In the sand park MMO ArcheAge , servers will be merged. However, in a slightly different form.
ArcheAge back then: 6 weeks of hype
Looking back at September last year: The queues are huge, the frustration is high. ArcheAge is the new hot thing in the Free2Play market. The first servers quickly filled up, the “emergency reserves” were already made live in the first hours as additional worlds. New servers need to be procured and shipped to Europe. Customs is causing trouble. The influx of players is as large as the frustration over the queues.
At that time, there was already the fear: When the rush subsides, the new servers will be empty, and ArcheAge will no longer be fun on them. In other games, this is not a problem: servers are merged. For ArcheAge, that would be hard to imagine, as everyone has their property in the open world: especially the “desired building spots” are occupied on every server. If two were merged: Would one then have to take everything away? Would one lose their house and home?
At Trion Worlds, producer Victoria Voss later states in an interview with us: Server mergers would be the last step. The infrastructure is not designed for it. Very difficult. This is not planned.
Still, at the end of the year, the CEO of Trion Worlds gives promising prospects: They expect ArcheAge to develop well, retaining players, announcing record numbers.
However, some mistakes have already been made. Since the mishap of the “Auroria” release in early November, the high flight is over after 6 weeks. The hype is fading. Trion Worlds is getting bogged down in smaller and larger problems.
ArcheAge today: The belt must be tightened
A look at today: The rush in ArcheAge has long since subsided. In 2015, a new producer started, with several content patches running more smoothly this time. Big plans for the future are in place. But the fat times are over, the belt must be tightened. The new servers from back then are indeed relatively empty and “server transfers” have now been officially announced, with most players interpreting that as server mergers.
They traveled to Korea specifically to clarify this with the developers of XLGames, getting the technical “okay” here. In Korea, they are working on automating the manual transfer process as much as possible. They want to do this in a “non-traditional manner”. Further details are not yet available, and the mergers are planned for the second half of 2015.
The fans in the ArcheAge forum react as they always do to such things: With a shitstorm. At least that hasn’t changed since the early days. However, Trion Worlds has now brought one of the most famous community managers and PR people onto the team, the Everquest veteran with a dwarf fixation, Linda “Brasse” Carlson. She assures now: They are aware of how important land is. They will talk to players for months, gather feedback, and clarify everything.
