After much deliberation, NCsoft has made the difficult decision to shut down the Lineage® servers in its Western markets. Unfortunately, after more than 10 years, the original Lineage franchise is no longer financially viable in the West. On June 29, 2011, at the normal maintenance time, all the original Lineage North America servers maintained by NCsoft will shut down permanently.
As of today, no new accounts can be created. We will no longer charge anyone whose account is set to recurring billing, and Time Cards can no longer be used to add additional game time. We have reactivated all existing accounts in good standing, and everyone can play for free* for the remaining time that the servers are open.
We are committed to refunding any unused game time that might have already been applied to your account. If you are due a refund, refunds will be made automatically back to the method of payment that was originally used in most cases. Please see our complete review our refund policy for details.
Nyx, Jetzen, and Unicycle plan to go out with a bang. We will not be making any additional content updates, but we do have US Ruleset changes and lots of great events planned for the next two months. We want to give you every opportunity to make all of your remaining Lineage dreams come true. We hope that everyone will stick around to have fun with the game you love in the time we have left.
We know that we have incredibly loyal fans that have stood by us for the past ten years. As painful as it was, as a business, we had to make a very difficult, but necessary, decision. We thank you for your continued support. We want you to know that we will be offering you a chance to try other NCsoft games for free to express our gratitude for your years of loyalty to Lineage. Please visit Lineage.com for more details on Player Appreciation Rewards.
How long till L2 shut down ? Anyone knows ?
There will be korean servers for L1 and same for L2 when bots will finally manage to close it down after a long and painful struggle. GJ my automated friends ! 1 down, 2 to go !
At least L2 will live in Russia with updates and all, I hope that after NA closure russians will be allowed to host servers in English, perhaps even take up the database from NCNA. I never liked the way they run it but there will be no choice and korean is very hard to learn.
M
It's not because they change theyr plan that the game life is reduced.
L2 take some idea that work well on other game to implente with the style of L2 by hop to make a new life of L2 and continue the fight against the next MMO that comming this years.
If they don't upgrade the game to bring new player the game should reduce the game life faster then now.
L2 lost is attractive with the time cause its a old game and need a new blood , L2 Make so much pub for Goddess of destruction that there is lot of ppl that just wait this up date to start the game and take a try with the new L2 stage of his stories.
Yes there is lot big change of the game in coming but they are sure of them .
The big probleme of the game is the balance between class , 36 class is hard to balance and the 1st team of L2 has make the game for some class win easly against some other class " This class is better to kill this class and this class has low chance to win against this class etc..." Maybe with the new up date this probleme will be removed. we still need to see but L2 is far to be closed .
We are again pretending we dont see the elefant in the room.
L2 has a nice future, but not under NCNA administration. They will prefer to close shop under the false pretense this is not a game for the western world, which we all know is BS.
They cant manage it, that is the truth, we have seen many places where l2 is doing fine. They say it is for the asian markets, but in sea was closed down, so, it is all about management, if the management is good, the game does well, if not, well, we see the results.
Soon we will have the last merger. No content or game upgrade will ever be successfull, no advertising, no investment from NCK will help if the management remains the same.
"We will do something, just not now, we cant afford to lose more "players"", this is the line that killed L2.
M
Then that means if L2 is no longer financially viable in the western market, NC will shut it down too.
I never played City of Heros, but I got a tweet from NCsoftGames on the 11 May, 7:01am saying that "City of Heros NA & EU servers are now united! We hope you're all looking forward to playing as one big global community"
When is it going to be Chronos and Naia's turn? :D
When is it going to be Chronos and Naia's turn? :D
Soon. The propaganda about better CvC and stuff is already starting. I estimate it will be around the time last merger happened, however it may not happen at all because they will pull the plug first. At the rate subscriptions are dropping by the time GoD will be ready there wont be ppl for a single server even (3 k needed in average as they said) and the losses will be higher and higher.
Nope, we must admit it will be closed soon, we can start prepare for a convincing campaign to allow the russians to take over the database and put the game in english so we can play. I think they could be convinced to keep it subscription based without GM shops and all, if we agree with a higher fee.
Chances are slim but worth a shot, at least is better than wait resigned for the end. I will be in Giran that day, will take screenshots for the collection as I have from Franz :)
M
Lineage players have to stay on old games I assume. GW2 and B&S incoming, but they don't give even a beta access. A free GW (without the expansions I guess) and two months of the old games. Seeing their own game being shut down probably won't make them jump on a L2 in a bad state in US/EU.
Player Appreciation Rewards
We are giving any Lineage subscriber who had an active, paid subscription at any time during 2011 a Player Appreciation Reward. To qualify, your account must have been active and paid for at any point between January 1, 2011 and May 11, 2011. In addition, your account must be in good standing (in other words, not banned). The account does not have to have been active continuously, but rather active and paid at any time during that timeframe.
