“Lvl 35 healer LFG Cruma Tower”

 

Lineage II: The Chaotic Chronicles has been in
retail play for just over a week, but any one new to the game may think that for
a player to reach level 35 in a week, the game must be pretty easy. Nothing
could be further from the truth.

 

The NCsoft product is a massively multiplayer
online role-playing PC game that is directed to hardcore players. Those upper
levels seen running around the servers have been in the game for much longer
than a week. They were in the open beta phase of the game, and their characters
were rolled over into the retail or pay-to-play release.

 

The game itself is graphically stunning, with
sterling environments, incredible mobs, solid musical elements and challenging
gameplay. But L2 is also fraught with some problems, and in the long run, those
problems may result in a reduced community for what could be a dynamic world and
rich MMP experience.

 

What problems you ask? Well, let’s start with
hardware server issues, like memory leaks and NPC server crashes, and progress
to periodic disconnects where the player is booted, but the mobs they are
fighting continue to hit and kill the player. When you log back in, you are
dead, and suffer a loss in level experience points, and may have dropped an
item. The development team is hard at work, according to announcements, on the
memory leak issues and on the NPC server. But there are major areas of lag as
well. Just step into any town without adjusting the frame rate of the game’s
displays and you will be lucky if you are not slowed, initially, to a dead stop.
And there is more.

 

However, before delving into that, let’s look
at the game overall.

 

Lineage II is a fully PvP game, which means
player-versus-player. You can indulge in combat with other players anywhere at
any time. However, should you attack and kill a player who does not fight back,
you incur bad karma and your name goes red. Red players will be attacked by NPCs
and the likelihood of dropping an item upon death is relatively good. Since it
will generally take 2 or 3 deaths per player killed to get your name back to
white, it is also possible to de-level your character. Players who indulge in
mutual PvP combat have their names turn purple.

 

Therein lays another potential problem with
the game. A young player will run up and strike another player, signaling they
wish to engage in mutual combat. The name of the attacking player goes purple,
which means that any player can then attack him or her. The player who was
attacked fights back. But lurking off to one side is a higher-level player who
is waiting for the second player to go purple. The moment he or she does, the
higher-level player attacks and kills the defending player. It is a cheap way to
get a PK rating, and if the player killed drops an item, the duo may grab it and
run. This is a far-to-common practice. The easiest thing to do is not attack.
Most of those who initiate in this manner have no desire to “go red” and will
break off the attack if the player they attack does not fight back.

 

There are five races in the game: human, elf,
dark elf, dwarf and orc. With the exception of the dwarf, all the other races
can go down the path of either a mage or warrior. There are skill trees and
professions. The dwarf only has a fighter class, but the game does throw them a
caveat, of sorts. Only dwarves can craft. While other races can find resources,
the dwarves can ‘spoil’ a target for a better drop and craft those drops into
items which sell well.

 

Do not expect a lot of player models. The
choices are finite and players may often be distinguished by their clothes, not
their look.

 

If Lineage II has one main problem, it is that
it is a treadmill supported by an economic system that is inane. Items in stores
are ridiculously priced when balanced against the adena (coin of the realm) drop
from the mobs. While players can run quests for adena, the possibility of any
one player garnering enough adena to outfit himself, or herself, for their level
is not that good. A level-two bow costs 14,000 adena (thereabouts) in the stores
(though you can buy it for 10 in private player-run stores), but the players for
whom that bow would actually have value are hunting mobs that drop 40-70 adena
per kill. So you are literally killing hundreds of mobs in order to earn the
adena for a bow. But wait, there is armor to consider and a decent melee weapon,
if you are a fighter. For mages, they must buy a weapon that has a decent Magic
Attack rating, armor that improves their mana pool (though doesn’t really fit
the billing as protection should a melee mob draw close enough to attack), and
then invest in spell books to learn their skills.

 

Each kill will give the player experience
points (xp) and skill points (sp). The former is used to level the player, the
latter is used to buy skills to become a more potent combatant.  As you level,
skills are made available and there are levels to the skills themselves. New
skill sets become available for fighters at levels 5, 10 and 15. For mages it is
at level 7 and 14. Fighters and mages can move into a profession at level 20. As
one progresses up in level and skill sets, the more costly the skill sets
become. A skill that may have cost a figher player 60 sp at level 5, may then
cost 1,100 at level 15. The more specialized the skill, the more it will cost. A
mage can buy ice bolt at level 7 for 260 sp. At level 14, that skill will cost
1,100 to level and at level 20, it will cost 2,000. That latter number is a
light figure compared to some other skills.

 

Mobs are color-coded by name to reflect their
difficulty. Blue is easy, red is very hard compared to the player’s level. At
level 20, a player can battle a mob known as a Mist Horror Ripper, which is an
aggressive level 27 mob, with a life-drain range attack and hard-hitting melee.
The ripper, if the player solos it, will yield 918 xp (about .42 percent of a
level) and 47 sp.

