First Impressions of Lineage 2:

[EZ_Tabbran]

I haven't played too much, just got a fighter-type elf to about level 6. So far it seems to be a cross between Diablo and Everquest. You click to go where you want, though you can kinda use the arrow keys to move your character, it's just easier to click 99% of the time, though. You gain levels which affect your hitpoints and mana, etc, but you also gain points through defeating enemies which you use to buy skills. Skill sets are dependant upon your character class and profession.

The Good:

The graphics are beautiful, and a lot of time was taken on all of the models to make them look and move very nice. So much detail, it's really difficult to believe that they're playable!

The Dark Elf Female.

The radar! Newbie guide mobs are marked on the radar so you can find where they are, so are your targets and the nearest quest mobs. It's very very cool.

Newbie quests! They help you learn the town a little (at least the elf town, dunno about other races yet), and give you some money and xp and a couple give you handy items.

The varying models are my favorite touch. The races have differing models between the caster type and the fighter type, which is a cool atmospheric change. There are no super buff casters, they're skinnier and not as bulky. Most prnounced are the orc casters vs fighters, humans are pretty easy to spot, too. A little more difficult for the elf types, but it's subtle changes. Dwarves have no caster type.

The bad:

The interface is kinda poopy and fairly unintuitive. It has a short little tutorial on what you can do, but it isn't enough.

Lack of in-game documentation is ugh, I can't find a list of commands, or very much explaination of what can be done or what does what. I only know that " is a tell-type command (called whisper) because someone told me. You can't alt-tab out of it very often, or it'll crash, so that prevents me from looking things up while still playing. I still don't know if there's any way to get a listing of people online, or find a single person online, other than trying to send them a whisper.

Lack of a decent first person mode irks me, but I'm getting used to the 3rd person focus.

The Ugly:

Framerate in town is ack! If I was the only one playing, it wouldn't be an issue, but certain places (like the equipment shop) people like to congregate, and walking by there slows my computer to a stutter, and it's difficult to move around.

Movement with lots of people near you. Positive side is that there's nice collision detection, negative side is that you can get trapped by just a couple people standing the right way in a doorway. You can't click around them, and you don't climb over them, you just stand there. It's really really annoying.

Names! Argh! There isn't really a naming filter, so you can put numbers as well as letters into your name, so it's just a matter of time before 666KiLLaJuGGaLo666 makes his female dark elf fighter.

I'll know more about the game after I play some more, it's fun, but seems more like a diversion at the moment. Though it's a lot of fun to kill stuff in one hit with my mortal blow skill >:) Safehouse Minority Terror Squad Commander

[EZ_Dahne]

The bad:

It won't send me the code to get a beta account. Says it's coming to my inbox, and it never shows up.

[EZ_Eldoren]

Want mine? If so just IM me at Shlapy McCrackn.

[EZ_Saltiness]

The graphics are indeed very pretty, although there is no pixel shading on anything but the water. The best part about the graphics is movement. Characters move realistically, and I don't mean Luclin graphics "realism", I mean they actually move like a real person would. When you fight things with a sword, your character swings it like a real person would and swings from different directions and angles as if recovering from the previous swing. Dark Elf females... yes. All females in the game actually. I don't care what people say about wanting overweight or non-supermodel-looking characters in their games, these characters are hot and nice to look at. The male characters seem very attractive too, for the ladies.

I have a level 12 fighter and upon passing level 10, I must say the leveling becomes very tedious. Nothing that will alarm the avid EQ'er but still tedious. The experience curve is too steep. It takes 2 kills to get to level 2 and over 100 kills to go from 11 to 12.

The interface is pretty bad but it can be dealt with. The biggest problem is the one chat window. Only one chat window for all the game text besides NPC conversations and it can't even be resized, actually none of the windows can be resized.

Framerate is bad when 15 or more characters are moving around me but that is to be expected.

I can see the name thing being bad for people who are looking for immersion but It's not difficult to ignore.

[EZ_ZoldenShadowhunter]

Simply put: too much icing and not enough cake. Or, too much talk and not enough 'balls.'

