Why MMO Fans Are Excited For ArcheAge 2 

One of the very few games that really made Sandbox right - so sad it was destroyed by money and greed, like most of the things in the world

When Archeage 1 was released it was one of the best MMO's ive ever played. The crafting system,the ocean,the boat driving, fast paced PVP, PVE Bosses that could last for hours, the mechanics of building a house, tradepacks. All of it. It was so well done and well made.

Gliders from archeage are my favorite type of mount in a game Ive played. You felt rewarded for finding a tall cliff to use, and travel wasn’t always just “run in a straight line”. You felt like you could optimize your travel time when you found a really good spot to glide down, and itch that scratch of “min/max” that all of us MMO players have while also making the game more immersive and enjoyable.

I was there from the very beginning of AA --It is the only MMO where I've pushed the threshold of insanity. I was the first solo player to own a trader ship on my server, I would be all by myself, doing trade runs and packs, making a profit while hiring pvpers to protect my wares and myself and share it. I had a blast being a trader and depending on real ingame Mercs to protect me! But eventually, I had more farms and lands and with the new energy system, I could not sustain myself anymore. I spent too much of my time and money on something I deeply regret. In the end, I was spending more than 150$ a week on just energy bottles. I became a whale just to upkeep what I believed was fun, and it took me too long to realize they had got me. Before leaving, I gave everything away. I remember it still, it was on Christmas Eve. Alone, sad. Sitting with more Cheese trades packs and honey than I could really vouch for. I called in chat, for ppl to come to fetch them. People were skeptical! But the ones that showed up were graced with free high-quality packs $$ ---I left, and never, ever looked back.

I don’t know how I only stumbled upon your channel now man. The fact that you don’t have 50,000 edits and A.D.D. Cut screens every 17.5 seconds is a win for me and your based take and realistic outlook seals the deal. Thank you for your work and dedication to your service man.

ArcheAge was honestly one of my favorite MMOs, played it at the start and it was just so much fun, the entire crafting system, the classes themselves were cool. It was a very social game, had a nice guild and it was a lot of fun to gather up and to trade runs, making good trade bags and go on some risky trade runs, or gathering some people and go out on the sea with our boats to go fishing, such a good time! The housing system was pretty fun too, though there were some bigger problems with players using scripts to instantly buy plots once they became available which was annoying as hell, but once you had one, it was pretty fun to be working on it. Also undersea plots were really cool! ^^ So many good features in this game, hope to see a lot of these things in AA2 as well, just improved! I really miss AA when I was playing it.

The game had so much potential if it werent for the p2w aspects that killed the playerbase. I remember making a class that lift players in the air with a water bubble and i would go under them to push them higher so they would die to fall damage. Such a unique skill and class system for mix and matching

It's not often I comment on "big youtuber" channels, but I just want to say that I love your channel. The passion, honesty and integrity that you bring to each video just keeps me coming back. You're now my go-to for a detailed breakdown on gaming news, so thank you, and keep it up!

I was there for the start of AA too, it was really something. For me it was the combat + housing system that hooked me.

The Alpha was something else. Me and the gang using a boat to harpoon the sea floor to wind down and hide at the bottom. Releasing the harpoon launched us in the air out of the water and we pounced enemy package boats. Amazing stuff

I played the Beta and ArcheAge was probably my favorite MMO when I came back for ArcheAge unchained that didn't change. So many cool systems compared to other MMOs, from professions, to the classes, player housing, open world events, the PVP, Fishing runs, Trade runs, so much more to do. Plus so many pets and mounts to collect and the arena. Labor didn't really make much of a difference even for the paid stuff. I got one of the best plots of land on my faction on my server, was the first to get a mansion, get that huge round crafting building, got all my 16x16 farms connected. Even had land for a Tree house. Remember making world bosses into pets with the pet capture net which no one on the server knew about. There was so many 'hidden' things in the game from mounts to pets, to arena pets, quests and items. That was my favorite part, the hidden part. Since there wasn't a lot of google info due to the old archeage info mixing with unchained. It was like back in the 2006 with warcraft before everything was 'known'. I remember once I followed a wandering NPC for the hell of it, just walked with them when randomly NPC spawn and attacked them, I defended them and kept walking along with them and at the end got a buff by them for protecting them that lasted for hours and that was just ONE thing I randomly did and there were so many others.

