It has been a very busy year for us here at NCsoft West and our executive producer would like to take the time to address our communities today. Let me introduce to you Lance "CaptSturm" Stites who is the head of NCsoft West's Game Production Studio here in Seattle. Lance has been focused on team building and preparation for the upcoming launch of Aion but he is an NCsoft veteran, as many of you Lineage players may know.
Lance is here to talk to you about what has been going on here at the studio and what we have in store for all of our game communities. Thank you Lance!
*Please note, this letter is directed to all of our communities collectively*
It’s been just over three months since I’ve settled into the Seattle office, and I must say it’s been an incredibly busy 100 days. The restructuring has resulted in the staffing of the NCsoft West Game Production Studio, which, as previously mentioned is tasked with supporting the Lineage and Aion franchises, as well as Exteel. At this point I’d like to pause and address the wider audience of all of the products supported by our NCsoft West Game Production Studio: Lineage, Exteel, Lineage II, and Aion.
Our major release with Lineage II on the North American 5 year anniversary was a big accomplishment on April 28. This was Producer Sam Han’s first launch at the helm of this project. His many years as Associate Producer and Customer Service experience with the project served him well. Sam and team are currently in planning stages for the upcoming months. Recent additions to the team include Assistant Producer Marissa McWaters and Community Manager Lauren Duncan.
With Lineage and Exteel, we welcome a new face via our European and Korean office. Hyunah Chun will be taking the lead of both projects as Producer. Hyunah will be in transition mode while she relocates to the Seattle office from the European office. We’ll continue working with the existing Lineage team to deploy weekly maintenance, events and also work to deliver our next big update. We are also working to update Exteel with the latest content from Korea. While we are making every effort to deliver timely updates, our resources are being stretched supporting existing and upcoming projects.
Of course, all eyes are currently on our next big release: Aion. We have some staff announcements of the team that will lead this project through launch. Brian Knox has been functioning as the project’s Producer for the past few months and is doing a fantastic job. He’s wrangling all the production elements and working with the various teams to ensure a top quality product and service. Supporting him in this role is Chris Hager, recently transiting from the Lineage II team. Chris is ensuring Quality Assurance support, age ratings submissions, beta tests, coordination with IT teams for server and software deployments, and host of other support issues. Adding to this leadership is Lani Blazier, whom I am happy to report has transitioned from Community Manager to Associate Producer. Lani will continue to support the community effort, but from the production standpoint and will provide guidance to our other Community Managers, Martin Rabl and Sebastian Streiffert. We’re interviewing for the French Community Manager position; I’m personally well aware of the enthusiastic French gamer community, having witnessed the Festival du Jeu in Paris of last year, so I do consider this a priority addition to the team.
I know that many fans are extremely anxious, impatient even, awaiting the release of Aion. I can assure you the team is fully engaged in the release of this product. We’ve got an army of creative writers generating an enormous amount of rewrites as we execute to our total commitment of quality of content. Our Localization Manager has vendors in place, keeping pace with the French and German translation. We’re actively recruiting an additional native German speaking localization Project Manager and have added QA Testers (native French and German speaking) to the Seattle office. We’ve got Voice Over recordings underway (of course for all three languages) and our PR and Marketing teams are releasing the hounds and you’ve likely seen the articles on class descriptions hit the internet. We also have tutorial videos in production, this should provide a great Aion first experience, both to novice and experience MMO players. We’ve shared details of our Collector’s Edition recently, our first public access beta event was very well received, and we’ll continue these events through our launch. We’ll have a flood of information in the upcoming days and invite you all to share the experience as Aion takes flight in North America and Europe this fall.
Faith and arms,
Lance Stites
Executive Producer, Game Production Studio
NCsoft West
but.... ermm sorry, who cares about Aion? Isn't it L2 community here??? I can't understand why you make advertising of Aion in Lineage 2 Forums.
Please tell us what we can expect in the future for Lineage 2. Better Support? Harder Fight against Botters? More new events? Fixes of Connection Problems (lags, DCs).
This is stuff you can make us happy with, but not Aion. Sorry...
Thanks for the update but you're mistaking our forum for an Aion forum. How about letting us know about the issue's your adressing for the L2 community? Or is this your polite way of saying all attention is turning to Aoin and things in L2 are just gonna drag along?
Ofc the lion's share of the attention is on Aion, you guys, get real. And it's also discussed here because many, many L2 players will be playing Aion, imo. I, for one, am going to try it out.
But it does smack a little to flaunt the attention when it is painfully obvious that L2 has become the red-haired child in the process, as it is so in need of attention and care.
Hope all things go smoothly, especially so attention can be re-routed back here and things that need to be taken care of do.
Thanks for the new forum area.
Does this mean that we will be getting more information about the developer's plans and have input to that? That would be nice too.
I assume that this was a general letter sent out to all NCsoft games/gamers. I don't really care to look up if it's posted on the other game's forums, but that's what I'm assuming.
But even if that is the case, understanding that it was a general letter meant to encompass all the NCsoft games, I still think it's annoying to have the whole thing full of AION. I mean what, you want us all just to quit and go play AION? Cuz that's what it sounds like!
Take a few minutes and write a dedicated letter to the Lineage II community! And if you don't have time for that, then don't bother! Customer service for goodness sakes! We don't pay you $15 a month for AION (yet anyway), we pay for L2! This letter makes me feel like I'm paying for a game I don't even plan on playing!
Sure, I can manage that. As you surmised, this was an open letter to all the players of the games supported by the Game Production Studio. As head of the GPS, I manage all the product's Producers.
To be clear, Lineage II has a Producer and AP, along with Community, QA, and CS dedicated to its service. It's common with any studio that an upcoming release takes a lion's share of attention in supporting the release--it's not a slight in any way. (I spent a fair chunk of my afternoon in L2 meetings.)
