In an interview with ArcheAge, Scott Hartsman reflects on the issues of the past year. Additionally, there is a desire to discuss with XLGames the introduction of stronger items outside the cash shop and to fix the sieges.
The German MMO site buffed conducted an interview with Scott Hartsman, the CEO of Trion Worlds. He addresses the issues facing ArcheAge, which have accumulated over the past three months.
Hartsman emphasizes that the severity of the players’ criticism stems from their enthusiasm and passion for ArcheAge.
Moreover, a complex sandbox with a highly competitive nature like ArcheAge often leads to frustration among players, which then manifests in criticism aimed at Trion Worlds and their relationship with XLGames, regardless of whether this frustration arises from a “real” basis or is merely perceived.
Hartsman emphasizes the positive sides of the problems
When he is asked about difficulties, Hartsman repeatedly highlights the positive aspects. For instance, players were compensated for server maintenance; the APEX were removed from the game within 30 minutes once it was clear they were being exploited, players were banned, and a credit penalty was imposed on others. Furthermore, the employees have been working tirelessly to resolve the issues caused by the multi-day server downtime.
Currently, the team is far from merging servers. In Korea, this was carried out, which was associated with a lot of fun, as players experienced a new land rush. Today, the merged server cluster is one of the most popular in the Korean ArcheAge.
Fixing sieges, stronger items outside the cash shop
In investigating the APEX exploit, they reviewed the data and concluded that players would benefit from a few higher-quality items outside the cash shop. They want to discuss this with XLGames.
They have also communicated the significant issues that sieges are currently experiencing. The first wave apparently went quite wrong. As the interviewer from buffed notes, the siege walls had a million hit points, while a siege weapon dealt only one damage point.
Was the time pressure the main issue?
Mein MMO believes: The interview is quite PR-focused. To say: If we merge servers, everyone will lose what they have built so far, but a restart could also be fun, is certainly a controversial opinion. At the end of September, for ArcheAge producer Victoria Voss (in our interview with her), it was still a worst-case scenario. Hartsman now sounds as if this is quite conceivable.
Moreover, it is somewhat ironic that Hartsman speaks of players hanging their criticism on the cooperation between XLGames and Trion Worlds. The difficulties of this cooperation have repeatedly been cited by Trion Worlds to explain difficulties in the game.
Perhaps the most crucial point of the interview is a section where Hartsman mentions that perhaps there was not enough time for more intensive testing, which would have benefited ArcheAge – just like it did with Rift. Looking at the past three months of ArcheAge, it seems that there are significant issues.
If one rushes from deadline to deadline and does not take any rest, mistakes happen. This year, WildStar learned this lesson as well, having had to abandon the idea of delivering fresh content every month after realizing: We are introducing too many bugs into the game.
However, arriving with the highly important Auroria patch just six weeks after serious release issues…
Fast-paced events can lead to mishaps
There seemed to be a strong desire to maintain the release date in September, strategically ahead of the WoW expansion Warlords of Draenor. It quickly transitioned from closed beta to a convention in Seattle, into open beta, the head start, and then release. A lot was broken during this process.
The relatively early release of Auroria (six weeks after launch) was completely botched, at least in the USA. This was the point that some players, particularly core gamers, had worked hard towards.
It seems that ArcheAge’s rush to meet all these deadlines is reflected in the proceedings. Under time pressure, time for player feedback is lost (the test server only came online in December), and moreover, the work of the employees must have suffered under this continuous pressure.
And what about Steam?
It seems that issues with the technical side of ArcheAge were already apparent before release. Nothing has been heard about the exclusion from Steam for months.
For those interested in the background of ArcheAge, our thematic page on the sandbox MMO should provide more information.
