Lineage II re-review

Torak

Here is the link

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/gameId/46/setView/reviews/loadReview/38 

Now for a few comments based on my opinion

The score itself is pretty fair. It brings it in line with the many improvements NC has made over the past few years. Its amazing that that the graphics, sound and performance STILL outclass so many new games.

My main axe to grind with this re-review is they bonk it pretty hard over "subjective" opinion.

Lastly, the largest bar against roleplay in Lineage 2 is the community itself. The game naturally attracts griefers, PvPers, and hardcore gamers, and the roleplayers who do make it to Aden receive an unfriendly and often taunting welcome. There is, however, an active roleplay community in Lineage 2 – click here (http://www.l2rpa.org/ ) for their website.

This statement here just rings of second hand opinion and NOT first hand knowledge. While its true in the noobie areas you are more prone to get "ganked" then anywhere else up front, the truth is random ganking is pretty rare. Usually attacks are prompted by guild fighting and rivalries.

As far as Unfriendly taunting welcome I have 2 comments...

1) hasn't happened to me or any any of my alts.

2) Its an open PvP game, you must expenct this to some extent, especially in the noobie areas with the people that do not know what the game is about and do not understand the mechanic of the PvP and have nothing to loose. If you are more comfortable in PvE games, common sense would tell you, you may not like or get along in an open PvP game.

L2 is no more or less able to be "role played" then any other game. Canned quest and kill task do NOT promote "role play".

Lineage 2’s community is its largest weakness, and this resonates through all aspects of gameplay. The game, produced in Korea, expects a collectivist audience with the ability and drive to work together. In the Western world, where we hold individualism above community, players have a hard time meeting many of the game’s goals which require teamwork, especially when competing against an abundance of bots and Chinese farmers.

Lineage 2 promotes competition between players and clans, and this intentional strife makes for a cutthroat and dishonorable community. Upper-end items are ridiculously rare, and too many players will scam, hack, PK, and grief to obtain them, or buy adena using real-world currency which only serves to further skew the market.

And on it goes........While I agree to some extent with most of it, I would say that the greatest weakness is NOT the community but the beyond  hard economy. What I find unfair about this generalization is it is a critism of ALL MMO's not just Lineage II. Therefore, since there is an "abundance" of bots and farmers (I will refrain from making a racist generalization) ALL MMO's advertise on IGE should suffer the same hit to the rating. Especially in light of the FACT that WoW has far more farmers and currency trading then L2 ever will.

All in all it portays the Lineage II player as a gold buying ganker which is completely unfair and generalized. Most of the opinions seem to made out of second hand information and NOT out of first hand experience.

The direct critizsms of things in L2 that exsist in all games is very disappointing

Customization - WoW you get to pick from 8 facial types per race (go and count them) About the same as L2. WoW the facial customization is so far away you can hardly tell the difference. Somehow this game game promote "more" RP.

Farmers/bots/currency trading - please, reduce the score of all MMO's if you are going to bonk L2 for this. Is the reviewer actually going to say that L2 has more of a farmer issue then WoW????? Clearly the reviewer has not spent enough time in EITHER game to know what they are talking about.

Ganking and such - hello, its an open PvP game. What do expect? A box of candy for logging in??? How can you honestly critisize a game for one of its advertised features? One that in fact has a balance and is thought out??? YOU CAN NOT run around ganking people in L2 and not suffer negitive consequences....anyone with any knowledge of the game knows that. 

I would suggest that in the future the review gets a bit more first hand knowledge, does a little research and refrains from making generalized statements (and racial sterotypes) in a professional review.

Torak

What? no replies????

Whats up with that?

SMASH!!!!!

anakinsella

i agree with you

While lineage 2 isn't perfect, i will always stand by my belief that it is one of the most underratted / wrongly judged game. Big names like gamespot and pc gamer probably played it for 5 days and gave a biased review on it, while they worship fad games like WoW So people read the low ratings from gaming sites and flock to games that get good reviews.

