ArcheAge Closed Beta Starts July 17

http://www.archeagegame.com/en/news/2014/07/archeage-closed-beta-starts-july-17/

Adventurers,

The beginning of ArcheAge’s next test phase is nearly here! We are proud to announce that Closed Beta will commence next week with our first event, A Brighter Age.

Closed Beta Events will be three to five days in duration and your progress will persist between each event. Closed Beta Event 1 (CBE1) will run from Thursday, July 17 (10:00 AM PDT) to Monday, July 21 (10:00 AM PDT). Much like ArcheAge’s Alpha, the level cap will be 50 and we encourage you to share your ArcheAge adventure with the world via video, screenshots, or livestream as there will be no non-disclosure agreement (NDA)!

Eager to explore and provide feedback on the sandbox world of Erenor before ArcheAge’s launch later this year? Sign up for a chance to be invited or guarantee your access to ALL Closed Beta Events by becoming an ArcheAge Founder. Invites and installation steps will be sent via email before each event. Closed Beta forums will be opened for testers to share their experiences, meet other players, and discuss Closed Beta feedback with the ArcheAge community.

Have more questions about Closed Beta and beyond? Check out the ArcheAge FAQ!

Discuss this article on the forums.

Anyone planning to play East side during the beta(s)?  (I've tried both and very much prefer East in Alpha -- better travel, better harvesting, and of course cat people!)  Let me know and we can hook up.

i prefer east as well

Ya I will be rolling on the East. It's my preferred faction and I'll be going there for sure on live.

We should all try and meet up that weekend if everyone is up for it. Added bonus of that will allow me to sufficiently test the family system and break all the things, plus give anyone who is still finding their feet a good chance at sharing farming resources as I imagine land is going to be snapped up like crazy.

I'm going west, but I'm sure we will run into each other.

I have no clue which side I'm on lol.  I just like the furry people more because I like pretending I'm a Thundercat. 

I do hope as the beta continues that they will give passes out to existing alpha/beta players to invite other people into the testing process.

I have been experiencing some graphical issues with 1.2 on the Omega server.  I had to disable directx11 in order to fix most of them.  The polish in the starter zones is incredible compared to what it was when I first joined in a month ago. 

@Bentmer -- the furry people are on the East side :)

I will also be rolling East -- I like the races better and the West seems too crowded.

I signed up for the Beta a very long time ago and noticed they have not bothered to send me a beta invite so I hope in the future they send me one because I'm curious if my computer can run this game. These days I tend to mostly play Free to Play games because I'm not sure if my PC can run the game or not.

Got to play the beta this past weekend.  Not very impressed with the Labor points model.  Not receiving loot but bags you have to use Labor points to open is insane.  Harvesting, crafting, building, opening quest items and your actual mob loot drops requires labor points. 

Now understand under the f2p model you only gain 5 labor points every 5 minutes online and ZERO while offline.  Simply harvesting an iron node costs 10 pts.  If you harvest too much you might be actually gated and forced to stand around during your questing as certain quests require the use of labor points to progress.

Patron status (or paid status) is a bit better by offering offline point gain but again you will end up gated for a lot of stuff....in most cases buying labor points (real money) off the store will become a strong option.

All in all I enjoyed parts of the game and hope they improve on the Labor points system, as it is currently a huge strike against the game.

@Abusabus

That's really bad then if they're going that route. I doubt this game will last very long over here in North America with a model like that they're planning to use. If they have an auto log off then I seriously doubt the game will catch on over here.

I did not find myself running out of points at any time. I like to gather and still found myself with plenty points.

I don't know, I've never had an issue being short of LP and I've been on a gathering/crafting rampage.... and I hate crafting lol. It all comes down to resource management.Be smart with what you have and you should never run into an issue.

One thing I think people don't realize is that this is a game that isn't going to just hand stuff to you =p

Not sure how you guys/gals (@Izzy and @Soren) play the game....so can't comment on how you were able to avoid the Labor issues that a large portion of the other testers ran into.

