Well Lineage 2 finally went free to play so after I got my account reactivated, which I had to do through support, I updated it and tried it out a bit. I haven’t played for at least a year and prior to that had created 2 new characters to test out how new players would see things.

The first thing of note is that the login screen now shows an active town with npcs talking, pathing guards from what it looks like, etc. We’re up to  5 servers after being down to what was it… 2 or 3?  Bartz, which was one of the originals when the game was in open beta, is back as well. It marks that as recommended so I figure hey why not.

The character selection screen and creation is quite a bit different now. Instead of both male and female standing together at the start you only see one at a time per race and class type. They are also not in starter gear but in high level stuff I don’t recognize. The screens look a lot like World of Warcraft (yeah sorry haven’t playing Aion or anything else related) where it talks about their base stats and race characteristics. My first ever character was a light elf female so I create one of those.

In the movie after starting I see what looks like Gludio being destroyed. I start in ahh… I don’t even know where? And there are a LOT of new players all over.  It starts matching me with a party soon as I start but I don’t feel like doing that and cancel it. The Npcs in this area have greatly improved animations and don’t just… stand there.

I realize, with a slight bit of horror, that all races are starting in this one area.  Starter towns to me, are a huge part of a games charm.  I see a npc say “Talking Island is really beautiful” and another says something about every race building a part of the village.  Say what now?  That doesn’t seem very chaotic.

The npcs look quite a bit better now. I see players running around on horse mounts which is new (to me).

I see a red (pk) character sitting in town with a sell shop up, apparently guards don’t… care? Ok?

And, I’m not sure what is up with the statues like “Number of Monster Killings” with a players name and statue under it.

I totally do not recognize where I am going at all.

I kill enough mobs running randomly around to hit level 5, but in that time do not receive a single drop.  I see someone flagged for pvp just running around randomly.

Looking at the map, all the familiar places I knew, are gone. No Elven Ruins, probably no Singing Waterfall, the academy, etc.

I head back to town and see at least 3 more red characters on the way. I have to go into my chat options to turn on white text in my chat window, otherwise I am missing nearly everything people are saying. I head back to the quest marker.

The guy mentions it must be weird to start in an area that isn’t your home.  No kidding. There is talk of catastrophic events, hm where have I heard that before? Cough Cataclysm cough. I get a combination of the old quest pointer plus “bread crumb trail” to show me where to go.

I’m randomly getting cut scenes where I go to and from the big building. The only thing in trade and shout are adena sellers and PL services. The next quest guy tells me how all the races worked out their problems and are all friendly and stuff. Ugh. I mean, there was never any faction based hostility ever anyway but c’mon really?

I complete 2 starter quests but they don’t appear to give exp worth anything.  30xp.  Oookay. An elder fox gives me 176xp.  I head over to the orc trainer, I guess, and she tells me to keep “practising” and when the time is right she may tap me on the shoulder.  What’s that supposed to mean?  Why not tell me to go find a Ti Mi Tran eh? Keeping the map up I go to the first quest guy and get 40 xp.  My bar is literally not moving at all. The quest I do at that point doesn’t give me any pointers but the scroll symbol remains on the map so, hm.  Well, I log for now.