Hmm that didn't really make sense, but in my head it does. Point of my post, i agree that L2 doesn't get the respect it deserves and 100% agree that it's almost laughable how people call L2 a "bot infested game" when WoW has the most farmers / bots of any MMO to date. I don't even want to know how much income gold selling sites are bringing in because of WoW. Not to mention the WoW Glider bot program that thousands of people use.

Cuj0

I really disagree with the community tab on that review..

Plus, yes, they always took a problem that's common with many other games and enchant it when speaking about L2..

MmoSwan

I like the review and I think it fits the game well.

As for your point on roleplaying: I only saw a few attempts of players trying to rp and they usually got shit talked, griefed and with a good chance killed/pked the the 1337-fraction. Both on Erica and Teon. Dunno how it's on the inofficial rpg server though.

As for the community - yeah it's a weakness. There are great, fun people playing l2 but also a crap load of retards that think they are heros just for making you dislike them. Account recall wars seems to be common business on many servers and botting is completely accepted by the bigger number of players on those Servers.

Customisation is not limited to the number of faces you can choose btw. Ever noticed how many higher grade armors there are and how nearly everybody looks the same at higher levels? Or how you lack the skilltree that allows you to specialize your character while in L2 you only got dyes and those are severly limited?

Farmers are an extreme issue in L2. They run their bot trains everywhere. Whole areas are so filled with bot trains that they're inaccessible to normal players. A friend called me for help since he needed some spellbooks from EV. Every single spot had 2-3 bot trains running which means it was near to impossible to get a mob/sb drop. In WoW the farmers just go into an instance and don't lock out players.

Even worse are the Raid Boss farmers. They kill a raid boss a few minutes after it spawns. Since the RBs are needed for both class change as well as levelling sa crystals > level 10 that locks out even quite some players from the end game on the servers where they're active.

Currency trading also is a lot bigger issue in L2 then for example in WoW. While WoW got protection mechanism like bind on pick, good items only gettable over PvP ladder or 40 man raids limiting item/currency trade in many ways. So just buying currency won't make you strong. In L2 on the other hand there's no protection at all. Money buys you everything. There's nothing you can't get for adena.

As for ganking without big risk: Of couse you can do that. PK as much as you want, have walker/wind to BSOE out at 40% health and you hardly will die if you don't run into someone 20+ levels above you or a gank group.

Torak, one question, on what server do you play that you don't have all tose things? I might really reroll there.

Torak

Honestly MmoSwan,

If you read my post you would know that probably the only person who dislikes bots and farmers more then you is me

So you know as well as I do that I never said there was no prolem with bots as you are trying to make it out. What I do say as I have been in the end game of several games (WoW, DAoC, AC, SWG) is that bots and farming is just as much a problem in those games as L2, if not moreso in WoW. Look at IGE and you will that L2 is not the only game listed.

Community ....well I gotta say that L2 isn't as bad as many others. have you spent any time in WoW? How about the "free" Guild Wars? You want to see a downright sad case for community try Guild Wars. SWG? Since all the hard core players left ....lets just say there sure are alot of bored Jedi looking to duel and spam you non-stop until you leave or tell them to stfu and leave it at that, ok? Sure they are not as good as communities like Ryzom but they are exceptional.

There are far worse games is all Im saying. And no, you can't play on my server lol. (j/k)

MmoSwan

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Originally posted by Torak

There are far worse games is all Im saying. And no, you can't play on my server lol. (j/k)

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I played WoW and had a great clan there and met lots of fun people. I just got bored as hell of the 60+ grind aka raids, then raids and more raids to get better equipment. Also the aimless PvP kinda made me dislike the game. And yeah, the newbies (more there then in any game out there!) got quite annoying, too.

Guild Wars is also a game I played and still play. Can't say anything about the community though. I play there with the same ppl as my old L2 clan and I them whereever they are

But I fully agree with idiots being in every game, especially when it's pvp based. It's not only L2 - just that L2 rewards cheaters (and griefers) the most and NcSoft's denial to enforce their own TOS/EULA even on obviouis cases (accounts being botted 24/7 over weeks etc) doesn't really help. Wish NcSoft didn't just lay off 80% of their GMs. Things will get a lot worse now.