All Player Appreciation Reward recipients receive activation and two months of game time (when applicable) for all four current NCsoft US games, plus some additional special items depending on the game title. Specifically, recipients will receive:
Lineage II: A code for activation and two months of game time, plus these special in-game items: a Hero's Treasure Chest (D to S Grade Armor, accessories, and weapon sets) and a 3-Headed Dragon Agathion Seal Bracelet. (These Lineage II in-game items will be distributed during the weekly server maintenance period after you use the serial codes.)
Aion®: A code for activation and two months of game time, plus these special in-game items: the Aion Collector's Edition Upgrade (including the Black Cloud Wings, Black Cloud Earring, a character title with stat boost, color dyes, and two character emotes) and the Speckled Ailu warehouse pet.
Guild Wars®: A code for activation. (Gameplay is free for Guild Wars, so no free game time is included.)
City of Heroes Going Rogue™: A code for activation and two months of game time, plus these special in-game items: City of Heroes® Animal Pack and City of Heroes Super Booster II: Magic.
The Player Appreciation Rewards will be inserted into your NCsoft Master Account by the end of May 2011.
To claim your reward:
Log in to your NCsoft Master Account.
Once logged in, click the Use a Serial Code link to access the serial codes to all the Player Appreciation Reward games.
Follow the remaining on-screen instructions to apply the codes to your account.
What a shame. L1 actually had a few better things going for it than L2 did too and they held on for 10 years over there.
I do wish they had allowed transfers to the korean servers for people who wished to play instead of just delete *.* everything.
L2 should be considering that too when the time comes. If there are players, moving them to another local would be better than loosing everything, imho.
I am trying to understand how nc soft can make so nice games (l2, gw , gw2 soon) and fail so much on advertising...
There are a lot of things some ppl like or dislike in game...but the only real problem is the luck of ppl....
Cant also understand why the produce such good games only to destroy them.I guess they are just disposables products for them,when they make the profit they want they just kill them :(
This must become a lesson for us that we spend years of our lifes and all that money for nothing.
What a shame. L1 actually had a few better things going for it than L2 did too and they held on for 10 years over there.
I agree. As being from L1, I still like it very much. So much memories.. Fafu raid resulted in lost of three levels.. (i missed its bubble attack). Hell! I want a true Heine underwater town! Or the real ToI!
*off to offer a prayer to my beloved Ken server. You will be missed.
I am trying to understand how nc soft can make so nice games (l2, gw , gw2 soon) and fail so much on advertising...
There are a lot of things some ppl like or dislike in game...but the only real problem is the luck of ppl....
The "luck" of ppl is not because of advertising, I estimate at a million the ppl playing l2 somewhere in NCNA jurisdiction. In south america especially half of them. They know l2 waaaaaaay better then in any trailer you can watch without playing.
Also, we had F2P promotions, trials, etc, they didnt bother because they know very well the problems that we are not allowed to talk about in the forums.
A bugged server is better than a botted one. 1-2 year ago many ppl left for elsewhere. Now some are coming back, but in order to really get ppl from there in substantial numbers we will have to solve our problem which is the cause of all this disaster, directly or indirectly.
I think the time of "we will, but not just now, lets wait for [insert update name here] which will fill again the servers or for [insert event here] or for [insert promotion here] and then we will see what can be done" is long gone. Action is needed now, today, last year if possible, instead of mergers, solve the problem that drives ppl away.
Who am I kidding, they will prefer to pull the plug.
M
I agree. As being from L1, I still like it very much. So much memories.. Fafu raid resulted in lost of three levels.. (i missed its bubble attack). Hell! I want a true Heine underwater town! Or the real ToI!
*off to offer a prayer to my beloved Ken server. You will be missed.
And now even fewer people will remember the Heine event or even have a pic of that madness. :(
Not allowing transfers is also a big blow. At least offer the possibility, very few ppl can learn korean, but for l2 we can transfer in russia and they can be allowed to have an English server after NCNA finally ends its long suffering. They will probably impose their other style on us, but it is better than nothing. If there would be an english server in rusia I will go there, but if not, I would like to be able to transfer in korea. At least for a while I wont be able to understand much, but I can still remember the links and then slowly will manage it somehow.
M
I agree. As being from L1, I still like it very much. So much memories.. Fafu raid resulted in lost of three levels.. (i missed its bubble attack). Hell! I want a true Heine underwater town! Or the real ToI!
*off to offer a prayer to my beloved Ken server. You will be missed.
ya it stinks guess I'll be playing L2 more often now lol
This is sad indeed. My heart goes out to the community of L1. I hope they find a good game to transfer to and keep in contact with the friends they made along the way. I know my friends in L2 are almost like a family. I'd hate to lose the medium in which I get to "see" them.
How many ppl (or active accounts) were playing still the game? Over 500?
Someone joined us coming from there. Said there are 600 ppl tops in 3 servers at primetime. I dont recall if 600 on a server or in total.
What is interesting is that they seem to have had 3 servers for fewer ppl while we have 2 for a bit more. Maybe CvC ppl there didnt want mergers, and this made l1 last longer than l2.
