NCZ0ft's free to play affected your server populations?

[elvis8925]

I wanted to make a post asking the L2j server community if the release of Lineage 2 free to play service has affected the population of your active servers. I have wanted to make a L2 server simply because of all the interesting mods that you can do to make your server fun and unique. I also LOVE Lineage 2.

Please comment I would like to hear from some server owners.

[Evilus]

not server owner but I have seen at least 10 servers crash and burn , it may or may not be related to them going free. Most likely it is as most of them were low rates with high population. It was bound to happen why would anyone play on a private server which can never keep up to official servers unless they have devs working 8 hours a day to implement things. But ye a lot server has lost dozens of players.

[007florin]

Almost all private servers received a kick in the ass with this F2P NCZ0ft idea and lost players.
I know at least 3-4 servers wich population has decreased by 30-40% and were among the most respected private l2 communities (old school private servers).
NCZ0ft will need to remake / reinvent L2 in order to attract new players, L2 is already dying and without nothing new to offer will be dead in 2 years.

[Sylar88]

Yea sure ... you people have been saying that since i remember playing lineage 2. Each year some Gaming philosopher predicts the doomsday of Lineage 2 ...

The game's gonna stay alive long cause it has some advantages over the other mmo games , unique to its kind. Main one the open world pvp system that you rarelly find in pussy mmorpgs like world of warcraft etc. Lineage attracts a different kind of people. Generally, not those that preffer oversophisticated raid systems and long leveling through quests.

As for private servers, i'm really happy that lowrates got a kick in the butt ( and they actually did ) because lowrates was the most overrated piece of shit servers. Nothing innovative, just a bad mirror of retail servers that attracted over 1k of players regardless of who opened them. Time for those noobs from lowrates to start working with custom highrates, and see the real problems of inventing new content and implementing it. Wanna see them dealing with all the server related problems and the main one of developing new game content Hahaha. But then again thats a good thing since now if you wanna have players, you better got something cool to show in your server to attract them.

All in all, almost all servers got a kick in the ass because they were bacteria that had nothing unique in them. Yea sure the lowrates were very organized server projects by skilled people bla bla, but still , they were nothing cool and new. Just a very good corporate company working within the system, its dirty tricks , its adverticements and so on.

And when the system collapses ....


...boom !

[elvis8925]

I had gone back to play retail and after a month or so I can see why people would go back to private servers. PvP being the largest reason. Couple smaller things like the entire system of the races and starter towns I think made people angry with retail. Not to mention the Karma and PK system all screwed.

Definitely private servers will have to step up their game if they want to even be self sustaining. Some way to provide with server/ip/bandwidth/website. I certainly hope it eliminates a bunch of the crap private servers.

[007florin]

-------------------

I play L2 since 2004 only on low rate and i can say that L2 started to become boring with the latest updates, nothing new to gameplay.
About High rate servers they come and go like ants, where do you see in high rate servers mass pvp? maybe 500 ppl on that server and 60% of them stay in town and enchant items all day long and when they see cause all items broke they emoquit and go to another crapy high rate server and start again.
From what you wrote there we can understand that you think that even retail servers are a failure.

Have Fun and Happy New Year to entire L2jServer community

[Sylar88]

I play L2 since 2004 only on low rate and i can say that L2 started to become boring with the latest updates, nothing new to gameplay.

There are many new things in Lineage 2 at the latest chronicles. But they appeal to a different culture of players. Usually the uneducated, below poverty standards people in Korea/China where the hack and slash, and the super WOW OMG effects dazzle the asian dickheads. That kind of gameplay doesnt appeal to the western civilization gamers. A good indication is the type of players still playing lineage 2. Greeks, Brazilians, Portuguese, Argentinians, Polands and Rusians. The peasants of the west are playing the game and keep coming at it as new material. That together with the fact that if you play since 2004 you are probably getting old and seek new things other than mmo games.

From what you wrote there we can understand that you think that even retail servers are a failure.

Obviously. Private servers have more players. Thats because they are easier to play, which means that retail doesnt provide good and frequent new challenges to the players. Thus retail Lineage 2 is a failure. A couple of years now actually ...

maybe 500 ppl on that server and 60% of them stay in town and enchant items all day long and when they see cause all items broke they emoquit and go to another crapy high rate server and start again.

