Lineage 2 Review

Memnoch

Okay,
So the beta for this game is almost over... it will be going pay to play soon. Unfortunately right now the only way to get it is to order online, however they did say they would make it possible to buy "unlock" key's online, so you don't have to wait for the CD to ship. This is useful if you've got a good broadband connection or have already downloaded the Beta Client.

I'm going to write this review in a different format from normal game reviews, as I feel that MMORPG's have an emphasis on different things.

Graphics - Amazing, down right amazing. Everything is really pretty in this game, from the charecters, to the cities, to the scenery. The monsters look cool, and all the animations are really well done. However one must realise, that the effect of the graphics only lasts for about the first 20 hours of game play max. After this you become used to it and accustomed and it ceases to amaze. In my humble opinion, Graphics aren't the most important feature's of MMORPGs.

Sound - Again the sounds are nice, and very appropriate, however, the game could use a LOT more of them. Again though, one only notices in game music for so many hours in an MMORPG, after a point it just blends into the background like the graphics.

Gameplay - This is the key section of an MMORPG in my opinion and at the end of the day this is what makes or breaks the game. So i've divided this into several sub-sections.

PvE - This is player vs Enemy or mob based game play. Currently there is a huge advantage in this for archers, especially for Elven archers, due to their high movement speed. This allows them to kite mobs and thus to be able to kill much stronger mobs. However the usage of MP on every arrow hit is very expensive, and this results in a lot of down time to archers. Archers can also save money for just buying BOWs as the usage of kiting means they don't need to tank. Though NCSoft are trying to make a game that encourages team work, currently the PvE game is largely a solo-fest. You will level more efficiently on your own as a tank or archer well into the mid level 20s. Healers tend to need tank support from level 15 on, due to their inability to tank as well as slow movement speed. Duo-ing with one healer-fighter is a good combo as you kill slightly stronger mobs and gain decent exp. Off course there is the option to make a larger group to go hunt higher level mobs but this does not offer much benefit over a simple duo, and isn't necessarily worth the time investment it takes to put a decent balanced group together. Though time does tend to pass better as there is little down time but the over all exp rate isn't improved.

PvP - While this is a game that is supposed to be PvP focussed the opportunities for PvP aren't as frequent as one would like. The karma system while quite inventive could use a little tweaking. Currently, one can attack any player if they so wish, however your charecter's name then goes from "White to Purple". If you kill another charecter and they don't fight back, i.e. their name is "white" then you gain karma and go RED. Red charecters have the disadvantage of having a high chance of dropping an item when they die, and so tend to get attacked on sight by most players. Karma can be worked off by hunting monsters near your level.

What does this mean? Well on balance its good, if you WANT to attack someone you are welcome to, but if they don't fight back and you kill them there could be consequences. Usually players tend to "jump in" on fights that are already taking place. The game also promises high end PvP in the form of castle sieges and guild wars. However while these sound like fun, there is a limit on how often castles can be sieged, and in order to have a guild war, the enemy guild must also accept the war. While the idea of castle sieges is very attractive as far as goals for the guilds go, the reality is that you must PvE a LOT in order to be Castle Siege worthy. The castle is the carrot on the stick in this MMORPG and the levelling is the time sink.

Economy - This game has a VERY tight economy. The game's currency is Adena and is very hard to come buy. The best way at lower level's is to constantly do repeatable quests, however after doing the spore funges quest for the 500th time you may start getting tired of it. While the quests are kind of "fun" they inevitably all involve killing x number of y mob till you are awarded enough y badges, at which point you return to the NPC that gave the quest and claim your bounty. Money is extremely important in this game. All your damage and defence is based on your items, that are bought with Adena. Your charecter only gains HP and MP when it levels. This adds a further time sink to the game. In most MMO's I've played to date, one is usually able to make enough cash just exping in order to be able to afford the items they need. However in this game you may find yourself constantly cash farming in order to be able to afford better equipment so you can level. This adds another time-sink to the PvE curve and consequently slows down levelling.
Also an important point to add is that the drop rate is EXTREMELY LOW for items from mobs. This keeps the economy tight, but also means its unlikely that you will ever use dropped items. The severity of the economy also has effects on the community but I will elaborate more on that later.


Crafting - Crafting is limited to dwarves, who sacrifice combat abilities to be able to craft. The crafting is very limited however in terms of fun and versatility. And SO FAR it would seem that the items that are craftable are no different than the ones that can be bought in the shops. However dwarves can make these items for much cheaper and so can sell them for cheaper. Still dwarves are probably the least populated race in the game, and I have yet to buy an item from a dwarf. They may provide a more useful role in well organised guilds that provide them with the resources they need to craft. Did I mention that all crafting resources and sub-components are only availible as DROPS? Yes, however dwarves have an ability called "Spoil" which they can cast on monsters. When the monster dies the dwarf may then use the "Sweep" ability to have a 30% chance to gain an extra item from that mob. Dwarves tend to be rich in this game.

Community - There seem to be many immature players on most of the servers, though this may partly be due to the fact that the game is in OPEN beta right now.
Also the tight economy means that players aren't friendly when it comes to items and money. People won't be inclined to "give" items to their friends or even clan mates. Most would choose to sell for the adena they need to buy the next item. There is also no "friends list" working in the game right now, and wont be till the update in June

Developer Interaction - Has anyone ever played an MMO that they were entirely satisfied with the "customer service" or developer interaction? I know I haven't, maybe that means that I'm too demanding, or maybe it means that the MMO world needs to learn greater transparency and communication skills with regards to its customers. In ANY CASE... NCSoft certainly don't seem to raise the bar. Dev updates aren't very frequent, sometimes several days may go by before any "news". Also the Dev's refuse to be drawn on ANY issues that seem to seriously affect the game. They have also been slow to respond in the past with serious problems such as Duping, and in my view haven't been seen to do enough to address these issues. Another thing to note is that the game is developed in Korea. Consequently all changes and updates that will/ have been made to the game are based on feedback from Asian players. The patches will be several months behind the asian servers due to translation that is needed and EU/US players will have very little say on changes in terms of balance etc.

