The internet’s abuzz with rampant rumors about NCsoft Europe publishing ArcheAge in their territory. We at ArcheAgeSource had our eye on the rumor since it’s original appearance, but we’ve had our interest renewed after being contacted by XLGAMES concerning their origin.

Tthe rumor was crossposted in multiple forums the same day it was posted at MMORPG.com. It’s difficult to say with certainty that MMORPG.com’s forums are the very first instance of the rumor, especially since ArcheAgeSource.com’s staff isn’t fluent in many languages other than English.

Click to read the entire article!

ArcheAgeSource’s staff decided against endorsing the rumor or debunking it, so it’s up to fans to make their own decisions. What do you think?

Over those 95 days 173 guilds were founded, around 3400 houses were constructed, over 130,000 livestock were sold, and 750,000 pine trees, 660,000 strawberry bushes, and 2,200,000 other trees were planted.

That in and of itself is pretty amazing, but what’s more important to XLGAMES than those metrics is the feedback they received from testers in the CBT4 forums.  Over the span of 95 days, 40 full patches were pushed out and 260,000 posts were made in the forums. Some of those patches were considerably complicated, including the addition of new bosses (Kraken), Christmas-themed events in December, the pirate faction, the family system, castle seiges, creative new mounts, underwater gathering and agriculture, and more!

According to ThisIsGame Global, XLGAMES now has a lot of feedback and material to work with as it continues to improve its first and biggest game:

“We deeply appreciate the testers who participated in the long test of an incomplete game. Later schedules will be announced as soon as we finish reviewing the test,” said Yong-Gon Kim the director of marketing team of ArcheAge.

Here’s XLGAME’s final official CBT4 video. It’s pretty amazing to see the before and after images of the housing areas, which appear to be barren plains before being covered in bungalows and trees.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=210MpzwbhGw

And a couple CBT4 players from the international community have uploaded videos of test’s final big event, a party on a giant yacht! The after-party consists of folks dancing and sometimes poking each other with swords.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cY8kFvqD5Ok

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTIr5S3LCw0

So what happens now? The same thing that happened after CBT3 and CBT2 and CBT1: we wait for word of the next test while XLGAMES’ tired employees get a bit of well-deserved R&R.

Stay tuned to ArcheAge-Online.com for news and info, and like us on Facebook or Twitter to stay connected!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSKn5LOFA1E

If you’re looking for a comprehensive review of ArcheAge’s CBT4, ArcheAgeSource moderator Entaro has exactly what you want! He’s cooked up a lengthy document that describes the beta’s new or improved features and even tracked down some videos to help illustrate his points. However, with two weeks added on to CBT4′s schedule and the end of the test (March 11th) coming up soon, some finer points of the review are subject to change. It’s a great read regardless, so check it out!

ArcheAge CBT4 Review and Extensive Game Info by Entaro – ArcheAge Source

It’s rare that a developer lets so many players into the game design process at such an early stage of development and allows full non-disclosure of the games features.

XLGames has stated that they’re designing ArcheAge with the idea of it being very social. Everything they’ve done so far both in game and the tools that they’ve provided on the official page have shown that they really care about creating a solid community and getting feedback on their game.

Finally, Giuseppe Nelva on DualShockers.com and Jef Reahard and other editors on Massively.com have both been following our news feed here pretty religiously, and we would like to take the time to thank them for their continued support. We also want to thank all of the various European game news sites for their support, as well as all ArcheAge’s Facebook fans and Twitter followers.

The more people around the world that know about ArcheAge, the better!

Enter underwater exploration and harvesting! Put on your diving helmet and scuba gear, because there’s acres of land available under the waves for you to claim.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iL3hL63OEkI

Make a crazy elaborate “castle” of just walls and towers, that’s what.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahz76RM_V9g

The beta will continue on until at least March 11th, if not later.

If you can read Hangul, here’s the original announcement.

Well one more feather was just added to XLGAME’s hat of tricks: ArcheTalky, a app that appears to help keep ArcheAge players in contact with their friends and guilds while away from their keyboards or otherwise unable to access the game. This is real-time chat, and it’s a good sign that XLGAMES has plans for future integrated apps.

Remember that video with the french maid assistant NPC?

Anyhow, here’s the full descriptions and screenshots from the iOS App Store.

‘ArcheTalky’ is a smart phone messenger application for ‘ArcheAge’ users. (This application is available only for who has ‘ArcheAge’ game characters)

◎ EVERYTIME, EVERYWHERE, REAL TIME MESSENGER

- ‘ArcheTalky’ is a real time messenger. You can send amessage to your ‘ArcheAge’ friends in ‘everytime’ and ‘everywhere’.

◎ CROSS PLATFORM

- Your ‘ArcheAge’ friends are waiting for you in the game? Don’t worry. You can use ‘ArcheTalkie’. Your message will be sent to your friends’ in-game chatting system and webpages. ‘ArcheTalky’ is all connected to ‘Game’ and ‘Web’.

