2011 gameplay trailer ≠ 2014 gameplay trailer ≠ 2016 CBT1 gameplay
It also seems that Korean players (at least some who posted angrily on NCSOFT’s official forum) who enjoyed the Lineage franchise are not happy with this design of the game. Lineage Eternal has already gone through numerous design changes and resulting closed beta delays; that 2011 trailer is no longer really applicable.
Not that this is anything new; Bluehole Ginno went through numerous design changes for Devilian from 2009-2013 before it settled on the design that was launched for the Korean open beta in 2014.
It remains to be seen how NCSOFT will respond to this early criticism; I seriously don’t think going through yet another redesign will help. This whole isometric style MMO with ARPG like combat is already proving to be a niche that doesn’t appeal to the larger MMO crowd that is used to the 3rd person view/movable camera, tab/action combat style of gameplay. Both Lost Ark and MU Legend are likely 2nd half of 2017 releases in Korea. Lineage Eternal cannot afford a multiyear delay to go back to the drawing board IMHO.
This first CBT is also relatively weak content wise (when compared to the amount shown for Lost Ark where it was capped to level 30) and that itself is rather troubling when considering that players are pushing past level 40 (some believe the CBT1 cap is 50). And considering there is no level cap locked at 40, there is little reason for them to hide some of that content IF they had it. The reality is that it probably isn’t ready yet (which would explain why they have pulled back on the whole simultaneous global launch thing they were hyping before).
As I have noted before, the term “closed beta test” has been completely bastardized. It is now pretty much a marketing/PR term used to begin generating hype for a title. The problem is that expectations are much higher and given the rise of live game streaming, also represents a companies only chance to make a good initial impression. Many games unfortunately label their initial foray as a “closed beta test” and fail miserably at making a good first impression with issues ranging from buggy game play, poor localization, non existent content amongst the most common ones. Then you have others like my.com with Revelation Online that go out of their way to reduce CBT access and go into full cash grab mode pushing founder packs and other digital goodies with the carrot being guaranteed access into those closed betas.
All of this leads to this huge disconnect. Why is so much effort expended on well produced cinematics and on actual game designs/coding, only to have the whole thing fail to make a good initial impression? IMHO, it is how the publisher views things which is normally, how to make money as quickly as possible (everything else be damned). Making money is one thing but if the quality of that product is low and mainly concentrating more on the facade, it will mainly come across as one huge cash grab (where the money is used to fund the next thing; rinse and repeat the cycle so long as there are players out there who continue to buy into this type of business model). And that is the problem; whales that view all of this as a personal playground who throw disposal income at publishers that are more than willing to pump out this type of dreck. It is quick and easy money for them.
Which is unfortunate for a title like this (NCSOFT is also one of a handful of Korean game companies which self-publishes most of its titles domestically and in the west via its own subsidiaries). The game has potential because the graphics and general aesthetics (when it comes to characters and the game world) are pretty decent (much better than MU Legend IMHO). Game play wise, it also comes across looking better than MU Legend as well (as noted in my first impressions posting, lot of things in their first CBT came across as lackluster). I am reserving judgement to see how much feedback they do process and put forward into CBT2 (I guess the cynical side of me is just thinking it is the usual publisher lip service) but I don’t think the general look and feel of it will change that drastically.
In contrast, the look of Lineage Eternal in CBT1 is something that comes across as more appealing (but not having actual hands on play time, can’t comment if the actual combat itself feels better than MU Legend). Just judging by initial looks though, it is probably similar to MU Legend where it might not offer up as much mobility as Devilian (again, that is a side effect of it having quirks with having implemented multiple control systems; one that ends up working well at end game). And that itself is one huge reason why even going back to Diablo 3 feels incredibly lame for me because the combat while good, no longer feels as dynamic by comparison given how the gameplay has devolved into this really fast paced action combat arcade style involving no real thinking (unless you are seriously undergeared relative to the difficulty).
What I can say is that Diablo 3 players who were looking at Lineage Eternal as one of those “Diablo like” games which they could hopefully move on to, need to look elsewhere as this iteration of Lineage Eternal is not something a lot of those players will end up enjoying. There is clearly a Korean style grind element involved in the crafting portion of the game (which is probably going to be a strong emphasis of Lineage Eternal) when it comes to the consumables and materials required.
I also believe that this label (Diablo like) needs to stop being used for this genre of MMO’s coming out from South Korea. NCSOFT clearly wanted to distance themselves from this given their design changes especially emphasizing the “eternals” part. I know some are comparing it to MOBA influenced design to appeal to the League of Legend’s/DOTA crowd (which is big in Korea) but I also think it is an interesting take of how players sometimes don’t play alts (other classes) because it requires an additional time investment in leveling them up (along with gearing them). This idea isn’t new since some of us proposed allowing us to use alts in Diablo III as followers (but with restrictions).
What is also known but was not testable in this CBT is the mobile cloud aspect of the game (where players will be able to play their characters via mobile). This is not like the mobile version of Devilian (which is completely separate from the PC version when it comes to classes, play style, game systems) but instead being able to play those same characters/eternals via mobile. Netmarble Games (a South Korean mobile development company) is releasing a completely separate mobile game based on the Lineage franchise called Lineage II: Revolution on December 14th for both Android and iOS devices. This is a co-partnership with both NCSOFT and Netmarble making mutual equity investments into the title. NCSOFT clearly has a different take on mobile which is why they partnered with a mobile game developer that has expertise in that area where they could take the essence of Lineage II and implement it in a way that makes sense for mobile. It will be interesting to see how NCSOFT allows players to play their Lineage Eternal characters on mobile (basically the whole presentation of having this type of cross play functionality between mobile and PC and whether or not the mobile side will be restricted to say solo questing/dungeons).
But now that NCSOFT has at least finally released a playable game, it does give players a better general idea of the different options in this MMOARPG niche. None of them IMHO are going to appeal to the majority of players used to Diablo, Path of Exile, Torchlight, Grim Dawn, etc style of systems and gameplay. The MMO’s coming out of South Korea are just that, MMO’s first with superficial ARPG elements layered on top. At this juncture though, it looks like Lost Ark is going to be very difficult to top especially if other systems like sailing play out well whenever they do their second CBT.
