We received a note from the folks at NCsoft Corporation that Lineage for the Mac has officially launched. Lineage is a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG), and it is the only such game to offer support for the Mac. Better yet, the Mac version allows Mac users to play side by side with PC users. MMORPGs are online worlds where players hack and slash their way to RPG glory. The Massively Multiplayer aspect comes from the fact that players can interact (and battle) with other players, rather than being limited to fighting with computer controlled characters, and are all playing in the same place at the same time as other players. From NCsoft:
NCsoft(tm) Corporation, the worldis largest independent online game company, today announced that Lineage(tm) for the Mac has recently launched after a successful beta testing period.Mac users and PC users are able to play alongside each other in the Lineage. The game raises the concepts of community, social interaction, and combat to new levels with the introduction of Blood Pledges-strong alliances with friends and allies in the game world. Once a Pledge is formed, the players can develop a strategy for overtaking a castle. But winning the battle only means the game of politics and negotiation is just beginning. Keeping your castle is sometimes harder than capturing it.
The game currently boasts more than four-million active subscriptions and 330,000 concurrent users worldwide. An Internet connection is required to play Lineage.
The company also reaches out to a sore spot with many Mac RPG fans with this little tidbit on the Lineage site:
Are you a Mac gamer looking for massively multiplayer gaming in a never-ending fantasy world?
Do your PC gaming friends run around in online worlds while you watch from the sidelines?
Are you sick of listening to them brag about killing mammoth dragons, casting magical spells, or owning their own castles?
Want a chance to play side-by-side with PC gamers - explore, adventure, and maybe sneak in a little PvP payback?
Then weive got just the thing youire looking for…
Lineage is free to try for 30 days. After that trial period, the game works on a monthly service charge of US$15, or US$45 for four months (one month free). The company says the title is available for download from the Lineage site, but as of this writing, we got download errors when attempting to do so. The file is also available on iDisk, but as of this writing, only the beta version was actually in iDisk. Hopefully, the company will get those issues sorted out soon. NCsoft also offers Mac users a free CD for the game which can be ordered through the companyis Web site.