You guys *need* to advertise IMMEDIATELY, or you might as well shut this game down.
When I first started playing over 2 years ago, there were tons of USA players everywhere. Now my server (Devianne) has very few USA players left.
You don't advertise in any meaningful way. I can't find copies of L2 in stores or in magazines anymore. That's how I found the game, and new USA players wont buy L2 if they don't see it in those places. I've been looking for the past year, and all I ever see is City of Heroes/City of Villains.
I see a ton of russains... from kain to teon to fraz.. to a lot of other servers.
Alot of the players I know are quiting L2 and leaveing for other games.
I recently when to bestbuy for a time card and all I saw was, autoassult, CoH, CoV, guild wars... I meen 2 of them games have failed missably.. and they are still being solded. yet L2 gets no reconnistion nore does L1.
I give this game 1 more year at best in NA before most NA players desides to leave cause of lack of new players and unballenced issues with no marketing = game just dies.
Reminds me of a Judo Story. I had seen this partner, and less than 30 seconds in, I had him in a choke hold.
Matte ! Ippon !
In judo tournaments, you can lose one fight and still get to the finals if you win all your other fights (we call it "repêchage").
He was matched to me again in the final. After 3 minutes of kneeling, one Official went to the dressing room, and came back to say the person refused to fight me.
Won a Gold medal that day without even a fight.
Have Fun ! ™
BoardPK
Official Board Devil
Edit : Oh and please don't say OWNED, it scares the people.
And what did I find in my mailbox last week? The latest copy of PC Gamer...
... with Guild Wars on the cover. :mad:
Well, in June 2004, there was a 1 page preview on Lineage 2 in PC Gamer =P I remember comparing it to CoH cause there was a 4 page preview on that lol.
Move all non-US players to Teon or Franz, and, ummm ... why do I get the feeling that my server was Normal during day and MY peak hours, and light during US peak hours?
There are new players out there, just telling you "OK, I need to go to bed now, it's mignight I am from Sweden" :p Meeting more and more of them. Specially from Greece, Russia, former Yugoslavia.
Among non-farmer players, foreigners are in the majority on Devianne. You can't move two feet without stepping on a Scandinavian or Greek there! I'm not sure about Lionna.
Lionna is densely concentrated with non-US people as far as I know. The biggest groups of them are Greek and French. There's quite a few of them, especially Greek.
There are more potential non-US players, so it is only natural, that with time passing, there will also be more actual non-US players.
Radioactive Kitten
Don't see many French. You'd think with all that free time, the short work weeks, the suspended working rights...well yeah I guess they have more important things to deal with.
There are more potential non-US players, so it is only natural, that with time passing, there will also be more actual non-US players.
Radioactive Kitten
Don't see many French. You'd think with all that free time, the short work weeks, the suspended working rights...well yeah I guess they have more important things to deal with.
There are more potential non-US players, so it is only natural, that with time passing, there will also be more actual non-US players.
Radioactive Kitten
Don't see many French. You'd think with all that free time, the short work weeks, the suspended working rights...well yeah I guess they have more important things to deal with.
Them's fightin' words.
Is this a pun? French? Fighting words? That's good stuff :)
NC made BIG BIG mistake right from the start. What did they think, when launching west-coast servers - that noone else but US will be playing it? In times of global internet, where many people got even to Asian open betas?
Then they launched East servers. Fine, pings are better for other countries and many US.
Then, 6 months later, they feel the need to launch euro server. While many people having high level toons already, and not allowing transfer???
Recently: "Oh, we might need to launch second euro, because Teon is always full."
Again, people have even higher levels, and refuse to roll there. Atop of that, Franz is debackle from EULA point of view.
Meanwhile many people on so called "US" servers cry "we want server merge we have nobody to play with our servers are dead". And still sending non US timezone players to hell "go play to teon or franz". How about convert those servers to Euro - you admit you have majority non US, didn't ya? - and tell all US to reroll on US servers?
Stop thinking locally - there is not only US and Korea, we live in global world with global means of communication whether you like it or not.
There were major game faults and poor plannings right from the start - only US servers though game is being sold all around the world, no server transfer or other form of timezone and account management etc. Hope NC learned their mistakes, and L3 will be launched with at least 2 Euro servers.
