Abandoning ArcheAge

So it’s now been, I think 3 weeks since I’ve been in ArcheAge and I haven’t really missed it. I was playing rather intensely and then took a break when the family was up and staying at our house and then, only logged in once more and haven’t been back.

There are a lot of mechanics to draw me back but they just didn’t work any more. I had a few farms and farmhouse over down in Hellswamp which often served as the staging point for my trade runs as well as just random sheep tending and killing to make money. I was slowly earning and upgrading my character through this which was nice.

After the time away though it just all seemed a bit more meaningless. I was always a bit behind the curve of progression of the hardcore and this put it even more behind. During that time there were also a few large exploit situations, and before really, but this time let me think it over and catching up to that was not something I wanted to do any more. It just felt I was being punished for being a legitimate player, just a sucker watching others profit from it and getting no, or rather minimal repercussions.

Of course these these recent problems and exploits also had the result of inflating the economy by a reasonable margin. There was a lot more money coming in from more farm carts, trade ships and fishing boats. More money from apex exploiting, botting, exploiting lock boxes and of course from the regrade duping. Coming  back for that quick look major items and upgrades I were saving up for were now far more expensive and getting further out of reach. Basic materials for crafting went up a lot as well. I even heard of apex now going up to around 400gold. That’s crazy considering the gold I had. And was earning.

I guess I just became even more dissaluisioned with the game than what I was before and I no longer had those daily hooks keeping me playing. I do miss the random fun we were having with the open PvP. Hasla was a lot of fun because we were more just going around killing everyone rather than worrying about tokens. Piracy on open waters was amazing as was contesting the area of fredich Isle.

Of course aurora could have renewed my interest but then, with the rather poor mechanics around castle singing and the fact it  happens while I’m at work on freekin Monday because fuck anyone night in America, it ended up a bust as well. Originally there should have been some mechanics that needed constant harvesting on aurora in order to create siege engines and maintain your castle as well as certain other things and even that was ruined by a greedy cash shop. Now aurora is mostly vacant except rare siege times, and those grinding mobs to get aurora items that have a chance of 1 in a bazillion to drop. It could have been so much more.

It seems like I’ve said this about a lot of recent releases but ArcheAge had potential. A lot in fact and a potential that really could have invigorated the genre due to providing something  different than the base themepark experience. It could have been a long term, or even permanent home for those sandbox fans lost and floating around. It could have been a great experience but instead we have a game crippled by bad development, terrible management, and an awful microtransaction system.

I don’t see this game ever improving either, at least not enough to ever be worth coming back to. There have just been so many issues for so long and due to the open world environment and sandbox it is something that will never be fixed. It has pissed people off enough too that they’ll never look back and never forgive, especially those that wasted money on it.

Of course now that it is over for me I wonder where the game will end up. The community was abandoning this good ship of fail even before me and I’ve heard about many, even high profile guilds abandoning it too. How long can it last like that for… Hmm,  I guess as long as the whales stick around for and that probably won’t be for much longer.

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