Archeage Love

     It's funny to me to think that when I was first hearing about the MMOs that were on their way Archeage wasn't even on my radar. I saw a lot about Wildstar: wasn't impressed with the idea of it at first but the more I looked at it the more I liked the idea of it. I'd probably have bought it and subbed if finances had allowed. (I later got to try Beta and fell a little in love with it at least at the low level end of the game.) Elders Scrolls Online got a resounding meh in my head. I hadn't played Skyrim (don't worry I've started it now) and other than that most of the screenshots I saw were dark and gritty and a little ugly. Other people's blogs later made me a bit more interested in it, but I still haven't tried it.
Everquest Next: Now that I was thrilled for. Everquest was my first MMO and though I never really got anywhere with it I spent many happy hours playing and loving it. And Landmark. At first I thought this was some part of Everquest Next and later realized it was more complicated Minecraft with much better graphics. I got excited about that too.
     Somewhere amidst all of that... many months late I saw mention of something called Archeage. Meh, I thought, not that interesting and never looked to see what it was. Of all the new MMOs that was the least interesting to me. At least it was until months later when I saw a blog post about it(wish I could remember which one). Okay that didn't look totally uninteresting. More blog posts were read... a website was visited. Suddenly I was very interested. I signed up for beta, I watched youtube videos! (Something that aside from watching raid strats for WoW I almost never do for a game.) I looked at talent calculators. I wanted to play this game. It became -my- game of the new ones coming out. If I'd had $150 I could spare I'd have thrown it at the screen in a heartbeat for access to alpha.
     I read every email I was sent with updates and waited with bated breath for an invite every time a Closed Beta Event was announced. As it turned out I got into Events Three and Four. :) Between those and my time in Open Beta I knew I was going to love the game and also had time to decide that paladin was what I'd want to play. And now that it's live... aside from several hitches and some of the inconveniences that come with being a free to play account... I am in love.
     I've done so much over the last several days. Slacking on my WoW 'responsibilities' except for raiding even because I've just been having so much fun.

Lots of gliding.

     Some illegal farming. I'm not a patron at this point so if I wanted to complete the trade pack quest, the easiest way I could see to do it was to grow chickens on the public farm for the meat and grapes in the wild somewhere. Also some lumber because I wanted to make a shield. Planting things in the wild is definitely a gamble. I had good luck with this patch of grapes, but the two maples also planted there I lost. As I did my second and third batches of grapes and several turkeys. The trick to it seems to be finding an out of the way spot to hide the things. But right now the world is full and every hidden little nook I found was eventually discovered. Still though I lost at least half of the things I planted I did manage to grow enough for two the first two quest trade pack runs.

     Trade packs are definitely slow going without the donkey. I used the carriages whenever I could but Aelithar still spent a lot of time, sprinting and walking down the roads with Silverbirch strolling loyally behind. Still it was oddly fun. And finishing the run from Gweonid to the Crescent Throne awarded a donkey foal. So next time maybe it'll be just a little faster.

     It took me two days where I did very little but farming and hanging around to check on things (and running everywhere the long way to help Silverbirch get xp) to do those runs so very little leveling happened. Yesterday, though after my latest frustration about the turkeys it was back to leveling for the meantime. Aelithar should hit 30 today.