Besides the nice looking visuals, everything about this comes across as underwhelming. The entire preview comes across as disjointed and lacking in cohesion. The target platforms are PC and console; they’ve (rightfully) pulled back on their objective they had with Project TL which also tried to target mobile (and the ability to cross play with PC and console). Instead, game play can be stream played to a mobile device (so no mobile specific client).
The game also encompasses a “Play For All” strategy in terms of trying to appeal to a wide array of players. While the game has both PvE and PvP content, they made it clear that players should never find themselves in a situation where they become involved in PvP content if they do not want to. Most zones (which they call fields) are safe ones. It’s clearly opt-in where the player has to check for zone events and whatever other system they will have implemented.
I already can hear the reaction from PvP types, let alone long time Lineage players who will see this as a downgrade to the sort of open world PvP (aka ganking) they enjoy taking part in. While I’m not into PvP myself, I would have to say that long time Lineage players would have a point. You can look at a laundry list of other KMMO’s to see how PvP has been implemented in all it’s forms. The concepts always sound good on paper, but they all have their own problems in their implementations. From what little they unveiled, I don’t expect there to be a remarkable system.
Probably the most tacky part of this “Play For All” strategy, is how they define THRONE as the pillar for combat, battles and competitions that take place, LIBERTY is the pillar for the connections one makes in the game world (which they define as the core starting point; uh, no shit sherlock moment there), and AND encompasses this “Play For All” strategy (PC and console with their specific UI and user experiences). I actually did an eye roll when the translation said, “the world, which has no boundaries, is the foundation that allows players to connect with one another”. I mean, that is pretty much EVERY SINGLE game world there is out there. And I am sorry, they are all physically bound (that is just a design reality).
Connecting a multi-level dungeon design that has a main entrance, and another separate access point at another level for example with connected entry ways between those levels, and directly back into the overworld, is not my definition of “no boundaries”. I hate to say it, but single player Genshin Impact, wins the award for intricate multi-level spatial design when it comes to integrating traditional horizontal and vertical level design, along with significant verticality (the Chasm or the entire Enkanomiya instance for example where they make liberal use of XYZ axis). The overhead world map does the actual breadth of this level design, little justice. I just don’t see any KMMO trying to implement something even grander than that in an MMO (let alone THRONE AND LIBERTY).
Similarly, we keep hearing about weather and day/night cycle designs that create environmental changes where players need to adapt to such changing conditions. Again, actual implementation constraints come into play while players themselves, aren’t going to sit around to see more of these cycles happening. It sounds great and looks good in a footage like this, but the game play reality is normally underwhelming. Guild Wars 2 does dynamic weather changes well because the game design also has running events; some which trigger if you enter an area (and you can take part in it or not). Bjoras March zone is a good example of this when a blizzard occurs (where you are subject to cold damage over time). Genshin Impact has a similar cold region mechanic with Dragonspine. But my favorite dynamic change are the sandstorm meta events in the Dry Top map of Guild Wars 2 because everything about it is conveyed so well that it feels real (and again, it’s part of the greater design of the game where these area events along with the meta ones, are always running in conjunction with main story quest objectives).
The combat in THRONE AND LIBERTY has now shifted from rotating a team of characters (this was the tail end design of Lineage Eternal with it’s first/only CBT; it wasn’t a very well received one), to that of being able to utilize different weapon types (which then defines what role the character plays), including swapping them out as conditions require. Again, this is nothing new; the devil is in the details of how such weapon swapping will be implemented (that is where a beta test comes into play)
I did mention in my preview write up that this project team doesn’t seem to have any real idea as to what this game actually is; I’m not sure if it has anything to do with the actual Lineage franchise anymore (and is just being spun off into a new generic fantasy MMO).
Probably the most interesting part is the character creation where you can use actual photos to create a character utilizing AI; this one may run into some privacy related issues not to mention, actual copyright (Japan for example has some rather strict image rights when it comes to actual peoples faces). And there is of course going to be folks using images of celebrities and what not (which is more quagmire); I can just see legal having to write a TOU (which no one hardly ever reads) to cover this if the feature even makes the cut. The built-in character designs are meant to cover a global audience; but they are pretty bad looking (IMHO) by Korean design standard.
They also slipped a blurb about optimization and making sure the game can handle massive amounts of players. This was funny to me because game engine limitations were a reason why most prior KMMO’s had issues (as many were built in UE3 since that was the production expertise and pipeline back in those earlier days. When the game was rebranded to Project TL (The Lineage), the engine went from UE3 to UE4. And they did learn a lot from the work did on Blade & Soul to redo that in UE4. It remains to be seen how well this will translate for this game.
Overall, I am just getting a bad feeling that will end up not being well received once players can test it in a beta. And remember, none of this preview even breached what potential business model they are looking at (as that, will determine what sort of cash shop mechanics will be involved). They also didn’t even touch on a particular timeline which is a huge flag that that this is further from releasing than it is closer. I presume there will be actual media interviews where that question will be asked (where they will likely provide a statement). Myself, definitely not feeling anything for this game as previewed.
