As most of you are probably aware I haven't been able to play Lineage 2 in quite some time at what I'd consider an active status, simply due to the time it takes to get anywhere at a certain level. The servers going down to 2 is not a good sign either.
This site has been open with information on Lineage 2 since 2005, but I no longer have the time to monitor and update it, block spammers, etc. It has remained ad free but I can't justify the extra expense* and time required for a game I log into very infrequently. Like last year I doubt I'll be getting even a cost of living raise at work, and other expenses like childcare (nearly another house payment in itself), are forever going up.
Starting November 1st the Talking Island category will be set to view only mode. Image Gallery and Videos will be taken down also. I'm not shutting the entire site down but it'll go back to what it started as; just me being a fan of some games. Diablo 3 can come out any time now!
Thanks to everyone that has visited and contributed over there past 5 years or so!
It is a sad this where all the info for the next updates coming in Korea was coming from... Now there is no where to go for the upcoming info, their Guides where life savers here.... All gone... All the epic raid guides GONE.... Sad day :(
Should have had a donate button and invited some of the long time and level headed folk there to help moderate. Never understood the lack of moderators there.
Yes, I wonder if donations plus some added moderators for the forum would be a solution. Just do it like some other sites I visit, open donations until you have enough money to cover the next 3 months expenses for traffic etc., then close donations. And make it somewhat transparent (like "$300 needed, $150 donated so far"), that helps with motivating people to donate. There should be enough people willing to donate $5 to $10 for keeping a quality website up.
The hosting fee itself wasn't that much, but I did have a paypal link up for many years that was never used. I had 2 problem outages (last summer and the summer before that) due to the amount of traffic the site was generating and players again asked for donation information which I gave, but in the sites many years of operation only one person ever donated. Donations wouldn't make or break it, at this point, please understand.
The decision has less to do with money than Elmar and I going different ways. Even with the hosting being covered by me, we had to look at how much time out of our days it was taking. In my particular case, I let the site run for at least a year when I was hardly playing. I didn't plan on it going down like this but I had to allow the work on there to be protected as Elmar saw fit. Thanks guys
So sad to see this happen, as someone else said, this was the number one place of reference to get information on future patches etc.
Good luck to those who ran it on whatever future projects (or real-life commitments) they have :)
The hosting fee itself wasn't that much, but I did have a paypal link up for many years that was never used. I had 2 problem outages (last summer and the summer before that) due to the amount of traffic the site was generating and players again asked for donation information which I gave, but in the sites many years of operation only one person ever donated. Donations wouldn't make or break it, at this point, please understand.
The decision has less to do with money than Elmar and I going different ways. Even with the hosting being covered by me, we had to look at how much time out of our days it was taking. In my particular case, I let the site run for at least a year when I was hardly playing. I didn't plan on it going down like this but I had to allow the work on there to be protected as Elmar saw fit. Thanks guys
Hi Ellie!
Sorry to see your site going but I understand how life intrudes. I can't even imagine the amount of time you have given to this game and its players.
Yes thanks for doing the best site we ever had for infos, and especially upcoming infos. I'm so bad at keeping up with new content as it is now I'll be well and truely a complete new-content nub lol. Will be sorely missed by countless many.
Good luck with other things and thanks for keeping it go all this time.
You guys by far had the largest collection of game information (well, in english) that existed anywhere for this game.
Your contributions to the community are unmatched, I am very sad to see such a valuable resource disappear, but I do understand that the time constraints of real life tend to be unkind to pastimes that can grow into jobs in and of themselves.
If only NCNA had the passion for the game you and Elmar did, this game would still be thriving, despite its age.
You will both be missed, but I wish you both good fortune in whatever you choose to focus on next!
Sad but I understand. The only thing I would wish for is that all the wonderful threads full of information, particularly the guides and quest info could be left up in view only mode for a time to allow us to save the information for future use :o Pretty much all of that seems to be missing now :confused:
NC Soft should step in and do whatever it could to help out sites like this that are such big contributors to their game and community, i dont see anyone replacing Elliebelly for this kind of knowledge for a very long time.
This is the only thread that has truly made me QQ over the last 6 years of lineage.
The work by Elmar and Ellie has been by far extraordinary.
The passion for the game just shows how two people can go about making a real difference in the community.
It is now up to NCsoft to provide us with the lost information instead of relying on passionate players with the knowhow and resources.
One can only hope.
If Korea can provide this service I hope NA could follow their steps.
Sad to see the site go down. Just sad to see the news section and information come down instead of being saved. That could be attributed to something else very sad though. :(
I guess Elmars CERN institute for L2 didn't pan out.
Elliebelly has always been a great contributer to the community. She was a joy to work with and in the end she was very dedicated to what she did. But L2 can't hold you forever.
I don't know about Elmar, while his contributions were good, his inability to "suck it up" and ability to cause strife countered his benefits. Hopefully someone else can take up the mantle and preserve these things for the community and continue to give tanslated update information.
Thank you ellie, elmar and all the other ppl that contributed.
Its very sad that the only source of up to date and always reliable information is down. It was the only site that we could 100% trust without any doubts and where so many thoughtfully discussions with real arguments and hard evidence (no flames and kiddies) took place.
Saddest thing imho is that 10 days after the news, there are only 30 posts commenting / discussing the issue. Comparing it to the hundreds of posts and dozens of pages for other non-factor issues shows something about L2 community atm or at least of the users that post on official message boards.
Carefully studying / researching all bits and pieces of info at elliebelly was the only way that some hard working / dedicated players gain some slight advantage over botted 85/80/80/80 toons and rmt.
Why would a "its very easy to hit level 80 in 3 months" player care about elliebelly ... Why would a "it's very easy to buy a fully elemented S80 set" player would care about elliebelly ? Unfortunately as time passes we see more and more of that on official message boards. Lots of ppl oversimplifying things, make generalizations and unbelievable statements without any arguments or real evidence.
It's obvious that most of them never made any real effort to level their toons to level 80 or playing the market to gather the adena needed for a full S80 toon (weapon and armor).
Sad for some people that really liked to study the game mechanics, up coming updates, trying to predict the market to make some adena and to find out the optimal use of their effort to achieve something in that game or where _not_ to put any adena or effort.
Ellie and Elmar, please rethink your decision to put everything offline. People that regularly visited the site are not in danger of using out of date info. They know how things worked and always searched for publication dates and followups to info posted. A big disclaimer stating that the info is not updated would be enough. Taking down all that info is huge in comparison to potential damage to some lazy copy cats.
I would like to thank you for everything and wish you the best.
Why would a defunct fansite be concerned with info they can no longer afford to host being copied to other sites? I don't believe it. Looks like they just don't want to share that info anymore for other reasons. Shame.
It was just so unexpected,one day we were chating on the boards,the other day the site closed.
I have to say no other site i know has the kind of info these guys found,tested and kept (not to mention the advices players were given/flame-******** free),it will be difficult for players to get along with many feautures of Gracia/Freya and ofc HighFive content since the infos on L2 site are so poor and outdated.