Lineage II

Lineage II: The Chaotic Throne (Korean:리니지 2) is a fantasy massive multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) for the PC, and a prequel to Lineage. It has become very popular since its October 1, 2003 launch in South Korea, reporting 610,918 unique users during the month of March 2007. Lineage II requires a $15 USD monthly fee to play for the United States/European regional server. Lineage II - South-East Asia (L2-SEA) 30-day subscription is US$ 7.00 (PhP 350.00; S$ 11.00; MYR 26.00) which is the rate of online games in the South-East Asia region. L2-SEA will be published by AsianMedia for the Philippines, Singapore and Malaysia, and the Open Beta Test (OBT) started on August 1, 2007. L2-SEA's timezone and time format is the new ASEAN Common Time or ACT which is UTC+0800H.

Overview

Players have a variety of things they can do for fun in the game. They play alone or as part of a group to fight monsters and complete quests for new skills, experience points, and items. Player versus player (PvP) is a significant portion of the game. The game provides many social/politic/economic aspects which are developed through the community and by the actions in-game of single players. Lineage II

features siege warfare like the original. To make sure PvP stays under control, the design includes a Karma system that provides negative consequences for killing other players when they are not fighting back.

Lineage II features greatly improved third-person 3D graphics over its predecessor. The game uses the Unreal 2.0 Engine developed by Epic Games.

Saga

Sagas are the set of story plots of Lineage II. The first time they introduced this is with the introduction of Saga 2: The Chaotic Throne which will start with the "Interlude". The first Saga was entitled "The Chaotic Chronicle"

Chronicles

Chronicles are large-scale updates to Lineage II done every half a year. They are free expansions to the game that every subscriber must download in the form of a patch. As the "Chronicles" advance, a new story develops. There are major game alterations in each new Chronicle, and the game balance has greatly changed in every case so far. Each chronicle also adds a great deal of new content to the game, including new skills, quests, areas and items; some chronicles also increased the level cap.

Saga 1: The Chaotic Chronicle

Prelude (Chronicle 0)

Lineage II went live in North America on April 27, 2004. All open beta players were required to purchase a copy of Lineage II to obtain a CD key to activate their previously used account. The purchase included the payment for the first month of gameplay. Prelude was the first time a monthly fee of $15 was charged.

There was no change in game mechanics between open beta and prelude.

Chronicle 1 : Harbingers of War

Released June 29, 2004 Chronicle 1: Harbingers of War added stirring castle sieges, new fierce monsters, items and quests, and a significantly expanded 3D world. Among the many new quests available to players is the Dragon’s Cave quest, which results in a showdown with the massive Earth Dragon, Antharas . Many of the new quests are designed to challenge higher level players, in particular. Also featured in Chronicle 1 are dozens of new weapons and skills for players to obtain. Clan housing was added, where clans can bid on clan halls through an auction system. Additionally, player and creature movement speeds were increased and new PvP arenas were added

Chronicle 2 : Age of Splendor

In Chronicle 1, when a clan successfully won a castle siege, there was not much gained from it other than reputation and pride. After Chronicle 2 was released December 8, 2004, a manor system was added. New parts of the map were added as well, such as the water city of Heine, Devastated Castle, Tower of Insolence, the castle of Innadril, the Aden Coliseum, Alligator Island, Field of Whispers, Field of Silence, and others.

Chronicle 3 : Rise of Darkness

With Chronicle 3 released May 2005, came a new twist to the L2 universe called the Seven Signs. The idea behind this twist is to pit two factions (Dusk & Dawn) against one another in a competition for Seals. This competition is voluntary but not joining may hinder progress later in the game (when one is a high level player). Seals are items dropped by mobs that, when turned in, will give players Ancient Adena. Ancient Adena is another level of the Economy in L2 and allows players to purchase items they would not normally have access to.

The addition of the Seven Signs competition also brought a large number of dungeons across Aden called Catacombs and Necropolises, that only participants in the competition can access. For one week, players compete for and turn in as many seals as they can. When dusk wins, the sky turns dark red and the moon gets a giant red eye; When dawn wins, the sky turns blue and a giant eye appears, too. Winners are given exclusive access to the Catacombs/Necropolis and the losing side will be locked out for one week. During this period, players can also exchange their seals for Ancient Adena. There is also a part called the Festival for parties of 6 or more. The party enters a room and kills monsters (also called mobs) until a time limit is up. This part of the Seven Signs also contributes to scoring in the Seals competition.

