ArcheAge? Should We Bother?

Today I'm going to talk about a sandbox MMORPG that got put on my radar. ArcheAge. Haven't heard of it? Fantastic, have a gander here before you keep reading.

Now. First thoughts? Worth it? Worth it to even keep on your radar? Leave your thoughts in the comments. My opinion after the jump.


Ok. So here's my take on all of this. First off, I have no idea if this is a franchise or what, but I really don't know anything about this "Arche" world. Should I? They seem to make a big deal about it having a decent following, but I've never heard of it, nor am I even curious enough to look it up.

So they've teamed up with Trion for this title. Fantastic. Trion, actually, I don't think has any real strikes going against them. As far as that goes, I think this could be a good move. Unfortunately, aside from RIFT, I don't really know a helluva lot about Trion, either. So does this mean that forces and time development will be split between these two products - RIFT and ArcheAge? Idk.

And then we get into the actual game. See, to me, they're sounding like they really think everything they're doing is new and innovative. It's not. This sandbox type style of play is seen today by the likes of a fairly fanatical and largely followed Minecraft. Not that I like that game at all. But in an RPG sense, this is exactly what games like Ultima Online and Runescape did, essentially. Yes, I know Runescape is probably still around. And I know that Ultima Online I LOVED THE CRAP OUT OF... but where are they now? ...Actually, this game basically sounds like an Ultima Online redux, bigger, better, and possibly 'more fun'. But I don't have very high hopes.

One part of this that pissed me the hell off was this:
"There are 10 abilities in ArcheAge and each player can combine 3 out of 10. That makes 120 unique classes. In ArcheAge, even if you are in the same class, players can choose the skills they want to learn, and I think this would give originality to each character."

FUCKING GRR. If that's what you're gonna do -- why the hell gimme a choice of what class I want to be? What the hell's it even matter anymore? What a load of shit game design. That type of 'its arbitrary, really, only not' cop out makes me sigh every time I see it. Oh, so you mean there's 10 abilities, 4 of which will probably be way underpowered and not balanced enough making the remaining 6 combine-able to make non-unique classes because mouth breathers are going to look up builds online anyway? How creative!

Lastly, this game better be free to play from the start. If it isn't, then it's going to flop hard. There's just no market for it in today's realm of mmo's. Would I be interested? Maybe. But you know what kills games like this quicker than anything? The laziness of the developers. They think that just because it is a sandbox that players will basically 'finish' the game within the design that's laid out for them. If there isn't enough to do or if all the stuff to do is boring... there's really just no point. So that's my take.