It’s finally happened; this long in development hell title, has finally seen the actual light of day in South Korea. NC must be breathing a sigh of relief (given how long they’ve been asked about this at every earnings conference call since the game was first branded as Lineage Eternal).
Now the actual operational hard work with servicing the game, begins. Western onlookers need to be wary of falling for the streamer induced hype regarding the early game (this brings to mind what I wrote about back in 2018 regarding Ascent: Infinite Realm). Yes, Throne and Liberty is graphically gorgeous (I mentioned that before regarding it’s graphic fidelity). This is where all of NC’s work with getting their games upgraded to Unreal Engine 4, is making a difference. This part of the production pipeline, is going to naturally filter to other Korean design studios (should they also pursue newer PC/console MMO projects) just like how NC (NCsoft back then) played a large influence in how PC KMMO’s were designed during the VC heydays (pre-2015).
The changes to the combat system were as I suspected it would be (based on what the PD said during their “launching showcase”); not fully action combat. They had to compromise (to make the combat feel more dynamic versus how static it was in the beta test) by working within the constraints of what existed, without incurring further development delays. Using action combat mode, you can target with your mouse (like action combat), but your combat is still akin to tabbed targeting. You can quickly change targets with the mouse so that the combat feels overall better, but it’s not like TERA style action combat where you can just engage with large numbers of targets simultaneously (simply put, the combat in Throne and Liberty is still slower by comparison). I would put it in the same category as Guild Wars 2 set to its faux action combat mode. Anyone who also enjoys ArcheAge tabbed targeting combat, will like Throne and Liberty’s combat system (especially if they just choose not to use action combat mode). It is still magnitudes better of what existed in the KR beta (which felt awful).
The graphics eye candy of this load screen free (open world wise) game world will be a natural attractor. IMHO, it will set a new standard as far as expectations go for high fantasy MMORPG’s. That’s a pot shot at Lost Ark which is just one of the worst given how highly instanced its game world is. One positive thing with Throne and Liberty finally releasing, is that it will be a new decade (2020-2030) release that could be a potential alternative for Lost Ark (which launched in Korea in 2019). NC completely ditching the previous branded versions (Lineage Eternal and Project TL) fixed isometric camera view, was the smartest decision when taken together with the seamless/load screen free open world (an aspect I enjoyed in ArcheAge and TERA).
It’s also a good thing this ISN’T being simultaneously launched in the west. Why? Because they will need to make changes to the monetization. Based on the launch showcase, I thought the game was going to move to an actual subscription model (meaning you needed to purchase a subscription for actual game time). Instead, that turned out to be a “lost in translation” moment. The game is free to play. The “subscription” is the paid for track of the battle pass. That battle pass has potentially strong pay to progress elements to it (that is yet to be determined since one has to be playing at end game for awhile to see what type of impact it has).
The other thing I mentioned that could be an issue (and will more than likely have to be changed for the Amazon Gaming version) is the auction house (which can only be used with the Lucent premium currency). Looking at the various changes that AGS was successfully able to get made for Lost Ark, I don’t expect that to be an issue. But AGS will need to get ahead of this by quickly putting out information in conjunction with NC, to begin addressing this (now that KR is open).
But this will bring up a really interesting dynamic given that AGS will be publishing two KMMO’s from what are competing South Korean studios (Smilegate RPG and NC). AGS as a publisher, comes across as boring/restrained. I also don’t particularly care for how they engage with the community via the likes of Discord and Reddit where it’s not always presented on their official web site (but that part is what it is). Still, it will be interesting to see what type of cannibalization occurs. I do expect Khrolan (Merv Lee Kwai) will put himself out there just like he did with ArcheAge (while at Trion), and then for ArcheAge Unchained (while at Gamigo). He is very familiar with what worked with the western player demographic for ArcheAge which is why I have all of these red flags in my head about how this could go in this region since it will also be a future competitor for ArcheAge 2 (whenever that releases). T&L will have a huge lead time though, and how NC handles things like the cadence of content updates and adjusting the monetization, will determine its longer term staying power.
If all of this sounds like I am giving T&L more benefit of the doubt (considering all of my previous “stick a fork in it” comments), I am. While they didn’t completely scrap the underlying core design with the combat, they made needed changes to it. They also removed Astro Hunting (auto combat); a move I didn’t believe they would do given how it was core to the game design). But they managed to adjust the combat to make it more dynamic within all of the original design constraints, and have plans to continue to tweak it. Would I have personally preferred an actual overhaul to make it fully action combat ala TERA? Of course, but I don’t think the (further) delays would have worked in the games favor. So it’s enough changes (from listening to feedback), that keeps me watching how this progresses in Korea (the next crucial part to observe is how the entire end game loop plays out).
