f13.net

About every year or so, I get harassed by some swedish friends to play yet another Lineage2 hacked server, and for some reason, I always say yes.

I'm not sure if its the brazilian/polish/cockstabistani GM's, the players that sit in town and spam that they want to buy the same item, over and over, for 30 minutes, or if I'm a pedophile, but I just can't stay away from this game.

(http://vnmedia.ign.com/l2vault.ign.com/images/Ladies/Taj1.JPG)

The gameplay is actually slightly less exciting than progress quest, crafting consists of farming for several days, and then having a 60% success rate. Oh, and on failure, a midget actually stabs you in the cock.  A brazilian midget that will attempt to taunt you at the same time, only confusing you even more.

Fortunately, with the lovely botting programs available, you can hit max level in a few weeks, and burn yourself out, which I've just done.

Please, for the love of god, someone help me to never play this game again.

My TajtMus, taste it.

The fact that you let SWEDES of all things talk you into playing more than once, and to more than 5th level, tells me that you are beyond fucking help.

Also, you are very likely John Wayne Gacy.

It was a swede that kept me subscribed to DAoC for 5 years.  I think there's some type of Swedish underground that gets a cut of all mmo profits for keeping people in games. 

We all know this thread is a bag of lies. Everyone in Sweden sits on Ventrilo playing DOTA.

(http://images.jupiterimages.com/common/detail/51/38/23113851.jpg)

There IS help available!

(dammit.  I over posted)

For zombie feet you sure do post a lot.

SIGNE'S POWER LEVEL IS EXACTLY 9,000.

NOPE, IT'S OVER 9,000!

I fear her now. More than ever.

More spanking avatars btw Unspeakable One.

MORE ABSOLUT AVATARS!!!!!

SUPER SAIYAN SIGNE!

Geez.  I'm trying figure out why I come here.  You just taunt me, one after another.  You are all so Mockiavellian.

Love the Wendy-O avatar   :inluv:

My cousin plays on a pirate server, I-Dragon i think, has for the last 2-3 years. It's one of those with 200% xp/cash/etc etc.

By day he is the city planner for a medium sized American town.

By night he leads an alliance made up of 100's of Poles, Russians, Montenegrin, Argentines, Turks, Brazilians, and others from around the world. The stories he tells about intrigue, politicking, bitching, backstabbing, etc etc makes the games I play sound tame. Alliances form and dissolve constantly, there are very active forums, and castles and regions switch ownership every few weekends as sieges take place. His alliance has controlled all the castles, and lost them all, 3-4 times over the last couple of years.

I played L2 retail and couldn't stand the grind for more than a couple of months. On this server there is no grind, just bots and politics.

He actually has been to Europe 3 times to meet the people he has played with for years.

His only complaint is that the GM's raise money by selling items/gold/etc to the playerbase. He doesn't mind when it comes to gear, but there has been times when the GM's would use tricks to allow certain clans/alliances to win sieges, which he didn't like.

I went looking for a goku-zombie pic to mock The Signe with but my Google-Fu was not up to the task.

What is the pay to play lineage like?

It's like getting mugged for your wallet without the thrill of getting mugged.

Le Art.

VI SITTE HAR I VENTEN, OCH SPELAR LITE DOTA

Unst ... Unst ... Unst ... Unst

My DotA time has suffered due to glut of TF2 fun... non-TF2 friends are all sad.

Even more beautiful than the Romance languages, I tell you.

keke ^__^

I love me some doters, though. I play with my guildmates after they finish raiding (lol).

No. Veto. Not that song... not again.

besidestheoneabouttheircbotisbetter

JAG KÄNNER EN BOTT, HON HETTER ANNA, ANNA HETER HON

MR. DANSANDE DROTTING!

Best way to keep up the nonsense of this thread is to post the goodness(?) of the last Lineage 2 free expansion (http://lineage2.com/kamael_preview/), the Kamael (the 7th in 3 years of western world servicing).

In short:

* a new race with new professions. They only have 1 wing and you can get the other one and fly around if you grind your eyes to a bloody pulp up to level 79. They get crossbows too, which are guns in disguise.   
* Fortresses, which sounds like they needed 4 years to understand people don't just like to PvP 1 day every two weeks. Enter DAoC-like keeps, open for conquering 24/7 and with huge bonuses to the guilds which can get one.
* Instanced dungeons, which is a pretty big deal because they only had shared and incredibly dull ones so far.

Since I last posted on this thread my cousin (detailed above) has become engaged to a Polish woman he met playing Lineage II on a private server.

It's a small world.

One wing? Wait a minute...










One wing?

This private server (I-Dragon?) actually sounds pretty interesting.

Is there any twitch gameplay in lineage 2, or is it just hit-the-button stuff like DAoC, WoW, etc.?  Any stealth classes?

Also, are the private servers able to use the free expansions when they come out?

Also, Boten Anna ftw

Uhm. No twitch AT ALL in Lineage 2 as far as I know. The opposite actually, the experience is as twitchy as a game of chess betweeen mittens-wearing armadillos.

