Welcome to 2013! We survived the rumored world apocalypse of 2012, and Lineage® II is starting the year strong with a healthy past year notched into its belt. Let us take a moment to reflect on the events of 2012…
This was also the first full year of the NCSOFT-created Truly Free™ business model’s global premiere*. In its existence so far we have introduced over 400 unique items to the NCoin™ stores (the in-game L2 Store™ and the website’s L2 Galleria™) that our servers have never seen before. Over 820,000 store items have been sold—the most popular of which are 1-Hour Vitality Maintaining Potions, 1-Hour Runes of XP 50%, and the ever-famous Blessed Power Shirt Enchant Scroll from the limited-time item promotion in March. In addition, the website-based Aden Prize Wheel (http://www.lineage2.com/spin/) mini-game premiered in November, and though only available for a total of 4 weeks so far, spins on the wheel also rank as top-sellers.
As Lineage II by NCSOFT West is a non-subscription game in an increasingly free-to-play MMORPG market it is still necessary to earn income in order to keep the game available and Truly Free for our players. Thanks to participation in the stores and thanks to player feedback—really; thank you, players!—along with research and studies, this educational first year has taught us a lot: we tally forth into 2013 armed with the knowledge and experience necessary to help us provide you with more options and enjoyment.
So what can we look forward to in 2013, you ask?
Goddess of Destruction: Lindvior (also known as “chapter 3”) is a major game update slotted for 2013 for NCSOFT West. We the staff are all very excited to meet Lindvior the air dragon in person (and live to tell the tale!), and we are eager to share more details about this update in the near future. Meanwhile at the NCSOFT headquarters in Korea the developers are hard at work, and there are juicy whispers of more chapters yet to come!
Other than the known events to come such as Lindvior and our 9th Anniversary (April 2013), there are some additional goodies that we hope to see happen. Here is the NCSOFT West 2013 Wish List:
NCoin store “Gift” option in the L2 Store
Tradable Store Items
Battle Tournament
Expanded Account Services
Additional Payment Options for NCoin
Server Wars
New Events
More? Perhaps so—even the staff doesn’t know all that fate will bring us this year!
That is 2012 in a nutshell, and 2013 in goals and wishes. We are, as always, pleased to hear and collect your feedback about the game and what you want to see in the future, so please join us on the forums for discussions. Most of all, we humbly and deeply thank you, dear players, for choosing to enjoy Lineage II on the NCSOFT West servers. Let us move forward together and enjoy what 2013 has to offer!
Sincerely,
The Lineage II Team:
Producer: Nicolas “Cryo” Coutant
Production Assistant: Jason “Juji” Lieberman
Community Manager: Morgan “Sace” Mains
Footnote
* Introduced as part of the re-launch of Lineage II with Goddess of Destruction in late 2011, Truly Free allows players to have unrestricted access to all game content as well as the choice to enhance their gameplay through purchases in the new NCoin stores.
First off you yourself said to post comments here so please be open to opinions.
You say the game was a success over the last year. thats about 50% right. every update and event had a bug or an issue that you either removed or changed. You made it a priority to fix your " money makers" over players even to be able to log into the game.( the last instalment of the aden prize wheel.)You even had emergency maintenance to fix a nC coin related bug on a Thursday. But let game related CRITICAL bugs go on till following regular maintenance. This last patch had Known issues you didn't implement making it look as if you tested it Yet there was MANY more bugs showing neglect on your side of a half *****ed test example the rouge issue the nornills quest issue,the fort issue and MANY others. There is open proof of player or customer satisfaction neglect without regard. all you do is remove the posts even if they are truthful and said in the nicest way possible. then give points to the ones you didn't like the posts. You willingly let the "unfair" players stay in game with blatant use of third party programming. even ban them to only unban them it is a SLAP in the face of the ones playing hard to xp and pay nc coin the honest way and even report the users only to watch ones become hero a month later.
If you truly want to say the game is a success try addressing the REAL player concerns NOT MONEY related issues YOU are concerned with and ONLY then will the game be a sucess. LONG LIVE L2
Stating that the year was a success is a bit strange.