Risk vs. Reward is important. Too many MMOs are just stale theme parks, where the developers need to try to keep up with content. That content usually boils down to scaled up raid content that provides gear with minor stat increases. We need more Sandbox MMOs. I'm very interested in what Archeage 2 is like, but they better not get greedy again.

Yes! Archeage was one of my favorite mmos of all time at release! Can’t wait for Archeage 2 just hope it isn’t poorly monetized.

shirt is kaput, left shoulder 20:46... love your content. man you`ve come a long way to 950k subs!

Arche Age was easily one of the best experiences I've ever had in an MMO. Very few compete with the thrill of taking your boat across seas back when that was unheard of in an MMO and on that scale. There was a LOT of firsts done by this MMO and it remains largely unchallenged in many ways in it's creativity. With all that being said - yes, the cash shop essentially killed the game and it was heart breaking.

Thanks for sharing this retrospective on the alpha state of a game that I never got to experience. It looks like the game design and execution on concept went exceedingly well before marketing got their hands on it. Wish I would have gotten to have that experience in the time it existed... I suppose I may get a chance here with ArcheAge 2 to gear up for a good alpha test phase before they inevitably bury it in its loot box casket. I have a question on your preference on games system design - In regards to resource sinks and crafting: Do you think you'd prefer a system where the higher tier 'artisan' crafts just required a very large stated but set amount of resources to craft, as opposed to an RNG system where you're probably seeing a more manageable individual crafting material list with a low chance to succeed (ie. 1/10th the 'expected' cost with a 10% chance to succeed)?

I was there in the alpha for AA as well. My favorite things from that game are the housing/crafting and the open water aspects and fishing. Trion screwed things up by going P2W with the thunderstruck sapling packs. Tried AA unchained but it wasn't the same anymore. I'm really hoping that AA 2 brings back the fantasy love I've had.

Exactly how I remember it , one of the best mmorpgs I've ever played - absolutely destroyed by 1 single patch! it was soul crushing for mmos fans who wait for years for a good game!

i played on a server on alpha release 2014 i was young it was my first mmo, i remember being with my guild building boats at a dock in a major sand city. meeting the other faction in the northern area for all out war. Warrior Poets was my guild it was a zerg we had hidden tree farms in the snow mountains. i ended up going pirate and joining the only pirate guild Laughing Coffin and we terrorized EVERYBODY robbed anyone jumped both factions... ill never have another experience like that, out there with 100 guildies killing a world boss for a horn. that was PEAK MMO gameplay for me. thanks for reading

I like this format Force. Reminds me of the Grim Dawn and Rainbow Six Siege recommendation videos you made years ago.

One of my top MMO experiences of all time, and you're absolutely spot on about the cash shop patch, so sad. I wish more people had been able to try this beforehand, the sheer amount of layered systems all playing together so well makes the current top MMOs look simple. My only complaint, was that PvE could've used a little bump. There weren't many dungeons, and of the ones that were there, the gear wasn't very good. I get it though, they focused on crafting and PvP, but some PvE variety would've made it absolutely perfect. Just IMO of course.

I was there force and ive been subscribed probably even before that, i miss that mmo it also was my favorite mmo release, i really miss the boats, or owning a house and making food on it to sell on the market, the open pvp system was hilarious out fighting on the open seas, really miss the pvp system that just felt at its best when taking loot to the pvp island, you know what im talkin about. One time i popped a waterbreathing potion of like 7 minutes while out on my boat delivering goods, saw a ship and i immediately just dumped my crago, unsummoned the ship and dissapeared into the ocean, they actually came looking for me, epic half hour of my life, managed to get my goods delivered, what a game

After listening and learning about the "labor points" system and hearing it had a limited value of what you could craft or build daily honestly it makes sense that it was always destined to be a p2w game. That's the same scheme mobile games use, usually calling it "energy" or something. This was by design, the developers knew what they were doing when they built the systems that supported this kind of monetization.

