Level design et apparence
Le design des niveaux est formidable. Le monde est saturé de détails, bien réalisés et convaincants, dégageant une impression de vrai. Un énorme travail a été réalisé – brins d’herbes, rochers, arbres diverses, ruines anciennes ou obélisques récents forment un tout cohérent. La topographie est bien pensée et les routes, villages et châteaux ne sont pas juste situés aléatoirement mais disposés pour former un système distinct.
Les villages sont environnés de champs, pré-arrangés pour les joueurs eux-mêmes. Les châteaux sont évidemment complexes, encerclés de solides murs dominant des petites cabanes. A l’intérieur on y trouve toujours une zone urbaine avec des artisans, échoppes et jardins, ainsi qu’une ville haute – riches châteaux et villas de pierre blanche.
En regardant ce type de construction, il est dur de croire qu’il est possible aux joueurs d’en posséder. C’est trop monumental, complexe et vaste… L’architecture du château encourage à l’assiéger, peut-être avec des centaines de joueurs de part et d’autre. Les 50 joueurs défenseurs annoncés se feront juste pulvériser entre les murs, ne représentant absolument pas une vraie bataille. Cependant, des sièges sont promis, et il sera intéressant de voir à quoi ils ressembleront.
Le continent Ouest consiste en une architecture d’un style Ouest-Européen – les magnifiques villas nichés derrière les murs de la ville sont comparables à « Abramovich » (manque une référence la), tandis que les maisons des alentours et les champs s’apparentent à l’actuelle campagne Allemande. Le continent Est ressemble à un mix entre Inde et influences Arabes. La capitale du continent n’est pas encore finie, mais sera sans nul doute aussi splendide que la capitale de l’Ouest, Marianople.
Celle-ci est d’ailleurs actuellement le plus joli endroit du jeu. Il représente un immense conglomérat de châteaux de pierre blanche, tours et murs, encerclés par des grandes douves et une ceinture de villages, moulins à eau et autres bâtiments campagnards.
La capitale englobe aussi des cathédrales, une banque, une bibliothèque et même un petit théâtre. De larges avenues partent dans les quatre directions depuis une place centrale, et un réseau de petites rues entre elles contiennent un grand nombre de petits magasins. A l’opposé de la capitale de Tera Velika, grande mais mal disposée, celle-ci a une structure radiale/circulaire bien pensée rappelant par exemple Moscou. Elle possède même une ligne simple de métro circulaire. L’organisation des villes donnent réellement envie de vivre dedans, cependant une telle taille et variété ont leur prix ; ces endroits entrainent le plus de lag du jeu et la consommation de RAM monte jusqu’à 1.9 Go.
Le jeu possède un excellent enchaînement de cycles de jour/nuit et changements atmosphériques. C’est bien sur lié au CryEngine2, mais je n’ai jamais rien vu de commun dans un MMO. Eclairages dynamiques, cycle continu – un midi ensoleillé se transforme graduellement en ombres crépusculaires, puis nuit très noire, et enfin brume matinale. Concernant les soirées, je vous recommande de sérer la mâchoire pour ne pas la décrocher devant un somptueux coucher de soleil dont les derniers rayons pénètrent les nuages.
Le plus proche concurrent d’AA au niveau technique, Tera, est apparemment en retard technologiquement. Les deux jeux ont des moteurs graphiques de haute qualité et un level design luxueux. Cependant l’éclairage global statique de Tera le désavantage. Il est dommage que ses fans devront composer avec un jour continuel dans certaines zones, et un soir permanent dans d’autres, tandis que dans AA l’atmosphère et l’esprit de chaque endroit change dramatiquement en cours de journée.
