Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
Represent!
I love all the threads these wow noobs have made crying about pvp and completely not understanding what a seige is. It will be a blast educating them.
Sieghardt -> chronos
RR, NH, BLAZE
-CS
The big thing I loved about lineage 2 was the open world PVP that actually mattered. We would have massive fights (4-10 parties of 9 players in each) around big raids with the clan managing to survive getting to take on the raid. These fights weren't organized by the server or GM, they started organically because the raids were limited and only spawned every 5-7 days.
The caslte siege weekends were also high on the list. Nothing else has had castle sieges like L2 to my knowledge. Watch some of the old videos, there were so fun.
Why I quit: got old, but also the outside scripting made PVP kind stupid. The programs would spam potions in certain orders, and took a lot of skill out of it.
1. L2 stood out as an MMO bc you were forced to care more. Early on, you could lose gear to mobs. Always when you die, you lose exp. Exp is hard to get as it was a grindy game. So losing became real personal real fast and that in retrospect immersed you deeper.
The architecture, gear world was outstanding and epic as well. To a degree that we havnt seen since.
The PvP was the best. You want AoC pvp? Go play L2. No factions or BS.
Castles/clan halls/ forts - other games advertised them L2 did them. Seiges will be epic, and it's a wonderful thing to get to experience again.
Dwarves (crafters)- originally b4 p2w killed them, you needed to find a solid dwarf to go you make your gear and supplies. Or play as one to grow some income.
2. People stopped playing L2 for a few reasons. It became P2W in a way that you cannot imagine. I'm talking people who spent over 100k USD as recently as a few months ago. Botting was never checked at any point. After the subscription went away it started spiraling downhill fast.
3. Why did it not take off on America? You ever see an L2 commercial? (Not the mobile one with conan O'Brien)
No advertisements. And to be fair, WoW was a lot easier and a lot of Americans want easy. I personally want it to be grindy and hard or it doesnt feel special.
L2 imho was the greatest MMORPG made to date. And if but a few small things were done differently we might not see an AoC being made to fill a gap that L2 helped create.
-CS
2)People took pride in their Class. You had to do quests to become a class. You had to spend a lot of time to lv up to max lv. Since mmorpgs were kinda new you'd spend mb 4-6 months reaching max Lv and unlock all the class skills.
Also rivalry of classes. D elf tank vs Elf vs Human etc.
3)Open world. True adventure. Travel from town to town. You could not skip content, you had to kill the monsters in your path or die to them, lose XP, lose gear, respawn back the way you came from, unless your group had Resurection scroll(or healer rez). Lairs, towers, army camps, ruins, temples, creature settlements/societies, caves, deserts, forests, waterfalls, canyons, valleys, angels, demons, vampires. Epic sceneries that you and your group had to fight other players to secure a spot to XP. Chance for gear drop was rare. Certain locations offered certain mats.
4)Guilds. There were no factions in L2. Everybody was free to make friends, groups, guilds and wage war against all. Alliances between guilds would form to create larger wars.
Guilds could outbid other guilds for a house in Cities.
Guilds would siege castles to control those cities once every 2 weeks. Everybody wanted to bring glory to their guild. Everybody wanted their alliance to dominate. So much PvP. So much competition.
There were also hideouts out in the wildernes. Guilds would fight for those few as well.
5)Gear. In L2 to have a complete armor set, complete jewelry set, enchanted weapon would take 1 or so weeks of group effort for 1 person only. At 20 lv you needed D grade gear. That would carry you to 40.
At 40 you had to get C grade to help you lv up to 52. At 52 you would get B grade.
Later on A grade was introduced at 61. S grade at 76.
Every time that you would complete a gear set you'd feel such pride. Such power.
Gear had to be crafted. Only dwarves could craft or farm for specific materials to make good gear. It required group effort to enter dangerous lairs.
If you were not worthy to be part of a team you would not advance in this game. (Not discord and such were necessary). People would group woth randoms, or make friends and join a guild.
Everything took effort, but every day was exciting in L2. New enemies? New friends? Where will my trip take me today in this Open World.
6)Raid bosses and Epic raids.
Raid Bosses were out in the world some times deep in the lairs, some times just on an open field.
Raid bosses gave huge XP and chance for gear drops and mats. People would PvP for them, during raids.
Epic Raids were epic. At the begining it would require the whole server to contribute. Then the strong alliances would fight for them.
Epic raids would drop ONE piece of jewelry with great stats. (Worth $$$$$$ real money). An honor to be given one from your guild leader.
7)Grand Olympiad and Heroes.
This was added later on. Every evening players would queue for 1v1 matches with random enemies. At the end of the month, the strongest players of the 30 classes would become a Hero, given a godlike glow, global chat channel (with 30s CD), hero weapons(strong), hero skills (strong-high CD).
The ultimate statement of "I am the best at my Class".
