PVP:Yes | Distribution:Download,Retail | Retail Price:n/a | Pay Type:Free | Monthly Fee:Free
Desktop Client | System Req:
| ESRB:T
Lineage II: Interview with Han and Davidson
Recently, Community Manager Laura Genender had the chance to ask a number of questions to Jae-Hyuk Han, the Lead Game Designer for Lineage 2 and Adam Davidson, the Producer of Lineage 2 in North America and Europe.
| MMORPG.com: | How do you feel about Hero capabilities? Do you think they are overpowered, underpowered, or just right? |
| Jae-Hyuk Han: | I think it is just right. Skills and weapons for Heroes are privileges that "common" people cannot have. Hero weapons will remain as one of the best features in the game in the future. |
| MMORPG.com: | What changes between Interlude and the Chronicles - is the content different, or just the name? What will come after Interlude? |
| Jae-Hyuk Han: | In the previous Chronicles, we focused on general MMORPG content such as PvE, PvP, castle sieges, etc. Starting with Interlude, we are considering larger scale content based on the foundation that we have made so far. Currently players can only compete over the castles within the server but we would like to upgrade this content to the next level. We would like to see nations competing and eventually servers competing. Our goal is to make a game that can give you joy and tears. Of course, we will also be focused on content that can be enjoyed both by an individual or a party. For storyline, we intend for Interlude to be the bridging link between Lineage II: The Chaotic Chronicle, and the beginning of a new chapter. Since the launch of Lineage II, players have seen vast changes in gameplay and visual style through the six massive updates. Interlude will build on this tradition by introducing players on an epic new adventure with new lands to explore, more monster and enemies to defeat, and new challenges to overcome. |
| |
| MMORPG.com: | Any plans to improve clan halls, or add personal housing? |
| Jae-Hyuk Han: | Yes, we do have plans to improve clan halls by giving more merits for acquiring them. Players will be able to use or equip these new "merits" and we expect to see more people competing over the clan halls. We will focus on the contestable clan halls at first. For the clan halls, fortresses, and the castles that will be added afterwards, we plan to keep it as the main content that can be challenged by many clans. Also, the personal housing idea has come up multiple times, and we will consider implementing it if we have more instanced zones. |
| MMORPG.com: | How goes the battle against the bots? |
| Adam Davidson: | It's going well. We've actually recently eclipsed over 100k accounts banned for this activity, just in North America, and our techniques and processes get more sophisticated and efficient as we move forward. They are a determined bunch, but we know that we are just as determined on our end and we plan to keep enforcing our User Agreement for as long we can foresee.
|
| |
| MMORPG.com: | Lineage II has undergone many changes since release; what are your plans for attracting past and new players back to the game? |
| Jae-Hyuk Han: | We are preparing a new race, which can be started by both existing and new players. It is difficult to discuss all the details; however, it will allow for a new style of fun, differentiated from the existing classes. We are also planning content that combines PvP and PvE, where well-raised characters take an active part in. The content will allow all scales of clans from large to small to have a role to prevent the exclusive possession of castle by a few gigantic-scale clans. |
| MMORPG.com: | What changes have you seen in the community in the last three years? Is Bartz still the most popular server? |
| Adam Davidson: | There are constant shifts in these sorts of metrics, sometimes driven by events such as new servers or other time driven by the communities themselves. At different points, Kain, Teon and Franz have all had their moments in the sun as the most populated servers. In so much as the community as a whole, we feel that our players have developed a very strong sense of who they are and what the sub-communities they create for themselves are both within the scope of the game itself as well as in other places such as fansites and more general games related message boards and forums. The dedication and initiative our community shows is a constant and great reminder of who we're working for and who we want to make happy. We try to keep a tight ear to the ground. When a game is younger, there's usually a lot of differing approaches and mindsets of the sub-groups with your game's community, but as it ages you begin to see a bit more cohesiveness. That's not to say they see eye to eye on everything, but you do begin to identify bigger arteries of shared philosophy, if you will. |