M
P.S. http://www.ncsoft.net/global/ir/prfile.aspx?ID=FD95B1A6-386E-413A-AC19-06DCD893F221
As you can see lineage actually grew last year and increased operating revenues. Only NCNA didnt manage to keep it alive int he richest market of the world, and perhaps the largest also. NCSoft makes profit in all subsidiaries, except here... I wonder why :P
How long till L2 shut down ? Anyone knows ?
There will be korean servers for L1 and same for L2 when bots will finally manage to close it down after a long and painful struggle. GJ my automated friends ! 1 down, 2 to go !
At least L2 will live in Russia with updates and all, I hope that after NA closure russians will be allowed to host servers in English, perhaps even take up the database from NCNA. I never liked the way they run it but there will be no choice and korean is very hard to learn.
M
u do realize l2ru is free to play?
look at how MANY other servers are out there with massive amount of people online, u can moan and whine at me that numbers are false but i played on those servers since i quit at c5 from time to time just came back here few weeks ago..
make l2 eu/na free to play and ncsoft will have to add more servers again thats the diff between ncsoft and l2ru (w/e company runs ru l2)
free2play always gets more people in
add some dumb donations like l2ru has and u prolly make as much money if not more as u do with timecards
look at how MANY other servers are out there with massive amount of people online, u can moan and whine at me that numbers are false but i played on those servers since i quit at c5 from time to time just came back here few weeks ago..
make l2 eu/na free to play and ncsoft will have to add more servers again thats the diff between ncsoft and l2ru (w/e company runs ru l2)
free2play always gets more people in
add some dumb donations like l2ru has and u prolly make as much money if not more as u do with timecards
the system of microtransactions is indeed a high profit one; however consider what is offered by l2RU in microtransactions, and you will see why so many people DO NOT WANT this to happen in NA.
picture it like the other servs that came about around Interlude with fancy Java and some interesting privately-created armors/weapons. this stuff was 3 years ago what R99 blessed is in GoD.
its not good. we cannot have this. you will never equal the power of a donator with more liquid cash.
why does it need to have russian servers to be a non-dead game?
clearly its a dead game but only because it is not growing in NCNA.
It doesnt need to have russian servers to be non-dead, but having them means is even less dead than l1.
I was looking on the net and there are other l1 servers too, so that is not dead either, at least not completely in the west.
After L2 will be shut down and russians wont make english servers, this means only those will be left to continue the game.
IMO it would be stupid not to allow russians to host English L2 servers since in their view is a dead game in the west. I would like them to take over our servers as they will be in that day when NCNA dies, i mean the database. I hate their model, but if they have the english servers, i guess it is better than learn korean.
I predicted at last merger that in 6 months ppl will talk of merger and in 1 year will happen. I was wrong by a month at talking, but I still think I wont miss the target by much and the merger will happen sometime before new year, maybe in october or november and complete shutdown will be next summer or early autumn when GoD will clearly be the final failure and the bugs lags and disconnects will manage to chase last bots because legits will still love the game but will be sadly not enough left to keep it alive.
Of course, maybe NCNA will wake up, but what are the chances of that O.O ?
M
As I read on Lineage 1 forums they had about 100-200 players on each server and they had 3 servers, monthly payment was lower as Lineage 2 or AION have. About 3-4 years ago they had totally 5000 accounts on EU/NA, I think currently maybe they had totally 1000 or fewer accounts in the last times and maybe server traffic was under 100 peoples.
Well, the problem with the Lineage 1, that really hard to upgrade it by technical problems. Developers can't make so huge changes on it as the Lineage 2 dev team make on Lineage 2.
As I heard the Guild Wars 1 has problems too, no monthly payment no new players, so maybe it will close soon or will drastically server merges.
The Lineage 2 has much much much much more better situation in EU/NA as the Lineage 1 had. Peoples knows and like the Lineage 2. If maybe the population will decrease drastically in the future, than they can change to F2P what will take a lots of new players.
Next of them may any video game service company like Innova or Frogster would get the Lineage 2 EU/NA rights if it would be necessary at anytime.
So we Lineage 2 players still can be happy, but I really hope, that NCwest will open his eyes and will try to do everything, that the Lineage 2 will be very successful in the future.
At firstly, because the Lineage 2 and AION mean the safety life for the NCwest.
Guild Wars 2 just mean good incoming in the first 1-2 years (if it will be successful), Blade & Soul far won't be so successful in EU/NA as it can be in Asia at least this is my suggestion.
Of course still we have City of Heroes too, but we hear few about it in the last times again.
You are wrong in many aspects.
1. L1 is actively developped and has a big share in NCK revenues as the last year results show.
2. If they would change L2 to F2P, why they didnt for L1 ? We had many freebie events, but still online was much lower than after the merger. Ppl dont play even for free and we know why.
3. If they would have given rights to online game companies, that would have saved L2 or L1, but they didnt, they preffer to pull the plug.
We can only hope but as things go, they are only after the short term things, will never do anything to save the games, nothing serious I mean.
For years the decline is huge but they didnt do much, they always stop short when there is a ban, now they began to reinstate bots, but the decline is going even faster now, ppl dont even play for free and we all know why, but we hope things will get better by themselves, out of the blue bots will decide to return and save the game once again as they did till now. That is why the situation is so good, because was saved so many times.
M
You are wrong in many aspects.
1. L1 is actively developped and has a big share in NCK revenues as the last year results show.
NCsoft details the increase of revenues from L1 as a result of the success of the cash shop. If it wasn't implemented in US/EU, L1 US/EU wasn't part of the big share.
How long till L2 shut down ? Anyone knows ?
There will be korean servers for L1 and same for L2 when bots will finally manage to close it down after a long and painful struggle. GJ my automated friends ! 1 down, 2 to go !
At least L2 will live in Russia with updates and all, I hope that after NA closure russians will be allowed to host servers in English, perhaps even take up the database from NCNA. I never liked the way they run it but there will be no choice and korean is very hard to learn.
M
0 to bot thread in one post.. impressive...
I got the email the other day as well and was sad to hear that L1 was shutting down for the NA/EU markets :(
We are missing the big picture here. Lineage was a big success and lasted for more than a decade, spawned a successful prequel and allowed NC Soft to develop many titles. Thousands of players enjoyed many hours of fun with friends and families.
In September 1998, NCsoft launched its first and most popular game, Lineage. Lineage was the first MMORPG to exceed the record of 100,000 concurrent users for the first time in Korea in December 2000.
NCsoft details the increase of revenues from L1 as a result of the success of the cash shop. If it wasn't implemented in US/EU, L1 US/EU wasn't part of the big share.
It is weird that why something is so successful in the KR, why don't they try to implement it in the US/EU?
Such as milk pots for those casual players that don't want to pay an extra $15 a month for a boxed buffer (or couldn't find a buffer within level range when they play which can be frustrating and lead to un-subscribing the game). It costs about 30cents USD for 1 milk pot according to NCKR L2Plex. So you can buy like 50 milk pots with 1 month of the boxed buffer's subscription fee, which is 50 hours of game play. Casual players might not even play for 50 hours a month in total.
L2 is more successful in KR (besides advertising and cultural differences) is that they are casual players friendly. If NCNA can attract casual players to L2, their sales would definitely increase. Because the amount of hardcore L2 players will in fact eventually decrease (with new games coming out/ RL stuff). On the other hand, casual players can maintain a flow of sales for the company.
Side note.. it looks like L1 had a iMAC interface... I don't think that we had it for L2, perhaps with the closing of L1, some of the tech and people will come to L2.
We are missing the big picture here. Lineage was a big success and lasted for more than a decade, spawned a successful prequel and allowed NC Soft to develop many titles. Thousands of players enjoyed many hours of fun with friends and families.
In September 1998, NCsoft launched its first and most popular game, Lineage. Lineage was the first MMORPG to exceed the record of 100,000 concurrent users for the first time in Korea in December 2000.
Lineage is still alive. The fact NCNA burried it does not mean the game is dead, it is just dead for us. Lineage continues to live after 11 years and together with l2 makes the bulk of revenues for NCK.
All that BS with being old and dead beacause of that is just BS. If the management is good, the game never dies because for an awful lot of ppl the community is more important than the game mechanics and once you build a community around a game and you manage to maintain it a bit, the community is self sustaining.
This is what NCNA doesnt understand, use automated GMs, encourage cheating, punish ppl that talk about the problems (dont let them recruit, sell things, etc) and reward those that are trolling and breaking the rules of the boards day and night and you will have a bad community, one where the regular ppl will feel unwanted, treated as an undesired minority by the "Pr0s" and "1337" ppl, and guess what ? No matter how many events, promotions, updates, mergers, etc, the game WILL die, because there is no community to sustain it.
This is about the ppl fox, not servers, game mechanics, class balance, CvC, etc. You opted for the 10% teen cheaters and bullies, ok, that is your choice, but there will be a judgement day. For L1 that day came, the only question is when it will come for L2.
M
Some posters here might not be that familiar with Lineage I.
There's 3 servers. Depardieu, which is the original server, Ken Rauhel, which is the non-PvP server, and Lands of Aden, which came much later, and for a long time used a different ruleset than the two original servers. Basically, the original two servers were mirrors of the Korean servers, and Lands of Aden was allowed more free reign for changes by the U.S. Lineage team.
Another thing people here might not know about Lineage I (Especially those who are predicting doom for Lineage II), is that it's never been popular or successful in the U.S. During Lineage's peak years, it rarely ever reached more than 1000 users per server at any one time. And those number were typically only during big events. For the several years I played Lineage I, the average amount of users per server was closer to 600 on Depardieu and 300-400 on Ken Rauhel. And this was well before Lineage II and the onslaught of the now thousands of MMOs we have available.
This is compared to Lineage II in which during the darkest of times (some would say, I'm not one of them) we average 2500-3000 users per server at any given time. I think we've got a ways to go before we see the end of Lineage II in the U.S.
The only surprise to me is that Lineage I is shutting down rather than going F2P, but it IS a very old game, and it might not really be feasible for them to implement F2P features to it at this point. Lineage II on the other hand, if things got that bad, is much more viable for those sorts of options.
Guild War has no monthly subscription fee. Only cost for you would be to buy the game and the expansions.
They have an in-game shop though which have seen alot more activity recently. Character makeover which is even better than the normal in-game char generation and social clothing to hide ugly armor. Mercenary Heroes, works same way as heroes / henchmen but they're copies of your other chars on the account. :)
Problem is that L2 is heavily focused on grinding, while a large part of the mmo players today are casuals without that kind of patience. People aren't interested in looking up guides where to go every 3 levels.
Problem is that L2 is heavily focused on grinding, while a large part of the mmo players today are casuals without that kind of patience. People aren't interested in looking up guides where to go every 3 levels.
The larger part of MMO players is on hardcore grind F2Ps. You know, the old korean designs where you can't go near max level without throwing lots of money in the cash shop.
They have an in-game shop though which have seen alot more activity recently. Character makeover which is even better than the normal in-game char generation and social clothing to hide ugly armor. Mercenary Heroes, works same way as heroes / henchmen but they're copies of your other chars on the account. :)
Problem is that L2 is heavily focused on grinding, while a large part of the mmo players today are casuals without that kind of patience. People aren't interested in looking up guides where to go every 3 levels.
In GoD all quest will give lot of xp and low lvl stuff to help to reach very fast the lvl 85.
In GoD vitality lvl 4 for 20hour by week.
In GoD L2 got lot of idea from Aion ( that is in less bad situation then us ) and the event that got at the " The PAX East Fan Event 2011 " to show GoD in NA prove that Aion has ,if we want, help L2 with some idea. Aion as put L2 armor skin in they'r game to this event.
In aion to reach some area you use a bird that bring you at the place,in L2 it will be by mega jump that is the same concept.
If i have well understand,in war you can mark the place of ennemy on the map, its like that in Aion too.
You can see buff / debuff http://static.plaync.co.kr/powerbook/lineage2/96/67/a03fb6fcd467f1b74cb22efa.jpg
i can have forget some.
I know that ppl don't want an L2Aion but L2 will stay L2 same if NCsoft use some idea in Aion . We can be happy cause in aion when someone of your race piss you off you can't kill him and in L2 you can XD.
I just simple don't understand the MMO provider companies, they a day say they will close one of their MMO and don't change their mind.
They should says example: peoples we need 20.000 Euro in a year, that we will able to provide to you an MMO, currently our incomings from this MMO is 14.000 Euro. So we ask you and everybody who would like to help, that buy a game account from us, subscribe to longer time, use more often our services or simple to our bank account send to us some money to help on this MMO.
Example if I would know, that the Lineage 1 need to make same event to save it I'm sure in it, that I would buy a Lineage 1 game to help on it.
Maybe if a part of us could buy Lineage 1 game and NCwest would give chance to currently Lineage 1 players to buy a Lineage 1 game or at anyway make bigger incoming to it we would be able to keep in live the Lineage 1 still +1 years maybe under this time NCwest will have chance to try to do something for increase the incomings
Another thing people here might not know about Lineage I (Especially those who are predicting doom for Lineage II), is that it's never been popular or successful in the U.S. During Lineage's peak years, it rarely ever reached more than 1000 users per server at any one time. And those number were typically only during big events. For the several years I played Lineage I, the average amount of users per server was closer to 600 on Depardieu and 300-400 on Ken Rauhel. And this was well before Lineage II and the onslaught of the now thousands of MMOs we have available.
I guess that is me, but you dont see the big picture.
When you had 600 ppl on server we had 12 servers, you were down to 300, we lost 10 of those. I think the rate of declining in l2 is like halving the number of players at every 8 months at best. It will take like 3 of those to reach a level in which is unsustainable to have l2 (i think it already is, but NCK can still be fooled into putting money in a failed business where the cheaters decide mergers and such)
If there will be a merger then wont need 3 8 months cycles, just 2, and the less ppl are on the server, the faster the bots leave, so, my prediction based on extrapolation is still valid give or take a few months. Add to this a huge change in GoD which will chase away the hardcore fans that are here for many years and you may see that I was kinda optimistic.
In the middle of this disaster they still think on how to hide the problem instead of taking steps to solve it.
M
I think everybody who read this forum could see the topic about the shut down of Lineage 1.
Sace or Moxie I would like to ask from you how we could help for the NCwest and the Lineage 1 community, that the Lineage 1 servers (or at least 1 server) will able to work at least in this year?
It is always a sad news when a game has been shut down on world wide or in any region.
I would like to help on the Lineage 1 players (and I hope I can say we would like to help).
I not really can't agree, that a day any company just say to its community we close your game in 1-2-3 months and not really let to do something for the community to try save their loved games.
NCwest has already closed the Tabula Rasa, Dungeon Runners, Auto Assault and Exteel games without let for the community save it or make another payment system to them.
Now seems this tragically thing will happen with the Lineage 1 too!
NCwest when you gave a reason why you want shut down the Lineage 1 the reason was financial problems.