It’s been just over three months since I’ve settled into the Seattle office, and I must say it’s been an incredibly busy 100 days. The restructuring has resulted in the staffing of the NCsoft West Game Production Studio, which, as previously mentioned is tasked with supporting the Lineage and Aion franchises, as well as Exteel. At this point I’d like to pause and address the wider audience of all of the products supported by our NCsoft West Game Production Studio: Lineage, Exteel, Lineage II, and Aion.
Our major release with Lineage II on the North American 5 year anniversary was a big accomplishment on April 28. This was Producer Sam Han’s first launch at the helm of this project. His many years as Associate Producer and Customer Service experience with the project served him well. Sam and team are currently in planning stages for the upcoming months. Recent additions to the team include Assistant Producer Marissa McWaters and Community Manager Lauren Duncan.
With Lineage and Exteel, we welcome a new face via our European and Korean office. Hyunah Chun will be taking the lead of both projects as Producer. Hyunah will be in transition mode while she relocates to the Seattle office from the European office. We’ll continue working with the existing Lineage team to deploy weekly maintenance, events and also work to deliver our next big update. We are also working to update Exteel with the latest content from Korea. While we are making every effort to deliver timely updates, our resources are being stretched supporting existing and upcoming projects.
Of course, all eyes are currently on our next big release: Aion. We have some staff announcements of the team that will lead this project through launch. Brian Knox has been functioning as the project’s Producer for the past few months and is doing a fantastic job. He’s wrangling all the production elements and working with the various teams to ensure a top quality product and service. Supporting him in this role is Chris Hager, recently transiting from the Lineage II team. Chris is ensuring Quality Assurance support, age ratings submissions, beta tests, coordination with IT teams for server and software deployments, and host of other support issues. Adding to this leadership is Lani Blazier, whom I am happy to report has transitioned from Community Manager to Associate Producer. Lani will continue to support the community effort, but from the production standpoint and will provide guidance to our other Community Managers, Martin Rabl and Sebastian Streiffert. We’re interviewing for the French Community Manager position; I’m personally well aware of the enthusiastic French gamer community, having witnessed the Festival du Jeu in Paris of last year, so I do consider this a priority addition to the team.
I know that many fans are extremely anxious, impatient even, awaiting the release of Aion. I can assure you the team is fully engaged in the release of this product. We’ve got an army of creative writers generating an enormous amount of rewrites as we execute to our total commitment of quality of content. Our Localization Manager has vendors in place, keeping pace with the French and German translation. We’re actively recruiting an additional native German speaking localization Project Manager and have added QA Testers (native French and German speaking) to the Seattle office. We’ve got Voice Over recordings underway (of course for all three languages) and our PR and Marketing teams are releasing the hounds and you’ve likely seen the articles on class descriptions hit the internet. We also have tutorial videos in production, this should provide a great Aion first experience, both to novice and experience MMO players. We’ve shared details of our Collector’s Edition recently, our first public access beta event was very well received, and we’ll continue these events through our launch. We’ll have a flood of information in the upcoming days and invite you all to share the experience as Aion takes flight in North America and Europe this fall.
Faith and arms,
Lance Stites
Executive Producer, Game Production Studio
NCsoft West
pleased to meet you.
*passes a mug o' goodness*
whatever you do, dont get too bogged down in the pitiful little self-important snobs of this particular forum. for some, this game is all theyve got as an escape and it sure as heck isnt much of an escape, if i may say so.
cheers, man.
if aion is half of what L2 was in Prelude, you'll have a good game.
whatever you do, dont get too bogged down in the pitiful little self-important snobs of this particular forum. for some, this game is all theyve got as an escape and it sure as heck isnt much of an escape, if i may say so.
cheers, man.
if aion is half of what L2 was in Prelude, you'll have a good game.
Hi *waves and Passes BEERS
ok I'm here for the meeting :p
As you can see by most of the above post, us addicted L2 Players are not going to go anywhere, so your stuck with us :D
we need less Bots, which you already know!
we need more advertising to bring in REAL Players.
and we need more hops and barley and I expect this shipment to be filled ASAP or face the possibility of a dwarven uprising :(
To anyone leaving to go to new game; can I have your junk? :p
all seriousness I think everyone in team NC knows what the biggest issues are concerning our servers. L2 is a great game and its staying power considering it's age is amazing. L2 is the first online game I have ever played and probably ever will again. I've seen wow played - I've seen gw played and I apologize to the people who enjoy those games, but they fell far short of the "WOW" factor that I first experienced when L2 filled the screen; it still has that effect when I enter new areas for the first time!
The Development team are an amazing group of people, as far as I'm concerned. L2 is a beautiful world filled with the most entertaining and sometimes mind boggling areas.
I think somewhere down the line someone thought by allowing people to use 3rd party programs it would help boost sales of L2 and keep lazy players at the time happy, which it did and still does, but it tore apart everything that was meant to bring the community together.
I would hate to see L2 gone before I even get done adventuring and retire to just grinding for levels; but when I'm being told that I won't be allowed to adventure in certain areas because they are locked down by high level BOT clans. I guess you can see why us real players are frustrated!
Easy fix to start to raise the spirits of our real L2 community. Ban the BOTS and keep them banned. Random account file checks. If L2 files are deleted or added it will INSTANTLY turn off user account. Giving BOTS and cheaters no time to pass ill gotten items to their other BOT accounts.
Truly terrible to think this game could be lost due to BOTS and 3rd party programs. I would gladly be the first to step up and say NC go ahead and file check my account, then continue with the oldest account still running on the server and work your way down to the newest. Eventually the Cancer which are BOTS on our servers will be gone and we will have a chance to bring L2 to life again, but this time with people who really love the game.
I have gotten a good number of real people in my area playing L2 just from seeing it played. I met a couple of people who used to play L2 unfortunately they both quit due to the BOT problem and by the look on their faces when I told them they were still here I don't think they will return any time soon.
Honest players don't deserve this and neither do the developers of such a wonderful game.
Please lets at least try to save L2!
