Archmage (computer game)

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Archmage was a successful browser-based multiplayer turn-based strategy game, where the player plays a mage resurrected from the depths of Hell and commands vast armies with magical and mundane elements. The game was created by a Korean telecommunicarions company MARI, but has since gone bankrupt and ceased supporting and hosting it. Fans have since created games encapsulating the essence of Archmage. Such games include The Five Pillars and The Reincarnation.

1 Gameplay
2 History
3 Clones and Spinoffs
4 External links

[edit] Gameplay

The Archmage logo

Archmage was a rich turn-based fantasy game with a focus on player versus player interaction and resource management. The servers of this browser-based game mainly provided the game environment. There were no artificial intelligence opponents to beat, just thousands of fellow players. Players could reincarnate a mage and build up his kingdom by exploring acres of wilderness. This land was used for buildings, to maintain population generating money. Players could research spell books and acquire new spells and could collect, buy and sell magical items. Players could build up armies by using their magic spells and items, or by recruiting units. With the kingdom growing in size, peaceful exploration of land ceased to be effective and battling other players for grabbing land became necessary to grow further. The same army was used to defend the land against attacks by other players (to be expected 24/24h 7/7d), and to conquer land by battling kingdoms of other players (in a session of turn spending).

One of Archmage's unique aspects was the ability of players to reset the game themselves. The most powerful spell in the game was Armageddon, and required seven players to cast it in succession. Each time the spell was cast another "seal" was broken, and all players were informed of their impending possible doom. Unless the casting of Armageddon was stopped by defeating one of the casting mages, the game round would end with a last day of unlimmitted battling. The players that cast Armageddon, along with the ten highest ranked mages at the end of the game, would have their names enshrined for all to see in the Hall of Immortals. These goals were essentially how one "won" the game. Instead of pursuing the Hall, some players waged war with other players, "winning" by defeating their enemies.

The game was offered on several servers, running at different paces, different size of spell book and allowing different levels of coordination between players. As a result, gameplay and player communities of different servers were rather diverse.

The game was offered at normal rate (1 turn/10 mins, max 180 turns stored) at Blitz rate (1 turn/5 mins, max 200) and at Ager rate (1 turn/15 mins, max 180). This required playing several sessions a day on the fastest servers, and once every other day on the slowest. The game was addictive enough to not make its players not want to loose any turn and different strategies evolved to optimize turn management - leading to dramatic differences in gameplay across servers.
The game was offered in Guild, NonGuild and Solo modes, allowing team play in large groups (guilds), in small groups (allied mages) and disallowing teamplay (no guilds, no alliances), respectively. Different types of guilds evolved, for example: elite groups attempting to attain and defend the top rank position, and guilds trying to grow in numbers by recruiting and teaching new players in the bottom and mid ranks. Guilds offered protection and instruction and are the cement of the Archmage player-community.
The content of the spell books differed per server and through time. On the Apprentice server, the most powerfull spells were left out of the spell book and the turn rate was reduced to 1/20 mins. Many veterans liked this peculiar version of the game, that was intended to learn the subtle basics of the game. On the Beta server, new spells and game features were tested to balance their costs and power. In 2000 the set of beta-tested spells and units (several for each of the five specialities) was copied to all main servers.

[edit] History

Archmage went live in 1998, with the first servers located at http://www.archmage.com. More servers were added over time, at the games height these included Ager Guild and NonGuild, Apprentice, Server Guild and NonGuild, Blitz Guild, NonGuild and Solo, a beta server for testing and numerous language servers. For many years, hosting costs were supported via a banner add click campaign, where players received in-game "Lady Luck" for clicking. The practice ended due to the general downturn in revenues from banner advertisements.

The game achieved the Game of the Month award on MPOGD, and as it's popularity rose to the point where it started attracting attention. MARI moved their game portal to the http://www.magewar.com domain and restyled part of the artwork. MARI was faced with multiple copyright infringement lawsuits, most notably over the colour labeling of magic specialities and the names of some monsters. Consequently, magic specialities got fantasy names (red Eradication, white Ascendancy, green Verdancy, black Nether, blue Phantasm), Mana was renamed magical power and the Mind flayer unit (name copyrighted by TSR, Inc.) was renamed Mind Ripper.

This period also saw the rise of multi-maging and scripting. These were methods of cheating that explored some weaknesses in the design of the game. Many fanatic players were controlling multiple accounts supporting their ranking character or their guild. Players created custom interfaces to optimize their gameplay, including more sinister tools tracking movement and scripting mage actions such as bidding on good items and casting spells on enemies. With many players communicating over the IRC-network, these tools were easily integrated into gameplay. MARI launched their orginally (korean-)english game as spanish and poorly-translated german and french versions on seperate servers.

In an attempt to cover increasing costs (probably not so much the server hosting, but the personell costs to secure and administrate the crowded servers) MARI announced pay-2-play in mid 2001. A system where players would pay for access to some of their servers was foreseen. This was met with ridicule by the community. While the game was good, few believed it was worth paying for, especially since much more graphic fantasy web games such as Ultima Online, Everquest and Dark Age of Camelot had also emerged. At this point in time, development began on The Five Pillars, a popular clone. From this point on, the servers were often down or sluggish, and communication from the MARI to the player community dried up. Later that year, MARI announced they would be shifting their focus from Archmage to another game they owned, Archspace - a turn based space simulation - again alienating the Archmage community.

Advertisement banners on Archmage game pages were not returning sufficient benefit to keep the game alive. In mid-2002, MARI announced that they were in talks with Microsoft, with plans to port Archmage to the then newly released Xbox console. If these talks actually took place, they were in vain. The last MARI-sponsored resets ended in December 2002, with the servers never to be activated again. The game's forum, known as the UBB, lasted until September 2004 before disappearing. By this point in time, MARI's corporate website was also gone. Whereas as an internet game it was a big hit, it proved too difficult for a Web 1.0 company like MARI to harvest that success commercially.

[edit] Clones and Spinoffs

Archmage boasted a very loyal fan base. As such, it is no surprise that many clones were created after the game's demise. Listed below are the known clones to date.

[edit] The Reincarnation

Created: 2003
Status: Active
Playerbase: 3,000
URL: http://www.the-reincarnation.org

The Reincarnation is a true clone of the original Archmage.

[edit] History

The Reincarnation began life as ProjectX, created by a number of former Apprentice players, namely GTO and Apoptyma. The development team consisted of DaveMcW, Creepy, Taka and galad, joined by Sogrom and Denom later in the project's life. And more recently by Debacle.

[edit] What's Different

The Reincarnation features a large number of unit, spell and item modifications and balances. A new feature is Skills, that allow players to customise their mage over the course of a reset. The game also features customisable skins.