Why all the hate towards Archeage?

Alpha could technically be divided into two segments: late April to July, and July to September. Here's my random thoughts on the whole experience, good and bad:

The first part was pre-1.0 AA.

  • You couldn't level easily through labor. You had to grind mobs to level new classes, so it was almost easier to reroll.
  • Healing power scaled off of INT, so you had insane mage healer hybrids.
  • Healers actually had gear drops in dungeons and Hasla.
  • Fishing with bait worms could give you waterlogged lockboxes, which had tons of cool little items and sometimes trash gear in them.
  • Archeum dropped plentifully, so crafting was done often, but seeing mag items on AH was still rare.
  • You paid taxes with gold and housing was scarce.
  • No cash shop.
  • The fishing contest and arena rankings rewarded insane prizes for the amount of people on the server, so they were shut down. However, people that participated managed to get thunderstruck fishing rods, which were bugged and didn't need red lures. Those guys got mega rich.
  • No Serpentis, weekend dungeon, or library. Auroria and castles existed, though.
  • You received a currency called Nui's Tears for discovering locations. I can't remember what you could buy with them except the bungalow could only be bought with this currency.
  • Your labor pool started out low and you gained a larger pool as you used your labor. It took weeks to max it to 5000.
  • Proficiencies were capped at 50k and gave massive labor reductions. At 50k, it was 40% reduction.
  • Merchant ships were dirt cheap, so everyone had one.
  • You could get gilda via land routes, and one of the best trade runs to Freedich was from Halcyona. It required 50 wheat and paid 10ish gold?

The second part of Alpha was a 1.2/library/whatever Trion felt like throwing in hybrid.

  • A second server was introduced, Omega. It shared the AH with Alpha. A lot of people moved there to get away from Oran'thul or to find housing.
  • When tax payment switched over to certs, they locked tax payments for weeks, which meant no new housing opened up for a long time on alpha.
  • Healing now scaled off of Spirit (and clubs had healing power added to them), but no new dungeon or Hasla items were introduced to compensate for it. Many healers from pre-1.0 either rerolled or quit the game as they realized they had to fully re-gear.
  • Archeum drops were scarce, leading to insane inflation which reached 80-100g per sunlight crystal at the end. If you didn't get gear in the first 2-4 weeks after the patch, you were stuck with what you had.
  • The first floor of Library was introduced - and obsidian weapons along with it), but we were still capped at level 50, so it was mostly a costume grind.
  • PvP was on a fairly even playing field because most people were in illustrious/GHA/mag with Hasla weapons with the exception of a couple of guilds that ran Serpentis and some people that got lucky crafting.
  • Pace22 revived ocean PvP by streaming his adventures, causing people to stream snipe him and engage in galleon battles with his group.
  • The cash shop was mostly cosmetic with a few exceptions like workers comps. RNG boxes weren't in yet.
  • We gained 1500 honor per Crimson or Grimghast Rift.
  • Exploiting of GMs was rampant. Many people deleted items to get them unbound to either sell or give to a rerolled character. This also applied to items that broke when regrading.
  • Hacking was rampant because many people lacked authenticators. Trion used to give them I think 2 gold per character level as compensation. Slowly, they improved the process, returning items to people, but they were crude quality. Other people received multiple copies of any items, gilda, or plans they ever held once.
  • Labor was 20 per 5 and we still popped pots like crazy. It actually encouraged more trade runs.

Random stuff:

  • Costumes had stats, mounts and gliders had varying speeds that made them unique and strategic choices.
  • Cars and submarines could be bought with vocation, gilda, or honor. You had to decide which vehicle you wanted based on what advantage it gave and earn from there.
  • A lot of the dominant (at some point after launch) guilds came from alpha, including Wicked (RIP), Forestcrow, Gank Bus, Oran'thul (RIP), The White Order (RIP), etc.
  • APEX wasn't a thing. $150 bought us in and we didn't have to worry about anything other than our trade runs and fishing.
  • The game is nothing like what it was when we experienced it on alpha.

I look back on alpha very fondly, but also acknowledge there were plenty of bad aspects to it too. Based on the lists there, does launch seem better or worse?

/r/archeage Thread Parent