ArchLord: NA & European Version to Shut Down

MikeB

In an announcement made today on the official ArchLord website, we've learned that the North American and European versions of ArchLord will be shutting down on Friday, October 2nd, 2009. The inability for Codemasters to negotiate a renewal of the licensing contract from NHN Korea to continue operating the game is stated as the reason behind the shut down.Starting on October 3rd, 2009, ArchLord will be operated by Webzen in the west, and a transition FAQ is now available.

In the meanwhile, items available on the ArchLord store will be listed at a 50% discount, as current credit balances will not transfer over in the move to Webzen. In addition, the creation of new accounts, and the purchase of additional credits are disabled at this time.

The official announcement can be found here.

EricDanie

Hmm, so even F2P MMOs can "die".

Impressive how they forgot that RF Online was their first F2P MMO, not Archlord. Codemasters now have 2 dead F2P MMOs and LOTRO currently active for Europe.

Nasa

RF Online is still alive and ArchLord will also still be alive. Others companies will host them in previous Codemasters areas.

Codemasters is also hosting DDO in Europe. Turbine have stated though that they want to bring their games (LOTRO and DDO) back home to Turbine.

bobfish

RF Online was a subscription MMO for a long time, ArchLord was free to play long before RF was.

UnSub

Somehow I think the world will go on without Archlord just fine.

alextodo

WebZen is already hosting Archlord for some Countries and will take over all of CodeMasters Zones once they close. After the reading the WbZen forums it seems they take care of the game much more the CodeMasters ever did.

I think this is the best thing that could ever happen to Archlord.

Corthala

Wasn't Archlord suppose to be really bad?

Mahlo

I saw this for sale in HMV on Monday. It's not a lot of use without the servers.

Trashcantoy

 well hopefully ppl get to keep their characters (its confirmed that Codemasters will xfer character data to Webzen but its unclear if Webzen will actually use it, they probably will tho)

altho i think we are better off without this game, just like RF that is still alive (in a certain way)

razzash

Yeah, Archlord was terrible at it's original launch, but it seems they fixed a lot of issues since then. A friend of mine recently announced to me that it got a lot more playable... whatever that means . Gonna have to check it after the transition to see with my own eyes.

Akaruz

Well the Korean devs/Companies are starting to see that its better to have 1 - 2 servers for the Western Players than "renting" the license overseas

If you check Korean / Jap / Chinese Server lists they are around 10-20 Realms for example where on NA/EU versions you would have max of 3-4 Realms , since Internet comunitcations got better , its cheaper for them to just host themselves the game , and keep the entire income for them from the cash shop

Also now you wont need to wait over 48h or more to get your problem fixed , since as someone stated on previous posts , the Devs or the Official Publishers do take their game more seriously than an Overseas Company like CodeMasters who thought it was a way of getting lots of money like Blizzard

inmysights

Originally posted by bobfish


RF Online was a subscription MMO for a long time, ArchLord was free to play long before RF was.

 

UHHHH, RF online was not a subscription MMO for along time, I think it was maybe, and I stress MAYBE 3 months, then went to ftp.

velebnicek

[quote][i]Originally posted by alextodo[/i] After the reading the WbZen forums it seems they take care of the game much more the CodeMasters ever did. I think this is the best thing that could ever happen to Archlord.[/quote]

Webzen was supposed to do all bug fixing, patching and improving. According to a deal between Codemasters and Webzen all Codemasters could do was ask Webzen for fixes. And then they waited, and waited, reminded Webzen to finaly fix that 3 years old bug, then waited and waited... and it never arrived from Webzen as they were even worse than Codemasters when it came to MMO. I would not hope for any fixes/improvements after the move.

EricDanie

Originally posted by inmysights

Originally posted by bobfish


RF Online was a subscription MMO for a long time, ArchLord was free to play long before RF was.

 

UHHHH, RF online was not a subscription MMO for along time, I think it was maybe, and I stress MAYBE 3 months, then went to ftp.

Just look at how they announced the end of CM RF Online - http://www.rf-onlinegame.com/

They used the exact same announcement, just switching some names around.

I wonder how both RF Online and Archlord can be their first F2P MMOs.