Crapy servers, for crapy people. The lazy guys come to highrates to get to the holy levels easily because they cant do it in normal rates. Lazy people are not organized, usually can barelly speak english ( thus they cant even communicate ) so the quality of pvp you will see in highrates is Free for All. You see someone flagged, you jump in. In lowrates pvp is less frequent cause most people are occupied leveling and grinding for their gear. But when pvp happens in lowrate ( mass ) its much more spectacular than highrate definitelly.

In sum, combat/other ratio in highrates is bigger than the one in lowrates. Its just the quality that changes.

PS: Dont send me a warning PM please about racist commenting cause its not. Its simply the fact that people in Korea / China are messed up

[Szponiasty]

...
As for private servers, i'm really happy that lowrates got a kick in the butt ( and they actually did ) because lowrates was the most overrated piece of shit servers. Nothing innovative, just a bad mirror of retail servers [...] those noobs from lowrates to start working with custom highrates, and see the real problems of inventing new content and implementing it. Wanna see them dealing with all the server related problems and the main one of developing new game content Hahaha...

For me NCZ0ft noobs can't invent finally some innovative content. What they did in gd1 (I mean about gameplay, features, not new maps or tons of script-generated skills, or few animations that been there since Epilogue, but hidden, etc.) I saw on few private servers long time ago. Also don't level with dirt all private servers, especially low rate. Here you have some innovative features that were implemented firstly on one of my low rates long time ago:

- physics and object collision (item affecting object it collides/hits, depending on how collision handler for item is programmed, eg can damage, kill, explode...)

http://youtu.be/_SucHiXSixs

- mob/npc ai far more advanced than most smart bossess in off gd1, like a year ago some of what they can: they learn and advance in strength, can go up in social status and eg. become leader (and maybe even make own gang), or finally become raidboss-alike, they learn to be friendly or to hate certain other mobs/players/npcs (eg. orcs or goblins are more likely to like/support other humanoid mobs and hate bug/plant types etc..), they can find things and collect findings (all they find is added to mob's individual drops), they can fight over valuable items, etc...

http://youtu.be/DH9F1gN3BEg

- wide area skills/items, that can affect eg mobs (new types of ai behaviours), certain desires/fears/feelings can spread to neighbouring mobs, new type of disease-skills, that can infect and spread onto new zones, though eg. wandering npcs, mobs, players... on vid u see item explosion, that kills most nearby mobs, puts in fire ones little further and starts all that survived to panic and run as far as possible

http://youtu.be/PmAn1NYc7Uk

- and some more recent works: yet more ai improvements. for the new economy/political expansion to l2: mobs can form bad/good bands, can attack players, can invade towns, can join one of clan/castle wars sides, can spy and steal, make hideouts and relocate to new places, if discovered by eg. guards or players etc...

http://youtu.be/XAVuTEQ2hSE

And thats a very small part of all, and its done by few people - vs 50+ ppl that work on each offi L2 content update...

[JMD]

...
As for private servers, i'm really happy that lowrates got a kick in the butt ( and they actually did ) because lowrates was the most overrated piece of shit servers. Nothing innovative, just a bad mirror of retail servers [...] those noobs from lowrates to start working with custom highrates, and see the real problems of inventing new content and implementing it. Wanna see them dealing with all the server related problems and the main one of developing new game content Hahaha...

For me NCZ0ft noobs can't invent finally some innovative content. What they did in gd1 (I mean about gameplay, features, not new maps or tons of script-generated skills, or few animations that been there since Epilogue, but hidden, etc.) I saw on few private servers long time ago. Also don't level with dirt all private servers, especially low rate. Here you have some innovative features that were implemented firstly on one of my low rates long time ago:

- physics and object collision (item affecting object it collides/hits, depending on how collision handler for item is programmed, eg can damage, kill, explode...)

