Visually the game is distinctive and anyone who’s familiar with the Japanese anime market will recognise its roots. Generally speaking all players models are pretty attractive in design and carry a near trademark skimpy-ness in the clothing department, even the orcs are oddly alluring. The monsters are another tale; they don’t follow conventional templates so instead you could come across pigs that look like highly inflated pink balloons. The art is exaggerated and really thrusts you into a fantasy world not just in terms of lore and science but aesthetically too.
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| Not your commonplace Dwarven race. Hey that rhymed! | Mandatory dress code = skimpy |
Now if you love to work your virtual rear off for levels and loot then you’ll probably find a good home here, but those who prefer a less labouring grind won’t be comfortable too long. Climbing levels takes what feels like aeons as you rely on farming for money and experience. It would have been better if the quests in general offered more attraction and excitement, many are the standard go here and kill X number of wolves/floating pig balloon thingies. The expected tutorial quests at the start for any new player aren’t that bad and help ease you in, but past those you’re dropped into the world with little directional flow quest-wise.
You can choose your characters from five typically expected races and they are human, elf, dark elf, orc and dwarf. You can play about with some customisation like gender, skin tone, face model and the hair colour & style which as I said are all unashamedly influenced by anime sources and the like – hence why everything seems to be uncommonly beautiful. There could have been a lot more done with customisation in a MMO so focused on clans and alliances, everyone feels a little generically cheap. Speaking of generic things, the UI in Lineage II is possibly one of the dullest I’ve come across in a while – it just does very little to please the eye or blend in well.
The classes you can select from are just two in the beginning, either a fighter or mystic, unless you choose dwarf who can only become a fighter. Options will eventually expand but not until much later when you’re slugging away for experience. Then things become rather interesting as you can branch out, a human fighter for instance could become a Human Knight and from there you could choose the path of a Paladin or a Dark Avenger. There are quite a number to choose from and each has their own merits like better defensive or offensive capabilities.
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| Visuals can be stunning but it’s starting to show its age | A less than stellar UI, it doesn’t do much for immersion |
Fans of most RPG games will have to be reacquainted with the point and click method of walking about the world in Aden. Now I haven’t had to use that method since my Diablo II days but it in no way hurts the game, actually it helps free the keyboard for just actions and chat. Objects drop from monsters so there’s no backpack to go rummaging through as they literally fall on the floor, a simple click and you’ve pilfered it. Combat is automated unless you opt to fire off a few special moves or spells which need to charge before they’re unleashed – standard stuff.
Commerce is the life-blood of any civilized society and no different for the online RPG communities. A steady flow of adena (gold) is hard to come by which makes the game ever more challenging, you won’t be able to get gear your level practically ever unless you’re enthralled to a clan. This is because by the time you could actually afford the items on your own you’ll probably much higher from all the grinding you’ve been doing to get there. It’s a blunt nudge for players to get together to reap any chance of getting decent stuff and a heavy gold purse.
A unique point to this game is its castle sieges where a guild can claim ownership of the castle, as long as they can fend off competitors of course. While a novel idea and one that should keep things churning PVP wise it’s actually become a rather stagnant feature. The reason actually lies with money, to be more precious in lies in a stable profit from the 'Manors'. If a castle keeps changing hands then it upsets the economy of these 'Manors' and the higher level guilds are unlikely to let go of a money source or take a hit to their reputation. It has entered an elitist rut and the community can’t seem to shrug it off, pity.
This general void of currency makes it hard for the casual player to ever participate in any thing worthwhile within the game as their too weak to take up challenges. This of course then makes it real hard to level up and attain enough power to go siege a castle with your guild. The whole process takes so long it seems near impossible and there’s little in the way of merriment along the journey.
Live evolves, that also accounts for the evolution of exploits and outright cheats over the course of time. MMORPG’s are no safe haven as is evident by the near countless cash-for-gold World of Warcraft sites swirling about the Internet. Lineage II also has its (un)fair share of players looking to bend the rules, but in an online world where money is in scarcity its not so surprising. It’s a combination of both the players and the developers being at fault, players for actually cheating and the developers for not providing a good enough reason for them not too.
The music throughout my time in Aden didn’t elicit much attention, they did the job but that was about it – though the Dwarven strip-mine tutorial zones’ 'Oktoberfest' knock-off was pretty funny at first. Okay so it managed to coax out one emotion, a moment of laughter as I ran around with my skimpy looking underage Dwarven female.
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| Character customisation could have been so much more | The art style - distinct, alluring and sometimes even scary |
Lineage II has some strong points and an appealing art style but the shear scale of the grind for both experience and material possessions is daunting and would be for even seasoned gamers. For all the pet systems, castle sieges and interesting environments to crawl through on occasion Lineage II soon loses its shine from numbing repetition. Even these latest revival attempts by NCSoft, like duelling, don’t seem enough to bring much life back into the game. If you’re a casual MMO gamer and like the nice quiet solo life then look elsewhere – co-operation is vital in the later stages for increasing wealth and your characters power, it’s just too bad the chat and group system makes that too, a chore.
Top Game Moment:
TOP GAME MOMENT
The happy feeling I got knowing I could own, tame and even fly on a Dragon – a short lived moment as I soon learnt I would have to practically sell my soul to get and keep the thing.
