There's a reason why no one should even get hyped about this title; one that has been "eternally" in development hell since 2011 when it was formerly known as Lineage Eternal; I previously posted an entry in 2017 where I said they might as well stick a fork in this already. I've long given up any hope that there will be any Korean design studio that will come up with a product that doesn't have the usual designs and game systems that aren't at odds with what a western audience wants. Myself, I generally like the aesthetics, character designs, animations, and skills effects; it's the other parts that tend to fall apart (like RNG heavy failure based mechanics and cash shop influences where you buy back QoL and other functionality).
What has pushed me over the ledge in recent months (with these Korean MMO's) has been the recent BS with Bluehole/Krafton with TERA and the absolutely trash level code that XLGAMES has pushed out with ArcheAge Unchained; these are probably the last Korean MMO's I will be playing going forward (my actual play time in TERA has dropped to nearly nothing in recent months with most of that being consumed by ArcheAge Unchained; and that is because there are activities that I can do where I can play without paying anything more than my original pack cost until they decide to pull the plug on the servers).
But back to the subject matter; back in November during NCSoft's fiscal Q3 2019 conference call, a financial analyst specifically asked them about the status of Project TL. NCSoft's CFO replied that they need to spend a little more time with it in order to "improve the quality", but that they also expect to hold a CBT in the first half of 2020 (the last CBT was back in 2016 which resulted in negative feedback that culminated in the project lead and eventually, the entire development team being replaced before the game was rebranded as Project TL and rebooted from scratch including using Unreal Engine 4). Before this rebrand and reboot, Lineage Eternal was supposed to have a global test back in 2017 which never happened because of the above. Simply put, their timelines with this game haven't been great so it won't surprise me if there is no CBT in the first half of this year (or this year period). In the mean time, several Korean MMO-ARPG's launched (with most of them being shuttered).
Elite Lords of Alliance (ELOA) had two failed western launches (one with Webzen in 2016 and the other with GamenGame in 2017 with the Korean service being terminated in November 2017 by Netmarble). The code and intellectual property was later acquired by PLAYWITH when NPICSOFT went bankrupt and relaunched in 2018 as Kuntara Online in Korea and as Warlords Awakening on Steam; the Korean service was terminated in July 2018 while the buy to play Steam version lasted until June 2019. Webzen launched MU Legend during this same timeframe and it unsurprisingly depopulated quickly not only in Korea, but also with the global version (Webzen recently turned over the service to VALOFE for both the Korean and global servers). Devilian ended up being shut down in all regions by May 2018 and Smilegate's Lost Ark (which many in South Korea considered the last great hope for a properly monetized MMO) had an overwhelming successful soft launch in November 2018, but has slowly seen its Korean population decline over the last year (it's end game design being underwhelming at best). The leveling and questing designed by the original team (let go due to this practice) was excellent but the end game systems from the teams that came after, were just standard uninspiring item level grind. Furthermore, the game has no western release date (Korea and Russia service is online with Japan next). The way I look at it is that the western version (which I refer to as "Lost Cause") will be released as the final cash grab since it is already known that this market is full of suckers who will throw money at it when finally released. At this rate, it would not surprise me if My.com's My.Games portal does end up being the western publisher.
Translation? This poor track record of Korean MMO-ARPG's does not bold well for Project TL if they try to draw inspiration from everything that has been released to date. Whatever designs this Project TL design team has been cooking up for the past 4 years, isn't going to break out from the mold of the usual systems that have been associated with these Korean MMO's; I also don't see them being able to top the questing content that the original Lost Ark team had created. Even after a nearly equal amount of time in development, the overall content was lacking in the 2016 Lineage Eternal closed beta (after having gone through various design iterations which drastically changed it from the G-STAR 2011 trailer and then the G-STAR 2014 one). The version that I wanted to play was the 2011 version (which like Devilian, was inspired by Diablo III's original 2008 reveal). But just as how Devilian (when it was originally known as Immortal Online) went from being heavily inspired by Diablo III to what ended up being released (overhauled heavily in terms of graphics and game systems once Bluehole acquired Ginno Games), NCSoft did the same with Lineage Eternal (moving away from this heavy Diablo III influence).
The problem with all of these Korean MMO-ARPG's is that they took the fixed quarter view isometric camera and tried to meld that with ARPG style combat, but with mostly MMO designs and mechanics (more specifically, Korean based designs which includes a healthy dose of RNG failure based enchanting mechanics and content gated behind linear progression item level/gear score). The fixed camera aspect and click-to-move/non target combat system results in a niche market. Even during the initial Lost Ark Korean soft launch, an oft-asked question was "is there a way to rotate the camera". And then when western ARPG fans see just the visuals, believe these will be the next Diablo III killer (failing to understand that only a small part of the game is derived from the traditional isometric ARPG; that the majority of the core design and game systems are more heavily MMO influenced with Korean grind elements in the end game designs let alone event systems that are designed around a homogenous region/narrow time zone as is the case with many Asian countries).
Project TL is not going to magically solve any of this because just like every other Korean MMO that has been released, it is designed for the domestic (Korean) market first. And this one is coming from NCSoft where outside of the Lineage universe, they've shown a disposition to quickly shutting down a service that isn't meeting expectations. Additionally, Project TL is also being designed with mobile in mind; not as a separate game but as part of the actual PC MMO (the objective was to allow players to play portions of the content via mobile); if this aspect has expanded to where the game can also be played in its entirety on mobile (with interaction with players on PC), then that is going to be a challenge since there are going to be critical design issues when handling touch based input for combat (especially when it comes to combo's). So when/if this ever makes it out the door in South Korea and the executives decide to milk whatever revenues it can from a global release, it will have all of the usual designs that western players usually end up complaining about.
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