En général les zones du jeu sont assez grandes mais pas beaucoup plus que celles de Tera. Après tout la taille des zones dépend directement du nombre de joueurs prévus dans celles-ci, et une population simultanée de 5000-7000 (10000-15000 d’après l’auteur) joueurs peut être pour l’instant considérée comme une limite pour le jeu. Quelques endroits, les zones de départ en particulier, montrent des signes de couloirs avec des reliefs infranchissables et routes bien tracées. C’est cependant une petite partie du monde qui présente ce sentiment de contrôle.
Je n’approuve pas l’approche (ex L2) ou de grandes parties du monde sont dédiées aux premiers niveaux. Il est trop tôt pour se rendre compte de la répartition des niveaux dans les zones, mais les niveaux des monstres sont très ressemblants au classique L2 – De grandes zones de départ (lv 1 à 10), séparées pour chaque race, zones moyennes tampon jusqu’au lv 20. Les zones à proximité de la capitale sont inférieures à 30.
Ces zones sont superbement réalisées mais risquent de se voir dépeuplées au fur et à mesure de la réduction du nombre de débutants, pour au final ne plus être beaucoup utilisées.
Transport
Le monde du jeu a été construit totalement seamless ; de plus, il n’y a aucune trace de téléportation présente actuellement. De plus, le jeu n’utilise pas d’instance, ce qui amplifie l’impression de taille et d’unité du monde du jeu, car votre personnage doit partir à l’aventure non pas grâce à de l’argent et des portails de téléportation, mais grâce à ses deux jambes. Du fait des distances assez importantes dans le jeu, le transport devient une tâche difficile. La seule méthode de téléportation présente est la téléportation après une mort qui vous ramène au point de sauvegarde (une fois par demi-heure). Je ne sais pas si les développeurs ont l’intention d’intégrer un système de téléportation, mais son absence est pour l’instant bénéfique ; essayez, par exemple, de traverser à pied le monde de L2, et ensuite jugez s’il est petit et limité…
Heureusement, il y a quelques alternatives à la randonnée pédestre dans le jeu ; premièrement on trouve des montures à chevaucher, et deuxièmement il existe des transports et bateaux communautaires.
Les chevaux sont essentiels à AA. Sans eux vous n’êtes personne et vous n’avez rien. Rester à l’arrêt de bus en regardant passer devant vous d’heureux propriétaires de moyens de transports personnels. Heureusement dans la CBT 2 il était facile d’obtenir un cheval, et quasiment aucune chance de le perdre. La 3e ou 4e quête vous en donnait un. Il est aussi possible d’en acheter un dans n’importe quelle étable, pour la somme de 1000 silver, mais cela représente une somme inaccessible au débutant.
Peu importe le moyen d’obtention du cheval, il apparaît ensuite comme un objet d’inventaire, que vous pouvez appeler. Il possède sa propre interface, son niveau, ses raccourcis d’actions (rester/suivre, monter/démonter, compétences, afficher statistiques, afficher inventaire, renvoyer). Une option intéressante permet de monter à deux le cheval. Alors qu’il est impossible de combattre en chevauchant (Votre passager, lui, peut), vous pouvez entraîner votre cheval à combattre à votre place. Avec les compétences de base vous pouvez donner des coups de sabots à votre adversaire. Les statistiques du cheval comprennent son niveau, son XP, sa vitesse, son niveau d’armure, ainsi que la STR, DEX, etc.
En chevauchant vous vous déplacez plutôt vite ; c’est une bonne occasion d’accélérer un combat et il peut être utilisé très souvent. Le cheval peut sauter, se cabrer et nager. A cause d’un bug ou d’une omission des dev, l’auteur a pu traverser l’océan entre les continents Ouest et Est sur son cheval. Cela a prit du temps, mais sans bateau il faut faire des concessions.
Le cheval peut être dressé ; vous pouvez lui acheter des armures dans les étables, certaines d’entre elles augmentent sa vitesse de déplacement. Il est aussi possible de le faire monter de niveau, pour augmenter ses points de vie, obtenir des nouvelles compétences et autre.
