The Legend of Mir 2
| Legend of Mir 2 | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | WeMade Entertainment, ActozSoft |
| Publisher(s) | Digital Bros, Shanda, Gamepot, Softworld |
| Platform(s) | Windows |
| Release date(s) |
   19 September 2001 May 2009 |
| Genre(s) | Fantasy MMORPG |
| Mode(s) | Multiplayer |
The Legend of Mir 2 (Korean: 미르의 전설 2) is a sprite-based isometric 3-D massively multiplayer online role-playing game developed by Korean-based WeMade Entertainment. There are currently two versions available: Korean Mir and Chinese Mir. The European version (published by Game Network) came to a close on 31 March 2009, after running for 8 years, and the North American version (published by Gamepot) came to a close on 14 May 2012.
Whilst being moderately successful in Europe, it has been incredibly well received in Asia and was the most popular MMORPG in China in 2002 and 2003, with over 250,000 simultaneous users being reported. The game has also claimed to have 120 million players worldwide.
The sequel, The Legend of Mir 3, has a very similar gameplay but has updated graphics, as well as providing larger maps. It has not quite reached the popularity levels of its predecessor and has so far been released in the same countries as Mir 2, as well as in North America.
Characters
Players have the option of playing one of four professions, with no more than three characters per server. Professions range from Taoist, healers who use magical and melee attacks. This is the support class of mir and not suited to solo game play. Taoists can summon pets to assist in battle, poison targets and heal. Warriors, who are the "tanks" of Mir use melee attacks and have the highest defense and attack attributes of all classes. Wizards depend on magic and can kill multiple monsters with ease using AoE spells. Wizards have low health and defense against physical damage and are especially weak against higher level warrior magic attacks. Assassins have taken over as the primary melee damage dealing class but have much weaker defense attributes than warriors. Conversely this instead of undermining the warrior class, has strengthened its position and clarified its role as the 'tank'.
Monk
In late 2014 Shanda's Chinese version of Mir introduced a sixth class into the Legend of Mir character selection. The Monk class was graphically/visually stunning and tried to fill a gap as a mid range class (dealing ranged damage from one or two spaces away from an opponent).
The Monk's arsenal includes a number of different styled single direction attacks, a larger three directional attacks and an Area of Effect (AOE) style spell that follows the caster.
Archer
In 2013 Shanda's Chinese version of Mir introduced a fifth class into the Legend of Mir character selection, this was marked as a huge addition for the community as there had been a gap of five years since the fourth class (Assassin) was introduced.
WeMade's Korean version of Mir later introduced their own take on the Archer class in 2014 which was marginally different to the Chinese version.
The Chinese Archer class is a ranged damage dealer, that uses a variety of different arrow types to perform different styles of attacks, in addition Archers are capable of multiplying their damage points with critical hits.
Assassin
In 2008 WeMade expanded the original three heroes to create a fourth class, the Assassin. The class is a melee class but with low defense and low accuracy. Assassins make up for their deficiency with an increase in the speed of their attacks. The assassin can also learn to paralyze or poison a single target as well as hide from both players and monsters. Assassins use both HP and MP pots at a very fast rate which can prove difficult to finance.
Warrior
Warriors are incredibly strong characters that use their brute force to hack away at their enemies. Warriors are generally the easiest character for new players due to their higher maximum health, defense and ease of play. The main drawback of the warrior is the cost of items as well as the fast depletion of the duration of these items due to the number of times the warrior is hit in combat.
Wizard
Wizards are a magic based class using magical ranged attacking due to their inability to sustain melee damage. Similarly, wizards rarely use melee attacks against their enemies, instead preferring to kill multiple mobs from distance with powerful magic, sending their tamed pets ahead of them for increased damage and protection.
Taoist
Taoists are largely dependent on hunting in a group as its strengths are as a supporting class. Due to the supportive nature of the class, the harder the situation the players find themselves in, the more a tao will prove its worth. Taoists are famed for their ability to survive. Taoist, combine both physical and magical attacks although at a lower level than other classes. This has led to a number of different playing styles including the economical but slow leveling method of players treating their tao like a low leveler level warrior. Taoists are considered the hardest class to play, similar to wizards, taoists have "pet"-companions, which can be leveled during their lifetime. Taoist companions originate from buyable skills instead of the taming of mobs wizards are capable of.
PK/PVP
Players are allowed to attack and kill other players ingame for any given reason, though it is generally frowned upon. Once a player has killed another player they are labeled with either yellow or later, red, that informs other players that they have killed somebody recently. Red players are not allowed in most cities and are generally ignored by NPC's. Red players are also fair game to other players, a punishment for their PK status.
Another punishment is the chance of having one's weapon cursed by killing another player. Curses cause weapons to deal less of a melee blow. Increased number of curses will render a weapon useless.
While attacking another player, the attacker will be labeled with a Brown player name. Any other player can attack and kill the offending player without accumulating PK points.
Point System
Players are labeled with a PK status after successfully killing another player. Each kill is considered 100 PK points. One point is removed every minute. Following the point system
- 0-99 Points - The player continues to have a white character name, even though the character still has PK points.
- 100-199 Points - The player's name will turn yellow, a symbol that the player has killed somebody recently.
- 200 and above - The player's name will be red, showing that the player has killed at least Two people. While red the player can be killed without any ill effect to the attacking player. Red players will lose almost all of their bag when dying. Some players joined guilds specific to player killing, resulting in characters that could spend months if not years waiting for their PK points to expire.
Any towns that are guarded by a Guard, Archer Guard or a Town Archer will attack any red named player on sight. This stops any red named players from entering towns, or if they're already in the town it decreases their safe areas dramatically. The damage caused by a guard or archer is considerably high, requiring only a few strikes to take down even the highest level character.
History
European Mir
The Italian games company Game Network (originally owned by Digital Bros) was responsible for the operation of the European version of the game. Game Network originally had their own satellite television channel, but it was later cancelled in 2005 due to lack of funding.
In the 2007 yearly review and the September quarterly review, Digital Bros made it clear that they not only intended to replace The Legend of Mir 2 but also another MMORPG service they provided, the Myth of Soma.
"Revenues from "Legend of Mir" and "Myth of Soma" subscriptions fell from €178 thousands to €32 thousand, and titles will soon be replaced by a new generation of games accessed from the portal for the European Market. Construction of the portal will be completed during the first half of the year."[1]
Since early 2005 Game Network's Mir 2 website was rarely updated. The forum itself continued to thrive until February 2008 when the hosting company replaced the default pages of the forum with a notice that they had been closed. The forum and the database powering it continued to operate though without the ability to post it became somewhat of an archive.
January 2009 GNOnline released a statement on their website stating that the Legend of Mir 2, Legend of Mir 3, and the Myth of Soma would all be closing at the end of March.
Unofficial servers became a common scene within the MIR community early in the games history. With the gradual decrease in officially operated services by English speaking communities many websites began to operate servers with additional monsters, items and maps. Today, many servers are in operation.
Culture
The Legend of Mir presence in Europe is mainly made up of hardcore fans of the original European server hosted by Game Network. There is still a reasonably large fan base that gather in communities such as Legend of Mir Community Network (LOMCN) to discuss their love for the game and the latest updates being issued by the two remaining official servers.
Due to the country restrictions placed by both the Korean and Chinese versions of the Legend of Mir, a number of very popular Private servers have emerged with fully fledged Server emulators which enable the hosts to keep up or even surpass the functionality of the official servers.