A Letter from Producer Ham — Network Test & Publishing Update

Hello everyone,First, I want to say thank you to everyone who took part in our first network test on September 12th. Getting real players on our servers, even for a short window, gave us something we simply couldn't get from internal testing alone, and we're grateful to everyone who showed up. I also know a test like this, limited to about six hours and to North America only, means a lot of you who wanted to take part weren't able to — whether it was the timing that didn't work for you, or simply where you're located. I want to apologize for that. The good news is you won't need an invite to play for much longer. We're working toward Early Access, and it's coming sooner than you might think.I'm writing today to share an important update about how ArcheAge Chronicles will move forward.As some of you already know, XLGames will be self-publishing ArcheAge Chronicles directly. This is a deliberate decision, and one we believe puts us in a much stronger position heading into Early Access.Self-publishing means XLGames now has a direct relationship with our Western players. That changes how we can communicate with you. Starting now, you should expect to hear from us more often, and more directly, as we move toward Early Access.As part of that shift, I want to introduce a new voice you'll be hearing from regularly: our Global PM, Don. Don will be posting directly, sharing more of the day-to-day thinking behind the game, and acting as a direct line between our development team and the Western community. Don will introduce himself properly in a post very soon, so keep an eye out.[img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/45216791/709c0f06b335889bfef93e05ceb038d7720ad674.png"]Finally, I want to share an update on how that test went. Despite the test only being open for a short time, we learned a lot in those few hours. This was primarily an infrastructure test: our goal was to see how our servers performed under real player load, in a way we simply can't fully replicate with internal testing alone.During the network test, we confirmed that our servers and key infrastructure operated stably even as more players connected simultaneously than we had originally planned for. On top of that, thanks to everyone who actively participated, we had an average playtime of about an hour and thirty minutes despite the limited content and the short test window. We could not be more grateful for your help testing our server stability.We are also carefully reviewing the feedback you have sent through the community, Discord and surveys. We are poring over this feedback and hope to be able to implement changes based on the results to provide a better gameplay experience. With any early build, there are always things we are still working on that didn't make it into this build. Fixes for a black screen issue, Party UI, and various methods players are using to grief other players are currently in-development internally. You should see improvements to these things in our next builds. As always, we are constantly making improvements to combat, balance, and performance.Additionally, during the preparation of the test build, we identified a case where some temporary elements used for development and testing were included in the external test build. These elements will not be included in the official release version, and we will strengthen our internal review process to ensure that similar cases do not occur in future external builds.We have also received a great deal of feedback from players regarding gender-locked classes.We also aim to give players the freedom to choose their character’s gender based on their preferences. However, at the time of Early Access, the current gender-locked class system will remain in place. Our current priority is to further refine combat and class design while providing a diverse range of gameplay experiences. Expanding the freedom to choose a character’s gender beyond the current gender-locked class system is something we will continue to consider as an important area for future development.This test was an important step on the way to Early Access, which we're planning for later this year.Thank you for your continued patience and support. There is a lot more coming, and we're glad to be sharing more directly from now on.HamExecutive Producer, ArcheAge ChroniclesXLGAMES