ArcheAge recently launched in the West, and I have to confess that I hadn’t been paying much attention to it until hearing there were colossal queues to get into the servers on launch day. Queues, you say? A feature guaranteed to appeal to a British audience! I downloaded the client forthwith and was soon enjoying some exceptional queueing, hundreds of people with estimated wait times in tens of hours. The addition of new servers a few days ago slightly spoiled things to the point that I found myself actually in the game. Still, there’s plenty of interesting stuff in prospect apart from the queues like the deep crafting and housing driven economy, a player-run judicial system, and a class system with 120 skill choice permutations with intriguing names like “Ebonhawk”, “Reaper”, “Blade Dancer” and “Senior Systems, Applications and Telephony Engineer” (one of those may be made up).

It’s always interesting to see whether flexible class systems promote a variety of interesting and viable hybrids, or if everyone falls back into traditional specialised roles; whether you can take a number of different approaches to your build, or if there’s but one Proper Way To Do It and (with apologies to Paul Simon), fifty ways to gimp your healer…

The problem is all inside your build she said to me
The answer is easy if you take it logically
I’d like to help you to heal the whole of your party
There must be fifty ways to gimp your healer

She said it’s really not my habit to intrude
But guides from old patches, they can be misconstrued
Because they changed the healing stats in one point two
There must be fifty ways to gimp your healer

Pick up Healing Hymn, Kim
Check your mana regen, Jen
You don’t need that Int, Clint
Just heal your party
Try out Auramancy, Nancy
It don’t have to be fancy
A good club is key, Lee
To heal that party

She said it grieves me so to see you in such pain
When your healing efforts are met with much disdain
I said I appreciate that and would you please explain
About the fifty ways

She said why don’t we respec your character tonight
And I believe with the right gear you will begin to see the light
And then she buffed me and I realised she probably was right
There must be fifty ways to gimp your healer

Pick up Healing Hymn, Kim
Check your mana regen, Jen
You don’t need that Int, Clint
Just heal your party
Try out Auramancy, Nancy
It don’t have to be fancy
A good club is key, Lee
To heal that party