| |
| MMORPG.com: | How have the new changes to healing implemented in Chronicle 5 affected gameplay? |
| Jae-Hyuk Han: | Though the gradual HP recovery earned some complaints from the players at the time of the update, it was a necessary measure to develop more intense battles in the game. Now, in the case of a battle at a dangerous place, a healer takes a better look at the party members and uses heal quickly. |
| MMORPG.com: | Many MMOs are now using instanced areas - are there any plans to instance areas of Lineage II, for raid fights or quests? |
| Jae-Hyuk Han: | A special feature of our game is the persistent world, which we are always focusing on improving. However, an instanced area that can be used in a quest, boss battle, or event to add to the fun of the game and resolve some inconvenience for the players is in the process of being planned. The main part of our game is still the persistent world, and we plan to use instant area as a secondary element for fun. |
;)
;)
;)
And that Dark Elf has some sick armor :)
When someone comes onto a Battlefield 2142 server and uses hacks, yeah it sucks, but the game will be reset in 30 minutes anyway. In L2, the cheaters just keep acumulating power, as they have done for 3 years now. When NC Austin bans a character that does nothing. People work together in L2 to cheat it. If one gets baned, the group of cheaters has accumulated many resources to come back from it. Simply bot up a new toon, and gear it using the ill gotten gains. Bottom line: L2 punishes anyone that plays legit, and hands extreme rewards to anyone who cheats.
IMO L2 is the best game ever made (I have been gaming for 20 years, and yeah i actually believe this!). But NC Austin has proven entirely ineffective in dealing with the cheating issues over a 3 year period. And now, nearly everyone but the cheaters have quit the game on the American servers. Massive, colossal, failure.
Pro's:
- Only real open PvP MMO.
- Extremely well designed, it has no peer. (unchecked cheating has undermined the design)
- True persistent world, (mostly) non-instanced.
- Best graphics in any MMO, past/present/foreseeable future.
- A real challenge, this game is hard, you will need years to master it.
- Free updates twice a year. Great updates to balance and new areas are consistently well done.
Con's:
- Cheating is the smartest way to advance.
- "Anti-cheating" tactics by NCAustin have been subverted by GM's being paid off by players.
- Economy requires you to ebay eventually, unless you bot.
- Worst community, everyone is an asshole, including me.
- Fairly high system requirements, getting worse every time they update the game.
- The game is too hard, nearly everyone that starts... quits within 3 weeks.
- Desolate newbie areas. A new player finds a 15 to 1 bot to human ratio.
Conclusion:
The best MMO available. Wow, thats -_-ing sad.
They're not the most efficient team in the business, but they're not as corrupt as some people would claim. GMSilver is a total badass.
Agree with you on everything there
Good interview though =).
I have to disagree with some of these points. I've been playing since OB, gotten two characters to 70+, plus multiple other alts between 40 and 65. And in all this time, I've never once botted or purchased in-game assets with real life money. It is more than possible to play this game without botting or ebaying. I will also mention that I've been in some of the biggest pvp clans/allies on the server too, before anyone says you have to ebay in order to really be competitive. And I am not a hardcore, 5+ hours a day player either, so it's not just that I've poured my life into the game, because I haven't.
I would also disagree about the community being full of assholes. I am actually quite sweet.
But seriously, the community is the #1 reason that people stick with this game. Long after you're sick of the grind, you keep playing because of the friends you've made. In fact, I recently had about 4 friends who quit the game over a year ago to play WoW, return to L2. What was their reason for coming back? The people.
I agree with you Listof,
Does L2 have problems? Sure it does. Worse community? Not by a long shot. WoW and GW hold that rank. I played for a long time and honestly it was one of the best MMO community experiences I ever had. Do people buy currency and bot? Yup. I don't think anyone will argue that point. But do people in WoW buy currecy? Yuppers. You can buy currency on any one of those 200+ servers on either side, how do you think its getting there, magic?