Sadly! Cause the PvP could get interesting now with the fortresses thing. Too bad you are supposed to pay with brain cells to get to top level. Seriously. It's scientifically demonstrated that you lose between 5% - 15% of your wit just to get to level 60.
This is why unofficial servers are interesting, cause they promise faster experience allowing people to see if the PvP is any good without having to lose a job for it.
Unfortunately I have no idea about the state of the emulators and if they can boost up the latest updates. This last one (Kamael) looks good, graphical and UI enhancements included.

About the one wing thing, it's serious. You start with one wing and at level 79 you are allowed to start a quest chain to revert back to the long lost Kamaels' "true form". Wouldn't be the worst idea ever if it wasn't for the de-humanizing grind needed to get there.

But see? One wing...

(http://www.harnmaster.it/forum/uploads/post-8-1196975848.jpg)

Objection! This screenshot clearly indicates where a second wing is worn.  <points with stylus> <receives a penalty>

But yes, Lineage 2... no, I don't think I'll be playing that, even haxx0r'd.

I always thought this game needed more cameltoe.

It's still the only game that endorses fisting.

(God, I feel sick)

You people better stop traveling down this path, someone will have to bust out the DE pr0nz and well, that can never be that good of a thing, even though L2 did have pretty digi-boobs, which is about the nicest thing I can ever say about it.

That one wing character race is about the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Does it try to fly and just flop around in circles?

Lineage 2... We Make DBZ Hentai Look Intelligent (TM).  :awesome_for_real:

Yes, Falconeer. I saw the screenshot on the marketing page for the expansion. I'm just dumbfounded at the idea. Surely they could have come up with something better, like growing both wings back slowly over time as you level so the wings get larger until 79 and then the quest line allows you to "train" in using them again. In a similar manner to rehabilitation for learning how to walk again when your legs haven't been used for a long time due to injury. You get the idea. I think even that would have been better than the one wing flop idea. *sigh* I can't say I expect something better, but... one wing?

I don't know, it makes about as much sense to me as Sephiroth turning into a half-naked seraphim at the end.  You just have to consider the general worldly region of origin.

One winged angels are commonplace in Lineage 2's country of origin? Please to be 'splainin'.

Didn't say, "Country", I said "general worldly region."  Suffice to say, inexplicable feathers (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pZ2ibvZb2Q) and angel hybrids (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lh_7nNnD6k8) are consider chic and cool in the anime and popular culture over there.  (The management is not responsible for loss of brain matter from poorly made AMVs.)  It's probably reached the point where people see one-winged angels earning their second wing and go, "Oh, well that's kind of different, neat."

I used to play dev on a number of private servers, for those wondering about this latest content expansion, I'd say give it a few months a few of them will have it, the community that does actually work on it gets shit done at a fairly brisk pace.


Prviate servers can be great, the grind is a lot less tedius at 5x-7x xp/sp/$, and it's quite a bit easier to find a working copy of l2walker, which basically turns l2 into a much shinier progress quest, that is at times more fun to play.

Now, for the downsides.  I hope you like polish/brazalians/generic_poor_eastern_european_country_001, because that's all you're going to be playing with, and chances are that server isn't going to be around for too terribly long, so be prepared to lose everything at a moments notice.  Aside from that, it can be great fun.

Alas... guilty.  :pedobear:

I dunno, I think that one wing looks pretty fine.  :grin:

Well, Jenova had a decidedly angelic feel as I recall, and he was the spawn of Jenova? I might be wrong, I enjoy Final Fanatsy games, but usually get lost around the inevitable "plot twist" which usually involves some revelation that you are in fact a dream, or something...

Useless OFFICIAL facts straight from the admin at the official boards.

Lineage II North America/Europe Fun Facts

    * Number of free major content updates: 6
    * Number of contests and events: 42
    * Number of characters at level 80 (highest level): 33
    * Number of clans: 57,285
    * Number of Striders: 7,233
    * Number of Chrono souvenir items: 2,418,054
    * Number of pets (Hatchlings, Wolf, Baby pets): 128,898
    * Number of characters created since launch: 3,821,773
    * Number of castle sieges since launch: 2,228
    * Number of deaths since launch: 618,978,656
    * Number of chaotic characters: 86,176

Now, let's talk about 33 chars at top level 3 years after launch. At first I thought they are crazy and deserve to die. But then I remembered when I posted an old Brad's line where he said that in his vision the leveling should never end. I tought he was crazy too but a few here commented such thing in a surprising way. Now let's forget for a moment about Lineage 2 and let's focus on a MMORPG with just 33 chars at top level after 3 years. What do you think?

I don't it matters since Lineage 2 isn't fun. Someone will always suffer through a game to hit the highest level. But that has nothing to do with whether or not the game is fun or should be looked at for lessons.

Particularly when that lesson is "some motherfuckers will play anything."

Since you can lose experience and levels in PvP in Lineage 2, I would say that that number is probably constantly in flux and may never really increase much. I am guessing that once people get close to the high level, they are involved in so much PvP that it become almost impossible to attain and maintain the level.