For all of us who played AA alpha I feel like we all have a great shared experience.

Damn I really wished I was a part of that experience. Just hearing you talk about it made me really happy and I never got to play it (didn’t own a pc yet, was a big Destiny player at that time). I also really hope AA2 will do the same thing so I can have experience such beautiful memories

I was there for ArcheAge release and it was amazing

Damn i feel old, i didn't know i'd been following you for so long. I remember watching at the time and wishing i was in the alpha . I played a bit after it came out and had fun for a short while

Ashes of Creation is being made by someone who LOVED Archeage back when it was still glorious. It is being designed to be the true successor of Archeage. Check it out.

Good to see someone comment on the game that actually played the original. I was there as of the Beta and still pop in and out of the game to this day. Alot of what made the game great has slowly been taken away or changed so I hope they go back to the games roots and not have the much lessened trade systems and dailies grind it is now.

I wasn't there for the initial AA Launch but when AA Unchained came out it was some of the best time I had in a mmo.

Nobody mentions the physics in Archeage. It was one of the things that really made it stand out to me. Most MMOs that have vehicles are static but in Archeage your tractor could get stuck in a ditch and your boat would tilt as you turn in the water and go faster if the wind was at the back of your sails. And the absolute best part was the ragdoll corpses. Everything is instantly more fun with ragdoll corpses.

Really enjoyed this video Force. Good stuff. :)

It is hard to get excited about new mmos. When it can take years for them to come out. I may be interested in this game closer to release to be honest.

ArcheAge really had the potential to be one of the greatest MMO if not the best in terms of Sandbox PvP/PvM. I have never enjoyed the open world experience in any other MMO I've played in the last 15 years. Like you said, ArcheAge was super immersive with its open world, the sailing, the combat (PvP). the housing, and even the treacherous trade pack running. I'm hoping ArcheAge 2 will deliver that same experience.

never heard of ArcheAge, but this sounds like my dream MMO (Pre launch Version), kinda sad I missed the first one now.

Archeage was one MMO that flew completely under my radar so hearing you talk about it is interesting. If they're willing to keep P2W aspects out of the game I could see them take some of Black Desert's playerbase (assuming combat is of similar quality). I'll be looking forward to your future coverage of the game. Being honest about housing, I would prefer that it ends up being a guild-based shared instance system. Player housing existing physically in the game world is neat, but at the end of the day someone is getting screwed because there'll never be enough houses for everyone. In a perfect world there would be both instanced and non-instanced housing. That way if I don't care about the social aspect, or can't buy a house during the opening rush I can just buy an instanced house and still access whatever gameplay systems are tied to housing. I just say this because I'd like to avoid another housing system like what FFXIV has where you eventually just lose your house, everything in it and everything you spent on it if you don't stay subscribed.

I am cautiously excited for it, a biased hope I have as an Australian is that they rework the combat to be less ping dependent for DPS so I can play more competitive, like when the closer asia servers came out

Still the best mmo I've ever played, and nothing has gotten close to being able to fill the hole this game left

The thing that scares me the most as one of the oldest archage oldschool player is how long it's gonna take to be released... I waited like 4 years to play Archeage, and was still on close beta, then the Korean open beta opened and I bought an account to play, and I played there for over 1 year until the Russian version was released and then the NA version, in total was almost 7 years to play the game ''properly'' on a west server... I'm excited to play Archeage 2 for sure but, just to think about that this video was ''recently'' added, makes me wonder how many years its gonna take lmao

Great post. Yes your are so correct. I loved AA. I played it from Beta until it got extremely PTW. AA was clearly one of the best MMOs in the last 10 years or so.

I loved Archeage -- I tried to go back when the reboot or whatever it was happened and still hated the labor thing. I adored the trade runs, I loved the farming, the crafting was good. One of the best games for gatherers - you could find stuff all over the place that was unique for that particular location (crafting would have been better utilizing more rare materials instead of so much random). Who is publishing? I would be fine with a subscription option, especially for landrush.

