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Originally posted by Sovrath

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Originally posted by Adamantine

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Originally posted by HorActi

It's a sandbox afterall. 

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Err ... what ? This is not a sandbox. You cant change ANYTHING about the game, except conquer castles.
 
 

A sandbox is a game where the player makes the game. Lineage 2 is a fixed gameworld where you cant change squat about it. And it has quests, even if not very good ones.
With your definition, Vanguard would be a sandbox, too. In fact its MORE of a sandbox as Lineage 2, because you can actually build a house or a guild hall in Vanguard.
You can just trade in a themepark as well. No game developer can FORCE you to level up, and why would they want to. Having an economy is pretty much standard in MMOs.

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Actually, it is a sandbox game. It doesn't come out and "say that" but the entire thrust of the game play depends upon the players. You want to run a clan and support an alliance? You can. you want to create an empire? You can (or try at least). You want to terrorize a town and extort money from players? You can. You want to be a dedicated crafter and work the market? You can. Raid? you can. War on your fellow man? You can.
What you can change is the political landscape. This is a game about war. You want to make back room deals to overthrow a castle holding clan/alliance? You can. You want to just get peeps and work on leveling or work on getting mats to craft something? You can.
It's your choice. It's not a "run, do quest/rinse repeat and then go to cap and raid" game.
Not yet anyway.
 

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Agree w/ this, you are right man, for all those ppl who think that in l2 you must follow a way, thats not true. you can live happy in l2 selling/buying and crafting as a dwarf, or killing/pvp, working as mercenary in territory wars or sieges, join clan ally etc...

yes, very possible. I just started leveling on russian servers and got lvl 30 in about 2-3 hours just by questing. At level 20 I had top D grade wep 2x, armor, jewlry and almost 1million adena, all from quests. 

Originally posted by Mannish

Originally posted by Adamantine

Originally posted by HorActi

It's a sandbox afterall. 

Err ... what ? This is not a sandbox. You cant change ANYTHING about the game, except conquer castles.

 

 

Originally posted by Mannish

I have always thought of Lineage 2 as a sandbox and I been playing for 6 years. As soon as you make your toon in Lineage 2 you can go where ever you want and do what ever you want. There is no quest line that you must follow and no invisable walls that make you stay on a certain path or in a certain area. You can do or be what ever you want in Lineage 2. Just the other week I met a person in Giran who says they do not xp at all. They said they play the game just to buy, sell and trade so thats all they do. 

Sorry, but that doesnt compute. Maybe some themeparks might have invisible barriers and a predefined quest path etc. But thats in no way implied, and its pretty easy to make a sandbox with invisible barriers and/or quests. Wasnt Archeage a new sandbox that had quests as well ?

A sandbox is a game where the player makes the game. Lineage 2 is a fixed gameworld where you cant change squat about it. And it has quests, even if not very good ones.

With your definition, Vanguard would be a sandbox, too. In fact its MORE of a sandbox as Lineage 2, because you can actually build a house or a guild hall in Vanguard.

You can just trade in a themepark as well. No game developer can FORCE you to level up, and why would they want to. Having an economy is pretty much standard in MMOs.

 

You have no idea what Lineage 2 is about and you also have no idea what a Sandbox game is. LOL, everything about Lineage 2 is in the hands of the players. Alliances and Clans control every aspect of Lineage 2. Any real Lineage 2 player that has really experienced Lineage 2 for what it is can tell you like some of the posters above. You dont know because you have not done it.  You talking to a 6 year vet thats right now sitting at max level waiting on the update so dont even waste your time talking to me because I know exaaclty what my game is.

Well, the problem is there is no single definition of what a sandbox style game is or what features it should contain to earn the title of sandbox.

To some purists, a sandbox style MMO cannot by definition have preset classes that lock a player into a particular skill path.  Several folks have used EVE as their comparision, and its a good one, a player in theory can eventually pursue any path on a single avatar, and since L2 doesn't permit this sort of flexibility they reject it as a sandbox style game.

Also, to other folks a good sandbox allows players to build things in the game world, and tear them down again. Lineage 2 does not offer this, ergo its more like DAOC in terms of players controlling certain premade castles and what not and that title wasn't sandbox either.

Now the crafting is somewhat sandboxy, though its been a while and it seems to me that to really gather or craft you had to be a pariticular race (dwarf?) which again moves the title away from a true sandbox in many folks eyes.

