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Archlord complete review
Hello everyone this is my complete review or archlord a mediocre game that I would suggest playing.
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ARCHLORD REVIEW FOR MMORPG.COM
'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.
A few more cubes of jelly die. The part of my brain that's still conscious idly notes that the red ones take slightly longer to defeat than the green ones. Then, on the horizon, a Gnoll. It's got an animation and everything. Woo! I start hitting it. Despite it being the same level as this sex shop-attired elf-thing with rabbit ears I'm playing as, it kills me almost immediately. For the first time in five hours of hitting cubes of jelly and things that are essentially cubes of jelly but look different, it's apparent that I might need to group with another player.
A cube of jelly, yesterday. I call it 'Cubey.'
This is a problem for four reasons.
There is no way to distinguish the beasts that mean insta-death from the normal ones, other than learning the names if I don't want to get killed and then run for ten minutes (or fork out a small fortune for a portal) back to where I was. The giant multi-armed snake women, for instance, are as weak as kittens - as are Gnoll Warriors, which unfortunately look identical to the Gnoll Soldiers, which is the type that kills in seconds.
There are almost no other players around. Most of those that are seem to be simply standing still. The people controlling them might well be dead. I don't blame them.
The only players I have heard from over the general chat channel have simply typed "NEED REZZ ORB" every quarter of an hour or so, with no sign of a response. I'm not totally sure I want to talk to them. I'm not totally sure, in fact, that they're not cubes of jelly themselves.
What if the other player kills me instead of groups with me?
I choose an alternative option. I go and kill hundreds more cubes of jelly, deer, moths and floating eyeballs until I'm a bit stronger. Until I'm a full three levels higher than the Gnoll, in fact, with a couple of new spells in my arsenal and a magic crystal added to my magic stick that probably does some sort of fire damage, but I'm not sure because all it says is 'Fire Elemental Stone +3'. Just for good measure, I also drink a potion that temporarily turns me into a giant spider.
The Gnoll kills me in under two seconds.
Vampires don't do anything ostensibly vampiric.
I lose three per cent of my XP, and take ten more minutes to run back to my hairy nemesis. Initially, I'd presumed I was up against some sort of boss, but now I notice that beyond the Gnoll are dozens more Gnolls, all the same level, in the same pose, each flagged up as green (the universal MMO mob colour for mostly harmless), and, as harsh experience and a wasted giant spider potion has taught me, each and every one of them meaning near-instantaneous death. I turn to face the other way. There's a red cube of jelly waiting there. I could almost swear it winks at me. I sigh, and press '3' to attack.
Time passes.
Slowly.
I'm many levels higher. I have a better stick to hit things with, and my clothes are now red instead of blue. I also have a pet big fire demon, instead of the previous useless water imp thing. I eventually killed that Gnoll, but only once I was four levels higher than it and had some slightly better stats, mostly thanks to a magic necklace dropped by a cube of jelly. I've been all over the map, seen far too many clusters of empty buildings, devoid of people but often with new, bigger monsters - vampires, wolves, tree demons and, best of all, blue cubes of jelly. Some are easy to kill, some are like that deadly Gnoll. Trial and fatal error is the only way to learn. In any case, all of them wait in place to be killed, then respawn, then wait again. Atrocious controls have gotten me stuck on scenery time and again, the entire game world jumping crazily as it tries to work out how to make me walk through the tree my foot is almost touching. Not even the crotchless panties make me laugh any more.
Looks exciting, doesn't it? Yeah, about that...
A few trips to PvP battlegrounds, intended as a break from the grind, have turned up only empty arenas with the occasional mad-tough AI bat flitting about. I'm informed that, like Codemasters' other recent foray into localising Korean massively multiplayer grind 'em ups, RF Online, there is more enjoyment to be had once the PvP really kicks in at the higher levels. There are castle sieges, which sound exciting - but only the most dedicated guilds (and they do exist, clearly possessing far more spare time than sense) will ever see these, having earned the right, from near-constant play, to try and seize a stronghold from a rival group. If you're not prepared to give yourself to this game utterly, then you'll simply never see any of this. In other words, it's back to the cubes of jelly for you.
There's much I haven't mentioned (for instance crafting, auction houses, mounts, kill, collect and errand quests, socketed items - all to be found in other, better MMOs, and all horribly clunky here), but none of it honestly affects the overall experience of Archlord. 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 - which the server-wide near-silence suggests actually isn't, and certainly won't be until if and when there are enough players to populate large-scale tussles - is a failure. If you want an online fantasy game that puts PvP before character and customisation, then there is absolutely no reason to play this over the dramatically superior Guild Wars: Nightfall, also out this month. Like this, its world design and character self-expression is short on charm, but GW does present its best element, the fast and exciting player fights, as an immediately available option, and without Archlord's insult of a subscription fee. If you want an online fantasy game that lets you repeatedly beat up animals and collect loot, there's absolutely no reason to play this over the dramatically superior World of Warcraft. It's incredibly pretty, there's loads to see and do, and plenty of scope to make a unique-feeling character. Neither Guild Wars nor World of Warcraft have an interface that's like using Windows 95 with a migraine. There are also no cubes of jelly.
