Can I have tl;dr why this is good?
Keep my background as Lineage 2 veteran in mind tho 
Then the castle sieges alone should convince you
, except in this game castles are actually built by players/guilds and you can break down the walls and shit. In short, ArcheAge is a Sandpark (themepark with sandbox features) MMORPG made with CryEngine3 with tab target combat, but featuring a lot of sandbox features like open world pvp, non-instanced housing / player plots / land owning, farming, growing trees, player driven economy, trading, castle sieges, naval warfare and piracy, huge sea - underwater treasure hunting, justice system and more.
is there really a need to get to max level tho? I would have hoped in a sandbox its less important. age of conan must be the only themepark I max level'd in and it was so boring to be max level in that game.
I'm kind of hoping if I don't like the quests I can just do something else, but maybe that's where the crafting paywall I hear about will stop me.
There is a need to get to max level if you want to PvP. But I'd say you can reach level 50 pretty fast in this game. If you don't like the quests you could as well farm/craft your way to level 50, but it's going to take longer. I think a healthy mix of both is the best way. I did it like so in Russian Beta, some questing and when I got tired of it (or when the current leveling zone was dominated by enemy faction) I would just go farm, craft or do traderuns to relax.
also is there a server/race to pick so I might play with you crpg folks?
Come release I'm going to be playing on Server #2 - Kyprosa, West side (this means Humans and Elves). Not going to be playing in beta because I know how the game is and there's no reason to level in beta.