Pour faire xp votre cheval, vous devez xp vous-même en le gardant à portée. Le cheval ne divise pas votre xp gagnée, et prend des niveaux un peu plus rapidement que vous.
Un cheval de niveau 1 peut être facilement tué par un ennemi. Etonnamment, recliquez sur votre objet dans l’inventaire, et il est de retour. Il n’est pas clair si à la release les chevaux resteront immortels, car dans ce cas à quoi serviraient les nouveaux chevaux en vente pour 1000 silver ?
Les bateaux sont aussi un moyen de transport possible. Vous pouvez les construire puis naviguer. Une fois à bord, il est possible de descendre dans la calle, glander, grimper au mat et utiliser la vigie, tenir la barre ou charger un canon. C’est un travail d’équipe, chacun à une tâche à effectuer.
Les matériaux de construction (métal, bois et plan), ainsi que les « blueprints » peuvent être acquis dans la zone « Two Crowns ». Du fait qu’un « blueprint » coûte 900 silver je n’ai pas pu tester la construction d’un bateau. Il existait probablement une quête pour obtenir un « blueprint » gratuitement, mais soit je ne l’ai pas trouvée, soit mon niveau était insuffisant.
Les zones centrales du continent font penser à un fort pouvoir gouvernemental, assez pour avoir connecté les quatre coins du royaume avec un système de transports publics. Le long des grands axes, il existe des « arrêts de bus » où des attelages s’arrêtent. Vous pouvez ainsi prendre ces transports et aller d’un point A à un point B en toute sécurité (les monstres n’attaquent pas les caravanes), à une vitesse légèrement supérieure à celle d’un cheval.
De cette manière, qi vous devez vous rendre à la capitale Marianople en partant des plaines de l’Est Gargangdol, vous pouvez simplement prendre un attelage, traverser en sécurité le désert et apprécier le paysage. Il y a peu d’arrêts et vous ne pouvez prendre l’attelage qu’à l’un d’entre eux, mais il est possible de quitter l’attelage à n’importe quel endroit en pressant la barre d’espace. Durant la CBT 2 les trajets étaient gratuits, mais des PNJ apparemment vendeurs de coupons de transports laissent présager un coût futur.
De plus, la capitale Marianople possède un train circulaire surélevé, avec des stations et employés PNJ. Les trajets sont actuellement gratuits, et peuvent être considérés comme une distraction, car les chevaux sont bien plus utiles pour faire les magasins. Cependant les points de vue depuis le train sont magnifiques, et font naitre un sentiment précieux : « Je viens juste de tester un métro elfe ». Un peu comme le métro de Wow, mais en beaucoup mieux.
Prise en main du personnage
Game controls – mouse and keyboard, movement is done by arrow keys (WASD), along with point-and-rigt click mouse control. Space key causes jump. Jumping is functional – you can go over low fences and hedges. Jump while on horse is also available, but only in moving. The horse is not a flee, it only bucks if you attempt to jump from a still position. Pressing left mouse key results in camera rotation, moving mouse with right key pressed aligns your character with view line and cancels its previous movement (e.g. by point-and-click). Simultaneously pressing both left and right keys causes your character to move in your view direction automatically. In general, the system is very convenient and well-thought, mouse and keyboard commands are combining well and I had no discomfort. Automatic path search is very raw so far, point-and-click on a remote point may cause your character to lose his way, take a wrong route. This is especially true for horse riding – it can even turn into opposite direction or start to rotate. Hopefully, this is a temporary inconvenience.
Skills are called by numeric keys – 10 generic + 10 more are called by using Shift option. The main menus are related to keyboard in an LA2/Aion style; as in Aion, Z button switches weapon if the inventory has a number of them of the same type (the weapon type is switched automatically when attacking). Chat window is opened by Enter key. The chat modes are familiar – regular, shout (/s?), private (/w), party (/p). There are text commands to invite and expel party members or call a variety of emotes (/yay, etc).