As for MMOGs as a whole, if the game were fun, I would have no problem with not racing to reach the maximum level. Of course, Diku MUDs of the past have shown us that a lot of people like to play for some sort of achievement and the most common type is levels and "power". So WoW's popularity (heavily generalized) is in part due to the ability for almost any player to reach the maximum level with one, if not many characters, in a reasonable amount of time, for gamers. And it isn't just WoW either. I think a lot of MMOGs have taken this same path. Making the game "casual" for the sake of attracting more players. Let's face it, the death penalty is a minor inconvenience in a lot of current MMOGs. Not that I am against that, because I cannot invest a large amount of time in regaining major losses in a game, but for some the lack of a harsher death penalty is a turn-off. But mostly, I think those people are in the minority and are probably playing games such as UO, Vanguard, and Lineage 2 among others.

From the perspective of a game administrator, having a handful of players maxxed out after 3 years is a good thing as long as I am not losing the total number of players in my sandbox. After all, a game only needs so many heroes and immortals, right? Wasn't that the premise of MUDs as well. Level up and play for a long time and become a permanent fixture or an employee. Since MMOGs are bigger in terms of population, chances are greatly lowered that a player will gain any notoriety beyond their own server and even smaller that the player will become an employee, although perhaps an unpaid tester of high-end beta content. I would be interested to see the number of players between levels 70-80. That would be more telling as it probably only takes one or two deaths to lose level 80. There may be thousands of level 78 and 79 characters in which case, the game is no different in that respect than other MMOGs.

The private server I know of (I-Dragon) does update the game, usually within a couple months of the official updates.

For the records, I tried that I-dragon private server in the last few days and despite some glitches (there are no pole weapons in stores over lev 40, so a few classes are screwed), I had a lot of fun getting to level 40 in like 3 hours with piles of money and skill points cause it I felt like I was slowly building my char for the eventual PvP which is supposed to be the meaning of the game. That way leveling feels like a tutorial of your character class whereas the conflict is/will soon be the actual game.
Too bad I couldn't try that PvP yet (got stuck with leveling multiple chars to level 40) but I have to repeat myself in saying that you shouldn't slow down players in PvP games and to me the latest xp-accelerated Shadowbane and this unofficial 35x Lineage II prove the point very well. Give players 2 weeks to cap the class and get familiar with it and then let them war each other (Which was, in a way, the original plan with Guild Wars, wasn't it?).
In competitive persistant games Players should best each other on coordination, skill (I wish), strategy, planning, whatever. Not in catassing. *moan*

In case you didn't notice, I really miss a good PvP MMORPG (no instantiated arenas, no spaceships. *moan again*

(And here comes smartass #356 saying who cares Shadowbane and Lineage are crap no matter the xp blah blah that's not competitive blah blah mario galaxy is fun this is not blah blah just you die scum please fix your brain pedobear for the win awesome for reals and don't forget the cake, which isn't real. Yeah I know, thanks for the remainder.)

By the by, as someone who catassed in L2 for a number of years:

The PvP isn't that amazing. The reason people think it is, is because most of the people who play L2 at high levels are highly involved in the game. Deeply attached to their characters, their clans, and their achievements. They hate their enemies, and occasionally someone takes things too far. (http://www.l2guru.com/forum/showthread.php?t=65723)

Still, the actual PvP is only fun because of this degree of seriousness, and the insane amount of time that clan members have spent bonding and learning to play with each other. Private servers are unable to replicate this because as Schild said, the game itself is not particularly fun. But because of the clan-centric way that the game is designed, there is a good amount of entertainment to be had for those who become involved.

Anyway, about the number of people at 80. That actually surprises me. With the prevalence of botting in Lineage, I would have expected more, but the grind after 76 is truly ridiculous, even with 24/7 automation and the perfect buffs. Also, most players that high would have subclassed by that point. Subclassing allows you to adopt a second class to your main, and restart the grind from level 40 with that new class. If you reach level 76 on your sub class, you become a noble, which affords you a lot of nice abilities and makes you eligible for hero status. There are 30-something heroes per server, one for each class. They are determined monthly by an automated PvP tournament system.

This sounds very true to my ears, and not just for Lineage 2. Still, I am wondering if that isn't the point of MMORPG PvP after all SO FAR. The fun comes, again so far, much more from the social and antisocial layers which coat the PvP experience than from the actual playing your character to win.
It's the same old story about Battlefield 2 and Tekken being satisfying competitive games even when you practice against bots while MMORPGs need the human, and the drama, element to give you the feeling that you are having fun.

Which is why I kinda gave up after half the clan decided to bot to remain competitive.
The enemies just bought gold and power levelling services. Half the time we killed time, some chinese farmers were powerlevelling them. Pretty sad way to compete really.

Can't help but agree with this way of thinking, someone who manages to grind all way up not once but twice in a row sounds like perfect candidate to become a hero.

Hmm, I guess you're right.  I didn't notice the shriveled wings in the background and thought all this time I had peeked at a some kind of elf corpse.

Somewhat side tangent, but I always thought the "one wing" metaphor worked best in the way they tossed it in in the little religious backstory blurb in Xenogears, with the male and female statues in that church that each had one wing a piece, meaning that in order to actually fly, they had to work together, in harmony, to achieve their goal.

This official movie (156 MB) (http://rt6202.cachefly.net/ct15_playmovie_download.zip) shows the one-wings and the two-winged final forms very well.
Visuals in this game were, are and will probably stay awesome for a long time more. I'm amazed.

