<br>He's right that MMOs are typically one of the hardest games to launch and make stick, and there's some logic to 'if we can get this right, Tomb Raider should be easy', but after Lost Ark seemed to squander its momentum and New World has opted for a hard reset as it comes to console , Throne and Liberty Gear guide & Liberty fans might have been hoping for greater depth on how T&L can avoid the fate of its wounded (if not fallen) comra<br><br> <br>"There's definitely a quality bar that we strive for in the titles that we're bringing to market," Lafuente tells me. "And it just so happens that we have MMOs right now, but our portfolio intends to be broad over the next couple of years. Maybe you've heard the news about the Tomb Raider game. It's not just MMOs that we're bringing to market. It does happen to be the focus of the moment, but we have broad ambitio<br><br> <br>The Wand and Tome excels as a support tool and is capable of dealing damage through DoTs? and curses. Its true strength lies in its ability to heal allies, and conversely debuff enemies. This is the quintessential weapon that you need in Throne and Liberty to adopt a supportive or controller role in the g<br><br> <br>Tomb Raider is currently in the driest spell the series has ever endured since it launched in the '90s, while Blue Protocol was widely expected to be available by now and still has a vague 2024 release date, and Crucible, as mentioned, was released to a poor reception, shoved back into beta, then killed altogether. So it might have eyes on a broader roster, but aside from The Grand Tour Game, MMOs are all Amazon has right now. What has Amazon learned from Lost Ark and New World that it is channelling into Throne & Liberty? That's a topic it's remaining curiously tight-lipped ab<br><br> <br>At Summer Game Fest earlier this month I played two of Amazon's MMOs, New World: Aeternum and Throne & Liberty , having previously dabbled in their other MMO Lost Ark , while the company has also announced, cancelled, and re-announced anew a Lord of the Rings MMO. This isn't all Amazon publishes ( Blue Protocol is on the way, Crucible was scrapped, it picked up Tomb Raider recently too), but it’s definitely a trend. So when I sat down with Daniel Lafuente and Merv Lee Kwai from Amazon to discuss Throne & Liberty, this trend was on my mind. Though, apparently, not on the<br><br> <br>Next week will see NCSoft’s Throne and Liberty finally get its Western release after a rocky start in Korea last year. But the live service game has seemingly matured over the past few months. The developer is clearly listening to its community - player numbers have almost doubled in South Korea since the game’s lukewarm reception way back in December 2023. Almost a year later and it’s seen many new additions that will arrive in the form of a launch update, including a streamlined leveling process, new lifestyle paths (fishing and cooking, yes please), as well as a new 3v3 Arena among other chan<br><br> <br>One of my main concerns with Throne and Liberty was its combat. It’s still not as flashy as I’d like, and sometimes you get locked into animations that feel clunky. Compared to the version I played earlier this year, however, you can tell how much work has gone into making the combat more action-packed and giving the player more agency over their abilities. We won’t know for sure about this until players start to reach the endgame and begin taking part in some of the large-scale PvE and PvP events, particularly the Castle Sieges - an element of the game I can’t wait to try for mys<br><br> <br>However, this is still an MMO through and through - so the quests are repetitive. The zones you travel through are fairly interesting though, and mob variety is fine. There are rolling fields, beaches, gnarled watchtowers on top of hills guarded by goblins. Nothing here really screams originality.. But there remains a soothing familiarity to the wayThrone and Liberty begins: when there are hundreds of players grinding scarecrows in a random field somewhere, you know this is a serious <br><br> <br>"Everything about Throne & Liberty, from day one, was built with, I would say, the right word is 'massive'," Lafuente says. "Massive scale, everything about it, the world, the buildings, everything. And the tech being built is going to allow things like the castle sieges that have thousands of players participating in a castle siege. That's not an exaggeration, that's already something that has been seen in the Korean life service is thousands of players participating in this castle siege. That's probably the biggest event that we have. And then there'll be other things that have hundreds of players, going down even to guild vs guild battles, which will be more along the 50 v 50, 60. v 60 type of range. Scale is a big part of what we expect in Throne & Liberty, particularly when it comes to PvP battl<br><br> <br>In our preview, there were eight of us in a dungeon taking on a handful of enemies at once, culminating in a final battle against one giant boss. But this is not the typical Throne & Liberty experience, and even the example tossed out of 200 versus 200 is, I'm told, more on the "low side". So what is the standard Throne & Liberty experie<br>
