ArchLord

Last updated

ArchLord
Archlord cover.jpg
Developer(s) NHN Corporation
Codemasters Online Gaming
Publisher(s) Webzen (former)
Codemasters (former)
Engine RenderWare
Platform(s) Windows
Release
  • KOR: March 2005
  • NA: October 3, 2006
  • EU: October 6, 2006
  • AU: 7 August 2009
Genre(s) Massively multiplayer online role-playing game
Mode(s) Multiplayer

ArchLord is fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game developed by NHN Corporation and Codemasters Online Gaming (COG). The game was released in March 2005 in South Korea and October 2006 in North America and Europe, receiving poor reviews from the gaming press. In August 2007, ArchLord became free-to-play to coincide with the release of the first episodic expansion pack, Season of Siege. The second expansion, Spirits Awakening, was released in August 2008. From August 2009, Webzen published ArchLord in additional countries where Codemasters did not have rights to distribute the game. From October 3 the same year, Webzen maintained ArchLord globally, offering the seventh expansion, called Heaven & Hell. The game has been shut down since January 1, 2014. [1]

Contents

Gameplay

ArchLord used a crafting system, which allowed players to upgrade items in a unique way, and allowed players to carve, skin and ransack any defeated monster. The materials obtained using carving, skinning, and ransacking skills were used in Alchemy and Cooking to create power-up items. Alchemy created metamorphosis potions, which allowed players to transform into monsters, whereas Cooking allowed a player to create food which gave statistic bonuses, e.g. defense buffs.

There was an advanced market system employed in this game for ease of trading between players.

One feature of ArchLord was the ability to compete to become the ArchLord, the ruler of the game world. Only one ArchLord could exist on each server. ArchLords reigned for four weeks before they were challenged by other players for the position. Each server's ArchLord had access to a castle, a unique dragon mount, control of the weather and other features.

Plot

ArchLord is set on the continent of Chantra and features four playable races; Orcs, Humans, Moon Elves and the new DragonScion. Orcs begin their quests in the Golunndo, Humans begin in Anchorville, Moon Elves begin in Norine, and DragonScions in Cien. They all have access to three classes except for the DragonScion that from level 20 evolves to one of the three races.

The Humans first appeared in Chantra 1000 years after the Orcs had settled. Following the dramatic sinking of their land, key pioneers in Human society initially established a foothold in the Western part of the continent known as Chantra. History suggests they were able to do so due to their ability to handle fire. In the early stages, Humans lived in relative peace. However, they soon began to realize that Orcs had landed on the Eastern part of the continent and before long tensions were raised as the Humans became protective of their territory. Humans have a relatively short lifespan, with 80 years considered to be long. Humans also have an inferior breeding capacity when compared to Orcs, with the average number of offspring being three.

The Orcs have occupied the land of Chantra for a 1000 years longer than the Humans. For this reason, the Orcs held themselves in higher regard than their Human counterparts and enslaved them for 500 years. Over time the Humans rebelled against their Orc masters and eventually won their freedom. 500 years later the continent was struck by a huge earthquake, which caused much of it to sink into the ocean. Humans and Orcs were forced to flee the western continent of Chantra. Under the leadership of Ugdrasil, the Orcs colonized a small part of the continent where they began the re-building process.

The Moon Elves are a race that were once considered Elves, but different. Once one of three of the great elf races that inhabited the Nordenland during the 2nd period, they were the first race to fall in the Great War. As a result of this devastating conflict most of the male population was annihilated. A few males were able to escape together with the women; they hid themselves in the shadows from those in the outside world. As time went on, the women took it upon themselves to replace the male roles in their society, and thus learned to master the fine arts of hunting and craftsmanship. The few remaining men were forbidden to enter combat, as they were too precious a commodity. Through a cruel twist of fate the remaining men only seemed capable of producing more women. This forced the Moon Elves to step from their shadowy world and start exploring for additional breeding options; this is how they came to be known by the Orcs and Humans. They were so ashamed of this action that they chose to hide themselves in the dark for centuries, only revealing themselves once their land was invaded by the Orcs and Humans.

