You can start ArcheAge in VMWare just fine with the official launcher, infact you have to be able to do that to update the game properly,
there's just a couple of things you need to do, tested in Windows 7 environment on VMWare:
1. create a file called "hackshieldsucks.reg" with this content:
--- snip cut below this line ---
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E968-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\0000]
"DriverDesc"="Generic Driver"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E968-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\0000\Settings]
"Device Description"="Generic Driver"
----- snip cut before this line ----
Then you just rightclick it and select "read data into registry" or whatever it says, double click may work too
2. Edit the .vmx file for your virtual machine (On Mac OSX, you just click the virtual machine and "show package contents", on windows vmware its just in the folder for your VM. and add this at the bottom:
monitor_control.restrict_backdoor = "true"
isolation.tools.getPtrLocation.disable = "true"
isolation.tools.setPtrLocation.disable = "true"
isolation.tools.setVersion.disable = "true"
isolation.tools.getVersion.disable = "true"
monitor_control.disable_directexec = "true"
Reboot the virtual machine, and presto, no more problems with hackshield freaking out
