Another day, another questionable design choice made.
That pretty much sums up my opinion after learning that ArcheAge is going to adopt a subscription-based business model after transitioning over to Kakao.

Today, however, I want to remain.. as objective as I possibly can. The goal? Discuss my thoughts on the change, what it means for the future of the game, the general reception the announcement has received among the community and ultimately what changes will take place.

So, yesterday Kakao released a blog post over on the new ArcheAge website titled “reintroducing ArcheAge Unchained”
They went on to state:

“We’ve thought long and hard about the idea behind ArcheAge: Unchained and what is needed to fulfill your vision of what Unchained represents. We’ve made some pretty significant changes to how the service will be provided, what will be available in the cash shop, and how various functions such as ArchePass and Patron will work”
“In order to remove the possibility to increase in-game power with real-life currency, we’ve opted for a monthly subscription method. Many of the previously paid benefits and Marketplace-only items will be automatically included for free or acquired through in-game methods with Manastorm Crystals.
This gives even more value to the subscription. Also, any paid items will be purely cosmetic. The monthly subscription will be set at 9.99($,€) for 30 days. A discount can be obtained by purchasing subscriptions for longer periods of time.”

Let’s stop there for a moment.
For those of you unaware, ArcheAge and ArcheAge: Unchained have separate business models. ArcheAge is free to play and heavily pay to win. ArcheAge: Unchained had a premium box price, meaning you had to purchase the game.
It only required a one-time purchase, though, with Gamigo promising you’d never have to pay a single cent ever again. For any updates. Any future content. Then a year later, they revealed their “Garden of the Gods” DLC. They charged players for this, completely going against what they had claimed when players first purchased Unchained.
Now, in an effort to combat pay to win, Kakao are claiming the game is not only going to require a purchase, but will also charge you a monthly recurring fee to play, much like World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy XIV.
To say the community is.. divided over this change is an understatement.
On the one hand, every player will be given free game time – a minimum of 60 days if you purchased ArcheAge: Unchained. You’ll receive an additional 30 days if you’d purchased Garden of the Gods and a further 60 days if you had purchased the Gunslinger class. This is a total of 150 days, or 5 months.
Furthermore, all players both new and existing will receive a 30-day free trial, meaning up to 180 days of free time in total.
Yet after those months are up, you’ll be locked out of ever playing the game without first re-subscribing to the game.
Some players are ecstatic that it’s going pay to play, as they believe this will provide it with the business model it truly deserves to excel as an MMO. Others.. are absolutely livid that a game they bought with the promise of being able to play forever, will, in fact, not be playable forever.

I genuinely do not believe, after putting at least a hundred hours into ArcheAge, that it is anywhere near worth being quality enough for a subscription-fee. The only MMOs that can still pull that off are WoW and Final Fantasy XIV.

And I’m aware that Kakao is a new company, so theoretically they’re not obligated to honor Gamigo’s promises.. but this, to me, seems in very poor taste. Haven’t ArcheAge players suffered enough already?

One thing to note concerning pay to win: Kakao did confirm that the marketplace will now only offer cosmetic items, with the removal of every type of boost from the store.
Furthermore, like Gamigo initially promised, all future content will no longer be gated behind paid DLC. Rather, both ArcheAge and ArcheAge: Unchained players will have full, unfiltered access.

The Patron system is going to be upgraded, and will be completely free to all ArcheAge: Unchained players as part of the monthly subscription. They’ve been a little vague at present as to what the upgrade will feature, but they did promise they’ll announce and elaborate on it at a later date.

All players will be given an entire month of ArchePass benefits. After which, players will be able to continue to purchase it at the cost of 500 Loyalty Tokens, which cannot be purchased with real money.

Diligence Coins are going to be replaced by Manastorm Crystals, which are awarded via the Premium ArchePass. Again, only available by playing the game.

And finally, 20 Loyalty Tokens are awarded by logging in every day, meaning that if you log in for 25 days straight, you’ll have enough to afford the ArchePass.

So. I’ve been on Reddit. I’ve been on the official forums. As I noted earlier, players are divided. Some people believe this is a positive, and others a negative.
Honestly, the alterations being made aren’t bad. I don’t see any reason to attack Kakao for making changes like this – sure, it might be them attempting to cash in on the game before they shut it down ahead of the ArcheAge 2 launch in the near future. Or it could be exactly what the game needs.
I do not in any way, personally, think turning ArcheAge: Unchained into an MMO that requires a subscription is the way to go. That is a terrible idea. However, if this somehow results in ArcheAge becoming a higher quality title.. then you know what? More power to them.
Although I’m firmly of the belief that ArcheAge just.. isn’t what players remember.
I recall how excited players were when Unchained was announced. A non pay to win return to form. And while enjoyment was most definitely had over the course of the first couple weeks.. players quickly came to the realization that the game.. was a drastic departure from what they recalled.
What was once one of the most freeing MMOs was now a mess of repetitious dailies. ArcheAge: Unchained did what it promised. But the game had changed so much that it really didn’t make that much difference.

