Gaming: Five Levels is Too Much: Beta Review of Lineage 2

[HaemishM]

Fun to be patched in later.

[Daeven]

Know what’s really cool? At level 20 you get to a ‘specialist class’ and the fun actually starts. (In theory)

…

As to the stupid fang intro quest: You know what I’d like to login to?

“You there! Solder! The Onongoians are invading our city right now! Here is your Musket. Here is your red hat. Go to the other side of the ridge and shoot at the Guys in the Purple Hats until they stop invading our city. If you survive then perhaps we can talk about your unique opportunities for advancement. Now, GO GO GO!”

Or, if the city wasn’t being invaded at that moment, how about:

“Another new recruit? Where the hell do they keep dredging you maggots from? There is nothing pressing going on at the moment, so here is your Musket and Red Hat. Go to the firing range. If you manage not to blow your head off, perhaps I’ll give you something more useful to do. Now get the hell out of my sight.”

But then, I guess my game wouldn’t get a ‘T’ rating.

Al that being said I do like the Male Dwarf and Orc avatars. Of course, the Female Dwarf is an pedophiles anime wet dream. YMMV.

[Xilren's Twin]

I was explaining to someone that I was trying the linage 2 beta and they asked me why when I already knew I wouldn't be playing come release day.  I gave them my standard line about wanting to try all new mmorpgs to see what they had to offer.  But in retrospect, I think Haemish is right, I'm just mentally ill when it comes to mmorpgs.  Oh well, admitting I have an addiction to new shiny games is the first step towards recovery right?

Bleh.

From a game design standpoint, I think Lin2 is actually a form of negative progress; it's causes the genre to move backwards in time.

Speaking of time, I asked a fellow game this the other day and am curious to see what others think.  He's a time limited gamer (since "casual" gamer seems to be a much misunderstood term) like myself who enjoys mmorpgs.  

"If you had all the disposable leisure time you wanted (no job, no wife/kids, plenty of money etc etc), what MMORPG would you be playing?"

He said EQ for pure diversity of content.  I cant make of my mind but my intial reaction was to say "none of 'em".  I think I'll stick with that for now, but one thing I DO know for certain, it sure as hell wouldn't be Lin2.

Xilren
PS One the hopefully plus side; you can also sign up for the beta of CoH if you haven't already.

[WayAbvPar]

Thanks for taking one for the team, Haemish. Your review just confirmed what I long suspected. Now get into the WoW beta and tell me what's up...

Funny that you ran into Rhibald...I am surprised he can play MMOGs any more after the godawful hours the poor bastard logged in Shadowbane trying to keep HD from flying apart at the seams in the off hours.

[Alluvian]

I will stick with my parting thoughts to Haemish in the game surrounded by dead doglike things (the foxlike things actually use the EXACT sounds that SWG durnis make):

"Well, try to have fun, or the MMOG equivalent of it"

Nothing new.  As a tech demo it is pretty, but you can have pretty tech demo with prepatched in FUN by playing Far Cry.  And you don't have to pay monthly for that either.  Not a hard choice.

The water effects were nice, could see your reflection in them, you could watch yourself fighting mobs in them if you got the camera right... but this statement kind of tells you how fun the combat is if I am trying to look at my reflection in the middle of a fight.

Oh, and Far Cry has just as nice water.  And that 'fun' thing.

Lineage 2 by that standard is like a fantasy version of a rolling tech demo of farcry that is broken into lots of little parts that you have to double click on in succession to keep watching the video.

[Rasix]

Thanks for saving me an hour of my life.  God, it's bad enough when games are boring and derivative, but when they actually manage to step back and digress, well.. that's something special.

Heh, I felt the same way about AC2, but then my friends actually managed to convince to me stay and play with them for the PVP on Darktide.  If the game isn't fun or especially interesting in the first hour you play it, it never will be.

[Numtini]

OMG I'm still laughing. Great great review. Though I don't honestly think language quite is capable of expressing exactly how stupid the playerbase is.

in two or three months, the casual player might actually be able to see that type of PVP, if they happen to be really patient with boring gameplay

Guilds are limited to I think it's 40 members and then only after the leader spending massive numbers of SPs. While this prevents uberguild symdrome (or wants to), it pretty much locks out casual members. If someone's leaving at 10pm because she has a job (like me) then they're just not going to be worth a slot.

As far as I can tell, there is no hope for a casual player in L2.

[schmoo]

OMG I'm still laughing. Great great review. Though I don't honestly think language quite is capable of expressing exactly how stupid the playerbase is.

Fully agree, teh stupid must be experienced first-hand.  Haemish has actually understated it.