I can't talk about other players, but in my case the year was so "good" that i made the decision to not spend a single Dollar/Euro ever in this servers!
There were so many issues in this year (most of them you would never found it in the so called "private servers") that are almost impossible to name them all.
Looking for the recent past, is easy to watch how low L2 went with this management:
- Win8 users - Windows 8 users were unable to play in the Christmas holidays because NC took 3 weeks to fix something that took a few minutes to a normal L2 player to fix. (and to be banned for it) Incredible how this happened when it would be avoidable with a simple test. (try to run the game in a win8 machine)
- Christmas Event - Christmas use to be a special time in L2. Every year (till this year that passed) NC amazed us with great events/rewards for their players. This year not only they put a lousy event (for me was the worst event i ever played since GoD started) but it was incredible bugged too. Instead of turning Christmas special, it turned into a normal time of the year, or even worst. (and remember that some players couldn't even play because of the win8 issue)
- Lag - Although some will argue that it was always a problem, it seams that for every month that pass this problem goes bigger. To be fair it seams that it's a bit better this year but will see what will happen in the future.
- Lack of testing - I'm amazed how a company like NC West refuses to have a test server and then launches updates with so many issues/bugs. It's not easy to find any other example worldwide like this one! (i can't) The worst part is the fact that most of this bugs would be easily detected if someone would actually tested the change made!
I could continue talking about issues that happened in this year but i'm afraid the post has some size limitations, because of that reason i can't.
As finish note on my comment to this announcement, let me make something clear, i do think this model of business is the right one. I have nothing against the sale of L2 items/services. My problem is with the lack of commitment (or interest?) from the persons responsible for launching this buggy updates with no sort of quality control on it.
So my question is simple, will anything be done to stop lack of professionalism from the people responsible for this years buggy updates or will we continue to see this sort of announcements where everyone pretend that everything is fine?
I don't want to be that guy but we have to be honest here.
One likely many players aren't posting here for fear out of being banned and from the examples this past "successful" year I don't blame them. However I will say something.
A lot of issues have been covered by the posters above and in the end they are all right. To be completely honest, when I read this line...
Lineage® II is starting the year strong with a healthy past year notched into its belt.... I literally wanted to punch a hole through my computer. I just couldn't fathom that I actually read that and I still can't.
Now we all know this company has been notoriously known for subpar customer server and you know what I forgave for two reasons. 1. Everyone at NCwest has limited power over this game. 2. The game kept me interested enough to overlook the continuous headaches that arose from dealing with NCwest staff every time there was an issue.
Now this past year was a whole new low. I honestly believe that this was the worst year of service ever and a majority of that terrible service can be attributed to the introduction of the NCstore. The NCstore alone has driven so many players from this game that its absolutely sickening.
Now lets look at this.
Nearly 1,500,000 game accounts were created last year alone!When I saw this I wondered why this was even mentioned. This is in a metaphorical sense, jailbait awaiting the fury of the guesstimated ~8,000 players who would jump on this phrase like a pack of greedy lawyers. I shouldn't have to explain where these game accounts are from. You know and we know and I'll leave it at that.
Anyway we could look at the history of just last year alone of all the threads (excluding the multitude of quickly deleted threads) that prove just how successful the players of L2NA really thought this past year was.
Now I don't want to be that guy that screams about how bad this company is at service and maintaining this game as that bandwagon is full enough already. What I'm saying is that this thread is to us, the players, a slap in the face. Its actually disrespectful. I personally would have applauded a simple, "I know that this past year was not the best of experiences for the players but this year we're going to change all that." That alone, even if I knew in my heart was a lie, would be ok with me just for the acknowledgement that things weren't good last year.
So thats it for my rant but as a closer.
Meanwhile at the NCSOFT headquarters in Korea the developers are hard at work, and there are juicy whispers of more chapters yet to come!I'm guessing you all aren't aware of the trouble going down in Korea over L2 ending with the pause in development.
Anyway,
Less focus on the NCstore, more focus on keeping the game fixed and providing at least decent customer service to players. Remember if you have happy customers they are more inclined to buy stuff from the NCstore.
