I am a Lineage 2 customer who has played L2 on and off since Closed Beta in 2004. I played Open Beta through Chroncle 2 into C3, then took a break until Interlude, and have played on and off ever since. Like many current, former, and new Lineage 2 players, I was very excited for Goddess of Destruction. The release on November 30th was not uneventful, and several gameplay issues remain, but I think I speak for the entire western L2 community when I say that it was a big success. The month of December was a great time to be a Lineage 2 player in the western hemisphere.
Today is Sunday, January 15, and the purpose of my writing is to bring to attention the current status of the North American offical Lineage 2 franchise operated and administered by NCWest.
On Wednesday January 4th, NCWest began an event called Tersi's Light. It is similiar to events hosted in the past but with one key difference: It rewards players merely for spending time logged in to the game. Because the event generates rewards not through any in-game action but merely by the presence of the character in-game, players immediately began registering new (and free) Lineage 2 accounts to create new, Level 1 characters that would remain logged in, generating quest rewards, indefinitely. Due to the magnitude of this influx of new characters, created to abuse Tersi's Light, the max character limit on the game servers Chronos and Naia was quickly reached and no additional players could log in.
The fallout on the gameworld and western L2 community has been devastating. Thousands of players who focus their gametime on the weekends were denied service. Sieges and Territories Wars scheduled for that weekend were completely upended. Worst of all, time-sensitive Lineage 2 Store and Galleria purchases expired, without any chance to be used, and the players who made these purchases have been denied a refund.
The response from NCWest staff has been deplorable. The weekend of Jan. 7 and 8 came and went without official response or even an acknowledgement of the disaster. Players had, in great numbers, taken to the official forums (boards.lineage2.com) over the weekend to express their frustrations, hopelessly receiving no word from the administration. It wasn't until late in the morning of Monday, Jan. 9 when the community managers finally began to address the problem and attempt to reign in the chaos. The second week of the Tersi's Light event was to end, for Chronos and Naia only, following the weekly maintenance on Wednesday, Jan. 11. Players had only to suffer until then and everything would be back to normal.
On Wednesday, Jan. 11, the servers went down for maintenance as usual, but brought with them a host of new problems when they came back online. Players immediately began to experience gameplay-crippling item lag, in which soulshots and spirtshots take seconds to activate. Drop pickups, Auction House listings and purchases, player trades, NPC store transactions, the mail system, dimensional transfer, and all other game mechanics involving item hand-offs are delayed, generally making Lineage 2 unplayable. Wed. being a weekday and thus a working day, NCWest did not hesitate to react by recognizing and acknowledging the new issues. The promise was made that a fix was underway.
On Friday, Jan. 13, an announced emergency maintenance took place to address the item lag. But when the servers came back online, no follow-up announcement was made. A reply to an existing thread was the only word from anyone at NCWest, and the word was that the problem was fixed. Moments later, the forums erupted with posts declaring the contrary, that the emergency maintenance had failed and the item lag remained. But by then it was late on Friday, working hours were over, and no one at NCWest was available to respond.
Today is Sunday, Jan. 15. The game is unplayable due to item lag. Server restrictions are still denying player log-ins. Lost L2 Store and Galleria purchases have not been refunded. And the NCWest administration is nowhere to be found.
I have played Lineage 2 on and off for over seven years. The events that have taken place over the last two weeks represent the lowest point I have ever seen the western Lineage 2 gameworld and community. The abject failure of the NCWest administration to act and react to these problems, largely resulting from their own bad decisions, has deflated the enthusiasm surrounding the Goddess of Destruction release, gives credence to the rumors that NCsoft is out of touch with its community, and inspires doubt in the competence and reliability of NCWest to continue as the official Lineage 2 franchise in the western world.
Those of us who have played Lineage 2 for years, as well as those of us who are just beginning, want to be confident that the administration of the game we love is in capable hands. Today, that confidence is more greatly shaken than it ever has before. We hope, and are waiting, for it to be restored.
1. you can only gain spectres for 2 hrs per character. after that you have to make an alt, or new account. given this, there exists no reason for ANYONE level 1 to be logged in >2 hrs.
servers were capped LONG before terseis light.
2. NC's responses to player problems has always been hands-off. if theres an issue of players not being able to log in, its a player issue. solved by running some hax and lagging out other players.
3. its not game crippling if you actually play with people instead of solo like a greedy punk.
4. the fix was a patch sent, coded, and applied by Korean L2 (who also does the "localization of content" now that the translation team was canned). its Korea's problem not NCWest.
5. see 3. the game is playable.
