and drops the ball too making things just a bit worse
That said, I still LOVE the game. And I still believe in Trion as a publisher, having been a head-start participant and subscriber of Rift.
And thanks for the compliment :-)
Posted by: Alysianah aka Saylah | October 14, 2014 at 11:02 AM
Oh man... All I can say is go back and read prior posts on Queueage. Quite simply, systems were not in place that are common in most all modern mmos to handle queues, afk booting etc and either poor sever metrics or gross incompetence at knowing populations over time.
I share their concerns of opening too many but basing what is appropriate off unreliable data created from underdevolped systems is just plain negligent.
Posted by: Sarzan | October 14, 2014 at 03:57 PM