Ontopic: not being my friend who read some small article in local game magazine from closed beta, I would not know about this game either. Then all major paper and web mags bring only short note that new chronicle is being launched with few prefabricated pictures. Where is the rest??? Games cons, where L2 is present with few posters, while NC has biggest booth fith firy shows for ... COV or whatever? Where are presentations like being done in Korea or Japan? What about some anime cons? What about advertizing in europe - never saw any. Except mentioned small articles when new chronicle is being launched :(
Sorry for my rant, I feel somewhat cornered compared to WOW ...
The other day I went into a popular Computer parts store, and what should I see?
$2.99 15-Day Wow Trial Pack.
Comes with that Paper CD Sleave Packaging, Install CD, and a 15-Day Trial Code.
All this for 3 bucks. I was FURIOUS when i saw this. Furious at NC soft for not doing such a simple marketing ploy.
no kidding, WHERE IS THE ADVERTISEMENT?! I find it absolutely pathetic that PLAYERS in a game have to tell the COMPANY to advertise, lol. Also L2 is not at all well known in the US. Like someone said before, if you go to the majority of stores that sell video games the name Lineage 2 (or even Lineage) will NOT ring a bell yet wasn't L1 like the LARGEST POPULATED subscription game? (well, before WoW) People in the US know about Everquest, wanna know why? because every time there was an expansion it got some press coverage or at the least advertising in mainstream magazines.
You are all very programmed, you have all been so brainwashed by television commercials that you have come to expect a certain thing and nothing else.
NCsoft has been advertising and been doing pretty well at doing so. NCsoft has been doing some of the best and strongest advertisement possible.
Word of Mouth
They handed us (clan leaders) free CD keys, now think, how many Clan leaders there are in the game of lvl 4 or higher. Considering alot clans want new players in their clan will those clan leaders or their clannies put these keys to good use? Talk to their friends and promote the game and their experience? You **** straight they will.
Also going through popular game review sites like IGN or gamespy to review their new chronicle is ALMOST as effective as word of mouth because its an opinion spoken by someone that a mass network of people trust and respect.
Very few of you realize the cost of a commercial or how much it costs to launch a advertising campaign in North America. I am sure someone who did market research would tell you that it would be pointless because commercials work best on brand new products as opposed to existing products
because the average north american spend 25 seconds analyzing a commercial and 5 seconds to make up his mind about it. If someone has already herd of lineage in the past and made up his mind based on prior experience hes not going to give it another try. But take that same person and he opens up his inbox and gets a mail from gamespy saying that "chroncle 5 is out with brand new content" he will stop and think for a second and consider it, Or his friend approaches him and says " i know you are bored with world of warcraft i have free keys give this game a try, you can even join my guild"
This Chronicle itself has been the best promotion for the game so far. The academy + promise set alone almost litterly thrusts players into fast track of the game. Allowing higher level players to interact with the lower players. Eliminating the problem of players feeling lonely when they start the game.
and by the way... who cares where the person comes from? why USA? because you are the center of the earth?
I am pretty sure that Lineage 2 is more popular in Korea and Japan than it is here so it would probobly more profitable to run any advertisement there than here. Lets face it there is no one more hardcore than the Asian community. :cool:
If I want a friend to play RO with me, I don't need to be a clan leader and wait for an "event" to invite them to a free trial.
Just getting the game on the shelf... just seeing to it that major retailers knows it exists... should not be that much of a problem.
Besides, every chronicle, in a way, is enough of a "new product" for fodder for advertisement (although they still have the same old mistakes, of course).
NCsoft has been advertising and been doing pretty well at doing so. NCsoft has been doing some of the best and strongest advertisement possible.
Word of Mouth
Let me tell you about "Word of Mouth" advertising.
The company i work for when they have a sale they put it up on the road sign. They don't advertise on the tv, or the radio, or even in the newspaper of this sale. Then they are left scratching their heads because of lack of sales.
It's no joke this is how they advertise.
You don't advertise by word of mouth, you advertise by placing it out in front of the people by all means possible.
I wasn't taking it as a joke and I am sure for some business that work. Certain advertising only work better for certain venues and product.
I am pretty sure Ncsoft like all corporations have an advertising/marketing department. Also i am sure they have what is called a advertising budget.
