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Archlord: 1 Hour, 1 Day, 1 Week
I just started the Archlord Beta last night I will be posting my impressions here based on the crucial times for keeping players. I will post my first hours impressions (vital in keeping people signed up), my first day's (RL day not in game), my first week, and if the beta lasts that long my one month impressions (most vital as that is when many free trial periods end)
Note: I have a lot of MMO experience but this is my first exposure to a Korean style MMO. I also will not be reading any official forums or instructions for any of the games I am doing this with. The average mainstream gamer probably will not do this so I will depend on the game to teach me how to play.
The first hour:
Well the instal went smooth no real hang-ups here and the update only took a few minutes. I actually enjoyed the music during install, always a good sign.
Only two servers and one is closed so that choice is easy.
The character choices are limited at best. Only three races and your gender varies by the rather limited class selection. I cannot seem to find a healer class.
The character graphics are nothing to write home about but they are not bad. Very few choices for customizing my appearance.
OK I am in the game. No confusion here it is very obvious what I need to do and how I need to do it.
Gameplay is Diablo 2 like, double click to whack away. Fights are fast and the loot is plentiful.
OK it looks like there are plenty of potions here and they are cheep. Perhaps there is no healer class?
Well I had a steady stream of quests and no crashes for my first hour in. The world is good looking if not mind boggling. There are many, many teenage boys playing this game so the dialogue is about what you expect, but at least they are talking to each other and forming parties.
There is a whole bunch of stuff that I have no idea what it does but the game has been pretty cool about letting me know how stuff works a little at a time as I level.
For my first hour I give it a B. Not incredibly inspired but it is solid and it works (not many betas can say this sadly). The mechanic is not original but it works and the fights are satisfying. It is possible to die but the setback is not too bad.
Some minor interface things need to be worked out. I never played a point and click movement MMO before and at first it bothered me. However it grew on me within the hour. Especially when you have to walk a while it is nice. Pathfinding needs work though.
They would keep me after the first hour.
Note: I have a lot of MMO experience but this is my first exposure to a Korean style MMO. I also will not be reading any official forums or instructions for any of the games I am doing this with. The average mainstream gamer probably will not do this so I will depend on the game to teach me how to play.
The first hour:
Well the instal went smooth no real hang-ups here and the update only took a few minutes. I actually enjoyed the music during install, always a good sign.
Only two servers and one is closed so that choice is easy.
The character choices are limited at best. Only three races and your gender varies by the rather limited class selection. I cannot seem to find a healer class.
The character graphics are nothing to write home about but they are not bad. Very few choices for customizing my appearance.
OK I am in the game. No confusion here it is very obvious what I need to do and how I need to do it.
Gameplay is Diablo 2 like, double click to whack away. Fights are fast and the loot is plentiful.
OK it looks like there are plenty of potions here and they are cheep. Perhaps there is no healer class?
Well I had a steady stream of quests and no crashes for my first hour in. The world is good looking if not mind boggling. There are many, many teenage boys playing this game so the dialogue is about what you expect, but at least they are talking to each other and forming parties.
There is a whole bunch of stuff that I have no idea what it does but the game has been pretty cool about letting me know how stuff works a little at a time as I level.
For my first hour I give it a B. Not incredibly inspired but it is solid and it works (not many betas can say this sadly). The mechanic is not original but it works and the fights are satisfying. It is possible to die but the setback is not too bad.
Some minor interface things need to be worked out. I never played a point and click movement MMO before and at first it bothered me. However it grew on me within the hour. Especially when you have to walk a while it is nice. Pathfinding needs work though.
They would keep me after the first hour.
Comments
Many people find it difficult to use point & click movement. move your camera a bit above your character, and it should work a lot better
I have never played AL or L2 before this but I was in DDO Beta.
i started playin beta today aswell and so far the game seems fine but there is nothing special about it and nothing different that can attract others to it.
straight away with this game, your thrown into quests. Fair enough but i have yet to discover a story line to the game that im meant to be involved in? so far ive just done quest after quest. Enjoyable quest that is and brilliant music.
im a orc warrior and ive also noticed that im limted to a few weapons per level. and the skills i seem to be able to learn dont really seem like they've been given much thought. its basically the same skills you would find most mmo's havin for a warrior.
my opinion is, the game is good, looks good and the xp and looting rewards are not harsh BUT...this game doesnt offer anything different from all the other mmo's that exist and are original.
this game really reminds me of Guild Wars and Archlord does not beat GW imo. GW has a story that your involved in with quests. GW really pushes for party playing and its free.
hopefully by the time Archlord goes Live, they will have a few aspects to the game changed and put life into it.
my overall rating so far, id say 6 out of 10.
The first 5 levels shouldn't take more than an hour or two and usually go pretty smooth. However, by the time you get to level 7, things turn nasty and you become a PK target for all the griefers and bored high level players! There is no safe area for lower level players to kill stuff.