Levels are another no-no for most sandbox style games, EVE, UO don't have them, and there is no pre-determined "end game" which L2 most certainly has and players really can't be part of until they reach the upper tiers.

So sure, it has many sandbox style elements, but compared to a more traditional title such as UO, SWG pre-NGE or EVE, it really doesn't compare.

Does any of that matter in terms of the title being fun, no of course not, but any time someone starts tossing around the term "sandbox" on these forums its always going to start up a debate.

I've thought of dropping back in for a bit once the F2P version launches, would be fun to see how the world evolved since the early days.

Quick note, a game that just lets you kill crap over and over isn't a sandbox, it's a grinder. A sandbox is a game that allows you to do as you like, it gives you freedom. Games can have sandbox ELEMENTS, that doesn't make it a sandbox.

Back to the topic, though...

Last interview I read (which came from this site, actually, iirc) said that the leveling curve was being completely overhauled for F2P conversion. 1-40 would take only a few hours, 40-80 longer but of course but the "Lineage 2 grind" as we know it isn't supposed to kick in until third tier jobs, which is like 83ish? I don't remember exactly, someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

Originally posted by gaeanprayer

Quick note, a game that just lets you kill crap over and over isn't a sandbox, it's a grinder. A sandbox is a game that allows you to do as you like, it gives you freedom. Games can have sandbox ELEMENTS, that doesn't make it a sandbox.

 

Back to the topic, though...

 

Last interview I read (which came from this site, actually, iirc) said that the leveling curve was being completely overhauled for F2P conversion. 1-40 would take only a few hours, 40-80 longer but of course but the "Lineage 2 grind" as we know it isn't supposed to kick in until third tier jobs, which is like 83ish? I don't remember exactly, someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

This would be excellent news if true.  Hopefully someone can confirm.

Originally posted by Kyleran

Originally posted by Mannish

Originally posted by Adamantine

Originally posted by HorActi

It's a sandbox afterall. 

Err ... what ? This is not a sandbox. You cant change ANYTHING about the game, except conquer castles.

 

 

Originally posted by Mannish

I have always thought of Lineage 2 as a sandbox and I been playing for 6 years. As soon as you make your toon in Lineage 2 you can go where ever you want and do what ever you want. There is no quest line that you must follow and no invisable walls that make you stay on a certain path or in a certain area. You can do or be what ever you want in Lineage 2. Just the other week I met a person in Giran who says they do not xp at all. They said they play the game just to buy, sell and trade so thats all they do. 

Sorry, but that doesnt compute. Maybe some themeparks might have invisible barriers and a predefined quest path etc. But thats in no way implied, and its pretty easy to make a sandbox with invisible barriers and/or quests. Wasnt Archeage a new sandbox that had quests as well ?

A sandbox is a game where the player makes the game. Lineage 2 is a fixed gameworld where you cant change squat about it. And it has quests, even if not very good ones.

With your definition, Vanguard would be a sandbox, too. In fact its MORE of a sandbox as Lineage 2, because you can actually build a house or a guild hall in Vanguard.

You can just trade in a themepark as well. No game developer can FORCE you to level up, and why would they want to. Having an economy is pretty much standard in MMOs.

 

You have no idea what Lineage 2 is about and you also have no idea what a Sandbox game is. LOL, everything about Lineage 2 is in the hands of the players. Alliances and Clans control every aspect of Lineage 2. Any real Lineage 2 player that has really experienced Lineage 2 for what it is can tell you like some of the posters above. You dont know because you have not done it.  You talking to a 6 year vet thats right now sitting at max level waiting on the update so dont even waste your time talking to me because I know exaaclty what my game is.

Well, the problem is there is no single definition of what a sandbox style game is or what features it should contain to earn the title of sandbox.

To some purists, a sandbox style MMO cannot by definition have preset classes that lock a player into a particular skill path.  Several folks have used EVE as their comparision, and its a good one, a player in theory can eventually pursue any path on a single avatar, and since L2 doesn't permit this sort of flexibility they reject it as a sandbox style game.

Also, to other folks a good sandbox allows players to build things in the game world, and tear them down again. Lineage 2 does not offer this, ergo its more like DAOC in terms of players controlling certain premade castles and what not and that title wasn't sandbox either.

