It seems like the ArcheAge anger is dying down in the blogosphere (or I’ve started tuning it out) as either the queues fade or people just give up and go away mad. Personally I’ve had good luck since re-rolling on one of the first ‘expansion servers.’ As a Patron my queue has never been more than a few minutes and often I get in almost instantly. In-game the initial crush has died down and there’s not as much fighting over mobs.

Not that I fight much. Let’s face it, there are a metric butt-ton (that’s a scientific measurement) of games chock-full of kill 10 rats quests and if you’re struggling to play ArcheAge to do those I can only wonder why. But hey, as long as you’re having fun. I’m playing ArcheAge for the sandbox yumminess, and that means I spend a lot of time growing stuff, crafting items, and exploring the world. I do accept every quest I come across and one of these days I’ll have to think about finishing them.

The last time I wrote I talked about my first Tradepack quest and it took until last night for me to get around to doing it. This is a quest that will drive the impatient away in droves, but I enjoyed it. First you have to make the trade pack and that took me a few days of farming (in-game farming, as in growing crops…not farming as in “killing the same mob over in over hoping for drops”) then you have to carry it from one place to another, which took me… I dunno… 15 minutes of walking? Many will dismiss this as ‘busy work’ and it is, but it was also a neat opportunity to slow down and really look at the world. I made note of some housing areas that had lots of open room, plus I gathered some wild herbs and did some mining along the way. It’s not something I’d want to do every day but there are ways to mitigate your travel time. Mounts and ‘mass transit’ and things of that nature.

My way of enjoying ArcheAge is to really treat it like a virtual world rather than a game, I guess. Sadly my fellow players don’t see it the same way and my attempts to banter with passersby have so far been met with stony silence. Killjoys.

ArcheAge isn’t my new home. I don’t really do ‘new homes’ in MMOs. I flit from one to the other. The real-time aspects will eventually go from fun to annoying (I log in every morning before work to tend my garden) but for right now, I’m finding it all charming and addictive. I actually find myself looking forward to more players drifting away and leaving me with an emptier world, which I know isn’t something that Trion is looking forward to, but I think we all can agree will happen. Packed farming land and housing areas look dumb but the ones I saw in my walk last night actually are quite pretty and make me want to ‘live’ there for a while. Plus competition for mining nodes is fierce right now; everyone is looking for stone.

I’m really glad I rolled on the new server rather than fight the queue and the crowds on Naima. I have plenty of Patron time on my account (since I was a Founder) but if I didn’t, I’d definitely be throwing down my $15 to subscribe, at least for now. ArcheAge is a great game if you’re looking for a sandbox experience, but it definitely isn’t for everyone. There’s lots of down and ‘quiet’ time unless you’re just trying to play it like a themepark, and if you’re doing that I think there are better alternatives out there.