Hey guys.
Ok first things first, I'm an ex-WoW player, so those of you who want to throw things at me please do so...now.
Hey Rusty
Welcome to Lineage 2. We won't throw things at you, WoW definetly isn't a bad game by any stretch, the biggest hatred of WoW is likely because no one likes a game that sucks players away from their favorite game.
L2 is a good choice, but it is a very hard one and this is truly a game that is what you make of it.
Ok good. Now that that's out of the way: I just downloaded the free trial, and I have a coupla little questions before I get started. Most of my MMO experience has been WoW up until now (with a little bit of Guildwars and AION as well), so my questions will mostly be of the annoying "in WoW it was x, what is it in L2" variety. I've done a bit of reading, but I think it's always best to talk to the actual players of a game in order to know what things are really like.
Yes, wise move. Reading can't really prepare you for what awaits you in L2.
1) I typically enjoy playing defensive melee classes - in WoW I played Paladins and Warriors, and usually played as a tank. I'm assuming this game's closest equivalent is the Knight/Paladin/Phoenix Knight?
Yes and in a sense the dwarf classes. But really, don't play a dwarf as a main character, unless you really enjoy their special playstyles (crafting or being able to spoil monsters for extra loot), because playing a dwarf is kinda like entering a mixed martial arts tournament with a paper cup as your weapon.
2) I like to solo stuff - questing is usually more interesting to me than raiding or PVP. If I'm playing along that knight path in L2, how is the soloing capability? Do tanks have the whole "I can take a punch but I need 3 years to kill something" problem in this game, or does it not work like that?
Melee classes can be pretty ok damagewise. You're likely going to need to train a wolf (gained at level 15). You are however going to likely need to either friend yourself with a buffer, or dual/tripple account with your own buffer classes. Prophets are good for melee classes, as are Shilien Elders.
Many people do the "OOP training", which means you have buffer characters out of your party, but still buffing you. So you get all the XP, but at the same time get all the buffs too.
3) I hated the fact that WoW got dumbed down so much - scoff at the game in general if you like but levelling and raiding in vanilla and TBC was a lot harder and more enjoyable than anything that happened in the WotLK expansion. I liked it when it was more difficult and you could die easily if you did something stupid. What is the difficulty like in L2? Is it actually a challenging game in terms of skill, or merely time-intensive? I've read a lot about the L2 levelling process being "revamped" and the grind being reduced in Gracia - how do you guys feel about those changes?
Raids are of varying difficulty...some regular low level raids can be killed with minimum efforts by small groups, up to the epic raids which requires large coordinated and well formed efforts of dozens of people.
Some of the newer raids are more challenging in the sense that they are less just being a time intensive fight and require skill and heavy coordination.
The new leveling changes are great. L2 was *TOO* time consuming, leading to much cheating, it was completely insane the amount of effort needed to reach anywhere meaningful at the higher levels. So yes, I am glad they borrowed a few pages from WoW in that regard and eased up on things a bit and added the vitality system.
4) I'm a huge lore-pig. Does this game have a good storyline?
It does have a pretty good storyline. Sadly its somewhat obtuse in its presentation. Its not as much as WoW, as the game simply can't match the sheer work and playerbase of that gamem but it definetly has a lot.
One thing that gives a lot of lore are the quest dialogues and I was the one who originally came up with the idea of making quest guides that has screens of all dialogue for every quest step, so you can read the lore at your leisure and not having to hurry through it in game.
Sadly the amount of shared lore with the general L2 population is a bit limited, as those who are interested in lore tend to put the info on their own sites or lore specific sites and not on the larger L2 sites. So the community is a bit polarized in that regard, as you're either a lore buff or don't care about lore at all, there's little casual lore spreading like you have in WoW through sites like the wow wiki.
5) In WoW, gear is maybe 80-90% of your performance, which is one of the things I hated about it. Is L2 as gear and loot-based, or is there more skill involved?
Gear is very important, but your skill is definitely also very important and even more so your ability to socialize and ally yourself with the right people. Making the right choices and playing strategically.
6) How's the community? I'd imagine the bulk of the population is in the endgame with a small trickle of newbies coming in at the low levels, is this about right? I don't mind because I like to solo, but am I going to be able to level alone, or is this like FFXI and you *need* a group to get by?
You can level alone...though boxing might make the process a whole lot less painful. The bulk of the population is high level, but there are medium levels too and just casual players or clans that are more varied. Some players also have lower level character they can play besides their high level ones. Or they sub class and as such become low level again.
Generally speaking, I got bored of WoW because it was too simple and easy, and I'm looking for something a bit more challenging. I don't have a huge amount of time, but I'd rather use that time to progress slowly on something epic than progress faster on something easy. Do you guys think I'm in the right place, generally, or should I ****? ;)
You're in the right place as such, but be careful what you try to take out of the game...you have to find ways to enjoy grind, because there's a lot of grind in the game.
Thanks in advance for your advice :)
You're welcome.
If you want some lore and more importantly the quest guides for almost all quests in the game, visit the largest and most visited Wiki of L2:
http://l2.eogamer.com/wiki/Main_Page While its a very basic looking wiki, its the closest thing to the WoW Wiki.
Of course as previously mentioned, there are also other sites out there, like L2RPA for roleplaying and additional lore, there's the main site here that has lore as well, there's l2blah for more endgame "no holds barred" discussions, there's Elliebellys site
http://v3.elliebelly.net/ which is generally about high end game, discussions and translations of future content in korea.
I would however suggest against reading about future expansions right off the bat or you end up endlessly chasing the carrot of the next expansion and the next expansion, etc. etc. not taking enough time to enjoy and explore what you have and what you're playing.