Lineage 2: It all starts here for us! (not 56k friendly)

[Zak33]

town shots

Good details, nice to see the surrounding mountains and scenery over the walls too





I love this game

[RedPutty]

Is there a lot of grinding required?

[Zak33]

not in the initial stages..and that lvl grinding that you DO have to do, is normally accompanied by a few quests.

As with all online games it is INFINITELY betterto share with friends.

However I've found a lot of really very helpful people on there as werll as my gaming buddies Sair and Sir Andrew.

Lvl 1 to 5 is really short. 5 -10 is a doddle too, though you need to range further a-field.

It's still very easy to get yourselft whooped but when you die you get transported back to the local town, lose 10% of your experience and might possibly lose an item of equipment randomly, though not often.

The sheer scale of the game for later adventuring is what amazes me....I can see why people stick at it for 2 years+, there are SO many things to learn, and you don't have tolearn them if you don't want. There's weird stuff like "harvesting" where you buy seeds from a local land manager, and something called a "harverster" (pretty ugly looking hand held weapon.

Then prior to fighting, you walk up to the monster, and click his icon, double click the "seed" in your back pack, and it showers down on him, and "germinates" is it's body, while you whoop his sorry ass. Then as soon as you've killed him with your nromal weapons, you "harvest" the seed and resell it. It works best if you are similar level to the monster, and it means walking right upto it, and it'll get a good few hits in on you before you know it. SO far it's been no use to me, but on later characters its very profitable (I'm told)

The magic spells are just like Dungeons and Dragons, whereby you need a spell book to learn them, and you have to buy those books before being taught the spells.

The sheer array of monsters is dazzling and the scale of the map immense.

I've recently been tryingt to gain a Wolf as a partner, and it involves running errands, BUT you have to personally learn facts from key character in one part of the map, and it's a bloody long way walking between, asking each. Once you've done it, its a long treck home (loads of fighting on the way, a few deaths, money spoent on powerups etc) and THEN I got some of the questions wrong and had to start over....visiting ALL the people again

I've given up on that until I have enough money to get people to teleport me from town to town, it's a long long walk.

There's loads of cool dungeons, crypts, swamps, towers etc, and some are so hard the game won't let me in yet

[ERU]

Keep the screenies coming - im quite enjoying them

[Zak33]

I will chap....booked a few hours with my mate Sir Andrew tonight, as I have a Quest to do that's a bit beyond one person to manage at my level.

I love dungeoneering

[Zak33]

one thing I've not mentioned so far is music, atmosphere and sound.

Some of the regions have their own sound tracks as you enter them, and all the towns and villages do, and each is different. Some are just average, and even become a tad tiresome but some are very good indeed and you end up whistling them all day!

The deep bass of a good pair of speakers or headphones is a great choice for this game, as the sound effects in dungeons, the groaning of undead, the flapping of wings of crows as they fly off, and the deep pounding boom of the large treants as they thud through the countryside makes a huge impact on me, especially if you didn't know they were there!

I wasn't really expecting the sounds to be up to much, as it's difficult to judge in a game of this sheer scale, where to expect sounds to swap, and change. But as you scale a huge hill, the wind starts whistling and the effect is very good. You KNOW you're on a high hillside of in a deep valley with your eyes shut.

[Mblaster]

... and THEN I got some of the questions wrong and had to start over....visiting ALL the people again

Pen, paper I always have some on my desk for scribbling down notes cause I know I won't remember it

[Zak33]

Pen, paper I always have some on my desk for scribbling down notes cause I know I won't remember it

I did chap....having wnadered across 1/4 of the map and back again...I made notes! But some ofthe questions weren't in the instructions I was given...not worded in the same way. Some of the answers are double negatives, and some are simply hard!

No doubt it's online somewhere, but I refuse to cheat...yet. Having dome it 3 times over now though, and failed everytime, it's getting on my wick!

[Zak33]

Dungeoneering:

The entrance hall to one of the tombs!



I had my botty properyl panked in there. Even Sir Andrew couldn't keep me alive! He used 3 resurrection scrolls on me,. but everytime you die. you lose 10% of your experience points, so I actually got near to dropping a level I stood back and healed him as he fought, and I put a few powerful magic blasts into the enemy when there was only one left, because if you hit them hard they change target and attackt the most deadly (ie me!) and with such weak armour for spell casting, I just get whooped. I have no protective spells for myself yet.

Bloody good fun, and while you earn (and lose) experience points, you ALSO earn and never lose Skill Points. ANd it's those skill points that you spend on new spells, weapon mastery, armour mastery, healing ability etc. SO you dont go backwards all the time

[Zak33]

Lizardmen...I can take these guys apart with two spells now

Spell shot

[Zak33]

School of the Dark Arts...a deserted Dark Elven Mage college....cut into the ground in huge chasms and with mammoth structures overhead.

It's big



strectches out over quite a large area and has only one entrance (that I know of)


And yes..that IS a voodoo doll in my hand traded in my two handed sword for a proper mage toy

[Zak33]

here..for scale....the size of the halls and chambers...with open sky above!

[ERU]

Pen, paper I always have some on my desk for scribbling down notes cause I know I won't remember it

I used to use this >>> NotesUNeed <<< have a go.

[Zak33]

not bad

[Zak33]

The banners in the town are lovely :-)

[Zak33]

I solo'd my way through the Elven fortress, a 25 minute fight that was way within my ability now, but which needed tactics and cunning to pull monsters to me a couple at a time at most....

but this lot in the far chamber were beyond me and I bottled out and fought my way back out



that's 5 winged devilly things.....in a few levels I'm confident I'll whoop them all at once, but right nowe I need to take them on in pairs ...max! and when they're squeezed into the same room....if I hit one...they all flood me!