6. if you want Innova to run L2, maybe first go check out their "fabulous" two tiered system that rewards only the most deply pocketed of L2 players moreso than what you see here. if innova doesnt strike your fancy, theres always L2 Japan, or L2China or L2korea which all require your account to be tied to your SSN. then you get no english, and mockery when you english in asian chat.
1. you can only gain spectres for 2 hrs per character. after that you have to make an alt, or new account. given this, there exists no reason for ANYONE level 1 to be logged in >2 hrs.
servers were capped LONG before terseis light.
I don't know what kind of server you play and what experiences did you have with it, but before the Tersi event started, I could almost always log on Naia right away, even right before TW and sieges (took 3-4 tries at most) and I could leave my character online for mentees for 1-2 days without even touching the client.
Ever since that event started, it takes me at least 5 minutes to log in (that's with about 6-7 seconds spent on each attempt spamming my password and smashing the enters), sometimes even over 10 minutes - that's when I usually give up. Then not to mention I can't stay away from PC for more than 2 hours because it'll either disconnect me or server will go down. If I play I'll most likely experience all the existing kind of lags (including ss-lag and NPC lag).
Therefore no, the servers weren't really capped like that before, sometimes they were full, but they were rarely unplayable.
Also I'd rather prefer having my character logged on, so my mentees get bonus exp and buffs, than wasting an hour or so each day to log in over and over, instead of having those dozens of level 1 characters in every single city.
Let's just hope next time they'll think before creating events like this.
This is an excellent post by Infomorph. The severity of the situation is huge.
Lineage 2 is indeed a party based game and party-xping is the only way to counteract this enormous item lag.
One should have in mind, though, that in GoD the daily quests (which are not party-related) is the most efficient way to level up if you re a casual (2hour/day) gamer. This type of players are about to find themselves a new MMO game pretty soon if they haven't done it already...
Spudnik...U are usually dead right on center but this post is laughable right back at you. Half of what you bullet pointed is just plain inane or wrong.
1. you can only gain spectres for 2 hrs per character. after that you have to make an alt, or new account. given this, there exists no reason for ANYONE level 1 to be logged in >2 hrs.
restarting to login a different lvl 1 alt doesn't require you to logout from the server, so with 7 possible characters per account * 2 hours = 14 hours a day you can keep a slot locked out. Figure a few hours for sleeping/eating/not monitoring L2 then you can understand how that account is pretty much logged in 24/7. Cause there is no incentive to logout and free the slot. Keep whatever OOG client they have running and start farming again at 6.30 am.
And since those accounts don't login through the official client (nobody not even somebody that has access to a Cray can open the hundreds of l2 clients some farmers have online) it means that whatever accounts they login can indefinitely spam login attempts and beat any normal player who gets tired of inputting his password and clicking login after about 15 minutes.
I would gladly sign this letter. It is well worded and addresses the issues Granted, yes, the issues are well known, the real point of the letter was to address the lack of action on NCSoft Korea via NCSoft West. This post is not an invitation for critiques and trolls. It is a letter/petition to the people who should be putting this crisis on high priority.
Don't troll the post like Spundik. Just post a signature.
Here is a small temporary solution, reboot server everyday...mid-morning...that way no one can log at 6am est, go to work and take up a server slot all day long. By early evening you will be back to the same problems but at least some players will be able to play. Then redo the next day.
1. you can only gain spectres for 2 hrs per character. after that you have to make an alt, or new account. given this, there exists no reason for ANYONE level 1 to be logged in >2 hrs.
servers were capped LONG before terseis light.
False. I am here since November on Naia and i never had "cannot login due to high traffic" until 2 days after event started.
Also with 1 account you can be logged for 14 hours, 7 chars on same acc each with 2 hours.
1. you can only gain spectres for 2 hrs per character. after that you have to make an alt, or new account. given this, there exists no reason for ANYONE level 1 to be logged in >2 hrs.
servers were capped LONG before terseis light.
There is no reason Spud....but once you are logged and go about your business....your toon is logged for more than 2 hours. For example, saw this a few days ago about 12 noon...came back to my toon logged out near these 5 toons and they were still there at 11 pm.
+1
as a player who's paid since prelude, and now has a family i only only get a certain amount of time to play. when it says failed due to server full, that gets old really fast.
restarting to login a different lvl 1 alt doesn't require you to logout from the server, so with 7 possible characters per account * 2 hours = 14 hours a day you can keep a slot locked out. Figure a few hours for sleeping/eating/not monitoring L2 then you can understand how that account is pretty much logged in 24/7. Cause there is no incentive to logout and free the slot. Keep whatever OOG client they have running and start farming again at 6.30 am.
