Since Archeage is my favorite game at the moment and I come from a long history of loving wow, I thought I would do a quick comparrison between the two and what makes them worth playing and/or different.
First, let me say, Archeage is not a Wow Killer. Not because its not a better game but because it is an MMO that does not try compete with Blizzard in its space. Where Wow excels is creating content around the PVE experience. While there is some PvP, it is more an afterthought than the main focus of the game. Archeage is more PvP (on a grand scale) foccused with raiding content and world bosses more as an after thought.
Where Wow players require that Blizzard keep releasing updated content to keep interested, Archeage moves around high value trade packs and PvP. Archeage relies on politics, skullduggers and spies to keep it interesting. Since this content is player generated, you never run out of excitement.
In Wow, they try make an equal playing field. Every season the gear gets better and every expansion you get new PVe gear. Due to this you have insane gear inflation, and something you worked really hard for last year, is worthless this year. In Archeage its unfair. It mirrors life in this way. The gear almost never inflates. Gear you worked (for a long time) on 2 years ago, can still be imba today. Archeage does not try level the playing fields. Its absolutely brutal. Sink or swim. Until you have your gear, you better be quick.
Archeage is a different beast to Wow. Where I find myself playing with young kids mostly in Wow, I find myself playing with mostly adults in Archeage. Its one of the hardest MMO`s I have ever experienced. The depth of the crafting system is phenomenal and nothing in Blizzard can compare. If I want to make something simple like a plank to build a chest with, I have to plant the seeds, grow the plants, chop down the lumber, and then use a sawmill to turn the wood into lumber. Only then do I have the base mat!
However, this level of crafting means I can build almost anything. I currently have several homes in Archeage, ranging from mansions, to tree houses to farming cottages. I even have several storage silos in smuggler areas. Whats great, is I can take a picture of my family, and have it framed on my wall in my in game tree house. Other people can view this as well. One of the first things I did was buy a bunch of flags, and then make them into South African flag. In this game I can build wagons, ships, cars, carts, airships and just about anything. The crafting menu is so vast, almost no one knows all thats available (even the online documentation is useless and the Korean developers often introduce new stuff without telling players)
Archeage has a more real feel to it, in so far as world physics go, in wow you can walk through someone, in Archeage you can block people. This leads to some insanely fun trolling.
The class system in Archeage is far more advanced than Wow. In wow you get a handful of classes, in Archeage you get over 100. Your class is defined by what 3 skill trees you choose. Do you tank and heal? Cool, your class is paladin. Wanna be a tanking mage or a DPS healer, yup, you can do that in Archeage. My favorite classes are abolisher (melee, defense, buffs) and my nimble daggerspell (sorcery, rouge witchcraft (super cc)). The PVP spells are also more complex that wow, with combos and everything coming into play.
When I say archeage is brutal, its unfair. You are going to whine about how unfair it is, expecially if you are an unproductive or poor player. However, when you work hard at your goals, join a productive guild, and get involved in some of the most epic pvp you will ever experience (and on a scale you have never experienced). It emulates real life this way. Real life is unfair.
Archeage politics is insane, there are two major factions. Nuia (dopey looking elves and blonde pedobears) and Harnya (cat people and Japanese looking people). Each has their own continent. I was playing Haranya, but the Nuia on our server were stacked. A powerful guild grew up on the Nuia side and basically dominated the server. The pirates (more on them later) and Nuia used to eat us, even on our own continent, and we never stood a chance in all the major naval battles.
However, that all changed two weeks ago. Core (the powerful nuia guild) got so strong, that they claimed so much territory (in this game, a guild can conquer and own certain territories) that they were big enough to become their own faction! They promptly allied with us the Harnaya, to get access to much of our unused farmlands. Its pretty awesome going from zero to hero over night.
Now those pesky pirates, the bain of my life. Screw em, seriously, screw em. Any player can join the pirate faction. Pirates can not live on any of the main continents, but are able to inhabit small islands in the ocean. To become a pirate you need to PK players on your own side (or steal from them). When you get enough infamy points you end up on trial. The jury is made up of real players. If you are found guilty you are sent to prison. If you get sent to prison too many times you are exiled and become a pirate.
Most of the day you will find me in the ocean. My ships are my crafting pride and I spend hundreds of hours pulling up shipwrecks from the ocean floor. To pull up a shipwreck you need to find one, blow away the sand with a submarine, and then attach recovery pouches to the wreck, this will slowly raise it to the surface where you can pillage it. Getting the loot means nothing, everyone on the server is notified that you pulled a wreck up and have high value cargo. You now have to do a chicken run to a safe harbour to try deliver the loot.
Even a safe harbour means very little as I found out the other day. There I was, minding my own business, offloading my cargo, when I noticed a clipper come up behind my merchant ship. It fires a harpoon at my ship and they start dragging me out of the safe zone and into the PVP zone. I had to do everything to try avoid being pulled out, and they complicated my efforts, by putting someone on my ship to keep dropping my sails. Thankfully I was able to deliver the cargo, but the simple act of dropping off the cargo in a SAFE zone became a hardcore event where my adrenalin was pumping.
I cant compare this game to anything else. Perhaps a cross between minecraft and wow. It is a very very hard MMO to get into, the learning curve is huge, but if you get into the game, if you work out your trade routes, the thought of playing wow will make you yawn in boredom.
In this video you see a smaller guild come across a bigger guild doing a MASSIVE trade merchant run to Fredrich Island. At first they dont realize how many opponenets they are up against and after a short naval battle they are killed. Once killed, the respawn and steal some of the enemy merchants, but it gives you a good idea what TRADING is like in this game. High risk, high reward.
For those of you interested in playing, I am on EU, Rangora
Final word of advice, the regrade system is gambling, you can shatter a $100 item in seconds, dont regrade above celestial unless you are loaded, it will cause you to quit the game if you spend months working for an epic sword and then snap it on a reroll. Dont reroll anything you dont expect to lose. Rather buy your gear than roll for it.