Well if you again let buy Lineage 1 game from your store, I buy 1 or 2 Lineage 1 game to support with it the work of L1 servers, maybe the Lineage 1 players would buy some games to increase the incoming of L1 and my L2 mates would join to this event.
But would be great if you let to us buy some in game items or something and with its price we could support the Lineage 1 maybe by this way the AION, GW, CoH players would help too.
Maybe now some of you will flame to me for this thread, but I only want help and sadly but alone I can't so much money what is enough to support the L1 servers to longer time, but I believe in it, that we are together could help on our player mates!
Moxie, Sace please tell me/us what do you think about it?
Interesting,
Looking line NA needed the bots for more than mats and ebay adena. We needed them to keep enough money coming in monthly to NCsoft to keep our servers alive.
Opps, they look so much alike I shouldn’t be held accountable for my mistake. Thanks for this riveting link to what will be used by the historical society to encourage a greater understanding and appreciation of the history of that great game!
I'll be honest with myself here and say that I haven't found a game I quite liked as much as L2. I've sunk a lot of time and money into what I have. I took some breaks,but nothing longer than a 3 months maybe. I've tried other games like Wow,Rift,Star Wars,Final Fantasy and nothing seems to do it for me. Lineage II most definitely needs a new spin on it. It has to in order to compete with other games. I personally look forward to it. I've had many old friends reactivate recently to start leveling before GoD hits. Some have said they will activate when the update comes. So right there I see more people coming back. I can't predict the future,but if NC was to sit and do nothing then L2 would be going belly up. You can't really think raising the level cap,tossing in some new skills and gear calling it an update will be good business. Lineage 1 made it 10 years at some point you have to ask yourself is it even benefiting the company to keep it running or does it generate enough profits to keep it on.
Well many peoples watch the future of Lineage 2 from really negative side.
So many useful feature releases with the Goddess of Destruction what will can get to it high success in the EU/NA.
Lots of New items, bosses, quests, pvp types etc, all what can keep a player to long time in the game.
Necessary to be always something what for the players can fight.
The causal MMOs don't mean success to long time. You can see the tera online is loosing strongly day by day its player base.
The World of Warcraft is a great game with great PVE contents, now that the Lineage 2 will use up these contents to PVE part maybe will be much more funny the game for the western PVE players, while the classical Lineage 2 PVP system will part of the game with many extras.
Talk about some number on the western market about 100 millions peoples play with any MMO, while about 30k subscribers we have from this number.
So if now maybe 5k subscriber says they won't play when the GoD come out, but if from the total number of MMO players very little part like 0,1% example says "I'm love it, I will stay" NCwest got 100k new subscriber while lost only 5k currently users.
We just try to do everything what we can to support our loved game. Necessary to don't spam madnesses and dark prophecies youtube or MMO sites if you use them.
If you see a Goddess of Destruction video "like it" on youtbe write a positive comment (if may you not like it so much too).
Just says positive things about Lineage 2 and Goddess of Destruction and NCsoft.
Western peoples mostly listen to these comments and votes, if they see peoples like it and write positive comments they will come and try it.
Just says positive things about Lineage 2 and Goddess of Destruction and NCsoft.
And how long do you think the lies will hold ?
When ppl will see the first train, report and see again after a week, then you will be a liar in front of your friends and did nothing to help the game just give some money to NCNA (for the game purchase, because 99% of ppl wont stay past the first month). Will that be worth it ?
You think 100K ppl will come ? You really think that ? Well, perhaps, in a year 100 k more subscriptions will be done tho I seriously doubt that, however, only 1 k will stay while 3 k of the 5 k now will leave in that year so will be a net loss of 2 k. Besides we mix apples and oranges, 100k subscriptions with 5 k online, which is not even close the same.
While that will greatly improve the legit gameplay and will make it possible for them to see endgame content due to the scarcity of the bots, wont extend much the life of the game. Endgame for us will be endgame in general because we can only see endgame when the subscription rates will be extremely low, because of all those mergers that happened exactly when the legits started to have a chance.
Not to mention that, if there will be one last merger, chances for the game to stay alive tillt he bots will be again too few to own everything are not worth the try.
M
They already gave a reason, it is no longer financially viable. End of story. Not enough income (and probably hasn't been for some time) to support the costs of the servers, maintenance, and support.
I'm pretty sure in the third quarter breakdown from 2010 that I listened to from NcSoft, they said L1 was doing incredibly well after having added a item mall and lowering the monthly fee. Or something like that at least.
That's in Korea though. They don't have those features in the U.S. EVen if they added it, the game just has no appeal here.
I'm always surprised though that when MMOs start failing, they never try lowering the subscription fees. It seems like no one's ever willing to go below $14.99/mo.
I guess that is me, but you dont see the big picture.
