18.September.2014

So, as you have probably seen from previous articles, Archeage is a new MMO which has just opened its' doors to its' free-to-players on the 16th of September, as well as probably burning the many bridges they shared with their previous 'founders'. In this article, I will be talking about all that happened during the headstart and the official release from the first person perspective, not just as an onlooker.

After what can only be described as an atrocious headstart of the game for the founders, who paid between the range of £35 to £110, the company Trion have officially decided to ruin the game for many of these supporters. How, you may ask yourself, have they backstabbed their adoring supporters? And I am so glad you asked.

Between the 12th and the 16th of September, the people with founders packs dealt with the many mass disconnections, the extremely large queues to get into one of the few servers (originally 4 for EU, 6 for NA), the frequent bug issues, the DDOS attacks on both the game and the Trion's sites (both the forum for Archeage and the official Glyph site), the lack of land to place both houses and farms as well as a severe lack of information from Trion about the issues that were occurring. Whilst all this was going on, Trion and Archeage were still promoting and selling themselves as a great game to buy into, but it can now be proven that anyone who bought a founders pack in the last few days prior to the headstart has been truly backstabbed and ripped off.

On the official release of the game, not only did they introduce extra servers for the expected mass of free-to-players (7 servers are now up for EU, ... are now up for NA), obsoleting the whole point of the headstart 4 days for the founders, but they also introduced starter packs with better items than what the founders - the essential testing players - received, if they ever received them, in their founders packs.

For similar prices to that of the founders packs, the starter packs receive more beneficial items than the founders received, as well as more of them. Though it can not be argued that people who paid for the Alpha and Beta access of the game should receive these new items of the starter packs as they have experienced more of the game pre-headstart than the free-to-players, it is hard not to see the anger, hatred and downright disgust currently raging on the Archeage forum by the people who paid just for the ruined headstart weekend after the open beta had finished. These people were not informed about the starter packs that would be released as soon as the game released, which turns the stomach of many a player. No one prior to release was informed of the superior packs to come with similar, if not better, items to the other packs.

Were Trion trying to grab extra pennies prior to official release for the headstart weekend, or did they 'forget' they had already added and priced better packs for players in the patch they only updated 2 hours prior to the official release, which was postponed by an hour itself?

If I could go back in time with hindsight of all their errors for the release of this game, I would not buy the founders pack for this game. Not only did they ruin and obsolete the headstart of the people who supported them from the point they decided to translate this game for the Western world (that's right, this game already exists in Korea and Russia and has done for 2 years, so you'd think Trion would have seen the potential flaws as they happened to the other versions of the game), they also backstabbed them by trying to sell more. It is sad to know that gaming companies no longer give a damn about their fan bases, as another main company (EA) have already spat on their fans this year, but care more about the pounds and dollars you are willing to pump into their pockets.

Though Archeage itself is a good game, Trion have ruined what was supposed to be a fun experience for their fans and may never regain the trust they lost again. Stay free to play, don't give them a dime.

Thank you to the founders that provided information and their experiences.

~ Kirky