ArchLord Updated Impressions - New Worlds, New Races, Epic Characters

Fighting monsters, gaining treasures and experience levels, and adventuring with other players in a persistent world is all well and good for most online role-playing games, but there has generally been little to no world domination in them so far. That's where ArchLord, from developer NHN Corporation and publisher Codemasters, comes in. This colorful fantasy-themed game will let you and your loyal guild of trusted fellows lay siege to the greatest strongholds in the world, eventually defeat the realm's greatest guardian...and then become it.

We took an early look at this upcoming game, which takes place in the colorful fantasy realm of Chantra, a world held in balance by five elemental forces, and by the Renderware 3D graphics engine. The realm is home to three playable races--humans, orcs, and moon elves--which can join one of eight different subclasses that use either handheld weapons or various types of magical spells to aid them in battle. The game was previously launched in Asia last September and is being localized for European and North American release this year.

ArchLord will offer huge, open areas where powerful monsters exist to be hunted and defeated by parties of intrepid adventurers. You can expect to see wide-open environments populated by plenty of different monsters, some inspired by classical world mythology, and others created from scratch. The game, in its current, pre-beta state, offers what appears to be a fully stocked game interface, complete with hotkey shortcuts for your character's various abilities at the bottom of the screen, a compass in the top corner of the screen, and menus to access your character's statistics and inventory. Interestingly, among other things, your character will be able to carry magic potions that temporarily change your character into a specific type of monster, such as a six-armed, half-human, half-snake creature that can attack six times in a row and, more importantly, can use its appearance to infiltrate monster-filled areas where a regular orc or human adventurer would normally be attacked on sight.

Chantra's toughest challenges will be its strongholds, which will house powerful guardians that must be defeated before you take on the coveted mantle of world ruler. Each of the game's three races will have its own stronghold, populated with powerful guardians at every level who will oppose your quest to capture and hold each one. Once your guild of mighty characters who are at least level 60 or higher (the game will eventually have a topmost level cap of about level 100) seizes a stronghold, you'll control it, though other opportunistic guilds will have the ability to use nearby siege weaponry to try to take it back from you.

Large-scale player-versus-player combat will be a big part of ArchLord, since large guilds of high-level players will be absolutely essential in capturing the game's biggest prizes. Even though the game's three races will start out their careers in different areas (the rough-and-tumble orcs will begin their lives in an unspoiled natural wilderness, while the humans will live out their early days in and around huge and splendid cities), you'll be able to form guilds with characters from all three races.

Once your guilds have taken control of each race's primary stronghold, you'll be able to mount an attack on Chantra's final stronghold, where the ancient archon of Chantra resides. This mighty creature, a gigantic, fiery demon that could probably be a second cousin to the "balrog" demon from the first Lord of the Rings motion picture, dwells on the last level of this fortress and will wipe the floor with any solo level-60 character in just seconds flat. However, the first time this awesome foe is defeated, he'll eventually be replaced. By you. Or by whomever your guild civilly and democratically elects to the position of archlord.

New archlords will enjoy an uninterrupted reign of about three weeks' time, during which they can't be challenged for their throne. And although all players will be able to commission mounts they can ride (such as horses and other creatures, which can be caparisoned for war), only the archlord will be able to ride a humongous fire-breathing, flying dragon. In the meantime, in this new role, your character will increase in size considerably and will wear a suit of epic armor. In fact, Codemasters has apparently had a suit of real-world vanity armor created for the game, and it's sitting in the publisher's European offices, waiting to be claimed by the first player to win archlord status. In addition, as archlord, you'll be able to affect the world's weather patterns and rain death from above on rival guilds in the form of highly damaging meteor showers. And of course, your character will take up residence in Chantra's final citadel--but after your grace period of 21 days is up, it'll be open season on you and your crown.

While ArchLord's player-versus-environment gameplay will involve the kind of monster hunting and quest-taking you'd expect from most online role-playing games, its top-level game of becoming the most powerful being in the world is much more intriguing. The game is scheduled for launch in both Europe and North America later this year.