Codemasters defends latest ArchLord promotion

Codemasters Online Gaming has responded to claims that MMO ArchLord is struggling to maintain users out by saying its population has grown since launch and "still increases week on week".

But when pushed to reveal numbers for the amount of people currently playing, COG told our sister site Eurogamer.net that revealing user statistics wasn't the trend in the genre.

"Unfortunately we are not in a position to release current subscriber numbers," a spokesperson for Codemasters Online Gaming said.

"As with any MMO, publishers never release that information. Unless, of course, you are Blizzard and have over 8 million subscribers."

Questions arose over ArchLord's future after the publisher announced that it would be offering 6000 free in-game credits with every copy sold. These can buy character's levelling aids in-game, rather than using real money to purchase goods.

Previous efforts to drive attention to the game have seen a subscription system come and go, and the price of the game slashed to around GBP 10.

But far from pull support, Codemasters is insistent that future content is on the schedule - the first being upcoming free expansion Episode II.

"We have no plans to close the service at present," the spokesperson continued. "ArchLord is still very much in Codemasters Online Gaming's future plans with new content (in the form of Episode II) currently in testing and further content beyond that in development."

Codemasters Online Gaming also handles one of this year's big success stories, Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar.