Discussion Why Lineage 2 is DEAD

[Breached]

I feel the issue is there is no "middle ground" between players now playing this game. You either go all in with a complete CP,  perfect plan and rush then quit within weeks, or it's a casual player who prefer the pve side of the game (ain't nothing wrong with that). These players don't mix well on a server sadly, it always ends up in flames and drama and one side quitting for the next server because of "lack of competition". Back during the days of Paradise/Abyss/L2Extreme etc. we had a good mix of all types of players but more importantly almost nobody quit on the first failed epic/siege/mass PVP or moan "dead server" because they weren't challenged on the first Baium then go to the next server to repeat the process again.

 

Another massive issue are clans who only play on a server if they get paid to do so. Remember this was a subscription game where you had to pay to play originally! This is a real disease on the community since it splits a large amount of good players and again leads to the lack of competition on servers! Let's be honest, people who treat this game as esports/competitive gaming are on the wrong game all together with ego issues. They should take the commitment and crazy hours they put in on a game where you can actually earn a living from like Dota or Fortnite. This is a video game, like it or not and should be played only for fun, not as a way of life. Players also have grown up (I started playing on Teon as a spotty single teenager, I'm now married with 2 kids!) and (mainly falsely) try to recapture those first ever moments on the game when everything was fresh and new and we all had time to dedicate to the game. That will never happen again sadly.

 

Lastly as mentioned a lot on this thread server owners and the fact that anybody can make a server nowadays without any sort of programming knowledge drives the quality of servers down. Dont even get me started on servers wiping just to get fresh players and donations in on their €15 a month hosted server (oh sorry I meant seasons, silly me!). It seems the only "plausible servers" right now either only last a year at the very most or have non stop changes so the server you joined is nothing like the one advertised but all do run for profit (which is understandable but is the wrong way to run a server in my eyes).

 

I guess the last decent server was L2Dawn but even that couldn't escape a corrupt admin a few years down the line. It's a shame since there is a player base for this game across the world so it's wrong to call it dead, just it's so splintered and broken across tons of poor homebrew, forever wiping/changing and "pay us to play" servers that if a decent server was to made that is truly fair, not for profit and working as intended, it will probably never get the population it deserves. Wouldn't it be great to go back 10 years ago, sadly we cannot and maybe it's best just to move on with our lives now? 

 

Bit of a rant so thanks for reading all if you did!

[Zake]

Too many games around, gaming community is splitting. Especially when some game is on a peak period, copy pastes of this game launch every day. Most recent example, PUBG 2017, can you really count how many copies of that game released?

 

Edited May 12, 2020 by Zake

[Rootware]

Too many words. The main problem in the death of this game is greedy and stupid admins. The last 10 years they kills a wish to play in this game. And player it's secondary reason. A cheater was in all times. Percent of cheaters depends from project quality.

 

I do not know the server on which I would like to play. They are all equally ugly, as is the intelligence of their creators.

[ShreddedWheat]

The community needs one place to call home, there are too many different servers and places to find servers, this all comes from the people who see Lineage as a business. This would be good if they pout effort in and cared for their players, but they don't. Casuals and people with less time are what fills the lineage 2 in game world, many pvers, raiders, etc There are tons of casual L2 players that cant play for either time reasons or there are too many poor options to choose from

Edited May 12, 2020 by ShreddedWheat
meh

[bravetobe]

On 5/11/2020 at 6:50 PM, Trance said:

Apparently Lineage II used to slowly die, until now. This quarantine has brought many people back.

 

Lineage II is dying for the same reason other games/servers are dying. Community being toxic and always in search of perfection that did not exist, just like how "balance" is misinterpreted, "balance" is not about equality between classes, each class has its counter. Every player has its own vision - how something should be/look like. That's why you need to let them know how your vision is and make them understand.

 

Do you remember how clan members used to follow leaders and co-leaders many, many years ago? Now each of them believes that he/she is superior to anyone else. Everyone thinks they know everything perfectly. So it's a mess between players and clans as well.

 

Another reason would be that, hell yeah, server owners, they don't care to learn something they don't already know, basic computer networking or how a small business should work. They don't wanna leave their comfort zone. As a server owner, you should know at least the basics of all of them - computer networking, server developing, client developing, web developing, how a maintenance should be done overall, and so on - everything that your server needs - only in this way can you control the quality of the server and the people who work with or for you.

 

I m surprised with your take on this ... You should know better ...

 

    A few years ago you decided to share your L2Gold pack because people were selling it in the black market.

The result? Random people without any (programming) knowledge were opening servers in order to milk theL2Gold trademark.How much on average those servers last with this mess?The original server itself was stable until 2013 when it actually closed without any announcement.The donations weren't the problem.People were "loyal" to that server.Can you really blame all these people for quitting later on when every single one of the servers (later on) closed after 3-4 months (which became 1-2 months)? This argument, about toxic players who quit, is so funny to me like people weren't playing a server or two for years until 2012.

