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DISCLAIMER
1) *** Cheers to the people in playforum for delivering the community about THE update of lineage 2. all credits of this info goes to NC and the reporters of playforum. Only credit that i take is translating them for everybody anglophobes (english speaking people) to see ***
2) *** For anyone who dislikes long post and lacks reading comprehension skills, you may wanna stop reading here now***
3) *** Any comments regarding accuracy of the translation should be sent to me by PM. And with PROPER and CONCRETE set of evidence showing what parts of post was wrong. Otherwise, the msgs will be ignored ***
4) *** The translation of the names of monsters /places / etc. were done phonetically. I couldn't care less about the "right" spelling in english version. Dont bother sending me any corrections related to this ***
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To start things off, The Chronicle 1, is the title of the next big update that NC originally planned to bring by end of December. (more on this later)
The original set of promise, vaguely stated with the new high resolution screenshots of wyverns (see the screenshot section), were:
1. Improved / added function of mechanical golems (the dwarven summon by Artisan) in sieges.
2. New Dragon's Valley Dungeon
3. New Hatchling Quest.
4. New features in Sieges.
As you can see, the above promises are quite vague. And the most anticipated answers to the questions : Will the siege finally be functional? and Will Antares be finally in the game? Have yet to be directly answered.
The official interview conducted on 22nd of November (Saturday) between the several korean fansites and NC, cleared up all the speculation and questions that people had after the Wyvern screenshots were released. Here is the full translated version of the interview updated on playforum (
http://community.playforum.net:8080...031004&kid=1765 )
[Chronicle 1 : The Callers of Strife]
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*** Update Schedule :
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* 2003 December ; Selection of Chronicle 1 testers
* 2004 January 7th ; Opening of the test server
* 2004 End of January ; Chronicle 1 P2P update
* 2004 February 28th ; Closing of the test server
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*** Update Details :
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1) Earth Dragon Antares: One of the first borns of Shilen, the Goddess of Death. One of the strongest creature to exist in the world of Aden. The mystery and storyline revolving Antares will have to be approached and solved by doing party / pledge-wide quests that stretch over multiple steps. The level of difficulty will be on entirely different level than the existing boss monsters.
- The Chronicle 1 begins with the awakening of Antares.
- (sidenote) Antares's graphic and model caused the lead designer and lead programmers to fight quite often. The scale in which Antares will be brought alive in game will be of unprecedented scale.
2) Castle Siege : The long awaited feature (arguably THE feature that separates Lineage 2 from the others) will finally be implemented with the Chronicle 1 update.
- Defending the castle : Hireling NPCs have different functions and can be placed strategically. Some of them can fight, some of them provide means of instant teleportation between two given points and some of them allow you to set up traps in various parts of the castle.
- Taking the castle : The destroyable walls / castle doors with the use of siege weaponaries developed by the Artisans / Warsmiths. Take the "control points" of the castle while destroying anyone who stands in your way!
- The game engine has been optimized as much as possible in order to make the castle siege realistic, as opposed to the hectic condition it provided during the closed beta. However, NC is confident that with the newest update, they can make things work properly
- The control points determine the functionality of the helper NPCs and the Trapzones. If the attacking side overtakes one control point, the NPCs and the trapzone of the defending clan will become useless in that area.
- NPCs have been upgraded in strength and AI in response to the user feedback in closed beta.
- Newer types of siege golems will be added for dwarven classes.
3) The heart of the continent : Aden
- The soloing / partying of lvl 50+ characters will be made feasible in this newly added area. Expect to see the strongest monsters yet in the world of Lineage 2.
- Newer agits (other than the one at Ol Mahum Headquarters) will be available for both auctions and overtaking. These agits will have more than faster mp / hp regen as they did in the closed beta. The actual functions and additional benefits regarding the agits will later be revealed in full length.
- New quests and new types of quests will be added. The most notable change is the addition of party-wide quests and pledge-wide quests to further emphasize the weight on parties and pledges.
- Dragon Taming : The first step in the evolution of wyverns, hatchlings will now be accessible through a special quest. There will be a new balancing formula regarding the wolves and dogs to make them actually useful according to the user feedbacks.
- New set items : Various kinds of set items with the new benefits will be added to the game.
4) Miscellaneous
- The addition of coliseum : Duke it out and determine who's the best of 1on1 in the penalty free PVP area! The coliseums will be added in Giran / Gludio area.
- The sharing of storage / banks : The exchange of items between your own characters will be made possible ala Lineage 1.
- Item / Character balance changes : The item drops will be slightly increased according to the user feedback. Character balancing will be upgrade-centric rather than nerf-centric.
5) The direction NC plans to take with character balancing.
- Some of the specific balance changes that will take place in this patch are :
* Summoning monsters' selection range and efficiency will be increased.
* Offensive magics' and the status affecting (ei poison, windshackle, etc.) magics' range / efficiency / power will be increased.
* Addition of the group monsters that respawn in groups in order to encourage the use of AoE skills.
* The decrease in the cost, weight and mp consumption of arrows, increase in the soulshot consumption of bows.
_ In the past, the summon-centric classes have been trouble with making enough money for the upgrade of the weapons. This was due to the high cost for summoning the summon monsters. In response to this problem, NC's planning to add more variety of summons that can : 1) cost cheap and have the same duration / stat as the current summons but take up small portion of your experience 2) AND have another set of summons that cost high but take no experience at all. This will allow the summoners to choose when to level or when to make money.
- For wizards, the range of the offensive spells will be increased. Moreover, some of the curse spells will either have higher power or higher chance of success in order to strengthen the wizards in general.
- The monsters that spawn in groups will have higher AI in terms of assisting each other and work particularly well in groups. They'll also give out slightly larger reward than the monsters that spawn individually. This will increase the need for AoE spells which are underused currently.
- THe classes that have been overlooked by simply better classes (for example, human knight vs the rest) will have more skills added (or have existing skills strengthened) to offset the efficiency problem and to further express their unique roles and strength in the game. The brute force balancing (type of balancing that just changes the numbers of skills / stats slightly over several patches) will not take place.