The Dragon Scion was the last of the 4 races to arrive at the continent of Chantra. They were created from the skin and bone of the great dragon 'Mightthesis' 2000 years ago, after their creation they roamed the world for 1000 years, searching for a place to settle down, finally reaching the continent of Chantra.

Service transition

Due to failure to reach an agreement with NHN, Codemasters was unable to renew their license for ArchLord, no longer able to provide the game to European and North American customers. As of September 1, 2009, all credit purchases have been disabled, CM accounts transferred to the new provider and the game servers shut down on October 2. [2] Day later, the game was turned over to Webzen, a Korean publisher. [3]

Critical reception

ArchLord received poor ratings; GameSpot criticized the repetitive and tedious gameplay, blurry graphics and lackluster audio, shallow quest and crafting system, and the hours of repetitive combat required to get to player versus player and high-level content. The reviewer's only positive comment was that ArchLord offered familiar role-playing gameplay of "kill, loot, buy stuff", overall awarding a "terrible" rating of 2.7 out of 10. [4] Eurogamer awarded 4 out of 10, criticizing the lack of visual distinction between the power levels of monsters, with trial and error required to progress; a lack of other players, with those present not offering any legible dialogue; atrocious controls that caused the reviewer's character to get stuck on scenery; interesting-sounding features (castle sieges, for example) being restricted to higher levels; and a user interface that's "like using Windows 95 with a migraine". [5]

Other media

Manhwa

ArchLord
Archlord v1.jpg
Cover of the Tokyopop edition of ArchLord vol. 1 (2007), art by Park Jin-hwan
Genre
Author Park Jin-hwan
Publisher Flag of South Korea.svg Daiwon C.I.
English publisher Flag of the United States.svg Tokyopop
Original run 20052008
Volumes6

An ancillary manhwa created by Korean author Park Jin-hwan goes by the same name. The ArchLord manhwa was first released in South Korea on September 30, 2005. Tokyopop released an English version in 2007.

The manhwa follows the adventures of a human named Zian and his friend, a half-orc named Ugdrasil, who find themselves in the midst of a thousand year old conflict for control of five mysterious relics known as Archons.

The film

The game was officially used in the movie Ben X and plays an important role in it, showing the main character's internal perception of the world. [6]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Drow</span> Dungeons & Dragons fictional creature

The drow or dark elves are a dark-skinned and white-haired subrace of elves connected to the subterranean Underdark in the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game. The drow have traditionally been portrayed as generally evil and connected to the evil spider goddess Lolth. However, later editions of Dungeons & Dragons have moved away from this portrayal and preassigned alignment. More recent publications have explored drow societies unconnected to Lolth.

<i>Warhammer Fantasy</i> (setting) High-fantasy setting, created by Games Workshop

Warhammer Fantasy is a fictional fantasy universe created by Games Workshop and used in many of its games, including the table top wargame Warhammer Fantasy Battle, the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (WFRP) pen-and-paper role-playing game, and a number of video games: the MMORPG Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, the strategy games Total War: Warhammer, Total War: Warhammer II and Total War: Warhammer III and the two first-person shooter games in the Warhammer Vermintide series, Warhammer: End Times - Vermintide and Warhammer: Vermintide 2, among many others.

Eberron is a campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) role-playing game. The game is set primarily on the continent of Khorvaire following a vast destructive war. Eberron is designed to accommodate traditional D&D elements and races within a differently toned setting; Eberron combines a fantasy tone with pulp and dark adventure elements, and some non-traditional fantasy technologies such as trains, skyships, and mechanical beings which are all powered by magic.

Warcraft is a franchise of video games, novels, and other media created by Blizzard Entertainment. The series is made up of six core games: Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, and Warcraft Rumble. The first three of these core games are in the real-time strategy genre, where opposing players command virtual armies in battle against each other or a computer-controlled enemy. The fourth and best-selling title of the franchise is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), where players control their character and interact with each other in a virtual world.

<i>Warhammer</i> (game) Miniature wargame

Warhammer is a tabletop miniature wargame with a medieval fantasy theme. The game was created by Bryan Ansell, Richard Halliwell, and Rick Priestley, and first published by the Games Workshop company in 1983.