And since those accounts don't login through the official client (nobody not even somebody that has access to a Cray can open the hundreds of l2 clients some farmers have online) it means that whatever accounts they login can indefinitely spam login attempts and beat any normal player who gets tired of inputting his password and clicking login after about 15 minutes.
Not to mention bots can autolog without much trouble, unlike regular players. So both pro-bots and player-bots were also bombarding the servers.
I will sign it also. Since GOD this is the result for me: 1. logging in has become so frustrating that I know longer have the patience to deal with it and to add insult to injury, I hear the "pros" have ways to logon to bypass the manual torture us normal people endure. 2. I am missing items in my inventory...at first I thought I did something stupid but now I think there is a problem. 3. 2 clannies have been hacked and we dont share accts etc. 4. I dont know it its my imagination but it seems like the bot population has suddenly exploded and now I spend what time I have running around trying to find a place and to add insult again the pk rules where changed so we cant do squat about it. I dont know if this is some cruel joke or what but I am fed up and so should the rest of us. I think the only solution is to just simply walk away...no matter how painful because alot of you have invested alot of time into this game. I have to mention this also...it seems like every change/event they make benefits the cheaters or powergamers. Events that reward afk, harsh pk rules, L2 store items like blessed enchants for those who can afford to pay hundreds for ridiculous stats and on and on. Lol I have come to the conclusion that the only real fools are ourselves who continue to put up with it. Sayonara-long time fool of L2 who has truly awakened now lol.
InfoMorph I would suggest that you post this on the official forums in korea. Leave it in English and just post it, some of their staff speak/reads English and they will pass the word on, either a change will be made for the better (like NCwest loosing the rights to L2, or maybe NCEast takes it over) or we just loose L2. and hell if we loose L2, its not like its going to be much different than how unplayable it is right now.
InfoMorph I would suggest that you post this on the official forums in korea. Leave it in English and just post it, some of their staff speak/reads English and they will pass the word on, either a change will be made for the better (like NCwest loosing the rights to L2, or maybe NCEast takes it over) or we just loose L2. and hell if we loose L2, its not like its going to be much different than how unplayable it is right now.
InfoMorph I would suggest that you post this on the official forums in korea. Leave it in English and just post it, some of their staff speak/reads English and they will pass the word on, either a change will be made for the better (like NCwest loosing the rights to L2, or maybe NCEast takes it over) or we just loose L2. and hell if we loose L2, its not like its going to be much different than how unplayable it is right now.
Spudnik...U are usually dead right on center but this post is laughable right back at you. Half of what you bullet pointed is just plain inane or wrong.
+1
@Spudnik
troll much?
So you assume 14k posts and ++rep makes your opinion autovalid or what?
I am amazed by how you try proving all these people, flooding forum with QQ threads, wrong. The login issue is undisputed. It almost made me ditch the game that I tought I love the most. I sticked around only thanks to my friends. And I think a lot of people aren't that patient and already jumped to another game all because of designers epic fail.
i think they alredy know that those kind of event is a failure!
not a failure to the ones who can exploidit.. but to all the other players and to the server!
if it is free to play these kind of action will allways happen!
when you have a fee to play or start a new char a lot of things is diferent!
i remember my first webbased game. i play a football manager game when we have to pay like 2€ to star a new team! that was not much, but prevent a lot of dual teams and such..
I can understand why its a heavy load on the servers now when the game is free to play and that NCwest cant open 6 new servers just like that.
What I dont understand is, when they want to spread out the load over new servers, offering free character move, why not offer to move the whole account??
The friends I asked dont wanna move because of their totally over stuffed WHs, probably worth servera millions of adena.
Selling all those things is to much effort to make a move possible.
NCwest, Just re-point the the whole account chronos string to the new magmeld server for those who want.
I think we just have to live with the problems until the event is over. I'm one of the worst against NC but actually its the RMTs fault for screwing up the game.
RMTs use revolving IPs so even if NC did an IP ban it wouldn't really help.
If they could limit the number of accounts per server it would help greatly.
Bottom line is that NC Korea never realized the number of people that were going to play f2p nor did they fully appreciate the length that thr RMT people would go to make a few dollars.
I wish I could maintain a better attitude but I've been so royally P.O.'ed I'm hoping to get the courage to OE my crap til its all broken and I can't play. A few minutes ago I crashed porting into Kama... and guess what - can't get back in game... huge surprise. Not only am I screwed over - but I love knowing the other folks that successfully ported in are wondering where their healer is. Or maybe even I still show up for them on their screen so they start and wipe.