To end this, I will note that ArcheAge and ArcheAge: Unchained will be launching under Kakao on December 2nd, 2021. I know the topic of fresh start servers has been discussed, and yes, there will be additional fresh start servers opened the very same day for players wanting to start this new journey from the beginning.

Here’s news I didn’t expect to wake up to. As you guys are no doubt aware, Gamigo has been the publisher for ArcheAge and ArcheAge Unchained for years, now. And Gamigo has proven, repeatedly, that they’re absolutely, 100% incapable of publishing an MMO.
They promised Unchained would be a single-purchase, and we’d get updates in the future ENTIRELY FREE – then decided “JK, you gotta pay for every large content update now.”
Either way, fast forward to today’s revelation: ArcheAge has been acquired by another publisher – yes, FINALLY, someone other than Gamigo will be in charge of publishing the game. The only issue is… it’s Kakao.

Yup. According to their social media pages… “ArcheAge gets a new publisher! In December, the publishing service of the game will solely be managed by Kakao Games.”

Navigating on over to the official ArcheAge website, we can see a small blog post made earlier today titled “A New Publisher.”

“It is with lots of emotion that today, after 7 years of ArcheAge, and 2 years of ArcheAge: Unchained, we announce that the franchise will move to a new publisher in December.
gamigo games and its affiliated sub-companies will no longer be in charge of or involved with any live operation concerning ArcheAge and ArcheAge: Unchained. All of the rights and related duties will solely be with the new publisher Kakao Games directly.
Be at ease though as all your items will be transferred! And every item acquired while our shops are open will also be transferred together with all of your characters as well.
We are aware that the announcement leaves you with a lot of open questions. We will answer all of them to the best of our knowledge.”

So, next month Gamigo will lose all rights to the game. They will no longer be in charge of the game in any capacity – completely unaffiliated with neither ArcheAge or ArcheAge Unchained.
They confirmed that there will be a transfer of all data to Kakao between now and December, however, if you recall, when Kakao transferred publishing rights back to Pearl Abyss with Black Desert Online, things didn’t go over entirely.. smoothly.
Which is understandable. No company is infallible. Issues are sure to arise. Issues that are unexpected. So while theoretically the game will be migrated to Kakao’s own servers in December, it could take quite a bit longer, especially given how close we are to Christmas.

Now, this should be good news. Gamigo is a cesspool of… just absolute incompetence. And I know me talking shit about them like this loses me any paid opportunities to work with them in the future, but I can’t hold back how much of a garbage publisher they are when it comes to their games.
They – for all intents and purposes – scammed players with the paid DLC. They make their games horrendously pay to win… yet at the same time, is Kakao really any better? Kakao aren’t known for their friendly business models.
Not only have players called Black Desert pay to win for years, even before Pearl Abyss re-acquired publishing rights to the game, but just look at Elyon. Weeks after launching, Kakao are already contemplating how to introduce pay to win into their game.
Will changing publisher do anything for ArcheAge or ArcheAge Unchained? Unlikely. For all we know, this could be the final nail in the coffin for the game.

What I believe they’re doing – and you’re welcome to give me your opinion here as well if you think I’m wrong – is that they’re trying to expand their portfolio. Add more MMOs to their list of games they have control over.
Given that they’re working on developing ArcheAge 2 with XL Games, it makes sense that they would want to add its predecessor.

But what do you guys think? Is this a good move or bad? Do you think it’ll save ArcheAge or further push it into obscurity?

Not much is known about ArcheAge 2 currently, other than the fact that it’s going to be an entirely reworked MMORPG. A lot of players still have fond memories of both ArcheAge and ArcheAge Unchained, but the current incarnation of the game we have is just.. a shell of its former self. It’s nothing compared to the game it once was, thanks to XL Games, Trion and Gamigo. But that might all change after Kakao and XL Games release ArcheAge 2.

ArcheAge 2 is going to be built entirely on Unreal Engine 5 as opposed to most MMOs being built for Unreal Engine 4.

They’re currently in the process of testing other types of gameplay. Maybe action combat? Maybe other times of progression?

