I'm here to tell this community about a fun, high-quality and
free MMORPG. The game's called Lineage 2 and it's made by the same company that brought you Guildwars, City of Heroes and City of Villains. On the official servers, it costs $15/mo to play, but thanks to the wonders of open source server emulation, the game can be played for free
legally. And in the game, perhaps you guys can make your own clan for your own community.
About the game:
Lineage 2 is an MMORPG, with the races Orc, Elf, Dark Elf, Human and Dwarf. Each races have their own advantages and disadvantages. For example, Dwarves are the money makers of the game and have very high HP, but they have decent attack power and don't get many skills. There is no cross-race competition, people of different races work together, can be of the same clans, alliances, etc.
The game Lineage 2 was released in 2004 - but that does not mean it's old. Every 6 months there are -huge- updates called Chronicles which includes new areas, new equipment, new looks, and so on. This server is on the latest, Chronicle 4. Chronicle 5 will be released soon.
A Dark Elven female runningCharacter EvolutionThe whole thing goes down in the world of Aden. When making your character, you choose your race, and get to customize your character. You also choose between two types of classes (usually, it's Fighter or Mage). You have this very basic class until you hit 20, at which point you can upgrade your class into two choices which have two very different uses. The same happens for level 20-40, because by level 40 you get to choose your next class which goes further into specifics.
Let's use a
Dark Elf Mage as an example, until level 20 you get a combination of basic skills you'd get from your next classes, but at level 20 you have to choose whether you want to become a damage dealer or a support character. Let's say at level 20 you chose to be a Dark Wizard which is a damage dealing class. Until 40 you get a combination of two types of skills. By level 40, you have to choose between two classes - a spellhowler, which is purely magic spells and handicaps against the opponent. Another choice in this class evolution besides spellhowler is a Phantom Summoner which relies much less heavily on magic skills, but instead on
http://lineage2.ogaming.com/gallery/albums/misc/night.jpg]it's monster summons[/url] to do the damage dealing or tanking (depends on the summon used), while the character attacks in melee form instead of magic spells.
There is a
lot more to the class evolution that is too much to include. More about it can be found at the official site which will be linked at the bottom.
A Dark Elf female - a fighter classPvP, Clans, WarsLineage II is a unique game in that the game is really governed by the people who play the game, more specifically the clans. How it works is that, like any other MMORPG, there are clans. Every clan, once having reached level 3, gets a clan crest - which is a small picture icon above your head representing your clan. A clan can have upto thirty members, but there can be several clans in an alliance.
What's unique about the incentive of PvP and Clans is that every now and then there are
Castle Sieges. There are a few castles in the land of Aden, and a central castle which governs the whole place called, appropriately, "The Castle of Aden". Each of these castles under the castle of Aden
governs a town. The clan that occupies the castle, even, gets full control on the amount of taxes placed on the town - so everytime something is purchased from the town, the tax goes directly to the clan to help fund for better armour/weapons. There are castle seiges one a castle even if it is occupied - this gives a chance for the clan occupying the castle to defend it against other clans who may want it.
The PvP works in a way different than other MMORPGs. In Lineage 2 there is no common enemy to fight (WoW's a big example of this). Clan/individual competition is not uncommon, however. Usually, a person's name above their name will be white - but if a white attacks another white, it turns purple. If a white attacks a purple, he also turns purple. This is not without reason - it's better if a PvP happens when both are white, this is because if a white/purple was to attack a white to the point of killing him without him attacking back, the killer (known as PKer in the game) has his title turned red (called a Chaotic). Somebody who is red remains so for about three deaths per PK, by each death the players Karma comes down. When a player is chaotic, the chances of him losing his armour/weapons and things in his inventory are much more likely to drop, which can be difficult to get back.
A zoom-in of Dark Elves fighting in a castle seigePvE, Raids and so onThe game's got a lot of group PvE, especially as you go higher level. There are minibosses, raidbosses, and a
huge boss for each Chronicle. Raids are essential and fun because bosses tend to drop large quantities of items and adena (in-game currency).
A raid on the first Chronicle's boss, AntharasPetsThe game is not without it's pets. The way pets work in L2 is unlike WoW where you have to be of a certain class to have a pet that is something other than cosmetic. The starter pet is a
http://www.lineage2.com/images/knowledge/summon_3.jpg]Wolf[/url], which is a level 15 pet. Next is a level 35
hatchling[/url ] (baby dragon) - there are three different races of hatchling, one for your classes needs. There's a tank race, a damage dealing race, and one that's middle of the road. When the hatchling is used enough, like a regular game character, it gains XP and levels. Once leveled enough, a hatchling evolves into a [url= <a href='http://www.lineage2.com/images/knowledge/strider.gif' target='_blank'>http://www.lineage2.com/images/knowledge/strider.gif]strider</a>, which can be ridden (which is
much faster than running). Once the strider is evolved, it turns into a
http://www.lineage2.com/Knowledge/images/summon_wyvern.jpg]wyvern[/url], which is a dragon you can fly. Unlike World of Warcraft's equivalent, the "Gryphon", a wyvern is point-and-click to fly. You go your own route, just point your dragon flies you as you click (for example you can fly to the roof of a church and dismount there).
An Elven female flying a wyvernConnectivityIf you wish to join us, the fastest way to get in is:
1) Get Flashget [spyware-free], which splits a download from HTTP/FTP into several parts and downloads them simultaneously. This is needed because the official site's download pages is often maxed with users downloading, so flashget will keep retrying until it gets a slot in.
1b) Alternatively (if you wish not to download and use Flashget), you can download it from FilePlanet. If this is the caste, skip step two.
2) Anywhere in your Flashget window, copy-paste this link into it (it will most likely freeze and say "Malloc Disk Space" for a while. This is normal, let it be, it will come out of it). It's best to have to Split Parts set to 10.
3) Download the patch (which can be downloaded at:
www.lucidmagic.com/L2patch.exe )to have your client point to our free server.
4) Run your Lineage 2 game and create an account by typing in your desired username and password.
For more information on the game, visit
LucidMagic's official site for screenshots, guides, and anything more you'll need.