Hi *waves and Passes BEERS
ok I'm here for the meeting :p
As you can see by most of the above post, us addicted L2 Players are not going to go anywhere, so your stuck with us :D
we need less Bots, which you already know!
we need more advertising to bring in REAL Players.
and we need more hops and barley and I expect this shipment to be filled ASAP or face the possibility of a dwarven uprising
To anyone leaving to go to new game; can I have your junk?
all seriousness I think everyone in team NC knows what the biggest issues are concerning our servers. L2 is a great game and its staying power considering it's age is amazing. L2 is the first online game I have ever played and probably ever will again. I've seen wow played - I've seen gw played and I apologize to the people who enjoy those games, but they fell far short of the "WOW" factor that I first experienced when L2 filled the screen; it still has that effect when I enter new areas for the first time!
The Development team are an amazing group of people, as far as I'm concerned. L2 is a beautiful world filled with the most entertaining and sometimes mind boggling areas.
I think somewhere down the line someone thought by allowing people to use 3rd party programs it would help boost sales of L2 and keep lazy players at the time happy, which it did and still does, but it tore apart everything that was meant to bring the community together.
I would hate to see L2 gone before I even get done adventuring and retire to just grinding for levels; but when I'm being told that I won't be allowed to adventure in certain areas because they are locked down by high level BOT clans. I guess you can see why us real players are frustrated!
Easy fix to start to raise the spirits of our real L2 community. Ban the BOTS and keep them banned. Random account file checks. If L2 files are deleted or added it will INSTANTLY turn off user account. Giving BOTS and cheaters no time to pass ill gotten items to their other BOT accounts.
Truly terrible to think this game could be lost due to BOTS and 3rd party programs. I would gladly be the first to step up and say NC go ahead and file check my account, then continue with the oldest account still running on the server and work your way down to the newest. Eventually the Cancer which are BOTS on our servers will be gone and we will have a chance to bring L2 to life again, but this time with people who really love the game.
I have gotten a good number of real people in my area playing L2 just from seeing it played. I met a couple of people who used to play L2 unfortunately they both quit due to the BOT problem and by the look on their faces when I told them they were still here I don't think they will return any time soon.
Honest players don't deserve this and neither do the developers of such a wonderful game.
Please lets at least try to save L2!
Thank you for your time
Don't listen to her, sometimes she drinks too much ;)
Hi *waves and Passes BEERS
ok I'm here for the meeting :p
As you can see by most of the above post, us addicted L2 Players are not going to go anywhere, so your stuck with us :D
we need less Bots, which you already know!
we need more advertising to bring in REAL Players.
and we need more hops and barley and I expect this shipment to be filled ASAP or face the possibility of a dwarven uprising :(
To anyone leaving to go to new game; can I have your junk? :p
all seriousness I think everyone in team NC knows what the biggest issues are concerning our servers. L2 is a great game and its staying power considering it's age is amazing. L2 is the first online game I have ever played and probably ever will again. I've seen wow played - I've seen gw played and I apologize to the people who enjoy those games, but they fell far short of the "WOW" factor that I first experienced when L2 filled the screen; it still has that effect when I enter new areas for the first time!
The Development team are an amazing group of people, as far as I'm concerned. L2 is a beautiful world filled with the most entertaining and sometimes mind boggling areas.
I think somewhere down the line someone thought by allowing people to use 3rd party programs it would help boost sales of L2 and keep lazy players at the time happy, which it did and still does, but it tore apart everything that was meant to bring the community together.
I would hate to see L2 gone before I even get done adventuring and retire to just grinding for levels; but when I'm being told that I won't be allowed to adventure in certain areas because they are locked down by high level BOT clans. I guess you can see why us real players are frustrated!
Easy fix to start to raise the spirits of our real L2 community. Ban the BOTS and keep them banned. Random account file checks. If L2 files are deleted or added it will INSTANTLY turn off user account. Giving BOTS and cheaters no time to pass ill gotten items to their other BOT accounts.
Truly terrible to think this game could be lost due to BOTS and 3rd party programs. I would gladly be the first to step up and say NC go ahead and file check my account, then continue with the oldest account still running on the server and work your way down to the newest. Eventually the Cancer which are BOTS on our servers will be gone and we will have a chance to bring L2 to life again, but this time with people who really love the game.
I have gotten a good number of real people in my area playing L2 just from seeing it played. I met a couple of people who used to play L2 unfortunately they both quit due to the BOT problem and by the look on their faces when I told them they were still here I don't think they will return any time soon.
Honest players don't deserve this and neither do the developers of such a wonderful game.
Please lets at least try to save L2!
Thank you for your time
I'm becoming a fanboi... And the beer is nice too....
Hi *waves and Passes BEERS
ok I'm here for the meeting :p
As you can see by most of the above post, us addicted L2 Players are not going to go anywhere, so your stuck with us :D
we need less Bots, which you already know!
we need more advertising to bring in REAL Players.
and we need more hops and barley and I expect this shipment to be filled ASAP or face the possibility of a dwarven uprising :(
To anyone leaving to go to new game; can I have your junk? :p
all seriousness I think everyone in team NC knows what the biggest issues are concerning our servers. L2 is a great game and its staying power considering it's age is amazing. L2 is the first online game I have ever played and probably ever will again. I've seen wow played - I've seen gw played and I apologize to the people who enjoy those games, but they fell far short of the "WOW" factor that I first experienced when L2 filled the screen; it still has that effect when I enter new areas for the first time!
The Development team are an amazing group of people, as far as I'm concerned. L2 is a beautiful world filled with the most entertaining and sometimes mind boggling areas.
I think somewhere down the line someone thought by allowing people to use 3rd party programs it would help boost sales of L2 and keep lazy players at the time happy, which it did and still does, but it tore apart everything that was meant to bring the community together.
I would hate to see L2 gone before I even get done adventuring and retire to just grinding for levels; but when I'm being told that I won't be allowed to adventure in certain areas because they are locked down by high level BOT clans. I guess you can see why us real players are frustrated!