There are a total of 40-50 staff members working on ArcheAge 2 right now. For reference, Genshin Impact had 100+ and over $100,000,000 dollars – and it still took them years to get through the development process.

ArcheAge will be based around “freedom.” Which is essentially what ArcheAge focused on, but to an even greater degree.

They know they messed up in ArcheAge by being “greedy.” Heck, players were complaining about that years ago. Thanks to the investment from Kakao, they can focus less on paid services and instead on a better game.  They’re working, specifically, on creating content with “density” and “completeness.”

They noted that considering over half the total sales for ArcheAge came from North America and Europe, and as such, they’ll likely design ArcheAge 2 for the Western market.

ArcheAge 2 will take place in an entirely different time period, and be set in a parallel dimension.

ArcheAge 2 will feature brand new classes that were seen in the original artwork for ArcheAge but never implemented.

And that’s pretty much all we know about ArcheAge 2. Considering this has been in development for over a year now, it’s likely that ArcheAge 2 will release in 2024. Maybe 2025. Expecting a 2021 or 2022 release date is highly unlikely.

I’ve always been of the impression that ArcheAge (and by association, ArcheAge: Unchained as well,) was a very good game.. at its core. It has been so devastatingly mismanaged for years thanks to Trion and now Gamigo however that it’s become a shell of what it could have otherwise been.

Now, this is perhaps the most disgusting news I’ve had to talk about in a while. Regardless, Gamigo revealed last month that they were in the process of merging their 14 servers down into a total of 4. This is due to the server populations continuing to dwindle down over time – which is understandable. The game has limited content and doesn’t receive very regular updates.

However, accompanying that information was the reveal that they were going to go ahead and release 2 brand new “fresh start servers,” for players to re-roll onto, starting from scratch. Meaning you’d be required to purchase your cosmetic items, mounts and quality of life items all over again on an entirely new character. This has worked in the past because (for the most part,) fresh start servers have been free and mostly painless to transition on over to. Nevertheless, this was a distasteful move on their part, but they were hungry for money, and the game is dying as is abundantly evident.

After announcing the new fresh start servers, they went on to announce their brand new Akasch Invasion patch coming March 25th, that is only available if you pay for it, with the cheapest package being $16 and the most expensive being $60 for Unchained players, and a whopping $150 for base ArcheAge players.

This is an ungodly amount – an amount that is not justified by any amount of content they could reasonably push out in a small update like this, but you know what was even worse? The only way to play on those new fresh start servers is if you purchase this update. Yup, you aren’t just allowed to roll onto the new fresh start server.
So in essence, you have to PAY to start the game again. You have to PAY to replay the same content, with a very minor amount of content added in the update itself.
And the worst part in this entire fiasco? Gamigo are getting away with this and players are no doubt going to pay for it, continuing to fund these ridiculous, inane practices.

It’s been a long while since I dipped my toes in ArcheAge: Unchained. Too long, perhaps. With the realization that I probably should have covered the game in 2020 now in the forefront of my mind, I thought it was the opportune moment to invite Mrs Stix on a little journey with me. A journey of discovery. Of hopelessness in the face of overwhelming odds. Of.. an attempt at overcoming the incredibly boring leveling experience present in-game and the lack of any player-presence on the way to end-game.

This.. this was our journey.

Let me preface this entire thing by stating that in no way do I feel as though ArcheAge: Unchained is a bad game. It just isn’t. Does it have a bad publisher? Yes, yes it does. Gamigo are known for being a “graveyard for MMOs” while also repeatedly showing utter disrespect for their playerbase, but this isn’t about Gamigo, this is about ArcheAge: Unchained.

ArcheAge: Unchained is a tab-target 3D fantasy MMORPG developed by XL Games – yes, the very same XL Games that Kakao became a majority shareholder in recently. It’s a beautiful game with a seamless open-world to explore. No loading screens pollute the game, with the exception of teleporting, moving between continents, dungeons or instanced events.

Questing has you follow through a fairly basic story, moving from quest hub to quest hub, taking side quests where applicable. You can make it through to roughly level 30 without doing a single side quest however, if you prefer, but after obtaining roughly level 32-33 you’ll hit a wall where the story quests become far and few between, requiring you do substantially more to achieve each level. Or at the very least, that’s what it felt like to us as we played through to almost level 40.

Thankfully, this linear leveling experience (since questing seems more or less the only way to level) is saved by the engaging tab-target combat. I know, “tab-target, ew.” Some of us enjoy tab-target combat though! And not many MMOs do it better than ArcheAge. From the high quality animations, to the skill effects, to the deep, intricately built class system present – this is an MMO that shines when actually playing it, not when simply observing it.

