Archlord Preview
The story of ArchLord starts over 500 years ago when a Human by the name of Nathan Manas and an Orc magician named Walcure began their epic journey to discover two elemental relics of the Archons. There are 5 relics altogether, and these relics could grant their wielder power over the elements, each element being tied to an Archon. In ancient times, a great magician had forged each of the relics into weapons of great power, and now the spirits of these Archons where trapped within each weapon. If one person were able to unite all five weapons together then they would wield the ultimate power, the power of the ArchLord.
You began your journey in the present day, either as Human, Orc or Moon Elf. Each race has their own unique professions. The Humans able to become a Knight, Archer or a Mage. The Orc can become a Berserker, a Hunter or study the arts of magic and become a Sorcerer. The Moon Elves are female only warriors and can choose to become a Ranger or an Elementalist.
 Human
Knight: Male
Archer: Male
Mage: Female
Orc
Berserker: Male
Hunter: Female
Sorcerer: Male
Moonelf
Ranger: Female
Elementalist: Female
ArchLord offers solo play and group play content inclusive of PvE and PvP, and ultimately a guild is required if you want to become an ArchLord. There are over 2500 quests, most of them with short storylines which activate once you complete a particular quest. Dungeons and group bosses are available for group play which can be very challenging. On the PvP end, there are battlegrounds called Battle Squares where players are able to participate in PvP battles once they reach the minimum required level of 15. The current cap level for ArchLord is level 100.
ArchLord also features a mail system. The mail system requires players to buy paper to write their letters. They can also attach items and send them to other players. Players are allowed access to banks which has a nice feature that it is shared between all your characters. There is also an in-game Auction House system that allows players to buy and sell items server wide. Players can even sell their items while they are offline.
The gameplay at the early stages is a breeze. You are able to rise from level 1 to 15 within a few hours in between mindless killing and questing. The quest system in ArchLord provides a multitude of varieties from simple delivery quests, looting, finding an item, crafting, killing xx number of mobs and almost everything in between.
As you level you will obtain a skill point. These skill points can be used to obtain new skills from a Trainer NPC for your particular profession. There are 4 skills tree available: Combat Skills such as combo hits, Buff Skills that provides temporary stat increase, Class Skills that are class specific not available to other professions and Passive skills that offers permanent stat increases. Once you have obtained a skill it can be upgraded to the next level by learning a higher stage of the same skill again.
The crafting system consists of 5 different crafting skills, which will level itself upon usage of that particular skill. That is, the skill will improve the more you use it, and therefore less chances of failure when you use that particular crafting skill. The skills are Ransack, Craving, Skinning, Cooking and Alchemy. The end result is that you will be able to produce temporary powers that can increase health or mana, even transformation spells which can morph you into a giant spider or flying dragon, to quote a few examples.
On the PvP side, You can attack and be attacked by any players from any race in ArchLord when you reach level 6. PvP is available outside of towns, and it is very likely everyone will be PKed at least once. Attacking another player can only be achieved by pressing Ctrl-left-click on the player you want to attack. If you attack and kill someone, you will be flagged with a purple skull beside your name, which will make you eligible to be attacked by anyone for 20 minutes. If you kill a player more than 4 levels below your own, you will receive Villain points. After Receiving 40 villain points you will be named a Rogue with a prominent skull icon beside your name. You will get harsher penalty by becoming a Rouge, such as town guards will attack you, and you can?t trade with other players, and possibility of dropping items. There are 3 levels of Rogue, with the harshest penalty at Rogue level 3. Villain points can only be removed by collecting pardon scrolls. These scrolls can be handed to a Pardoner NPC in some towns and villages. However, you will need a lot of pardon scrolls to reduce your villain points by a bit. I guess this is the way ArchLord handles griefers. There is also an NPC in town which will give bounty to hunt down Rogues and PKers, so you can also be a Bounty Hunter in a sense.
Traveling is easy, as there are many teleports and running potions that can speed up traveling times. You can also morph to become an animal by using a Morph potion, for example, by becoming a deer you are granted a 33% running speed increase. At level 35, you will also be able to use Mounts, which can also greatly reduce your travelling time around the world. They can also be used in battle if you purchase a mounted weapon such as a Lance. Mounts can be purchased in towns by visiting the Animal Breeder NPC.
The ultimate goal for any player is to obtain the ArchLord title. Initially, the ArchLord himself will be an NPC, until guilds clash in a epic battles to finally able to meet and defeat this ArchLord. If successful, the player will become the ArchLord. The ArchLord will have access to the ultimate mount, a flying Dragon Mount. He will also be able to call on three loyal Knight bodyguards, summon up 20 fearsome monsters to battle those around him and strike a massive meteoric AoE shower on his attackers. The ArchLord will have reign of 21 days before he can be challenged for the position. Players that intend to fight for the title must go through a number of challenges that will whittle them down to the one that will challenge the ArchLord. The ArchLord will also be able to control the weather and levy taxes on the other castles in the game.
Overall, it?s a fun and beautiful game. There are many graphics options including Bloom effects and various lighting conditions. On the gameplay, leveling is fun and always looking forward to the next armor, weapon or spells that you can use on your next level. For the solo player, there are lots of things to do, that don?t require a group, including the dungeons, though you might not be able to take down the boss of the same level by yourself. Small things like auto-looting and auto-heal is appreciated that makes level grinding less noticeable, and I must say, this is the only game that people actually asks to be grouped because of the perks of grouping. Oh by the way, there is no healer class. You have to heal yourself most of the time using Life potions.
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