After reading some posts complaining about a second EURO server I just want to post some data in order to show why NCSOFT has to create more european servers.
North America (USA and Canada) + Central America + South America = 893 641 657 inhabitants
Europe (including all Russia) = 803 584 237 inhabitants
Since this game was introduced in 28APR04 in North America (Prelude) 8 NA and 1 EURO servers have been created. Until the creation of TEON, all european players used NA servers and still enjoyed this game greatly (myself included). With TEON, a lot of european players moved together with some american players to populate the european server but a great number of european players remained in NA servers.
Since TEON creation, the server is always with HEAVY traffic meaning that a lot of people is always logged in, with the lag problems we all know.
As an european playing in Devianne, the only problem is the time difference between myself and my clan mates/friends (5 to 6 hours later here than in NA), specially during sieges. Even the connection (ping) is good enough.
So, creating more european servers (like FRANZ in 06SEP06) is a smart move from NCSOFT because it will attract more european players, specially the family/friends of existing players that couldnt understand why we do all night long sessions to participate in sieges and clan hunts/activities. Now, europeans have more opportunities to play during normal day/night cycles.
Of course that I think L2 has still a lot to offer to everyone for the next years (at least until C12) and there is room for more NA and EURO servers to be created. The only thing NCSOFT needs to do is to invest in more publicity about L2 because everyday more and more people (young and adults) make contact with MMORPG's and are submerged with new titles and new games, not knowing that L2 is the best MMORPG in existence (based on 10 years experience of the most popular MMORPG's around).
I think the NCSOFT trend (hopefully) is to create more european servers than NA servers because in Europe there is still a large amount of potential players to attract to L2 (considering that NA and Europe have roughly the same population).
To finish this already long post just a quick note on 2 things: "relax" servers and farmers/bots.
The so called "relax" servers (XP/SP/adena/item drop increased rates compared to normal servers) already exist as private free servers (without NCSOFT consent) and in my oppinion transform L2 in a much worst game. One of the main differences between L2 and all other MMORPG's is the sense of achievement. In L2 you need to play a long period, to invest a lot of your free time and effort to develop a good character. During that time you know/interact with hundreds or thousands of other players and develop long lasting relationships (friend or foe), consolidating your character status in the server you play, absorbing all the in depth knowledge of L2 and visiting all the places in this huge world. In other words, you dont show up at the Olympiads with a 75+ subclassed character after playing for just 1 month asking what you are supposed to do to become a Hero (unless you ebay your character and that its really lame).
Now talking about farmers/bots, well, farmers/bots are the market answer to the players demands. I strongly oppose the use of farmed adena or items but they exist because the market exists, even though the game economy resents their existence and inflation is rampant. There are only 2 solutions for the problem: Greater permanent (24/7) GM presence in all game servers with swift reaction to verified farming/botting situations (expensive to NCSOFT) or NCSOFT official selling of adena/items for real cash at low prices so farmers dont have enough profit margin to run their business (another revenue source for NCSOFT).
Like everything in life, things have to be balanced and decisions to be made. In the end of the day its up to us. Its much better to craft or getting at the mobs/raid bosses all your weapons/armour, to play your character all along to several 75+ subclasses and to learn how to be good at what you do.
Because in the end, what really matters is how skilful you are and how much fun you have playing your toon. Skill come with time and fun shall last for as long as possible. So TIME is paramount and L2 is all about TIME. Who has TIME has everything in L2... :)
I agree it can be a good move from them. But, and it's a big but, they need to put in some advertising here in euroland. heck most people here in sweden have never heard of l2.
They should hire me to do some advertising for them here ;)
Well NCSoft is going to at least one major convention in Germany (I hope they will go to Spiel as well). The gaming scene in Germany is very large and competative. So they are promoting it a bit.
short before c4 went live i saw for the first time l2 at the local store :eek: ..... but it's only one or two boxes that are easily overlooked between the 20+ boxes of wow and gw .... :(
I think that opening another european server is definitely a great move by NCsoft, but i fear that it's a little too late.
NCsoft itself has quite a few very promising titles coming up until next year(AION, L3, Auto Assault) and I just doubt that the new server will cut it. As well as I'm afraid that the demand for farmed stuff on that server will be really high(as soon as people realise how hard it is to come by stuff themselves and not jsut buy a +10 weapon so easy).