All that doesn't change anything about me liking L2. I just think it would be a lot more fun if NcSoft started to care at least a little about it. I wouldn't play it if it was no fun. But I also can understand how legit players are getting totally turned off by the reality on some of the servers and quit to make space for more cheaters.

Swan

CoeNL

I agree completely with Torak's first post

Torak

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Originally posted by MmoSwan

Originally posted by Torak

There are far worse games is all Im saying. And no, you can't play on my server lol. (j/k)

I played WoW and had a great clan there and met lots of fun people. I just got bored as hell of the 60+ grind aka raids, then raids and more raids to get better equipment. Also the aimless PvP kinda made me dislike the game. And yeah, the newbies (more there then in any game out there!) got quite annoying, too.

Guild Wars is also a game I played and still play. Can't say anything about the community though. I play there with the same ppl as my old L2 clan and I them whereever they are

But I fully agree with idiots being in every game, especially when it's pvp based. It's not only L2 - just that L2 rewards cheaters (and griefers) the most and NcSoft's denial to enforce their own TOS/EULA even on obviouis cases (accounts being botted 24/7 over weeks etc) doesn't really help. Wish NcSoft didn't just lay off 80% of their GMs. Things will get a lot worse now.

All that doesn't change anything about me liking L2. I just think it would be a lot more fun if NcSoft started to care at least a little about it. I wouldn't play it if it was no fun. But I also can understand how legit players are getting totally turned off by the reality on some of the servers and quit to make space for more cheaters.

Swan

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/agree.

I can't figure out why NC drags their feet as much as they do. Its not like the botting is a hidden or underground problem thats hard to find. We gotta have the boldest bot users of any game. They fear the other players more then they fear GM's or NC.

As for WoW. Well.....my wife STILL plays that damn game. For the past week (on and off) becasuse of my recent unrest in all MMO's, I rerolled a new toon in WoW and we have been duoing a few nights here and there. But its a drone game. What do I mean? Lame kill task, lord I hate kill task. Call them NPC deployed drone task. Go and kill 8 of these, go and kill 5 of those, bring me 10 of this or that. That isn't my idea of content. I started MMO's in AC. Now they where on to something in that game. To bad NO other game company, to include Turbine built on their original ideas.

Man that new LFG channel in WoW is a disgrace. People swearing at each other, filling it up with gibberish. (what is it with WoW and all the gibberish spam?) blah blah blah. I shut the darn thing off. I'm still in my old guild but most of the people I knew are gone now. The new guys seem pretty nice though.

I'm not saying that everyone who plays WoW has the IQ of a doorknob (hehehe) but it does take a bit more time to filter through all of them.

Thats why I never liked the idea of "rating" a game on community. Unless you really are familiar with the vast majority of people you really can't say. Your experience and mine might be totally different in the same game same server. It all depends who you meet up with. If you are unlucky enough to run into an asshat, does that mean the whole community sucks? no, not by a longshot.

GW is a really good game, but its much much better when you go in with people you know. At release I went in with 2 RL friends and my wife but they all drifted back to WoW pretty quick. I stayed away and explored a few other games.

I tried SWG first back last summer and while the community was good, it was changing because of the CU. Because of the instability the devs where causing I ended up leaving also within about 2 months. (and capping out 3 different characters on 3 different servers - all with pretty decent people but the game mechanics just kept changing) I just retried the game in May (for kicks just to see the NGE) and lord its night and day. The good community is more or less gone and has been replaced with lots of bored l337 Jedi who, for the mostpart, seem to be ex-WoW players looking for a new "challenge".

The EQII community seemed sedated or something.

I guess no game is perfect.

To bad people like me and you are not GM's in L2, we could make a difference. Did you ever see that RFO GM movie of the GM's griefing farmers? LoL that would be priceless in L2. We could buy gold on IGE then kill and ban the delivery guys. (ouch) We would probably get fired lol

(sorry if my thoughts seem broken up, Im at work and was interupted about a dozen times)