When you had 600 ppl on server we had 12 servers, you were down to 300, we lost 10 of those. I think the rate of declining in l2 is like halving the number of players at every 8 months at best. It will take like 3 of those to reach a level in which is unsustainable to have l2 (i think it already is, but NCK can still be fooled into putting money in a failed business where the cheaters decide mergers and such)
If there will be a merger then wont need 3 8 months cycles, just 2, and the less ppl are on the server, the faster the bots leave, so, my prediction based on extrapolation is still valid give or take a few months. Add to this a huge change in GoD which will chase away the hardcore fans that are here for many years and you may see that I was kinda optimistic.
In the middle of this disaster they still think on how to hide the problem instead of taking steps to solve it.
M
I didn't really specifically mean you. You'd be surprised by how low of a population an MMO can support and still be profitable. Lineage I's population was so low for years, that literally everyone knew everyone, because there was only 200-300 players at any given time that played actively. For example, PyroAmos of this forum I remember from years ago. There was never new players in Lineage, more of a steady coming and going of old players.
That's in Korea though. They don't have those features in the U.S. EVen if they added it, the game just has no appeal here.
I'm always surprised though that when MMOs start failing, they never try lowering the subscription fees. It seems like no one's ever willing to go below $14.99/mo.
MMOs are much cheaper already, or you say we were able to buy same goods for $15 7-8 years ago as we are able today?
fire all gm in L1, and just ask janitor to power on/off on wed... how much can it cost?
i receive close to no support in L2 anyway... even if all gm are fired... no one probably would notice. If people must have gm, outsource those jobs to india. I am sure players will receive much better support that way.
as matter of fact, why don't we just fire all gm and only keep sace? I do not know what gm does anyway. all resource should be dedicated to developing and marketing.
L1 is an inferrior product, so no sense investing in it any more. what l2 needs is a $20mm marketing blitz.
That's in Korea though. They don't have those features in the U.S. EVen if they added it, the game just has no appeal here.
I'm always surprised though that when MMOs start failing, they never try lowering the subscription fees. It seems like no one's ever willing to go below $14.99/mo.
i think 90% of active players have a source of income, very few kids left. therefore the main cost of the game is TIME, not money. lowering the price will not help nc financially at all.
I see every siege at least 3-4. I see every day at least one and I dont exp much. We kicked an AFK botter and reported, he was still there after weeks.
I also see the Franz AFK ppl in "legit" clans, tho cant say they are on bot right then, but a cheater remains a cheater and probably use only PvP bot now because are already max level.
You see, there was a high online count before because of the AFK bots. Now those are much less, most are max level, so they dont login unless they play, you see tens of "white" ppl in sieges, even big bot clan leaders, when most legits are "blue". This, of course, means that subscription rates didnt drop that dramatically as the online presence did. As such, there is still some revenue left in the game, but L2 isnt profitable, it isnt for years, NCNA is making losses of millions each year, no matter how many bots they reinstate, this is a failed business model, and continuing this line will not make things change.
I mean, for how many years do they try to hide the discussions about bots ? Did they succeed ? Did the ppl leave slower ? If, at all, the dropout rates increased steadily, each merger was a new disaster, yet they continue to give the bots what they want and try to hide this with infraction points, deleted posts etc. Didnt succeed till now, wont succeed from now on, doing all the time the same will bring same results.
And, to clarify a thing, I didnt say L2 will be closed because it has too few ppl playing, under a different management it can be profitable with 3000 subscriptions, roughly how many we have online offpeak, but NCNA has losses and they are set to increase with every account that goes unpaid, till NCK will consider enough is enough and it isnt worth paying these ppl to destroy their image. That is what i say will happen, if the company is OK a server with 500 ppl is viable, but if the company is making loses that are growing in time, then l2 can have 20 full servers, bankrupcy will still come.
NCNA is in a priviledged situation because NC thinks their image is better if they say they have a presence on the western markets, but when they will check the image ncna makes over here, they will reconsider.
Last bots were banned in November, as they said. Have you heard anything about them taking action lately ? OK, they banned my dead C grader in February in a siege and the automated GM replied that I was making actions that only a bot could (stay dead in common c grade without even a weapon, yeah) After 3 weeks managed to make them look into logs and even adjust testing, but that should have not happened and if it did, immediatelly have a reply considering all the data I gave them. Not take 3 weeks, there shouldnt be only one person able to check the logs and understand them. Bots make much more asists a human can, but my dead C grader was performing actions only a bot could...
Trolls post acusations in my thread and the CM makes up rules to stop me from talking about price in marketplace or clan rules in recruiting area because it causes arguing...
We wont get far when we tolerate clear breaches of rules and feel we have to make up others to hide it. It is plain wrong and wont work.
M
P.S. To reply the question why I play this game, well, i replied before, but i say it again. I enjoy a challenge. Founding and helping build legit clans in cheater's paradise is an impossible task, and everyone agrees to that. Legits agree they cant ignore the environment, and must make compromises and use bots to level clan or do other things. Bots dont believe it is happening, they oscilate between saying we lose members all the time and that we are not really legit and that is why we exist.
Also, I love the game, the game Koreans made and NCNA is destroying, I suffer seeing it going from bad to worse and all they care is how to hide the truth, maybe things will get better with next merger and next update...
