Lineage II: The Chaotic Chronicle

"A spectacular failure"

What's the difference between the Lineage 2 open beta and the April 28th full version ?

Nothing.

Lineage 2 is one of NCSoft's newest MMORPG, based off the first Lineage (which wasn't worth the monthly cost...). In Lineage 2, you create a character that you'll run around with online, beating up monsters and other players. Lineage 2 will EVENTUALLY (it's unknown when..) feature massive clan battle, where clans can own castles and lay waste to other clan's castles. Seems like a good game ? Think again...

You start the game by making your character. You get to choose from 5 races (human, elf, dark elf, orc, and dwarf), then you pick which profession you'd like to start as (fighter or mystic). Next, you get to customize your character. You get very minimal choices for your characters appearance unfortunately. Within minutes of entering the game you'll no doubt run into your twin. When you take your first step into the world of Lineage 2, you'll be placed in whatever city your race belongs too. From then on, the only options you have in the game are: Go kill monsters, buy armor or weapons, or kill other players (unless you're a dwarf, then you have those option, plus another one: crafting items). The quests are pretty basic. Go kill this monster until you have X number of items. They can take a very short time to complete, or a very long time.. Depends on your personal luck really.

How do you fight ? It's simple. Click on your target, then click on it again. Your character will run up to the monster (or player), and start whacking it with whatever weapon you have equipped (you can throw in the occasional fighting move if you want). If you're a mystic, cast spells on it til the opponent dies. Pick up what the enemy drops, then sit down to recover your HP and MP. That's all there is too it.

Once you hit lvl 20, you can change your job. You can choose between 2 jobs, then another 2 jobs at lvl 40. They'll give you more skills and make you stronger. Yep..

Now for the PvP aspect of the game. Don't like someone ? Go kill them. Run up to them and just attack them. Your name will turn purple, indicating you're a PvP person, and watch as 4-5 other people run up to you and all attack you, probably killing you. If you're lucky, no one will interfear, and your target will strike back and you've got a nice 1vs1 match going. If they don't strike back, and you kill them, your name turns red, and EVERYONE will try to kill you. Red name players have a very high percentage chance of dropping an item they have in their inventory or equipped. If you're name isn't red, and you get killed, there's still a chance you'll drop something though. Die, and you lose experience. You can even level down if you don't have enough experience.

''Sometime in June 2004'', Chronicle 1 will be added. With this update, there will be clan fights known as castle sieges. Sounds like fun, but what happens when you pack a whole bunch of players in one single area ? Each character highly detailed, some riding mounts, some casting spells. That seems like it will be more like lag fighting. Anyways, clan leader owns a castle (if they're lucky), then another clan comes and tries to take it over. Massive PvP, people dropping levels left and right. Fun.

Graphics ? They're pretty good. The game is pretty detailed. Nice to look at, but I don't really care bout that stuff.

Sound.. Alright.. There's an occasional BGM that will play now and then. The characters and monsters make noise. Not much to it.. I keep the sound off all the time.

Now, what makes this game not worth buying, is the lack of support. They have an incredibly bad customer support. Some GM's (game masters, they're there to help people if there's a glitch or bug, report ToS violators to), will leave their message receive off. More than once I tried to call a GM, only to get a message saying the GM isn't taking any calls, simply cause he didn't want to. Pathetic.. Another annoying feature in this game are the bots. Certain people don't like playing MMORPG's. They say they don't have time to play them, but they still buy them anyways. What they'll do is have a macro program running, controlling their character. This is called botting. The bot will run around killing monsters and collecting money. Lazy player (oh sorry, player with ''no time'' to play) then can go watch TV, sleep, whatever, and get money and lvls. NCSoft claims they're against this, but they clearly aren't. Go ahead and check ebay. Look up this game and see how much game money you can find on there. NCSoft also refuses to ban international IP address, and most of these botters are from another county. You'll be there trying to lvl up, when some bot will kill the monster you're trying to kill, take the money, then proceed to wipe out all the other monsters. Try to pk the bot, and your name goes red, and pks kills you. Another possible outcome for killing a bot is the bots owner will come and pk you. There is a large group of ebay sellers doing this, and they will pk you if they see you're messing with their bots. NCSoft doesn't care, cause they're getting real money no matter what.

Ah yes, NCSoft said one of the major feature for the game's retail release, was Chronicle 1. The Chronicle's are basically big updates that add content. Well guess what ? NCSoft decided not to release Chronicle 1 at retail, and now players that paid full price for the game, will have to wait until ''sometime in June 2004''. So, if you're buying the game before Chronicle 1 is added, guess what ? You just paid full price for the open beta, and your free month is spend on an open beta.

This game could be good, but only if NCSoft would actually support the game. They're doing nothing at all, well, actually they are. They're getting paid money. Do not buy this game if you want to have fun. If you call a bad PvP system fun, getting monsters stolen from you, losing items, getting pked over and over by grievers, then this game is for you. Me ? I'm waiting for a better game to come out..

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 04/29/04