Charecter Customisation - I've never really put much stock into this feature. yes its nice to have lots of options, but in terms of MMO longevity these have very little importance. Lineage 2 offers very little in terms of the ability to customise your charecter's appearance. There are only a handful of options availble and these fall well short when compared to most western MMO's. It isn't a big deal to me but if charecter customisation is YOUR thing then you will probably be dissapointed here.

In Game Support - The in game support is through GM's and so far my experience has been pretty good on this. They have always come within a few minutes of me making a "I'm stuck, pls help" complaint. However people reporting Bots seem to not be meeting with much success. There have also been a couple of stories of abuse of GM power, but nothing to get seriously worried about.

Memnoch

Cheating and Macros - This is one area where i've been gravely dissapointed with the game. There is extensive use of "bots" on most servers. This usually involves asian players from internet cafe's back home running up to 20-30 accounts, farming cash 20 hours a day to sell on Ebay. A quick look at ebay will highlight the extent of the problem. These bots are annoying in that they will still your kill, stand on your items/gold and try to steal them too. Reporting them to a GM seems to have little consequence. Another problem has been duping. There were bugs in game from day one that allowed people to make a LOT of money in the game. Since charecter progress is hugely item dependent and the items are bought with money, this conferred a SERIOUS advantage to dupers who have shot ahead of the other players. The dev's remained silent on the issue for a long time until the duping was so rampant that everyone was doing it. Since then they have taken measures to "curb" duping, but there is not much evidence to support that the people who benefited from cheating are being chased down. This is partly due to a large proportion of the player base using the exploit, so they can't really ban everyone, and partly due to the difficulty and manpower required to trace the dupers down. There are still many naieve players that to this day don't realise just how ramping duping has been. Recently the dev's disabled the two most efficient quests that players were using to exploit the bug, however I fear this is too little too late, as many players are millions of adena richer.

Skills and classes - Each race (except dwarf) has TWO main classes. Fighter and Mage. At level 20 a Fighter may become a Tank or a Rogue. At level 40 the Tank may further specialise into a defensive or offensive type tank. A rogue may further specialise into an Archer or a Assassin. Mages can specialise as healers or nukers or buffers. While in actual number there are many more different classes, the corresponding classes from each race are basically the same with few subtle differences here and there. Skills can be "bought" using Skill points. Every time you kill a mob you gain exp and a few skill points. The skills availible to the player are dependent on the class. Its a "unique" system but at the end of the day everyone in a certain class is going to have the same skills. And most players will buy the skills in the exact same order. Also there isn't a lot of variety among skills. There are few unique skills in the game, with all fighters having pretty much the same abilities, and all archers having the same abilities etc etc. There is maybe 1 unique ability per class. While this lack of diversity makes it easier to balance, and easier to build groups, it does seem to remove from the variety and team dependence seen in other MMO's.

Updates and Patches - Most MMO's are continually evolving and being balanced and rebalanced. Lineage 2 follows the trend of most asian games in the the updates seem a lot less frequent. So far there is only 1 update and this is scheduled for June. Update 2 is being planned on the asian servers right now. However this "lack" of updates does tend to reflect a more complete game than a lot of companies release these days. The main additions are content, which I don't think most players will run out of by the time the next update arrives. Players used to constant updates in Western MMO's will definately find this different. Is this for better or worse? That still remains to be seen.

So in conclusion?

Well this game has its good points, but in the end it has gotten too tiresome for me. For those who have played Legend Of Mir, this is essentially more of the same. But with better graphics and more variety of class and skills. The carrot's of PvP, Sieges and eventually riding a dragon are very attractive but require gigantic investment of PvE time to be successful. The game is heavily item and money dependent which results in a lot of players acting very greedy. Levelling is slow, but more than that it involves a lot of killing the same things for many levels until you can get new equipment and or skills to help you progress. This is definately NOT an MMO for a casual gamer. Hardcore players with pleanty of time to spare will probably enjoy it, and this game will keep them busy for a while. The time sinks are well designed and hidden. It offers a different slant to some of the other MMO's out there, and a "different" kind of game has been a long time coming. But while this game does things differntly it doesn't necessarily do them better. Its definately a lot less "carebear" than most MMO's coming out which is a plus. I however after spending numerous hours in open beta have decided to not continue to play it into retail... my reasons...

1) The level curve is steep and repetitive. Rewards are few and far between
2) The PvP though well thought out can be scant and is preilous
3) The dev's don't seem to be very keen when it comes to dealing with cheaters and botters, despite their claims to the contrary
4) The game seems to encourage an immature community and "greed" play.
5) The focus is entirely on items and money, which detracts from the PvP aspect of the game.

Or perhaps the real reason i'm "bored" with this game is that I don't seem to have the level of time one would have to commit to be able to enjoy the more high end content in the game.

Dr_Teeth

Come back to SWG The Jedi update in publish 9 is looking really cool. After you become a Knight (equivalent to 4444 Guardian in the current system) you'll be perma-overt and will have to PVP to gain further rank hehe

Teeth.