    Its stupid to expect people to farm over and over again for the same items in the same server after a wipe.The whole trust between admins and players is gone and its not player's fault that people were given shared packs and tools in order to ruin further the legit developers.

    Wannabe "admins" got tools and packs in their hands which they shouldn't have in the first place.In order to make this work, these people had to be either skilled either have cash to pay for developers.Guess what happened...

    Anyway,Things should have been handled differently because sites/forums (like this one) gave all these people the tools to milk players with minimum effort which means damaging legit developers/admins.

 

It would be nice to have a discussion in a "ground" that I/we can open up "freely".Lmk

 

Edited May 14, 2020 by bravetobe

[Dev]

On 5/12/2020 at 12:43 PM, Rootware said:

Too many words. The main problem in the death of this game is greedy and stupid admins. The last 10 years they kills a wish to play in this game. And player it's secondary reason. A cheater was in all times. Percent of cheaters depends from project quality.

 

I do not know the server on which I would like to play. They are all equally ugly, as is the intelligence of their creators.

Perhaps you can try be a creator and let the other creators judge your ugly creation then.

 

Everyone talks about admin faults whilst in the era of it's peak you didn't even know if an admin existed in that game. You logged played never asked GM help never knew if anything like that ever existed. In today's communities player logs first thing he does is not to search the game but to send petition to Admin/GM and start talking about irrelevant things.

 

In addition, there's a whole business to l2, I mean it always used to be but now it's more than ever : Adrenaline, bots, anti-bot systems, interfaces and stuff, stupid advertisements everywhere not exluding this forum and so on and so forth.

 

Everyone makes good money except for the Admins nowadays.

 

 

[Rootware]

22 minutes ago, Dev said:

Perhaps you can try be a creator and let the other creators judge your ugly creation then.

 

Everyone talks about admin faults whilst in the era of it's peak you didn't even know if an admin existed in that game. You logged played never asked GM help never knew if anything like that ever existed. In today's communities player logs first thing he does is not to search the game but to send petition to Admin/GM and start talking about irrelevant things.

 

In addition, there's a whole business to l2, I mean it always used to be but now it's more than ever : Adrenaline, bots, anti-bot systems, interfaces and stuff, stupid advertisements everywhere not exluding this forum and so on and so forth.

 

Everyone makes good money except for the Admins nowadays.

 

 

 

My opinion was written from player's side. That the main reason why my private project not published yet. And i have excellent experience with talking and working with many admins for judge about admin's side.

[Dev]

2 minutes ago, Rootware said:

 

My opinion was written from player's side. That the main reason why my private project not published yet. And i have excellent experience with talking and working with many admins for judge about admin's side.

 

Ok then tell me if you find right or wrong my arguments in that reply then and don't take it personal cuz that was not my point.

[BabayG]

First of all I am not a pride fan boy, but I admire the way a pride like server works. I mean a true hard working pride. No matter how hard you try, you need time to build a proper character and probably never reach end game, which means you are bonding to your character and that's what a true mmorpg feels like. Nowadays whatever the chronicle may be (interlude-final-high five) it's almost the same shit low-mid or high rates people eventually will leave because top parties will be full equipped in 2 months maximum. Reaching end game erases the interest of competion...

[Rootware]

1 hour ago, Dev said:

 

Ok then tell me if you find right or wrong my arguments in that reply then and don't take it personal cuz that was not my point.

 

Your words totally wrong, because you tried to protect admins. Admin it's owner of project, don't confuse with GMs and Moderators. All depends on the administrator what quality his project will be. It is he who hires or saves on programmers, the quality of server's concept and other technical issues.

 

We are all observing an era the cheap projects with budget in 100-300 euros.

 

P.S. I respect the player well enough to provide him with low-quality service.

[Trance]

2 hours ago, Rootware said:

 

Your words totally wrong, because you tried to protect admins. Admin it's owner of project, don't confuse with GMs and Moderators. All depends on the administrator what quality his project will be. It is he who hires or saves on programmers, the quality of server's concept and other technical issues.

 

We are all observing an era the cheap projects with budget in 100-300 euros.

 

P.S. I respect the player well enough to provide him with low-quality service.

Theory and practice are 2 different things.

 

 

13 hours ago, bravetobe said:

 

I m surprised with your take on this ... You should know better ...

 

    A few years ago you decided to share your L2Gold pack because people were selling it in the black market.

The result? Random people without any (programming) knowledge were opening servers in order to milk theL2Gold trademark.How much on average those servers last with this mess?The original server itself was stable until 2013 when it actually closed without any announcement.The donations weren't the problem.People were "loyal" to that server.Can you really blame all these people for quitting later on when every single one of the servers (later on) closed after 3-4 months (which became 1-2 months)? This argument, about toxic players who quit, is so funny to me like people weren't playing a server or two for years until 2012.