If only it played as well as it looked.

I'll push it a little forward. If only it played HALF as well as it looks.

I am resubbing today.  Sigh, why do I do this to myself?   :pedobear:

Screen shots, please. :grin: Seriously.

Ah, so I guess that explains the reasoning behind giving players who've ground to max level in Lineage two wings of their own, then.

If anyone is interested in seeing L2 in action for reasons other than watching Cheddar cause his own mental anguish, the L2 community has set up a rather nice online video alternative for MMO PvP related movies. Youtube and video.google resolutions suck, and they don't allow for direct downloading of the original file, so L2 video junkies set up LivePvP (http://www.livepvp.com/). There's also videos from other games up there, but it hasn't caught on very much in any other communities yet.

Westerners tend to be a bit long winded in their movie making, and more interested in analyzing PvP strategy than looking at the pretty graphics. This is a pretty short dagger movie filmed by 'dvp', who was the Russian player that murdered another player last year in real life. Prior to that event he was known for his videos --  these days he is mostly known for getting ass-raped in Russian prison. In case you're wondering, the stupid light-bulb glow around his body is because he is the hero for his class on the server. (http://www.livepvp.com/index.php?p=viewfiles&fileid=934)

The videos featuring more large scale PvP tend to be massive compilation projects like Rivals II (http://www.livepvp.com/index.php?p=viewfiles&fileid=879), which features some pretty slick production values, but goes on for a whopping 26 minutes and isn't very appealing to people who have no idea what the game is about.

Good spontaneous PvP is somewhat of a rarity as you might expect with any game. Although L2 probably has some of the largest spontaneous fights in any modern MMO, they are still pretty few and far between. Because of that, the clans tend to record most of their fights and turn them into videos to relive the awesomeness of that one unlikely fight, and drive propaganda against their enemy by sharing the video with the community so everyone can see them get their asses kicked. It's sort of an interesting phenomena, and has created thousands upon thousands of L2 videos around the world.

and once again art imitates life imitates art imitates...

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6423946 (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6423946)

Do any of you remember that fantastic guy that found his way here after Haemish's review hit the main Lineage site? The one who said his hardcore playing of lineage was making him more ready for things to come, and his quote (I will never forget this) was great "Lineage 2 where the hardecore sons of emo bitches play". I wish I could find his posts. They make me happy.

*edit* I found it.

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=7456.msg200165#msg200165

That was the first thread I ever posted in on f13, it was pretty upsetting to have the game I played represented by that guy.

But then you realized that guy was right, he just took less testicle-smashing and head-banging to figure it out, AMIRITE?

I am actually enjoying it.  Levelling curve was addressed (I am closing in on 30 now).  It is a LOT of grinding on mobs, but that is ok with me (rest baby in lap, click click click, turn in quest stuff/rinse repeat).  Unfortunetely FFH2@ is calling my name, so I will probably take a break for a few days to enjoy the love.

Are you prepared?

I totally understand. I am level 38 now and I usually grind 4 hours a day WHILE watching a movie or two in a parallel window box. That works like a charm, especially when the movie sucks, cause I don't feel like I totally wasted my time as at the end credits I usually have 20% more XP than before. The opposite is true too, as I don't feel like I am wasting my time grinding because I watched a movie meanwhile.

Now if only I could remember why am I doing all this...


P.S: Cheddar, when the hell are you coming here? Next Spring?  :awesome_for_real: :heart: :awesome_for_real:
 

Because you forgot to take your meds?

It's probably worse than that. To get level 40, finally wear c-grade armour and see how it looks on my Gladiatress. And to fool me into thinking that there is meaningful political PvP at the end of the tunnel.

Wait a sec, you are actually playing L2?  What server?  I am on Hindesmith.


Level 28 Orc Monk LFG!

Heh, I thought about messaging you and play get desensitized together. But I have the bleeding eye for my 38 levels done on Franz (Euro server) and the idea of starting again from scratch sounds as appealing as brushing the teeth of a rotting cadaver for a late fancy funeral.

But I will think of you all the time now, o my brother in these hard times...

If you decide to move to a real (read: American hohohoho) server lemme know, I can probably scrounge 10 million or so Adena to get you started.

I've obviously only been here for a short while.  Can someone explain the green text?

Sarcasm.  I greened it up because I wanted to make sure Falconeer knew I was not being an asshole American.  This time.

Falconeer is my favorite Italian!



edit.  I was serious about the 10 million Adena, hence why that portion of the post was not green.

I am my favourite Italian too (well, save for Umberto Eco). That's why I would like to stop being one.

And how in hell did you get 10 millions adena?! I am sweating blood for the soulshots required to keep the raging grindmonster at bay!

My mother was my favourite Italian!  Falconeer is my second favourite. 

What is the new race like? 

