Producer Khrolan on the current state of Archeum

Here's an excerpt from the last live stream where Khrolan discusses how he feels about Archeum.

2/27 Q&A Livestream Notes, Secrets of Aayanad will be released March 10th.

Secrets of Aayand is planned to be released on Tuesday, March 10th. They are aiming for the afternoon and they want to get it out before the rush of players getting home from work. Can it be delayed? Yes, it is possible but we are on schedule for that and the progress is looking good.


PTS

• Great turnout to test secrets of ayanad
• Going well, in Khrolan’s opinion
• Over 70 groups in library at the same time
• Khrolan and Amary being very active on PTS forums
• Daily events on PTS Mon-Thur
• Were 4PM this week
• Will be 11 AM next week for EU players
• Trion is internal testing an update to the current build on PTS
• Has bug fixes for current PTS build
• Including Mirage Island portals not working from the library lobbies
• To receive 10 T5 Celestial Obsidian weapons
• “Obsidian or bust Fluffy!”
• They give weapons for off meta builds
• PTS is coming down Sunday, March 8^th

Patch 1.7 Name

• Community can give the name on the forums
• Devs will read them
• Make it boat/water themed
• Devs think their patch naming sucks
• "Pimp My Boat"
• "Current Eventz"
• Patch 1.7 Will be released 2 months after SoA

General

Can you change which servers are on which AH cluster based on population or put them all on one AH cluster?

You cannot put them all on one AH cluster, the technology limits this. No plans to shift the servers around, this has not even been considered. Each cluster has its own economy, can talk about this but not really interested at this time. They can see why you would ask for this based on server populations.

Any ideas of bringing new servers online for new players?

The new servers that they brought online at launch are currently friendly to new players with open land and newer, aspiring guilds.

Server transfers?

No news on server transfers or mergers right now.

Teasers for new content, like the new galleons, can we get a video?

There is a trailer for secrets of ayanad coming. We leak most of our content on PTS. Once Secrets of Ayanad launches we’ll see lots more lead in to 1.7.

More character slots than 4 per server?

No proposed changes to that

Any chance of a dungeon queueing system similar to 5v5 arenas?

That’s the 2015 dream. Trion’s goal is to get likeminded players playing together, but Khrloan is not sure how to get there.

Any chance of exploration rewards being reintroduced, and why where they taken down?

They were taken down because the currency, Nui Tears, were removed. This was done to remove the total amount of currencies in the game.

Divine gifts didn’t stop on the 23^rd.

It was supposed to shut off automatically on the 23^rd and it didn’t. They think it will be shut off in the 55 build, but we’ll just have to wait and see. Most likely they will be on until the Secrets of Ayanad release. Divine Gifts are hard coded into this version release (as are siege schedules). Trion can’t just turn them off, it’s in the code they don’t have access to. If this was something that was hurting players they would be actively pursuing a fix, but since it’s just free stuff they’re just letting it sit.

Why is content delayed from KR and put into sectional releases?

Localization. They are taking over a year’s worth of content and condensing it. By going at a slow speed they make sure to avoid massive bugs and issues. Localization takes a lot of time.

It goes KR to English. English to localized English. English to French and German. It all has to be reviewed and then put into a final build. The localization team is well into 1.7 right now.

We are catching up far faster than content is coming out in KR, which is good for Trion’s goals.

Any progress from XL games on increasing family size?

Trion has had that request in for a while but hasn’t been pressing it. They will give it another push. They want this to happen.

With recent DDOS are there plans to guard against them in the future?

With each attack we learn more about the servers and how to guard against them. Trion is evolving as the attacks keep coming in. They are working their best to combat these and get the servers back up as soon as possible afterwards. There is a new change coming in as a joint work between Trion’s Ops team and XL in the works to help fight against this.

Friends vs just family having access to land?

No good solution on this right now. You could set your land to public but while your friends use the land but that isn’t a good solution. This idea makes sense but has not been considered.

Improved guild quality of life changes? Make their own chat channels like officer chat?

Trion is not ready to talk about their plans for the future with guild tools. They want a more robust system (which is in development right now) and they aren’t ready to talk about it right now.

Any fix for pirates and the dream ring quest?

Pirates can pretty much do the dream ring quest, they can engage at least to a certain point.

There are ways that pirates can kill Morpheus presently, they are not intended, but it can happen and Trion is not policing it. It is admittedly unfair for pirates with Morpheus as a target, they will take this to XL.

Is the dress blue or gold?

No.

Crafting / Gear

Any idea to change larceny so it’s not just lower labor on opening?

There is no plans for this to change. There is some lobsidedness in the profressions. Some see a turn for the better, like machining gets a boost, with the introduction of 1.7 because a lot of the boat customizations use machining. Maybe in the future there could be an improvement but nothing on the horizon for larceny.

With SoA will experia plants be in the game?

They are supposed to be, they are not in the PTS right now, Amary needs to check if they are in the updated version they have in internal testing. Khrolan saw notes about it, he thinks they will be there but they can’t say it officially until they confirm it.

Any chance for new instruments in the game?