It's pretty, sure, it has a somewhat quicker combat system than most other mmo's, but nothing to make it stand out. There is way too little content at all. Any quests are very linear, most mobs are cookie-cutter and a number of other things make it a bland mmo. The thing is, it's a korean mmo. I don't mean to sound stereotypical, but it seems you give the korean population a game with a huge level grind and they'll sit there all day killing the same crap over and over to level, and they like it. I'm alot different... I can only take so much killing, then I like to go craft a little, or do some worthwhile quests and the like. The PvP system is okay, but honestly doesn't allow for killing without severe consequences which prevents most people from wanting to do it.

I hear that the upper end level clan warfare and castle siege adds a big aspect to the game, but I don't think that's enough to save it.

Right now, I'm pretty much looking for something to hold me off or waste time on until WoW comes out. This didn't even last me the past week I've played it.

[EZ_Diabalein Avidyia]

get a group for the exp grind. with group size capped at 9 you can really really go on a slaughterfest. the difference between solo and a 2 person group is shocking, 3 people and you pretty much never have to stop. the quests are nice but so far nothing amazing. pvp is still buggy, some times you just stop attacking for no reason, targeting is just a pain in the ass.
time sink wise this game has eq beat, you can log in and play with gear you can farm or pay for with cash you earn and you dont have to spend weeks to get it. (well not so far I havent been playing long) I dont feel like I need uber gear or weapons to compete they way eq makes you feel.

[EZ_Saltiness]

I went on a killing spree tonight, got a red name and all that. I killed 2 people who didn't fight back because everyone I tried to fight either stood there like a moron or tried to run away. My name turned red and people just started trying to kill me since there are no consequences for killing a red name. You lose items if you're killed when your name is red so I just had to run. PvP in this game is stupid, everyone's too scared to do it.

[DarthEnder]

Quote:Dark Elf females... yes. All females in the game actually. I don't care what people say about wanting overweight or non-supermodel-looking characters in their games, these characters are hot and nice to look at.

Amen to that! I love standing over behind the healer and going AFK for a couple minutes so I can crank one out!

[EZ_Emmrys]

My biggest problem so far is how the camera won't follow you as you move around...so you have to keep right-clicking to reset the camera...is there something I'm missing there?

[EZ_syrupp]

Quote:The best part about the graphics is movement. Characters move realistically

heh, how many females do you know who run bent at the waist so thier upper bodies are parallel to the ground? Edited by: syrupp at: 4/5/04 8:18 am

[Llabak Tharr]

Only the ones with the really huge bazongas.

[freonsmurf]

I spent some time in closed beta and now the open beta. I understand why they are not giving out new beta keys. They opened 2 new servers over the past week. Even with no new keys being sent out, the 5 current servers are well over capacity. The 3 orignal servers are still net congestion, with two new servers it still remains diffucult to log in to the older servers.

One thing that helps with the overcrowding is their robust npc system. Mobs spawn according to how many people are in the area and npc spawn system is run on a seperate server. Of course the npc server can crash and its pretty funny to see every npc dissappear, but the staff is on top of things and you will see a systemwide message within seconds.


As for the camera options, look under system settings->game and click enter chat box, this will enable WASD controls and you can hit V for inventory instead of alt-v. This will also allow 1-9 to be used intead of function keys. For those with older systems click the minimum frame option under video and this will run everything on the lowest options. Turning off shadows will help in town. There is a camera option under there to, try that emmrys.

Looking at the game itself, it leaves alot to be desired. Dwarves,humans,orcs,dark elves,light elves are the choices for race. Each race has two basic classes. If you are anything but a dwarf you only have two choices, become a fighter or become a caster. At level 20 and 40 you can take a further step to narrow down your class(IE:Fighter becomes a Knight at lvl 20, at lvl 40 he can become a paladin or shadowknight). There is some variety in the classes but honestly the class system is really very poor. There are a small variety of extra skills you can learn to make your character stronger, but you have to earn those points in a pool that is seperate from your main experience pool. So even if you are lvl 14, you can't buy or use any of your new skills untill you have enough spellpoints saved up to purchase it.

Dwarves are the only race that can craft items, yet they can not gain experience outside of combat. Also since they are crafters they get no combat abilites until lvl 20. So you are forced to use a gimped melee with either a ranged bow attack or melee attack for 20 levels. If you can survive to level 20 you will become a very usefull and rich character, but the path is so linear it becomes a chore.