They are snotty but so goth good looking. The one wing thing is silly when everyone around you has the same plastery tool attached on the back, but it has some sort of potential coolness when combined with better looking clothes and armours. Arbalesting sounds like lotsa fun: fast archering without the mana cost but with less range. Save for the fashion side, there's not much I've experienced of them that I can talk about. You know, Lineage 2 is not exactly the most alt-friendly game in the world  :uhrr:

I made a ton off of my dwarf back in the day.  I have been subbed off and on since Beta- D Shots for 20 Adena sold out like flapjacks when it was first launched.   :grin:

I reinstalled a couple days ago, but I haven't gotten around to updating yet. I have a level 52 Orc Monk which is the stage that the grind really starts to set in. The main draw of this game for me was to hit 80 so that I can make people pay me adena so that they can cross bridges. Now that players can teleport, I may just go back for the sieges, which are pretty cool.

That was UO, alas, and those days are gone forever....  :heartbreak:

Can anyone explain how grouping works (concerning xp spread)?  For example, lets say someone at f13 was to sign up; if I grouped with him as a level 28 and went out killing stuff around Talking Island, would said person get any XP? 

it's strange why people liked to grind so much in Lineage. And even worse, comes to like it. I used to like it as well, till the new skill gains are just too far apart between level ups..L2 was my first MMO though so I thought all MMO are like that. They give you this carrot and kept you beating with a stick till you reach it. By the time I swallowed the carrot, I'm hungry again.

I decided to give WoW a whirl after being burned out with the grind and half the clan went botting. So I sold my lv 60 Bladedancer and 58 Prophet for a WoW + 6 months sub. I was quite pleased with what Wow offered, with all the quests and humour thrown in ...it spiced up the grind so to speak. I didn't have to sit in town just to sell my junk and make a decision between grinding or getting adena

All in all I've quit WoW. and decided to grind back in another game Dreams of Mirrors online. It's all anime cutesy, I was prepared to get burned out from a week...but it turned out to be good. Really good. A hybrid between L2 and WoW...and some secondary job combination. Good stuff. Tell you more after work

They'd get shit xp, as you wouldn't get anything on TI so neither would they.

If you want to help them level, get them a comp bow, a full set of NG jewels, and some armor, they'll hit level 5 or 6 on TI within a few hours, and from there they can go straight to Ruins of Despair (straight south of gludio).  The mobs are all 18-20 or so, but drop fairly fast with comp bow+ngss, you can stay there until 20 or so.  Should take around 8-12 hours from 1-20 total, maybe a little less, I'm used to playing on 3x servers and I could get a noob to 20 in under 3.

If you're playing a mage up, you might need to fight the stuff just outside RoD a bit and wait til 11 or 12 for the zombies, magic gets resisted a bit easier than arrows, but same concept (top ng level 20ish mobs)

I've leveled up 5 or 6 70s, so let me know if you hit any other grind walls.

It's exceptionally hard to powerlevel in L2 using characters with large level differences. There's some crazy algorithm behind it that screws everyone. High level buffers are obviously useful, and a few chronicles ago you could use a pet class with an AOE attack, as long as the pet killed the mobs outside of the range of it's owner, the low levels in the group would soak up all the XP (you could level up an alt past 40 in a few hours like this), but I think all the decent power leveling methods have been fixed.

Also out of curiosity: Have you seen another living soul on Hindemith? The North American servers are drying up quickly from what I hear. Teon is bustling with huge alliances, and I'm not sure how Franz is -- but most of the other servers are suffering from too much geographical space and far too few players to fill it up. Even at the end game.

The two euro servers are packed. Extremely.

Now one could argue that 70% are bots but still population is on heavy 24/7, on both Teon and Franz.

L2 has always been looked upon favorably in regions of the world that are neglected in terms of gaming markets. Russia and Greece come to mind immediately, but South America are hugely visible on the private servers. For the majority of the time I played L2 on Gustin, my alliance consisted of 1 American clan, 1 entirely German clan, 1 entirely French clan, 1 entirely Chinese clan, and various other nationalities sprinkled in between.

That community is without a doubt the most international of any MMO I have ever played.

That, and Shadowbane.

"Regions of the world that are neglected in terms of gaming markets" keep on focusing on PvP apparently. What can I say? I am probably russian at heart.

Interesting, Neocron has been kept alive by the European market as well- it is also steep in PvP.


Anyhow, yes, I see people all the time on Hindemith.  Most are mid/high level- I have a feeling the steep learning curve and lack of game information access chases off most American noobs.

Ah well, playing L2 since beta. Lvl 75 in a year, noble in another year, lead a 300ppl alliance and held aden castle during 6 months, done every epic boss at least once. Probably the hardest grind of all current MMOs, also the most rewarding, but worth it if you can overlook the huge bot/ebay issue. What kept me playing is the community and the awesome ppl I met in game (some of them are RL friends now).

Now is probably the best time to start fresh with the new expansion, lot of newbies leveling so it's easier to get into parties / meeting new ppl. Also, since the game was released they made the grind easier and easier, well it's still a hell of a grind to get to 70+ but nothing compared to what it was 2 or 3 years ago. And the endgame content is just awesome.

Actually, I will give L2 that. I met a lot of cool people in the short time I played. Hell, one night for several hours, one player taught me some Finnish words and phrases while we were grouped and leveling. I thought that was pretty cool, but then again, I'm a dork, so...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25bjSoyXlw0

500 hours

Translation: Now instead of grinding off all your skin AND crushing your testicles, it just pulls your nipples off and pours salt in the open wounds.

