Been playing ArcheAge quite a bit recently, a couple of friends got it (my brother got the founders pack for free since he participated in the alpha, lucky git) and we've had good fun roaming around.
It's the first time that the Caravan Guild has actually done what we set out to do, protect a trade caravan for money.
Highly enjoying traveling about, been attacked by pirates probably 20% of the times I've made a trade run, never actually lost a pack yet which is nice but I've not been out of my comfort zone and headed to the other continent yet, although my friends have and they've had roughly a 50% success rate.
There are a couple of different types of boat, and the first one I think most people will build is a clipper, which you have two types of, one with a cannon and one with a harpoon. The harpoon is usually used by players to latch onto another boat and reel them in, which pirates have attempted to do before to myself. On my first trip out as ship captain on a trade run with a couple of guys, pirates used their harpoon to latch onto our boat, they didn't get us because one of them decided to use his glider to jump over to our boat, I used the harpoon that was stopping us from sailing quickly to pivot around the pirate at a faster speed than he expected, causing him to land in the water, and managing to get to a "safe zone" where same-kingdom pirates could no longer attack us (out of rough waters).
It really does mean that you can't just afk while transporting goods, and from a Caravan Guild point of view, it really really does mean that our services are required. There are a lot of large clans that can afford to create raid parties and transport goods around, but for a lot of the smaller clans or individual players trying to make runs, having a bit of muscle really deters the bandits.
My biggest bugbear is the number of gold-spammers, but I guess that's just part and parcel with MMOs these days. They are being combated but the occasional one slips through, as you can see by the screenshot.
I'll see if I can get some beta keys for the next one, if there is one, I'll certainly be playing it on release.