ArcheAge - Asian modern UO spiritual successor?

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Many people, myself included, don't really dig the whole Asian anime aesthetic for games. Chicks that look and act like fashion models in high heels and chain mail, dudes that look like the chicks, etc. However, there's a game that's being developed by Jake Song, one of the original Lineage 1/2 developers that's starting to look interesting. It's another stab at the whole Ultima Online throwback in modern, AAA trappings and might be worth a look.

Until recently, it's only been seen in the West in the form of a few teaser videos showing off the graphics tech (Crytech 2 engine), and some of the world-building features such as housing and farming, along with some pretty interesting naval battles. The game is in closed beta in Korea right now, but some western players have been allowed in, and impressions are being written. The more I read about it, the more interested I'm getting.

Here's a closed beta review that's really piqued my curiosity: http://www.aaportal.net/en/index.php?op ... &Itemid=73

Seriously? Looks like WoW.

Love how even old men are made to look like feminized faggots. Fucking chinks.

Yeah, I totally see it.

This took over the #2 voted in development a month or two ago I think.
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game ... heAge.html

Edit:
Just saw this... http://www.thisisgame.com/go/?p=3286

Aion really pushed the KR-EU/US cooperation but still failed. Seriously never playing an Asian MMORPG again.

I HATED Aion. Had a friend waste one of her beta keys on me, and I couldn't get past the first couple of levels. I also generally hate the faggy way characters are presented in Asian games. Faggy poses, faggy emotes, faggy everything. TERA, a game that's supposedly trying to improve on the Asian to Western port by having a seperate development studio for the Western release, still suffers from aesthetic faggotry. Some of the gameplay choices did pique my interest sometime back, lately I've been losing interest.

ArcheAge has my attention right now because of all the detail put into the game. From what I've read, there will be 3 continents. Two of them will have established civilizations, from which you get your themepark-style questing, while the third is open to player control. Players have the ability to create villages and cities, establish political structure, and generally play in the sandbox. These sandbox elements are somewhat limited on the established continents, but the third continent is wide open. Naval combat is included and looks pretty impressive from the vids I've seen. I'd like to see ships sunk instead of asplodin', but it's not a dealbreaker.

There's a shit-ton more that I don't know about the game, and it may be mostly hype, but the beta reviews do sound promising. It probably won't see Western release for a few years yet, but I'm definitely going to be watching it.

If it has open world unrestricted PvP then it will be pretty

Sounds like Darkfall in Asia to me.

Sounds like L2 with a few more features.

I bet it'll be ruined by grind.

Except PKers with a certain amount of negative karma (or whatever the system is called) get to spend a half hour in jail. Supposedly, there's jailbreak opportunities, but imagining the indignation of PKers facing real, game-affecting consequences makes me giggly.

The game's sure looking pretty.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yraYIpxxLoI

The water is kind of meh, with the shader layer visible from the water's surface. The "water on the camera lens" effect is neat, once or twice. The person Frapsing this is a complete retard, so after taking in a minute or two of the water, I'd recommend skipping to the 7 minute mark, where he starts exploring the land a little. I've seen better singleplayer game graphics, but for an MMO, it's pretty damned impressive.

I kindof go the impression that with Aion that NCWest had sweet fuck all input, and the only changes that were made were for the Korean version, with the changes being translated and released to the western version. I managed to grind my way up early, and enjoyed the game, after being shown how much more effective grinding was and turning my brain off and just killing mobs for a few hours was some kind of mental therapy, broken only by the random rift group porting in/random Abyss gank group buzzing by, or a fortress raid.

Very grindy game, supposedly it was patched out a bit, but by then, Nezekan was a ghost town, and is long dead now apparently. Useless CSR's merely paying lip service, and being hamstrung by not being able to do diddly squat because the Korean version was the only one that was to be significantly modified, at least, that was my impression of the goings on.

Had fun in it though, but was more the people that played rather than the game itself, still, I enjoyed the pugs more so than WoW. Actual death penalty meant dying wasnt a good thing (TM) and requiring CC and knowing your role, ahh, challenge, where hast thou gone?