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| Review based on version 1.37 Archlord hates you. It is an unforgiving, ruthless, open PVP, anything goes, grind-based RPG that doesn’t cater to anyone looking for an even remotely casual RPG experience. You can be killed at any turn, and a single death in the higher levels can virtually negate days of work. If this isn’t your thing, you might be best to just move along, as Archlord probably isn’t going to convert any World of Warcraft or Guild Wars players looking for something new. In fact, it’s almost a completely different type of game altogether. But if you’re a fan of Korea’s take on the genre, chances are Archlord just might be able to pull you away from your Lineage 2 fix. |
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| Archlord follows the aforementioned Lineage 2’s groundwork rather closely. Item progression, for the most part, is linear. Each tier of equipment, despite nearing a Diablo II level of modifiers and diversity, can be immediately purchased from NPCs or bought at the player-run auction house, but you’re unable to equip them until you meet the required level. Leveling consists mainly of “grinding” the same mobs in excessive numbers for miniscule experience. While there are a decent amount of quests to be found and said quests actually serve as your primary means of gaining experience in the lower levels, once you get past the mid-twenties, you’ll be lucky to gain 20% on your progression to the next level via questing. |
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| What separates Archlord from the pack of grind-based MMOs is how it handles grind-based MMO conventions, or rather, how it handles grinding itself. What it boils down to is that you’re given a choice of either experience over loot or loot over experience based on where you choose to level. Choosing to hunt in outdoor areas gives you twice the gold and item drops than that of hunting in dungeons, but half the experience. Hunting in dungeons--you guessed it--gives you twice the experience points, but half the gold and drop rates of hunting outside. |
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| What is most surprising about Archlord, however, is that it has absolutely zero downtime, something almost completely unheard of in this type of MMORPG. Archlord does away with the MMORPG middleman; there are no support classes here. The game’s only healing mechanic is that of slamming potions. With the help of a convenient slider attached to your lifebar, potions can be used automatically once your health drops to a given level. Since you gain roughly the same amount of experience soloing as with a party, playing alone or in a group is your decision; you no longer need to wait upwards of hours on end to simply play the game. World of Warcraft, RYL, Lineage 2, FFXI, and even Guild Wars (just to name a few) all suffer from this annoyance. However, no matter what your level in Archlord, you can actually play the game from the moment you log in. The way Archlord handles the playtime-versus-logtime issue that has been plaguing MMORPGs since their inception is a huge advancement for the genre and, according to the press the game has received since launch, an overlooked one. |
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| Then there’s the Archlord system itself. An MMO first, this mechanic allows one dedicated and skilled player to rule over the entire server for a month. The Archlord will be donned with a unique set of armor, have access a flying dragon mount, have the ability to call on three powerful NPC bodyguards, summon up 20 formidable monsters, call down a massive, area of affect meteor shower, and even be able to control the weather and levy taxes on the entire server. In short, the Archlord is a walking god. With players competing over this glorified king-of-the-hill type status every month, it adds a fantastic dynamic to the otherwise monotonous, grind-based RPG. |
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| But the real meat of the game is the PVP system. While all players start the game neutral to each other and are given a brief period to learn the ropes, once you hit level 15, it’s open season. Apart from the town borders--the only true safe areas--the entire game is open PVP. While you are free to take the law into your own hands by downright murdering a player character who’s camping your leveling spot or just outright holding a kill-on-sight grudge with a completing guild, there are a few rules to keep the mob justice from getting too chaotic. Killing any character five levels lower than you nets you villain points. Enough villain points and you’re flagged as a level one criminal, negating some of your NPC privileges. Players ruthless enough to net themselves a level three criminal penalty are completely banned from civilization and are marked as kill-on-sight to both players and NPCs. Perhaps the best aspect of Archlord’s PVP mechanic is the bounty system. Any player outright killed by another has the option of placing a bounty on his murderer’s head. An NPC in town keeps a viewable list of all players with a bounty, their level, and whether they are online or not. One can conceivably make a decent living being just a bounty hunter in Archlord. |
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| In an attempt to alleviate the sluggish grind, Archlord offers an optional profession system. Players, despite their class or race, all have access to the same professions; skinning or carving dead mobs, corpse rummaging, alchemy, and cooking. These professions basically serve as various means to gather raw materials from slain enemies, then in turn use said materials to make food or potions that buff character attributes for a limited time when consumed. The profession system is not as in-depth or as economically valuable as it could be, but it's a welcomed layer to the game, even if it's merely a distraction from the grind. |
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| All these aspects no doubt sound like they form a pretty compelling RPG, but unfortunately, their implementation leaves much to be desired. Archlord is still in its infant state, and its ideas are truly better on paper than in execution. Without a big name developer like Blizzard or ArenaNet behind it, the patches and fixes are few and far between. This is unfortunate, as Archlord has a myriad of technical problems. The game itself was undeniably released too soon and the retail version came with a relatively large amount of bugs and balance issues. Many aspects of the game such as WASD movement, path finding, quests, boss spawns, and even entire skills themselves were completely broken right out of the box. While partially a community problem, the game’s open PVP and bounty system are actively exploited and abused. Some of these issues have since been fixed, but players are still eagerly awaiting a game that truly feels like a retail version and not a beta. The only concession here is that Archlord is devoid of the standard online RPG monthly fee. |
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| Archlord does so much right. It takes the typical Korean MMORPG; the gorgeous art style, the strict level grind, the linear equipment advancement, but adds in the Western staples; the mounts, the auction house, the mail system, etc. On top of all that, it adds its own unique (and dare I say borderline brilliant) aspect of the Archlord system itself. While Archlord has come a long way since version 1.0, it has still got a long way to go. The real thorn in Archlord’s side is whether or not the player base can put up with the large amount of glaring issues while the game itself takes its own prolonged trip to reach its full potential. Without a monthly fee, though, there’s really no reason not to go along for the ride and at least see for yourself. |
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7.5 |
 + Visuals are inconsistent and range from gorgeous to slightly above average. |
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8.0 |
 ++ Absolutely fantastic, epic soundtrack scored by David Snell and the London Symphony Orchestra. Quite possibly soundtrack of the year material. - Mediocre sound effects you’ll hear repeated thousands of times over detract from the soundtrack’s brilliance. -- Grating, looping sound bug has yet to be fixed since the game’s beta. |
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6.5 |
 + Lack of downtime and support classes combined with intense spell effects and flashy melee attacks make combat feel satisfying and fast passed, though the process of leveling itself slower than it should be. -- Broken WASD movement, point and click path finding is sub-par at best. |
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9.0 |
 ++ Perhaps the game’s greatest asset overall. The creativity and detail involved in Archlord’s character, weapon and armor designs are without peer. Fantastic stuff here. |
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8.0 |
 ++ Battling over the top spot on each server for rank of Archlord will no doubt keep players addicted for a long time to come. -- The nature of the game’s time consuming grind, the lack of depth at low levels, and the nagging bugs will no doubt turn a lot of gamers off before they reach the real meat of the game. |
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7.0 |
 + While the overall feeling of Archlord is more of a work in progress rather than a complete release, the potential here for a really unique MMMORPG experience is so great that it makes putting up with the problems worthwhile. |
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