Unless you all have gone senile from all the hours of grind, you forget that Lineage is not NCsoft's only game. I am sure the budget is set to the departments and they are to make the most of what they have to advertise all of the games. GuildWars probobly having more sales, was probobly where the bulk of the budget went to where lineage a much older game lacking sales got a smaller portion. Like Autoassult and Aion also probobly recieved a large portion of this budget. Lets face it this is as good as its going to get till Lineage 3.
You can only beat a dead horse for so long. If I was ncsoft i wouldn't spend the captial on something that wouldn't return a large amount of revenue. Lets face it Lineage isn't going to gain a flood of new players seeing as most NA are concerned and caught up with their lives games like WoW better suit the NA player lifestyle. While Lineage 2 though becoming more casual still is targeted towards the Hardcore players.
Actually the new arrival of a chronicle should have been met with a massive ad campain and a massive presence in the gaming media.
Our website network went to the GC (Games Convention) in Leipzig, Germany (which is one of the major european game cons). NCsoft was there with a nice team. Unfortunately Lineage2 was missing. Dead titles like AutoAssault were promoted. When our team had an interview for C5, the testing environment was offline and the guy doing the interview (on behalf of NCsoft) was presenting the town of Schuttgart as an A-grade clanhall.
Onlinewelten Inc. also did try to get NCsoft to do banner advertisements on our sites, to bring Lineage2 back into peoples mind beyond our fansite, but they did not want to spend any money on it.
It always irks me, when I see our german fansite present the only german language data of Lineage2, with a Guildwars banner on top and the advertisement for the new WoW expansion in a scyscraper.
We need to place ads to pay for the site. And I would happily place Lineage2 ads on our page.
Blizzard is making a major hype out of every **** their developers make. Their expansions cost money and they spend a lot of money on advertisements. And people are buying that dirt. They are happily paying for the monthly subscription and the costs for an expansion.
Calling out in Bold blinking letters "FIFTH MAJOR EXPANSION, FOR FREE !" would feel so good, next to that WoW-scum.
You are all very programmed, you have all been so brainwashed by television commercials that you have come to expect a certain thing and nothing else.
The rare times I watch TV, it's from DVR and watch zero commercials.
NCsoft has been advertising and been doing pretty well at doing so. NCsoft has been doing some of the best and strongest advertisement possible.
Word of Mouth
This, according to a good friend of mine in the Public Relations business, is very true, but not how you think. Word of mouth is extremely effective ... at spreading negative views of a product or company. People don't, as a rule, go around praising a product or company. However, they will tell everyone they meet if they hate something. Sad fact.
You never seen my post and i didn't see yours, but they are saying the same thing. Us players have the right outlook on this, now if only NC would join us. :)
Very few of you realize the cost of a commercial or how much it costs to launch a advertising campaign in North America. I am sure someone who did market research would tell you that it would be pointless because commercials work best on brand new products as opposed to existing products
if NCsoft made 1 commercial that played doing the supperbowl, and one doring the NBA play offs, and one doing the world cup.
Three of the MOST popular sporting events world wide, they could pull in a TON of NEW players.
Just showing a Game clip of mass PvP would intregue players to come into the world of L2. People love video games, specailly violent ones with mass killing. ( look at grand threft auto)
Do they do this... Does NCsoft even think of this.
Reguardless if it cost 1.2mil to play the trailer 3 times doring the supperbowl, that exposure in the US would nab alot of new players even just people willing to check it out for a mouth. that would be more then worth the cost.
Can't you see what it is. you have to look at other company's.
Coke, and verious bear company's & IT companies that you never heard of! do most of their advertiving doring this time cause thats when the masses turn on the TV.. even none Football fans do it to.
Why cause it's whats hot whats going to be talked about.
Actually the new arrival of a chronicle should have been met with a massive ad campain and a massive presence in the gaming media.
Our website network went to the GC (Games Convention) in Leipzig, Germany (which is one of the major european game cons). NCsoft was there with a nice team. Unfortunately Lineage2 was missing. Dead titles like AutoAssault were promoted. When our team had an interview for C5, the testing environment was offline and the guy doing the interview (on behalf of NCsoft) was presenting the town of Schuttgart as an A-grade clanhall.
Onlinewelten Inc. also did try to get NCsoft to do banner advertisements on our sites, to bring Lineage2 back into peoples mind beyond our fansite, but they did not want to spend any money on it.
It always irks me, when I see our german fansite present the only german language data of Lineage2, with a Guildwars banner on top and the advertisement for the new WoW expansion in a scyscraper.