Now the crafting is somewhat sandboxy, though its been a while and it seems to me that to really gather or craft you had to be a pariticular race (dwarf?) which again moves the title away from a true sandbox in many folks eyes.

Levels are another no-no for most sandbox style games, EVE, UO don't have them, and there is no pre-determined "end game" which L2 most certainly has and players really can't be part of until they reach the upper tiers.

So sure, it has many sandbox style elements, but compared to a more traditional title such as UO, SWG pre-NGE or EVE, it really doesn't compare.

Does any of that matter in terms of the title being fun, no of course not, but any time someone starts tossing around the term "sandbox" on these forums its always going to start up a debate.

I've thought of dropping back in for a bit once the F2P version launches, would be fun to see how the world evolved since the early days.

 

 

 

Like I said you dont know what Lineage 2 is so I am wasting my time talking to you. You dont listen to people who have spent years playing the game and you are one of those that think if its not like Ultima, or Eve then its not a sandbox game. LOL

Lineage 2 is its own game, it kinda isn't defined by sandbox or themepark and quite honestly its concept predates the terms. Either way its closer to a sandbox than themepark atleast pre GoD.

Originally posted by Sovrath

Originally posted by rav3n2

Originally posted by Sovrath

Originally posted by Adamantine

Originally posted by HorActi

It's a sandbox afterall. 

Err ... what ? This is not a sandbox. You cant change ANYTHING about the game, except conquer castles.

 

 

A sandbox is a game where the player makes the game. Lineage 2 is a fixed gameworld where you cant change squat about it. And it has quests, even if not very good ones.

With your definition, Vanguard would be a sandbox, too. In fact its MORE of a sandbox as Lineage 2, because you can actually build a house or a guild hall in Vanguard.

You can just trade in a themepark as well. No game developer can FORCE you to level up, and why would they want to. Having an economy is pretty much standard in MMOs.

Actually, it is a sandbox game. It doesn't come out and "say that" but the entire thrust of the game play depends upon the players. You want to run a clan and support an alliance? You can. you want to create an empire? You can (or try at least). You want to terrorize a town and extort money from players? You can. You want to be a dedicated crafter and work the market? You can. Raid? you can. War on your fellow man? You can.

What you can change is the political landscape. This is a game about war. You want to make back room deals to overthrow a castle holding clan/alliance? You can. You want to just get peeps and work on leveling or work on getting mats to craft something? You can.

It's your choice. It's not a "run, do quest/rinse repeat and then go to cap and raid" game.

Not yet anyway.

 

 

QFT!

Some ppl think that a sandbox needs to have the ability for you to change the terrain for some reason. Lineage 2 is pretty open ended, players shape the world depending on the politics, affiliations and alliances, changing servers in L2 is like playing a different game sometimes.

Each server holds their own rules and they are dictacted by players, I remember on Gustin back in the day no one outside the main alliance were allowed in DVC without paying a "hunting fee" and no one went without paying, sure you could but then you would suffer the consequences.

On Hindemith, when an alliance became too much of a pain in the A** the entire server would rise up and kick them out of their castle.

I dunno Mafia did pretty good at slapping around the server for awhile >:)

Originally posted by Aori

Originally posted by Sovrath

Originally posted by rav3n2

Originally posted by Sovrath

Originally posted by Adamantine

Originally posted by HorActi

It's a sandbox afterall. 

Err ... what ? This is not a sandbox. You cant change ANYTHING about the game, except conquer castles.

 

 

A sandbox is a game where the player makes the game. Lineage 2 is a fixed gameworld where you cant change squat about it. And it has quests, even if not very good ones.

With your definition, Vanguard would be a sandbox, too. In fact its MORE of a sandbox as Lineage 2, because you can actually build a house or a guild hall in Vanguard.

You can just trade in a themepark as well. No game developer can FORCE you to level up, and why would they want to. Having an economy is pretty much standard in MMOs.

Actually, it is a sandbox game. It doesn't come out and "say that" but the entire thrust of the game play depends upon the players. You want to run a clan and support an alliance? You can. you want to create an empire? You can (or try at least). You want to terrorize a town and extort money from players? You can. You want to be a dedicated crafter and work the market? You can. Raid? you can. War on your fellow man? You can.