There are Ayanad and Obsidian instruments? Someone on PTS got an epic quality Ayanad Lute and it looks like an electronic guitar, it sounds cool.

Aurioria Capes, any chance they will no longer be bind on pickup?

No, not right now. Haunted chests remain illusive and capes remain bound and typically not the one you want.

Can Handicrafts be aligned with other crafts with not having sealed until illustrious?

It’s a concern,  it would make sense. But they aren’t sure on this for now.

What’s the point of point of pushing the lower proficiency gates on armor and weapon crafting?

There is a change in KR and Russian versions right now. The thinking behind this (that comes from XL) is to increase access to a broader range of characters to make an attempt at crafting. Since the RNG is so harsh the more players in any given day crafting armor the higher the potential chance that more gear will get out there. Top tier Ayanads are still at 75k. This is not a fix to crafting which is the RNG and archeum supply. This is not a fix to either of those issues, this is just an access change and this came down from XL, Trion had nothing to do with it and it is not unique to our region.

Why does Kraken only drop one item?

Because he only has 1 item. He wants you to come back and see him again.

Could we  be able set a recall point to our houses to avoid using hereafter stones?

Krolan would like to hear more ideas on this. Should it be something that comes innate with every house? Should it be a memory tomb you can place in your house? (This could be made with printing) This sounds like a good idea but they would like more feedback from the community to see if there’s any downsides that aren’t clearly apparent?

Vehicles / Property / Mounts

Submarines?

Still no update. Not until after 1.7.

How is vehicle collision review?

It’s still in progress, right now secrets of ayanad is stealing their focus right now. It’s a more complicated scenario than most think because vehicle is a broad term. Most people only think of farm carts or maybe mortars while sieging, but there is an overlaying wrapper on the way vehicles work in the game and it poses more problems than expected. They admit they need to work on this more but Secrets of Ayanad has had their focus and they will work on pushing this to the forefront.

Sloth Gliders, will they be removed from loyalty shop anytime soon, like SoA?

It isn't going anywhere anytime soon, but it may go away sometime.  With loyalty items they like to make sure that if someone had zero loyalty points when it was put there they could still have time to obtain it through loyalty. They have no plans of removing it and if they get plans to remove it they will let us know when they find out.

With SoA Trion is introducing a limit of 2 unbuilt property plots in the world. What happens to those who currently have more than 2?

Once SoA goes live you will be prevented from putting down more plots until those are built. Unbuilt Plazas do not count towards your limit of 2 unbuilt properties because they are a huge undertaking.

Sonar on blue dolphin?

They’ve been going back and forth (with XL) on this and it looks like sonar will likely be added back to cyanfin. There is not timeline on this, presently. It’s the short range Sonar. Won’t be in for the 55 update.

Mirage Donkey?

Bug where it moves faster in other directions is fixed. You can see that on PTS.

High end gliders (kraken glider, red dragon glider), any chance of a renormalization and looking into T3 speeds, that they could have their abilities changed again?

Khrolan – In the distant future there will be a glider reimagining. The fundamental / core abilities of gliders will be reviewed and the system will expand on they currently work. No changes until we approach that.

Is ship customizations in part 1 or part 2 of 1.7?

Part 1. That’s the goal of the split. Part 1 is coming out first to give players a chance to look at the new ship mechanics, rebuild and customize their ships, and get used to the new ships. Then part 2 is the meaty part of the update where you start interacting with large scale world objectives and maybe a naval arena. Details are far off, but that’s the reason for splitting 1.7. The duration between the parts may shrink, but it’s still 2-4 months out so they haven’t ironed it out yet. They did it to give us time to adjust to new ships before giving us the content to avoid frustration of new sea content and not knowing the ships well enough to complete it.

Any chance to be able to trade in a car or be able to sell cars?

This could make sense, it’s a good suggestion, but there’s nothing in the works right now.

ETA on Pegasus mount?

Khrolan - “Oh man, soon.”

Amary - “Soon TM.”

Khrolan - “Not stupid soon, cool soon.”

Can you define cool soon and stupid soon?

Stupid soon is over a month, it’s soon but we don’t know. Cool soon is we know but we just don’t want to announce it yet. It’s less than a month.

Fishing boats, latency, and FPS lag?

XL has recognized this as a bug, but they don’t know the current status of it.

PTS players, providing good gameplay data, really want to know Trion’s thoughts on Archeum in the game.

Trion’s official stance on archeum is that it’s low. It doesn’t meet the demand that players have. Khrolan has 15 pages of notes from players on how to fix this. It isn’t as easy as saying “Just increase the drop rate in coin purses” but it’s not that simple. How much exactly? They don’t know and they can’t just make a change to such a large system. They know there needs to be more and they want to get it to the players. They are looking for new, intelligent ways to give more avenues for archeum to come into the game. There is an upcoming promotion on the horizon, with less frequency that divine gifts, which will bring archeum into the world. Khrolan is on our side, there needs to be more archeum. But it isn’t easy for him to do this. People in the office are sick of him talking to them about this. He is very passionate about this issue and desperate to get more archeum into the game and to us.

