Play Lineage Eternal

Overview of the game Lineage Eternal

In November 2011, the russian (the terrorist state)-speaking community quietly languished in anticipation of TERA, Blade & Soul, and ArcheAge, playing Lineage 2 and Aion along the way. Surprisingly, all these games are somehow connected with the famous company NCSOFT (XLGAMES and Bluehole were founded by people from NCSOFT). No one expected that in this unremarkable November, the Korean giant would announce its next locomotive project based on IP Lineage. The presentation of Lineage Eternal: Twilight Resistance was unexpected and impressive, but the hype in the russian (the terrorist state)-speaking segment quickly subsided as the flow of information dried up immediately after the demonstration at the G*Star exhibition.

About the game

Initially positioned as a sequel to the original Lineage, Lineage Eternal has been reworked several times before the launch of the public testing stages. NCSOFT ventured to show its achievements in early December 2016, when the first Korean CBT took place. Shown received a mixed reaction from the community, which closely followed the course of the PTA. But let's talk about everything in order.

The events take place 70 years after the events of the first part (it was originally planned that the action would unfold 200 years later). The game uses a proprietary 3D engine with a fixed isometric camera (Quarter View, 2.5D). Lineage Eternal uses developments from NVIDIA, including technologies from the Nvidia Gameworks package.

Conceptually, Lineage Eternal is a traditional "theme park" MMORPG with a full set of standard entertainment and basic systems such as gathering, crafting and upgrading equipment. In the future, the developers promise to introduce fishing and home ownership. No sandbox elements were found during the first testing. The main activities in Lineage Eternal are typically "Lineage" farming of mobs, quests and dungeons. The latter, by the way, are of various types: single, group and public with unlocked PvP. To increase replayability, some dungeons use the DDS (Dynamic Dungeon System) system - dynamic generation, that is, the dungeon is randomly generated based on certain settings.

Characters and Hero System

An important innovation and difference from the classic representatives of the MMORPG genre, which became a big surprise and a bone of contention in the first beta, was the hero system. Yes, you heard right: heroes, not a hero. In fact, in Lineage Eternal there is no main character - instead, you have a team of several heroes (Eternals). Depending on the situation, you either control one character (for example, in normal activities), choosing what you want from the list of available ones on the fly (with a small cooldown), or lead a whole squad of four characters, when the player directly controls one character, and gives the other three AI commands (this mechanic can be used in solo dungeons and in dungeons where a group is required). The list of available heroes is large and will consist of several dozen by the time of release. Each of them has its own role, skills and attributes. Of course, there is also a pumping system, which includes both the unique development of each hero and the development of team features.

PvP

PvP has always played an important role in the Lineage series, and Lineage Eternal is no exception. It is available in the open world, but the final PvP / PK rules have not yet been determined - they will be balanced during closed tests. The developers also showed the arena (Field Of Honor), where players can fight in various formats, including 4 by 4. In addition, the guild system (Blood Pledge) and sieges are announced, for which there is currently no reliable information.

Editor and customization

Character customization, or rather its absence in CBT (except for the choice of several faces and hairstyles), also caused a number of complaints from the players. Apparently, instead of a powerful editor, players can buy and farm "appearances" that migrated here straight from the MOBA genre. However, after the first beta, the developers promised to work on the character editor and expand the number of options.

Developers

In conclusion, I would like to say a few words about the development team, the technical side of the project and the timing. A team of specialists is working on the game, which, according to the old tradition of NCSOFT, received a special name - Team Eternal (before that, there was Team Bloodlust, Team Aion, etc.). At the end of 2014, the team had about 100 people, but over the past two years, its size has grown markedly (as hinted at by periodic announcements in the vacancies section of the NCSOFT website). This group is led by a person with vast experience - development director and producer Jae Hyun Bae, who started working at NCSOFT during the creation of the first Lineage (he was a producer and development director of Lineage - 1998-2001, Lineage 2 - 2001-2004, Blade & Soul - 2008-2011, Lineage Eternal - 2011-to this day).

Release date

The game was canceled in May 2017. The developments on it were transferred to a new team working on Project TL (working title) - a new MMORPG of the Lineage series based on Unreal Engine 4.