    Its stupid to expect people to farm over and over again for the same items in the same server after a wipe.The whole trust between admins and players is gone and its not player's fault that people were given shared packs and tools in order to ruin further the legit developers.

    Wannabe "admins" got tools and packs in their hands which they shouldn't have in the first place.In order to make this work, these people had to be either skilled either have cash to pay for developers.Guess what happened...

    Anyway,Things should have been handled differently because sites/forums (like this one) gave all these people the tools to milk players with minimum effort which means damaging legit developers/admins.

 

It would be nice to have a discussion in a "ground" that I/we can open up "freely".Lmk

 

You do have a point. That could go as a 3rd factor after my mentionings. However, I pointed out to both sides - players and admins from my perspective how I see it.

 

---

 

Overall, it's a new era and everyone should adapt to the present - players and admins. Adapting (and improving) made the human race survive so far, wasn't?

On 5/12/2020 at 1:16 PM, ShreddedWheat said:

The community needs one place to call home, there are too many different servers and places to find servers, this all comes from the people who see Lineage as a business. This would be good if they pout effort in and cared for their players, but they don't. Casuals and people with less time are what fills the lineage 2 in game world, many pvers, raiders, etc There are tons of casual L2 players that cant play for either time reasons or there are too many poor options to choose from

 

TOP WEBSITES ARE ANOTHER CANCER.

 

This would help and make more sense if there was a new *topzone*, coming to life, filtering and categorizing private servers differently, not only by chronicles.

 

The *toozone* team being less lazy and actually checking a server's quality and players trusting their observation I guess.

 

A *topzone* needs a rating and reviewing system, where players can give stars from 1 to 5 and approved by the *topzone* team if the comments are legit. So players will only enter the servers that suit their style and admins don't have to waste time pleasing players (being toxic) that don't wanna stay anyways. It's a win-win.

 

THIS WOULD BE A GAME CHANGER FOR THE COMMUNITY. I wish I could make a *topzpne* website with no advertisements and stupid ass banners everywhere - greedy motherfuckers. Nothing but a basic premium package for a small server logo/banner. And a separated donations system that offers no benefits in return.

Edited May 14, 2020 by Trance
Rushed phone typos.

[MeVsYou]

It was the game of 90s.

It was all about the feeling of playing Lineage, the experience, the battles, the friendships and this little thing that keep your mind thinking what you have to do to become stronger.

 

If you remember it was a battle between WoW and L2.

Nowadays, the same feeling exist but it is not pure. Think about games like LoL and Fortnite.... it is not the same. After all there are thousands game apps with which you spare your free time because our life is faster and faster.

 

 I would consider playing again in an active server only if the (number) population is guaranteed and the whole project was really attractive with future plans.

[Elfo]

14 minutes ago, MeVsYou said:

It was the game of 90s.

00s

 

Btw in the grand scheme of the MMO scene, L2 was really never popular in the western world. It was only truly successful in the eastern market.

 

Pretty decent video on the matter even though it focuses on the retail release and not the private server scene.

 

 

Edited May 14, 2020 by Elfocrash

[MeVsYou]

3 minutes ago, Elfocrash said:

00s

 

 

Yeap. Actually I was talking about the age of the players. 

Edited May 14, 2020 by MeVsYou

[Tryskell]

Administration wise, servers are so easy to launch than it will simply, never die. Emulator scene was never meant for hundreds of servers, with thousands of players on each of them to begin with.

 

We're in 2020, and numerous, better games than L2 simply died way before L2 - even retail MMOs launched by AA/AAA teams.

 

L2OFF/L2J communities can already be proud of what it achieved, because let's be honest, it's thank to private side than retail side is still alive. There are dozens of better MMOs, and other online competitors (LoL, PUBG, Hearthstone, Rust, Ark...) which simply sucked out the playerbase.

 

Even retail MMOs struggle to find 500+, real, people.

 

--------

 

Speaking about L2J source itself, the project "died" when L2J and L2JUnity splitted out. L2J is, since then, in a permanent hold until a real leader/team takes back the project.

 

I don't speak about previous chronicles, because/thank to L2J team choices, they are forced to be forked in order to get updated (ex : L2J giving no fuck about IL, I was forced to make aCis).

 

Project-wise, numerous mistakes were done, which probably would make L2J (and forks) really, really more advanced than current version - but well, people are people, and ego/money is a thing in this world.

 

--------

 

10y ago, such topic was already done, and guess what, we're still around. From the moment there will have asks/demands (and so, a market) or at least ONE hobbyist, L2J development will simply never stops.

 

I don't see the point to get 1000 servers, it's not how I consider L2J emulation world being healthy.