Review: Lineage 2 Prelude
by Shelrabbi

Lineage 2 is a MMO that mixes purpose with dedication at a level previously unknown on the US market. When pondering a game design I think few American development houses have considered taking painful death penalties, player versus player combat, and a few other incredibly unpopular mechanics and stuffing them into a gauntlet through which all player characters must pass. What those development houses don’t have, however, is a Barnum & Bailey like ability to walk the tightrope of game balance. All penalties are offset by humongous boons, all hardships endured result in rewards of appropriate measure.

Relevant details now ensue.

Character creation is straight forward. You pick a race, sex, whether you want to be a fighter or a mage (unless you’re a dwarf; they can only be fighters), choose from a few options for your hair, face and eyes, select an unused name and you’re in. You begin the game as a novice in your chosen profession and will be guided along by both your racial elders and a suitable in-depth tutorial. You’ll be sent out on a quest during which you continuously get pop-up windows to help you and lead you to your next objective. You’ll kill a few monsters, talk to a few people and deliver a thing or two, eventually leveling and being sent off to your racial starter town.

The towns aren’t the sprawling metropolises of NC Soft’s City of Heroes but they’re not Horizons’ eight huts with some walls and shopkeepers either. They are small enough to navigate and remember easily but large enough to not have your disbelief unsuspended when an NPC refers to where you’re standing as a thriving hub of commerce and trade. Stoners will have a problem finding their way in cities like Gludio where all paths look similar. This can be countered by blowing away the bong smoke and noticing the unobtrusive, toggle-able compass at the top.

Questing in Aden.

Moving from the city into the low-level wilderness you’ll find plenty to kill. For many of the monsters you’ll be fighting, now and at higher levels, you can get a companion quest. It will be the standard “kill and return” quest but either you will be able to return at any time and cash in all your quest items or you will have to come back after you’ve retrieved some-multiple-of-fives worth.

The actual accrual of quest items has only to do with landing the coup-de-grace on a monster, something which will yield yips of joy or moans of annoyance depending on your maturity level. Since quest items are delivered directly to your inventory rather then falling on the ground as loot usually does, the normal looting rules don’t apply. This opens a new type of grieving to our toddleresque friends where they can finish their quests or ruin yours by getting the last shot on everything you fight. This isn’t a rampant problem but something you will certainly encounter early on.

Questing in Lineage 2 has another unique aspect to it; the quest rewards are worth the effort and a respectable effort is required. Most dev teams lay as Humpty-Dumpty when trying at this balance, but not NC Soft. One quest example is to retrieve ten fungus sacs from mushrooms. The drop rates of the sacs vary depending on unknown factors but in my experience average out to one in three or so when killing Blood Funguses. Blood Funguses drop around 100 adena (money) 75% of the time and nothing the other 25%. So it takes about 30 kills to finish the quest during which you’ve made about 2200 adena and your reward is another 2000. By taking quests to kill monsters that you’re already killing you tend to double or triple the money you make off of those monsters.

About abilities and balance.

Then after you’ve gained some experience it will be time to train in new abilities. This is where the class balance of Lineage 2 begins to show. Each race has the same basic classes but with a very notable racial edge to them that’s consistent across all classes of that race. Orcs are focused on melee combat, even as casters. Elves are quick and agile. Dark Elves are frail but have great offensive power. Humans have the widest range of available classes and Dwarves are the exclusive crafters of Aden. In one way or another each of these things has a huge impact on the gameworld and each bonus is wholly unique. These bonuses are then weighed and measured against a class’s skill set until an appropriate balance is struck. For example, dwarves are the only race that can craft and are the only race with the spoil and sweep skills, but compared to other races they get very few skills and as far as damage output goes, the dwarves are the weakest race in almost every situation.

When you train you require three things: Adena, Skill Points (SP) and Experience Points (XP). The experience points gain you levels. As you gain levels new sets of abilities are opened to you. Abilities include both special moves and powers for melees as well as spells for casters. All abilities have an SP requirement and some have a spell book or amulet requirement. Spell books and amulets cost Adena and are usually bought from a shop, though some only come from monster drops. XP and SP are gained each time you kill a monster and most monsters drop Adena around 75% of the time. You won’t have a problem gaining enough SP to get all your abilities before you gain enough XP to open up the next set.

After you’ve done enough quests and killed enough monsters to reach level 20 it’s time to make the choice of which profession you want to pursue. Your options will depend on your race and class, but basically you can go from mage to healer or nuker, you can go from fighter to archer or tank. The class change works via a quest, once finished you´ll be promoted to your chosen class and with this new class comes a ridiculous amount of power and a slew of new toys. It is unquestionably worth the effort.Next Page (About the grind and my conclusion) >>