I played L2 for about a year. Yeah its tough, yes, the economy is hard, yes the grind is hard...but its not about reaching endgame and doing raids or battlegrounds, yes higher level but you don't need to be level cap to do anything.
L2 is a very misunderstood game in the western market. One thing you can see is its continued growth over the last few years. When I started playing they had something like 65k subs last year, now they are up around 105-110k. That says alot right there.
Anyway, like any other MMO, its a matter of taste. L2 will continue to improve and grow. You guys who hate it will still hate it here for whatever stereotyped reason.
I've always wanted to try this game, but I don't like open pvp. Now if they had pve or pve + limited pvp, I would give it a try.
And cheaters? Yeah, any time you have a virtual environment that is competitive there will be cheaters. I haven't played a single competitive online game where there wasn't cheaters. The wierd thing is, when you talk to a cheater, some of them will say, yeah i cheat, and others will type up a page explaining and rationalizing in depth how cheating is not cheating at all.
The answer for the war against botters / 3rd party users.
They only ban people who don't pay them for the program / non farmers, as you see farmers run around constantly and when they announce the mass ban of people , its never farmers, its allways real players with walker , never a farmer, funny enough, and hwo can you tell that you might ask me.
Check the Adena prices when they announce that they have banned 100.000 users like he says now, like shit they have , adena prices still as cheap as ½ year ago, maybe 5 dollars more expensive for 100m adena.
Christ , Davidson , go hang your self.
I was glad to see the topic of bots copme up,but i can tell you as a 2x player of this game,he is a lier.Although WOW has the lagest quantity of cheats and RMT sales ,this game has the most obvious cheating i have ever seen.The bots and cheating going on is so out in the open for even a noob to notice,there is no way in hell this guy is is telling the truth.I have seen several articles on real life threats and beatings based on this game over in asian communities.The bots literally run in and out of the cities,back n forth to the farming spots.Players are using cheats to run multiple clients,so they can have healers to aid there hacked out PVP.This game should have been buried a long time ago,but i think koreans take this game very seriously over there and alot of them are making there life/living offf rmt sales of this game.
Although there was nothing wrong with this interview,id like to see ALOT more intensity brought into the interviews and force out the topic of CHEATING onto a much higher level.Although this game is basically a korean community ,it's games like these that bring out the many cheat programs that soon become a part of north americanized games.If this guy that was interviwed truly has a heart for his product and game ,he would be much animated about the cheating in this game,as is he just came across as a sheer out lier.
I might also add,that i was pleasantly surprised to see others posting under this topic about cheating,because frankly i didnt think many cared about the cheating in this game.
Now the best thing about this article is they introducted new light onto new information about the future, including a new race.
Some people posting here said they wanted to try L2 but didn't like the concept of open PvP. I can say from my experience, if you don't want PvP, it's very easy to avoid. You can join clans whom are not focused primarily on PvP and aren't at war with half the server. You can level up in the Dimensional Rift where you have no fear of anyone killing you. There are also enough high level dungeons and zones that it is rare you'll need to fight someone over an exp spot. If you like the game and are not into PvP it's still something you should try out because the PvP system in Lineage 2 is very well done, especially after recent changes.
Well about your friends.
I had the same problem since i had 1 account banned, but i had a few friends who could speak the farmer language, they made a nice tighty email to NCsoft about it was a whole misunderstanding and bla bla , wupti within a week of getting in touch with the right CSR handling the case, unbanned.
Even tho my SWS was caught using L2Walker.
Compared to WoW gold farming, "hackers", botters are just as many, but just not as obvious. Like someone else stated it, if you play in a virtual enviroment you will have cheaters. Sly cheaters usually don't get caught. Get over it and realize it. If you can't stand the thought of your competition cheating, don't play multiplayer games, even ones in real life.
Now after saying that, yep L2 does have serious problems. But, when I play other MMO's I feel the game design on those aren't as good, even if they claim to be better. L2's largest downfall in my opinion is the required amount of time needed to level and get gear, this time should seriously be cut practically in half, so people can get to the "goodies" of the game. Maybe play a few characters and still be competitive and to close the gap between the cheaters and the "non-cheaters".
