So I was looking for a MMO to fill some time until AoC or WAR came out, had a quick browse and this looked like the best option as I was a bit strapped for cash at the time so I wanted a F2P.

The graphics are alright, nothing special although I do like how the armour is done but that seems to be the only good thing about it. I was disapointed straight away when creating a character, the reason for that being that there is no gender option, I usually play a spellcaster but I didn't want to play a female character so I had to play a knight, well I could of played a ranger as that was the other male option for the humans. Customization is poor, you have a few sets of hair and faces to choose from but more can be unlocked as you progress through the levels. GM support is terrible, on multiple occasions gold sellers have been spamming shout for 24hrs straight and not a GM in sight, I have support tickets well over 2 weeks old with no responce, not even to say they are looking in to it other than the automated e-mail responce.

As for the gameplay its not to bad in the lower levels as most of the grind is covered by quests but that is short lived, as you hit the 20's it starts to get a bit steeper but if you can afford to enter the dungeons this is pretty quick as well, then you hit the 30's and it becomes your classic korean grind game, sit there for hours bashing away at the same thing to get one level. Those hours are made even more tedious when you find yourself trecking back to the hunting area because you've been PK'd for the 8th time in the past hour. To be honest with you the community are complete a**holes, of course that doesnt go for all of them as there are a few nice players actually on the game but they're in the minority. The PK'ing isnt so bad outside of the dungeons areas but inside them (talking i particular about Forgotten Mine) you will be lucky to get 10% of your level before some idiot comes through and kills you. The PK doesnt kick in until you reach level 30 and up until that point I was enjoying the game, and I probably would still be if the community had a bit more maturity. Many times i've confronted a level 50 player running though a level 30 area killing everyone and you get the responce "stfu noob go level".

One final issue I have with the game is the lag, it really is something, when theres a battle of more than 10 players, talking about the siege events on weekends in particular the game stops working in realtime and becomes a turn based MMO. On average I find myself waiting between 1-2 minutes to recieve updated information regarding my characters position, ok fair enough it has the potential to be a nice event for the players but why bother with it if the lag is so incredible. Actually now I think about it there is one more thing, the korean version of this game is on Episode 5, however the western world version is only episode 2, largely because the developers refuse to give codemasters the next episode with any haste and I dont really see this chainging.

I suppose you get what you pay for, in this case I paid nothing and got minimal enjoyment in return. Playing Archlord has pretty much made my decision final, I'm sticking to P2P MMO's. It seems that when you dont have to pay the flood gates open to all pubescent teens who like to act hard over the internet, no offence to all young teens of course I know there are many respectable players in that age range but its just the minority that ruin the game for me.

Anyway Rant/Review over.

Couldn't agree more with u Satan, F2P games like Archlord open their doors to all kinda of players.. well 50% of the peeps that come aboard F2P games are normally a bunch of brainfreezers, who normally refuse to speak english, make their own very closed community and well... they don't play it like a MMORPG should be played.

I'm trying Archlord, (playing wow @ the same time), and as much as it was difficult to adapt to the simple point and click system (which is buggy as hell), the random system crashes, and above all, what's the meaning of having a party in Archlord? i mean, besides the auto loot feature, i found no use whatsoever to form a party, rather than loosing xp -.- .

So as u said, F2P games like Archlord are a big no no im my book (admit it, u only play this game cause its free, cause if u gotta pay, there far better choices out there)... oh boy. i cant wait for Aion :P!

F2P games are usually low-budget grindfests which sole purpose is to make money off the noobs willing to buy the items off their websites. F2P usually involve the same generic asian-themed or lord of the rings setting and just kill-kill-kill until a boring endgame of dueling and wondering why you play the game.

However, P2P the developers want money, so they want a quality game under their belt. They put time, effort and thought into their games to try and make them stand out from the WoW clone crowd. I personally don't like paying 15 a month, but I know my money is going towards quality, and a fun experience that will hopefully last me years.

I totally agree with you. I used to play this game all the time back when you had to buy the box first before you could play it. It had some flaws, but I could deal with them since it was a few months after it had came out and I knew they would be fixed soon. I also found the game to have a great helpful community, but I knew that would change when it became free. The day the game became free, I quit, and haven't played since, because I knew it would be horrible to play. First of all, the servers could barely run normally while a few hundred players were on it, so why would they run any better when the game would be flooded with people. Second of all, free games always end up getting overrun with immature kids and foreign people that do even speak English.

I'm irritated by the number of times I've been asked "br?" by the same player in the same hour. The community imploded on itself once Archlord became F2P, and the amount of immature players is like a bitchslap in the face. As for lag, I don't get much because I've got a good internet connection, so I won't address that much. The grind itself ticked me off a little, but since I compare everything to Priston Tale's grindfest, I may have let it slide. Yet they made the PC's dependent on potions. I can't stand having to get more potions just to use them up quickly. If potions were alcoholic in that game, then I'd doubt I would be sober ever again.

I tried this game before they tried going p2p and to be honest, it disgusted me.  I don't have any motivation to ever come back to Archlord since it's become one giant ganking war.

I'll stick to playing Perfect World and soon play Aion.

I downloaded the game and i played for like 30 min lol i dont like the game it got boring lol

I actually won this game along with a bunch of credits and a cool framed picture of a dragon from this site. I played it for a total of about 2 hours and deleted it. One of the most poorly done mmo's Ive ever seen. I almost bought it for $50 when it first came out because a bunch of guildmates were playin it. If I would have payed money for this pos I would have been pissed.