Mao I've read a lot of your posts and honestly I get the feeling that you just like seeing yourself post walls of text about nothing. If we all sat here and talked about how great everything was in L2 and not about the problems or things we'd like to see changed then what is the point of a forum? In order to keep this game going NC needs to know what they can do to keep players in L2.
With that said I have not seen the massive bot parties like I used to. The catacombs used to be loaded with them. I've seen prices on most things not all become reasonable for the most part or at least not insanely high as to only a bot could afford it.
For someone who complains a lot about NCNA Mao you STILL keep on paying them every month and playing. This is why people keep asking you why you keep playing. I think in your mind everyone looks like a bot to you. I think NC cleaned out the servers fairly well of the bots. Most of the unbanned accounts were people who didn't get their warnings and NC felt it wasn't fair to ban hammer them on the spot where as others got a temp ban and a warning. You had to of been warned before your C grade toon got banned. I'm thinking you repeatedly ignored the warnings.
Mao I've read a lot of your posts and honestly I get the feeling that you just like seeing yourself post walls of text about nothing. If we all sat here and talked about how great everything was in L2 and not about the problems or things we'd like to see changed then what is the point of a forum? In order to keep this game going NC needs to know what they can do to keep players in L2.
With that said I have not seen the massive bot parties like I used to. The catacombs used to be loaded with them. I've seen prices on most things not all become reasonable for the most part or at least not insanely high as to only a bot could afford it.
For someone who complains a lot about NCNA Mao you STILL keep on paying them every month and playing. This is why people keep asking you why you keep playing. I think in your mind everyone looks like a bot to you. I think NC cleaned out the servers fairly well of the bots. Most of the unbanned accounts were people who didn't get their warnings and NC felt it wasn't fair to ban hammer them on the spot where as others got a temp ban and a warning. You had to of been warned before your C grade toon got banned. I'm thinking you repeatedly ignored the warnings.
I replyed already why I pay and why I play.
With cleaning up the servers that is just lol, they cleaned themselves because many ppl quit and RMT market shrunk a lot and all bots that botted to level up not farm adena are already max level and max sub, or quit already so no point in botting.
They are getting hints every day to the point the forum permits and even past that, that they should look into botting and do something, instead they are hiding it and handing punishments to ppl that ask for action. So, even if we talk about the things we want changed, who is listening ?
That is why I dont really care about the infraction points and ban, because, you know, we are not allowed to have regular recruiting threads where to put up clan rules or sell threads where to discuss prices because "it causes too much arguing" because "active" ppl flood it with unpunished acusations and fabricated "proofs" when neither should be allowed, but you see, some ppl are more equal than others.
Also they ignore or plain hide the requests to do something about bots, we all see that inaction in that chapter got us from hundreds of thousands of subscriptions to only 2 servers now and are already talks of a merger, all the writing is on the wall, we did our job and gave more than a hint, they didnt get it, so, why would i need a forum account ? To be abused by trolls and handed infraction points for replying acusations that shouldnt have been there in the first place ?
No, sir, i dont need that, but i will go down fighting, I wont quit till they ban me or change style, guess which will come up first :).
M
Mao you get infraction points because you argue with everything anyone says. You know flaming isn't allowed here and we don't have clan discussion boards,that's what PRIVATE clan forums are for! You wanna flip your rants off unmonitored there are forums to do that in and most of the people here are on it. I'm not talking about blah either.
"On June 29, 2011, at the normal maintenance time, all the original Lineage North American servers maintained by NCsoft will shut down permanently." - Nyx
"On June 29, 2011, at the normal maintenance time, all the original Lineage North American servers maintained by NCsoft will shut down permanently." - Nyx
I think what Yoast was getting at is that if L1 is being shut down after 10 years due to lack of interest then what doeas that say for the future of L2?
I think what Yoast was getting at is that if L1 is being shut down after 10 years due to lack of interest then what doeas that say for the future of L2?
L1 north american servers are shut down. L1 Korean servers still up.
i wonder if ncsoft could intergrated the active player user base into the korean still active servers...
i know that if l2 NA shut down... i wouldn't have a single problem with playing with other koreans, even if i couldn't understand what they were saying in game....
"On June 29, 2011, at the normal maintenance time, all the original Lineage North American servers maintained by NCsoft will shut down permanently." - Nyx
its like looking into the near future.....just insert a II near the word Lineage......
you may be right, but i dont know. people have already said that korea's playerbase has expanded with release of GoD. maybe it will happen over here too. we'll open a 3rd server.
you may be right, but i dont know. people have already said that korea's playerbase has expanded with release of GoD. maybe it will happen over here too. we'll open a 3rd server.
If it will be like now, there will never be a 3rd server.
Naia has lesser ppl around from month to month. (even Aden is far away from being so crowded as like 2-3 months ago)
W/o a huge advertising + a overhaul of the official site it wont get better.
(yesterday a tiral acc player was totally confused about S84 different skills etc as he saw on the webpage)
GJ the ppl doing here :mad:
Gladly taking infraction points if you finally manage to update the site :p