On the other hand, it did keep me entertained while killing endless numbers of mushrooms, marsh zombies and the occasional level 1 moron attempting to PK me.

[Arthur_Parker]

Nice review, maybe I do need help as I'm enjoying it.  Sure the servers are massively overloaded at the minute and you do look like a clone but it's got real pvp...

[Rasix]

Nice review, maybe I do need help as I'm enjoying it.  Sure the servers are massively overloaded at the minute and you do look like a clone but it's got real pvp...

Are you that desparate for PVP? Can you name a single good, fun aspect of the game besides the promise of good PVP in the future?

[ajax34i]

There's no ingame manual.  I think that the text boxes fit the Korean text, not the English translation.  And Koreans probably don't worry about how their glyph-words wrap.

I agree, the game sucks.  I wouldn't have ranted about it, but in your case it's probably more like a vent than a rant.  Can you imagine the extra frustration and suck for all those sobs who play the game to win the contests?

[schild]

Can you imagine the extra frustration and suck for all those sobs who play the game to win the contests and lose?

fixed.

[Romp]

while it may be the case that Lineage2 does suck I dont think you can find that out by playing the beta for a few hours or even a few weeks.

I dont really think you can judge a MMORPG until you play it for at least a few months to be honest.  

The sieging and pvp may be totally awesome and you would never know.

I mean I'm not sure how much fun any MMORPG is when you start out?

[Jain Zar]

A game should always be fun otherwise its a failure.  The whole point of playing a game is because you want to have fun.  Unless you are a bit whacked and actually want to own some guy you have never met from Sheboygan or something...

I should not have to earn fun out of a videogame.  It better be fun from the get go.  I earned my fun by buying it or wasting time DLing it in the case of freeware and betas and stuff.

[Arthur_Parker]

Are you that desparate for PVP? Can you name a single good, fun aspect of the game besides the promise of good PVP in the future?

Yes.

The graphics are nice, *shrug* I'm playing a Dwarf going scavenger which may or may not make me equipment rich due to extra drops.  The game is meant to be pro soloing, pro twinking and anti nerfing with strong emphasis on items.  As someone who rerolls often, generally hunts solo and loves guild politics it might have been designed just for me.

TAO, HOS, TOE, DoO and TR are all playing on my server too plus rumours that Blood from AC1 Darktide might put in an appearance.  It's the bastard child of AC1 Darktide and UO pre Trammel, I'm giving it a go, even though I do see the flaws that everyone else is pointing out.

[ajax34i]

fixed.

Not what I wanted to say, but ok.  The frustration doesn't happen when they lose, it happens right now because they play the game in an "OMG I gotta kill faster more more more can't login dammit!" mode, as opposed to Haemish, who had a casual "I don't really care but maybe I'll get pleasantly surprised or something" type of play.

[Rasix]

while it may be the case that Lineage2 does suck I dont think you can find that out by playing the beta for a few hours or even a few weeks.

I dont really think you can judge a MMORPG until you play it for at least a few months to be honest.  

The sieging and pvp may be totally awesome and you would never know.

I mean I'm not sure how much fun any MMORPG is when you start out?

What sort of fucking lollipop land are you living in? Try a game for a few months in case it might be fun? WHAAA?

SEEK HELP. What you're suggesting is like panning for gold in a river of shit.

[Matt]

Picture the worst conversation you’ve ever had with anyone, crank up the dick-waving, insults, immaturity, and add anonymity, and you might get the barest sense of how bad these people are.

Hmm.

--matt

[xcarnifex]

I was able to try the Lineage 2 beta during it's Korean beta test, and after getting past all of the language barriers.....found out the game was pretty much all graphics.

I believe my character was level 15 before I got stuck in some rocks in the landscape.  I didn't know how to suicide/recall...and calling a gm or whatever they are called would have been no help since I couldn't converse with them.

It was nothing to see a person who was obviously too powerful for the npc they were fighting show up and kill the entire field of npcs.  The only reason I could fathom was for SPs, money, or waiting to PVP people walked through.  So I spent a lot of my team wandering trying to find something to kill, getting lost, dieing...repeating.  Then the game ending "stuck in rocks".

Never figured out how to get out of the "orc area" ...I wandered along the edges of the map trying to find a tunnel or zone line.   One time I was walking up a big hill and all the sudden Im floating in mid air with about 20 NPCs most of which were much stronger than I.  Only way to escape was to suicide on their claws.  Then I found a neat statue, and while I was walking around the area it was in..got stuck in those rocks....thought it mighta been a tunnel out of the area I was land/water locked in.