Can't beat the art of L2. Can't be the epic size of sieges and boss raids. The seamless world. And of course what made me choose L2 in the first place, free expansion packs!
Best game, and was the most popular in the world before WoW. I don't play wow because I don't like the graphics, the large amounts of instances, the community (although there is sometimes a gem in the rubble), plus I don't want to be with the "masses" and join the new "online sensation" known as The World of Warcraft.
I'm not sure if they're still there, but in Bartz we had a huge alliance of adena farmers mostly comprised of nukers that would systematically take down pretty much every raid boss whenever it spawned. Doing so allowed them to take the drops, sell them off at a retarded price only to sell the earnings over ebay, ige, etc. to the players (in some cases I would bet to the very person who bought the item from them in the first place) and it would just go around in a circle. They were pretty much the enemy of everyone and it wouldn't do much of anything to try and hinder their routine. Even if you win the battle, it doesn't amount to much in the war, because they just keep doing what they were doing. Yes, this hurt the economy bad, but it wasn't just them. The people who bought the adena from them are just as responsible as they are for supplying it IMO. Some would probably argue that it's the only way to keep pace with everyone else, but if there weren't such a huge demand for it, don't you think the economy wold be a bit more stable? Ya, I don't think there is gonna be any way to tell now, and botting, buying game currency online, etc will probably never go away, I'm just pissed to see such a great game reduced to this because most of my friends are gone now which is the ultimate reason why I don't play anymore. When your friends leave, there isn't much reason to stay either, at least for me.
I think they got a lot more serious about preserving the community in C5, and even if the farmer bots who make their living by cheating are unbeatable, I think they have made GREAT strides in stopping players from botting to gain their levels, and the community is doing a lot better because of it.
They have a long way to go, but as someone who played from Open Beta they have made huge improvements in the community and the cheating situation in the past few months.
I played Lineage 2 from OB all the way till the beggining of Chron 3, coming back every Chron to see how it was.. and made some "just to mess around" characters in private servers. I am not coming back t Lineage 2 and I think this is just another stupid update to a game that needs to face that it failed (WoW even wtfpwned it in Korea) and the developers need to go back and start from scratch.
MMOs are games you have to invest time on, no question about, but to invest your soul and real life? After Lineage 2 I went over to WoW and I am not leaving it anytime soon. The developers have to realise that grindfest games are not going to survive, people will get tired. World of warcraft is heading the right direction with this expansion, lowering their insatnces from 40 mans to 25 mans and their 20 mans to 10 mans, making their 5 man dungeons half their pre TBC size and reputation earning ALOT easier. This appeals to both, hardcore gamers that want to farm the game, and casual players that can be included in the entire game. A casual player can be in a casual guild that wont progress as fast as a noarmal raid farming guild, but they will progress, really fast this time, now that they dont need 20 to go do the easy raid and then 40 to go do the hard raid. My brother was in a guild that could barally complete the 20 players needed for Zul Gurub on an ocational night, TBC gets released, now they have a 10 man Karazhan group farming the place, and a second group almost finishing it.. My guild that farmed MC and BWL and AQ40 is very well progressed, but gear wise, you went into a 40 man, invesetd 4 hours and 5 people came out with new gear, with these new 10 mans we can throw in 4 different groups, giving 20 people the ability to progress, this is one of Lineage 2's failures, its such a grindfest that even the master grinders (koreans) gave up on the game.
Second failure, cheaters. NCSoft can throw all this useless crap on (GameGuard) to stop cheaters and it will fail because they arent fixing the core problem behind it, the sheer dificulty in aquiring gear as a casual player and the penalty of losing that said gear. Again, in WoW, you have the ocational people that buy gold but all they get out of it is mounts and maby some gear that will be worthless in 2 weeks (once they reach top level and all the gear is Bind on Pick Up) and sometimes Pots. In Lineage 2, if you arent in an alliance that can defend you in the top leveling zones, plus that you can farm the top leveling dungeons in, you wont get gear. Its as simple as that. What does a casual player do? They buy tons and tons of adena, go around aden and seek the help from farmers to provide those said items.