Other notable changes are: castle owners now have access to a fire-breathing Wyvern (Dragon) that they can fly around Aden (it should also be noted that they are very expensive to spawn and keep alive while in use); A Grade armor/weapons were added; and a subclass system was introduced that allows players to add another class to their character after level 75.

Chronicle 4: Scions of Destiny

Scions of Destiny was released on February 8, 2006. It featured expanded content in the form of new territories, enemies, summons, equipment, and a system designed to reward diligent, high level players that are victorious in a tournament in which they contend with other players in single combat. This expansion was released by NCSoft's North American counterpart on their Public Test Server on the 8th of January, 2006.

Chronicle 5: Oath of Blood

The Chronicle 5 expansion was released September 6, 2006. Clans received a makeover and the player level cap was raised to 80. New siegeable castles were added to the towns of Rune and Schuttgart. The Demonic Sword Zariche was introduced.Clan reputation can now be earned through Clan Academy, Clan Warfare, Clan Hall Battles and Clan Quests. Clan Reputation can be used to increase the rank of the clan to unlock clan skills and items. Clans of rank 5 and higher can create academies for the purpose of training and developing clan members. Members that complete their second class transfers through the academy receive commemorative items and increases the clan's reputation. Clan members of level 5 and higher can obtain a clan title. Clans can now have a maximum of 140 players, compared to the previous 40 players; accordingly, alliances can now only have 3 clans, instead of the previous limit of 12.

Roughly 50 skills were added for levels 55+ and the functions of certain skills were refined.

An extensive new crafting system was also introduced based on Life Crystals farmed from raid bosses, which can be traded to NPCs for items.

Saga 2: The Chaotic Throne

Interlude (Throne 0)

The name of the next Lineage II Saga was made public on October 12, 2006. Named "Lineage II: The Chaotic Throne", and the first release is entitled "Interlude", setting a new course for the Lineage II legacy. Interlude went live on Korean servers in December 2006, while on the US & EU regions, Interlude went live on April 11, 2007.

Lineage II South-East Asia will start with the Interlude patch, skipping the 3-year long Saga 1: The Chaotic Chronicle, which started on August 1, 2007.

Features : Roughly 60 skills will be added, 51 of those are for levels 76+ and 9 for levels 55+. The function of certain skills will be refined.

Interlude consists of many new features, other things include masks, weapon augmentations, additional hunting zones, a new demonic weapon for PvP, and a lot more. Interlude features the 'lost island' (or new island for the players) named "Primeval Isle" where, according to Lore, the Giants used to live. You can reach there by taking a ship, by swimming from the north of the dark elf village, or jumping off Rune castle town's harbor and swimming there.

1st Throne: The Kamael

Announced on Lineage II Korea. Trailer at: 1st Throne: The Kamael Intro1st Throne will include a new race, "The Kamael". Early fan/official art show them to have a single wing and have elven characteristics, but whereas the elves use light magic, the Kamael will use dark magic. The 1st Throne will also introduce the Fortresses and Nation Wars; not much is known about the Fortresses, but the Nation Wars is a feature that will allow not only an inter-server siege and competitions but also a regional siege and competition. This expansion will also add two more countries or land masses in the western and north eastern regions. It has also been rumored that pets will receive CP and that they "grow", similar to the Hatchlings/Striders.

Characters

Characters act as a player’s avatar within the game. Players are afforded up to 7 characters per server. As characters kill non-player character (NPC) monsters, they accumulate experience and skill points (SP). As experience points accumulate, the character's "level" increases, meaning various attributes of the character are augmented. In Chronicle 5, the level cap has been set at 80. Players purchase and then upgrade their character’s skills using SP. A character may only be deleted if not a member of a guild, or clan. The process of deletion usually takes six to seven days.

Races

There are currently five races in the World of Lineage II. Human, Light Elf, Dark Elf, Orc, Dwarf, and a new race will be added on the 1st Throne: The Kamael bringing it to six races.