Easy fix to start to raise the spirits of our real L2 community. Ban the BOTS and keep them banned. Random account file checks. If L2 files are deleted or added it will INSTANTLY turn off user account. Giving BOTS and cheaters no time to pass ill gotten items to their other BOT accounts.
Truly terrible to think this game could be lost due to BOTS and 3rd party programs. I would gladly be the first to step up and say NC go ahead and file check my account, then continue with the oldest account still running on the server and work your way down to the newest. Eventually the Cancer which are BOTS on our servers will be gone and we will have a chance to bring L2 to life again, but this time with people who really love the game.
I have gotten a good number of real people in my area playing L2 just from seeing it played. I met a couple of people who used to play L2 unfortunately they both quit due to the BOT problem and by the look on their faces when I told them they were still here I don't think they will return any time soon.
Honest players don't deserve this and neither do the developers of such a wonderful game.
Please lets at least try to save L2!
Thank you for your time
1 problem bout this.. ban account = buy new one, ban ip = go on dynamic ip you never get rid of bots how hard u will fight them. unless nc makes so=] me package interrupter =] meaning nc has to use bots aswell to fight them ^^ the key to a cure is to know the source of the infection
Sure, I can manage that. As you surmised, this was an open letter to all the players of the games supported by the Game Production Studio. As head of the GPS, I manage all the product's Producers.
To be clear, Lineage II has a Producer and AP, along with Community, QA, and CS dedicated to its service. It's common with any studio that an upcoming release takes a lion's share of attention in supporting the release--it's not a slight in any way. (I spent a fair chunk of my afternoon in L2 meetings.)
Best regards,
At least we get some information now - thanks for that.
I also would be glad to get more information about Lineage II and the next steps. Don't keep us that much in the dark how you did in the past!
You forgot to mention GMSpam who was brought over from our side to yours. He has done nothing but say wonderful things about the new game and seems to be extremely juiced.
Sad to say, L2 lost a great resource.
It would be nice if you would take some time after your new lauch and give us a nice post about our future too. As you can tell by the under currents, there is some bitterness here about how we have been treated and how the game has been handled as a whole.
Loosing some of our best people thru the changes in economy, your changes in moving out of austin, etc. has done nothing but make this seem like a poor step child that is being drained of all the shiney adena it can generate before being left to die like Lineage is.
Good luck though. A strong NcSoft makes for a long running game here, we just need some serious tlc.
OMG. HELLO? We don't give a **** for AION or any other game. This is LINEAGE 2. A good game which is getting ruined day by day.
If you DO NOT do something to improve the game (a.k.a your work) players will LEAVE. It is YOUR job to find the bots , NOT players' , it is YOUR job to fix the economy , NOT players'.
So stop advertising a new MMO and thinking you're doing well with the game. You're NOT doing well. Players shout , complain about bots e.t.c everyday but you don't give a penny. If players leave then it means NO money, isn't it pretty LOGIC?
And if that was Executive Producer's Letter to the Community , this is a Player's (a.k.a costumer's) Letter to the Lineage 2 Employees/Staff/Producers/Managers and everybody responsible for the Lineage 2 NA.
P.S.: Sorry if this post is offensive but this is the truth imo...
P.S.S.: I didn't include Executive Producer's post in the quote because it was too big
Welcome!! I too am looking forward to see what is coming next. One suggestion I have is to give as much advance notice about an upcoming event as possible. That way a healthy discussion can happen before the event is released.
Kudos to the L2 team for this new upcoming event. It looks to be a lot of fun. New events like this is what I think the L2 community is looking for, not the same old event rehashed (with except maybe for the cream puff event, that one rocked!!) Oh, and no, I am not going to use the 2 "B" words that a lot of people use (Banned and "the other one").
If you DO NOT do something to improve the game (a.k.a your work) players will LEAVE. It is YOUR job to find the bots , NOT players' , it is YOUR job to fix the economy , NOT players'.
i am sorry, but it is NOT the Dev team's job to fix anything but game bugs. we the players were gien the tools to report the bots. we the players already control the economy. since the beginning of the game, the staff behind the game have said time and time again how they will NOT interfere with the progress of the game; since the inception of 2nd class changes. when the toma finding thing was bugged we couldnt ask the GM's for anything. when most class change quests did not provide any detail about location of NPC's (hence the NPCfinder in most outdated L2sites) we've always been given the hands-off approach by the GM's.
its NOT the GM's fault the economy is the way it is; high prices were set by players. rare item findings is because of some clan hoarding the items and not allowing access by other players/clans into the area to farm.
its a player controlled server, has been since forever ago.
it would be NICE if there were some rules in place to limit the overpricing, but i guarantee you if overpricing was set at a fixed ceiling that those items will have to be farmed and created by the player looking to obtain it; nobody will be farming for sale. people will have to craft for themselves as there will not be any players selling items for a profit anymore.
Actually, until they removed the adena limit, it was self limiting. Now there is no limit and you can see the prices rising quite a bit.
We never controled the game because the botters / farmers control it far more than we do. When you need 100's of something that doesn't drop all that much then the only way to get the 100's of thousands needed by the server with the population that NA has is to have and keep the botters.
Actually, until they removed the adena limit, it was self limiting. Now there is no limit and you can see the prices rising quite a bit.
We never controled the game because the botters / farmers control it far more than we do. When you need 100's of something that doesn't drop all that much then the only way to get the 100's of thousands needed by the server with the population that NA has is to have and keep the botters.