Third failure, customization. Everybody in Lineage 2 looks exactly the freaking same. It's boring. There can be three or four different C,B,A,S grade sets, but its always one that everybody wants (sometimes people experiment with another) and you always needed to have the ENTIRE set in order for it to mean something or for it to work. This problem also goes along with the cheaters problems. You get to 61, you want A grade, you have 4 of the set pieces required for A grade but you still cant wear those pieces until you have all the required parts. So a 61 in full B grade can totally harras a 61 that needs just one more piece of A grade to complete set. Pathetic. There are no variations of weapons for different people and enchanting via crystals (again another way your local farmer friend loves to help) just adds a miniscule difference, because in the end, everybody has the exact same enchant.
Fourth Failure, content. The game is shallow. Simple as that. It needs alot more content to back it up. They have been fixing this every since Chron 4 but the game is still sticking to its, just farm farm farm and grind grind grind roots that get boring and shove everyone away. Where are the reputation rewards? The different quests that actully give meaning for you to go out and kill something, get a reward, or something. Mounts.. why do only castel leaders get one of the things people since Open Beta have been wanting, which are the Wyvrns?! The dragons were fun and popular for about 2 weeks into chron 2 then they were just a.. meh.. have different mounts, have more things to do, more things you can try to achieve.
Fifth failure, PvP. This is an open PvP game, it is the backbone to Lineage 2, it always talks about its amazing PvP.. where? I was part of Siegharth, the self proclaimed PvP server in North America. The Karma system is a joke, nobody wants to fight unless a group forms or whatnot, and you cant openlly kill anybody because the penalty of it is just o huge (losing gear) It's stupid to the extent that WoW has alot more of an open PvP than Lineage 2. Granted you cant kill alliance but you can go around any area above level 20 and kill as many opposite faction players as you desire, and you see them all the time, so you can world pvp as much as your heart desires, with no penalty. Lineage 2's PvP is crap talking, thats all it is, and thats all they do. talk talk talk talk and line hop. We're this immense PvP? Why cant we attack different towns? clan halls? something that you can raid that cant be once every two weeks for 2 hours. I havent had as much PvP fun as invading Orgrimmar and killing Thrall. It was just an invasion, nobody in horde knew about it. That's fun. Castle sieges i did have alot of fun in, and they are a highlight, but Lineage 2 needed alot more than those once every two week events. Add something more than retarded arenas or colliseums. WoW has the battlegrounds, which make WoW PvE servers have alot more PvP than Lineage and their open PvP servers. It's pathetic really.
Sixth Failure, Dependancy on buffs. Seriously, buffs made and broke the game. If you dont have buffs, you dont PvP, you suck at leveling, you just dont do anything. No buffs = you suck. WoW has buffs, but the buffs it has arent so overpowerd, and the game doesnt depend on them. Granted, in a raid situation, buffs are mandatory or else you arent going anywhere, but that's a good reason and a need to have alot of buffs, but to fight anyone at anytime, or just to grind.. that brings us back to cheaters again. When people need to have a second account to have a bot following them around buffing, you know you failed and your game has failed. Oh and Soul Shots.. rofl
Seventh failure, no more noobies. The game needs people to be attracted to the game and have people constantly coming and buying your game. WoW does a good job in this by having very low level insatnces and group quests that give players of low levels the chance to group with other players, find guilds, and make friends. The game will feel alot more attractive and they will keep progressing. Lineage 2 gives you a nice welcome with it taking you a loooooong time to reach level 20 in order to have something else besides one stupid attack, and then its off to the mega grind. People get turned off as soon as they reach 20 and find out, its the same exact BS. Oh and watch out with those PKers, they take away that EXP that took you a long time to get. Taking away EXP after a death is ridiculous.