We need to place ads to pay for the site. And I would happily place Lineage2 ads on our page.
Blizzard is making a major hype out of every **** their developers make. Their expansions cost money and they spend a lot of money on advertisements. And people are buying that dirt. They are happily paying for the monthly subscription and the costs for an expansion.
Calling out in Bold blinking letters "FIFTH MAJOR EXPANSION, FOR FREE !" would feel so good, next to that WoW-scum.
Dreaming Kitten
/signed
But you must be honorable, your website isnt a figurehead for L2. I personally would not advertise at an outdated site (Content).
The best is the fishing guide in german language. If our clan recruit a new Player and he asking for game information nearly everybody says the same:
"Do not visit lineageii.de, except for reading the fishing guide. Visit stratics, blah or lineage2.com"
I realy wish me an active german community site with C5 Content and some guides like l2stratics they have. In my eyes that the best advertising you can do for L2, specialy in times where Mozilla FireFox easy blocks any banners ...
I realy wish me an active german community site with C5 Content and some guides like l2stratics they have.
If you can speak and write german, you can join our team at any time ;)
It's a pain to keep a site up to date, with a staff of 5 people (including me), when three of them are limiting themselves to only moderating the boards :)
I am sure someone who did market research would tell you that it would be pointless because commercials work best on brand new products as opposed to existing products
Then why are **** big-boobed half naked female warriors on every cover of this month's gaming magazines, promoting Xth expansion for GuildWars?
... Are our deadly **** half-naked bigger-boobed Dark Elven females any worse? :eek:
The company i work for when they have a sale they put it up on the road sign. They don't advertise on the tv, or the radio, or even in the newspaper of this sale. Then they are left scratching their heads because of lack of sales.
Heh. I remember when another intern and me at my work placement wanted to do a sale of some old disused stuff and the boss thought it was a good idea... but the first thing he made us do was theme it, make a flyer, and sent us out into the cold to hand out the flyers plus arrange some cooperation with the nearby cinema.
I was really ticked off about all the extra work promoting the stupid sale (the idea was just to get some storage space, really) until we got swamed at the sale itself.
I'm sure (because I handed out the flyers myself after all) that not every person who showed up there had gotten a flyer themselves (i.e. word of mouth), but some prompotion is necessary to even get word of mouth going.
When I want to invite a friend into the game I can't even tell him: "Just download it, I'll give you some gear and buffs and do /socialwaiting on a dwarf to convince you to stay." There is no chance to get anyone in on the addiction if they first have to spend a whole lot of money (no cheap keys availalbe outside the US, really, from what I've managed to find) to even try it out.
PS: Lightelves > Elementalists all day long. ;p Both male and female! (Although male is not hard...)
Err, why in the world is a Russian player a 'problem'? Sheesh, people are people whereever they are in the world and there is nothing that makes someone from NA superior. The is nothing that makes an English speaker superior.
We are all people, and to imply that people from one part of the world, or who speak one language, or who have one ethnic background rather than another, are 'better or worse' or more desirable game mates is wrong. It is very wrong. If the words which describe this type of 'wrongness' do not pop into your head then, well, my point is proven.
I like meeting people ingame from south america, asia, europe (east and western) and all parts of the globe. I like overcoming language barriers (emotes help) and different ways of thinking....I think that is part of the wonderful world of Aden!
In fact, I think it is mildly unrealistic (if such a term can be used in a fantasy game) to have orcs, humans, elves and dwarves all speaking the same language and communicating easily. Having players with different languages makes the game more 'realistic' and better, I believe.
Summary:
1. New players from Anywhere are welcome.
2. If it costs NCSoft less to get an eastern european player than a NA player (lower ad costs) than that is cool with me.
3. If we had too many players then we would have too many players, ie lag. So more players =/= better in all situations.
I'm with Drekk on this one, but lets evaluate a few points.
E&S is the developer for both Lineage and Lineage 2. E&S is a Korean company who develops these two games for NCSoft, a Korean game producer. CoH, CoV, and GW are developed by American companies for an American audience.
Little history here for you:
Lineage was never sold in stores, the game CDs were given out freely through PC Gamer and other such magazines in NA with a 30 day trial during the first year of it's release. Beyond that the game has never been advertised in any sort of media yet it still has a strong(although admitedly small) non asian community(yes eruopeans play in the NA servers which as of 2 years ago, when I deactivated my account finally, were still based in california). The game was originally developed for an asian market and was brought over to the US only as a sort of experiment to see how much of UOs market share they could take. As of two years ago they were still releasing major expansions to Lineage (they destroyed Gludin town as part of the story line and added another class).
