Mr_Zero

Transparent donation systems are put in place to generate income to their respective owners; often these systems are more than adequate, especially on some of the successful servers. Since the corruption of the specific topic took place on DEX, I can tell you that DEX in particular has an aggressive donation system that yields a lot of income per opening. I doubt that it takes place on "every single server", but yeah, most likely does in most. But why should we be downplaying it? F*ck this, man. Seriously.

Here we are, in 2023 blurring the lines between RMT from items generated by the game world, and RMT items spawned by staff, to justify, I don't even know what.

Again, the purpose is to highlight features, mechanics, and general modernizations to this old, niche game. Things that you've witnessed and enjoyed, or to suggest things that you'd like to see as a player that fall under this "trend" or "segment", that we've witnessed in the private scene recently. The reason is pretty simple; people who are capable of doing these things might read it, or those who have "insane money", as you said, might seek those who can to do it for them. That's all there is to it. Personally, I'm a huge advocate of these servers and I'd like to see more of them. The game is old, the niche is real, sure, but the blends these projects bring to the table are often incredibly fun or make a lot of sense, at least to me. So I want more of it. Example, Valhalla-Age introducing 7 slots for a full party in a nostalgic game-play setting is great, imo. It really makes a lot of sense; especially now, post-lockdowns, with an aging audiance. It's becoming exceedingly difficult to get a consistent group of 9 people to play together. Or you get like 5-6 people you actually like, and another 5-6 you can beraly tolerate, lol. E-Global merging the Bladedancer/Swordsinger (at least the buffs they provide), makes a lot of sense too. DEX introducing a Talent-Tree system that leads to unlocking new skills, in a nostalgic game-play setting without Kamaels, again, really cool. Lots of people will dig that, I'm sure. Lineage2.gold taking an old, niche (yet popular) game-style and giving it a new breath of life by modernizing it is a good thing. Introducing stages in order to prolong server life-spans, and gradually release content in order to emulate the sensation of chronicle progression. Cool. Projects in general modernizing their servers to newer clients so we don't lag at baium like morons. Awesome. Can we get more of this please?

Hi, as I mentioned in the opening post, the purpose of this thread is to highlight or suggest things that you’d like to see when it comes to this new trend, not to dispute said trend altogether. I would like to avoid having the topic derailed into an argument between purists vs non-purists. Thank you.

Many of you are familiar with the words mentioned in the title of this thread. These words - or synonyms - are commonly used to describe customized versions of the game that have been introduced in recent years. The purpose of this thread is to highlight some of your favorite customizations you've seen so far, and/or mention what you'd personally like to see in the future. This can include anything, really. Be it client/chronicle "downscaling", introducing level caps & stages, mixing content/skills from different chronicles, or even changing mechanics such as limiting a "full party" to 7 characters. Rework Remaster Masterwork Improve it yourself.

Enabling auto-farm is definitely a postive for L2. First and foremost, it bridges the gap between an adrenaline user and a normal player (to an extent). I would even argue that - if used correctly - it could extend a server's lifespan. A lot of people get tired of grinding once the initial "rush" stage of a server ends. So they start logging into the game less, thus they are not in the open world as much. With auto-farm, sure they might occupy a farm spot while AFK, but eventually they're more than likely to come back and fight for their lost spot (after they've been killed by another player), opposed to never even bothering to be there in the first place without auto-farm. So in that sense it creates some form of engagement.

The initiative to keep the community informed about bad projects is good. Of course, one concern is people with agendas, or people who have felt mistreated (even though it may very well be their own fault) not providing credible feedback. Unfortunately, we really don't have a truly impartial, independent platform where we can reach out to the wider L2 private community. Something created and managed by players, and players only. Similar in a sense to how "Lineage II Community" discord channel handles NCWest and Innova. That particular discord isn't actually run by NCWest or Innova, but by retail's own player-base. I'm saying this, because, quite simply, you wont get much visibility on this forum to actual players. Additionally, it cant truly be considered an impartial platform, as many of its respective members, are either server owners, or involved with the ownership in some capacity (via development, services, networking, etc). A lot of members here simply have an agenda, that's all. I mean, even in this very topic we had a server owner accuse another server owner, and we're only five pages in. Furthermore, MaxCheaters and its core-community thrives on many servers existing, because at the end of the day, even a bad server will contribute financially, in some capacity. I'm not criticizing in any way whatsoever, business is business, and that should be respected. But yeah, this forum isn't exactly a community driven by actual players, so I'm not sure this is the best platform to host and spread the word about "Bad/Good" servers.

I understand what you're saying since L2Extreme was the only PVP server I really enjoyed. I cant stress enough how important its raid loop is, because the result of it was that you could login at 2 pm, 6 pm, 10 pm, and you'd probably get group PvP. Typical PvP servers that are "Farm Zone" oriented in order to get top gear simply lack action/competition. Even typical mid-rates are dead most of the day, and are only competitive during prime-time epic hours. Outside of epics? Boring. So Extreme's "Raid Loop" and RB farm gear monopoly provided a platform where competitive action was provided throughout the day. Other servers try to emulate this "Raid Loop" but either fail to calibrate a correct ratio between available RBs & respawn, and server population, or just screw up the donate list & timing so much that they fail miserably. That being said, going for something different isn't necessarily bad either. I have my reservations, of course, but we just have to wait and see what they came up with; perhaps we'll be pleasantly surprised again. Updating their files though was definitely a step in the right direction.

Toomanybadservers

Good mentality behind these features; right off the bat you can tell that you're putting a lot more effort than the typical PvP server we're all used to (maybe that's why you're getting DDOS'd by the losers). That being said, I'm a bit skeptical about the Olympiad and how Dynasty (Armors and SAs) & Custom Buffs will work in practice. I mean, I get it, you're trying to balance out the Olympiad on Interlude. Hopefully my scepticism is unwarranted and it works out well. Regardless, it's interesting so definitely worth trying. Another thing is that a bi-weekly Olympiad on a PvP oriented server in 2021 is a bit ambitious, but then again, why not, you're going for something different so perhaps these features can increase the lifespan of the server, overall. Either way, good luck with your project. Looks good.

Yeah, I think they only take action when they see certain servers become too big, just like what happened with original Extreme back in the day. I mean, E-Global operates like a legit company nowadays, and their revenues were probably a bit too much for Innova to just overlook. Besides, the more the game declines, the less inclined they'll be to overlook the private scene in general, since they're probably looking at their own revenues and aren't quite happy. I don't think they care about old clients, with small communities. But if E-Global / Valhalla-Age didn't exist, some of these big clans would likely be on Innova servers. I mean, E-Global's "Rise side" was on Gran Kain for 5 years or so, now they're on E-Global.

Yeah, same team runs those projects. They definitely have the largest piece of the pie, though, by far... I mean just DanielDefo on this E-Global probably dropped like 20k, easily, lol.

Would have been interesting to learn just how much income these servers generate, combined, on a yearly basis. I mean just E-Global Masterwork and Valhalla-Age alone made mad money this year.

So you're happy about the server supposedly not having adrenaline, yet you're actively trying to get your hands on adrenaline for it?

You guys are derailing the topic of this thread, which is whether you cosnider a server owner to be good or bad. Just agree to disagree lol. I mean, one of you seems to enjoy the server, while the other is dissatisfied by it. Alright, one can continue to play while the other can look for something better suited for him. Talking about social-bahavior from the player base of a server is completely irrelevant to the topic.