I'm a bit miffed about your idea of "Tradable Store Items." I'm sure you have your reasons for making the recent tradable store items (e.g. Carnival Hats) purchasable only by the level 85+ characters. But I don't believe you thought about the level 84- characters who may also be interested in purchasing said items.
I don't understand why the restriction wasn't listed in the January Store Update webpage. I was looking forward to purchasing some of the new items when they were announced on the website. When I logged in and went to the L2Store, I was shocked, angry, and upset (in that order) when I saw the restriction.
You say it is "still necessary to earn income in order to keep the game available and Truly Free for our players." It obviously didn't occur to you to have dimensional/untradable versions of the same items also for sale for the level 84- characters. It was my mistake to believe that you had the ENTIRE community in mind.
Personally I think Lineage 2 could have had a much better 2012, considering the amount of people who are interested in the Trully Free and started playing here, but was disappointed by the lack of RMT and Bots, the end seemed we played on a abandoned server.
It is assumed that our spending on fun is your business.
As a customer does not make me very happy that those who automate their game have many more levels, equipment, adena, etc in too many less time than me who play. We are tired of report the same server boters, in same areas, all 24/7 days.
This makes customers as I choose not to spend more in NCSTORE to make more exp. We play and do what we are.
Your 2013 may be much better off, if we as customers would be much happier.
Sorry, but i have to sound negative. Cos that's the resume of 2012.
Firstly your letter is more a L2Store advertisment.
Looks lil strange, 1,5m created Accounts... Wonder where all these legit players are??? :p (even if only 1% would still play, we should have 15.000 additional players. And considering 99% testing L2 and quit looks lil bit scary or?)
The main reason most new players quit is the total overrun of free botting + chat restriction at low lvls.
I mean really... if you personally start a game, see bots freely around, can't even write to someone, ask questions, and then see the ig announcement of how bad rmt/botting is... well would you continue to play?
At all i have to fully agree with Yamino.
Many players know about the crysis going at Korea's L2....
IF you want to have a successfull L2 at NCW the only way is to risk some $$, get your whole customer support up, finally ask a fee for account creation -> transform that fee into NCoins and start the advertisment of L2.
Your "truly free" totally failed (As we can see on the 1,5m created accounts and the current playerbase).
If we now remove only 1k bots on each server, remove the boxed accounts... isn't it a shame how low the population is for a game which can be played by US/EU etc. players?
As for the L2store, stop the tradeable Store items. That is legit RMT. Another thing that is still not right are the bonus items via Gamestop which most players can't get.
I (and i am sure many many others) just don't get why NCWest so badly want to continue with the "truly free" buisness model. If 1 year of total fail hasn't shown you that it doesn't work, then be sure that 2013 won't be a great year.
NCWest is loosing more and more players to Innova/total quitters/other games.
We all see it, hear it from friends, clan members etc.
Tell us, who decides about truly free and who denies the account creation fee? Is that person even logging once to L2 or watching the Forum boards? I don't think so :(
While, the 1,5 million created account sounds good, but might be right now, we haven't more than 100.000-150.000 players who login in to the game once a month at least I guess.
These are good plans and if you can make all of these in this year, for sure it will results positive effect from the players.
I hope also, that we will get fast and honest answers in the future too if happen any issue, lag, bug etc.
I also hope, that your new idea what helps to keep back the cheaters will be successful, while I also, hope, that you not only wish to keep away those who sell/buy illegal items, but those too, who are using another time of cheats/hacks too.
As in our region the Lineage 2 is free, you will be able to get many old players too with the Lindvior update first of all if your service plans will work and appear most of them to the time of the Lindvior update.
So best wishes to the Lineage 2 Staff and to the Lineage 2 in 2013 too!:)
NCoin store “Gift” option in the L2 Store
Tradable Store Items
Battle Tournament
Expanded Account Services
Additional Payment Options for NCoin
Server Wars
New Events
More? Perhaps so—even the staff doesn’t know all that fate will bring us this year!
why am i not shocked that this list does not include real goals like
enforcement of the EULA and RMT block
all banning of automated gameplay
"as intended" working updates that don't cause crashes, errors, etc
a working staff behind the online petitioning system
GM's that show up in Game again to see what is actually going on
an in game monitor that auto banns RMT thru pm's and shouts
replace out dated gameguard with a proper and effective software
it would also be nice if you could hold up to previous promises like lagfix, rose essence for the in NC store sold rose spirits, update of destiny pack, provisional clan hall issues, a PTS to avoid "patch disasters" and get a real player input, birthday pot transfer... and more
EDIT: and when will you add adenas to the online store, it would fix so many of your problems...