Speaking of the classes, while there are several base classes to choose from, each player has 3 different skill trees they can spec into, providing a large number of different ways to build your class. This provides not only a lot of customization over who you are – and what you can ultimately offer your group, but also presents unique opportunities to stand out, and gives you seemingly endless freedom to pursue the kind of gameplay you’d like out of the game.

So we’ve established that at its core, ArcheAge: Unchained can be a fun game. But one of the things that really kills it for me (well, Gamigo being the publisher anyway, along with the fact that they’ve gone back on their word by charging players for the Garden of the Gods DLC, but again, another story,) is the fact that the game feels so dead. Throughout almost 20 hours of playing the game, we encountered.. 2? people, I think, by the time our journey ended. And… for a game that requires you purchase it first before playing, this is something you wouldn’t know going in, and that’s – I believe, anyway, a very important part of an MMO. If a game is dead, then there’s no point in playing it. The core of what makes MMOs “massively multiplayer,” with the exception of hub-MMOs, is that there are hundreds, if not thousands of players all occupying the world concurrently. This.. was not the case here, much to our dismay.

At the end of the day, while it’s definitely possible to have fun in ArcheAge: Unchained, I can’t foresee myself ever dedicating enough time to it to warrant the initial buy-in, along with the Garden of the Gods DLC and all future DLC (which are much smaller than your typical expansion.) Thus I would not recommend anyone actually buy into this in 2021. There are much better games out there, by much better publishers.

It was brought to my attention earlier today that Kakao Pearl Abyss, the company behind Black Desert and Black Desert Mobile, and more recently EVE and EVE Echoes released their 3rd Quarter Financials.
According to the info released, Pearl Abyss has seen a large increase in Net Income compared to 2019’s 3rd Quarter, which is mainly due to the mobile market – shocker, I know.
Guardian Tales was mostly responsible for this – a mobile game I can actually say was quite a bit better than I’d expected when I played it.
But this isn’t what’s most important. We’re all here for the MMO info, right? Specifically pertaining to Black Desert‘s prequel-sequel, Crimson Desert, the new upcoming ODIN: Valhalla Rising and even Elyon?

Before we jump into Crimson Desert, though, I do want to note that apparently Black Desert Online – interestingly enough – has seen its worst year in a long time, being down 13% this quarter alone, and over 19% year over year.
That’s a substantial decline in revenue – a direct effect of the continued decrease of active players logging in to play the game. So it is with this knowledge in mind that Pearl Abyss have announced their intentions to drop a very large “reveal” for Crimson Desert next month – in December 2020.
This reveal is both to reassure players that the game is continuing to be actively worked on, and to reassure investors that the game is inching ever closer to release.
Currently, they plan on unveiling actual in-game footage of the game in a full game-disclosure event. This will provide us all with a much closer, much deeper look at how the game will ultimately end up functioning. How it competes with Black Desert, and hopefully exactly what type of game it is.
Players are still speculating whether or not the game is going to be single-player or an MMO, how the combat will or won’t be an improvement over Black Desert, the exact, definitive setting.. there’s so much we don’t know and hopefully at least some of that is clarified next month.
We don’t have an exact date yet – only “December 2020,” but they’ll no doubt announce that ahead of the event.

Concerning Elyon, it was revealed recently that the upcoming MMO will be launching within South Korea next month – in December 2020.
Taking a look at the report, however, Pearl Abyss goes on to list “North America and Europe market launches: Successful experience with Black Desert 2021.”
That’s all but a 100% confirmation that any time in the 2nd quarter – April, May or June 2021 will see Elyon launch in both North America and Europe.
I know Elyon has changed quite drastically over the last couple years of development, but after what seems like an eternity, we’re going to finally be able to play the game.
A lot of interest – a lot of hype, excitement for the release has died down, and I can understand why that is. Even so, getting definitive release dates for a new MMO to spend some time in is always promising!

Then we have the upcoming ODIN: Valhalla Rising MMORPG. This is a game I’m really curious about. I’m not sure if I’m necessarily as hyped as I am for Tower of Fantasy, but ODIN is touted as being Black Desert.. but built cross-platform.
That sounds like it could be very promising – or an absolute train wreck, especially given how Black Desert Mobile ended up turning out. Regardless, the upcoming MMO is scheduled to launch within South Korea in the 2nd Quarter 2021, at a similar time to Elyon’s Global release.
They have yet to confirm any specifics pertaining to the Global release of ODIN but given how quickly they seem to want to push these games out to their Western audience, I wouldn’t expect it to take all that long.
Almost half of Pearl Abyss’s yearly revenue, interestingly enough, actually comes from their Western audience, which is probably why they’re always creating games with that particular audience in mind. And why they’ve actually had as much success as they’ve ultimately had.

