Ten Ton Hammer have an interview up with Codemaster's Tim Hodges, discussing forthcoming MMORPG Archlord.

So at the moment players go about becoming ArchLord by completing a number of stages. Stage one involves siege warfare; players and their guild will have to apply to siege one of the three castles that are in the game. Players will need to attack these castles often alongside other guilds. Once they have captured the castle and claimed sole dominance over it they must challenge the castle keeper for control of that castles Archon. Once they have completed this stage they will be summoned to the ArchLords castle, here the three guilds will face each other in order to capture each other Archons.

It is only once all three Archons have been gathered by one guild that players will then be able to challenge for the ArchLord crown. So as you can see it's quite an involved process, but the beauty of it is that it even allows casual players to partake in some form. All they need to do is have leveled their characters and be a member of one of the guilds taking part. Then they can join in the siege battles and PvP battles to help their guild mate push for the ArchLord crown.