There is very little content in the game. When you first begin a new character you start in a beautiful starting area but the charm fades fast as you talk to the limited amount of npcs. To cheapen it up, even the vendors will give quests, one less npc for them to bring into the game. So my DE city of more tha 300 people has about 12 NPC's.

The quests in the game are based on level. If you are a certain level then you can receive a quest from the correct NPC. So at level 1, there are only 2 or 3 quests available to you until level 5.
Your only choice is to repeat any quest you have over and over until you reach the next level. Then once you hit level 5, you can now do the new quests.....over and over until you reach level 10 and now those quests are available to you. These quests are designed to be repeatable and have very little story involved with them. Collect 50 wolf fangs turn in for cash. When you get a higher level the quests are only a variation of the same. Now you have to collect 50 zombie skins, or 50 orcs heads. There are one or two quests for weapons or armor, the rest are just for cash.

One good thing about the npc's are the guide. The town guide will tell you what quests to do for your level, what mobs to fight and what equipment to use. Very very handy considering there is not one single readme or manual in the game outside of a poor tutorial.

Every single character looks the same. Only character customiztion is the choice of 3 hair colors or 3 body models. If you see a character that looks different, dont be confused. You will be wearing the same armor when you hit lvl 10. Every dwarf, human, elf or orc look like carbon copies. The only armor is storebought since you won't see a dwarf for a very long time.

Travel is not user-friendly. Teleporters are available but they cost 3000 adena, a very expensive trip for lowbies. There is one major dungeon for each area. So when you hit a certain level you run to the dungeon and compete with all the other carbon copies for the same mobs.

Speaking of mobs, there isnt much variety. Atleast most mobs are non-agressive. You will find yourself killing the exact same mobs for 3-4 levels until you move onto next level of mob and stick with that for 3-4 levels. Of course you could attempt to travel and find something else, but its not worth it since mob loot is almost unheard off.

The game seems to be a treadmill to the higher levels. Castle Siege and PvP are the main attraction. However, there are some serious flaws that lend to griefing. You can heal mobs. Thats right, you can heal mobs. Anyone can attack a player anytime outside of a town zone. The player that attacks becomes red, meaning that other players can now attack this person. This really isn't important, what is that if you are killed in pvp there is a chance you can drop some of your items. So if you saved up for weeks to get a weapon, you can loose it in a blink of an eye if someone attacks you. Even worse if you defend yourself form the attack you now open yourself up to other people killing you. For a game that is centered around pvp for the endgame, this system leaves alot to be desired.

Another weird thing is the guild system. There is a limit of 10 guild members when you start a guild. There is no visible guild tag until your guild reaches level 2. How does a guild reach level 2? 650,000 gold and a few thousand SP. A very steep requirement for 10 people to reach. Sure, any clan you see above level 1 is going to be strong but why create such hurdles for friends trying to play together?

The interface is complete crap. The windows can not be resized nor can any buttons be dragged. But if you bring up something in your inventory it creates an onscreen icon that can moved sorta, its weird to explain and even worse to try to use. There is a shout channel and local say channel, so spam is a plenty. A nice feature if the player store. You can sit your character down anywhere and open up a shop, its very easy to browse and buy goods. There is no friends list and to send a tell to someone you have to put a " in front of their name. The game will automatically fill in the last name your put in " making conversations with multiple people a major hassle.

There are rumors that you will be able to keep your entire character or atleast then name till retail, and there is still about 50 days of beta left.

I am not sure why I play, maybe to keep my mind off the double @#%$ I received by not getting in the CoH or WoW beta. There is no RPG in this mmorpg. With so many other choices anyone who buys this game in retail I can only consider a fool. Have fun in the beta but this game isn't worth buying.

[Ruccus]

I pretty much echo Wix's sentiments.

I was in closed beta for a short time before going on vacation, and I was able to get a female dark elf up to level 13 before the wipe. I was trying to go for level 20 to try out assassin features, but didn't have enough time.