If you weren’t already aware – I covered this actually last month I believe, but Pearl Abyss is working together with XLGames, the developer behind the notoriously pay-to-win MMORPG ArcheAge to create a sequel: ArcheAge 2.
The game is still in very, very early stages of development right now but they plan on making ArcheAge 2 “THE next generation MMORPG,” with the game being built on Unreal Engine 5 and taking what they learned with both ArcheAge and Black Desert and applying it to the sequel.
But with ArcheAge’s business model and Black Desert’s business model.. you can bet ArcheAge 2 is going to be one hell of a pay-to-win mess. It might be an amazing game – but it’s going to cost quite a bit to play competitively in any form.

And finally, we had a few more games revealed, announced or confirmed as well: World Flipper and Moonlight Sculptor – 2 Mobile games were confirmed to be receiving Global releases within the 3rd Quarter 2021, and Soul Artifact, a Mobile game is going to be releasing within South Korea some time during the 4th Quarter 2021.

Pearl Abyss has a lot on their plate for 2021. A lot to offer players – of both PC and Mobile genres.
There’s still no real news on DokeV, their upcoming monster-collector MMORPG or Plan8 – their FPS? TPS? But both were definitely listed in the report released.
And you can bet there are a surplus of other games currently in development at the studio – Pearl Abyss is continuing to show signs of growth and isn’t looking to slow down any time in the immediate future. They’re becoming an absolute giant in the industry, and I’m glad they’re continuing to stick to what got them to where they are: MMORPGs.
Will any of these ultimately end up worth playing? Will Crimson Desert replace Black Desert now that BDO is showing continued signs of decline? Will ArcheAge 2 be as bad as players are assuming it will be? Is ODIN: Valhalla Rising just another crappy cross-platform MMO or will it be worth playing like Genshin Impact?
Only time will tell. Either way, I’m curious to see where all of these MMOs end up going into 2021, and hope you all are as well.

I’ve gotten so many DMs regarding the brand new upcoming ArcheAge 2 MMORPG currently in development, so many that I actually felt the need to push out a 2nd video today, only several hours after my last one. Yes, a busy Stix I am!
This announcement comes from a variety of different sources: Official recruitment notices, MMOCulture, Sarumonin, MassivelyOP. So credit to each and everyone that reported on this.

So, it turns out that after years of ArcheAge running, quite unsuccessfully, even though it is arguably one of the better MMORPGs at its core, XLGames and Kakao have decided that with their new partnership, they’re going to expand the ArcheAge universe by developing a brand new title in the franchise: ArcheAge 2.
This news came from the Korean news website Ruliweb, that went on to report quite a bit of information.
According to the article, ArcheAge 2 is going to be a PC MMORPG. Where games like TERA, Blade & Soul, Bless, Lineage and other South Korean PC MMOs have all made mobile sequels, it turns out Kakao and XLGames are still interested in dominating the PC market.
ArcheAge 2 is being developed on Unreal Engine 5 – yes, no Unreal Engine 3 garbage here like Elyon, and no Unreal Engine 4 either apparently. The game even has more than 50 developers participating in the development of the game so far.
Jake Song, the very man who brought the Lineage and ArcheAge franchises to life went on to state that the game is going to retain its large sandbox-style world, the unique freedom that ArcheAge presented its players and will try to bridge the MMO-scene together in a game that looks to be a cross between “Lineage and WoW.”
This is quite an ambitious goal to work towards. XLGames and Kakao are hoping for ArcheAge 2 to be the largest “next generation AAA MMORPG” – although naturally, there’s no release date planned for the game so technically it could be “the next large AAA MMORPG.. of 2025.”

Jake Song, who is taking on the role of CEO of ArcheAge 2 development went on to state that the original incarnation of the MMO came out 7 years ago.
He then further elaborated on how ArcheAge was especially popular outside of South Korea, specifically in North America and Europe, and as such it looks as though he’s taking that knowledge and implementing things he learned within its sequel.
Does this mean that ArcheAge 2 is actually going to be targeting a Western audience? We’ve had our fair share of South Korean MMO’s and let’s be honest.. they’re all more or less the same thing: Huge cash cows.
They all look beautiful, but lack the soul and depth of anything that could potentially last a year beyond their release.
Apparently, more than half of the total cumulative sales for ArcheAge, and probably ArcheAge Unchained as well came from overseas. This is proof that Western players were much more receptive of the game than players within South Korea.