And well, those are my main beefs with the game. Now after saying all that, Lineage 2 has been my fav MMO and I love it. If NCSoft releases Lineage 3, I will be one of the first in line for OB and maby a spot in closed beta as well, i just hope they fix the game. Now I dont want a WoW copy either, i used WoW as a reference only because WoW and Lineage 2 are the only MMOs I have played for more than 2 years each. NCSoft needs to grab its strengths, which are the ability to make incredible graphics. Lineage has graphics that dont compare to any other MMO and they are far superior. The use of Soul Shots is also awsome, especially when they hit and the sounds. My gf looked at me play a private server of Lineage 2 and she was like, how can you like WoW more than this, this looks alot better and much cooler. She's right, the look of it is alot better. The spells are awsome, the attacks are great. NCSoft also succeeds in music, the music for this game is also top notch. The PvP does need a little more skilled added to it though, as of right now, PvP requires no skill at all. Point and shoot, point and shoot. Just fix this a bit.
i already know what it says without reading it. Yea we ar NCsoft know are game has gone to shit and we are working on L3 so we can get rid of this once great game that has got so bad that our players are resroting to playing WoW
In other stuff, i think L2 needs more armors, new items, but what really needs? fix some big bugs
WHAT A SHAME, a truly game that have all that bug bugs around... and seems that nobody cares about it
i hope that all bugs and this in spacial finish on these cronicle chapters, and the new one have all fixed please do something right!!!!!!!
i was try all kind of MMO and in the end Lineage 2 is the best of all of them, yeah much better than that shit called WoW i hate that shit bad grafics, bad characters.... all about that game is a shit i dunno why is the most popular game, i think is cos the stategic game was the best ( i agree on this) but world of W sucks
In conclution: lineage 2= best game and wow (its not the worst but it coldnt be the best
Lindrea, you are obviously not a hardcore player and therefore not the target audience of L2. But you've got WoW, so there's no problem in that. Game developers are allowed to tailor their games to a specific audiences, just like television shows have target audiences and advertisers develop their commercial spots to attract a certain group of people. (I say you're not a hardcore player based off of several comments you made, maybe you consider yourself one, but I don't.)
I won't go through your post point by point because it was really long and I don't feel like doing that. But here are just a few things, in no particular order:
You talked about pvp and the penalties (loss of xp on death and chance to loose gear.) First, most people are in clan wars and own clan halls, which considerably lessons the sting of dying in pvp. Yeah, at level 77 it hurts like heck, but not below level 72. The 1% you loose (or less with the xp return you get from going back to your clan hall at death) can be regained in about 10-20 minutes of killing mobs. Big whoop. Plus, you can't drop gear when you die anymore. They changed that this chronicle. So fight all you want, you're not going to loose your gear (unless you have more than 5 PKs, that is.) And they even added scrolls that you take during sieges so you don't loose any xp when you die on a siege field. And in the next expansion, they're changing the death penalty relative to your level. Loosing 4% at level 40 in no way compares to loosing 4% at level 79. So they will change it to make it more comparable.
Also, you mentioned not being able to use equipment without having a full set. That's completely untrue. You can use any equipment you want, without having a full set. It's not going to gimp you as much as you act like it will. Anyway, most people keep their B-grade set until they have accumulated most of their A-grade set. When they are ready to buy/craft that last piece, they sell their old set of equipment to fund the purchase.
And customization? I've played other games with 100x the customization, but none have been as aesthetically pleasing as L2. In most games, the graphics suck and all the customization in the world can't make up for that fact. In other games, you can customize everything about your character and the graphics are good, but the camera is stuck behind the character or in 1st person, and you never see your character's front, so what does it matter?