I can honestly say I almost felt dirty playing a female dark elf, and was happy when I got to around level 10 because I was able to dress myself in the less skimpy "Street Hooker" look, a small improvement over the "Peeler Bar Bikini Dancer" look every female dark elf gets to start. They went way too inappropriate for the female dark elf models, both in breast size and attire.

The graphics are very good (it uses the same engine as Unreal Tournament 2003), but there are too many holes and not enough content as is.

[EZ_Matheren]

played the game a while back, I didn't even last a full weekend on it. dull as @#%$, graphics are pretty yet have no real options for character creation or anything. it seems like nothing more than a pretty Shadowbane, with slower leveling. and even less uniqueness between classes & races.

[EZ_Maladen]

Couple of clarifications to what Wix said.

You do not drop items when killed in PvP unless you are red. The only way you become red is by killing somebody who does not fight back.

You can drop an item when killed by a creature but it is only stuff in your inventory nothing equiped.

Healing monsters is allowed but in chronicle 1 (will be in retail version) t hey have made it so doing so will make you go purple meaning you count as attacking that person.

You do get to keep your characters from open beta into retail. There is an official post on the Lineage2 boards.

Certain creatures do drop certain items but the chance of drops are very very rare.

Not sure how far you got Wix or what areas you played in but creatures get more and more aggressive. I also saw a decent amount of variety in my leveling time in what I killed. Not huge but just as big or about as big as what I had to kill in EQ in the early days.

You can quest for a pet starting at level 15. Eventually you can even get a dragon for a pet that you can ride and if you are a clan leader that controls a castle can even have it gro into a flying dragon you can ride.

So it does offer some neat things I am not sure it is enough for me to buy. I am enjoying my beta time though and it is free so will play until release at least.

--edit--
corrected bit to pet. at least I got 1 character correct. Edited by: Maladen at: 4/5/04 1:02 pm

[EZ_Saltiness]

Ok, I tried some more PvP today. Now that I'm red, everyone is very happy to attack me. The only problem is, they attack me then run away when they realize I will kill them, so I ended up killing a lot of whites. I got up to 12 kills with 9500 karma and now if I die, I lose everything which is not a whole lot of fun. This is NOT a PvP game, it is a CvC game (clan vs clan).

[freonsmurf]

Good point there, it is more of the clan vs clan, realm vs realm oriented combat of daoc or sb than just straight up gank PK like everquest.

edit:Yea your right about the drops, its funny. Instead of helping people you watch them die and hope they drop loot, then kill their half dead mob for full exp.

Edited by: FreonSmurf at: 4/5/04 5:26 pm

[EZ_Kellaen]

If you play this game just to be a lone ganker (ala everquest pvp) you will have to be a very good player or you will get your ass handed to you many times. As stated above, it's not pvp, it's clan vs clan that the karma system is designed around. I actually like this system, it discourages the solo tards from making trouble unless they're ready to back it up.

When it goes retail you should see an end to most of the morons that are only on for a free 30 days of time waste.

[Ruccus]

Yes, the two days before the server wipe there were many gankings. It was actually pretty funny because at level 12 I was running to kill some Lesser Horrors when I was attacked by two 'red names' (PKers), evidently trying to gang up on weaker players just outside the newbie zone.

Since I carry my bow when running I didn't look much different to a newbie, but I turned around and did my level 6 power shot then the mortal blow (or whatever the dagger power is called), killing the first guy, then another dagger blow that got the second guy running away (finally realizing they weren't in my class), so I switched back to my bow and buried a power shot into his back, killing him. I lost less than half my hitpoints but it was kind of fun to hand them their arses on a platter, especially watching the second guy fall while running away, an arrow embedded into his back (and since I was playing a dark elf female, they both got beat up by a half-naked girl! )

I also hunted one of them down a second time when I happened to bump into him. This time he ran the second I started running after him (though I was still able to hunt him down and kill him).

[EZ_nekoken]

I love the ninja-style running of the dark elves in this game.

I really hope they add a bunch more variation in character creation though. It is one thing to see the incredibly well-designed models and be amazed at them. It is another to conceive that DD cup supermodel dark elves are able to swing a sword for very long. I thought EQ's dark elves were a bit over the top. L2 jumps way past that with the naughty thongs and over-endowments.