I also agree that the need for more PR in the western countries could have helped the success of this great korean MMORPG, but with new titles coming up and looking at NCsofts new campaigns I'm pretty sure they won't make that mistake again.
I for myself won't have enough time to invest into L2 anymore, but maybe next year I'm gonna have a look into L3 ;)
I think it would have been better to add a couple GM's that could investigate farmers. Just with one GM per server they could ban almost all farmers/bots/whatever. So the money they spend on those gm's, they save from making a new server.
The problem is that those farmers also pay their accounts, and that would make NCsoft loose big money. So they could get almost that much money selling adena/items, as the farmers do. Or just try to make more advertising. But people won't come to farmer corrupted servers, so you decide...
Well NCSoft is going to at least one major convention in Germany (I hope they will go to Spiel as well). The gaming scene in Germany is very large and competative. So they are promoting it a bit.
We've got folks at the Leipzig Games Conference right now. I believe that this is the last day of the show, though.
A lot of interesting speculation here. Just wanted to chime in and say that the reasoning behind adding the new server was pretty simple really: Our subscriber base has been growing and when we looked at the demographics it became evident that we needed more server capacity dedicated to European players since they (you?) were becoming a larger (than before) percentage statistically. Now we're at a comfortable ratio, and we have more overall room for any incoming players for C5.
A lot of interesting speculation here. Just wanted to chime in and say that the reasoning behind adding the new server was pretty simple really: Our subscriber base has been growing and when we looked at the demographics it became evident that we needed more server capacity dedicated to European players since they (you?) were becoming a larger (than before) percentage statistically. Now we're at a comfortable ratio, and we have more overall room for any incoming players for C5.
Blah blah blah. Reality is that you had a dart board of requests and this is what got hit. That's how it worked in my head.
I caught the dart with my teeth. I demand a pay raise!
I thought you got hit right in the Germany.
Where is Germany ?
In the Germanic Region.
HGMspam's new German boss wants to chat with him.
Horst: HGMspam, could ve have a word with you?
HGMspam: No.
Horst: I must have phrased that badly. My English is, how you say, inelegant. I meant to say, may we have a brief friendly chat.
HGMspam: No.
Horst: Once again, I have failed. [consults phrasebook]
We request the pleasure of your company for a free exchange of ideas.
HGMspam: [runs away in panic]
Well NCSoft is going to at least one major convention in Germany (I hope they will go to Spiel as well). The gaming scene in Germany is very large and competative. So they are promoting it a bit.
I would not count on too much of a L2 presence. NCSoft was at GenCon a couple weeks ago and the L2 representation was quite pathetic.
I caught the dart with my teeth. I demand a pay raise!
I thought you got hit right in the Germany.
Where is Germany ?
In the Germanic Region.
HGMspam's new German boss wants to chat with him.
Horst: HGMspam, could ve have a word with you?
HGMspam: No.
Horst: I must have phrased that badly. My English is, how you say, inelegant. I meant to say, may we have a brief friendly chat.
HGMspam: No.
Horst: Once again, I have failed. [consults phrasebook]
We request the pleasure of your company for a free exchange of ideas.
HGMspam: [runs away in panic]
haha :)
nice dialog sir, reminds me of the simpsons episode where germans bought mr. burns nuclear power station for 50m LOL :cool:
After last night character transfer events and the closing of Teon and Franz to new transfers I just digged this old post of mine (25AGO06 - Pre-Franz post) and I am using it again to reinforce the need of more European servers.
I think the NA L2 market will not grow much more, the way ahead is a definitive bet on european market, with much more Lineage 2 advertising and new european servers.
Best regards,
RedBaron
Hello to all,
After reading some posts complaining about a second EURO server I just want to post some data in order to show why NCSOFT has to create more european servers.
North America (USA and Canada) + Central America + South America = 893 641 657 inhabitants
Europe (including all Russia) = 803 584 237 inhabitants
Since this game was introduced in 28APR04 in North America (Prelude) 8 NA and 1 EURO servers have been created. Until the creation of TEON, all european players used NA servers and still enjoyed this game greatly (myself included). With TEON, a lot of european players moved together with some american players to populate the european server but a great number of european players remained in NA servers.
Since TEON creation, the server is always with HEAVY traffic meaning that a lot of people is always logged in, with the lag problems we all know.
As an european playing in Devianne, the only problem is the time difference between myself and my clan mates/friends (5 to 6 hours later here than in NA), specially during sieges. Even the connection (ping) is good enough.