Here's a video of him discussing this topic.

PVP 

Is putting the siege gatehouse separate from the rest of you castle an exploit or a mechanic?

Currently there are lots of problems with the siege system from LOS to physically blocking specific locations, to respawn points, for gatehouses, for overall design, for advantage to the defender. These all plague our sieges system. The solution is to get up to Korea’s updated siege system. They’ve experienced all these problems and they have fixes for them. Part of getting there is releasing SoA. Part of the reason Trion is pushing content releases is they want to get up to date with the KR version because the less time we spend behind the less time we have to deal with mistakes they’ve already fixed. Pushing for the KR version of siege is something Trion is working on, but it isn’t as simple as giving them that updated siege system because of all the versions in between our version and theirs. They want to get caught up because it gives them more flexibility to affect the future.

1v1 Arenas

The way players drop in has been addressed in future updates.

To improve the speed of arena queues has XL thought about cross server arenas?

Yes, this is something they want to work towards but it’s not currently in the plan. There’s an order of operations to the plans. First we need to get caught up to the KR version. Then matchmaking needs to be reviewed. Then they can start exploring this.

If you want to check out the live stream yourself you can watch the VOD here. The duration is 56 minutes, this week.

They will still be streaming next week even with PAX East.

Q&A Livestream Friday 2/27 at 2:30 PST, link to questions thread inside

Originally Posted by Trion Scapes (View Original Source)

ArcheAge Q&A Livestream: February 27 at 2:30 PM PST

February 26, 2015

Join Producer Merv “Khrolan” Lee Kwai, Associate Producer Amanda “Amary” Fry, and Senior Community Relations Manager Evan “Scapes” Berman on the Trion Worlds Twitch channel for our next ArcheAge community Q&A livestream.

In this format, we address the game topics proposed in this thread as well as popular threads from the official forums. We’ll also field follow-up and additional questions from the livestream chat. Got a question for the team? Post it in this forum thread!

ArcheAge Q&A Livestream
Twitch Channel: http://www.twitch.tv/trionworlds
Start Time: Friday, February 27 at 2:30 PM PST (GMT-8)
Duration: 45 minutes

See you on Twitch!

Server Maintenance: NA 2/26, EU 2/27

Scapes posted on the server status forums to let us know that the servers will have upcoming maintenance over the next couple of days. It's very likely that this will remove Divine Gifts.

ArcheAge NA Maintenance: 2/26/15 at 8:00 AM PST (GMT-8)

Adventurers,

The North American ArcheAge servers will be unavailable at 8:00 AM PST (GMT-8) on Thursday, February 26 for scheduled maintenance. The estimated duration for this downtime is two hours. In-game messaging will be broadcast in advance of the downtime.

Thanks for your patience!

ArcheAge EU Maintenance: 2/27/15 at 2:00 AM GMT (PST+8)

Adventurers,

The European ArcheAge servers will be unavailable at 2:00 AM GMT (PST+8) on Friday, February 27 for scheduled maintenance. The estimated duration for this downtime is two hours. In-game messaging will be broadcast in advance of the downtime.

Thanks for your patience!

New Armor Screenshots from Livestream (Library Costumes, some Ayanad Armor/Weapons, & some T6 Obsidian Weapons)

Below are some screenshots compiled from the 2/20 live stream of armor that will be released with Diamond Shores.

Library Costumes

Cloth

Leather

Plate

Ayanad Armor

Wave Cloth

Earth Leather

Flame Leather

Gail Leather

Ayanad Weapons

Flame Axe

Flame Nodachi

 Obsidian Weapons

T6 Obsidian Katana

T6 Obsidian Shield

Lunar New Year Marketplace Update

Originally Posted by Trion Scapes (View Original Source)

ALL-NEW LUNAR NEW YEAR'S ITEMS

Lunar New Year's items have arrived in the ArcheAge Marketplace! The newEastern Legacy Chest has a rare chance to contain one of two dyeableDynasty Robe costumes. Additional items available from the chest include all-new Veroe weapon skins and other Lunar New Year themed items. Non-dyeable versions of the Dynasty Robe costumes are also available for direct sale and through the Loyalty Store. The Marketplace has been updated! New Marketplace Items • Eastern Legacy Chest: Has a rare chance to contain the Icefall Dynasty Robes (White) andEbongleam Dynasty Robes (Black) costumes. This chest also has a chance to contain Veroeweapon skins (image items) and other Lunar New Year themed items. Available for 420 credits. o Important: Icefall Dynasty Robes and Ebongleam Dynasty Robes are both dyeable. o Important: The Eastern Legacy Chest, Icefall Dynasty Robes, and Ebongleam Dynasty Robes are untradeable. o Important: Veroe weapon skins can be traded or sold on the Auction House. • Blood Dream Dynasty Robes (Red): Celebrate Lunar New Year with these costume robes once worn by the warriors of East Ishvara. Available for 1875 Credits. o Important: Blood Dream Dynasty Robes are NOT dyeable. • Rosy Springtime Outfits: Eastern inspired three piece outfits with yellow top and aqua-blue bottoms. Top available for 400 Credits, Bottoms available for 250 Credits, and Shoes available for 200 Credits. • Sunset Springtime Outfits: Eastern inspired three piece outfits with red top and charcoal colored bottoms. Top available for 400 Credits, Bottoms available for 250 Credits, and Shoes available for 200 Credits. • Sunny Springtime Outfits: Eastern inspired three piece outfits with charcoal colored top and pink bottoms. Top available for 400 Credits, Bottoms available for 250 Credits, and Shoes available for 200 Credits. • Jumbo Groundling Shaman Plushie: Now is your chance to own a plushie of a Groundling – the fellas that slow & cripple you as battle across the plains of Halycona during the war event. New Loyalty Store Items • Pure Sky Dynasty Robes (Blue): Celebrate Lunar New Year with these costume robes once worn by the warriors of East Ishvara. Available for 300 Loyalty Tokens. o Important: Pure Sky Dynasty Robes are NOT dyeable. Removed Marketplace Items • Ruby Valentine Package • Valentine’s Gift • Scroll: Lonely Isle Dinghy • White Romance Table • Glider Customization: Ruby Wings • Jumbo Baby Narayana Plushie Head over to ArcheAge Fashion to see screenshots of all the new gear.

