ArchLord Q&A - An Introduction to the World of Chantra

ArchLord represents one of the latest online role-playing games to come out of South Korea, which is a hotbed for online game development these days. South Korea's NHN is developing ArchLord, and Codemasters is bringing the game to North America and Europe, so we turned to Tim Hodges, the community liaison officer for the game, to give us some of the first details about ArchLord. The game is scheduled to launch later this year.

GameSpot: What exactly is ArchLord? So far, we know it's an online role-playing game. So how do you describe ArchLord to your friends?

Tim Hodges: ArchLord features a great mix of traditional Western fantasy gameplay, but with the unique hook of one player being able to rise to the position of ArchLord. The game has amazing visuals, salient gameplay, and some stunning in-game music that really brings the world of Chantra to life!

GS: Tell us more about Chantra. What can you tell us about the history of the world?

TH: ArchLord takes place in the lush fantasy continent of Chantra. The backstory of Chantra tells of two immense heroes, an orc and a human, who traveled together in search of a legendary weapon. But on arriving at their destination, they discovered not one, but two powerful weapons. However, these were just two of the five available archons, of which the other three had found themselves spread across the rest of the Chantra continent. This is just a snippet of the highly engaging and involving ArchLord lore. If you head on over to the official ArchLord Web site, you will find more detailed accounts of the lore. Be sure to keep checking the site as it's updated over the coming weeks and months.

GS: Is there an inspiration for ArchLord? Perhaps it's a television show or a book?

TH: The inspiration for this game is mainly based around NHN's desire to produce a high-quality game that utilized the strongest elements from online role-playing games that already existed. So they picked some of their favorite aspects and bundled it all into one great game.

GS: Tell us about the characters you can play. What sort of races and character classes are there?

TH: ArchLord features three very distinct races, more details of which will be released shortly. However, the three races are humans, orcs, and moon elves. Within each of these races players will have the choice of a number of different classes. Humans can be rangers, knights, and mages; orcs will have access to shamans, berserkers, and hunters. Finally, the moon elves will have the pick of rangers and elementalists. So there will be eight fully customizable classes for the player to choose from, and players will have the option to customize their own character through their choice of skills.

GS: There's more to online role-playing games than combat. What are the other sorts of things you'll be able to do in ArchLord?

TH: ArchLord will allow players to do much more than just engage in combat, though the combat in ArchLord is extremely well done and players will really find themselves drawn into the game. However, aside from this, players will be able to engage in a quest system that will see them sent out on a truly great mix of quests. They will also be able to engage in a number of skills too, though more details on these will be released later on. I think the skill and quest system for ArchLord will fascinate many players.

GS: Will there be player-versus-player gameplay, and if so, how will it be handled? Is it only in an arena? Can you be killed by any other player at any time?

TH: We are extremely proud of the PVP system featured in ArchLord. It will be of interest to all levels of PVP players, from those who live for it, to those who prefer to take part in the occasional bout of PVP action. Due to this, though, we will be featuring the PVP system later in the campaign, so you can look forward to more detailed information over the next month or so.

GS: Does ArchLord use instanced gameplay, or does it rely more on an open and persistent virtual world for everyone to play in?

TH: The ArchLord world will, on the whole, be one large persistent world that everyone will be able to play in.

GS: Finally, what's the most exciting thing to you about ArchLord?

TH: ArchLord has many qualities that I feel will set it apart from other titles on the market, not the least of which is the fantastic and unique opportunity to become the ArchLord! The game is visually very stunning and it features very strong playability. There is something for everyone with ArchLord. For the fans of player-versus-environment gameplay, there is a solid mix of quests and skills that will see hours of playability. For those who prefer to go down the PVP route, there are many fantastic opportunities to take part in epic battles potentially featuring hundreds of players.

There are some really great features in ArchLord that make the game a lot of fun to play, such as the quest, PVP, and ArchLord systems. The details of these are going to be revealed more over the coming weeks and months in the buildup to the launch of the game.

GS: Thank you.