Gameplay
A question arises – what does ArcheAge’s gameplay look like? Is it a soft lamp of LineAge2 or cold crystal of WoW? Certainly, the first steps in the game cannot uncover all its aspects, but basics of PvE and questing are already apparent.
My first main feeling in the game was something almost forgotten after the projects like Aion and Tera – equipment freedom. Yes, your character can (and should) utilize any kinds of weapon! In Aion, available armor and weapon are restricted just to a couple combinations out of all the variety (though there are even more serious shortcomings), in Tera, the weapon is explicitly bound to a class that takes out any flexibility from you. Mage = disk, priest = staff, mystic = club… No variation allowed. Compared to all this nonsense, characters in ArcheAge enjoy very nice freedom. Continuing the idea of the flexible class creation, the character comes into the world literally equipped to the teeth with various weapons. My mage (one of “pre-built” classes) had with him a two-hand club, a short sword, a shield and a bow. And he was proficient with all the above! In addition, he had in his inventory a less useful for a mage musical instrument (a minstrel's “weapon”).
All classes in the game have a basic set of attacks; among those – melee strike, ranged attack, musical instrument use. The character carries his melee weapon (if it is one-handed, a shield can be added) and a bow on his back. Weapon type switches automatically depending on attack type and skill used. There is an auto-attack option but it cancels any possibility to use ranged weapons in melee – the auto-attack forces melee weapon choice. This complicates kiting but still allows some ranged skills. It is disappointing that the automatic weapon toggle effectively precludes kiting with a bow under conditions of a heavy lag. Also, the auto-attack malfunctions if your character is not correctly oriented; the avatar does not turn toward the enemy automatically that might be just a bug for now.
Physical damage in the game comes in three varieties – piercing, slashing and crushing. Any weapon piece has a description with percentage of each factor. Most weapons have single attack types – 100% piercing (e.g. rapier), 100% slashing (sword), 100% crushing (club, staff, etc). Interestingly, a bow has 90% piercing and 10% crushing attack. In addition, each attack type has its potential effects – for example, a crushing hit has a chance to stun. Probably, armor also has different defensive characteristics against various damage types.
The fights consist of targeting the mob and applying on it all available hits and skills. The battles are easy at the beginning, and not as long-lasting as in Aion. The monsters are not very intellectual too. During the battle, HP and modificators (buffs, debuffs) of the player himself and his target are displayed, a line of casts is running. When the defeated monster falls on the ground, you can mouse over it to check loot presence (if present, the arrows changes to a bag sign). The loot does not drop on the ground, instead, as in WoW/Aion a window appears. Everything is done traditionally. The drop is familiar – quest items, resources, items (fulldrop).
First quests and battles are unremarkable, such ones can be found in any good MMO. Everything is understandable without translation – gtt a task, attack first mobs you see, collect loot, distribute it to the needing ones in the village. Quest dialogues display reward and number of required items as well as some other conditions. To teach you extended game possibilities, some quests require you to climb a tree, to help an NPC, to build a home etc. As far as i see it, there will be many quests and in addition – a story line will be present in the game to build an atmosphere.
If your character dies, he resurrects at a special obelisk. There is no death penalty, but there will be equipment deterioration. Next to the obelisk a servant can be found who will provide you with a defensive buff for 66 copper coins, which lasts for an hour. In addition, every class has a basic skill of return to a binding point (Return, 30 min cooldown) – identical to Aion. The binding is done by interaction with a characteristically looking pole (not an obelisk), also almost like in the above-mentioned game. The binding was provided for free in the test, but not every pole lets you do it. In the description of the skill a “current” return point is mentioned, where the character is sent to. If your character dies in a remote location, there is a choice – to resurrect at the closest obelisk or to go to your binding point.