Have to say, your channel is underrated. Butyou sure do like your black t-shirt with a whole on you shoulder 😄

Archeage's Potential was simple insane, it's truly depressing how mismanaged the game was and how ludicrous it's P2W was.

i remember ur streams back in the days when u tried to build a ship and shit like that , man its been long time

"One of the classes that I played was the Darkrunner." "You and everyone else bud xD. The issue with crafting was not so much failure, but the fact that after a certain tier only one of the available sets could be upgraded further. For example, if you wanted the mage set, you would have 1/6 or something chance to get it while upgrading the tier, the other 5 would be different sets and you had no choice what to pick. Then to upgrade to the next tier, only one of those sets was upgradable. In short, for a max tier mage set, you would randomly have to upgrade like 11 healer sets then be lucky enough for the last upgrade to roll the mage set. It was a nightmare.

Looking forward to an updated review on Darktide the devs are putting in some serious work

god this game was so good. i woulda paid monthly for them to not add p2w and still be playing today. $15/mo *10 years woulda been $1800 as opposed to the total of 40$ i spent while it was just f2p

I really hope they don’t go super hard on monetization, selling weapons and armor sets that make the game a thousand times easier in random stat increases and stuff, the graphics and potential of the world mechanics make for a promising game in its core. Liked the video and keep up the great work.

Seems like we have no reason to believe that his game won't just be monetized to hell. Great concept. The way you explained ArchAge before you talked about it's downfall had me wondering why it wasn't a bigger game. I personally never played it but what you described sounded like THE MMO for me. I'm not going to bother getting excited. I'll stick with being pleasantly surprised when you release the video talking about how great it is should that day ever come.

Archeage was so addicting to me back in the day, I played it non stop.. Was a huge part of my life, I am excited to see 2's release, I hope it's as magical as the first. I miss that feeling.

There's another really big next gen mmo coming out called Everywhere and there was a gameplay trailer that i completely missed 3 months ago what the hell. It looks like fantasy third person shooter ..VRchat meets GTA almost. this game could actually be hugely popular.

Filling Multiple Trade Ships and setting out from a staging plot at a port. Good times, and running from the housing plot to the stating plot! I miss it, but they killed it hard.

I was one of those "Lord of Potatoes" back in AA. Yeah, farming=max, gathering=max, commerce=max. But believe it or not, this is one of the if not the best mmo experiences of my life. One of the highlights was when my commerce guild made an alliance with several others and have a massive trade run to freedrich(island in the middle). It was at least 30 merchant ships + galleons and other small vessels with a total of at least a hundred ships. What happened later was a very huge battle between us, pirates, the opposing faction, and even fellow green guilds that lasted for at least 6 hrs.

appreciate and respect your take sir

Wish you would cover Embers Adrift.

The Hud remembered me to Guild Wars 2

I was a pretty hardcore AA player for several years. I missed the alpha and started playing shortly after release. While there definitely was a P2W aspect, it really did require a hefty capital investment to get the best gear in a short amount of time because of the RNG factor of regrading gear. The game was free-to-play (F2P) and you could get the same benefits as paid subscribers by purchasing credits (APEX) in-game with the gold earned playing. As F2P I eventually became one of the top geared players in NA, but it did require a decent amount of playtime. The great thing about AA was that there were so many different play styles. You could be a farmer, crafter, trader, adventurer, seafarer, raider, or any combination of these with PVE and PVP flavors or each. Also, for better or worse, the game was driven heavily by player politics, where one month you were on top of the world and the next you could be a pariah. The politics could be driven by large guilds or outspoken individual players. For me the downfall of the game was driven by drastic changes to game systems that eventually killed entire play styles. The early trading systems, for example, were simple enough on the surface so anyone could participate but could be highly strategic and profitable by combining farming, staging plots, land routes, sea routes, etc. Eventually though, through several poorly designed iterations, they completely destroyed the enjoyment of trading to where it just became a daily-quest-style chore. This not only alienated a large group of traders but also those who played for the PVP aspects of contesting trade routes. Trade-induced PVP was truly one of the most exhilarating aspects of gameplay. It was dynamic, unpredictable, and could last for hours on land and sea trying to recover and secure trade packs from your enemies. I really hope they can bring back the magic that was in the original AA with AA2 and be true to the core systems that made it so enjoyable. Following up on the P2W topic, even though I've never been a P2W player it's hasn't really hindered my ability to enjoy a well-designed game. P2W exists in many games whether driven by the developer or the players. [Game currency] farming is a common example. I also remember in WoW people would pay guilds to gear them up in dungeons or pay others to play their characters in arenas to get ranked high enough to be eligible for the best PVP gear. -- Thanks for creating content like this! It's always a pleasure stopping by your channel.