SIGN ME UP!!!!

Don't even need to click that link.

That particular fellow has a few syndromes that make 500 hours of that shit palatable to him. In other words, he's more broken than most. Some of his shit is truly truly fascinating (I've watched pretty much all of it over the years).

You and Tisirin both said that in the last 2 days. Now I am curious: I am still playing L2 and even if I am light years from the higher levels, what is this endgame content that is so good? I really want to know. I am enduring the grind because of the eventual PvP action, but I don't think you were referring to that (one siege every 14 days can't be THAT good). Sounds like there is some kind of secret and invisible endgame, and at this point I'd love to know what I am missing. Or, should I suffer long enough, what could I get into.

This is exactly why I resub once  a year.  THERE HAS TO BE SOMETHING!

Well, I guess it depends on which server you play on, server dynamics are very different from each other.

I'm playing on Hindemith and we have lot of wars going on. If you're in one of the big clans you can find PvP pretty much anywhere in the lvl70+ areas at anytime of the day. You of course have the occasional siege weekend which is a guaranteed 200-300ppl on siege ground at least. Then you have epic bosses (and PvP for them of course), raids (more PvP), olympiad (which has been revamped in CT1, still unbalanced if you don't do class based but some changes are interesting).

So yeah end-game is mostly about PvP and politics, but then if you are not at least 70 (76 + S grade is heavily recommended) you will most likely get owned most of the time by heroes and/or full S grade PvP parties. And I know ppl will say PvP in L2 is boring, click F1 and spam pots till your opponent is dead, while it might be true for 1v1 or small scale PvP, it's an entirely different story when you do group vs group, which is the case most of the time at higher lvls (take advantage of grounds, your position on the field, who to kill 1st, buffs/debuffs, synergy with your group etc...).

And i'm not even talking about fortress, which can be really fun given their layout they makes for very interesting and tactical battlegrounds.

If you're bored of PvP? Go lvl some more, work on your gear (craft/play the market), get some clanrep for your clan (academy, festivals), do some of the new quests and instanced dungeon... the list goes on and on.

While it's not perfect and you will always find some flaws in the system, it's by far the game with the most endgame content that I've played so far.

How do you find a good group to play with?  I spent a few days asking about clans in ! chat; unfortunately the majority of players are mouth breathers.

Is there a central source of information hidden on the intardwebs?   :uhrr:

Get yourself into a good active clan, preferably with an alliance. Ask on official forums, or on blah. I don't know which server you play on but there are always clans recruiting, moreover if you're an active player. Spend some time in Giran and watch the shouts, i'm sure you'll find some clans recruiting.

There's no secret - the ingame party matching system isn't really used, most people rely on clan/ally and friends. Have a good network of friends and you'll get lot of parties.

It also depends what class you are playing, Nukers/SEs will have to solo/duo most of the time as they aren't many nuker parties anymore. Support classes like BD/SwS, buffers and healers will get you into parties instantly. Tank/Melees DD/Archers are always wanted too, but they're so many of them that it might be harder than playing support classes.

A good way is also to make your own parties. But make good parties, otherwise people will be reluctant to party you afterward.

At last, there's hardly any parties under lvl60 because the grind is considered "easy" (compared to above 60 that is) under that level, so most of ppl solo/duo/trio they way up to 60+.

So basically Cryo, we are screwed until level 76? (To everyone uninformed, level 76 means about 3 months of /PLAYED time).

And yes I keep hearing about the greatest community, but I played it like an offline game (not because of me!) until level 38, and then after begging long enough in Giran a guy gave me some dry pointers in 1337ish/engrish and invited me to his Romanian (from Romania, not Roma) guild. Which, no need to say, is just where the silent/mute/antisocial guys are thrown. It reminds me of that scene from Animal House when Pinto and Flounder visit the Omega House and keep being pushed into the freaks group.


Lineage Romanian Leader: "Hi there, fellows. Meet Cheddar and Faggoteer"                 
Me: "Falconeer." 
Lineage Romanian Leader: "Cheddar, Faggoteer, l'd like you to meet... Mohamm3t... Jugdish, S1dney and Cl4yton. Grab a seat and make yourselves at home!"
Me: "We already met."
Lineage Romanian Leader: "Super!"

Hehe, funny stuff. There's a lot of russians and greeks playing on my server so I know what you're talking about :P

It all comes down to what you are enjoying in the game. If you're only there for the PvP and endgame content, then yes you won't see any of it before 70 (76 to start pwning). If you are in for the social aspect then get yourself quick into a friendly clan, and you'll love it. Grinding isn't that bad if you are chatting with friends at the same time. Also the world is huge, and there's many place to discover (in my early days I used to stare at some landscape just because it was so beautiful).

But yeah, it's hard to get into a good active clan if you're not in, let's say, A grade (lvl61) at least. Although that might not be entirely true, because CT1 brought in some new players, and i've started to see a lot of new clan recently. Now is probably the best time to start or play again if you're "low" lvl (under 60), it should be much easier to get into a clan.

Or start your own   :wink:

Honestly, how social are the players if they don't use the in-game tools for finding groups and clans? From the methods described, it sounds like you either need to bring your own group/clan or go pound salt. Sounds like a bunch of anti-social cliques. How... lousy...