Btw what game "just hand stuff to you"?  Most people aren't asking for that, I realize the undertaking of building up and then using the resources you can find, plus having to traverse both continents in efforts to sell your goods without getting wrecked by other players out to steal your hard work.  Heck...that's half the reason I'm interested in this game.  Sandbox play appeals to me greatly.

However, they are gating everything behind one resource pool.....everything.  Leveling, crafting, gathering, looting, building, questing and even reporting BOTS (reporting a potential botter requires 25 labor points each time) are all gated behind the same resource pool. 

On the plus side, they have stated they (TRION) are discussing this with XLGAMES (actual people who make changes to the game) "we’re reviewing a number of systems with XLGAMES, including use of labor while you’re hunting and looting, labor regeneration rates for online and offline players, and the availability of Archeum"

Cuz trust me...the chat and forums were on fire over these issues (mostly because they cut the regeneration rates in half from the previous Alpha to Beta versions).

We'll have to wait and see how they adjust this.

I've followed the Alpha forums for a couple of months now and I wouldn't say that this issue has been that much of a hot button topic there.  Not to mention the fact that the people who posts on those forums are generally a very small but vocal minority who tend to overexaggerate things slightly.  If you spend a few hours reading those forums, you would think the game was broken beyond repair lol.

Besides my own personal experience, this game has been live for a fairly long time now in other regions and it's thrived with this same system in place.  I'm not saying that it might not be a problem in the future but the amount of data that was compiled from a weekend of closed beta play is not really significant enough to ignore the much more significant data available from it's couple of years of running live in Korea.

Again, I'm not disagreeing with you that it might possibly be a problem.  But in my opinion, it is way too early to make any assumptions from the small sample size of game play available to the beta users.

Ahh not the Alpha forums (on alpha servers regen is doubled) but the beta forums is where the uproar is/was. 

haha and yes, the forums are usually where the squeaky wheels go to be heard....but remember, the squeaky wheel gets the grease! 

Perhaps that is the difference I'm seeing.  Those testing at doubled rates on Alpha severs (will be halved at live...so far) aren't running into labor issues and will be Patron status users so they are already getting more labor points every 5 minutes plus actual offline labor regen.  Where on the beta servers a lot of these testers are using f2p beta keys, where they are playing at half the alpha labor regen plus even less due to being a f2p account with no offline regen.  That's a huge difference in labor point pools.

Time for some maths!

EDIT: ok after doing the maths it's obvious why there are differences...lets do the math!

Patron (paying) account gets 10 labor points (LP) every 5 minutes online and 5 LP every 5m while offline.

F2P (free) accounts get 5 LP every 5 minutes online and has no offline LP regen.

Say you play a good night of gaming at 5 hrs.  The Patron account would gain 600 LP, the f2p account would gain 300 LP.

Then they log off for the night.  The F2P account gains nothing being offline for 19 hours.  The Patron account would gain 1140 LP while offline.

So in a 24hr period with 5 hours online the Patron account gains 1740 LP vs the F2P gaining 300 LP.

This is the difference I believe I'm (and a lot of beta testers) seeing against what others are seeing.  Plus remember, the LP regen values on the Alpha test servers are doubled and will not be that high on live servers (so far).

On the plus side, they have stated they (TRION) are discussing this with XLGAMES (actual people who make changes to the game) "we’re reviewing a number of systems with XLGAMES, including use of labor while you’re hunting and looting, labor regeneration rates for online and offline players, and the availability of Archeum"

 

I can't remember where, maybe it was on a live stream or TS (might have been with the guild I was running with at the time) or something where there was a hint that they were trying to get XL to bring back Nui Tear's as a secondary form of currency...