Base Archrage was probably my fav MMO, but with all the predatory relaunches, I have no faith in this either tbh, if It's still around a year after launch, I might give it a go.

Anyone have any rough idea when we can expect this game to release?

ArcheAge was cool when it came out because it had so many unique systems and I didn't seriously play it or make it anywhere but it def. took up some of my time.

Pirate faction was bit further up to the left. But overall that was the idea xD

Loved this game. Would be there day one for a sequel.

hope that game will release in SEA too

I forget why I stopped playing, but it was before I even found out about the P2win cash shop, I think it was something with timers on crafting. Oh yea... the labor point system, horrendous.

I will never forget the launch experience. The land grab, making my first boat, the glider, pvp, and just traveling and being apart of an actual living world and economy with my brother and our friends

I had illegal farms hidden everywhere I could put them, It was a lot of fun. Was great to find other farms when you were looking for somewhere to hide one. My favourite thing was to get up high and see how far you could glide. Whole game was fun until.....yeah we all know.

I missed this game when it was awesome with big guild raids, and such. Then the patron paywalls, payshops, and everything else was getting harder, and harder to enjoy the game during og archeage though the game was still great. Then the playerbase dwindled over time, and left the game. It's still one of those special times I enjoyed a game, just hope this one will bring it back.

Bro I still talk about Archeage alpha to this day. Top 5 all time game for me. It was soooooo good!

I was there… and I feel sad about how it is now

You can easily see this is where Steven Sharif got a lot of his inspiration for Ashes of Creation. I wish I had been there before the cash shop essentially destroyed the game. I think I was still moping nursing my broken heart from when Vanguard shut down. RSVP Vanguard Saga of Heroes.

Never played it but what I gather from multiple game developers and MMO community in general is that, though it was a disaster, it became a great example of ''what not to do'' for many games. I feel sad because the systems sound extremely fun and I wish I could play it the way it was envisioned the first time but at least the major catastrophe forced other games to be better. I don't know call me an optimist but I believe that.

Was there mate, felt the joy of building the house with friends, transporting goods and getting raided :D Good times. I have zero trust in them, probably wont even try the 2nd game 😐

Even with the P2W I had a lot of fun in the game. There was some great stuff going on, and there was a good base of players always around for awhile. But the server merges killed the population. People worked hard to get land plots and even if you didn't get a prime spot, there were spots where you could settle for. But the merging erased all of that effort and the population of players who lost their plots got fed up and left. I hope that they get some of that back and if the action combat is good, then I will get sucked right back in.

ArcheAge made me hate pay to win with such a passion that I will NEVER play another mmo that has more than cosmetics in a cash shop.

Very cool this will be on console. Could definitely see myself making this my main game.

I genuinely miss Archeage n what it was originally. Some of the most unique experiences I'd ever had in a mmo n I been playin shit since the Everquest/Nexus/Ragnarok Online days.

I'm in. As long as they leave out the well-known eastern busy UI, with sale pop-ups, daily’s pop-up, pop-ups,pop-ups and more pop-ups. Immersion forr me in an MMORPG is key. Oh yea, I also don't want to see penguins or fluggy bears running around the dungeons, or atleast a filter.

