The December 18th land rush for both ArcheAge and ArcheAge Unchained, went off without any notable issues (a good thing considering all of the small little cuts that have taken place since Kakao Games took over the publishing for the NA/EU region from Gamigo at the start of this month).
On the merged “evolution” servers, the land rush also revealed what should be looked at by Kakao, as a troubling sign. And that is a huge player drop off. I can only speak of my personal experience on the NA merged server (Krakan) for Unchained but I was able to get back most all of my property (in the exact same spot), and more. And I did it at a fairly casual pace; dropping down my beanstalk first, then my advanced fellowship plaza, tradesman, mushroom, miners, and all my farms – and that was just my main character. I then switched to my alt character and dropped all of its full kit. I then logged to my other characters on my main and dropped it’s full kits (rinse and repeat for the other alts). And after completing that there were still a lot of open 16’s and 24’s around me even after a lot of neighboring players had dropped their full kits. Some folks resorted to dropping designs to begin filling out the holes.
Nearly 2 hours later, I decided to head to Two Crowns (which is normally heavily contested) just to see it every nook and cranny had 8×8 tents. I passed by the lake and saw the two fixed 16×32 slots fronting it, still open. Normally all of this is taken when the open grid areas are fully packed. So I dropped the raised 16×16 cottage that has been sitting in my mains bag since before the first merge occurred. I then summoned one of the characters on my alt account to drop the raised 16 that I didn’t place on my main Solzreed property. I also logged the other character on that alt account to fill out the other 16 with a full kit cottage, and used the low tax 8×8 stellar/solar/lunar farms that had been provisioned by Kakao for their re-launch. Checking out the beach front area where my first property in the game ever was, it was filled with larger structures, but wasn’t 8×8 hobo tent packed either.
Several hours after land rush, Krakan still had open spots in numerous zones. I heard it was similar with the EU Unchained evolution server. The fresh starts are still naturally gated by lack of larger designs and material constraints, and I heard that the population of legacy while stable, is also much smaller than Unchained. Just the general bleed off in this game is problematic when looking at legacy (the double digit servers at its original 2014 launch all the way to the present with just one merged server for each region). Unchained is even starker since it launched with 6 servers per region at the tail end of September 2019, only to undergo it’s first merge (and first fresh start) in March 2021 (this prior post details how Gamigo merged the two most populated servers together along with some the lesser populated ones, leaving one evolved server more populated than the other, versus something more balanced). That merge brought those 6 servers down to two per region, which brings us to the present where those three servers (per region) were merged down to todays single “evolved” server under Kakao.
All of this highlights just how much players have left the newer Unchained version (and no, they didn’t go back to legacy which has also bled out most of its player base since many transitioned over to Unchained). Kakao’s decision to switch from the buy to play business model (that Gamigo operated) to subscription based obviously has had a dramatic effect heading into this land rush. I personally expected a bit more headache with getting back most of my property where I originally was not intending to place anything from my alt account characters. I had them online just in case but thought I wouldn’t need to do anything. And I turned out to be very wrong. Marmas before the Gamigo transfer was packed land wise in the main peace zones on Nuia (west faction). I created a temp character pre-merge on Akmit on did a cursory runaround; it has a lot more open spots but just knowing this would be merging into Marmas, looked problematic (along with the even fewer properties on Godfrey). I presumed it was similar and slightly worse over on EU.
So for me and many others (who also noted they were able to get back what they had), this is rather eye opening on the drop off. Some may have also decided to make a conscious decision to not bother with their alt accounts since they intend not to maintain multiple subs going forward (as what I had originally mentioned I was planning to do). And that is where I’ve had to make a change of plans due to game changes (property and vocational related ones) that had not been originally communicated. Having land now highlights what those changes are.
For one, bound tax certificates no longer cost just labor to create. Those now require creating paper (one paper equals one bound tax certificate). Paper is created from lumber (and lumber is crafted from logs). Before this global build, it pretty much cost 3 base resources (so 3 logs to craft 1 lumber, 3 ores for 1 ingot, etc). Now, everything got more “expensive” since it requires 5 basic resource (so 5 logs for 1 lumber). This consumes more of your already finite labor (which has a larger pool in the global build including a bit more if the ArcheLife blessing is activated; that is a 30 day buff that can be purchased with in-game currency that you earn through the ArchePass). The unbound tax certificates (which requires getting a characters max proficiency in construction to 230K famed) remains unchanged where those are still crafted with labor.
