While at the Netmarble booth at E3 2017, I was able to get a hands-on demo with a build for the upcoming American mobile version of Lineage II, a South Korean MMO that went mobile in November 2016 with 176 million users. This new version is called Lineage II Revolutions.
What piqued my interest about this title is the fact that it is a fully formed MMO on mobile. Personally, I have delved into neither, but I am more than aware of the appeal of both. MMO is huge pretty much everywhere. Mobile gaming is as well, but in Asia especially. I didn't know what to expect with the demo, but what I got was a competent build on a mobile device that felt like a traditional MMO one would play on a PC.
Since I was the only person playing the game at the time, there was no way for it to feel like an actual MMO, but it worked well, so that was a positive. I did have a Netmarble representative play with me though, and we were able to do some PvP. What was interesting about this, though, is that it was not traditional PvP. I just simply killed their character while we were playing. Now, I'm sure that there are plenty of MMOs out there with features like this, but I've never encountered something like that before, so it was interesting. They did demonstrate to me that, if I were to continue offending, that my character would get debuffs, and progressively weaken until I killed a certain number of enemies.
Lineage II Revolutions is essentially a cross cultural port, meaning that certain aspects of the game that appeal to its base, mainly Korean fans, won't make it to the American release. For instance, the primary activities critical to player success for the American version are crafting, disassembling, and fighting.
A unique method of play, auto-grinding, will not make it into the final product. Auto-grinding is pretty much what it sounds like: you press a button, and the game plays itself. The reasoning behind the omission is that American MMOs tend to give more control over to the player when it comes to combat.
That's somewhat unfortunate, as a different aspect of the game, auto-questing, will make it into the final product. It's essentially the same as auto-grinding, but perhaps it might be different when it releases.