The more I think about it, the more I feel like I really need a Delta House in Lineage 2. As the only way to endure it would be getting reeeeally high on spirits all the time. Louie Louie. Shama Lama Ding Dong. Leveling has never been so much fun. (And still I am p(l)aying it).




P.S: I have NOTHING against people from Romania. Actually the opposite is true and that's why I gladly joined the guild. Sadly, the ones in this guild speak very little English.

Pfft at starting your own clan, all you need is a bladedancer, swordswinger, prophet, and silver ranger.  Also, maybe a SK/DA to tank, just use in game walker and bot your own party!   :awesome_for_real:

Nerf you forgot the green text. Green it or I'll green you in the head to bring you back to your senses!

Totally serious, want a link to walker? I've got about 6 different versions.

Reading this thread made me start playing Lineage II again, and I'm actually having fun at it this go around, basically because I managed to hook up with a good clan - at least, good as in 'friendly and helpful', not 'owns 5 castles and pwns everyone on the server'.  Oh, and because I didn't play a Dark Elf main this time so their running isn't driving me crazy.

I'm starting to understand the prevalence of botting, at least.  Some classes (hello, Prophet) seem to be designed to do nothing but buff the group periodically.  Looking at the level 70-80 spell lists of the healer/buffer classes, they seem to have almost entirely passive roles in combat, except for the two that still have effective heals at that point.

Heh Koyasha...

I wanted to make a new post about L2 for some time now but couldn't find enough motivations. I'll use your as a trampoline then.
I finally completed the Class Change (a joke, a joke! that should be illegal! It's dehumanizing to do three stupid LONG quests like those to just get your final class... at level 40.. after DAYS of /played!!!) and I am now a level 42 Gladiator, so while still lightyears away from the coregame, I know a few things more about this monstruosity called Lineage 2.

I could talk, again (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=8312.msg226210#msg226210), about what works and what not, what's peculiar and should be cloned (Olympiad, Manor system) and what has just been cloned in (Instances, Keeps) from other games. Anyone cares? Everyone knows that. And everyone knows that Lineage 2, no matter what, isn't by no means a great MMORPG.

But I think that beyond its merits and demerits there's some kind of bizarre originality in L2 that makes it quite unique and hypnotic.
The ridicolous speed at which you mow through mobs, the flashing lights of clashing swords and soulshots, the incredible (still unsurpassed 4 years later) characters graphics and the amazing weapons and clothing arts, the robotic, metallic, essential interface, the unearthly background and animal sounds, the enigmatically smiling and beautifully painted NPCs, the looping bits of music...

I'd say L2 is the coldest and more subtly original online world I've ever touched, it can make you feel lonely like nothing else while you mechanically whack for hours in the dangerous (xp loss) deeps of a dungeon, and there's something unsettling and addictive in it that keeps vibrating in your bowels like a subsonic bassline on a frequency too low to be clearly perceived.

Don't get me wrong. It's not healthy and most people are luckily and totally immune to it, but I can't stop to find L2 totally fascinating in a morbid way.
Everyone in Asia cloned it thousands of times, but no one cloned its extraterrestrial nature.

Some idiots still hit "quote" instead of "modify" after 1287 posts.

I can understand what you're saying as I played it for several months and lacked the words that you just put to it for explanation. The more I look at Aion, the more interested I become in it. It looks like it could be very close to L2 in several respects, and I could definitely see playing it for a few months. Hopefully there'll be a North American beta at some point.

Yeah, a lot of things about L2 are really neat, it's just they don't seem to do them well.  It's like they have a great idea, work it up a little more than halfway to ready, throw it in the game, and never touch it again.  Like the Grand Olympiad...great idea, but from what I'm told it gets rigged a lot by people that get their friends to go in and lose for them so they can become Heroes.  And while they have controls that prevent clans from holding too many castles or becoming too big, people get around that by having alt clans hold the castles, they just use their mains to crush resistance and such.

I'm told the Korean servers work much better, due to higher population.  L2 doesn't work well with the low populations on NA servers, and I'm of the opinion that if they did a few server merges, things would be better because there would be too many people at the top end to work out alliances and mega-clans that control most of the server's castles and such.

If what you say is true then for once the Euros get the sweetest candies: our two servers are always always always on HEAVY load.
Still, I am too low level to confirm it.

One quick indication is Dawn and Dusk.  If Dawn ALWAYS wins, then there's basically no competition for the castle owning clans for one reason or another.  If the vast majority of the high levels are in a single alliance that owns all the castles, they want Dawn to win every time, and if there's not enough organized competition, there's nothing anyone can do about it, because they save up millions upon millions of seal stones for a rainy day (or sometimes, I'm told, they buy adena and just buy out the entire seal stone market if it looks like someone is putting up a fight for Dusk) and turn them in if it looks like Dusk has a chance to win that week.

