Information AboutLineage Ii |
''Lineage II: The Chaotic Chronicle'' is a Fantasy Massively Multiplayer Computer Role-playing Game ( MMORPG ) and sequel to '' Lineage ''. It has become very popular since its November 2003 launch, reporting 1.5 million subscribers worldwide in September 2004. According to 1st-half 2005 data, Lineage II has approximately 2.25 million subscribers worldwide, the second most popular MMORPG in the world. It falls behind World Of Warcraft , which currently has 6 million active subscriptions and is the largest MMORPG in the world. OVERVIEW Players create a , Elf , Dark Elf , Orc or Dwarf . You can choose from either fighter or mystic professions at the start, except for Dwarves which are only able to select the fighter profession. This choice acts as an archetype for later profession options. 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 Point s, and items. Player Versus Player (PvP) is also a significant portion of the game. ''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 first-person 3D graphics over its predecessor. The game uses the Unreal Engine produced by Epic Games . CHRONICLES A large-scale update is done in Lineage II every half of a year. As the "Chronicle" number advances, a new story develops. There are major game alterations each time with the current "Chronicle update", and the game balance was greatly changed in every case so far. Open Beta Test "Prelude" After the closed beta test ended, massive numbers of users poured in at a surprising rate during the open beta test's first day. Frequently during the beta test, especially in Japan, NPCs did not spawn correctly because of the massive number of users. Chronicle 1 : Harbingers of War Chronicle 1 was released in July 2004 , officially adding siege warfare to the game. Taking a castle allowed the owners to tax the city/town that the castle controlled, allowing them to tax up to 15%. Chronicle 2 : Age of Splendor In Chronicle 1, when a clan successfully won, there was not much gained from the siege other than reputation and pride. After Chronicle 2 was released in December 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, Coliseum, Alligator Island, Field of Whispers, Field of Silence, Great Dane of Justice, and Others. Chronicle 3 : Rise of Darkness With Chronicle 3, released May 2005 , comes 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 to not join will hinder your progress later in the game (once you're a high level player). Seals are items dropped by mobs that when turned in, will give you Ancient Adena. Ancient Adena is another level of the Economy in L2 and will allow you to purchase items you wouldn't normally have access to from normal channels. The addition of the Seven Signs competition brings with it a large number of dungeons across Aden called Catacombs and Necropoli that only participants in the competition can access. For one week you compete and get as many seals that you can for your side and turn most of them in. If your side wins after the week you will be given exclusive access to the Catacombs/Necropoli and the losing side will be locked out. During this period you can also exchange your seals for Ancient Adena. There is also a part called the Festival for which you and a party of at least 5 people enter a room and kill monsters (also called mobs) until a time limit is up. This part of the Seven Signs also contributes to your score in the Seals competition. The writer has yet to get involved in this part of the competition. Other notable changes are that castle owners now have access to a Wyvern (Dragon) that they can fly around Aden. Wyverns also have a fire breath skill. It should also be noted that they are very expensive to spawn and keep alive while in use. A Grade armor/weapons have also been added as well as a subclass system that allows you to add another class to your character after level 75. Chronicle 4: Scions of Destiny Scions of Destiny is the newest Chronicle released in Korea, released on February 8, 2006. It features 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. For additional information on Chronicle 4- Scions of Destiny please refer to {Link without Title} . It includes more information about everything that will be added after the update. It is also updated with information about the updates on the Korean beta. 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 This is the next Chronicle. Information is in Korean-only. Details need to be translated to English. {Link without Title} PRIVATE SERVERS During the first half of 2003, however, an open source project called L2J had developed, and had started to fail after the leak of the official server software. As L2J made progress, more servers gradually accepted L2J, some also had to choose this if their servers ran on Linux. L2J is programmed in Java , which in simple terms, allows the applications to run on a variety of systems, even on your PDA . This does lead to some stability issues however, generally the L2J server cannot support more than a few hundred players, and can crash without notice. Also, since L2J-based server is an emulation, some mechanisms of the game deviate from the actual retail servers — not everything is possible to reverse-engineer and emulate properly. Due to that fact some people look down upon L2J-based private servers, preferring modified leaked official servers (see below) to them. The L2J team has stated that stability and capacity will increase as the project continues. The issues about legality have been solved, as the client does not require any modifications anymore. However, the matter of whether playing on private servers or running them is legal or not remains a matter of debate. While the client does not directly require modifications, it still needs players to edit file, often found in C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\Etc\hosts, or for players to use a modified client. Since the second half of 2004, a significant amount of privately owned and run communities have started to provide their own Lineage 2 servers. This practice of starting private servers started when the official Lineage 2 server leaked out to the general public. After the leak, several people had implemented changes to the existing client that would allow a person to run a modified game client and then connect to non-official servers. This practice was illegal, though, as NCsoft explicitly disallowed any client modifications which were required to play on non-official servers. The leaked server was obviously not supported by NCsoft. This "addition" of the private Lineage 2 server collection forced L2J to shut down their server advertisement portion of their website, as too many people were advertising servers made with stolen server files. Prominent private servers now have populations reaching into the thousands. The gameplay on these servers is altered to increase the amount of player-versus-player (PvP) activity by upping the experience rates, the monetary drop rate, the item drop rate, and making higher-quality gear easier to obtain. Sometimes some skills don't work, or are bugged, but these private servers can be a decent alternative to the more "hardcore" retail servers. They can allow for a relaxed play similar to that of First-Person Shooter 's where players can log on the server and advance in gear or levels, or just participate in PvP then log out. Since there generally is no monetary requirement from players, the stress of fulfilling a monthly fee, such as on the retail servers, is not present. 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