New feature here at the blog (this very well might be the only time its used because that’s generally how well planning goes around here): Snap judgements will basically be a quick review of a title based on spending 30 minutes or so with it. Basically EG reviews but without all the lying about having actually played something extensively.
ArcheAge after 30 minutes: It’s a worst looking, more asian, more dumbed down, arrows-to-every-quest-objective-because-the-game-assumes-you’re-an-idiot, poor man’s version of Final Fantasy XIV MMO themepark. Oh and with the minor-leagues version of F2P that not only features a rather large cash-shop icon in your UI up at all times (that also looks like a demented clown, because fuck you), but the ‘fun’ feature of having to ID every single item you get by expanding labor points, which I quickly run out of but hey, I can always buy more in the cash shop!
Hardcore Casual 
While this is accurate for the first 30min, Archeage does start introducing it’s more unique elements a little bit later. This may have been a bad idea. Maybe a game should lead off with what makes it unique/interesting. But that’s the way Archeage chose to go.
So the first 30 min of Archeage is unusually misleading. I don’t know if you will actually like the more unique parts. I didn’t really find them compelling. But the first 30 min of Archeage isn’t representative of the game.
thats true..if my first minutes/hours of play introduce me to my boat and let me sail in the ocean and then introduce me into a complex crafting system then I would be much much more interested in the game…
But have do mindless fucking boring linear questing is very stupid..they better shot me.
Heh, reminds me of my look at Wizardry Online, though my timeline was a bit longer.
30 minutes may be judged as unfair, but given how quickly the average user off the street drops a game if it doesn’t engage them quickly, it is still a worthwhile viewpoint.
Depends of what you are looking for. 30 Minutes are enough to see the characters, their animations and combat style/responsiveness. And this is the most important thing for me. If the game is good at these, I move further and I am patient with every bug and lack of feature possible.
But if you don’t like your avatar and the combat/animations, I bet you will not like them even after 100 hours of play.
You’re only lead by the nose and traipsing around doing menial stuff for 30 minutes if you choose. Going in knowing that it was sandbox MMO I did enough to get a few levels then went about my business. I was more interested in figuring out how to do what I wanted to do than partaking in another theme park and it works.
Granted it’s not obvious that you can wander off the rails and do just fine. I enjoy that it’s like GW2 in that every activity, literally every activity provides XP, leaving you free to decide what you enjoy doing and doing that to progress. I have enjoyed every minute. Even when getting my teeth kicked in an unplanned PVP encounter.
If a game doesn’t engage me in 30 minutes, tough. The number of games out there far exceed the amount of leisure time I have available, so why waste precious time playing a game that seems like crap just in the hope that maybe it might get better?
So 7/10 ?
EG scale or mine?
EG 7/10 for sure, maybe even 8/10.
Mine 4/10?
Forget about the levelling. It’s a WoW clone up until the level cap. Then, as it’s always said, the game starts, and it has nothing to do with the previous.
Yes, if you are one of those that need a great levelling game to keep you playing, nothing to say. But if not, you level ultra quick and then the sandbox open up, and I think it’s a great game.
Territory control, crafting, piracy, housing, farming and all kinds of activities. PvP by loads, arenas, open world. It’s basically WoW plus every feature you can think of (even the silly ones) and substituting the raiding by loads of PvP, territory control and building, and piracy.
All in all, it’s very close to what I’ve always looked for, that is, a sandbox version of WoW.
so why bother having an illusory treadmill in the first place?
I know this question has been used many times over the years in countless discussions but for the first time, based on your experiences I genuinely think they could get away without it.
could a couple of tutorials suffice?
Honestly, I’ve been asking myself the same question. When the best that can be said about the game from 1 to 50 is that you can make it very fast, or that you can level up by crafting, even, makes you wonder what are those 50 levels good for.
The only upside is you kind of learn the game, learn your class, the geography, transport, crafting and other aspects of it. But having that 100% typical levelling game thrown into a game that is so not typical when you finally level up feels like a waste.
They also make a good job about introducing you to several aspects of the game, like trade runs, farming (which lets you know about illegal farming and other stuff), housing, pvp… but nothing that should require you to go through 50 f***ing levels of the same old crap.
In fact, I’m glad about some strange design decision by which the labor needed to level up remains constant as you go up. So if it takes cutting X trees to go up from level 1 to 2, it takes the same X trees to go up from 49 to 50, which is very fortunate to level those final levels that would take long otherwise.
archeage is honestly amazing. crafting of SWG, building and seiging of Shadowbane, housing of UO, with FFA PvP. The game is extremely deep and the questing is just filler. The game is a sandbox with beautiful sailing and you can be a true pirate. It even has it’s own version of Buc’s Den. I cannot wait for release. Check out some videos, Yogcast panda has some great ones with pvp involved. The game is so so deep and rewarding. I cannot wait for release! :D
Would the first 30 minutes of Darkfall be enough? For me, sure, but only because it lacked quests.
I’ve not played Archeage but I’ve been watching it for a while now and I think it’s unfair to compare it to Final Fantasy: Realm Reborn, which, by the way, is a fucking horrible game. Tab target locked combat? Yakk!! Not to mention that the rest of the combat (and animations) are just horrible. I managed to level my char to level 5, which took 7 days of forcing myself to play, before I throw the disk in the bin. Just horrible, and an utter pointless end-game.
As for Archeage, sure the business model sucks and it’s definitely P2W, albeit a weak form of P2W, but it’s the only other MMO atm that has good sandbox elements.
I’m still holding off resubbing to Darkfall until I’ve tried Archeage, although I will be spending many hours playing Destiny, which is awesome btw ;)
First 30min of DF would at least expose you to the combat style, which IMO is a large selling point (especially because you’d see it before getting bogged down in the new mix/match disaster of a skill system).
Also AA is tab-target combat like FFXIV.
The combat in AA has a lot more freedom than FFXIV; e.g. kitting mobs and missing swings if not aimed correctly at targets hit box. It lloks like a good compromise between fps and tag-target.
*looks