We checked out the North American debut of the tech demo for the upcoming Goddess of Destruction update at PAX East.

Lineage II Producer Marissa McWaters plays the Goddess of Destruction tech demo.

During our time at PAX East, we had the opportunity to check out the North American debut of the playable tech demo for Lineage II's upcoming Goddess of Destruction update. Marissa McWaters, who was just promoted to producer for the game, explained that the demo was created as a tool to collect feedback from fans as we logged in and battled waves of enemies.

“This is a tech demo, so what you're going to see here isn't necessarily going to be part of the Goddess of Destruction update,” McWaters said. “It's just basically to show off the direction we're going with the graphics and the art. Also, some of the skills use combo skills, which we don't have in Lineage II right now. The demo uses several of the skills that are spread out through lots of classes to explain the direction that we're going in the update.”

The new skills were the highlight of the demo, and they focused on combos and interaction. For example, the character could use his Redemption Chain to pull an enemy close to him and follow it up with a Body Smash to knock the monster down with a strong hit. Other noteworthy skills included a Clone Attack that created copies of the character to fight multiple enemies at once and an ability that pushed mobs away by dashing into them.

If you perform an attack that can be followed up with a combo, an icon will pop up that can be activated by mashing any ability button. McWaters emphasized that every skill you obtain in Goddess of Destruction won't utilize the combo system. It's more likely that you'll receive one or two special combo abilities in the update.

We also got a brief glimpse at the new transportation system, which McWaters described as being similar to a teleporter. “It's going to be another way to quickly move from one point to another,” she said. In the demo, we traveled between areas by clicking on large arrows to move the character through space. This system could be used in the update in a variety of ways, such as jumping around the outside of a tower.

As we finished up our battles, McWaters reiterated that the demo is not an exact portrayal of what players will see in the Goddess of Destruction update. It's simply meant to show off the updated graphics, the interactive combo skills and the new transportation system. “We've gotten a lot of positive feedback from players, but some fear change,” she said.

There is currently no launch date planned for the Goddess of Destruction update. Lineage II's fan-inspired High Five update was released last month.

Darryl Gangloff, Editor-in-Chief