A faction system is apparent in the game, however free PvP was declared and RvR system is absent. Whatever the actual intention is, all players and NPC belong to their own factions (and those for Nuian and Elf are different). Relationships between factions can be friendly, neutral or hostile. Friendly ones are marked green, neutral – white, hostile – red. No difference between green and white signs was mentioned – both can be attacked in PvP using Ctrl-F.
It was declared that for killing other characters (PK), the perpetrator will accumulate some analog of karma – crime index. No details are available yet but probably its amount will depend on level difference. After its value hits 100, the character will be automatically teleported into a jail and debuffed for 30 minutes making impossible for him to use any skills. While in jail, the crime index will gradually decrease and when it vanishes, the character will be freed. How much time will it take – this is not known for sure, but developers hint that there will be some ways to escape from the jail.
The game suggests a variety of social elements and importance of team interaction (particularly for ship sailing), however in this particular test the socio-political system was in its infancy. A basic possibility to form parties does exist, but there were no named monsters, epic or raid bosses. The guild system was also non-existent. It would be natural to guess that the facets of social interactions will be a focus of the third stage of closed testing in Korea.
Overall, the game is ordinary-friendly to a gamer, its simplicity and convenience are most reminiscent of Aion, however monster fights are simpler – in this regard the game is closer to WoW (speaking of regular mobs, of course). There is nothing of harsh and inhospitable sandbox where sullied and impoverished characters have to wear rags, search for hidden NPC, guess actual meaning of quests, and fight by rusty axes, risking to lose all their hard-gained possessions in an event of death. Comfort and convenience of the gamer are a spotlight in this game, along with diversity of the game content. This should attract both hardcore (due to sieges and PvP) and casual gamers (due to the absence of significant death penalties, presence of PvP-free zones – at least at the beginning - and a simple, understandable and hint-providing gaming process).
Character development
Development and leveling of a character in ArcheAge has its own specifics related to the system of free choice of classes and skills. As I already mentioned, there are 10 skill trees - combat, witchcraft, invincibility, magic, bow shooting etc.). Each class possesses 3 out of these 10 trees so the overall number of classes in the game is 120 (number of combination by 3 out of 10).
At initial character creation, you choose 3 active trees, and the first level character has one skill from each tree. The basic stats in the game are STR/DEX/stamina/INT/spirit. Unlike in other games, these characteristics are not fixed but develop with character's level. At the beginning they are all equal to 10, and each new level increases them by 2. A variety of parameters of your character (HP/MP, strength, evasion, critical hit probability, magic etc) is calculated from them. The basic stats can be increased/rebalanced using appropriate equipment: the better quality of an item the better are bonuses. Magical weapons and armor give big INT/spirit bonuses, melee equipment – STR/DEX. Also, passive skills from different skill trees may affect the stats too.
Skills are learned from an instructor using Skill Points – studying one new skill costs exactly one point. SP are acquired when a character levels up, but not every level. To increase the level of an already known skill, you will need some money (and the price is quite perceptible). Now all skills can be learned from the same instructor, who also performs changes of skill trees (you can disable any one of original 3 and add instead any other). The level of the skill development is reflected in your character info window whereas skill window displays all possible skills for the present trees. The skill description includes info at which tree level (not the same as character level!) it becomes available for learning. The skills are many, now already about ten in each tree. I got a feeling that you will never have enough SP for all of them and you will be forced to choose which particular ones to learn, that should determine your character built-up.
