Lineage2 is almost 17 years old. And it doesn’t look like it is dead, but definitely not where it was a decade ago. I’m not going to mention the official servers, because I stopped playing there on gracia final update in 2009. What is happening is normal as the time goes by. Players know how to play, what to do how to rush to end game where they believe the game starts, and then it is boring because there is no extra content. But in my case this is not true. Playing lineage2 is about the feeling, your fellow friends that they will help you gather all the key materials needed to craft a blue wolf breast plate inside lair of antharas. (C1 era). It’s about killing those monsters to gain exp while you are on teamspeak with your friends and having fun. Its about doing that quest and learn the skills! It’s about that feeling before the siege that makes everybody to try their best. It’s about those epic fights and zergs that will make you stay awake all night guarding the port for antharas or whatever. It’s about learning to play that class you picked and play your role in the clan or enjoy it for yourself.
This in my opinion stopped when some of the private servers in the past like L2 Paradise vanished. Server owners were different back then. They had actual knowledge on programming, RE, debugging and of course the structure of the server and know how to fix shit. Everybody had their own extender trying to develop it and provide better experience. Guess what, before C4 leak, they had C4 full of bugs but huge online and players didn’t care much. They were taking care of their players. It didn’t feel that they wanted to grab your money and reopen a server in 2 months and do it again.
This is not happening right know. These guys grew old like me, got a family and have to move on with life. Lineage2 became business in the eyes of people that they don’t have a clue on how to operate a server and deal with all the responsibility that comes with it. This is were services like AdvExt64, Kation and others did their part in this mess. They provided a ready to go product where clueless people were able to open their servers and call themselves “admins” when all they did is to edit the configs. Well these servers ruined the game in the eyes of the players and make other knowledgeable server owners look bad.
Also the new era of server owners is not willing to learn shit on how to deal with server files. This is where L2j crap (no offense) kicks in. Java projects, free shares, ask for the solution and that’s it. We are ready. Again they are wrong. So what they do is fake promises that they can’t keep up with, they pay money prizes for the first clan that will capture Aden castle, they ask “Are you ready?” before they open, they write the word “informations” on their website, they help “big” clans so they stay while they take player’s money. If they are lucky enough their project lasts for 2 months.
I think I wrote too much !