 Anyway I only play about 2-3 hrs a night if I'm lucky so I hear ya there. Basically when I started beta I blew all my LP right of the bat so I started at 0. I still was able to keep pace and craft any gear that was required for a quest and open/identify what I had gathered. Big key I found was that I had to really pay attention to how much LP I had when I ran across farming nodes etc... There were a couple of times I ignored them (hard as all get out, since I want to collect all the things!). Still didn't have an issue with LP. Then again this could simply just be due to my play style. I ended CB1 at level 34.... mind a good chunk of that playtime was pirating or castle raiding with Tenacious and Havoc =p

@Soren

Doesn't everyone start at 0 LP on beta?  Plus you said you intentionally skipped mining which meant you DID have issues with LP as you couldn't gather what you wanted to.

Also were you playing on a f2p or patron account?  That alone is an large difference in LP (at least after the first day of playing).

But it's all good.  I enjoyed parts of the game and like the sandbox appeal of it.  I'll keep playing the betas to see what changes they make and hopefully positive improvements they implement.

I never saw it as an issue, more like a slight deviation in the overall plan and just another good reason to go do some more thievery =p

Yea I have a patron account so could be I'm not taking into account the offline gen.

And yes, the sandbox is what brought me here in the first place. Pirate all the things!

So what you're saying is that every person who goes the F2P option is going to be a pirate? ;0

I'd imagine so...there are severe limitations to what a f2p person can do.  Without buying a Patron status (subscription) a f2p account normally can't even access the Auction House, can't claim land, can't build houses..etc etc.

There is an ingame option called APEX:

APEX, short for ArcheAge Patron Exchange, is an in-game item that can be sold on ArcheAge’s Auction House or traded between players; it grants Credits when consumed by a character. The Credits granted by an APEX can then be spent on any Marketplace purchase, including the 30-day Patron Pass mentioned above. This allows industrious players in ArcheAge to let their gameplay pay for their Patron status without spending real money.

But to be fair, that just allows you to become a Patron....which then opens the doors on a lot of the sandbox parts of the game. But as it states, this can be bought via in game currency from other players.  So it's possible to be basically free to play, however that doesn't appear to be very easy (of course) at all and doesn't look like it will be a viable route for most people.

Time will tell.

For F2P folks who are willing to join a guild or a family with other players who are patrons, they can share the land and houses.  So land and housing is not a big issue unless you prefer to remain unguilded.  Even without the ability to sell on the AH (afaik F2P can buy all they want), a F2P player can make a LOT of cash turning in trade packs.  If you don't care to craft 'em, just kill an enemy trader and turn his pack in.  ;-)

The real issue for F2P folks is labor regen.  If you plan to be an avid crafter/trader, you'll be at a big disadvantage relative to patrons.  If you want to be a PVPer or pirate, it's not as big a factor.  Especially if you join a guild that's willing to pool resources (including labor) to achieve it's goals. 

Even as a patron I was quite strapped for labor during the first closed beta, but then the small trading guild I joined (8 members in CBE1) did the avid crafting / trading thing.  :)  We built a Clipper, a Thatched Farmhouse, an Aqua farm, a small house, 10 large farms and a bunch small farms.   Lots of mats gathering, quite a few trade runs, and or course taxes on all of that land, which can be paid with labor now.   During the next closed beta we plan to get a couple professions to 10k.  

Personally I'm fine with the labor system as is because it makes your choices a lot more meaningful.  Starting with "empty" labor at the launch of CBE1 forced me to skip picking some flowers for the first couple hours, but I got quite a few logs which we needed more urgently.   And most importantly it slows harvesting bots down a little (Aion, anyone?).

> Labor for leveling, looting, questing

I have a few screenshots that show my log from looting and normal quest turn-ins and no labor deduction is noted.   I'm quite sure I was able to "ding" with zero labor too.  

Crafting and trading quests, sure, you need labor for those but you get quite a lot of gold (100x as much from a normal quest in the early levels!) from those.  And, yes, you get bags for gear upgrades (dropped or quest rewards) and coin bags that need labor to open, but these are no barrier to leveling -- you're free to just let them sit in your bags unopened.  (Although you get XP as well as goodies when you open them, so it's labor well spent).  But the usual "kill mobs, pick up the loot they drop, turn in quests till you ding" leveling requires no labor afaik. 

» Edited on: 2014-07-26 07:38:30