i understand and i am a hardcore gamer. I was one of the first 75's in Siegharth (prolly top 10 sometimes its hard to tell since u cant see other people's levels) But doing crummy hit fixes like adding scrolls and what not doesnt help that much. I understand that the game is geared towards to a different audience than other games, im not asking for a WoW impersonator.. hell, the exp grind would't be much of a hassle, if that wasnt all there was to do. Heros? Seven Signs Competition? Nobles? its all a bunch of crap. Add some real content. The only reason the grind got annoying was because ok.. here i am, 6 hours in the middle of the night in 11th floor ToI, oh yes.. fun fun.. I got my set done everything is good, now what.. *cricket chirps*
That;'s really my beef with it, the game is way too shallow. And the game does need alot of customization, maby it has changed since Chron 3 from last time i played, but everybody looked the freaking same. Yeah I saw a Zubei wearing Silver Ranger once in a blue moon, we all got a huge crack out of it too. And I wore a half B grade half A grade set once.. a Spellsinger in C grade my own level could wtfpwn me.
I love the world this game was based under, I was a WoW basher when it released and an L2 lover, but the game got annoying after every sorry NCSoft attempt at making this fun. Adding a bunch of dungeons that look exactly the same, trying to fix the karma system by giving you 5 free PKs and a way to take em off through quest (its supposed to be open, let there be a free for all in killing and make some lowbie areas peace zones where u cant fight or something to prevent griefing) . Im just pissed to see them not fixing core problems with the game instead just adding crap after crap. I'll keep my hopes up for Lineage 3
Lineage is a really nice looking game with many nice options, but there is too much to fix. to me a rollplay game shoud have a nice storry and many nice quests.you should be able to lvl and make xp without killing mobs all the time.It's a little sad that all the dungeons are the same with different mobs. i played lineage 2 for about a half year and i am bored. till the endgame it's nothing but killing mobs.
what about some npc's with nice new quests to lvl without getting bored?
1. Botting is not that obvious. There have been multiple times I've been accused of botting when I was running a legit client. Why? Because people are quick to throw that excuse out, especially when they lose in pvp.
2.I have no idea why you are talking abut RL threats and beatings in asian communities. That's in Asia, and it's not like Americans are really great about games either. I can link to dozen of EQ news articles where American players let their children die b/c they were busy playing EQ.
3. You don't need cheats to run multiple L2 clients. I have no idea where you got this idea from.
4. I have no idea what you are talking about Koreans making their living off of adena sales. Koreans don't farm on American servers. Koreans don't even sell adena. Chinese farmers are primarily responsible for the adena trade. Talk to a farmer in game, they sure as hell aren't speaking Korean.
5. I have no idea where you get this "Korean community" thing either. The Koreans play on their own shards. Americans play on American shards.
i agree with the replies above
l2 is the game if you look for a competitive pvp mmorpg
the problem is that even after almost 3 years in the 6th update:
im really hoping l2 develops towards fixing those problems but im even more exited about
new games like warhammer online to see if they can fix them from the go.
I have Been Playing L2 for over 3 years now and I love it. I hate the cheaters and I blame NC soft for the botting they could easily fix the program to log off if you even try 2 start that walker program. Yes it will just go back 2 farmers playing like in c1 and c2 but at least that was fun they would PVP for the area and that's how I got most of the 388 PVP points I have now just killing farmers. yea the Grind sucks but you feel good about what you have done. and no I'm not max lvl after 3 years. I always seam 2 come up short on money so I end up making a new player to make some cash 2 fund my main and they all just share armor and weapons. But over the 3 years many of my friends quit and I end up with they gear. I like the free gear but I hate when friends quit. At least the ones that quit 2 go play WOW come back. But some quit forever I lost a dear friend that way.
Point is L2 the best game I ever played and I'm not a gamer so that means nothing lol. But I will play it till the end because I like it that much and all the friends that still play it 90% of them are in the sameAlliance with me and it's a big Alliance
If you can quit playing online games then you have already won. if not your stuck like me but the day Lionna server goes down on L2....... is the day I win......and I get the best prize of them all.
My Life Back .
You're going to get your wish:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unreal_Engine_3#Unreal_Engine_3_2 -- Look at the 11th game listed there :). Will probably need a pretty beefy system to run it though... Unreal Engine 3 is no slouch (look at Gears of War for reference).
That said...
