Hello everyone, Aguru here!
It's been almost a week since we introduced our new game client in the first part of our Road to 2.0 series, and quite a lot has happened since then!
We've been working alongside our closed beta testers, fixing crashes, improving performance, and ironing out the quirks that come with modernizing an engine that's over a decade old.
Today, I'd like to share some of our progress, discuss a few interesting improvements, and announce our next big step.
Starting today, the new client beta is open to everyone!
From Closed Beta to Open Beta
Over the past several days, we've been inviting increasingly large groups of players, gathering feedback, investigating crashes, and releasing fixes at a rather ridiculous pace.
Thanks to our testers, we've identified and resolved numerous issues that would have been difficult to reproduce internally. The results have been encouraging, and we're now comfortable opening the doors to everyone.
As of this post, all players can opt into the new client beta directly through the launcher.
The original client will remain available, and you can switch back at any time if you encounter issues.
Of course, this is still a beta. There are known bugs, undoubtedly some we haven't discovered yet, and improvements that will take more time to get right.
But we're making progress, and we're ready for more players to join us!
What We've Fixed So Far
Since the closed beta began, we've pushed numerous updates addressing everything from minor visual issues to long-standing engine crashes.
Here are some of the highlights.
Stability and Crash Fixes
We've addressed a considerable number of crashes, including issues involving:
- Character selection, loading screens, and entering or leaving the world.
- UI initialization, addons, and character customization.
- Housing placement and interactions with world objects.
- Texture streaming and graphics resource management.
- Audio playback during large-scale PvP.
- Switching between windowed and fullscreen modes.
We've also implemented initial fixes for NVIDIA-specific crashes, alongside expanded diagnostics that provide much more information when something goes wrong.
These improvements make it significantly easier for us to investigate and resolve difficult issues.
Not every crash is solved yet, but we're in a much better position to track them down.
Performance Improvements
We've made numerous optimizations throughout the engine, including:
- Faster shader loading and improved texture streaming.
- Smoother terrain and shadow rendering.
- Reduced stuttering when loading houses and decorations.
- Better performance when planting and interacting with the UI.
- Fixes for visual effects accumulating in memory during long sessions.
While some of these improvements are small individually, together they help make the client more responsive and consistent.
A Major Change to How the UI Works
One of our latest updates introduces a particularly interesting change: the user interface now runs on its own thread while you're in the game world.
Previously, UI processing competed with other game operations, including rendering. With this change, the UI can perform more of its work independently, potentially improving performance in raids, large-scale PvP, and crowded areas.
It's a substantial architectural improvement, and a good example of what's now possible with the new client.
However, it's also a new system, so we're particularly interested in reports of unusual UI behavior, incorrect tooltips, addon issues, or unexpected crashes.
Gameplay and Visual Fixes
Not everything has been happening behind the scenes! We've also fixed a variety of gameplay issues:
- Mount animations now correctly match movement direction, and water mounts no longer immediately despawn.
- Ladders, including boat ladders, are climbable again.
- Cannons should now correctly hit their targets.
- Ironclads, freighters, and cargo ships have received physics fixes. They should be considerably less interested in becoming spacecraft.
- Character statistics, proficiency limits, party indicators, and customization visuals have been corrected.
- Fishing rod animations and several UI issues have been fixed.
- Audio issues causing loud popping sounds and disappearing game audio have been addressed.
- Ping and latency reporting should be more accurate.
We've also temporarily enabled Snap Planting, with Shift allowing you to disable snapping while placing objects.
We'd love to hear your thoughts on this feature before deciding how to move forward with it.
And these are only some of the fixes we've made!
What's Next?
Opening the beta is an important milestone, but there's still plenty of work ahead.
Our priorities remain stability, performance, and compatibility, particularly as more players begin testing across different hardware configurations and gameplay situations.
We'll also continue making improvements to the engine itself, much like the new UI threading system.
When Will the New Client Become the Default?
We don't have a confirmed date just yet.
Our goal is to make the new client at least as reliable as the original, without major compatibility issues preventing players from using it.
Once we're confident we've reached that point, we'll transition it into the default experience.
Until then, both clients will remain available.
Improving the New Player Experience
Alongside our work on the new client, we've also begun focusing on another important area: the new player experience.
ArcheAge is a massive game, and getting started can be overwhelming, particularly for players unfamiliar with its systems.
We want to make the early stages of the game more approachable, improve how players are introduced to its various activities, and ultimately give newcomers more reasons to stick around.
Improving new player retention is one of our priorities, and we believe there's plenty we can do without compromising what makes ArcheAge Classic special.
We're currently aiming to deliver a major update in the coming months, alongside the final release of the new client, with a strong focus on these improvements.
This remains a tentative target, and we'll share more details as development progresses.
After all, a better client is only part of the equation. We also want to make ArcheAge Classic a better experience for the players joining us.
We Need Your Feedback!
The closed beta has demonstrated just how valuable player feedback is.
Many of the issues we've fixed were identified thanks to players reporting crashes, explaining unexpected behavior, or providing reproducible examples.
With the beta now open, we'd love for more of you to get involved!
Whether it's a crash, visual bug, performance issue, or something that simply doesn't feel right, please report it. Including your hardware, addons, and what you were doing at the time makes a huge difference.
And if everything works perfectly? We'd love to hear that too!
Looking Ahead
The new client was never just about replacing the old one. It was about giving ourselves the freedom to improve ArcheAge in ways that previously weren't possible.
We're only beginning to take advantage of that freedom, and there's still plenty of work ahead.
But the progress we've made in such a short time is encouraging, and we're excited to finally get this project into everyone's hands.
The new client beta is now open. Give it a try, let us know what you think, and help us build a better ArcheAge Classic!
Thank you to everyone who participated in the closed beta, and to everyone who continues to support the project.
— Aguru
ArcheAge Classic Team