Sad but true.
i included the Bots and Farmers as part of the [we the players] phrase.
it kinda funny how people tell ncsoft to this and to do that or else the game is going to die. maybe they already made the decision? and they "stretching" their resources? yeah we see why now.
i am sorry, but it is NOT the Dev team's job to fix anything but game bugs. we the players were gien the tools to report the bots. we the players already control the economy. since the beginning of the game, the staff behind the game have said time and time again how they will NOT interfere with the progress of the game; since the inception of 2nd class changes. when the toma finding thing was bugged we couldnt ask the GM's for anything. when most class change quests did not provide any detail about location of NPC's (hence the NPCfinder in most outdated L2sites) we've always been given the hands-off approach by the GM's.
its NOT the GM's fault the economy is the way it is; high prices were set by players. rare item findings is because of some clan hoarding the items and not allowing access by other players/clans into the area to farm.
its a player controlled server, has been since forever ago.
it would be NICE if there were some rules in place to limit the overpricing, but i guarantee you if overpricing was set at a fixed ceiling that those items will have to be farmed and created by the player looking to obtain it; nobody will be farming for sale. people will have to craft for themselves as there will not be any players selling items for a profit anymore.
I was referring to NCSoft , not to GMs or the Executive Producer only.
True, the market is controlled by players.
True, the prices are influenced by cheaters, BUT, they are not controlled by them. Except a few items needed only by the very top range of cheaters and some epics we can do without (at least in Franz very few legit ppl go Oly to give points for cheaters), the rest of things are obtainable byt anyone, with some effort, of course...
A grade is trivial now, there is common stuff anyway, and S grade is not at all impossible to get. Starting from S80, indeed, there are problems, but, IMO, very few legit ppl are S80 and if you are there I presume you have loads of time to farm those needed parts and recipes, plus, being live you need even less time than the bots because you are more efficient in killing etc.
There are countless legit ways to make money, I was farming forts before TW, made 180 mil in 3 days you were allowed to have a fort, some ppl make more even without owning a fort, but now, of course, with new 7 day limit the forts remaining for legit ppl are close to 0. KE prices also went down the drain, but a level 76 wolf can get you at least s grade armor, so if you level one till you get S grade, you can make it with the wolf only for armor.
Also, there are territory wars, if you go regularly to see top cheaters fight there you will get some badges that added up will give you a weapon. There is time, a legit char will probably need 6 months to make it from 65 to 76 unless a freak that really is doing l2 all the time. 24 TW, average of 15 badges 360 badges, fame for a few apelas in sieges+TW, not to mention a grade drops in grinding, etc. You should be able to have full S grade gear byt the time you are 76. I can afford it since a year ago, but that is because I level very little. I am only level 73 with the highest char, so there is still time... I guess i can already afford S80 if i make an effort and sell the 4 GW i have plus fenrir 72 plus many items and stuff.
No, ppl are lazy, that is why they cheat, they want instant gratification, be top of the food chain ASAP while in this time missing the whole game. It is only their fault, not NCSoft fault, play the game if you want fun, if you want instant PvP and be the best fast, go play counterstrike and other similar things. Leave L2 for ppl that play it.
M
Lyz - Super idea with this new forum area :) Great if there will be some posts diretctly from the back-office of L2 :D
Looking forward to reading about L2 but this first post which talks about Aion.... tbh I don't care.... Go post that stuff on the Aion forum I'm sure they will care... so next time please address the audience...
Dont know the game, but thinking there are bots for WoW, I can say ppl always think it is too hard and need to bot. So some friends say they saw bots in some poorly run privates 200x. Nothing will amaze me, cheaters will find justifications for anything.
This AION stuff does not touch me. I will leave L2 by death, either the game death or mine whichever is faster.
M
Aion is a great game that you benefit by killing bots...
It has a whole anti-bot design.
And the mobs also have anti-bot features, they get stronger if you try to farm too much of them.
But you have to actually play it in order to understand what I am saying.
It will have bots, thats for sure, however it will not damage the game like L2, regardless if the bots get ban by a GM or not.
Aion is a mix of Hellbreath, L2, WoW, Guild Wars and other games, it has the best of every single game, plus the fly combat concept.
So Aion will be a success? yeah, there is not question about it. Should NCSoft focus on this new product, absolutely. Should the best staff move to Aion to support it, yes.
Maybe coz it isn't easy translating those Korean language symbols.:rolleyes:
The question should be: 'Why on earth do you translate EVERY SINGLE WORD every update again?
To me it seems way easier and faster to just translate only the new stuff. And that's way less confusing for the players too. Every update everything is called something different. Amd god forbid they change the names of NPC's.......oh, the times I haven't spend /targeting an npc that didn't exist anymore after an update...they changed the name......
The question should be: 'Why on earth do you translate EVERY SINGLE WORD every update again?
To me it seems way easier and faster to just translate only the new stuff. And that's way less confusing for the players too. Every update everything is called something different. Amd god forbid they change the names of NPC's.......oh, the times I haven't spend /targeting an npc that didn't exist anymore after an update...they changed the name......
Just my 2 cents
There is more to it than just translating the words, the code itself could have changed (happens all the time with software releases) which would take longer to do.
since this is just an advertisement for aion...why isn't the beta like normal ones and is a bi-weekendly thing with a level cap of 10 and all the other BS? do we get to keep these toons that we make or is there going to be a wipe?
nc is getting into the habit of not supplying any information at all just because they got away with it for 5 years with l2.
and by the way, exteel is terrible and shouldn't be plugged...makes l2 team look bad in comparison.
Sure, I can manage that. As you surmised, this was an open letter to all the players of the games supported by the Game Production Studio. As head of the GPS, I manage all the product's Producers.
To be clear, Lineage II has a Producer and AP, along with Community, QA, and CS dedicated to its service. It's common with any studio that an upcoming release takes a lion's share of attention in supporting the release--it's not a slight in any way. (I spent a fair chunk of my afternoon in L2 meetings.)
Best regards,
So is the announcement that Aion is ready for Auto oh wait that already happened ...
I am SOOOOO tired of hearing about Aion. Seriously overkill.
Like so many others have said, back to L2. ^^
(I am not going to bother to subscribe to this post, as the bickering here is not going to be worth my time...it's not any more superior than a WoW vs. L2 thread. No thanks.)
it kinda funny how people tell ncsoft to this and to do that or else the game is going to die. maybe they already made the decision? and they "stretching" their resources? yeah we see why now.