What is the obsession with this game and stupid events where you benefit from just being online and ingame? I refused to do the event from a few months ago where you got "points" for just being online... and against better judgment found myself giving in and logging just to farm specters...
Done with my rant and QQ. End result, people will get fed up and leave, especially those who are financially supporting the game. All you fan bois see how many updates there will be or how long the servers will even last once they aren't making money.
I am a Lineage 2 customer who has played L2 on and off since Closed Beta in 2004. I played Open Beta through Chroncle 2 into C3, then took a break until Interlude, and have played on and off ever since. Like many current, former, and new Lineage 2 players, I was very excited for Goddess of Destruction. The release on November 30th was not uneventful, and several gameplay issues remain, but I think I speak for the entire western L2 community when I say that it was a big success. The month of December was a great time to be a Lineage 2 player in the western hemisphere.
Today is Sunday, January 15, and the purpose of my writing is to bring to attention the current status of the North American offical Lineage 2 franchise operated and administered by NCWest.
On Wednesday January 4th, NCWest began an event called Tersi's Light. It is similiar to events hosted in the past but with one key difference: It rewards players merely for spending time logged in to the game. Because the event generates rewards not through any in-game action but merely by the presence of the character in-game, players immediately began registering new (and free) Lineage 2 accounts to create new, Level 1 characters that would remain logged in, generating quest rewards, indefinitely. Due to the magnitude of this influx of new characters, created to abuse Tersi's Light, the max character limit on the game servers Chronos and Naia was quickly reached and no additional players could log in.
The fallout on the gameworld and western L2 community has been devastating. Thousands of players who focus their gametime on the weekends were denied service. Sieges and Territories Wars scheduled for that weekend were completely upended. Worst of all, time-sensitive Lineage 2 Store and Galleria purchases expired, without any chance to be used, and the players who made these purchases have been denied a refund.
The response from NCWest staff has been deplorable. The weekend of Jan. 7 and 8 came and went without official response or even an acknowledgement of the disaster. Players had, in great numbers, taken to the official forums (boards.lineage2.com) over the weekend to express their frustrations, hopelessly receiving no word from the administration. It wasn't until late in the morning of Monday, Jan. 9 when the community managers finally began to address the problem and attempt to reign in the chaos. The second week of the Tersi's Light event was to end, for Chronos and Naia only, following the weekly maintenance on Wednesday, Jan. 11. Players had only to suffer until then and everything would be back to normal.
On Wednesday, Jan. 11, the servers went down for maintenance as usual, but brought with them a host of new problems when they came back online. Players immediately began to experience gameplay-crippling item lag, in which soulshots and spirtshots take seconds to activate. Drop pickups, Auction House listings and purchases, player trades, NPC store transactions, the mail system, dimensional transfer, and all other game mechanics involving item hand-offs are delayed, generally making Lineage 2 unplayable. Wed. being a weekday and thus a working day, NCWest did not hesitate to react by recognizing and acknowledging the new issues. The promise was made that a fix was underway.
On Friday, Jan. 13, an announced emergency maintenance took place to address the item lag. But when the servers came back online, no follow-up announcement was made. A reply to an existing thread was the only word from anyone at NCWest, and the word was that the problem was fixed. Moments later, the forums erupted with posts declaring the contrary, that the emergency maintenance had failed and the item lag remained. But by then it was late on Friday, working hours were over, and no one at NCWest was available to respond.
Today is Sunday, Jan. 15. The game is unplayable due to item lag. Server restrictions are still denying player log-ins. Lost L2 Store and Galleria purchases have not been refunded. And the NCWest administration is nowhere to be found.
I have played Lineage 2 on and off for over seven years. The events that have taken place over the last two weeks represent the lowest point I have ever seen the western Lineage 2 gameworld and community. The abject failure of the NCWest administration to act and react to these problems, largely resulting from their own bad decisions, has deflated the enthusiasm surrounding the Goddess of Destruction release, gives credence to the rumors that NCsoft is out of touch with its community, and inspires doubt in the competence and reliability of NCWest to continue as the official Lineage 2 franchise in the western world.
Those of us who have played Lineage 2 for years, as well as those of us who are just beginning, want to be confident that the administration of the game we love is in capable hands. Today, that confidence is more greatly shaken than it ever has before. We hope, and are waiting, for it to be restored.
Can you send me some money also ?
i will make forum for u like ncsoft so u can post while i get laid using your money.
i quit playing 1 week ago till these problems will be solved(at least a part of them); there is no sense trying to kill my nerves instead of having fun and enjoy the game