And as for above comments of playing a MMO for many monthes to get the feel of it....  I'd have to say "yes" it's true for the high end game, BUT it really shouldn't be that way.  It adds a caveat to playing the game..."won't be fun until you're this experienced/levelled/monetarily invested in."

Looking at Everquest's purchasing model.....you pay 40-50 for game and about 25-30 for each expansion.  They've released roughly six expansions, and if you've played for their entire five year lifespan you've got quite a bit of cash tied up in it.   If that game has hurdles that make the game so tedious and mind-numbing as EQ, I think you've been scammed.  Honestly I don't think that the content that most of their expansions adds justifies spending another 30 dollars on the game AFTER you've paid month after month of subscriptions for "bug fixes/content/server usage/*very minimal*gm events/poor customer service."  And while I paid for the expansions and subscription fees for three years off and on I was repeatedly told "You need to be level X to have fun and be good."  So I'd get level X,  then I'd need items.  I'd get items, then I'd need a key to get to wherever.  Then an expansion would come out, and I'd need levels again...then AA points....then items....then a guild......then the guild has too many of my class......  so either you keep repeating that pattern...or you make a new guy have some fun up till about level 30 because you're twinked..then repeat the pattern you did with the old guy.  Not my definition of fun.  It's something to do, but it's not fun.  And EQ also goes out of it's way to make it difficult to solo, so if you're a class that's over played and underpowered like druids were...you couldn't solo too easily due to the other druids soloing in the suitable spots for it....and you couldn't find a group due to the underpower thing.  Not fun.


Here's a little sidenote, I spent an ENTIRE week talking to the SOE CS staff via email trying to get my email address updated in my account so I could retrieve my password.  It took an average of two days per email to respond, and about 3-4 emails....and it all looked very automated until the very last email I received solving the issue.


Concerning SWG, for this game alone I believe there should be a law concerning "lemon" software.  If a company released such a spectacularly uninspired piece of trash as that, they should be forced to refund money to anyone who requests it.  This goes for Shadowbane as well, but SWG pissed me.  I played SWG for two months, about two days after my second month started I realized I had made a mistake.  This was during the period they kept modifying every profession about once a week.  At the end of the "balancing" my character was so utterly bad...   so I quit.  A friend of mine stayed on for months after and has recently quit.  He had millions of credits, was mayor of a city, ran two accounts, master chef...both favorite characters were wookies.     Now if you have kept up with SWG...you'll see that after all that "class balancing" they added armor that started making the races become unbalanced.  This left wookies at dead last because they had no protection against anything the other players could throw at them in PVP.

The point of all this is, if a company doesnt have the MMO right when it hits the shelves...more than likely it's too broken to be fixed.

If these games continue along the path they follow release after release... picking a game will be like voting for president.  Different look but same ol' shit.

[Romp]

while it may be the case that Lineage2 does suck I dont think you can find that out by playing the beta for a few hours or even a few weeks.

I dont really think you can judge a MMORPG until you play it for at least a few months to be honest.  

The sieging and pvp may be totally awesome and you would never know.

I mean I'm not sure how much fun any MMORPG is when you start out?

What sort of fucking lollipop land are you living in? Try a game for a few months in case it might be fun? WHAAA?

SEEK HELP. What you're suggesting is like panning for gold in a river of shit.

I never said you need to try a game for a few months in case it might be fun, I said you cant JUDGE a game based on a few days or hours gameplay.

Its like watching the first few hours of a movie or reading the first few chapters of a book IMO.

I dont expect everyone to play a game they think is boring to start with but for me, I dont really enjoy being a newbie in MMORPG and the enjoyment comes from the anticipation of the end game which is where the game can actually be judged.

I mean the first few days I played UO I absolutely hated it, I kept dying and lagging out etc etc but I stuck with it and ended up playing the game for like 3-4 years.  

Since I only play MMORPGs for pvp in any case, the idea of judging a game based on newbie gameplay is just stupid to me.  I would be very interested to know what high lvl pvp and sieging is like in lineage 2 though.

[Morfiend]

Can you imagine the extra frustration and suck for all those sobs who play the game to win the contests and lose?

fixed.

I really like how you made the text red and bold. Just incase some one might not be able to figure out what you changed.

Way to shoot for the LCD.

[schild]

I really like how you made the text red and bold. Just incase some one might not be able to figure out what you changed.

Way to shoot for the LCD.

You're welcome.

[Hanzii]

I never said you need to try a game for a few months in case it might be fun, I said you cant JUDGE a game based on a few days or hours gameplay.

Its like watching the first few hours of a movie or reading the first few chapters of a book IMO.