Classes

There are currently a large amount of classes(36) for each race respectively. Each race and subsequent class has a set amount of Stat Points already assigned to their class.

Subclasses

Upon completing the appropriate quests after reaching level 75, a player may choose add subclass to their character. This subclass starts at level 40. Limitations are put in place on what subclass one can choose. Dark and Light Elves may not choose a class from their opposing race. Overlord and Warsmith cannot be chosen by any class. In addition a player may not choose a class that matches their main class (a Dark Avenger may not become a Paladin, likewise a Treasure Hunter may not become a Plainswalker). Once a subclass has reached level 75, you may choose another. A character may hold a total of three subclasses in addition to their main class.Players are able to switch between their main and subclasses through the appropriate NPC. Once the class has been changed, the character’s attributes switch to those of chosen class. However inventory, quests, recommendations, PvP and PK scores carry over.

Noblesses

When a character’s subclass has reached level 75, they are eligible to become a Noblesse. Upon completing the necessary quest, they receive bonuses, such as a crown, more teleportation options, and certain Noblesse-only skills and abilities. They can set a title for themselves without clan. A character must be a Noblesse in order to compete in the Grand Olympiad and become a hero. The first Quest can be accepted at level 50

Heroes

Heroes are Noblesse characters who have competed in and won the Grand Olympiad. There is a limit of 31 Heroes at any time. Only the character's main class will receive the title. Heroes receive special weapons and abilities; in addition, they may speak globally to their entire server. They also receive a glowing aura so that they stand out against other characters.

Pets

In Lineage II, a player can obtain a monster that becomes their pet through the completion of quests. Unlike other summons or magic, as long as certain conditions are met, a pet will not be bound by time limitations, nor will it be dismissed by force. These pets can also hold items in their inventories while they are called, including weapons and armor that can be equipped by the pet.

Pets fall into two categories:

Pet earned xp: Wolf, Hatchling, Strider, and Wyvern.

Player earned xp: Baby Buffalo, Baby Cougar, Baby Kookaburra, and Sin Eater

Geography

Aden lies south of the Border Outposts and it's capital castle is Aden Castle. Elmore lies to the north of the Outposts and encompasses Goddard, Rune and Shuttgart. It's capital castle is Rune Castle.

Aden currently taxes the following castles: Gludio, Dion, Giran, Oren.

Rune currently taxes the following castles: Goddard, Schuttgart.

Aden's geography ranges from deserts to tropical forests. Elmore is more rugged having mostly mountainous regions along with a frozen winter wastelands.

Along with Interlude update, the newest territory is added into Elmore's Realm. Primeval Isle is a tropical island home to fierce Dinosaur mobs.

NCsoft Publisher Partnerships

NCsoft & AsianMedia

Lineage II - South-East Asia or simply L2-SEA is NCsoft's first "Publishing License" grant for their flagship game to a completely independent company. NCsoft granted a distribution license to AsianMedia for ArenaNet's Guild Wars for the Philippines. AsianMedia has been licensed to distribute, publish, and operate Lineage II. NCSoft’s licensing grant initially limits AsianMedia licensing to three countries namely, the Philippines, Singapore, and Malaysia.

NCSoft & NcTrue

In July of 2005, NcSoft (Korea) and True(True Corporation Public Company Ltd., formerly Telecom Asia) established NcTrue a joint-venture. The companies publicly reported the funding for the venture was capitalized at $4 million USD, and that NCSoft would hold a 49% stake in the venture, and True 51% respectively.

NCSoft president, Kim Jack, stated that Thailand, would serve as the gate to Southeast Asia market and that the venture would be instrumental in laying the framework to penetrate the Southeast Asian market in the future. Moreover, the intention of the venture was to take NCSoft one step closer to constructing a global network for online gaming services like Lineage 2.

Currently NcSoft has joint venture offices in Japan, Taiwan, and China.

Private servers

In 2004, the official Lineage II server software was leaked and a significant number of private servers appeared. Modification of the official game client allowed players to connect to non-official (private) servers. However, some private servers that run emulated server code require only modification of the hosts file in the player's operating system, leaving the client unchanged.

