Codemasters drops ArchLord MMO
Webzen to keep it going in the West.
Codemasters Online Gaming has not renewed its contract to operate free-to-play MMO ArchLord in North America and Europe. The game's not being closed, though - Korean publisher Webzen is stepping to keep the game running in the West.
Free ArchLord expansion released
Loads more content, user-base flourishes.
Codemasters Online has rolled out a free and meaty expansion for ArchLord, boosting content in the MMO by around 30 per cent.
More specifically, Episode 3: Spirits Awakening adds three new zones, 80 new skills, plenty more armour, plus lots more fantasy monsters and bosses to macro to death.
Meanwhile, those crowned as ArchLord will gain access to brand new skills and abilities, which should make the weeks and maybe years invested feel worthwhile.
Free Korean import scores in West.
Codemasters Online has announced that ArchLord, its free-to-play fantasy MMO, has reached a total of 500,000 registered player accounts in the US and Europe.
Codemasters fan event in March
Meet your LOTRO guild.
Codemasters Online Gaming has said it will be showing its existing and top secret wares at a public event in March.
ArchLord not dead, says Codies
Future content planned.
Codemasters Online Gaming has responded to claims that MMO ArchLord is dying out by saying its population has grown since launch and "still increases week on week".
Newcomers get free credits.
Codemasters Online Gaming is giving away 6000 in-game credits to anyone that buys ArchLord, which works out at around GBP 10 / EUR 15 worth.
No more subscriptions.
Codemasters MMORPG ArchLord is to do away with ongoing subscription costs, which will no longer be required from the start of next year.
Lordy.
I'm killing cubes of jelly. Dozens and dozens of cubes of jelly. They didn't attack me; I just went for them, because someone told me to. Fortunately for cube sympathisers, new ones appear more quickly than I can murder them - I would put this down to some weird asexual amoeba reproduction, but the trouble is the deer are doing the same. And, frankly, I don't even want to think about how the floating eyeballs breed.
Hitting cubes of jelly with a magic stick should be kind of hilarious, but it really isn't. I am not having fun. So far, Archlord is exactly like what people who don't play MMORPGs think MMORPGs are like. The only thing that keeps me going in any way is the knowledge that in five levels' time (which means about 900 cubes of jelly slain), I'll finally be able to get a new weapon. With this, I'll be able to kill cubes of jelly slightly faster, though still primarily by pressing '3' and waiting. If I wanted a bit of a break from killing cubes of jelly, there's someone over there (also killing cubes of jelly) who looks almost exactly the same as me. They'll continue looking the same as me until one of us hits a certain level, at which point we'll be allowed to buy new armour. Of course, everyone else will look exactly the same again once they hit that level, even if their chosen new armour has some minor stat differences. If I so desired, I could go and hit these eerie clones, but I don't really want to. They're surely as unhappy as I am right now, so it'd be really mean to go and kill them.
Oh - one other thing keeps me going. If you move the camera juuuuust so, you can see up my generic anime character's generic anime skirt. The blurred, stretched textures for her underwear are so cryingly awful that it looks very much as though she's wearing crotchless panties with unkempt pubic hair sticking out of each side. This is not, I must state, in any way erotic, but it is consistently hilarious, and the most entertaining element of Archlord's deeply uninteresting world. Such an oversight is also a sure sign that this is just a mechanical process with something crudely resembling a game slapped on top.
There can be only one.
As a doctor, it would be inadvisable for me to drink. I could operate badly, get my anaesthetic quantities wrong or puckishly prescribe laxatives for every ailment. But, as my comrades in the medical profession (or indeed anyone currently undergoing a lengthy medical tribunal process) will know, access to medicinal alcohol is regular, tempting and often. Along with the barbiturates, amphetamines and those funny blue pills that make the world go jellyfishish.
Codies' new Korean MMO.
While the world continues to spaff on Warcraft, Codemasters is not-so-quietly building up its own interest in MMOs, having just signed up another Korean MMORPG in the shape of ArchLord.
