Lineage: The Blood Pledge and Siege MMORPG That Shaped Korea
The story of NCSoft's 1998 Lineage, its blood pledge and castle siege gameplay, why it's a classic, and the Lineage II, M, and W series that followed.
Lineage is a medieval fantasy MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) that NCSoft officially launched in South Korea in September 1998. Based on Shin Il-sook's manhwa Lineage, it's a game in which many people connect to the same world to hunt, form guilds, and fight over castles.
Lineage is a name you can't leave out of the history of Korean online games. It drew an enormous player base and grew NCSoft into a major game company, while also being the first to spark large-scale social debates over issues such as game addiction and real-money trading of game currency. It's also the starting point of a long series that continued with Lineage II, Lineage M, and Lineage W.
In this post, we go through how Lineage was made, how it's played, why it's considered a classic, its series and influence, and how to play it today.
At a Glance
| Item | Details |
|---|---|
| Release | September 1998 (official launch in Korea) |
| Developer | NCSoft (game design: Song Jae-kyung) |
| Platform | PC |
| Genre | Fantasy MMORPG |
| Source material | Shin Il-sook's manhwa Lineage |
Origins
The name Lineage comes from the manhwa of the same title by artist Shin Il-sook. The original is a fantasy story about a rightful prince reclaiming the throne from the one who usurped it. The game's server names were also taken from characters in the original manhwa.
Song Jae-kyung handled the game design. Before that, Song had designed another early MMORPG, The Kingdom of the Winds, at Nexon. In other words, Lineage was the second major online game made by a developer who led the early days of Korean online gaming.
When it first launched, Lineage was very similar to the content of the original manhwa. But as the developers kept adding new features and stories, the game world and the manhwa world gradually went their separate ways. The game's setting, the "Kingdom of Aden," is a fictional world modeled on Europe around the 10th century, using a feudal system, in which kings, lords, and knights make pacts over land, as the backbone of its society and economy.
The graphics use a 2D quarter view, looking down at an angle from above. English Wikipedia describes Lineage's screen as similar in form to Ultima Online and Diablo II, and notes that its stat, monster, and item systems initially borrowed heavily from the classic roguelike NetHack, adding online elements on top.
Gameplay
The basics of Lineage are similar to other fantasy RPGs. You hunt monsters and do quests to earn experience and items, leveling up and developing your character. There are stats such as strength, wisdom, and charisma, and an alignment system divided into neutral, chaotic, and lawful. Alignment matters quite a bit: chaotic characters are more likely to be attacked by town guards and monsters.
Seven Classes
Players choose one of the following seven classes.
- Prince
- Knight
- Elf
- Magician
- Dark Elf
- Dragon Knight
- Illusionist
Of these, the Prince plays a special role. In Lineage, guilds are called "blood pledges," and the Prince is the only class that can lead one. The term "blood pledge" later came to be widely used to mean a guild in Korean online gaming culture.
Blood Pledges and Castle Sieges
The heart of Lineage is the castle siege. When a blood pledge captures a castle, it can set the tax rate for the surrounding towns and collect taxes on items sold in those towns' shops. Because in-game power led to real economic gain, the battles to defend and seize castles were extremely fierce.
Player-versus-player combat (PvP) is also widely open. Unless you're in a safe zone such as a town, you can fight other players at any time. Joining a blood pledge also lets you take part in sieges and wars between pledges. In the end, Lineage was less a game about getting strong on your own and more a game about people banding together to form factions and clash.
Why It's a Classic
Stories Made by People
The biggest reason Lineage is remembered so long is that its stories were made not by the developer but by the players. Which blood pledge held a castle, who allied with whom, and who betrayed whom became the game's real story. The tax system and castle sieges were mechanisms designed so that this kind of political rivalry would arise naturally.
Commercial Success
NCSoft stated that Lineage once gathered more than 3 million subscribers, most of them in Korea. Even as of April 2008, it had just under 1 million active subscribers. According to English Wikipedia, Lineage's revenue from 1998 to August 2012 was $1.3 billion, reaching $1.8 billion by November 2013. By 2006, the Lineage series as a whole had gathered 43 million players.
Esports Efforts
Lineage held PvP tournaments early on. From 2002 to 2006, it held a tournament called the "LWC (Lineage World Championship)" five times, and in July 2016 it hosted the "LFC (Lineage Fighter Championship)" at the OGN e-Stadium in Seoul.
Light and Shadow
Lineage also left a shadow on Korean society. Addiction became a social issue, to the point that the term "Lineage pyein" (Lineage wreck) was coined for over-immersed players. From the early 2000s, organizations known as "gold farms" actively bought and sold the game currency "adena" for cash, causing controversy, and in-game disputes spilling into real-world fights were also flagged as a problem. In 2009, the company seized 140,000 accounts judged to have used auto-hunting programs, leading to disputes with players.
Including these controversies, Lineage was the game that first, and most dramatically, showed the problems and possibilities Korean online games would face.
Series and Influence
Lineage grew beyond a single game into a major series.
| Title | Date | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Lineage | 1998 | 2D quarter-view MMORPG; the start of the series |
| Lineage II | 2003 | 3D prequel set 150 years before Lineage |
| Lineage M | June 21, 2017 | Brings the original Lineage to mobile |
| Lineage W | Announced August 2021 | MMORPG combining elements of Lineage and Lineage II |
Lineage M recorded more than $1.2 billion in revenue by June 2018 and $2.8 billion by July 2020. It's regarded as the most successful example of bringing a popular PC online game IP to mobile. However, in early 2021 it reverted a major balance patch after just four days and ran into conflict with players over how refunds were handled.
Overseas results varied by region. Lineage was also launched in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, North America, and elsewhere, but the North American servers all shut down on June 29, 2011, as subscription revenue declined. Most of Lineage's big success came from Korea and other Asian markets.
Lineage's influence on the Korean game industry is significant. It became a success story for an MMORPG based on a manhwa, and its so-called "Lineage-style" design, centered on blood pledges, sieges, and PvP, influenced many later Korean MMORPGs.
How to Play Today
Lineage is still in service on PC. You can download the game from NCSoft's official website, create an account, and log in.
If you're curious about the early atmosphere, "Lineage Classic" is worth a look. NCSoft opened a separate service based on the content and systems from the game's original 1998 release; its distinguishing feature is that it recreates the rules, difficulty, and progression from before later updates piled up. It's a service for people who want the feel of the original Lineage, where hunting and getting items was hard and competition was fierce.
If you want to play on a smartphone, Lineage M is the closest option, since it brings the original's world, classes, and blood pledge structure to mobile. That said, every version leans heavily on paid items and competitive elements, so it's best to set your own limits on time and money before playing.