everyone was saying they deployed some awful patch on korean version and tuned down most the sandbox elements.
is it much effort to play the russian beta? plz give guides/links/how-to's
Yeah they did, the patch is called 1.0, but it is said that both mail.ru (for the russian version) and Trion (for the EU/NA version) hold the rights to say what parts of the patch they do not want implemented and they both realize how horrible that patch was in Asia, so I seriously doubt the bad features of 1.0 will see the light of day in the west. Especially for the russian version, since russians absolutely love PvP and 1.0 kills some of it.
There's not much effort to play the russian beta, basically register, download launcher, run it to download and install game, download english patch, run the patch, game ready. Here's how to do it
If you have to go through registration again you can actually switch the language to english https://e.mail.ru/signup?lang=en_US
Download launcher here: http://aa.mail.ru/download (big red button in the middle)
English patch can be gotten here: https://thepiratebay.se/torrent/9659770
Instruction notes for the eng patch:
1. Unzip the downloaded folder
2. Open patch.bat with Notepad (or some other similar software)
3. Replace "C:\Games\MailRu\ArcheAge\game_pak" with the location of game_pak on your computer, inside the ArcheAge folder
4. Run patch.bat and wait for it to be finished
5. Play ArcheAge!
If everything works, once you run the patch.bat, it should display some stuff and ask if it should proceed. If it just opens and closes it is not working.
English community is on server Джин (reads Jean), on the East continent (Hariharan and Ferre race!)
Eh, long queues, needing to mod it to speak english, and the english mods keep being taken down. I'll probably wait till they sort their shit out before giving it a try.
Aww, long queues are to be reduced this week with new server releases and free transfers, installing the english patch takes like 30 seconds, english patch is alive and well on piratebay and they can't touch it there. On top of that the AFK kick system has been implemented so the queues should be faster.
EDIT: Even with the English patch, there is still a bunch of Russian writing in all the Ui and menus etc, there is enough English to play and probably figure out most things, but I CBA, couldn't find an option to invert mouse Y axis either which was also annoying me, I think I'm just going to wait for the English version to try this one out, just not enjoyable like this.
Ah too bad. Only a smart part of the UI (like the map) is still in russian, it's enough to fully enjoy the game for me at least. On top of that, russian -> english patch is being worked on so the translations will get better over time, at least the non-quest based ones.
Also some info on the open world PvP (not the naval one):
In general, all zones have some amount of pvp. The first few starting zones are safe for your own faction: you can not attack them and you can not be attacked by enemies. You can, however, attack the enemy faction if you want. The player you attack will be able to defend himself, but not his friends that are with him.
The higher lvl zones starting at level 30 are free for all pvp. This means you can attack the enemy faction and also your own. However, attacking your own faction will get you in trouble with the law.
While on the northern continent and on the open sea you have open pvp all day, the two starting continents have a war and peace system.
In general, the pvp zones on those two continents are flagged for pvp. If there is too much pvp going on, e.g. one guild is killing too many players of the opposite faction, a war starts. This means you get rewarded for killing the enemy faction. You get honour points for kills and assists and also for successful participation in the fight.
A war lasts about an hour: It starts with 30 minutes of preparation which players use to gather; you can already get honour points here, but the real deal is the war that lasts an hour and comes straight after the war preparation. When the war is over, a peacetime starts that can be 1 hour or even 4 hours, depending on the importance of the zone. During a peacetime, there can be no pvp at all.
Regarding losses and gains in pvp. You don't lose any items or gold in pvp, you now only gain honour points for participating in wars.
When the war starts the 2 warring guilds/factions will each set up their own base of attack. Each base will have a NPC guardian to protect the base. The war ends when a team destroys the other teams base.
The winning guild/faction gets gear and resources. The loser gets crafting mats.
Video on how trading works (best way to earn money!)