During OB, just before the official launch of the game, I asked on here if L2 would be freely downloadable like Lineage is. The answer is well known. The lack of game cards and retail boxes plus the abailability of downloading the game, not just the files for the latest chronicle, from FilePlanet suggests to me that they have changed their minds and that they will follow the same sort of advertisement and development strategy that they did with Lineage.
In other words if you want more US players to play with take advantage of the hand outs like the 7 day codes given to clan leaders and convert some people from WoW over to the light :).
Although "doomsday" threads are typically closed, I wanted to try to spread a little cheer. :)
Some of you scooped us on the "Lineage II Epic Collection" you saw online. We will have more information about this soon, but I can say now that retailers should have Lineage II on the shelves again soon.
Lineage II is going strong, and I appreciate everyone's enthusiasm for getting the word out on the game!
I can't really comment on the number of American vs. European players, except to gently remind everyone that the Lineage II service is for both Americans and Europeans. Please be mindful of your comments and respectful of your fellow players. Thank you!
RumPunch, OP is not complaining that "OMG we are zerked by Ruassians", but that many US players left are not being replaced by new ones, because NC no advertizing for this game.
Actually the new arrival of a chronicle should have been met with a massive ad campain and a massive presence in the gaming media.
Our website network went to the GC (Games Convention) in Leipzig, Germany (which is one of the major european game cons). NCsoft was there with a nice team. Unfortunately Lineage2 was missing. Dead titles like AutoAssault were promoted. When our team had an interview for C5, the testing environment was offline and the guy doing the interview (on behalf of NCsoft) was presenting the town of Schuttgart as an A-grade clanhall.
Onlinewelten Inc. also did try to get NCsoft to do banner advertisements on our sites, to bring Lineage2 back into peoples mind beyond our fansite, but they did not want to spend any money on it.
It always irks me, when I see our german fansite present the only german language data of Lineage2, with a Guildwars banner on top and the advertisement for the new WoW expansion in a scyscraper.
We need to place ads to pay for the site. And I would happily place Lineage2 ads on our page.
Blizzard is making a major hype out of every **** their developers make. Their expansions cost money and they spend a lot of money on advertisements. And people are buying that dirt. They are happily paying for the monthly subscription and the costs for an expansion.
Calling out in Bold blinking letters "FIFTH MAJOR EXPANSION, FOR FREE !" would feel so good, next to that WoW-scum.
Dreaming Kitten
Yep, WoW players pay every month for a year or more and full price for the game (until very recently). They will also pay full price for the coming expansion - many already have with pre-order.
It's nothing to do with advertising though. It's about making a game which keeps 8 million players coming back for more (and not more of the same old thing!)
Although "doomsday" threads are typically closed, I wanted to try to spread a little cheer. :)
Some of you scooped us on the "Lineage II Epic Collection" you saw online. We will have more information about this soon, but I can say now that retailers should have Lineage II on the shelves again soon.
Lineage II is going strong, and I appreciate everyone's enthusiasm for getting the word out on the game!
I can't really comment on the number of American vs. European players, except to gently remind everyone that the Lineage II service is for both Americans and Europeans. Please be mindful of your comments and respectful of your fellow players. Thank you!
There you have it straight from the horses mouth folks. Lineage 2 is on it ways back to the shelves and lineage is trying to make a come back.
Also reply to the superbowl commercial post do you know what it takes to be able to run a commecial during the superbowl? The commercials of the superbowl is like the holy grail of advertisement For Ncsoft to be able to generally reserve that slot would probobly overturn their marketing budget upside down.
The entire idea almost blows my mind... why would a video game advertise during the superbowl? Cause we all know how good ole american football makes me want to play a game with almost unlimited Grind. Type in "Target Market" in google and tell me what you find.
For the rest of you, I think we are done here! If you want this game to grow and succeed talk to your WoW buddies.
Look for typical signs of boredom like "I got full epics, now what?", " I am tired of this end game guild" or "I have raided MC for the 100th time" and then roll up with a line like "bored of Wow? I got a game you should try with alot more content than WoW"