Codemaster’s free to play MMORPG Archlord, has been trucking along for the last several years. MPOGD had the chance recently to get some questions answered by the Archlord Community Team. The team is made up byMr. Ktat, Satine, and Ulric.

MPOGD: I’ve downloaded archlord gold, and it’s beautiful. I have to say, it beats the pants off of the other free offerings. What made you decide to do without the monthly fee?

ACT: Glad to hear you like it. The MMO Market has been always been looking at different ways to let players get access to their products. Removing the monthly fee opens the game up to more people.

This model is extremely popular in the Eastern markets such as Korea, and has slowly been gaining acceptance in the Western market via small scale MMO releases from indie publishers. Codemasters Online believe this is an important part of the MMO space and moving forward with mainstream F2P games such as archlord gold we are demonstrating that players are comfortable using a model like this.

MPOGD: Are you considering a Guild Wars model, where you allow players to purchase expansions to the game?

ACT: Whilst archlord gold and Guild Wars are both F2P games, the actual model is slightly different. Guild Wars' revenue comes from its expansion packs whereas Archlord works via a microtranasction model, which is where players are able to purchase optional consumable enhancements for their characters.

As such, at this time we are confident in continuing to deliver future expansions (such as the next expansion "Episode 3" which has just moved into development for our version), free to our playerbase.

 MPOGD: I really like the mini-map markers that alert me to new quest givers. Was this inspired by your own experiences with missing out on quests in other games?

ACT: One thing that can be daunting in MMOs with large explorable worlds is knowing which NPCs have something worth talking to them about. We feel our mini-map marker system enables players to get the most out of their game, it makes that part of the game more accessible. As players explore the world they should definitely capitalize on what's available to them as part of that exploration and discovery. It also saves a lot of going backwards and forwards as players realise they've missed something!