+1
revamp l2... move to aion... belive ncsoft controlls the economy.... talk trash to gm's...
i can only imagine sitting in meetings about l2 your doodling how your char will look in aion or drawing a flaming sword and thinkin how cool it would be in real live to have bsoe augment on it just to get out of this meeting.
I'll probably try aion and ill probably come back to l2. i would like to however point out something other than game mechanics. which is your marketing and distrabution. point of sale game cards. where i live its near impossible to find any of ncsoft games in the box. true downloading is simple but very handy to buy a card for a friend who might not have the spare 15 bucks a month to get thier game on. in this economy sometimes u have to stretch things. i personally think ncsoft could do more for thier customers.
i love the fact of all the purchase options online and not having to subscribe then unsubscribe so i only pay one month. thx for showing u are listening to your customer or maybe its just catching up to competing with your competitors. I love this game and want to see it at the stores. be able to give it as a gift. i have had many friends quit because of a 6 hour download or more. its just crazy! thats before they even demo the game!
you dont have to ship out cards that have time on them already as a retailer ill tell u right now thats just shrink waiting to happen. send out blank cards and use a pos activation system. its very effective and if someone steals a card you only lose the money invested in the plastic.
save on boxes and ship the game in a smaller package thats attractive to pick up and try. wow has 1.99 trial disks that have most the game on it. pop it in and demo the game its a thing about low risk buying for that customer that bounces from game to game. make upgrading a lil easyer. hell i know so many people who got the aniversery edition just for that mask and piggy transform.
be agressive in advertising. if games that are free to play can buy spots on yahoo so when i check my mail i see it obviously ncsoft might wanna think about putting out a few more adena for it.
i know i've said all this before in the past and some have happend but i would love l2 to stay strong and see aion kick the HELL out of WoW.
also merchandise i.e. hats, shirts, jewlery, and drinks. where is all this stuff? I want to have a mug with a hotsprings mana pot on it. want to see shirts with l2 lingo on it or even aion. shirts with wings printed on the back. shirts featuring the armor designs. wrist sweatbands with the emblems of classes! baby pet collectable stuffed animals. energy bars with a rice cake tag on it. I want to see some spirit! i want to see shirts that have a dark elf in the middle of /charm with "/charm" written somewhere. want to have a stupid lil hat like the bear hat. offer customized shirts with a name in chaotic red or max'd rec blue!
hell offer me a job in ncsoft ill move up there! just show me the money! SHOW ME THE MONEY!!!!!
and please in aion or any other game u might ever make! never take the option to pk anyone anytime out of the mechanics. its what seperates NcSoft from the kids in the mmo world! ;)
they have that kind of merchandise in korea and i agree...all of my friends bash me mercilessly that i play a game that no one's ever heard of before. i mean my friend worked in a gamestop for years and he never heard of l2. chuck lorre has done more for advertising for nc than nc has done in their entire NA lifespan.
as far as wow, my friends are trying to get me to go there to their clan instead of aion. i'll admit i'm trying a 10 day trial and guess what...you don't even need to download the game!! get this one: you can download the log-in then the game STREAMS TO YOUR COMPUTER AS YOU PLAY IT.
as much as i hate to admit it, i'm actually considering it since i've wanted to pk so many of my own asmodian bretheren who take advantage of the no-risk system of ******* others off...not to mention that the game, after altgard seems to be entirely too small. it also seems as though it'll just end up being a game where everyone is level 50 and they go to the lowbie areas and slaughter their ego's up to lineage 2 proportions on level 20 players.
aion is fantastic, though...there just needs to be channels past the beginner areas.
you know i was at gamestop for 3 years and gammersannonymous (yes its a game store not a program) at gamestop it was hard as hell to get the game in cause i requested it believe me and i may have only had 2 copy's of l2 ever pass through my store. the play nc cards seem very directed twards game vs a universal card for all games ncsoft.
if it wasnt for my buddy dan at gammers annonymous i'd never know they have figurines for this game. seriously HOT stuff. will it ever make it to the floor on GS???? NOPE! i have 3 posters for l2. 2 of which i got at E3 and one mini poster from a game guide i found used at hastings.
come on NCwest get with the program advertising does alot and just think of how benificial it is to make shirts not only did we pay for them but as we wear them the game gets advertised for free. why cause we love it. i know i'd show off a shirt printed with the DC armor designs on it! or a shirt that had my char name in chatoic red saying "Got Karma" or having the play screen with the pk count and karma with "it was a good day today" or some other catchy goofy l2 phrase!!!!
i want a mountain dew can with a dark elf or an orc. light elf with the pony i dont care cause i know it'll look 20X hotter than the WoW orc or night elf!
why stop there put AION on there get redbull since Redbull gives u wings. seems a perfect match for NCsoft. i see on average of watching 3hours of tv daily probably 25 comercials for WOW if i watch cartoon network while the kids are here i see not only WoW but all these free to play games being advertised which are slime by comparison to what we have. granted i wouldnt want to see l2 comercial durring the time programs for 6-10 yr olds are on but they have adult swim at night! heck half the time im pulling in a party i have robot chicken or samarai shampulu (i know my spelling is horendus i just got off work and i have heat stroke forgive me) heck contact discovery channel i even made a boomdeyadda video featuring L2!!!!!
heck back when we had l2radio half my friends around the globe were logged into irc while we were out in enchanted valley and people who had never heard of the game who i turned onto the broadcast played simply to find out what the drama was all about or what had all these people excited!
i MISS l2 Radio! YES i do! i miss requesting songs from vampy! helping report where MoM and BoM were! sorry getting side tracked!
I WANT TO SEE THIS STUFF!!! I want to see frosted glasses at burgerking! giving out free trials and in game items (not big stuff just fun stuff)
I want to feel my game is an extension of me. my life isnt about gaming but its and expression of who i am. my gamertag is what i go by from xbox live with my friends, i have xbox live neon lighting up my game room, have the halo3 helmet on my wall, 18inch yoda on a saint stand, ninja gaiden stuff everywhere and gaming posters all over my walls. when i step into my game room its game on and i have 2 posters and one figgurine to show off my love of l2 and sad to say thats probably more than many others have that play this game. take it for l2 and use in aion i dont care i love your company dispite how many times i feel burned by it. Show us u love us back!
