Drained from work, and with a couple of unsorted materials, I resorted to take a walk at the new pages of the latest
Lineage 2 expansion
Lineage 2 was/is a grinder's galore (and in my local server: a botfest), I spent two years of my life on it (not all of course, just the night ones :p), despite it's old unreal 2 engine this 10-years-old game has brought an awesome environment, but after 10 years with no major things going on (in my case: two years, damn man it's LONG) the game lags behind all the waves of newer MMOs
But it seems like NCsoft wasn't prepare to put a lid on Lineage 2 yet, on 2010 they announced new expansions which upgrades and revamps almost all aspects of the gameplay called
Goddess of Destruction/GOD (
let's milk this cash cow once more, we're sure there's still plenty of it!!!: NCSOFT stockholders), one of them is managing the grind for EXP which dreaded almost all would-be-players (at least they said it would be manageable), the gameplay and cinematics (yep they have in-game cinematics now) looked solid enough in their demo, and of course the expansion itself followed the path almost all MMO had walked upon: caters to the casuals :))
One thing that always bugged me is the course that Lineage 2 will take: Will it be PVP or PVE-based, because Lineage 2 initially PVP based at it's heart, you grind to craft armor and weapons to take on opponents on world PVP, you defeat raid bosses to.. again won a siege, you gather 44 of your friend to downed a reall epic bosses for a very phat and kewl loot (which you can sell for real currency and your clan will conquer the gold market on that server and.... okay that's enough information...).
What I'm trying to tell is, as a PVE player: Lineage 2 patches/updates up until the latest (High 5) is making it's easier to new DPS players to blast through the low/mid content (by selling grades armor at shop which in the past can't be obtained normally except thru crafting), and made the high level grinding more humanly possible (by instancing some zones, made some high grade armor/weapon craftable, and brings some solo/group epic quest that rewards tons of XP and SP, but it's usually so frakkin' hard) but at the end there's not a lot of endgame content for casual PVE-ers such a solid 7 or 10 mans dungeons or old contents where you can grind to gain reputation and/or gear, instead with 7 people you're forced to take on Aenkinel again and again just to get your weapon to +16, God, I hate pluses, why not giving us NEW WEAPON INSTEAD???!!! although I'm pretty sure Aenkinel dropped a new dual sword in the latest patch.
Hey NCSOFT, I'm too easy, BUFF ME!!!
Ah yeah, you don't even listen to players.... I'm just an ordinary regular boss here
Back to GOD, as the features said: they're gonna revamp the world but the question is: are they gonna revamp the old contents? or are they gonna made this a quest-based MMORPG rather than a ferocious grindfest? (they added daily quests on High 5 you know), will there EVEN BE A LORE? (okay, I guess I'm asking too much) and in this whole new era of gaming I don't think grinder have a chance whatsoever (unless they're free to play MMOs, and E.V.E, yes E.V.E is OP), Aion is a pretty example on how's a cool looking game turns into laughable grindstock because of the lack of contents. I think it's time for Lineage 2 to redefine their course
Don't worry guys, it's only 1789 more of this guy to kill, this game is FUN!!!
But in the end it's always returned to the community, and since my local community is a hell on earth coupling with the unreliable license holder which in return employs unreliable GMs which doesn't give a s&%@ about their own company which in return doesn't give a damn about the game which then caused the server swarmed with ADHD kids. I'm sure I won't go back to GOD except all of my old clannies back together again, well I don't even count that GOD will be released here although I must say the premise of that is very interesting.
Pictured above: a local GM
(damn, that suit cost a fortune you know)
