ArcheAge rated Mature in Korea, first wave of CBT5 invites go out.
After some maintenance on ArcheAge.com, two important official news articles were posted. The first let registered users know that the initial wave of invites for CBT5 have been automatically issued to players that meet the following requirements:
1. Participating during the CBT4 stress test on February 17th.
2. Having a character in CBT4 that reached level 25.
Source: http://archeagesource.com/topic/903-what-is-this/#entry15383
Anyone who wasn’t selected in this round still appears to have about three more rounds in which they might be selected.
The second article detailed XLGAMES’ decision to resubmit ArcheAge for a second evaluation by South Korea’s games rating board. Their previous rating of Teen was replaced by a rating of Mature for the following reasons:
- Sexual Content
- Blood & Gore
- Drug Abuse
These categories and ratings are similar to the ESRB’s system. XLGAMES accepted the new rating, stating that new features in the game and future sandbox content would have probably violated the Teen rating eventually anyhow. Being proactive and seeking a heavier rating, hopefully preventing children from interacting with adults in damaging situations, is better than not doing anything at all.
Keep in mind Korean citizens are required to register for online games with their unique identity number, which allows XLGAMES to verify the age of the player. This is a relatively powerful system and is only easily circumvented if adults give children their number to register with (not technically legal).
Source: http://archeagesource.com/topic/902-archeage-rerated-m-for-mature/#entry15371
ArcheAge CBT4 wrapped up, now what?
ArcheAge’s fourth closed beta test started nearly three months ago on December 8th. It ran all the way until the beginning of this week.
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.
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.
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!
AA Video 7 + CBT4 Reviews and Articles
The past couple weeks have been a whirlwind of activity for XLGAMES and ArcheAge fans. With the fourth closed beta wrapping up next month, everyone’s excited to see what comes next! XLGAMES is gave fans a preview of what they’ve been working on in the following video uploaded today:
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! 
Underwater! “Inside ArcheAge” Video 6
Players have been able to swim in ArcheAge’s ponds, streams, lakes, rivers and oceans for a long time, but there hasn’t been a real good reason to take a dive…until now.
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. 