Or a pilote of formula 1 in a big team saying "I like overpowered teams and have a motor that wtfpwns every opponent without difficulty, so in L2 I'm a... loldagger!"
i sense some negativity were trying to add positive to change for the better... breath... release... breath.... release!
ok now that debate can go on for pages what we should focus on is how we should change that
personally i would like to be sponsored for a plane trip and provided with addresses for these buggers and ill introduce them to my shotgun! but i dont think that ncwest would like me very much for giving the game bad press..
i'd gladly offer my 97 honda del sol as a billboard to ncsoft for aion like a ton of other companies are doing.
the company pays for a full-body skin sticker for the car and a monthly stipend to keep the car washed and clean and the car owner has a freakin' awesome car advertising something they really believe in and care for a lot.
quiznos pays my friend 200$ a month to have their full-body sticker on his scion shoe-box...i'd do it for much less.
haha thats a great idea lol heck i'd let them do that to my truck 89 ram charger 4x4 Man beast of a truck! say 2 accounts of l2 paid 2 aion accounts and a few bucks so i can keep it clean and shiny cause well... that thing goes everywhere and is often covered in mud. but you'd get your advertisin places no car could reach :P
a del sol is a pretty noticeable car, despite it's age, though...i'd prefer an asmodian design, maybe with a chanter in chain with a staff.
i'd be fine with 50$ a month to keep it washed and waxed once a week and two aion accounts bought and paid for monthly. maybe a lineage account in case i ever want to torture myself again.
that picture's a little bit old but my car is still in great condition and i live on the biggest tourist beach on the east coast (the picture was taken in the middle of winter in pennsylvania, hence the windy hair look and trenchcoat.)
a del sol is a pretty noticeable car, despite it's age, though...i'd prefer an asmodian design, maybe with a chanter in chain with a staff.
i'd be fine with 50$ a month to keep it washed and waxed once a week and two aion accounts bought and paid for monthly. maybe a lineage account in case i ever want to torture myself again.
that picture's a little bit old but my car is still in great condition and i live on the biggest tourist beach on the east coast (the picture was taken in the middle of winter in pennsylvania, hence the windy hair look and trenchcoat.)
Great, my signature gets the axe but peeps can post pics of their freaking cars?
you know i was at gamestop for 3 years and gammersannonymous (yes its a game store not a program) at gamestop it was hard as hell to get the game in cause i requested it believe me and i may have only had 2 copy's of l2 ever pass through my store. the play nc cards seem very directed twards game vs a universal card for all games ncsoft.
if it wasnt for my buddy dan at gammers annonymous i'd never know they have figurines for this game. seriously HOT stuff. will it ever make it to the floor on GS???? NOPE! i have 3 posters for l2. 2 of which i got at E3 and one mini poster from a game guide i found used at hastings.
come on NCwest get with the program advertising does alot and just think of how benificial it is to make shirts not only did we pay for them but as we wear them the game gets advertised for free. why cause we love it. i know i'd show off a shirt printed with the DC armor designs on it! or a shirt that had my char name in chatoic red saying "Got Karma" or having the play screen with the pk count and karma with "it was a good day today" or some other catchy goofy l2 phrase!!!!
i want a mountain dew can with a dark elf or an orc. light elf with the pony i dont care cause i know it'll look 20X hotter than the WoW orc or night elf!
why stop there put AION on there get redbull since Redbull gives u wings. seems a perfect match for NCsoft. i see on average of watching 3hours of tv daily probably 25 comercials for WOW if i watch cartoon network while the kids are here i see not only WoW but all these free to play games being advertised which are slime by comparison to what we have. granted i wouldnt want to see l2 comercial durring the time programs for 6-10 yr olds are on but they have adult swim at night! heck half the time im pulling in a party i have robot chicken or samarai shampulu (i know my spelling is horendus i just got off work and i have heat stroke forgive me) heck contact discovery channel i even made a boomdeyadda video featuring L2!!!!!
heck back when we had l2radio half my friends around the globe were logged into irc while we were out in enchanted valley and people who had never heard of the game who i turned onto the broadcast played simply to find out what the drama was all about or what had all these people excited!
i MISS l2 Radio! YES i do! i miss requesting songs from vampy! helping report where MoM and BoM were! sorry getting side tracked!
I WANT TO SEE THIS STUFF!!! I want to see frosted glasses at burgerking! giving out free trials and in game items (not big stuff just fun stuff)
I want to feel my game is an extension of me. my life isnt about gaming but its and expression of who i am. my gamertag is what i go by from xbox live with my friends, i have xbox live neon lighting up my game room, have the halo3 helmet on my wall, 18inch yoda on a saint stand, ninja gaiden stuff everywhere and gaming posters all over my walls. when i step into my game room its game on and i have 2 posters and one figgurine to show off my love of l2 and sad to say thats probably more than many others have that play this game. take it for l2 and use in aion i dont care i love your company dispite how many times i feel burned by it. Show us u love us back!
adrian
I loved your post :)
I will like to see all of this! I know it's just a game but "I want to feel my game is an extension of me. my life isnt about gaming but its and expression of who i am."
I have a lot of friends that play still or quit playing Lineage ..but all would wear a T-shirt with Lineage content :D the good times stayed in our hearts.
With the release of Aoin and the new Gracia expansion upcomming I am interested to see the game dynamic in L2. I am dissapointed to see old hunting grounds converted to high level areas..would have been nicer to add areas in those places already..like new dungeons..or features in which to hunt to increase local traffic, not converting with new monsters. I do like the focus though. Ideally new developments in AOIN will spill over to lineage as well, as you have a group that enjoys the game.