There are currently three completely independent open source server emulators. All of which have been released under the GPL license and allow the client to connect with only a host file change. L2J, the first emulator created for Lineage II, is written in Java, and is the most mature server emulator available. L2Adena is written in C++ and is currently under development. L2castell is a complete rewrite of L2J started by L2J developers who disagreed with certain design aspects of the server.

Some private servers have populations reaching into the thousands. Playing on private servers is free, although many are supported by donations from players.

After the initial Prelude and Chronicle 1 file leaks, the official software was modified by the use of Assembly Language, Hexadecimal Editing and DLL hooks to support the clients and features of later Chronicles. These modified versions of the Chronicle 1 software were called "Hybrid".

Currently, it is common for private servers to be found hosting Interlude. The game play is commonly altered by boosting the experience rates, the monetary drop rate, and the item drop rate, making higher-quality gear easier to obtain. Many servers also feature unique "twists" which keep them apart from the rest.

In 2006, the Lineage II Chronicle 4 Public Test Server files were leaked and sold to private server owners. Figures as high as $15,000 US were being asked, but it's not confirmed if anyone paid for this, as the files were later leaked from the sellers and made publicly available. The C4 applications require a 64-bit microprocessor architecture to run.

NCSoft has taken some actions against private servers. One such server has been shut down by the FBI while its owner has been arrested for copyright violation.

As of 2007, the community created server files for Chronicle 5 have reached a useful level of accuracy. Private servers based on these files are getting more and more popular in the private server community.

The GameSites200 Lineage II Section, Hopzone and Games Top 100 are the main places of competition, where each server competes for user votes to rank itself among the top servers. Currently these sites contain very inaccurate vote results, as there is an ongoing epidemic of "proxy voting" (cheating).

NCsoft Involvement

On November 16, 2006, the private server L2Extreme was shut down by the FBI . L2Extreme has recently resurfaced in the private gaming community.

On November 20, 2006, NCsoft issued an official press release on their involvement with the FBI raid, verifying its validity. Additionally, the news was posted on the official Lineage II website.

On November 21, 2006, NCsoft began sending out cease and desist warnings to many private servers or their hosts.

Botting

Like many MMORPGs, Lineage II has been the target of botting, in which an external program is used to simulate the actions of a player. Such activity is prohibited and is a bannable offense, though seemingly rarely enforced. Nevertheless, players continue this practice, since the player is able to leave his/her computer and the bot will continue doing what it has been programmed to do. Some of the most well-known bots are L2Walker and Superman (formerly known as L2Wind). There is a conspiracy theory, based on fine coding, numerous features and versatility of those programs (surpassing the official game client by far), that developers of Wind and Walker were/are in league with NC Soft itself. Sometimes proven botted characters are subject to disrespect and rejection by a certain part of the community. But this tendency got terribly weakened lately, legitimate players having definitely become a minority.

Apart from easing some of the more mundane aspects of gameplay, botting can also be used as a way to generate Adena (Lineage II currency) which is then sold for real world cash. This phenomenon, Economy Interaction, is quite controversial and is common in most of today's large MMORPGs.

It should be noted that Game Guard, the "anti-cheat" system used by Lineage II, allows a player to run the game with the aforementioned bot programs running in the background; the player does not need any form of "anti-cheat" bypass to bot in this game. On the other hand, some other tools are blocked by Game Guard, like the "GameCam" program which is not a cheating tool but a program used to produce videos from in-game footage. The majority of private Lineage II servers make it impossible to start the game when a bot program is detected on the player's computer.

Controversy

Current

As of the 5th chronicle, NCsoft has released a weapon called "The Demonic Sword Zariche". This sword is very powerful, but is also temporary: it is destroyed once its "health" has run out. The sword is found as a random drop from a slain enemy. The developers have said that they are willing to see if this sword will help stop botting because of the strength that it possesses, but players use the sword only for powerleveling. Early indications suggest that NCSoft thinks it is helping; a second demonic weapon, the dual sword Akamanah, has been introduced in the Interlude release.

Awards

• Expansion of the Year (Chronicle 5: Oath of Blood), Stratics Central Editor's Choice Awards 2006


• Honorable Mention, Game of the Year, Stratics Central Editor's Choice Awards 2006

References