I tend to agree with alot of what Lindrea said.. While it's pretty wide in terms of leveling and such.. it's not a very deep game at all. And, I disagree with an earlier comment about it being the only true open PvP game... Shadowbane is far more open PvP than L2 is. As Lindrea points out, there are penalties in L2, and they have toned down the PvP and its consequences drastically since launch. I remember when a GM would say mob-training someone was a legitimate PvP tactic, as was griefing someone right outside a newbie area (I know, because I reported it once and that was the reply I got).
However, it seems that even NCSoft had to acknowledge that open PvP games are simply not the way to go if you want a large player-base with a healthy flow of new players. They had to tone it down.
As for the botting.. a couple people have tried to basically make it sound "not that bad" and used the fact that it's an open, un-instanced world as the explanation of why there are so many. I would agree with you, if I hadn't also played many other MMOs without instances where botters/farmers were forced to do their thing out in the open.. and I never saw botting even remotely close to what I've seen on a regular basis in L2. Dark Elven Village? Heh... yeah.. Saw at least 15-20 botters, all dwarves in the same gear, the same look and the same nonsense garbled names, running the same exact patterns... Go out to the swamp-lands.. same thing.. they're swarming the hills around there like ants at a picnic. And NCSoft is, at best, completely incompetent at dealing with them. At worst, as some have alleged, they're in league with the RMT farmers. However, when I've reported the same group 3 weeks in a row.. and they were still there a couple weeks after that... it's not so much of a stretch to believe it.
So, while I would find any other point to be subjective and open for debate... the botting thing is a serious problem in L2 and I wish people would stop trying to down-play it, or use relativistic comments like "all MMOs have botting...". It just reeks of intellectual dishonesty. Yes, all MMOs do have some degree of botting/farming - but none that I've ever seen (I've played over 25 to date) even hold a candle to L2 in that regard.
What about the russian guy who murdered his clanmate over game problems on franz?
What about the clan leader who's wife and kids got harassed IRL by his enemies in game?
What about the "unofficial" forums that everyone uses where links to trojans are posted IP's are collected and the head moderator made a ploy to get users to idle in IRC to be hacked?
What about the player's clans' forums and ventrilo servers that get hacked and raided?
This game is only about one thing, money.
The real players of this game, the "in" crowd, are nothing but e-thugs and wannabe gangsters.
It sounds like a joke, but cross the wrong people in this game and they'll make your RL miserable.
uh... sorry, but no. That Russian guy was retarded for doing that, but that was an isolated incident. I don't know everything about the situation, but it's not like some player got mad, looked up where another player lived and then went and killed him. There was more IRL stuff going on than that. And again - isolated incident. I don't fear for my safety if I tick someone off in-game. I have actually heard of "enemies" in game who live near each other getting together and forming friendships IRL. Or hooking up in other games as friends.
You can't judge a group of people based off of one insane person. Should I think all WoW players are mindless lemmings just because one kid jumped to his death while reinacting a scene from the game? Or that all parents who play WoW are irresponsible just because two parents let their infant daughter die while they played the game? And what about the guy from Legend of Mir III that killed his friend over an in-game weapon? Should I write off both of those games and their entire communities because of a few stupid people?
And I've never heard of the wife and kids getting harassed, but I bet there was IRL stuff involved in that. Nor do I have any idea what you are talking about with the "unofficial" website.
This game is full of players who form stronger bonds of friendship than pretty much any other game out there. L2 is not full of e-thugs. Wow... I seriously think I lost some brain cells just reading your ridiculous post.
Unofficial forums Currently Active Users: 337 (107 members and 230 guests)
Official forums There are 17 registered and 49 anonymous users online.
The real community thrives on psychopathic behavior. It's a tug-o-war of sadism and RL griefing just to protect those thousands of dollars of ebayed assets. Believe it or not.
Nobody ever thinks a simple game could nourish so much cruelty.
If you are posting about L2 on mmorpg.com you do NOT understand L2.
"Those who speak don't know, those who know don't speak" -Lao Tzu
flame on