<i>Mu Online</i> 2001 video game

MU Online is an Isometric medieval fantasy MMORPG, produced by Webzen, a Korean gaming company. Introduced in 2001, it is still being supported and updated in 2023.

Birthright is a Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting that was first released by TSR in 1995. It is based on the continent of Cerilia on the world of Aebrynis, in which the players take on the role of the divinely-empowered rulers, with emphasis on the political rulership level of gameplay. The setting revolves around the concept of bloodlines: divine power gained by heroes and passed to their descendants. Characters with a bloodline create an aura of command known as Regency, which is measured in the game using regency points or RP. Using regency, characters acquire a domain composed of provinces and holdings. The development of these domains is as much a part of the game as development of the characters. The game uses three-month domain turns to model actions of rulers over nations in much the same way as Dungeons & Dragons uses combat rounds to simulate time to model the characters' actions in battle. In 1996, Birthright won the Origins Award for Best Roleplaying Supplement of 1995.

Al-Qadim is a campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game which was developed by Jeff Grubb with Andria Hayday for TSR, Inc., and was first released in 1992. Al-Qadim uses One Thousand and One Nights as a theme and is set in the land of Zakhara, called the Land of Fate. Thematically, the land of Zakhara is a blend of the historical Muslim Caliphates, the stories of legend, and a wealth of Hollywood cinematic history. Zakhara is a peninsula on the continent of Faerûn in the world of Toril, the locale of the Forgotten Realms campaign setting, although Al-Qadim is designed to stand on its own or be added to any existing campaign setting. The basic campaign setting was divided between two game products: Al-Qadim: Arabian Adventures, a sourcebook describing character creation rules, equipment, and spells unique to the setting, and Al-Qadim: Land of Fate, a boxed set describing the land of Zakhara, with separate sourcebooks for the players and the Dungeon Master.

<i>Huxley</i> (video game) 2010 video game

Huxley was a multiplayer first-person shooter computer game with persistent player characters published by Webzen Games Inc. It was being developed for Microsoft Windows. An Xbox 360 port was planned, but it has been put on an indefinite hold. Huxley initially was going to be cross platform, but according to statements made at the 2009 E3 Expo press conference that feature is currently excluded from development. The contract to operate the game in China was sold to The9 for $35 million USD on February 12, 2007, considered the largest export transaction to date for a Korean-developed game.

<i>Palladium Fantasy Role-Playing Game</i> Tabletop fantasy role-playing game

The Palladium Fantasy Role-Playing Game is a fantasy role-playing game published by Palladium Books in 1983.

Dwarf (<i>Dungeons & Dragons</i>) Fictional playable humanoid race

A dwarf, in the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fantasy roleplaying game, is a humanoid race, one of the primary races available for player characters. The idea for the D&D dwarf comes from the dwarves of European mythologies and J. R. R. Tolkien's novel The Lord of the Rings (1954-1955), and has been used in D&D and its predecessor Chainmail since the early 1970s. Variations from the standard dwarf archetype of a short and stout demihuman are commonly called subraces, of which there are more than a dozen across many different rule sets and campaign settings.

Elf (<i>Dungeons & Dragons</i>) Fictional humanoid race

The elf is a humanoid race in the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, one of the primary races available for player characters, and play a central role in the narratives of many setting worlds of the game. Elves are described as renowned for their grace and mastery of magic and weapons such as the bow and sword. Becoming physically mature by the age of 25 and emotionally mature at around 125, they are also famously long-lived, capable of living more than half a millennium and remaining physically youthful. Possessed of innate beauty and easy gracefulness, they are viewed as both wondrous and haughty by other races in-universe; however, their natural detachment is seen by some as introversion or xenophobia. They were usually portrayed as antagonistic towards dwarves.

Orc (<i>Dungeons & Dragons</i>)

In the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, orcs are a primitive race of savage, bestial, barbaric humanoid.

<i>Soul of the Ultimate Nation</i> 2007 video game

Soul of the Ultimate Nation was a fantasy-based massive multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) produced by Webzen, a Korean-based company. It was operated in South Korea by Webzen and in mainland China by The9. The game was launched in Taiwan on April 19, and in China on May 24, 2007 as a paid online service and closed on July 3, 2013.