 

More number crunching? You bet, but this is
just an example of the treadmill of this game. Everything is costly, and hard to
come by. This may be a way to make up for a small number of quests, but it is
also what leads to yet another problem with the game. Higher-level players often
enter into hunter areas of lower-level players to farm adena from mobs that are
not a danger to their health, and not a high drain on their mana pools (mana
pools are used in virtually every attack, but are particularly drained in
special attacks). This creates a problem for the players who are hunting at
their level. Kill-stealing, griefing and ninja looting (the mob, when it dies,
drops adena, and sometimes other items, on the ground) are common. Players also
have what are know as bots farming. Bots are third-party programs which create a
set of macros what give players certain and specific instructions. Basically,
the avatar becomes a robot performing programmed instructions. A player can set
up a bot, leave it in an area that is full of mobs they can kill easily, then go
to bed and awake in the morning with an inventory well stocked with adena.

 

For the record, bots, griefing, KSing and the
like are against the EULA’s (end-user license agreement) code of conduct. The
game’s GMs have warned time and again that anyone found to be using bots, or
engaging in practices that violate that code will have their accounts suspended.
But one only has to look at the game’s forums to know that bots are prevalent
and farming is occurring – which includes kill-stealing and ninja looting – and
seemingly not much is being done about it. However, in the defense of the game
managers, it is awfully hard to tell which may be a bot and which may only be a
rude individual who does not care to speak to anyone, or who may not know the
language being spoken.

 

Lineage II certainly has its share of
languages used in-game. This is an international title and clans consisting of
players from throughout the world are prevalent.

 

The game does have a clan system, but this
puts a lot of pressure on a clan leader to supply the clan with sacrificed sp to
level that clan. To take a clan from level 0 to level 1, the clan leader must
supply 30,000 sp points (which have been donated to the cause and not used to
level skills). The clan can all chip in to supply the 650,000 adena to level up
the clan. It costs an additional 150,000 sp, and 2.5 million adena to get to
clan-level 2. At clan-level 2, the clan can have a clan house. The cost to
increase the clan, which also equates to room for more clan members, goes up. It
is not until clan level 4 that clans can participate in siege warfare for
control of one of the five castles within the game. The owners of a castle won
in battle, must set up times for sieges by other clans. There are several
benefits to getting and holding a castle – among them are setting a tax rate for
the accompanying town, and a second is that the clan leader, if he or she has
done the quest for the dragon egg at level 35, and evolved the baby dragon into
a ride by having a clan level 2 house, can mature that dragon into a flying,
fire-breathing dragon only if they are in possession of a castle. The game may
have done well to institute an sp pool that all members could contribute to, but
that the sp donated was only for clan-leveling purposes and could not be used by
a single player for skill advancement.

 

Lineage II is a gorgeous game that certainly
has its challenges. But this is a game that also has some hurdles that jump in
the way of making this a smooth ride. It is a PvP world, but the numbers of PvP
battles taking place are relatively small. But this game is only in the
‘prelude’ mode and the first big patch should occur in June in the first form of
the ‘chronicles’ chapter. If some of these problems can be ironed out, then the
game will certainly have the ingredients to hook players into playing for a
while.
 

 

Gameplay: 7.4

Server problems abound, and while they will
obviously be fixed, sluggish control elements, a poor targeting system add up to
an experience that could be so much better.

 

Graphics: 9.3

This game looks terrific. One only has to see
the effects, the environments and the player animations to know that the bar for
MMPs has been raised. There are some minor clipping problems in places, and
holes in the world with whited-out areas below that are distractions to this.

 

Sound: 8.5

Fresh music for different areas keeps the game
lively

 

Difficulty: Medium/Hard

This game is a treadmill for hard-core
players.

 

Concept: 6.9

The economy needs a major overhaul, as does
the clan system. Clan warfare and castle siege are a cornerstone of the game,
but with clan leveling restrictions, it is a part that many players may never
truly indulge in for most of their gaming experience.

 

Multiplayer: 7.2

Groups of players share xp and sp from mobs
killed, which actually subtracts from the experience. Players can get more xp
and sp from soloing. True, a group is not as big a drain on the mana, but groups
should be rewarded in some way, maybe with better adena drops.

 

Overall: 8.2

Lineage II: The Chaotic Chronicles has been in
release for just more than a week, but already is seems headed for a niche group
in the MMP market. This is a game that is for the hardcore gamers and with a
rash of server problems and memory leaks (not to mention clans who farm and
exploit), the game – as it stands now – can be a source of frustration,
especially if one buys into the level-grind aspect. If, however, one uses the
time to group with clanmates, journey the land and enjoy the challenges of
fighting together, Lineage II can provide a unique MMP experience that is a
source of wonder and delight.