By the time you get to level 10, experiemce is much harder to get. You still have the same weapons and armor that you can use at level 2 and the mobs are much harder. Mobs that are move than a few levels below you give minimal experience and PKs are out looking for easy kills.
I had a few hours of fun trying out different classes (archers seem weaker than mages) and doing a little exploring, but by level 7 it becomes a grind, punctuated by frequent PK deaths. The penalties for ganking aren't working yet, so griefers are having a field day.
Just to protect my self from getting PK when creeping, when i'm far from town, every white named player i encounter I attack them first. Plus, pking low hp players are extremly fun
Well I am still enjoying this game. I like how all the different content types get revealed as you gain levels so you are not overwhelmed all at once. I also have not been PKd yet, although I am only at level 11.
The levels still seem to come pretty quick and there is something to look forward to at each one. The quests are a bit dopey but there is a story here at least. I am looking forward to moving out of the starting area and seeing more of this world.
I like that I get to fight mini-boss type monsters on a regular basis, although the potion mashing is a bit much at times as money is not easy to come by.
I am a little concerned that this game might not offer much, over a little polish, over the free to play games. This could be a problem with its pricing plan. I would rather pay an upfront box fee of like 40 bucks and no monthly on this one. But we'll see this evaluation may change over time.
I like the mini-boss encounters; the problem is,don't you find that in some quests the ordering is a bit illogical?
For example in one you need to kill Halluminel first (boss),then afterwards kill 15 young lamias (standard). Surely the other way round? Perhaps only a minor gripe,but still there.
Still,they have bigger fish to fry; translation problems in place names.
Keep going Hakiko; the beta ends soon though.
My grade..... 1.5 out of 10
A 5 for the art and world
A 3.5 for the hot little anime (Lineage2) females
and A -7 for the richness of the content (very limited quests, no char uniqueness, crap spells and skills)
My week long beta will end tonight when I go on my PK tirade!
and its not thatt hard to play without getting PK'd. just stay out of Purple skul's way.
While healer classes promote a team play based environment they do have problems if you want your game to also be soloable. The healer class needs to be able to kill monsters in a soloable game, but if you raise their damage too much they are overpowered because of their healing abilities. This leaves you with a healing class that solos by attrition and takes forever. Healers also are problematic in team play because they are less popular but required by the group (how many times have not been able to group in a game because there was no healer LFG).
Sow while healers are great for a diverse team play mechanic, if this is not the focus of your game eliminating them by letting everyone heal themselves is not a bad idea at all.
Problem is,some purple and beyond skulls go out of their way to cause griefing 'misery' as such. Even the moon elf starting area has become a PK hotspot now.
But avoiding purple skulls will help,or at least being cautious around them.
and its not thatt hard to play without getting PK'd. just stay out of Purple skul's way.
Actually I love MMOs, I have had a 65 level EQ toon, a 60 WoW toon, a Master SWG toon, several Guild Wars master level toons, and I've given EQ2, Lin2, Ryzom, DnL, Horizons, DaoC, and Shadow Bane the old college try (At least to 1/3 level on most of them)
In other news I haven't had a lot of luck with Archlord the last few nights. There have been a bunch of different server problems. I am hoping that this is due to the beta being overpopulated and not actual server code problems. I know its beta but it is open beta and basic architecture is not the goal of your final beta. Final class balancing, exploit catches, along with remaining bugs and typos (there are more than a few typos in Archlord but I find them kinda of charming due like in Silk Road Online)
From what I've seen, ArchLord needs several months of work. Not only is it full of types (and even some text still in Korean), but the text formatting is terrible. There is overlapping text, text running off the edge of windows, text that extends below window, but isn't scrollable and minimal amounts of documentation.
To me, this isn't just a little cleanup work, but an indication of some significant defects in the window design and text handling procedures. Text formatting is something that should have been fixed by early beta.
I'm thinking of getting this game and from the impressions, it sounds like a straight up mmorpg with decent graphics, and a messed up PK system.
Anyway I decided to post because I can't seem to get my activiation code, or download the beta version of this, can anyone help me? Does it take some time for the activiation to get to my email?
it sounds alright, I'll post more about it after I play a bit.
This is the (very late) one week update. I ran into some excitement at work and it took a while to get enough hours in to feel like I could comment on a weeks play.
I have been having a lot of problems with this game. Many times I cannot log in. Sometimes I get logged in but get a message that my data is not being saved (making it pointless). I got stuck in rocks a few times as well.
Now this is beta so there will be problems. Honestly the game ran better when I started. Obviously they are having some issues (I don't read most of the other posts in a forum that I am reviewing a game for but the titles alone are enough) and are working through them.
Because of this it would be unfair to continue this experiment. I will keep up with the game and try this again either at launch or when things become more stable. I do not feel that a fair assesment is possible any longer. I know the game can be better than this...it was just a few days ago.