Lineage 2 Preview
Previews

Orc Fighter

Lineage 2 is the successor to the reigning subscriptions champ in the MMO world, Lineage. Based firmly on its predecessorÆs strengths, Lineage 2 is shaping up to be one of the best MMOs IÆve ever playedàand itÆs still in closed beta. To be fair to other MMOs with betas passed, Lineage 2 has been released in Korea and is in open beta in Japan. So the North American closed beta is an iteration of an already released product, but still, itÆs nice to see an MMO with this level of completeness at this stage in the game. If releasing games in other countries is the only way to get a product into the North American market thatÆs respectable at launch, I say call up NATO and strike a distribution deal.

Look a bear

Currently the North American beta is at the ôpre-preludeö stage of Lineage 2Æs story arc. In very non-American style, NC Soft has pledged that they will not release any expansion packs. Instead they will update the game every few months with what they call ôChronicles.ö There are currently three chronicles in the Lineage 2 story arc. The first is Pre-Prelude, the second is Prelude, and the third, the one that North American pay-to-play will launch with, is Chronicle 1. Each chronicle has various updates for everything from the interface to the keyboard settings, to the monsters and game balance. You are truly getting expansion packs for free with these updates.

Orc Raider

So how is the game play? ItÆs good, but you have to be of the proper mind frame. There is a ridiculous level grind. No joke, itÆs straight brutal. Anyone can attack anyone at any time outside of towns. When you die, you lose between 5% and 15% of your current level, whether you are killed by a monster or another player. Every time you die you have a chance to drop any item in your inventory, equipped or otherwise. Everything requires Adena (money) and everything is expensive as hell.

The mind frame you have to get into is simple: accept that this is a game based on the single best selling MMO of all time. If you look passed the notably brash exterior of the game mechanics and put your faith in NC Soft, youÆll find an incredibly challenging and rewarding RPG experience.

Sure, the level grind is stupid hard, but unlike other MMOs this grind has a purpose. You level so you can participate in global domination. Not a bad incentive, huh? The best part is that once you max your level and get all your skills the only reason youÆll need XP (Experience Points) is to recover from deaths. And things arenÆt setup where itÆs a chore to get all your skills. You gain skill points along with experience points each time you kill a monster. The skill point requirements for new skills are balanced well against the skill points you get killing monsters at the appropriate level. You gain access to a new set of skills every four or five levels, and so far IÆve been able to get all my skills in one set before gaining access to the next set.

I am a Dark Elf!

PvP is governed by a Karma system. Basically it works like this: if you attack someone and they attack you back, you can kill each other and suffer only the experience penalty of death. If you attack someone and they donÆt attack back but you kill them anyway, you gain karma points. If you gain karma points, you turn red. By ôyouö IÆm referring to the name over your head. If youÆre red you canÆt shop anywhere, you canÆt go into town, and, get this, there are little pixies that will fly around hunting grounds bitch slapping you. So being red is badàmmmkaay? You can work off your redness by killing monsters or dying, but if you decide to keep killing youÆll gain karma points exponentially. Habitual offenders get the shaft, but if you just want to waste the little brat who keeps snaking your kills you wonÆt end up in a hole you canÆt easily roll out of.

The death penalty is harsh but you can get rezzed to get some of your experience back, and the randomness of the penalty makes it slightly more bearable to take an occasional 15% hit to your bar. The good part about the death penalty is that you can lose experience and levels, but you canÆt lose skills or skill points. So even if you somehow are stupid enough to get de-leveled from 60 to 1, youÆll still have uber_spell_038 to punk the newbs with. An interesting positive side effect of death is that since you lose experience but not skill points, you have an ôopportunityö to gain more skill points at lower levels then the guy who never dies. Granted heÆll level faster then you, but youÆll get a lot more skills when you first gain access to a new skill set then he will.

Destroyer

So how is the normal beta crap? So far IÆve seen no database lag, no waypoints that vanished after a mission was created, no mentally-challenged doors that donÆt open when you walk up to them like theyÆre supposed to, and no horrendous frame rate hits when doing normal tasks like casting spells. It runs on my 1gig piece-of-crap computer with a speed I would only expect from something as graphically intensive as Q*bert. Basically itÆs ready for release, right now, a feat no other North American game has achieved in closed beta. There are still one or two bugs, including an easy to replicate AOE crash bug, but most of them (including the AOE crash bug) are already fixed in Chronicle 1. Possibly an even bigger endorsement of this game, I havenÆt seen anyone on any message board bitching about what the developers need to do, as you would normally expect from at least a few members of a beta testing community.

Giant Tree Guardian

So what do I think of the game as a whole? Well, I like it. IÆll be doing a full review as we get closer to release (sometime in April is my guess). I will say though that there is one particularly interesting conversation to be had about L2 A good number of people in the L2 community are curious to see how a game this hardcore will do in the notably cupcake-like North American market. The assumption is that the subscriptions will be lower than in LineageÆs traditional Asian markets, but my stand is if any true gamer, American or otherwise, gets a whiff of this theyÆll be on it like a shark on blood sausage. If you want to weigh in with your thoughts, drop on by this thread and speak your piece. Also, you can stop by this thread where I will answer any and all questions you might have on the particulars of the game.

And if you're after pretty screenshots you might check our Lineage 2 Gallery which holds 43 new screenshots for you.