2/20 ArcheAge Livestream Recap & Link to Video

General:

• Feb 23 is last day for:
• Divine Gifts
• Entrance Bonus quests for Serpentis and Sea of Drowned Love
• ArcheMaster promotion
• Dragon Bone chips
• Library Expedition Tokens
• ArcheMaster title stays at getting skills to 50 even after level increase
• No similar title for 55
• Blue Dolphin does not have sonar
• Waiting for a response from XL

PTS:

• Borderless windowed mode and inverted mouse were shown.
• With lvl 55 hybrid specs are more viable.
• New command for Fluffy
• "tell me a secret fluffy!"
• Instant lvl 53 (55 later in testing cycle)
• 13 mails with gear and titles
• 1000 gold
• Lots of consumable
• Takes a 2-5 minutes to receive
• Labor is doubled, PTS only. This will not go live.
• Patch Notes are being written currently
• PTS is open now

Diamond Shores:

• Is a PvP zones, features all levels of tension, war, and peace, like a normal PvP zone
• You ear honor
• 3 Climates - Tropical, Subarctic, Arid
• No Bungalow housing yet
• Later update
• XP from 50-55 is lowered from the KR version
• Takes 10's of millions of XP to go from 50-55
• Library has inflated XP gain values
• Fish Hook
• Library Island
• Blue Tent - Nuian Base Camp
• Red Tent - Haranyan Base Camp
• Base camps have peace buffs, similar to Nui priests or dungeon zone entrances
• Peace zone at entrance to library
• You can use either hub as either faction
• No guards
• Pirates can use them too
• Can buy scrolls to teleport you directly inside library
• Library
• Workbench outside that shows you the materials needed to make the costumes.
• Difficulty for floor 1 mobs in Library lowered from KR version
• No PvP anywhere in Library
• Purchasable teleport scrolls for each floor
• 5 Gold for 1
• 50 Gold for bundle of 12
• Usable from anywhere in the world
• Has multiple instances of each floor called Dimensions
• 3 Instances available
• Choose your dimension on zoning in
• Can have mounts and combat pets out
• Great place to level them because of inflated XP values for 50-55
• Foliage in the way of entrances to stop blockades
• Library Size
• 64 Rooms per floor
• 8x8 Grid
• 8-12 Mobs per room
• Corners have portals to a "break area"
• One break area per floor
• Quest hub
• Floor 1 Break Room
• Corner Reading Room to progressive dungeon (near 50 waves)
• Further you get, the better rewards
• Portal to to instanced boss like sea of drowned love
• Level requirements
• Floor 1 - 50
• Floor 2 - 51
• Floor 3 -53
• Floor 2 Info
• Level 53-54 mobs
• 1-3 stars
• Video shows Floor 2, first time seen since it was disabled in Alpha
• Librarian's Coinpurses
• Next tier above jester's
• 15 labor points to open
• Scale up similarly to Noble's -> Jester's
• Average about 30 silver
• Drop fine lunarite
• Can drop rcheum Crystals and Essences (very rare)
• Stolen Librarian Puches
• 150 Labor to open
• Increased chance to drop archeum
• Can drop from all mobs in the library
• Are not tradeable 
• Obisidan / Ayanad Patterns
• Drops form rare book that drops off some mobs in library
• 600 labor to open
• Gives a random pattern
• Every weapon has a pattern
• Every armor slot has a pattern
• Patterns can be traded, the books cannot
• Obsidian Weapons
• Materials
• T1 - Malevolent Obsidian 
• Drop in Diamond Shores, Exeloch, Sungold
• Also requires a salvaged illustrious weapon of same type
• T2 - Some are from outside library, some from inside
• T3/T4 - Mats come from deeper in the library
• T5 - Drop from instanced bosses in library
• T6 - Some components from library and some from world bosses
• Stats
• Gain some interesting stats
• Short spear gains +Healing
• Katana gains +Magic attack
• Goal is empowering hybrid builds like Paladin, etc
• Can be dual wielded like normal weapons
• Exception Obsidian katana becomes main hand only
• Can still dual wield a regular katana with it
• Obsidian Weapons are Bind on Equip
• When upgraded they become unbound

Rest of Auroria:

• Can't get war cycles because it messes with sieges. Can currently only have 1 or the other
• Including Sungold and Exeloch because they have the capacity for castles

Here's a link to the VOD on Trion's Twich: 2/20 ArcheAge Live Stream. I'd recommend checking it out if you want to see the library floor 1, floor 1 lobby, and floor 2 as they spent the second half of the stream in there.