(to all the haters: think about it first and i am just the messenger, they already added "them" via trade-able items for adena)
Dear Cryo and the rest of NCsoft NA team,
the presented summary is kind of difficult to accept. Actually you mainly talk about how much money you earned. As far as I am concenrned I am glad you earn money so you will keep L2 servers up for some time.
On other hand I would like to point out issues you tragically failing to resolve:
a) you have no systematic concept
Everything is made ad hoc. Example selling of Stone of Destiny. It had to be received only by pre GoD toons but it was in shop several times. And suddenly you announced that it will be never sold. What about other player who might want to start and have the same possibility like others?
Another example is even worse DEWR. How it is possible you sold them and now - after completely ruining game due to +15 weapons - suddenly say that it will not be available any longer? Why not? How would you explain people that there are some conditions for ones and other conditions to others? Why do you discriminate newer players? You already ruined game. It is too late now to say it was a mistake and all of you have bad luck you are not allowed to have the same chance. And I am not mentioning how deeply you failed with this promo as some people received DEWR on every highest level toon on every server but others received only one pack (because it was delivered by support team case by case).
b) absolute lack of testing
every update you apply brings bugs and problems which SHOULD be revealed by testing team. And I am not mentioning PTS...
c) absolute noninterest of the state of the game
I cannot understand how it is possible to bot in such frequetly visit areas like EG (Guilotine Forteress). LoA full of bots - every single room! Tully towers full of bots. At the moment the toon which required the largest amount of exp this month on Chronos server is happily bottiíng in EG.
This is tightly connected with number of created accounts you are so proud of.
d) catastrofic events ruining game for days/weeks
Tersis´s light event, Dungeon boss event. Rewards received based on logged toons... Seriously. How could you start such event if you had experience with Tersis event???
e) inability to fix lag problem
f) tradable items from store? Seriously? Official RMT?
g) censorship on the board. All negative comments (and the true ones) are deleted from the phorum. Sometimes with person who posted it too.
h) Win 8. I dont know how to comment it. How it is possible you are not able to fix problem which affects a lot of players. And if a player is able to fix it you dont cooperate with him and ban him instead. It would be more than welcomed if you could show such activity in game against botters.
Did anyone else /facepalm as hard as i did when reading this?
* Introduced as part of the re-launch of Lineage II with Goddess of Destruction in late 2011, Truly Free allows players to have unrestricted access to all game content [...]"
Friends and I have a bet, the entire crew of NCSoft West is less than 10 people, or less than 15 but more than 10? or less than 5?
We are Networking Engineers, Database Developers, Computer guys or nerds if you like and we were trying to picture the work NCSoft West does and the staff they use.
We came up with something like this:
1 Producer
1 Community manager
1 Web developer
1 Server operator
1 hardware guy (mby server OP assistant)
1 Janitor/cleaning lady
We already know what do the first 2 does, try to convence us that they do everything to clean bots and RMT (wink)
The third one modify and include items in the galleria.
The forth one is the guy that get the bugged data packs from Korea and take the server offline, run a database indexer :P deploy the patch from korea, defrag :P, delete temp files :P, and turn the servers back on at the datacenter.
And the last 2 are optional.
All the dev, test, etc are in korea. even the ones that translate the game are in korea (hence the great translations. Wink again).
You guys need a 3 guys working 8 hours shifts to cover 24 hours on each of the 4 servers = 12 people (can be low pad interns)
Just to be GMs present IN THE GAME so we have at least 1 gm per server all the time (bathroom breaks allowed) so he can ban all the sit in town in your face RMT sellers, which are bots btw. and to attend all the bots/rmt Reported by all the L2 community.