http://youtu.be/_SucHiXSixs

- mob/npc ai far more advanced than most smart bossess in off gd1, like a year ago some of what they can: they learn and advance in strength, can go up in social status and eg. become leader (and maybe even make own gang), or finally become raidboss-alike, they learn to be friendly or to hate certain other mobs/players/npcs (eg. orcs or goblins are more likely to like/support other humanoid mobs and hate bug/plant types etc..), they can find things and collect findings (all they find is added to mob's individual drops), they can fight over valuable items, etc...

http://youtu.be/DH9F1gN3BEg

- wide area skills/items, that can affect eg mobs (new types of ai behaviours), certain desires/fears/feelings can spread to neighbouring mobs, new type of disease-skills, that can infect and spread onto new zones, though eg. wandering npcs, mobs, players... on vid u see item explosion, that kills most nearby mobs, puts in fire ones little further and starts all that survived to panic and run as far as possible

http://youtu.be/PmAn1NYc7Uk

- and some more recent works: yet more ai improvements. for the new economy/political expansion to l2: mobs can form bad/good bands, can attack players, can invade towns, can join one of clan/castle wars sides, can spy and steal, make hideouts and relocate to new places, if discovered by eg. guards or players etc...

http://youtu.be/XAVuTEQ2hSE

And thats a very small part of all, and its done by few people - vs 50+ ppl that work on each offi L2 content update...

If there was a public server with an AI like that i wouldnt mind playing all bymyself.

[jurchiks]

Yeah Szponiasty, your stuff is awesome, we all know that

[Sylar88]

You would actually get many supporters and coders if you would make that some sort of team project. I would be one for sure

[elvis8925]

...
As for private servers, i'm really happy that lowrates got a kick in the butt ( and they actually did ) because lowrates was the most overrated piece of shit servers. Nothing innovative, just a bad mirror of retail servers [...] those noobs from lowrates to start working with custom highrates, and see the real problems of inventing new content and implementing it. Wanna see them dealing with all the server related problems and the main one of developing new game content Hahaha...

For me NCZ0ft noobs can't invent finally some innovative content. What they did in gd1 (I mean about gameplay, features, not new maps or tons of script-generated skills, or few animations that been there since Epilogue, but hidden, etc.) I saw on few private servers long time ago. Also don't level with dirt all private servers, especially low rate. Here you have some innovative features that were implemented firstly on one of my low rates long time ago:

- physics and object collision (item affecting object it collides/hits, depending on how collision handler for item is programmed, eg can damage, kill, explode...)

http://youtu.be/_SucHiXSixs

- mob/npc ai far more advanced than most smart bossess in off gd1, like a year ago some of what they can: they learn and advance in strength, can go up in social status and eg. become leader (and maybe even make own gang), or finally become raidboss-alike, they learn to be friendly or to hate certain other mobs/players/npcs (eg. orcs or goblins are more likely to like/support other humanoid mobs and hate bug/plant types etc..), they can find things and collect findings (all they find is added to mob's individual drops), they can fight over valuable items, etc...

http://youtu.be/DH9F1gN3BEg

- wide area skills/items, that can affect eg mobs (new types of ai behaviours), certain desires/fears/feelings can spread to neighbouring mobs, new type of disease-skills, that can infect and spread onto new zones, though eg. wandering npcs, mobs, players... on vid u see item explosion, that kills most nearby mobs, puts in fire ones little further and starts all that survived to panic and run as far as possible

http://youtu.be/PmAn1NYc7Uk

- and some more recent works: yet more ai improvements. for the new economy/political expansion to l2: mobs can form bad/good bands, can attack players, can invade towns, can join one of clan/castle wars sides, can spy and steal, make hideouts and relocate to new places, if discovered by eg. guards or players etc...

http://youtu.be/XAVuTEQ2hSE

And thats a very small part of all, and its done by few people - vs 50+ ppl that work on each offi L2 content update...

Szponiasty do you run a server with those mods? Can I play? I am curious.

[burrito]

My server population decreased about 25%. But the server is doing fine, nothing that will kill it.

Though i run a high rate server, with a lot of custom features (my own stuff). And its not a super easy high rate server, some things are somewhat easy, but there are a lot of things you have to work for too.

[Szponiasty]

Thx. Anyway, expect some open beta soon

PS. Happy new year