ArcheAge Livestream: February 20 at 4:30 PM PST

Originally Posted by Trion Scapes (View Original Source)

ArcheAge Livestream: February 20 at 4:30 PM PST

February 20, 2015

Join Lead Producer Victoria “FireCait” Voss, Producer Merv “Khrolan” Lee Kwai, Associate Producer Amanda “Amary” Fry, Marketing Manager Michael “Krazzyr” Lee, and Senior Community Relations Manager Evan “Scapes” Berman on theTrion Worlds Twitch channel for our first Secrets of Ayanad gameplay livestream!

ArcheAge Livestream
Twitch Channel: http://www.twitch.tv/trionworlds
Start Time: Friday, February 20 at 4:30 PM PST (GMT-8)
Duration: 45 minutes

Towards the end, we’ll field questions from the livestream chat. Remember to stick around until the end when three lucky, random livestream viewers will each receive a Archeum Starter Pack. See you on Twitch!

Discuss this article on the forums.

Secrets of Ayanad Spotlight: Ayanad Library

Originally Posted by Trion Scapes (View Original Source)

Secrets of Ayanad Spotlight: Ayanad Library

February 18, 2015

Once the most famous place of arcane learning in all of Erenor, the Ayanad Library has crumbled into ruin since the fall of Auroria. Its enchantments have been corrupted, and its caretakers driven mad by the very magic they once sought to protect. The Ayanad Disciples, a group of scholars dedicated to studying the ruins of the library, tell stories of the horrors found within: monstrous creatures, deadly magic, and the vengeful ghosts of the Ayanad Mages themselves. Adventurers who dare to enter here, beware: the knowledge held within these halls may well cost your life.

Into the Stacks

After gaining entrance to the library, you can navigate between levels using portals positioned in the corners of each floor. Travelling through one of the portals whisks you to the next floor’s rest area where you can interact with a general merchant, blacksmith, warehouse, mailbox, Memory Tome, and Ayanad NPCs looking for adventurers to explore the library’s depths. At each of these mini-hubs, your group can travel through an instance portal to adventure into one of two unique dungeons: a floor-specific boss battle or a “Corner Reading Room” progressive encounter.

Spoils of Study

Prior to entering, you can purchase bounty quests from an Ayanad Disciple for a nominal fee. Though all of them can be purchased at the same time, these kill quests require that you’ve completed the previous step to progress. You can reap even more rewards by completing exploration quests from a library task board, as well as unique quests offered on each day of the week.

The library itself contains items of great value like the Stolen Librarian’s Pouch, a satchel bearing a wealth of Archeum (including Crystals and Essences). Mini-bosses drop highly desired components used to build Obsidian Weapons of all tiers, and you can use a Regal Form outside of the library’s entrance to assemble rare costumes from library components.

Magical Marginalia

- The difficulty of all library creatures has been tuned down from overwhelming (read: obliterating) levels in the Korean release. For your own safety, level requirements are also in place for each of the library’s floors:

• Floor 1: Level 50+
• Floor 2: Level 51+
• Floor 3: Level 53+

- Certain NPCs in Diamond Shores (and each library rest area) sell tickets that can be consumed to teleport you directly to a floor hub, though you must be of the appropriate level to use them.

- The North American / European version of the Ayanad Library has PvP combat disabled on all floors to encourage dungeon crawling and discourage zone monopolization.

The Ayanad Library is a great source of wealth and experience, but its spoils are guarded by our fiercest adversaries to date. Do you have what it takes to unravel its secrets?

Merv “Khrolan” Lee Kwai
Producer, ArcheAge

Discuss this article on the forums.

22 Community Questions Answered by Trion Khrolan

1. Will Part 1 of the patch we are getting (55 / obsidian weapons) contain the same AH / Arena buttons in the lower right corner of the screen as the KR version? Why or Why not?

I’m not sure but I don’t think so – I don’t know what version those buttons were added in. We’ll know when we have a final version of the build so please ask again in a week.


2. End game World Bosses such as the Red Dragon, boss in which you must take your alliance / faction to accomplish a successful kill, reward players with crafting mats for one of the rarest costumes in the game. Will this costume that takes a long period of time to obtain have it's stats removed as well? If yes what is the purpose of keeping the costumes ingame instead of the cash shop?

