Hi all. I've recently looked into good MMORPGs to play and a friend of mine recommended Lineage 2. I'm now currently downloading this and wondering if it's any good. Hopefully someone can answer the following questions:
-Is it newbie friendly? Is it hard to start up?
-How is the population?
-How is economy?
-How is the leveling? Is it quest based or grind based? If it's grind based how long would it take to get capped out?
-How is the endgame PvP? Is it balanced?
Also, if you all wouldn't mind it, could someone recommend to me the server with most English speaking players?
Starting up is easy as gear and consumables are freely given trhough path of awakening on the main site till level 80 (max level is 99). The first aim for you is to reach level 85, due to the recent expansions, 85 is where the actual game starts.
Can't rly point out if it's newbie friendly, it depends on how much you like to grind really and how well you can socialize since this game is group reliant after level 80. (though you can solo till 85)
The population is..well AFK. What i mean is, that while servers like Chronos And Naia (old servers) are heavy and almost filled with players, many of them are boxes (multi-clients) since the game is heavily based on buffs (boost from magical skills from a certain class) so you could say 1/4 of the population has 1 online. And there's plenty of chars..being a grind game and heavily exploitable for that matter, you will find plenty of "bots" - automated characters- while you hunt. It is ilegal but, again, depends solely on you if you can ignore or bear with it.
Economy is wel, uh i cant say much for this, but because of botters, the prices of many items are really low, since there's a flood of them, getting money for serious items tho is no easy task for a newbie, unless you get lucky with events and oh trust me, if you get lucky you can have more money than a veteran player. Note down that this game is based on luck 50% of the time.:)
Lvling is very grindy, till 40, it's quest based, matter of 3-5 hours, at 60 you have daily quests, but grinding is required nevertheless or you can join parties to hunt down raid bosses, they give tons of xp, from 1 to 4 levels for example. These are open field bosses so they have respawn time and again, luck can be on ur side when u go hunt them, there can be many or none:p you pretty much lvl like this till 81, to 85 you level with open world raid bosses or monster grinding again.
This process of 40-85 can take from 2 days to 15 for a player playing 2 hours a day.
At 85, the game takes a huge turn. You have new class, highly diferent from the previous, yet based on that previous one. Xp is heavily based by doing daily instances and quests, you can grind for eficient XP by being with a party, and you'll slowly understand every level becomes 20% harder than the previous one in average, until it becomes 60% or 70% harder at higher level. If you dont spend any xp boost items from cash shop, can take from 6 months to 2 years on average player to reach 99.
Considering the time it takes to reach endgame, you should be concerned about pvp balance in all levels, which varies lots. Can't say if endgame is balanced..not much people maxed out yet(legit), and i haven't either:)
Ah yes..the community has many trolls, but such is the internet. Many scammers aswell and you'll heard the word "NOOB" or laughs like xa0xa0xa0a0xa0xa0 many times...also Naia might have the biggest base of english speaking players since it's european server (but situated physicaly on USA).