The role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), which receives significant attention in the media and in popular culture, has been the subject of numerous controversies. The game sometimes received unfavorable coverage, especially during its early years in the early 1980s. Because the term D&D may be mistakenly used to refer to all types of role-playing games, some controversies regarding D&D mistakenly pertain to role-playing games in general, or to the literary genre of fantasy. Some controversies concern the game and its alleged impact on those who play it, while others concern business issues at the game's original publisher, TSR. The game is now owned by Wizards of the Coast.

<i>Dragon Raja</i>

Dragon Raja is the first series of fantasy web novels written by Lee Yeongdo, one of the most famous fantasy novelists in South Korea. The books chronicle the adventures of a 17-year-old boy Hutch Nedval(also spelled as Hoochie Nedval), his mentor Karl Heltant and his friend Sanson Percival, all of whom are from the poor town of Fief Heltant in the Kingdom of Bysus. The main story arc, told in the first-person by Hoochie, concerns the three's quest to rescue their people from the black dragon Amurtaht by finding money to pay the ransom; then to find and protect a lost dragon raja girl, who would serve as the bridge between people and dragons and stop a crimson dragon that terrorized the continent 20 years ago.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Middle-earth</span> Continent in Tolkiens legendarium

Middle-earth is the setting of much of the English writer J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy. The term is equivalent to the Miðgarðr of Norse mythology and Middangeard in Old English works, including Beowulf. Middle-earth is the human-inhabited world, that is, the central continent of the Earth, in Tolkien's imagined mythological past. Tolkien's most widely read works, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, are set entirely in Middle-earth. "Middle-earth" has also become a short-hand term for Tolkien's legendarium, his large body of fantasy writings, and for the entirety of his fictional world.

An orc, in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth fantasy fiction, is a race of humanoid monsters, which he also calls "goblin".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Character race</span> Role-playing game terminology

Character race is a descriptor used to describe the various sapient species and beings that make up the setting in modern fantasy and science fiction. In many tabletop role-playing games and video games, players may choose to be one of these creatures when creating their player character (PC) or encounter them as a non-player character (NPC). "People" is to be taken in the broader sense, and may encompass ethnic groups, species, nationality or social groups.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Corellon Larethian</span> Fictional character in Dungeons & Dragons

In the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, Corellon Larethian is the leader of the elven pantheon, and the god of Magic, Music, Arts, Crafts, Poetry, and Warfare. Corellon is also considered a member of the default D&D pantheon. Corellon is the creator and preserver of the elven race, and governs those things held in the highest esteem among elves. Corellon's symbol was originally a crescent moon; in the 4th edition Corellon's symbol is a silver star on a blue field.

References

  1. "[AL] Notice - Termination of Service". Webzen. 6 December 2013.
  2. "ArchLord European and North American Service Transition". 1 September 2009. Archived from the original on 8 September 2009. Retrieved 1 September 2009.
  3. Fahey, Mike (1 September 2009). "Codemasters Says Goodbye To ArchLord". Kotaku . Archived from the original on 26 September 2009. Retrieved 1 September 2009.
  4. Park, Andrew (22 November 2006). "ArchLord Review". GameSpot . Archived from the original on 9 February 2009. Retrieved 7 February 2009. What you're left with when playing ArchLord is a whole lot of grinding away, repeatedly fighting off both monsters and the urge to stop playing ArchLord. There are already plenty of other decent massively multiplayer games out there that offer a better experience, and you'd probably be better off playing one of those right now.
  5. Meer, Alec (2 November 2006). "ArchLord Review". Eurogamer.net. Archived from the original on 27 July 2009. Retrieved 7 February 2009. Regardless of it being very hard to picture how its tedious, clumsy mechanics could possibly evolve into something fluid and entertaining, any game that puts you through a good 15 or 20 hours of overwhelming despair to get to even a chance of something worthwhile (...) is a failure.
  6. "Archlord: Ben X". web.archive.org. 10 November 2010. Retrieved 28 December 2023.