An interesting peculiarity is skill tree switch. In the game, in addition to the character experience gauge, each tree skill has its own leveling gauge. In the beginning, they fill out equally and simultaneously with the overall character experience lever. In this situation, when character breaks next level the trees automatically get the new level too. The growth of the skill levels does not depend on particular skills used, all of them grow equally:
After switching the trees, the timing breaks. The switch can be done easily – just asking the instructor. In the skill exchange window you choose one old tree and one new, and then pay 8 silvers (not exceptional money, even for a noob). The old tree will be disabled and its SP will be returned to the character (if there were 3 skills learned, the character will obtain 3 SP), then the new skill tree will appear. If the tree was never used, its development level will be 1 and the lever will be empty. Apparently, at high levels it should cause significant weakening of the character because of the uncompensated loss of the skills. Now with experience accumulated this tree also starts to develop, and because of its low level it does so much faster than the older, already developed skills. No limitations and penalties was found, the skill tree exchange does not force you to go back to low-level locations to use its undeveloped skills on weak monsters. However, while this skill tree is undeveloped, it simply does not give you much advantage in a battle. Once again, availability of skills for learning is determined by the level of the corresponding skill tree but not by the character overall level.
If you plug in a skill tree that has been developed and used before, but was disabled at some point, a similar process takes place – the skills of the outgoing skill tree become removed, SP for them are returned to you. The re-installed skill tree gets activated with all its skills in a not-learned status but available for re-learning (for the recovered SP). All paid skill improvements remain valid, i.e. after skills are re-learned they appear at the same level as they been unlearned. Such a system allows to switch between skill trees deliberately, losing nothing except the switching fee. However, because of the reset of the skills, it is not a one-click process (as subclass switching in LA2, for example) – you will have to spend some time to restore deactivated skills. The icons on your quickbar don't get lost in the process, you can just use separate quickbars for each particular skill set, without their re-arrangement. It seems that developing a character with all skill trees leveled up to the maximum can be feasible.
The rate of leveling isn't clear so far, initially it is fast, but quickly de-accelerates with level growth. After 4 days of the cbt, one can see characters of 25+ level while the level cap is about 50 for now. I do not know if the rate was intentionally increased, but usually it is not the case because one of the targets of such tests is to measure actual leveling speed. At first glance it looks too fast, especially taking into account the size of the areas devoted to levels 1-30.
In the game, big attention is given to non-combat interactions with the game world. Next, after the open class system, a distinguishing feature of the game is a very high degree of interactivity with the world. Indeed, you can climb trees, ladders, ropes. Also you can plant trees and other useful vegetation, collect harvest and other resources, build ships and houses. Sure enough, there are still many static items and buildings in the game – you can't climb every single tree or ladder but only specifically dedicated interactive objects. On the positive side – they are not few but quite many.
One can expect that the development of interactivity will inevitably cause some sensitive moments and unexpected problems, therefore I am glad that finally a team of developers has risen, which was not afraid of the difficulties and is prepared to introduce a new degree of freedom of interaction with the game world in a MMO. Already now, first difficulties were identified and workarounds found. For example, to plant a tree, a model of the tree is displayed in front of the gamer, surrounded by a standard frame of a 3d editor. You cannot place the tree anywhere – the color of the frame shows you if the planting is permitted there (green – allowed, red – forbidden). If the color of the frame permits, the gamer can affix the tree on the chosen spot, set desirable rotation angle around vertical axis and confirm the planting. Then a small bonsai-like tree actually appears and starts to grow slowly.
I did not have enough time to try crafting, but it is apparent that a great deal of attention is devoted to this aspect of the game. Like in Tera, there is a variety of crafting skills separated into 2 big groups – collection and processing of raw materials and also item crafting. Each craft requires its device – workbench, mannequin, kitchen or furnace. The devices are situated in craftsmanship areas of castles, cities and villages, but can be also put in zones of private construction – i.e. in an open space. To learn a craft, recipes are used; some of them are sold in specialized shops along with the required components (money sink). It appears that the unique for ArcheAge characteristics Labor Power is the craft currency. It accumulates up to certain level with time, even while the character is offline.
Each craft skill is developed separately which is figuratively displayed in skills window by an empty development path next to each skill. During the test, there were no limitations on resource collection – low-level characters could pick up resources in middle-level locations. Most probably, the system of harvesting and craft is far from finished, otherwise it remains unclear why resource gathering can be leveled up. As it stays right now – it is a cheat opportunity when noobs can collecting precious resources in high-level zones and sell them in stores for big money instead of grinding starting quests for pennies.