What you can change is the political landscape. This is a game about war. You want to make back room deals to overthrow a castle holding clan/alliance? You can. You want to just get peeps and work on leveling or work on getting mats to craft something? You can.

It's your choice. It's not a "run, do quest/rinse repeat and then go to cap and raid" game.

Not yet anyway.

 

 

QFT!

Some ppl think that a sandbox needs to have the ability for you to change the terrain for some reason. Lineage 2 is pretty open ended, players shape the world depending on the politics, affiliations and alliances, changing servers in L2 is like playing a different game sometimes.

Each server holds their own rules and they are dictacted by players, I remember on Gustin back in the day no one outside the main alliance were allowed in DVC without paying a "hunting fee" and no one went without paying, sure you could but then you would suffer the consequences.

On Hindemith, when an alliance became too much of a pain in the A** the entire server would rise up and kick them out of their castle.

I dunno Mafia did pretty good at slapping around the server for awhile >:)

They did but I don't remember what happened to them. I do think that they were eventually ousted but it's so long ago.

Originally posted by Sovrath

Originally posted by Aori

Originally posted by Sovrath

Originally posted by rav3n2

Originally posted by Sovrath

Originally posted by Adamantine

Originally posted by HorActi

It's a sandbox afterall. 

Err ... what ? This is not a sandbox. You cant change ANYTHING about the game, except conquer castles.

 

 

A sandbox is a game where the player makes the game. Lineage 2 is a fixed gameworld where you cant change squat about it. And it has quests, even if not very good ones.

With your definition, Vanguard would be a sandbox, too. In fact its MORE of a sandbox as Lineage 2, because you can actually build a house or a guild hall in Vanguard.

You can just trade in a themepark as well. No game developer can FORCE you to level up, and why would they want to. Having an economy is pretty much standard in MMOs.

Actually, it is a sandbox game. It doesn't come out and "say that" but the entire thrust of the game play depends upon the players. You want to run a clan and support an alliance? You can. you want to create an empire? You can (or try at least). You want to terrorize a town and extort money from players? You can. You want to be a dedicated crafter and work the market? You can. Raid? you can. War on your fellow man? You can.

What you can change is the political landscape. This is a game about war. You want to make back room deals to overthrow a castle holding clan/alliance? You can. You want to just get peeps and work on leveling or work on getting mats to craft something? You can.

It's your choice. It's not a "run, do quest/rinse repeat and then go to cap and raid" game.

Not yet anyway.

 

 

QFT!

Some ppl think that a sandbox needs to have the ability for you to change the terrain for some reason. Lineage 2 is pretty open ended, players shape the world depending on the politics, affiliations and alliances, changing servers in L2 is like playing a different game sometimes.

Each server holds their own rules and they are dictacted by players, I remember on Gustin back in the day no one outside the main alliance were allowed in DVC without paying a "hunting fee" and no one went without paying, sure you could but then you would suffer the consequences.

On Hindemith, when an alliance became too much of a pain in the A** the entire server would rise up and kick them out of their castle.

I dunno Mafia did pretty good at slapping around the server for awhile >:)

They did but I don't remember what happened to them. I do think that they were eventually ousted but it's so long ago.

Not to sure, left game before they folded.. i was in it when siphex was in control(roomy at the time).

Originally posted by HorActi

With the changes implemented in GoD update it seems it will be easier to level than before. That being said, grinding is Lineage2 and Lineage2 is grinding. It's a sandbox afterall. 

My opinion: You don't lose anything by creating an account when it goes free. I have no more than a couple of hours a day free, and still I will give it a shot, cause the game really derserves it. I had played lineage2 from 2004 to 2006, and from 2009 to 2010. You had to devote lots of hours back then to catch up with the bot-ers. Now the new server in Innova it will be bot-free, as they promise, so yeap a casual player won't have much of a problem.

I haven't played L2 Retail in a long time. But i've never really seen how this game could be a sandbox. Maybe changes have been implemented that I didn't know about. Can you please explain?

I can casually play or hardcore any game.  When you reach a point you can dictate at what pace you want to play instead of the game dictating that pace then you have reached gamers Nirvana.  But that comes with age and experience.

Lineage 2 will definitely be playable with casual play in GoD.  But don't expect to hold alliances with casual play as the politics of the game are in constant flux and dynamic because of players.  There are no artificial mechanisms to dictate who attacks who for example.