ArcheAge is Sunsetting
Posted on May 7, 2024 by Aywren
This is not breaking news as it was announced a few weeks back. Nor is it happy news to know that ArcheAge is closing down in Europe and North America. I never like to see a game shut down, leaving the folks who play it homeless.
However, this is not at all surprising to me. While this post is not exactly a “I told you so,” I do want to note this is the only MMO that I have ever completely quit (I gave my stuff away and everything), and I stuck to my guns about never returning.
It was almost 10 years ago when I enthusiastically tried this game out, hoping that it would be my next sandbox MMO. I was there in late beta and at launch. When I recognized that the F2P version of the game was too limiting for my playstyle, I even ponied up for a paid account for a while.
I wrote many posts in 2014 about my experiences with AA. When all was said and done, however, I completely cut ties with the game in November of that year. My good-bye post listed a bunch of red flags that pushed me to make this choice. These included issues that I personally experienced with slow support, billing issues, broken cash shop mounts, in-game hacking, lack of land for paying players, as well as the labor points and grind.
While it’s true this all happened close to launch, and the game could get better, I feel like it just didn’t. AA eventually saw many, many server mergers, which tells the tale by itself. Each time servers merged, that meant players had to rush out on launch and hope they could reclaim farms and land in the new server. This was much easier said than done.
Seeing that the draw for many was land ownership, and that making money in the game was often linked to your plots and land-only activities, this was an absolute no-go. I’d already left the game way before the first merge, but if I’d still been there at that time, that would have been it for me.
I know that there are user-created private servers for ArcheAge out there. Looking at the details between the options, however, it seems there are dubious elements to keep in mind before hooking up with either one.
My condolences to AA players. I hope you can find another sandbox out there that will fulfill you… and ultimately treat you better.