The money in the game are made by WoW blueprint – these are copper and silver coins. Logic tells that golden ones will be introduced in future, but right now they are absent albeit some prices in shops exceed thousands of silver. In the beginning of the game, you can make money by selling resources to NPC stores and doing quests. There are traditional shops in the game, where you can buy some items or sell your junk. Conveniently, when you NPC an item, you can Repurchase it, if it was sold by an error. The sell/buy difference is of factor of 2, i.e. if you buy something from NPC, you can sell it then for half the money (hello from LA2 economics). Interestingly, that info on items in your inventory includes their price to sell to an NPC shop (for those that can be sold). For stacking items, a price of the entire stack is displayed. Nice touch.
User interface
Overall view of game screen.
In my opinion, the interface of the game is very good. It is convenient and minimalistic, and looks stylish. As opposed to Tera interface, which is crowded with tasteless awkward heraldics and other excesses, the ArcheAge UI is “fantasy”-neutral. Its gaming purpose is only visible from skill icons. An interface like this can suit any modern software or website. It is slim, contains no distractions and takes possibly minimal space on the screen. I would like to compare it with Google Chrome browser interface that demonstrated to all other browser manufacturers that the screen should not contain anything but address line and narrow band of tabs. In ArcheAge it is like that. I sincerely think that designers of user interface from Tera must sign in for usability courses at their colleagues from XLGames.
The set of windows is traditional – character conditions, target bar, chat window with tabs, inventory, skill list etc. All popping-out windows have variable transparency, almost any of them can be turned into a transparent state. Some windows change transparency depending on focus – active window is denser, inactive – transparent. Therefore, there is no separate transparent map, just the main map can be turned transparent.
The upper part of the screen contains an unobtrusive status bar displaying Labor Power on its left and the geographic position of the character - zone name (e.g. Solzreed) and sub-zone (e.g. Newbie Village):
The Labor Power element gets the same naively-excessive attention as DP parameter in Aion. It looks like the designers introducing a fancy new parameter try to represent it as a cornerstone of the entire gaming process that must be displayed permanently, higher and bigger than anything, even than the life level of the character. We will see if this is true.
On the upper right, a string of icons like this is placed:
These are keys to call basic windows and menus – character info, skills, knowledge base (details below), quest journal, inventory, craft list, map and system menu. Further on the right there is a button of a drop-down menu with the same options. Right corner is occupied by a clock (real time).
The info window on character, inventory, skills and crafts appear on the screen both at the left and right taking all its height. Numerous parameters and stats are grouped by meaning, skills – by corresponding skill trees. The windows design is slick and minimalistic. A curious solution was used to display character’s equipment. Instead of a separate window with a 3d paper-doll, (or an ugly silhouette as in Tera), the actual view of the character on the screen becomes surrounded by two strips of icons representing equipment. Very efficient and meaningful – why display a separate character view while it is already in the middle of the screen! Very nice decision.
There is a default quick-bar with skills on the bottom of the screen, for numeric keys 1-0 and their Shift variants:
It looks quite convenient, albeit another option exists with a more traditional multi-raw view:
Below the quick-bar, there is an EXP gauge over entire screen width. Interfaces of quest, dialog, and shopping windows do not differ markedly from their cousins in Aion, Tera, etc. They can be seen on many Korean screenshots.
Technically, the interface is built as a set of scripts from Lua language, having various access to the main program core of the game. On one hand, this gives a potential possibility to write extensions and modifications of the user interface (with or without permission from the game publisher). On other hand, the wide possibilities of the open script system will be used by people to create convenient PvP radars with auto-spam of potions and other lovely features of a modern MMO game. At the moment, the game is protected by a GameGuard-similar system HackShield developed by Korean company AhnLab, but its potential to stand against collective creativity is, carefully speaking, doubtful.