Somewhere, someone on this ghost world is an Archlord. Briefly blessed with increased power and size, the ability to change the economy and weather, and even a dragon to ride on, they are the most successful player on their server. It's their reward for the hundreds of hours they've put in, the tens of thousands of NPCs and players they've slain. It's a temporary trophy only the most insane grinders will ever chase, and it's supposed to be the game's unique selling point. Unless I sacrifice almost everything else in my life to play this hour in and hour out, there's more chance of my marrying a magic cube of jelly than there is my becoming Archlord. Frankly, I'd also rather marry a magic cube of jelly than have to play this game for that long.
FINAL SCORE 4/10 I reccomend you dont play archlord.
Playing: WoW
Waiting On: SWTOR, GW2, Rift, TERA.
Comments
This is hilarious, and pretty accurate too... Even tho you have concentrated on negative aspects too much its pretty accurate review.
God bless those cubes of jelly.
Oh my that was a funny and precise review
)
I tried it some years ago, it wasn't good, I'd say it's a typical asian grinding uninspired shallow mmo, without story and nothing that's exciting, original and fun. I remember the overall similar appearance and dress too for all characters, it annoyed me a lot, and the bad interface and ugly landscape.
10.10.24
your are playing it wrong...
1. weapon, a large part of the kill monsters & get experience, loot and gold mode is combat effectiveness; that relates to using/getting the best weapon you can equip (i recall weapons have a level prerequirement to equip) some weapons have extra dmg even 30 to 50% higher than normal weapons PLUS rare weapons have "elememtal" additional dmg +5 to +10 (the +9 and higher are the ones you save!).
2. armor, running around neked is one way to play, esp if one has uber weapons where you can kill attacking monsters in one or two hits, but if you are going to engage 2 or 3 monsters with one or two possible adds, you are going to need some AC (Armor Class) to help asuage their incoming dmg. In Archlord the armor at lowby lvls seems weak, like +3 or the rare +5ac piece; i guess head, shirt, pants, wrist, glove, boot they add up to mayby +20ac... but i look for the very rare pieces that give +100 to +200 hp bonus; this extra 100 hp it would take three to five lvlup to match, so a prized single +100hp piece of armor itself makes you two to three levels tougher and better able to survive fighting tougher mobs.
3. nooby intro quest, in the starting area there are many npc (NonPlayerCharacter) these offer basic quest...kill x# of this monster for some reward of gold and exp, or goto this npc and continue the quest story line (again usually for some gold and exp reward). It turns out 1/2 to 1/3 of one's lvlup exp can be acquired through these starting quest, plus the quest that designate target mobs to go hunt gives you an idea what monsters are appropriate for your lvl to be hunting, plus the quest marks a general location on the map where you can find these specific mobs.
4. Auction House, where one can offer good loot to other pc (Player Characters) to buy, one of those starter area quest directs you to find the ah npc, there you can see the MANY items fellow pc offer for sale, or are posting there with outrageous prices because they have run out of bank space and for some reason do not want to vender trash the item for gold.
Now here is a good place to shop for good buys, like cheap armor with hp or mana bonuses or quite nice weapons with extra dmg & additional elemental +9 dmg! if you keep checking back (often there are 5 to 10 pages deep of offerings of a specific lvl / class item) you can find a decent item a generous higher lvl pc has posted to help a nooby (like 50 to 100g) instead of the 5000 to 100,000g listings that one wonders why that junk item is priced so high! Besides in five to ten lvls you will be looking to reequip your char with the next tier of weapons/armor anyway.
5. emergency, the game loots red & blue hp/mana potions. You can hot bar the stack to in emergency you can press the keyboard # and use that potion, possible making the difference in victory or defeat. Also if you are having to use 3 and 5 hp pots, you are likely fighting a mob a bit to tough for you. A good weapon and decent armor, you should be able to put away a (level appropriate) mob in 2 or 3 hits. If you have way too much ego and insist on soloing way high lvl mobs i think the game is designed to award like 1 exp for killing way high lvl mobs to prevent high lvl from helping super fast lvl up lower lvl pc.
And i think there is an option now in the starter area with two BIG npc-monsters to get like 100 starter hp/mana potions, and another set in 10 lvls or so.
6. Character improvement points, i think each lvl up you get one point you can apply to improve your character's stats or train new skills (see your class trainer npc).
7. Shared bank, it seems when you finally do loot a decent weapon/armor piece it is a type that you can not use. Luckily you can put it in the bank, and if you have/do rolled that class char you can transfer the item to that char through the shared bank. Also the bank helps stash the many types of loot packrat type chars accumulate hoping later on, the loot will be usable or another pc will pay huge sums of gold for.
8. Grouping, if 2 or 3 of you lowby get together and hunt you can go through many mobs faster and auto loot items and survive hunting tougher lvl mobs. In the game there are certain low lvl mobs that are way tough (even bosses) and even though they are the same lvl as you they have 3 to 5x your hp, so soloing them will be tough, even for tweeks. These are where a combat team comes in handy, and these (?Yellow named?) mobs often loot way beter quality/stat items.
While I can't remember those gnolls in the Moonelf starting area posing that much of a problem with the right equipment, it does say how this game plays, like a boring grind. You can get in a guild and chat with fellow players, but face it, low level regions are dead, it's only the mid to high level areas that are seeing any action. Farming for uniques on alts, shit like that, boring, boring, boring. I stopped at level 88, because you know what? Surprise, surprise, at high level it gets even more boring. Get out while you can still count the days you've spent on this poor excuse for entertainment. That would be my recommendation.
Waiting for Guild Wars 2, and maybe SWTOR until that time...
TRUE TRUE TRUE! IT IS THE SAME COPY AND PASTE FO AIKA. BLEHHHHHHHHH