Lineage II: The Chaotic Chronicle Impressions

Though it hasn't launched in North America, Lineage II is making quite a splash in South Korea. The sequel to the world's most popular online role-playing game (with more than a million subscribers) launched in South Korea in October, and it's been racking up impressive numbers ever since. As in most online role-playing games, in Lineage II you create a character to explore a vast virtual world that's populated by thousands of other players. You hunt monsters and battle other players in the never-ending quest for prestige and better equipment. But Lineage II differs from most online role-playing games because it incorporates an intriguing political and economic system that allows players to band together to rule the countryside. Aaron Rigby, the North American producer for Lineage II, visited the GameSpot offices recently and filled us in on how and why it is so important to capture castles in the game.

You'll pledge allegiance to a clan in Lineage II.

After you create a character in Lineage II using an incredibly simple and straightforward process, you can explore and play the game on your own. However, once you reach the 15th level, you'll discover that monsters can defeat you easily if they catch you alone. The same is true of other players. Lineage II currently has a free-form "player-versus-player" (PvP) combat system that lets anyone attack anyone else, at the cost of losing "karma," which is essentially your character's reputation. If you slaughter too many innocent players, you'll lose so much karma that your character will become a hated outlaw who will be attacked on sight by guards and who can be hunted down by other players to reduce their own karmic loads. This is why it's a good idea to join a clan, which is a long-standing player association (also known as a "guild" in other games). By becoming part of a clan, you not only join a group that you can adventure with but also join a group that can lay siege to castles and can control the local economy.

Castle sieges are two-hour-long battle royals that can occur between multiple groups of clans. The way it works is fairly simple. When a clan gains control of a castle, it has control of it for only two weeks. To control the castle longer, the clan has to schedule a siege. If the clan successfully defends against a siege, it gets the castle for another two weeks before it has to hold another siege.

While only one clan maintains control of the castle at a time, there are ways of enlisting other clans as allies for the defense of the castle. Since the clan that controls the castle decides tax rates and controls local vendors, this controlling clan can use its deep pockets to hire the aid of other clans with money and equipment. Likewise, a clan planning to attack the castle can attempt to garner support among other clans with promises of riches and loot. Whichever side your clan chooses, the game will make sure that you know when the siege begins, because sieges are major events in the game.

Killing monsters on your own is easy, until you hit level 15.

For a siege to be successful, the attackers must breach the castle's gates and must fight their ways into the inner keep, where the castle artifact is kept. The clan leader--and only the clan leader--can cast a spell on the artifact. If he manages to complete the spell without being interrupted, ownership of the castle changes hands instantly. However, the siege isn't over yet. The siege will reset, but in doing so, the new owners must defend the castle while the recently evicted owners must try to recapture it. If the evicted owners can breach the gates and get their clan leader to cast his spell on the castle artifact, they'll retake the castle, and the sides will switch places again. The ultimate winner is determined by whichever side possesses control of the castle at the end of the game's two-hour time limit. The winning clan then has two weeks of ownership of the castle before it has to hold a siege to determine whether it retains control.

As you might guess, these castle sieges are some of the highlights of the game. The siege system is already up and running on the Korean servers of Lineage II, and this version of the game has reportedly hosted siege battles of up to 300 players (who were battling it out for control of a single castle). Furthermore, massive battles with around 150 players on the screen simultaneously have been witnessed.