◎ GROUP CHAT

- Enjoy group chats with your ‘ArcheAge’ friends.

- Why don’t you edit your profile picture at our website (www.ArcheAge.com), your profile picture will be automatically appeared at ‘ArcheTalky’. (Main Character -> Character option -> Edit Profile Picture)

Source: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/archetalky/id493494426

The past couple weeks have been a blur for the dedicated folks who have been participating in ArcheAge’s CBT4. Betacake’s staff has been posting videos and reviews while BOON Control guild members have written up some really helpful guides for players who are a bit confused about how some of ArcheAge’s more intricate mechanics work. Even broader gaming news sites like Massively and Steparu have increased their output of ArcheAge-related articles, which has helped increase the game’s name recognition quite dramatically among MMORPG fans.

Just this week we were alerted to an article about ArcheAge in Beckett Massive Online Gamer, a real printed western magazine. ArcheAgeSource.com staff nabbed a copy of the Jan/Feb 2012 issue and scanned the three pages that they cared about. While the article doesn’t have much new information in it (if any), it’s still strong physical proof that XLGAMES is serious about getting their game into the hands of fans worldwide.

Howdy folks, we’ve got some great news to share with you all today! Thanks to member Turmain alerting us in a thread on the forums, we heard that there was an article about ArcheAge printed in the Jan/Feb 2012 edition of Beckett Massive Online Gamer. As far as we can tell, this is the first time ArcheAge has been mentioned in the western printed media!

Every ArcheAge fan should get to witness this event, so we went on a quest to find and scan the article. The results can be viewed below. If you want to buy the magazine, visit this link. We’re not trying to take money out of Beckett’s pockets, we just want the world to see this one article.

> Link to album right here. <

Finally, the official ArcheAge YouTube account just made public a third weekly recap video detailing (in Korean) some awesome naval features. Note to self: the ship-busting Kraken isn’t to be trifled with!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndPL3S-dM8Y

Click here to read the article on MMOCulture or just click “Continue Reading” below.

One more thing: we’ve got another high-quality CBT4 livestream for you to drool over. Check this out!

Q: Can you briefly introduce yourself and your team?

A: I am 20 years old currently, hitting 21 soon, so it is 2NE1 (a popular South Korea female pop group). Renaissance was established in July 2010, and it will be 2 years old in a few months’ time. There are a total of around 170 players who took part in the expedition in ArcheAge, and our main aim is to seek adventures and to quest. We do meet in real life as well, having small gatherings for drinking sessions.

Q: How does it feel like being the first guild to have a territory in ArcheAge?

A: Very proud. All of the players worked hard together, and thank you all for your hard work. The original land was a place filled with volcano soot and barren lands. But after we placed the AKIUM (mineral to signify ownership of the piece of land), grass began to sprout out. We are happy to play a part in cleaning up the continent.

Q: Which was the hardest part of this expedition?

A: Collecting the required materials, especially the sunlight AKIUM which is rare.

Q: We saw many players gathering this item as well.

A: The system changed, we need to pack up the materials to build the ships, each time only allowing one bag to be transported over.

Q: Can you explain more about this new system?

A: After collecting 100 materials, we need to pack them up and carry. We need to reach the destination without dying.

Q: That means guarding the bundle is the main priority of this expedition?

A: Yes, if the player dies, the pack will drop and anyone else can pick it up.

Q: Can you tell us what items players need to prepare and the process of refining the AKIUM?

A: There is actually no strategy, everyone just collected the AKUIUM dusts and pieces and merge them together.

Q: How was the lumber and clothing material gathered? Many guilds are having trouble with this.

A: For lumber, we just needed to get more players to scout for trees to chop and monitor the progress. Clothing material can be dropped from a certain humanoid hunter monster.

Q:Was there any special planning or management done?

A: Within our expedition team, there are the information group, combat group and gathering group. Each group has its own mission and functions, for example the gathering group will find out where and where drop certain materials while the combat group will research on character skills and PvE combat. Our team has a number of veterans since Closed Beta 1, so we were able to guide them.

Q: If you need to transport AKIUM over to the old continent, ships are needed. For smaller boats, players can craft them easily, but what about those larger sail boats?

A: For sail boats, 1000 materials are needed, which means 10 packages. The new system also requires players to follow a standard pattern for inserting the materials to make the sail boat.

Q: The amount of 1000 materials is really staggering…

A: Yeap, and that is only for the smallest sail boat. When the bigger size ones are out…

Q: How did you overcome the Boss monsters along the way?

A: Different boss has different attack patterns, so we had to devise different strategies as well for each.

Q: It seems like your team is really strong.

A: When we were low level, 7 of us took down a boss. I guess it will only require 3 of us now.

Q: What are your plans now?

A: We will be gathering information about the castle building system and go gain some levels to prepare for castle siege.

Source: MMOCulture.com