Lineage

Lineage turned MMO guilds into a political force.

NCSOFT launched Lineage in South Korea in 1998, when online RPGs were still a young form. It was not Korea’s first MMORPG, but it reached a remarkable scale.

Players hunted monsters and strengthened their characters, then joined “blood pledges” that could matter more than solo progress. As the game expanded, those clans fought large castle sieges, with control of a fortress bringing status and economic power inside the world.

That structure made rivalry and cooperation part of everyday play. In Korean PC bangs, clanmates could sit together while coordinating battles.

Lineage became a model for the Korean MMORPG market and helped turn NCSOFT into a major online-game company. Its success showed the lasting appeal of persistent worlds built around guild conflict and collective power.