8)Noblese and Subclasses.
As you have understood by now it would take a lot of commitment to make your chsracter strong.
Noblese quest was required in order to compete in the Olympiad. Noblese had a couple of skills plus a self buff that would protect all your buffs in case of death. Very usefull in L2. An unbuffed character was worth 0.
The noblese quest also required that had compketed all the hard quests of your class. Itself was hard as well. Needed a lot of help from your guild.
Upon becoming a noblese you could begin the Subclass quest. The most difficult in the game. That would enable your character to have a second class that you could switch to, starting at lv 40. Some people would choose a class for fun, others for guild services.
All in all there were no instances. All in all you were part of a live world, not a single player game. Everything could be a friend you'd be greatful for or an enemy that you'd wanna beat.
It was so affictive. Never boring.
Why I stopped playing.
Better graphics came out. Better combat system. L2 itself started adding instanced content and it became an easy mmorpg like all the others.
In addition once you play a game for many years the sense of discovery is gone. You know what you need to do at every corner.
However no game since the original L2 has offered such a meaningful world.
Here's a list of what I dislike about other mmorpgs:
1)Instanced PvP
2)Instanced dungeons
3)Easily obtained gear through repetitive dungeon runs.
4)Easy lv up
5)Easy open world. Hope on a mount and go straight from A to B, skip all combat all discovery of landscapes.
6)5-6 classes available to all races. Where is the race culture?? Boring tank dps healer triangle. Where is the bard? Where is the summoner? Where is the enchanter? Where is the chaotic warrior? Where is the dangerous roque? Dark Knight? Paladin?
7)Boring crafting
8)Global economy with very little options to mske profit.
9)One character 10000 professions.
10)Solo friendly designs. One character can be 100% self sufficient and make it to the end game quickly. Then what? Join instanced end game dungeon. Join instanced BG. This isnt mmorpg. This is single player with Co op modes.
I should get back to work....
I started Lineage 2 on L2 extreme in 2005 or 2006... till 2010 i played on some other privates like DragonNetwork etc.. From 2010 to 15 finally on official until they completly killed the Game with pay to win, instances and the awakening shit...
Would be cool to Start with some other old L2 Players...
greetings from Germany 🍻🤘
Hi L2 fans. I played there for a long time on Erica, merged to Sayhe and so forth. Ashes looks even better than L2 (which was fantastic) particularly without the P2W corruption. I am very much looking forward to Betas and release.
Yes, I would be interested in guilding with other L2 fans. I played a Cardinal as my main (with lots of alts, many of them dwarves) and will probably specialize in healing again.
If any Thaidinites or Invalescere see this, please be in touch!
All the best, Tau
-Tristom Erica (around 2003/2004ish for a few years on and off)
I never played official until the past year, mostly on private servers from C4 and up, until I found a home on L2Blaze. I loved the diversity of all the players, and the community even though it was a high rate pvp server. I didn't PvP. I extremely suck at it, and choose another calling in the server.
The thing that bother me the most about L2, was how some classes were rendered useless and the auto macro system deteriorated game play because it promoted afkers. The game became more of a solo event. If I wanted to play solo I would play my FF/Zelda games.
So far from what I've seen (thanks to thelazypeon youtube commentary) Ashes will be very community driven, based of the choices of the players. This definitely what I've been searching for, and I can't wait to see more reveals. Even told my current guild on L2, once Ashes is live, you won't see me on here anymore, but welcome to follow me!
I am a little curious to see if similar mechanics from other games I have played could possibly be in future reveals.
- summoning player (marriage/friend)
- mentor system (based on active in game time, with a slight enhancement buff or goofy item)
- unlimited character creation opportunities
- tamable mounts (since this is an open world it would be to acquire mounts through taming (loved this from BOTW and in ROI)
- non stat accessories skin (I never knew how important character diversity was until I seen an ORC fighter with pink plastic hair)
No summoning of others. Very little fast travel options planned. Summoning across long distances would break many of their core mechanics or pillars as they like to call them.
Mentor system is planned. No details as to benefits either way.
BDO level or better of character customization. (if that is what you meant by unlimited creation, unlimited number of alts is a no, there will be a cap, number is stated as "comfortable")
Almost everything in game is tamable with the exception of world bosses and certain named mobs. You will acquire mounts, mules, and pets through taming or husbandry. Cross breeding is a thing. Hurtle specifically mentioned (horse/turtle)
All skins are cosmetic only. There will be no p2w of skins with stats. One of the core tenets of the game.
🐐G🐐O🐐A🐐T🐐
I was in L2 back when it was a real grind to get to lvl 20. I remember the first player who had a C-grade set being totally uber for ages!
One of my alts was a dwarf who had a profitable shot-crafting business. I got all the gear to crush for crystals by dropping trains on bots (not on players). Training bots and killing PKers - great fun!