I dont expect everyone to play a game they think is boring to start with but for me, I dont really enjoy being a newbie in MMORPG and the enjoyment comes from the anticipation of the end game which is where the game can actually be judged.

Most of the movies I watch are finished by that time... and if the haven't provided me with any entertainment in that timespan, I walk out.
Books I put down - there's plenty of others to choose from.
Judging from the low subscribtion numbers of most new MMOGS (especially compared to the predictions about the potential market that came out before SWG and TSO), I'd say that this is what most gamers do too, when trying out a mmog. Put it down and move along - the open betas just allows us to do so before actually paying.

The kind of crap people like you are willing to wade through in order to reach some endgame, pvp or other magical time of non-suck really boggles my mind.

The singleplayer equivalent would be if EA released Battlefield:Vietnam and told people to go through 20 hours of target practise followed by 100 hours of fighting their godawful bots before the multiplayer part of the game would be unlocked.
... and I'm sure someone thinks this would be a good idea ("that way, the idiots would have to train before being allowed behind the stick in a chopper") luckily people with this mindset are only put in charge of mmogs.
No wonder the numbers look bad compared to singleplayer games.

[Hanzii]

Lum said it so much better in one of his rare more than a paragraph long essays

If you’re spending 90% of your efforts on the last 10% of your game, something is wrong. The game should be fun. Not the endgame, not the final payoff, the game should be fun. If you’re not consistently having fun 15 minutes after installing the game, something is wrong. And there is not a single MMO on the market today that completely meets that criteria. Period. And people wonder why they haven’t achieved mass market success yet.

[HaemishM]

I never said you need to try a game for a few months in case it might be fun, I said you cant JUDGE a game based on a few days or hours gameplay.

Its like watching the first few hours of a movie or reading the first few chapters of a book IMO.

Why can't I judge it? I buy/play a game for FUN. If it isn't fun, why the fuck am I playing it? If the newbie game is not even as interesting as TELEVISION, why aren't I just watching television? If a movie sucks, I might watch it through to the end, but that's only 2 hours of my life. If a tv series is boring the first episode or two, I'm probably not going to watch it through the end of the season in the hopes it gets better. If a book bores me five chapters in, that book gets tossed back in the "Maybe I'll read it later" pile.

I have more than enough entertainment options available to me to put up with stupid, boring gameplay in the HOPES that some mythical endgame will make it suck less. And while there may be hordes of people willing to pay a monthly fee for hope, I am not one of them. More importantly for the future of MMOG's, 90% of people aren't one of them either. Lum did say it best.

As for not enjoying the newbie experience, here's some anecdotes.

DAoC's newbie experience was a blast. There were plenty of quests, many of which were interesting, including the first one you get as a Highland Warrior. It involved going to a bridge and helping fight off a massive attack of bandits, who come streaming out of the woods at you and the guards beside you. It made me feel a part of the world. Even EQ's newbie experience was fun; part of that was the novelty of that particular type of game at the time, but part of it was that it was a much more complete experience at release than this piece of trash. Even Shadowbane's newbie experience was better; you got new skills/stuff to play with pretty early and regularly.

The newbie experience not only shouldn't suck, it should be at least as fun as the mythical "endgame" because that's the only way you get people hooked enough to pay for at least a month.

[Mr_PeaCH]

I really like how you made the text red and bold. Just incase some one might not be able to figure out what you changed.

Way to shoot for the LCD.

Your welcome.

FTFY.  (LCD and whatnot.)

[Alluvian]

Yes.  Exactly.  I really like character growth ingame.  But you have to START with enough skills to be FUN.  Then add tons more as time goes on to add complexity.  Simple is okay at low level.  Boring is not.  What is boring will be different for different people, but repeatedly double clicking on mobs to initiate combat and then just doing nothing is not 'fun' for many that don't need drool guards to keep from shorting out their keyboards.

By this same standard I think early DAOC and EQ also failed in this way.  Sure the first brigand quest was cute, but the quests from that point on pretty much sucked for awhile.  It was better than lineage2, but not by much.  The first four levels of DAOC were no more exciting than the first four in lineage2.  The only saving grace is they went by fast.  They should not have been in the game though.

I fear EQ2 will fall into the same stupid trap with their branching classes.  Who the FUCK played the first four levels of DAOC and thought

"Holy shit!! this would be cool if we did this for 20 fucking levels!!!!  I like this, but I feel too overwhealmed to pick a class after only 4 hours of autoattack with little to no involvement in combat.  If I had 20 levels of doing this than I would be far more educated about what I want to do.