ArcheAge was an incredibly well done MMO. It had the making of a fantastic game that could’ve taken the market by storm. However, with its restrictions, its focus on paid cash shop items and abundance of pay-to-win, the game died off relatively quickly.
Years later, the ArcheAge team released ArcheAge Unchained, a buy-to-play version of ArcheAge without the pay-to-win trash that had been so prevalent in the game up until that point.
And while players received it much better, they soon learned that the game was still the same ArcheAge game that they’d grown to dislike… just without the pay-to-win.
The large sandbox world they’d come to love over the years had been changed so drastically and was merely a shell of its former self.
So players stopped playing once again. Even more followed after Gamigo went back on their word, claiming all subsequent content would be free if you’d purchased the game, by making future updates like the Garden of the Gods a paid content update.

The greed from both developers and publishers has lead to many a player having a very strong distaste for the game, and that makes perfect sense and is completely justified.
How XL Games and Kakao are going to handle this is up for discussion, but if you guys aren’t aware, Kakao are the very same people behind Black Desert Online.
ArcheAge 2 is going to be an MMORPG that is somewhere between a sandbox ArcheAge game and a sandbox Black Desert game.
Both were heavily pay-to-win, and both are good games at their cores – in their respective niches, anyway.

I’m not entirely certain whether this is something we should be excited for or not. It’s a new upcoming “AAA MMORPG,” of course, so that’s always reassuring. And it’s done by developers that have proven they’re capable at actually creating an MMO worth playing.
But if we’re going to get a repeat of either Black Desert or ArcheAge’s pay-to-win business models, I’d probably steer clear.
Considering Unchained was buy-to-play and Black Desert is buy-to-play, I wonder what the business model for ArcheAge 2 will end up being? You can bet there’ll be incredibly expensive founder’s packs available but will this be a free or paid MMO? What do you guys think?
And what type of combat will they employ? We have so many questions and I look forward to having them answered over time.

Currently, XLGames and Kakao haven’t given a confirmed release date, but ArcheAge 2’s release date looks to be targeting a 2022-2023 alpha/beta period. It could potentially be earlier/later, it really depends on the type of game they’re aiming for and how dedicated they are to bringing their vision to life.

I don’t typically associate myself, the website, or even the channel with drama. I tend to steer away from it because it’s just not worth it. But even so, I feel I should go ahead and discuss ArcheAge, ArcheAge Unchained, and the new Garden of the Gods expansion. I go into it in quite a bit of detail in the video below, but let me summarize.

When it was announced that ArcheAge would be getting a non pay-to-win alternative version of the game in the form of ArcheAge Unchained, players were ecstatic. While ultimately the game turned out to be nothing they were expecting, to date, Gamigo have delivered on providing an experience completely void of pay-to-win, much to the surprise of players. However, with the initial announcement came the claim that the game, along with all content would be available for free after that single, one-time purchase. Fast forward to the very first large-scale expansion: Garden of the Gods, and Gamigo have already retracted that promise, and are charging players $15.99 for the Silver DLC Pack, $29.99 for the Gold DLC Pack and $59.99 for the Archeum DLC Pack. Yes, to access any of the content, you’re going to be required to purchase it, much like you would in other MMOs like Elder Scrolls Online, Final Fantasy XIV, Guild Wars 2 or World of Warcraft.

This has caused quite a large amount of backlash in the community, with players having no idea that supporting the company with a one-time purchase of the game would lead to them being required to continuously fork out additional payments to continue playing the game. Players have voiced their discontent on Twitter, Reddit, even the official forums themselves – and have largely gone unheard.

This is not the way you go about releasing content updates. This is not how you build a community of loyal players. This is a detestable way of milking your community of every last cent you can. Is that because Kakao and XL Games are making moves with another ArcheAge IP? Who knows. But at the end of the day.. This is looking bad for ArcheAge.

Is it.. is it finally happening? Did they hear our pleas, are they at last planning on delivering what we’ve all been waiting for ever since ArcheAge first launched?
So at the beginning of 2019 I recall doing a video featuring 2 new upcoming titles: Project 3 and Project 4. Yeah, I’m not kidding with those names. I mean I guess in the grand scheme of things they’re probably easily discernible.
Project 3 was being called an “Online Action RPG” while Project 4 was a traditional “Offline RPG.” At the time, both projects required extensive knowledge and understanding of Unreal Engine 4 and were being built for both PC and console devices in mind.