So, creating more european servers (like FRANZ in 06SEP06) is a smart move from NCSOFT because it will attract more european players, specially the family/friends of existing players that couldnt understand why we do all night long sessions to participate in sieges and clan hunts/activities. Now, europeans have more opportunities to play during normal day/night cycles.
Of course that I think L2 has still a lot to offer to everyone for the next years (at least until C12) and there is room for more NA and EURO servers to be created. The only thing NCSOFT needs to do is to invest in more publicity about L2 because everyday more and more people (young and adults) make contact with MMORPG's and are submerged with new titles and new games, not knowing that L2 is the best MMORPG in existence (based on 10 years experience of the most popular MMORPG's around).
I think the NCSOFT trend (hopefully) is to create more european servers than NA servers because in Europe there is still a large amount of potential players to attract to L2 (considering that NA and Europe have roughly the same population).
To finish this already long post just a quick note on 2 things: "relax" servers and farmers/bots.
The so called "relax" servers (XP/SP/adena/item drop increased rates compared to normal servers) already exist as private free servers (without NCSOFT consent) and in my oppinion transform L2 in a much worst game. One of the main differences between L2 and all other MMORPG's is the sense of achievement. In L2 you need to play a long period, to invest a lot of your free time and effort to develop a good character. During that time you know/interact with hundreds or thousands of other players and develop long lasting relationships (friend or foe), consolidating your character status in the server you play, absorbing all the in depth knowledge of L2 and visiting all the places in this huge world. In other words, you dont show up at the Olympiads with a 75+ subclassed character after playing for just 1 month asking what you are supposed to do to become a Hero (unless you ebay your character and that its really lame).
Now talking about farmers/bots, well, farmers/bots are the market answer to the players demands. I strongly oppose the use of farmed adena or items but they exist because the market exists, even though the game economy resents their existence and inflation is rampant. There are only 2 solutions for the problem: Greater permanent (24/7) GM presence in all game servers with swift reaction to verified farming/botting situations (expensive to NCSOFT) or NCSOFT official selling of adena/items for real cash at low prices so farmers dont have enough profit margin to run their business (another revenue source for NCSOFT).
Like everything in life, things have to be balanced and decisions to be made. In the end of the day its up to us. Its much better to craft or getting at the mobs/raid bosses all your weapons/armour, to play your character all along to several 75+ subclasses and to learn how to be good at what you do.
Because in the end, what really matters is how skilful you are and how much fun you have playing your toon. Skill come with time and fun shall last for as long as possible. So TIME is paramount and L2 is all about TIME. Who has TIME has everything in L2... :)
while i agree that another server with european times for events/olympiad/sieges is very much needed im not sharing the optimism about growing subscriptions for the remaining na servers.
what i think is that the opening of a european server (with transfer rights) is actually at the loss of the na player base since the migration from alreaddy low populated na servers towards a new european server cuts intoo their playing fun.
at least if u like big sieges , epic battles, world bosses, social interaction....
First of all, I think Lineage 2 is presently the best MMORPG in market (yes, I tried several others) and is a very good NCSOFT product that never had the appropriate marketing/advertizing it deserves in NA and EU.
So, all my solutions for Lineage 2 always pass through a better advertizing/marketing of this product in NA and EU.
In what concerns to the problem of unbalanced server population we are dealing with 2 different sides of the same coin:
1. Under populated NA servers (too many NA servers for the amount of available US, CA and South America players);
2. Over populated EU servers (too few EU servers for the amount of available EU, Africa and Middle East players).
The problem of under populated NA servers can be dealed in 3 steps: Increased marketing/advertizing of L2 in US, CA and South America, in-server measures to appeal to new players and finally server merging if the first 2 steps dont achieve the aim.
The problem of over populated EU servers can be dealed in 3 steps also: Increased marketing/advertizing of L2 (almost none in Europe from my perspective), creation of more EU servers and encouragement of western EU players to play in NA servers (time zone difference not so big) through in-server measures to appeal to new players.
During the next years (yes, I hope L2 remains active for a few more years), considering the population amount of both areas, the natural balance will be 50%/50% NA and EU servers.
The most important thing is to keep L2 interesting, with a wide player base in enough populated servers. I am pretty sure NCSOFT have the right persons working for them, capable of working out a good plan to keep L2 alive and kicking.
So, lets be patient and constructive towards NCSOFT..:)