Also, a web browser Awesomium is built in the game (a gaming-oriented version of Chromium). It allows for introducing accurately any extra content into the framework of the user interface. At the moment, the browser is used to display an additional info on the game and quests, its page design fits the game organically. What can I say – such a solution has been in the air for a while and was long due. I do not know if it will be permitted in the future to twit or use FaceBook directly from the game, but for now the browser functions just as a supplementary database for the game only.
This is it
In essence, this is all what I can say about the game based on my short playing session. It is true that the game did not disappoint by its graphics and atmosphere of the first impression. Gameplay looks quite regular; an extended interaction with the world and big politics are considered to be the main selling points of the game but this is too far away for now. As of today, there are all signs present that the game will be playable and interesting.
Unequivocally, the approach with class flexibility and interchangeable use of weapons is very welcome – this is a shortcoming in other big modern MMO's (Aion, Tera). Probably, in the future this may cause big insoluble balance problems resulting in a limited number of classes actually worth playing, but at the moment this principle looks very promising.
I was very-very glad that the developers had enough audacity to break away with the long tradition of the minimally-interactive MMO worlds, outrunning the competition. It is even more enjoyable that this was implemented within a big-budget project that put the visuals of the game on the highest level and provided variety of the game content.
The employed video engine CryEngine2 together with the scrupulous work of the Korean designers and developers allowed to create extremely high quality of the imaging and a believable world with realistic lighting and powerful physics.
Among deficiencies, a poor network code optimization can be mentioned, which causes me to feel ArcheAge much more laggy than its competitors at higher network loads. The network traffic isn't used optimally (the game consumes about 2 times more resources than Tera) that causes uncomfortable delays on limited connections or on remote from server sites. I hope that eventually this problem would be solved.
Also, the game inherits innate graphical shortcomings of CryEngine. The engine cuts off the level of detail on some objects too often. As a result, on parts of the picture the texture quality looks more reduced than expected. The engine also displays characters hair in a peculiar “plastic” way. Nevertheless, given the early stage of the particular game version, these defects are explicable.
No less unpleasant serious difficulties may await users of “weak” computers that lack operational memory. The quantity of 4 Gb RAM becomes not adequate for such busy locations as Marianople. It is evident, that the game came really close to the 2 Gb limit for 32-bit Windows processes. Its client even includes specific means to push this limit to the maximum possible 3 Gb. However, consuming almost 2 Gb memory, the game in 32-bit mode in complex situations puts a significant toll on input/output RAM processes. Computers with only 4 Gb RAM, have almost no space for disk caches, which complicates resource uploading. Clearly, no less than 6 Gb RAM should be recommended to allow the OS cache more data. To play at higher graphical settings, it is better to get concerned with an acquisition of the best video card possible. It is good the game is going to be published later than in the middle (or in fall) of the next year and will come to the Western countries only in 2012 – the hardware manufacturers have a time to issue something new, and the price of the devices will drop significantly.
A global solution might be a 64-bit version of the game client. This would allow to use the entire potential of computers with RAM of 8 Gb and higher. Unfortunately, we do not know if the developers have any plans for this.
All in all, it looks like one of the best Korean game projects of the modern times, which is easily able to compete to the equally ambitious Tera project. Lets hope that its gameplay and socio-political system will not disappoint, so that the game has a bright future.
he game was tested with a computer having Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 processor at 3.16 GHz, 4 Gb RAM, SSD Intel X25-M disk, and NVidia GTX 280 video card. This system allowed to run the game comfortably on Very High settings at 1920x1200 pics resolution, except while in Marianople zone, where a deficit of RAM and a limited video card performance become apparent. A very low player density is also worth mentioning – just 1000 ppl for the entire big game world. In real situation at big population densities, the game will ask for more serious resources.
19/11/2010, 15h48
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