Archeage had one of the better economic/market systems in an MMO ever. Using boats and carts to move more materials. It gave farming meaning and it felt good.

Our server in Archeage was overrun with Brazilians on the opposing faction so that was fun. That and the monetization ruined the experience

I remember having to use 2 mods at the beginning for far too long to get inverted mouse controls. Thing was it was already implemented in the Russian version for years... It was ridiculous.

Holy shit I never played this it sounds amazing !! Is it still worth playing now ??

Never buy into the hype until you see the actual gameplay and not some cinematic gameplay trailer with max cinematic but 0 gameplay.This applies to all games and especially MMOs.Even then wait for the release and gauge reviews and formulate your own OPINION/DECISION and wait a few months so the games are patched up of bugs,exploits etc and then play the game as all games are launched in a broken state in this day and age software MMOs are no exception in this regard.

Its insane we have live action with guns with the shooting games and on the other hand we have the only tab targeting homing skills for fantasy games....

I really enjoyed ArcheAge and I cannot explain why. You did a good job of it doe.

i see kakao involved in this. kakao was behind the west release of black desert online wich was also ruined by horrible p2win, greedy pricings and constant going back on their promises about monetization (promised no additional subscription option, ended up with 3 different ones over years. promised no cash shop item selling, later on allowed selling of cash shop items and every few patch increased their ingame value cause "ingame inflation" to encourage more people to buy them) archeage was an amazing game as a game it self and i loved it, but seeing how it went down and seeing kakao involved in this im trying to keep my expectations as low as i can to not relive the disappointment of archeage :I

Seriously we all know how this game is going to end. Hopium is a fun drug but once it wears off not so much.

Makes AA2 video with AA content! Legend!

If Steven is smart Ashes of Creation would release in the same year as Archeage 2 so if the developers of archeage 2 mess up like what happened in the first game and don't listen to the feedback there actually is a competing game that players can go to that might be better off (given AoC goes well that is) this is gonna be interesting because it means the genre for this type of mmo is expanding to multiple choices now and ironically they're both on UE5 (or that could be by design something tells me Steven heard or anticipated Archeage 2 being on UE5 & realised if he wanted ashes to succeed it couldn't remain on UE4)

Archeage... So many memories, both good and bad. The game had so much potential. The class system, the extensive craft system, the gliding, the open world housing, the music artistry system, mounts and vehicles, naval warfare, even a whole world under the sea... It's just sad that the heavily p2w monetization ruined a lot of the experience for people. I'd gladly pay a subscription fee for a game of that quality if that means it's well managed and not p2w, but with Kakao Games running the show on the upcoming second game I don't dare getting too hyped just yet... I hope they prove me wrong this time.

i was also there for the alpha , then for 3 years later . played maybe 3 fresh starts. sank alot of money into the game also kinda feel robbed honestly

I heard about the alpha thing but I still played it at launch and it was special RIGHT up until they put thunderstruck logs in cash shop, left that day and never looked back.

I was there, 3000 years ago..

They need to bring back the alpha trade system. That was so much fun.

It doesn't look good at but it does sound like it had some neat systems. I just don't think I could get into an mmo now that had a very simplified level of combat. Curious how it goes.

Sooo many epic moments in AA!

It was indeed very special.. I played a few months and even bought the subscription.. But then later it became really bad with paid stuff.. I'm never going to forget my friends and I bringing materials to build my Galleon.. What an amazing moment when I summoned that..

The Era and all the guilds and drama was the greatest.

One of my favorite MMO experiences. Was a shame they never got anti cheat under control. I quit when the first expansion released (highly anticipated) and we're meant to all epically sail to the new continent. But within seconds bots just teleported to the new continent and auto purchased all the plots ;(

I so much wish they improve gliding ability, I love to just glide around the mountains!!!

They also added a "Hasla weapon" that was meant to help new players catchup to those with good gear. That also added to the bad vibes since it became standard that you had to grind for that for hours on end to be able to be invited into groups and have a chance in pvp. Unless you opened your wallet like crazy