As the above post mentions..marketing would do qell to push the game more, as it improves to revitalize the market.
hmmmm
come to think of it
is this Aion .. maybe about the angel race ?
they exsisted long before all others no ?
is this Aion game a sneak previeuw of what awaits us in L3 ?
or is Lineage 2 just gonna be an evolving game,
one that never ends (i would love that) with regular world and race
adds to never let the attention go down ?
There's still plenty possibilities to add races
and more then enough places to add since we only have a half world map
everything on the other side of aden town is still missing to make a globe
world map.
The reason for never advertising this game is that its probably deemed obscure and not suited to american culture. ie: It wont do very well or be popular in america/western countries, advertising will not be cost effective and will be a waste of money.
The business people making that call should rethink though imo :)
As far as I can see the mmo community is sick of the same old recipe based initially on EQ (wow, conan, aion.. u name it).
Do it lol try with one short advertising campaign and see what the results are.
When i talk to people arround me
they all dotn know why some games get full publicity shows
like WOW for instance we had publicity everywhere
and it shows too on its success, people just bite one publicity
too lazy to go search for themselves
they want it served on a goldes dish named TV
or on a silver platter named "their weekly game magazine"
When i talk to people arround me
they all dotn know why some games get full publicity shows
like WOW for instance we had publicity everywhere
and it shows too on its success, people just bite one publicity
too lazy to go search for themselves
they want it served on a goldes dish named TV
or on a silver platter named "their weekly game magazine"
they eat out of those two palms mostly
Advertising anny game is a must for success
Well you could say they have atleast advertising at steam. But well ^^ i would say it when someone read the lineage 2 critic they wouldnt even think about starting lineage 2. Also most ppl stop after short beginning cause they see how hard it is to get anything legit so they are not interested and go to high Rate or other easiert games. The problem is not just the advertising thing. Its the whole difficult of the game.
To the Advertising:
I just found the game cause the sister of a friend played on freeshard and so we started freeshard too and then we came to retail. Before that i never heard about the game. And when someone ask me "what are you playing" and i say "lineage2" the dunno what iam talkin about.
Well you could say they have atleast advertising at steam. But well ^^ i would say it when someone read the lineage 2 critic they wouldnt even think about starting lineage 2. Also most ppl stop after short beginning cause they see how hard it is to get anything legit so they are not interested and go to high Rate or other easiert games. The problem is not just the advertising thing. Its the whole difficult of the game.
To the Advertising:
I just found the game cause the sister of a friend played on freeshard and so we started freeshard too and then we came to retail. Before that i never heard about the game. And when someone ask me "what are you playing" and i say "lineage2" the dunno what iam talkin about.
Everyone wanted an easy game where everything was "legit" they would go to private servers? LMAO logic bad!!!
Everyone wanted an easy game where everything was "legit" they would go to private servers? LMAO logic bad!!!
Fyi there are private servers with almost 0 bot-ers, can't say the same about retail. A lot of people started playing here after they tried the game on those servers ( because most of us never ever saw a Lineage advertise), and believe me those communities have nicer people and helpful staff.
Don't go around talk about things you have no knowledge of.
The reason for never advertising this game is that its probably deemed obscure and not suited to american culture. ie: It wont do very well or be popular in america/western countries, advertising will not be cost effective and will be a waste of money.
The business people making that call should rethink though imo :)
As far as I can see the mmo community is sick of the same old recipe based initially on EQ (wow, conan, aion.. u name it).
Do it lol try with one short advertising campaign and see what the results are.
Darkrich, advertising in this circumstance would be iffy, imo. The question is return on the investment for advertising.
L2 is an alternate template as I see it. Basically as it is predicated in Korea, it's a long-term commitment game that by its design will hold subscribers. In other words since 'most' new players have not been able to log on for 2 months and hit end-game, its foundation actually holds subscribers to a degree.
In short, if you stepped back and considered L2 and asked the question....."is it better for L2 to be good at 'recruiting new players' or more logical for them to 'retain existing ones'?...the overall template for L2 would suggest that retention is more important than recruiting.
Now let's take WoW or better yet, Call of duty 4 on one of the deck systems---do 'most' people play those games for years and years? Not so much. Relatively quick ramp up times and in short order as a new subscriber you are emersed in meaningful content. For these types of platforms, they HAVE to attract new subscribers, because there is little real long-term content to hold players over time.
Two DIFFERENT theories. One says (basically): We'll get 30,000 accounts and keep them for an average of 12 months (ala L2). We'll have 360,000 monthly subsciption payments, but ONLY for 1 year! 5 years from now our game will die. We'll promote free content upgrades to keep subscribers loyal/interested.
The WoW-like (CoD4'ish) says: We'll shoot for 20,000 NEW accounts EVERY month for as long as we can generate excitement through advertising. We'll sell new VERSIONS every 9 months to attract NEW players to replace those who already quit. We don't have to keep things very interesting over time--our players won't stay engaged anyway! Our plan is to run this game until it's replaced by the next big thing (which we'll jump into with a new product anyway).
I believe THIS is why L2 doesn't advertise--because in their business model it was never a vital principle to attract legions of new players. They count on the (think back 5 years now) immersion into the game to HOLD players month after month after month.
Polar opposite CoD4, which I pretty much got the hang of in 2 days. No reason to log on after a month.
Those devs NEED new blood cause their template is so thin.
Let's concede that WoW is somewhere in between the two extremes.
So why doesn't L2 just advertise? We see this constantly as a question.
As someone who runs a business for a living, I think the answer is (in part at least), "because it isn't foundational to their business model to do so".
The other answer (again in part) is that their platform is wildly successful in their home market. I'll bet metrics show them that ROI for ad $$'s in the US is not substantial, as well.
My 2 bits on the topic.
~D~
If you're selling cellphones, you better have an ad on TV (and everywhere else) roughly every 5 minutes--or the person buying one might choose someone else!
If you're selling Nursing Home rooms/slots, advertising doesn't need to be particularly frequent. Your residents will be staying for awhile and you have modest replacement needs.