I think the red dragon costumes are some of the best in the game – I especially like the plate one. I can say that right now, in our version, they won’t have stats, similar to how other in-game drop only costumes also don’t have stats. The original logic behind costumes not having stats was with regard to the in-game marketplace. We didn’t want to have a “pay to win fashion show” (to quote Amary). The logic that followed was if in-game costumes had significant stats, why would people ever wear any costumes that didn’t? All stats were removed as a result. I’m not sure if you’ve seen the stats on some of the costumes but they’re pretty crazy. We weigh this logic with the level of difficulty it takes to get costumes like the red dragon ones or the top-tier crafted costumes because the result is “why would I ever spend so much effort getting this thing when it doesn’t have stats and looks similar to x”. There are pros and cons against both sides and we can revisit it sometime in the future but for now we’re statless across the board.


3. Can we see an increase in Archeum Drop Rates from monsters in Auroria in Patch Part 1 (55 / Obsidian Weapons) such as crystals and essence? or will we continue to obtain "dust" from mobs above level 50?

The main change that’s being made is to “Stolen Library Bags” which drop in the Ayanad Library. They’ll have a higher chance to drop Crystals and Essence. Normally Library Pouches should remain unaffected. On Alpha, normal Library pouches had an extremely rare chance to drop Essence but I haven’t verified if that’s the case in our upcoming release. I’ll follow up.


4. To clarify the question about Griffin Mount, in the future will we get a normalized version of the mount, just as we are getting a normalized version of the pegasus? If not, why are we not getting the griffin mount?

The Griffin is far off so I don’t know for sure but generally speaking the answer is yes. The Pegasus is forthcoming and we’re in the deliberation process now around how it should change to fall in line with what’s acceptable for our version. I’d like to think that we’ll come up with a best practice on how to bring gliding mounts in line with current game play mechanics so what happens to the Pegasus will likely also happen to the Griffin.


5. Will library monsters have a better coinpurse drop rate? Has the "rare" coinpurse been nerfed or changed at all, if so, why?

See #3 above!


6. Are there any plans to look at the guard mechanics to make them more...effective? (fix their AI, right now people can abuse guards to steal boats because guards don't have priority target)

None that I’m aware of but the same logic can be applied to most mobs in the game. Imprison, rooftops and similar obstructions seem to nullify a lot of guard activity. Pretty sure the answer is no here but I don’t know for certain.


7. Will proficiency caps increase from the current 90k cap? If so, will there be further labor reductions?

Proficiencies definitely scale in later versions of the game. I’ll be able to speak to this when we have our final build in the next weeks to at least verify the case for the Secrets of Ayanad release. I’m making a note for myself to include this in the level increase spotlight article.


8. Will there be alternative ways to get lunarites used for alchemy or other types of materials that seems to be a bottleneck in the current version?(think superior fire/wave lunarites and such)

I know the higher tier pouches drop them more aggressively. If I correctly recall, the drop rates change with Library Pouches so Fine become the rare, and Superior becomes more common.


9. Some farmed materials are scarcely or even never used in crafts other than commerce and there are some crafted materials that are rather useless since it's only used for one craft and such(example rising star stone). Will those crafts be expanded so to make each and every material and crafts useful and balanced?

Sounds like that would make sense but I haven’t done enough version digging to know. I do know that several proficiencies are expanded in future updates like machining in 1.7A/B. I tend to focus on immediate upcoming content for our version and I don’t see what you’re suggesting with the Secrets of Ayanad release.


10. AH bots.. the ones listing materials 1/3 the price and auto buying anything that gets listed lower (leather, lumber, iron ingot, etc) will something be done against these?

Our TvB (Trion vs. bot) combat skill is ever evolving. The short answer is we make changes to discourage this behavior but new ways are constantly sprouting. We need to keep at it.


11. Is anything going to be done about treasure hunting? It was nerfed hard before the game came out and now it is frustrating and not fun. Too little reward for the time it takes to do... and it has so much potential.

Unfortunately, this was a cool mechanic that involved a heavy amount of botting. I haven’t seen any plans to change its current iteration. I agree that it ton of potential.


12. Why can't we add a crest to our Auroria capes? Can you guys talk to XLgames to maybe make it possible?

I have no idea. We can add this to the “haunted chest trino pls” list.


13. What are the chances of an ability queue being added to the game, and what sort of time frame would it take to implement one?

This is a long standing request. I’ve personally not been involved in these discussions but I can also add it to my list to review. Not sure if this is even possible without a mechanics overhaul.


14. Any chance that the turn-in-for-gold mechanics (tradepacks) will be tied to inflation rather than just fixed values?

Probably not. It’s a nice idea though. It’d be pretty difficult considering each auction cluster and region has various levels of inflation. How do you measure inflation? There’d need to be an additional layer of intelligence added to the system. A+ for ideas, though.


15. In the KR version players are able to Inspect other players to see their character / gear ingame. Will this feature be added to the Part 1 Patch of 55 / Obsidian? If not could it be a possibility?

It’s likely that this could be introduced in a future build. I was completely unaware of this though and don’t think it’s in anything that I’ve seen so far. Admittedly it’s not something I’ve looked for.


