For the past year since ArcheAge Unchained was launched, no one that I knew was upset with the ArchePass to where they were writing tons of feedback that it needed to be changed. Yes, it did have some buggy issues (where incompetence was on full display) during the first three months of launch that were eventually addressed. And while it’s a tacked on system that should’ve been better designed to work more like the achievements system (in terms of working with the flow of the game), it generally ended up working well for players of all types during this first year.
But with ArchePass Season 5 (active as of October 15th), Gamigo and XL decided that it needed to be changed. As usual, a preview of it was made available on the PTS just prior to the launch of the latest update where PTS isn’t used properly as a tool (the feedback is never to address issues that people come across UNLESS it is a heavy exploit or something their internal QA did not catch when it comes to their actual business systems). Basically, the code that is deployed to PTS ends up being pushed to production.
So it wasn’t surprising when this ArchePass for Season 5 was pushed out as is where it is an overall less rewarding experience (you get less Diligence coins, less labor rechargers, less Gilda). There were previous 3 different tracks that had 45 tiers each. And it was fairly easy to complete all three (in the 3 months of each season) which left a week or two to go back to the basic pass to earn some additional Gilda Stars. All of this has been removed for a single monthly track with some questionable non-cosmetic rewards on the Premium pass (which is where they make their money since it costs 1500 credits). The above at face value looks good but the pacing and the rewards are worse than before.
You basically don’t shut off the spigot to where players notice the difference. And the most noticeable one was: “where are my labor rechargers?” The fewer tiers means each reward comes at a slower pace. And there aren’t as many labor rechargers as a result. The same goes for Diligence. However, one just needs to take a look at the updated marketplace for credits to see that they are trial selling some of these consumables that used to only be available via Diligence (which you earn by playing). Whomever signed off on this (to test this in a live environment), just nuked their entire premise for Unchained (which was only cosmetic items) when it came to what you could purchase with credits (including credits used to purchase the premium pass).
And recently, Gamigo has been pushing the sales of credits (with 30% and 40% bonus credit promotions as well as more free trial periods). Basically, it’s clear there is pressure to boost revenues to look good to Gamigo shareholders. After the marketing push prior to the launch of Unchained and then radio silence by Merv Lee Kwai (the long time executive producer of ArcheAge for Trion who was retained by Gamigo and made a VP to oversee all of their titles), there are more veteran players who are like at the tail end of the “fool me once, shame on you, fool me multiple times, shame on my own dumbass”).
A very big deal was made about listening to the community feedback and it initially came across that way where the contents of the ArchePass was changed. At the very last minute, I preordered the Archeum pack since it represented the best value; and this is after I was adamant ever since the announcement that the same Trion folks who were retained, would end up handling the game the same way. So I made it clear after the fact that I should’ve known better. The thing is that I am still playing it but primarily as a 3D farmville.
For other players though, the whole original premise of the buy to play model and the ArchePass (cosmetics only in the premium pass) was blown up in one fell swoop. Does it surprise me? No. They already went against their original single upfront cost “promise” when they made the Garden of the Gods update a paid DLC for Unchained. And some of the same complainers went ahead and bought that in order to get access to the fresh start server. I mean that is Gamigo’s core revenue source since that whole cycle of fresh start (and associated pack, Patron, and APEX sales) were a huge money maker for Trion.
Again, I never played with Patron on free to play “legacy” ArcheAge (I did receive a free month when Devilian was shutdown BUT I never used its benefit since I had no plans of further maintaining a sub to keep any land). So Unchained represented a one time purchase for me to finally experience the core facet of the game which is property, building it up, and maintaining it. I’ve gotten a whole lot more land as more players fall off the wagon and getting a lot out of my initial purchase so in that regard, I really don’t have much to complain about except to say that the change feels lousy. For other players who take this game really seriously, I can see the population taking yet another hit.
