This is the sort of uninformative live stream that ends up happening when the executive producer (Khrolan) isn’t a part of AND when you have community managers who aren’t as familiar with the game as the players (who show up to these type of streams). They really couldn’t answer anything new (or in deeper detail), the compensation question some folks were asking about could only be answered with a vague “they are ready but can’t be delivered yet due to technical issues”, PTS for Unchained? could only be answered with “more details coming”, etc.
As much as I despised Trion, they were very fortunate for ArcheAge that they had community managers who played it a little bit deeper than just the leveling stage (so when more difficult questions came up, they were at least able to answer them more authoritatively). Yes, I know this is rare for a lot of publishers (especially ones handling third party published titles) where CM’s have to fudge it and make it look like they are interested while only having a cursory surface level knowledge.
Since they started the stream with unequalized volume where it was initially louder and they brought it down (which meant that some had to turn up their own volume), the funniest part was later when they cut to a short trailer and the broadcast volume was for that was even louder than their original voice one (RIP earphone users). I always get a laugh out of these because unequalized audio levels are always an issue with these type of live streams.
The point is that this stream did nothing to get me off the fence that I am currently sitting on. Front loaded pre-order “Founders” packs are easy money for publishers. Once something launches, any issues and flaws are going to be magnified by players (which can cause those who are sitting on the fence, to keep that wallet closed for awhile longer). It’s up to Gamigo to show they can competently handle this game (because I’ve seen how they’ve handled titles before this Trion asset acquisition and don’t believe they are up to that task of not eventually treating it like a milk the cow cash grab). I don’t see that in the above.