16. Will there be a change in Farming/Gathering bundles so that the players with 90k proficiency will be rewarded somehow (better than single planting) ?

The only benefits I’m aware of are labor reduction and single plant rarity chance increases. Let’s bring this back up whenever we establish that proficiency cap increases are inbound!


17. When are you going to stop punishing players for being offline and make offline regen rates for patrons the same as being online? (Why do you want us to stayed logged ingame so much?, shouldn't a 10/10 ratio lift some stress off your servers / my computer?)

This question comes up very often and I answer it the same way every time~ The short version is: It was a huge discussion at launch and the net result is the current implementation. I don’t see it changing any time soon and that’s also part of the initial conversation. Please trust me that we’ve done a large amount of review around this topic.


18. Why cloth can reach soft cap phys def, and plate can't reach soft mag def cap. Cloth users can freely use accessories to boost their attack while plate users need to use mag def accessories, to compensate of lacking low mag def. (Cloth High M.def Low P.def / Plate High P.def zero M.def)

This is my new favorite question and I have no idea how to answer it. I’ve learned the logic behind the topic and thanks for pointing it out. I’m going to try to see if there’s an actual reason behind it but I really doubt it’s going to change in the near term.


19. When do lucky moonpoints and sunpoints come to the marketplace? How much loyalty will each of these items cost?

Based on our timetable now it looks like after Secrets of Ayanad and before 1.7A. That’d put the very rough estimate around April. Vague.


20. What is the current status, ETA or future availability of the Tier 2 Cars? Will these come out with the 1.7 release or will they be further pushed back?

No news on this, sorry. I know Timber Coupe review is first and that’s between 1.7A and 1.7B.


21. I hope AA team can make gamecard, so i can pay my patron or relunch on steam. Greendot end the scratch card, so we can't use rixty in easy way to pay our patron. (comments?)

I’ll look into this. I don’t have a lot of info but I can ask.


22. Why does the "Dream Ring" (from the serpentis ring quest) only give increased skill damage, but not increased heal amount? Would be a great item for healers aswell then.

<Insert reason why healer itemization is not as heavily focused as other itemization>. As mentioned on a previous stream, we’ve expressed the concern and are going to encourage additional world drops that consider healers. Similar topics to this were talked about on a live stream 2 weeks ago.


There are additional questions in the thread but I haven’t taken the time to extract them all. Thanks for summarizing Max. We’ll call some of these out on the stream tomorrow where time allows. Also, thanks everyone for participating, maybe this can be a regular thing.


-Khro

Aquatic Archeum Supply Crate Now on the Marketplace

Aquatic Archeum Supply Crate Now on the Marketplace

February 13, 2015

The Marketplace is being updated today!

New Marketplace Items

• Aquatic Archeum Supply Crate: Make a splash with the new Aquatic Archeum Supply Crate which has a rare chance to contain the Cyanfin aquatic mount! This new mount is available as a rare drop from the new Aquatic Archeum Supply Crate. Similar to its kin Fusciafin, a rare drop from Sea of Drowned Love, Cyanfin comes with sonar, dash, and acrobatic abilities.

o Important: The Aquatic Archeum Supply Crate and Cyanfin are Bind on Pickup.

Removed Marketplace Items

• Ursamancer’s Archeum Supply Crate

Discuss this article on the forums.

ArcheAge Livestream Recap & Link to Video

Notes from the 2/13/15 ArcheAge live stream featuring:
Khrolan - Merv Lee Kwai - Producer
Amary - Amanda Fry - Associate Producer
Scapes - Evan Berman - Senior Community Relations Manager


Marketplace

• Clarified decisions are made mutually between both Trion and XL Games.
• Lockboxes
• Increasing the value of items in lockboxes so you don't get a worthless lockbox
• Increasing the drop rate of the main items people are looking for out of lockboxes
• Lockboxes are here to stay, they are a big source of revenue and directly keep the game afloat
• These changes will take place in future lockboxes, dolphin lockbox is the same as past lockboxes

AFKers

• Kick timer is gone
• Blockades are fine, even AFK blockades
• Training mobs to blockaders and killing them is just as fine
• Anything using game mechanics is fine
• May shorten auto-verdict timer for AFK jurors
• AFK Mount leveling is 100% fine.
• 
  

Secrets of Ayanad

• Level 55 update
• They have the build, the final release candidate
• Testing on internal servers
• Goal to have it on PTS within the next week
• Includes Library, Obsidian Weapons, Ayanad Weapons and Armor
• New lunraite tier, Fine lunarite
• Tier above superior lunarite.
• Used to craft tier 3 handicraft gems
• Diamond Shores
• New land
• Implementing max 2 unbuilt properties (considered making it 1 for launch)

• Library
• Library is HUGE. 
• 3 Floors, 64 rooms per floor.
• New coin purses, Librarian Pouches
• Can drop archeum crystals
• Very rare chance to drop archeum essences
• Stolen Library Bags
• In addition to Librarian pouches
• Cost labor to open
• More likely to drop archeum  essences
• Commonly drop archeum crystals
• Will be a good influx of archeum

Economy / Land / Crafting

• Along with removing gold sellers gold in game and increased labor the economy has deflated 30%-50%

Q: Any plans to provide protection for players who are demolishing their own properties so they can rebuild without their property getting sniped.
A: Has been talked about, but likely nothing will change. It's a risk that you take and that's just how land works in the game.

