In the sandpark MMORPG ArcheAge complicated problems continue into year 2, rooted in the fact that player trading in ArcheAge has long-lasting consequences.
The restart with ArcheAge 2.0 has not been under a good star. As we reported, the actual launch had to be postponed by 24 hours. Due to login issues, the few players who managed to get onto the servers could secure the best parcels of land and thus gain long-lasting advantages.
Also last weekend there were significant problems. Due to a bug, the submission of a certain quest was not counted when players were mounted. Trion Worlds had no way to retrospectively determine how many actually submitted the quest.
It shouldn’t be a big deal, or so one would think. Yet this quest was tied to an important advancement for the whole faction: building a base at Diamond Coast. This was crucial for the important conquering of fortresses, as a specific workshop appears in the base only at rank 3, which is necessary for this.
So Trion Worlds decided to raise the base ranks to level 3 for all factions on the new servers and the evolution servers.
Players compared the action to the chaos surrounding Auroria. Some demanded not to increase the bases to level 3, but to reset progress so that everyone could start over. The new servers were not yet far enough along for the castles.
The ArcheAge community manager Linda Brasse found clear words for it: “We fucked up.” She defended the decision to set the bases to rank 3. We owe it to the players who invested a lot to make it right and respect their efforts.
The Problem with Consequences
Mein MMO believes: This is another one of those typical, complicated ArcheAge problems, where a seemingly small issue, like the quest submission, creates such large waves. In other MMORPGs one would shrug off a non-functioning quest, eventually fix it, and apologize to the players. It would simply have minimal consequences. Whether someone reaches the maximum level before everyone else has no impact in the long run.
Due to the escalation of ArcheAge regarding certain deadlines and decision moments that influence a server’s structure for months, there are critical quests and periods in ArcheAge where nothing can go wrong. When something does go wrong, like during the land rush, Auroria back then or now here, it forces Trion Worlds to choose between the plague and cholera.
While other MMORPGs can simply weather such difficult phases, because in their worlds, nothing really has consequences. When players have a short-term advantage in Final Fantasy XIV or World of Warcraft, it simply doesn’t matter. In ArcheAge, if players gain an advantage, they can make it “permanent” by securing fortresses and land that they can practically keep forever.
The special nature, the distinctiveness of ArcheAge, which brings many advantages, often leads to problems of this complicated nature.