If there's enough ubers that the castle-owning clans are outnumbered by non-castle owners, then it gets a lot more difficult for them to lock down the Seven Signs, because of course, if Dusk wins, the non-castle owners get big advantages on their next sieges, so all the non-castle owners are working hard to make sure Dusk wins.  Usually non-castle owners have less organization (again, from what I'm told) because the castle owners tend to coordinate at least enough so that they can agree on when and how to turn in large numbers of seal stones in order to keep Dawn victorious.  The game design overall seems very dependent on the idea of a lot of people competing for a limited number of resources, and without the large number of people it doesn't work too well.

The Grand Olympiad is the same - if the number of Noblesse competing is high enough, it would be difficult to get matches with people who are willing to lose for you, but if 90% of the ubers in the server are part of the same alliance, then they can make agreements in order to shut out the few who are not part of their alliance.  On Lionna, there's only 6 heroes that are not in the B0SS alliance, which is the one that has basically gained control of the server.

It did, in prelude and Chronicle 1 (and C2 on some servers), but after that the expansions to the game size made the world too large for most NA servers. There was a conflict between adding more content (which everyone loves yaaaaaaay), and destroying the game balance. Korean servers were unfortunately nearly twice the population of the NA ones, which means they didnt realize quite what they were doing to us over here when they made those calls in Seoul.

Thailand, Taiwan, and Japanese versions of L2 were all similarly screwed by these calls. Those versions all got server transfers before NCNA was willing to consider it. Honestly, they needed mergers a looong time ago to save that game.

That's the major concern about the game in NA. It was designed with the Korean market in mind, and we have nowhere near the same number of players on our servers.

Imagine the same game with the LFG panel filled with parties, hunting spots filled with people everywhere, 100+ nobles participating in olympiad everyday (there's actually an in-game option which shows the names of all the people registered in olympiad only when there are 100+ participating... don't think we will ever have an use for it in NA), Dawn vs Dusk actually fighting every 2 weeks, large number of alliances fighting for castles, economy not screwed up by bots... And I'm not even getting into the PvP / politics part.

That's a whole new game. Sometimes I wish I could speak Korean...  :-P When I think about it I'm already enjoying the game despite all the flaws it has here in NA, I would have a blast playing on Korean servers.

Time to book some Korean lessons...  ;D

But you are NCsoft EU, Cryo, so you should be able to help me here.
Aren't the Euro server closer to that? They are always on HEAVY population, so if they are not, still being HEAVY, something must be really broken somewhere.

To be honest with you I never played on the Euro servers so I don't know what the situation looks like on them. I *suppose* it would be much closer of what I'm describing above than any of the other NA servers.

The L2 team is based in Austin so I don't really have any info about the max capacity of the servers, CCU and such numbers (not like I'd be allowed to say anything anyway  :nda:). I don't know if our hardware architecture is the same as the Korean one, and if we can support the same amount of players on one given server.

I really wish I could play on Korean servers just to check out the difference. But it's not gonna happen anytime soon unfortunately.  :cry:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmYZ2WCSjP0

The internet is serious business.

New "free expansion" today (Hellbound, the 8th in 4 years) and, most important and somehow shocking, a new Euro server. The third. In the age of shrinking and merging servers, they are expanding.

http://www.lineage2.com/archive/2008/02/server_transfer_1.html

Related to that, as someone who still has many friends who play: The euro server are what's keeping L2 going. Teon is the biggest server with the best PvP and the largest playerbase. Even Bartz, the historically most important server is relatively underpopulated by comparison. I hear Franz is doing well, and many people are stoked for Luna.

The European servers are so popular, that now that server transfers are activated, Americans are trying very hard to shift to the Euro servers. Most of my remaining Gustin clan jumped ship to Teon (where ironically, many of our enemies from several years ago had fled after suffering defeat in a very intense war).


What does this mean? I know that Gustin is relatively DEAD. The economy is shot, and the clans still on the server are weak and sparse. I suspect the same is probably true of all servers other than the Europeans, Bartz, and possibly Sieghardt and Kain.

Interestingly though, rather than close the weakened underpopulated servers, NCsoft has decided to leave them open with the ability to transfer at will between the servers. This allows some servers to take a decidedly more casual tone, while others are bursting at the seams with PvP at every turn. Although you would have to be a rather proficient player who is familiar with the community to pick a server at this point and know what you're going to get, I find it an interesting way to handle things. Why force every server to be big? Some people would rather hang out in the unpopulated ones where they have the opportunity to join a castle owning clan or become the hero for their class.

All in all, I think things are being handled very well -- and many people who were growing tired of the game are becoming reinvigorated by the recent changes. Bravo NCsoft, bout time!

There must be something about Europeans that make them more tolerant to grind. I used to grind like crazy but never could keep such level of optimism. After 2 sieges that burned away 1 month of grinding exp without a trace, I decided to hop on a WoW beta and sold the account off while my European clan mates told me to 'Wait till the next siege, mate! We'll surely nick it!'  :awesome_for_real:

I started playing on Luna -- Eastern Europe and Russia are out in FULL FORCE. The clans that have reached level 3 are mostly Russian, a few Romanian, 1 Czech, and some from private servers who migrated.

Speaking of server populations earlier, heres a breakdown:

http://l2stat.gang-clan.ru/index_en.php?server_id=0

Teon, Franz, Luna are all Euro. Bartz is server #1, the rest are... well, dead.