What happens when a game for Korean powergamers comes to North America? Lineage II.
First of all, like most MMOs, the game has a level grind. Unlike other MMOs, however, Lineage II's level grind is absurd. It will take you months and months and months of grinding to reach a decent level. Getting to 20 or even 40 can be done in a relatively short amount of time, but after that you hit a wall and you'll be working on gaining one level for weeks if not months at a time. This is all assuming that you play less than 10 hours a day, though. Korean powergamers, as mentioned previously, routinely play more than 10 hours per day and therefore find the level progression to be acceptable. As a result of spending a week to gain 10% of a level, the death penalty of 10% level XP (only 1% in siege combat) means that dieing costs you untold weeks of effort for no gain whatsoever.
Why be so concerned about your level, though, you ask. Lineage II's design focuses on levels, gear, and money. Those three things will determine the outcome of a fight 90% of the time (organization goes out the window as North American MMO players could hardly be described as disciplined). You need to get certain levels to use certain grades of gear; so unless you are in the highest level bracket, you cannot hope to stand up to somebody in combat that's higher than you. All this means is that in the power struggle between political factions, gear and levels reigns supreme and is the cause of untold frustration and internal division, especially when players die and drop their 40 million adena (Lineage II's currency) weapon.
The economy of Lineage II is in ruins, most notably on the three original servers Bartz, Sieghardt, and Kain. This is due in part to the exploitation of early server lag to dupe items and money in absurd quantities, and to the operation of "adena farmers", which NCSoft not only refuses to police but actually conspiratorially seems to encourage. While NCSoft officially stands against the sale and purchase of adena from 3rd party vendors, today in one transaction you can purchase as much at half a billion adena from these farming companies. The market for adena is stimulated by the fact that you cannot operate normally in the game without the very top gear for your level's grade. Top-level items sell for what should be absurd prices, but are normal due to the super-inflated economy. Thus, people who have just joined the game need to dig into their pockets just to get even with the rest of the server, because trust me, it will take you years to save up 40 million adena through in-game mechanics. It's a vicious cycle which could have been prevented by restricting the game to North American IPs only (for instance), something which wasn't done by NCSoft for shady reasons.
NCSoft has also notoriously left low-level players out in the cold with their Chronicle releases. Virtually all the new content can only be enjoyed by the fraction of people at the top of the foodchain, leaving low-level scrubs nothing but the prospect of plugging away for months in the vain hope of someday being able to do the fun stuff. If you join this game today and don't intend on spending hundreds of your own hard-earned dollars on adena for gear, you have no hope of enjoying the majority of the game's content for the next 6 months, period.
All that being said, Lineage II does have its moments. And if you're willing to deal with the fierce levels of greed and economic inflation and willing to grind your sorry little butt off for months and years, have at it. As for me, I played until I could stand no more and walked away.