Q: It takes a lot of appraisal certs to put a property up for sale, any chance of increasing the amount of gold you can put on one?
A: Trying to make appraisal certs more valid. Trying to improve so you only need 1 cert for a transaction regardless of price of the structure.

Q: Since timber coupe is no longer available for purchase with voaction badges will we see anything added to make covation badges more valuable?
A: Nothing currently. There has been an internal suggestion to be able to use vocation badges to get things that are in the cash shop, no plans on this right now, though.

Q: Tax certs are continually increasing in cost on the AH, any plans to combat that?
A: No, it's supply and demand plus there are other options like making your own certs or using loyalty. With the afk kick gone, it could lower the tax certs since more people can earn more labor and may use it to make their own tax certs.

Q: Can players expect more expensive items to be added to the loyalty store like gliders or uniforms?
A: They hope so, also regrade items are coming, no time table.

Q: Larceny getting any more uses?
A: Not likely, 100% up to XL.

Q: Blue salt title quests removed for cooking and alchemy?
A: They will be back when XL gives them back in a build. XL removed them and haven't put them back into a build yet.

Q: Mirage island fishing competitions?
A: Same time as arenas.



Future Updates

Q: Any chance of reintroducing the bounty hunter system that used to exist.
A: No plans to bring it back, too easily abused.

Q: Could waterlogged boxes return to fishing?
A: That's an XL question, probably not. Devs didn't like how easy the reward was and wanted fishing to shift focus to sport fishing.

Q: Obsidian Armor?
A: Armor and the second offshoot of weapons are in future builds, 1.7 or later. Right now we are getting weapons tiers 1-6. It is the obsidian weapons users are expecting.

Q: Subamarine and timber coupe timelines?
A: Sub is not before 1.7.

Q: Submarine glider 2015?
A: Would love it, not likely. It's not a real thing.

Q: Will the empty mirage island stalls be populated with SoA?
A: Not aware of any upcoming changes.

Q: What is the dev's current opinion on the archeum supply in the game.
A: Archeum supply is low to keep it valuable. They talk with XL on how to introduce archeum into the game. They monitor where all sources of archeum are coming from to see if any need to be modified, but to do so they must ask XL to make the change.

Q: Unfusing feature?
A: Would love it, is a top request from Trion to XL.

Q: Any chance of making Hasla Rift open more often, maybe once or twice per day?
A: No info on this. Is a change coming to a raid world boss, will be revamped and will drop a new mount, it's the red version of one of the high end cat mounts. No date yet.


PvP

Q: Turn off potions and food in arenas?
A: They see the value in that.

Q: Any other ways to earn honor?
A: Arena rankings, coming after lvl 55, before 1.7.



General

Q: Any chance of speeding up the rate that zones level through the different danger tiers, basically reducing the number of kills required after a server reset?
A: This is a good suggestion, will look into this. Saving the state of the zone before a restart is a difficult task.

Q: Offline vs online labor.
A: Offline labor regen is a popular topic, the way that it is is likely the way it's staying. There's been a lot of conversation and negotiation (with XL games) where all possibilities have been considered and this is what we ended up with. It makes sense to have offline the same regen as online. Amoerys implied that this is out of their control and the best they could do was get rid of the AFK kick.

Q: Was it intended for people to be able to AFK their prison time?
A: No, it was just a consequence of removing the AFK kick timer.

Q: Reward for serving 100 trials as jury, how about a reward for serving 100 trials as defendant?
A: Yeah, you're a pirate. (So no)

Q: Rumored that black pearl was removed in 1.7 in Korea?
A: Untrue.

Q: Normalization? Will it be removed, why was it done and by whom?
A: Normalization is that all mounts should be similar. Differences only in abilities. Players want tiered mounts for the ones they have to work hard for to be better. The plan is to elevate them slightly, between 0.5 to 1 m/s run speed to the higher tier mounts.

Costume stats are not likely to come back anytime soon, it was done to avoid a "Pay to win fashion show." Even on hard to obtain costumes.

Q: AFK mount leveling?
A: Totally fine. Trion is more concerned at policing things that actually matter like gold sellers than someone with a toothpick in their keyboard.

Q: Any chance to rearrange the portal book?
A: They would like to, but it isn't a priority.

Q: Can we lower rider's escape cooldown since we're seeing increased blockades?
A: Fair request, no plans currently. Will have to look into it.

Cart collision is something that is being looked into. No word on any outcome, but players have been asking for the ability for one cart to push another out of the way to combat blockades.

Will be at PAX East. It will have an exclusive glider. Similar to the purple ones from last year, but red. Please come to PAX east to talk about offline labor regen and healer itemization.




In case you missed the stream you can check the video on demand of the 2/13/15 ArcheAge live stream on Trion's Twitch page.