Fast forward to 2020.. and we finally have additional information pertaining to at least one of the aforementioned games. Probably Project 3 – or maybe a brand new title all together.
MMOCulture managed to happen upon a recruitment listing on the official XLGames website – a listing that has actually been up for the last month now, where they mention there are currently 2 positions open for a brand new upcoming MMORPG.
Last year they were hiring an entire team while currently they’re looking to fill the final 2 positions. The positions in question are for a Technical Artist and Concept Artist – with the latter traditionally responsible for giving life to the world.

One noteworthy point of interest was that yet again, the people in question were required to have experience with Unreal Engine 4, further reaffirming that this isn’t going to be another Bless Online or Ascent: Infinite Realm type deal, no.
This new MMO is being built completely in Unreal Engine 4, which should alleviate some of the concern you may have had.
I’m well aware that most South Korean MMOs have an obsession with Unreal Engine 3 – I’m not sure what it is or why they opt for it every time but it’s refreshing to see a new upcoming MMO built in Unreal Engine 4.
Additionally, they’re required to be able to understand English – something that is normally only expected of you if they’re planning to deal with a Global audience.
This may end up being the most exciting news of all for you guys – are they working on building an MMO with a Global audience in mind? Will we finally have a South Korean MMO where we don’t have to wait 6 years for localization?

For those of you still unaware of who XLGames are, they’re the developers behind the ArcheAge and ArcheAge Unchained PC MMOs. I mean they also worked on ArcheAge Begins – a Mobile MMO but nobody talks about that.
They’ve been in the industry for years and.. admittedly haven’t really done too well with their games over this time, which you should know if you’ve ever played any of their games.
Nevertheless, developers can change, right? They’re capable of change – Maybe they’re less interested in instant gratification and more interested in having a sustainable income source.
Sigh.. Okay, so maybe that’s wishful thinking, but we can dream, right?

While XLGames are technically in the final stages of hiring for their new MMO, I would like to point out that Kakao Games – yes, THAT Kakao Games, the Black Desert Kakao Games have been a majority shareholder in XLGames for a while now.
So if you thought that ArcheAge was bad when it came to in-game monetary advancement.. then you’ve got another thing coming.
While I’m unsure of exactly how much creative control Kakao will have over their game, or games, rather, I would like you to be well aware that if you thought Black Desert Online was pay-to-win or featured heavy advantages to paying customers, it’s likely this brand new upcoming MMO will have a similar issue.

I always enjoyed ArcheAge. It had a lot of features I really enjoyed. It provided a large, open sense of freedom that was or is lacking in the genre for the most part.
It wasn’t linear. I could run around for hours not knowing what I was doing searching out players of the opposite faction to PvP.
There were so many varied forms of PvP, sailing, group content – the game was truly a marvel in its infancy. Over time the population declined quite substantially and the game ended up what it is today: A meme.
Something players refer to when talking about “pay-to-win garbage” and what they reference when stating what MMOs should avoid doing if they want to succeed.

So while XLGames and Kakao both have a lot of experience in the genre, neither of them are known for user-friendly games.
While this new upcoming MMORPG might turn out to be ArcheAge 2, there’s no saying it won’t be another cheap cash-grab aimed at us Westerners – trying to take advantage of us and our thirst for a good new MMO.
I believe that this could turn out to be a solid title, I do. There’s definitely the potential for that. However, at the same time I remain highly pessimistic, as should everyone whenever a new South Korean MMO is announced. Or Kickstarter MMO. Both have the same likelihood of failing.

I know you’ve been waiting on this one for a couple days now. Maybe more if you’ve been waiting since the public test servers were live.
I have a history with ArcheAge – this channel was built partly with ArcheAge as a foundation, so I’m not entirely new to the game. However, unlike some people I never reached endgame.
It was heavily pay-to-win, there were whales dominating every aspect of the game and the population was nearly non-existent. But Unchained aims to be different, and I plan on giving it the chance to be.

I will preface this by stating that this isn’t a full game review of the MMO as a whole as Mrs Stix and I only made it to level 31 before I decided to do a video on it.
Not because I don’t plan on getting further, but because I wanted to give my initial impressions of the game.
I fully expect to hit endgame before doing a follow-up video in the next couple months, while also looking at where the game is at that point.

So, I didn’t go for any of the more expensive packs, I got the basic version of the game. As long as I can play it I’m happy.

Upon logging into the game at approximately 10 in the morning I realized that there were no queues for the most recently added server.
That was refreshing, considering one of the most common issues people have is their inability to actually get in-game and play it.
Of which, honestly, I can relate. I had queues of upwards of 4,000 – waited in them for a couple hours while I worked and gave up because I just couldn’t get in.
I didn’t have any issues with disconnects like some people claim but the queue times were atrocious. However, this is to be expected. It is a fresh, new launch after all and these kinds of issues are bound to happen.
My only concern was that Gamigo didn’t do anything to prepare for the influx of players. They could have very easily have rolled out more servers at launch and if they were dead, moved on to merge them in time.