While most players have at least one character that has reached famed proficiency in construction to do that, players (like myself) that play the game mainly for property ownership (aka land barons) now have a reason for maintaining an alt account (which has a character with famed construction proficiency); I can now utilize the labor on that other account mainly for my unbound tax certificates along with processing materials. And this is just a tip of the iceberg with the changes made to this part of the game. Building Management Titles (bound to characters) can no longer be crafted (this required a building management permit purchased from a general merchant for 150 gold) with 50 bound tax certificates. This can now be only purchased with 15 manastorm crystals (which you earn in-game) or 80K vocation badges. That’s a huge unnecessary change IMHO. Structures that could be rotated before with just bound tax certificates, now require building management titles (I found that out when I tried rotating my beanstalk; it asked for 11 titles whereas before, rotation only cost 10 bound tax certificates). These titles are also required for upgrading a structure, for full kit demolitions, and for certified selling a property.
And since they’ve always been bound to character, you no longer have an avenue to at least craft the permits (that were tradable and thus could be purchased on a character that had more gold, and mailed to your other character that could then craft them into titles for their use), you now have to make more deliberate decisions with the ArchePass (in order to earn manastorm crystals) and/or ways to earn more vocational badges. I mention the ArchePass because a significant change was made to it; the 20 weekly quests are now shared across your characters in this global build. Previously, the 20 weekly quests were per character which meant you could grind the ArchePass for each character in order to level up the pass, and earn each tiers rewards simultaneous each week for each character. Now, you need to make a deliberate choice of which character you want to earn pass experience to earn each tier reward over the course of that week. As of now, I’ve designated my main character (which has most of the properties placed) to be the one progressing the pass on my main account, and doing the same on my alt account,
Basically, a lot of property based game play became more expensive (which translates into that part of the game economy, also becoming more expensive). Only those of us with larger plots can utilize the majestic trees (fastest method to get large amounts of logs) or mining drill (an alternative to a mining house or manually farming veins in the wild). Additionally, mining houses produce less materials (normally a lot of raw stone) and jackpots, but when you do get a jackpot, rewards more material (so more ores). Since lumber, raw stones (for stone bricks), and iron ore (for ingots) are pretty much important base construction materials, producing more of that is going to be required in order to supply what will be an increased demand (since more materials are now required).
So after thinking it over for a day, I re-thought my original plan of not re-subbing on my other account after my initial 90 days of free game time expires. After getting back more property than I originally had, and now experiencing a few of these major changes that weren’t properly communicated (Kakao needs to really improve this part), I decided to change my original plan; I plan to take advantage of the 180 day sub ($52) for both of my accounts (after my free period ends) and ride this until the next server merge which is likely within the realm of this time period even with the progression gating on this new fresh start server. At that point, I’ll be in a better position to evaluate if this is something I want to continue doing (as well as continuing this cycle of starting over with your properties in this manner when it is clear, the games population has eroded where all this is doing is upheaving everyone for the sake of merging dead fresh starts back into the legacy pool when they really should just be focusing on seasonal servers, and forcing transfers/giving seasonal rewards for participants which they can use on the legacy pool).
Finally (and to get way out in front of it), I do believe XL and Kakao will find an avenue for eventually consolidating legacy ArcheAge with Unchained. The vast majority of legacy ArcheAge players have to spend something in that game; someone has to buy APEX to sell to those who grind in-game gold for that APEX (either to convert to credits or to pay for their monthly Patron; they still had to pay for their initial Patron). And so that symbiotic relationship continues along with players who purchase credits for marketplace purchases (or just outright sub for Patron since it is far cheaper to do it that way). With Unchained, it’s mandatory sub (else you cannot even launch the game) and a marketplace without all of the power increasing stuff you can get in the legacy cash shop.
Unchained drew more players because of the buy once premise (alt accounts tended to not generate any additional recurring revenue beyond that). Plus Gamigo weren’t good at managing the game as promised (all of the early exploits including taking advantage of bugs in the early ArchePass) which led to a lot of players quitting (yet again). Kakao themselves did not get off on the right footing relaunching this subscription based version with the global build. And players (who don’t keep up with the KR patch notes) are now experiencing some of the changes with property and vocational tasks in both versions of the game. On the Unchained side, Kakao is eating 90-180 days worth of subscription revenue as a goodwill gesture; it’s also a timeframe they need to show their customer base that they are capable of managing all aspects of the game, at a satisfactory level. IMHO, it’s been way below that level to me post-launch. And they will have player retention metrics to deal with in both versions. If that doesn’t improve over time, I can easily see both developer (XL) and publisher (Kakao) justifying the consolidation of both versions (by that time, AA2 will be moving into early hype/PR mode).
Even now, I find it a losing proposition trying to appeal to a small (but vocal) minority of the ArcheAge player base that whines about “buying” power. These are some of the same people who end up trying to find ways to exploit the bugs in the game and/or engaging in RMT (buying gold). ArcheAge was originally designed to have cash shop mechanics (buying back power/RNG/QoL, etc) so the “so called” P2W cash shop in legacy, is what the game was designed for. All I see with the two versions is splitting an already small player population where one version has a sub-only business model where the benefit is you get a mostly non-P2W cash shop.
