Author: Stargrace

I decided to splurge, and made myself a set of level 30 plate armor, along with a new shield and weapon. Crafting is expensive – unless you farm everything yourself, and if you farm everything yourself, it’s lengthy. I rarely have labor since I use it all for crafting, and I now see why people tend to focus on just one craft at a time.

Unfortunately I have never been good at that.

Blesse, my main, is almost level 38. I had my first taste of PVP zones, as my quests took me to Cindermoor. Despite the fact that it was war time I only had one incident, and that was from a same faction player who decided to bloodlust on me. I’m not much of an opponent when compared to a level 50 player, and I was in combat with mobs at the time as well, so I doubt they got that much satisfaction from the ordeal. I didn’t let it deter me though, I went on my way and continued to quest once reviving at the statue.

I’d like to reach level 40 (and of course 50) within the next few days, but I have a pretty bad cold, so we’ll see how that goes. I keep hunting for a thunderstruck tree, but haven’t had any luck. I think I’m going to save mine for a future project instead of trying to get a farm tractor.

Property wise I am doing alright with 1 small house, 1 16×16 farm and 1 8×8 farm. I would love to own a larger home at some point, but I’m not going to hold my breath, and I’m content with my current set up. What I need to do (again, I have mentioned this before) is focus my efforts. So far that is easier said than done, at least for me.

At level 30 you’ll be presented with a short series of quests from the honor NPC that awards you with the ability to serve on jury duty. Perform this task 5 times and you’ll get a cloak opened up to you. So far I’ve served on jury duty twice, with my third time upcoming at the time of this post. Jury duty is neat and annoying all at once. The quests to qualify were simple enough, you get to solve a murder mystery and do a bit of running around.

Then comes the longest part of jury duty, the waiting. You automatically wait in a queue (which you can turn off in options by auto declining jury duty) with your peers while players go to trial. There’s even a courthouse, where others can watch the proceedings (in fact it’s bugged right now, if you sit in a pew you won’t get kicked from the AFK timer).

A queue for jury duty only moves as fast or slow as the server does. On the weekend I’m often at 1500-1800 players ahead of me, which can easily take 8-12 hours to reach the front of. If you’re used to shorter play sessions (I tend to semi afk while I farm and do things on my other monitor) you may not ever see jury duty until the queue of jury members drops a bit. It’s also based on how many people happen to have crime points and how many of that group is engaging in PvP and getting killed. Remember the only time you’ll actually get sent to prison is if you have 50+ crime points and you get killed in PvP. I’m not a fan of this system because it promotes players to using lower level characters to grief, where they’re safe within the beginner zones. Evetually they’ll earn their 3,000 infamy and become pirates, but it takes some time.

The jury duty process itself is pretty neat. You’re presented with a screen of infractions from the player, complete with their personal details such as how much time they have spent in jail total, how many times they have appeared before the court, what guild they’re in, etc. All of these details help determine what judgement you want to pass. When the jury members have been ported to their seats, the defendant has time to voice their case. Most of the time it’s just simple jokes or insults because hey this is an MMO after all, but every so often you’ll recognize that a player is innocent. You’ll be presented with a selection of judgement options to choose from, make your selection, hear the verdict, and then get ported back to where ever you came from. Pretty simple.

The penalties for crimes are pretty lenient. Pirates who have been there many times before may face longer jail times (the most I have seen someone sentenced to so far has been 4 hours) but over all I like the system. Plus it’s just plain fun.

Yesterday I took a break from doing trade runs, spent pretty much all of the money I had saved up, and decided to craft a clipper (pictured above). Instead of spending my gilda which I have been painstakingly saving up, I went to the auction house and bought the design for roughly 40 gold. I had already saved up the components for the fabric, iron, and lumber packs, so all that was left was placing a ship dock out in the water (cost is 10g plus it requires 10 iron ingots and 10 lumber) and to complete construction. Takes a handful of labor, and then tada, you have a ship.

I also customized it with the guild logo for Greymoon Trading Company. When I was done with customization I decided to purchase one of the appearance items from the market, and created a matching shirt.

Today I’m hoping to get back to trade pack runs and make up the coin that I spent yesterday creating the ship. I haven’t done a lot of leveling (except leveling through crafting) and it’s my weekend so I have some extended time to play.

I’m still really enjoying my time in ArcheAge, which I know is easy to say considering the game is still fresh and new. I have a feeling that a lot of people will grow frustrated with the 30+ game when it turns to pvp more than anything else, but I’m prepared for that. I’m hoping one day to afford a 24×24 and actually find a spot to place it, but in the mean time I’m content with exploring the world, doing trade runs, and generally having a good time.

As always, happy gaming no matter where you find yourself!