After making it in-game, I realized that the whole “your character meshes aren’t loading so you’re completely black” issue I had years ago is still present.
I had to wait several minutes for the character to load – and I want it to be known that you need to wait several minutes per race, they don’t all load in at once.
While irritating, it wasn’t really too big a deal. I knew what I wanted to play as but I can see it being a larger issue for new players.

Quick FYI: There are two opposing factions in ArcheAge. The Nuian Alliance, comprised of the Nuian, Elves and Dwarves, and the Haranyan Alliance, comprised of the Harani, Firran and Warborn.

I went Elf because that was the race they overhauled according to their trailer.
The Elf looks beautiful – at least the female does. I didn’t check the male, but that’s because I didn’t wanna wait on the meshes to load for him.
There’s a lot of customization options for your character – you’re capable of really creating something unique – at least with regards to their face.
Unfortunately, from what I could tell there are no body customization options. Unless I missed something? Which I don’t think I did.

I eventually made it in-game and as noted, played through until level 31. I didn’t enjoy my first playthrough of ArcheAge years ago because it felt so dead. There was nobody playing, which defeats the purpose of an MMORPG.
However Unchained has – as I’m sure you’re well aware if you’ve tried logging in – a ton of players. I couldn’t run longer than 30 seconds without seeing groups of people out participating in quests.
ArcheAge Unchained feels incredibly alive. It’s a completely different experience this time ’round and is much more enjoyable than I thought it’d be.
I spent the entire weekend leveling – not in the most ideal way, granted, but I did it like an MMO should be done.
See, what I learned is that to level to 30 the fastest, you should skip every yellow quest you see – meaning you should stick to doing the main scenario quests only.
This will level you quite rapidly, getting you to 30 in probably 2 to 3 hours, maybe less.
But if you’re not in any rush, then it might take you several times as long, but you’ll be able to go around, potentially group up with other players and murder the local wildlife like a good MMO protagonist.

I know one of the most common questions is “Is ArcheAge Unchained pay-to-win?” Trust me, I hate pay-to-win as much as the next guy.
Unlike ArcheAge, though, Unchained’s cash shop is not pay to win.
I feel like I don’t really need to delve into it any further than that because every other person has already – but suffice it to say, at this point in time, the game is not pay to win.
Are Gamigo doing a good job with the launch? Definitely not. But is the game ruined by pay-to-win? Absolutely not.
Let me elaborate on the former statement just a little.

I mentioned Gamigo weren’t doing a very good job with the launch. Yes, the queue times are atrocious – but can easily be chalked up to being due to a lack of servers. Not difficult to fix.
Bugs, glitches and other issues are being reported – which again, can easily be remedied with small hotfixes. However, upon loading up the ArcheAge subreddit earlier today.. whew, let me tell you.
There are a plethora of posts, totaling hundreds of upvotes with hundreds of comments complaining about a recent exploit in-game.
I’m not going to go into detail to avoid more people participating in it but suffice it to say, the damage to each server’s economy is.. not going to be easy to recover from.
While Gamigo have brought the topic up and mentioned that they plan on dealing with the abusers, neither Trion nor Gamigo have ever had the ability to do anything to the game without XL Games getting involved.
They don’t possess the ability to fix any issues as they – and I kid you not – aren’t really allowed to edit or add anything that XL Games don’t themselves add.
This has left more and more people engaging in exploits, the market plummeting, and people running around in better gear than they should be with a lot more money than should be possible this early on.

Otherwise, I’d say the game is looking to be pretty good.
While there isn’t a whole lot that was modified, and there isn’t much different in the way of content, ArcheAge, or, rather ArcheAge Unchained holds up very well.
The game is still beautiful, the combat is still really, really freakin’ good for a tab-target MMO and the community.. well the community was incredibly toxic. But so is WoW’s, and that still has millions of active players.
I’m sure you’re capable of finding a nice guild with plenty of nice guildmates if that’s what you’re after.

I can highly recommend ArcheAge Unchained for players that either have yet to play the MMO and are looking for something new, or old players that disliked the old pay-to-win version.
I cannot say with any certainty that the game will remain free of pay-to-win or that Gamigo won’t suddenly go back on their word in the future, but right now, the $20 is definitely worth the experience.
Do note that this game is aimed at players that are interested in a lot of PvP. Because it’s packed with it and if you’re against constant war with the other faction.. this likely isn’t for you.