Other than the amazing graphics I haven't really seen anything in the game to make it stand out to me in the short time I've spent playing.

Narsse Nekoken

[freonsmurf]

Who said there was no rogues in L2?

[EZ_Diabalein Avidyia]

ok one real bitch I have, I have been playing an orc warrior but rolled up an orc caster to pl a friend who was going to join...orc casters, the weakest of the caster classes, the most group oriented of the caster classes doesnt get a targetable heal until lvl 25. they have to grind out til lvl 7 with a frigging atk buff as thier only offensive spell.

darkelves start with a self heal a nuke and at 7 get a targetable heal as well as a second nuke.

truly bizzare class implimentation there. the best nuke caster class is also the top healer?

[EZ_JookaWoo]

orc mages are bad ass, just start off really weak. They are not a healer role. If your thinkin of being a healer orc is not the race to pick.


Quote:the best nuke caster class is also the top healer?


Best nuker class is Spell Howler. Edited by: JookaWoo at: 4/6/04 9:12 am

[EZ_Legna ValSharess]

Personally in short I love the game, and am having a great time.

I will elaborate more when I am out of this class.

-L Legna
65 Shadows
Rallos Zek
----------
Moonflower
Power Puff Girl of
50 Circles
Guinivere

[EZ_Maladen]

I am an orc caster and at about level 8 we start to truely rock.

It is hard to believe seeing how week they start out but it is true. Once I hit level 8 I can basically kill white cons non-stop. Level 17 now and still going strong.

For those that do not know there is a quest to get a pet wolf at level 15.

The quest has 3 parts one of which is an actual quiz. Your pet can gain levels, has to be feed, and even resurrected when it dies. Rather cool I thought and maybe a glimpse of things to come.

[EZ_Mordier]

I tell you what bugs me about the game...race doesn't matter to npcs. While playing a DE mage I went running off to explore, and found myself near the starting elf city. I ran up to the main npcs and not only did they not attack me, they offered to help me. C'mon. At least tell me to bugger off. Now I see dwarves, humans and elves running around the main DE city (as if it wasn't crowded enough down there). Throw the lore out the window I guess. One of the things I loved most about EQ (and DAOC for that matter) was that race/alignment mattered. You never had the good guys running around "bad" cities, and it kept a sense of order to things.

As for aggro, the higher mobs definately aggro (and by higher, I mean most stuff over lvl 12). And woe be the guy that aggros stuff while out exping...these things will chase you until you're basically back to where you started. And it doesn't seem that guards help out.

[EZ_Maladen]

Is race suppose to matter?

I mean I tried to read what little history background about the game on the official site and I saw nothing saying that each race hates each other.

I think that since the game is so focused on clans that race was not included as a big issue. That and it would really suck considering the current set up.

Meaning that travel using teleports and what not would have to be restructured and places to train at higher levels would have to change too.

I too thought the faction of EQ where cool until I discovered that everybody could turn into a dark elf and that faction quest were rather easy. Oh the good ole days before the mask was ever found.

[EZ_Mordier]

No, not hate, but they definately talk about certain races not liking other races. Besides that though, I'm just talking about it with my preferences in mind. I have a hard time getting into a world where everyone apparantly likes everyone. I play mmorpgs with the backdrop of every fantasy novel I've read, in which there's always "people who don't like people", and some people simply aren't welcome in certain areas of the world. It just adds to the feel of the game for me.

/shrug

[EZ_Tabbran]

So, I played up until level 17 now. I'm not hooked on the game by any means, nor am I crazy about it, but it entertains and amuses me on my laptop while I'm LFG in EQ or otherwise bored.

I like the fact that I can make progress without needing a group. I like that I can make money and a little exp at the same time. I like how I can feel independent as a melee and accomplish my quests and objectives with a little forward planning and some thinking.

I don't like random greifers/pk's. I don't like the lack of a pvp level limit, cause level 39 attacking level 10's is lame. I don't like the interface (still).

I don't mind the level grind, you can go after high risk targets to get more exp in a group, but it's just that: risky.

Then again, I haven't gotten to the "higher" level of play, pretty much still a newbie. But, whatever, it's not making me hate it, and they gave me shiny armor. I think I'm gonna play when it releases, despite it all.