I received a message regarding compensation packs being given out for the recent ArcheAge server evolutions (merge) which happened prior to the implosion of Trion.
I had pretty much washed my hands of anything that Trion was publishing (the only game left that I did play was ArcheAge). I also felt that not even being part of the measurement metric (login) mattered so I didn’t touch the game from May onwards.
Gamigo has put more of their personnel in place for the Trion assets they acquired and aren’t looking to shutter any of the titles at this time (which makes sense if they can keep as much of those players in the fold where they can eventually try to market some of their other published games pre-acquisition, to them). Gamigo, XLGAMES, and the remnants of Trion’s ArcheAge team issued a joint statement regarding the transition (since then, Gamigo and XLGAMES have come to a deal where Gamigo will be the new NA/EU publisher).
I view Gamigo as being of equal or worse than Trion when it comes to monetization so I don’t really expect major improvements to how ArcheAge ends up being monetized in the future. I also realize the full transition and integration of business systems will take awhile which means things will remain status quo for a bit. There will eventually be the rebranding (Trion Worlds domain remains active since it is used for frontend as well as account management), the site consolidations (front facing sites will eventually be merged into Gamigo’s as well as the community forums). It remains to be seen how they handle Glyph (which is not just the launcher since it is a platform that also ties into their backend). Many of Gamigo’s published titles have their own launchers so it is possible they may utilize the platform in the future to serve as a centralized repository.
Regardless, I’m going to give Gamigo the benefit of the doubt (but one with a really short leash). I still have something like 13,000+ credits left after choosing ArcheAge as the game to move what I had remaining in Devilian. What I won’t do again is any subscription for land ownership since that is the exact slippery slope that keeps many players locked in (once you have buildings and the myriad of items which can be placed in them).
It seems this is happening in conjunction with the 5.0 Relics of Hiram update which has a new zone, new Tempering system, and new Malediction skill set. I’m thus completely out of the loop with the new gear and progression changes. My highest character is only at Ancestral Level 1 which I know from before, maxed out at 7.
The biggest issue I have however is inventory space (both personal and server are maxed out in terms of space and nearly full on each). I have all these event tokens, event cosmetics (I only bought a few), consumables, materials, and other reward/event/compensation crates (which I haven’t opened because I know they are going to result in items I have no place to put). The event token spawn is designed this way on purpose to do exactly what they do (take up more space). This will be the easiest to deal with though (just have to go to Mirage Island and turn them in for whatever and then destroy the left over). ArcheAge is also a huge offender when it comes to the large amount of consumables and materials (used for end game gear enchanting/augmentation) to fill up your stash.
This is the trap with ArcheAge. If you own land (which in this NA/EU version, requires a Patron subscription), you can put up a building. And in that building, you can put in storage chests (some available for cash shop credits or others are bundled with one of the more expensive packs) to store more stuff. So naturally, once you stop your subscription and your property is eventually demolished, your stuff gets sent to mail (where you can let it sit until mail begins to expire; which from what I last know, was around an year).
I’ve already mailed whatever I could to an alt and didn’t make any dent so I won’t be able to even open these compensation ones until I find a way to make more space (the game also by design, lacks a shared server bank since that would allow being able to move non-tradable items to an alt; something they obviously didn’t want since the objective is to make it so restrictive to incentivize a player to own property so they can get more storage chests in a building).
Basically, my first return (in several months) to ArcheAge was playing inventory tetris as opposed to the actual game.