I suppose that line of thought is accurate, but the 'what I want to do after 20 levels' is play another game.  Although I can figure that out faster than 20 levels.

To be fair to EQ2 it is not released yet, so maybe the base classes do have some interesting skills.  I just doubt it.

[Alrindel]

Surely you mean that you broke it for him.

On-topic comment: Lineage 2 sounds thoroughly unappetizing and has no chance whatsoever of attracting me to so much as a free demo.

[Anonymous]

I really like how you made the text red and bold. Just incase some one might not be able to figure out what you changed.

Way to shoot for the LCD.

Your welcome.

FTFY.  (LCD and whatnot.)

Amusingly enough, Schild's usage is correct.  You sir, are a moron of the first water.

[Sloth]

Why can't I judge it? I buy/play a game for FUN. If it isn't fun, why the fuck am I playing it? If the newbie game is not even as interesting as TELEVISION, why aren't I just watching television? If a movie sucks, I might watch it through to the end, but that's only 2 hours of my life. If a tv series is boring the first episode or two, I'm probably not going to watch it through the end of the season in the hopes it gets better. If a book bores me five chapters in, that book gets tossed back in the "Maybe I'll read it later" pile.

Its the same thing as reading a book for 10 pages or watching a movie for 30 minutes, then writing a review.

You can give your opinion of your initial impressions, but reviewing a game based on small amount of play time is what the lazies at Gamespot do. Or when PC Gamer reviewed Black and White simply based on the tutorial. A review of anything is a review of the entire product, not just up until you got bored.

I can think of several things that got better overtime. Star Trek TNG didn't get good until the 3rd season. Titans vs Rams in the Superbowl wasn't exciting until the last 5 minutes. Silent Hill 3.

Your standard "fun" arguement is fine if you don't want to play, but don't try to write reviews, wether you believe it or not, reviewers have to play through games they don't like, unless you want to get a job at Gamespot.

[Mr_PeaCH]

I really like how you made the text red and bold. Just incase some one might not be able to figure out what you changed.

Way to shoot for the LCD.

Your welcome.

FTFY.  (LCD and whatnot.)

Amusingly enough, Schild's usage is correct.  You sir, are a moron of the first water.

And you sir are a living, mouthbreating example of the Lowest Common Denominator.  Thanks for playing, Capt. Obvious.


Apologies to the thread for the continued derail of another derail. To go on topic for just a second I'd just like to say about anyone who wrote that games need to be fun from the get-go that I agree with what you said.  (Harumph!)

[Soukyan]

Lum said it so much better in one of his rare more than a paragraph long essays

If you?re spending 90% of your efforts on the last 10% of your game, something is wrong. The game should be fun. Not the endgame, not the final payoff, the game should be fun. If you?re not consistently having fun 15 minutes after installing the game, something is wrong. And there is not a single MMO on the market today that completely meets that criteria. Period. And people wonder why they haven?t achieved mass market success yet.

And yet, Lum works for a company whose flagship product has its players do just that. Oh, the irony.

[Matt]

Your standard "fun" arguement is fine if you don't want to play, but don't try to write reviews, wether you believe it or not, reviewers have to play through games they don't like, unless you want to get a job at Gamespot.

I couldn't agree with you more, but it seems to me this is -very- common. I think it stems from two things:
1. A total lack of critical aesthetic among game reviewers. In other words, it's just some guys giving their opinions, as opposed to working within a critical framework like a good film or book reviewer may. It's mainly just a function of the youth of the games industry though.

2. The fact that MMORPGs are -long- and to really properly review them is not cost-effective. Let's say you have 3 "qualified" reviewers on staff. You can't have one of them spending 1000 hours on a single game. You certainly can't just recruit one of the long-time players to write a review, as a long-time player almost certainly lacks the ability to view the game in anything approaching an objective manner.

So while I agree, I don't see that it's really possible to properly review MMORPGs for the most part.

--matt

[Anonymous]

blah blah blah teh funney blah blah blah

Ohhhh, so you were breaking his post about a fix he did to another post in order to be "funny".  I see.

<RAY>END YOURSELF</RAY>

[Anonymous]

I completely disagree.  If the game is not fun in the first four hours (c.f. Raph's laws of gaming, et al), preferrably in the first ten minutes, then that's that folks.  Wrap it up.  Unless your target is the hardcore.  In which case, some hardcore player can review the game for the rest of the hardcore.  Haemish, as a "casual" player, is more than qualified to review an MMOG for people who are sick and fucking tired of being told they will never ever reach the fun, because they don't have the time to catass through the original game, much less the additional content added to keep the catasses happy.