Death of a Game: Lineage 2
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 ก.ค. 2024
- Why Lineage 2 lived in the shadows of Lineage 1.
Merch: teespring.com/stores/nerdslay...
Patreon: / nerdslayer
Amazon: www.amazon.com/?tag=nerdslayer...
Humble Bundle:www.humblebundle.com/monthly?...
Twitch: / nerdslayerrr
Twitter: / nerdslayerg
Discord: / discord
#DOAG . Death of a Game is a series dedicated to uncovering the mysteries surrounding the death of a game or company. nerdSlayer defines the term "death" in the context of the show as either... 1. Literally dead. 2. Had a mass exodus of players and never recovered (expectations etc). 3. The company ceased to exist. We follow a timeline of events, to uncover clues concerning why a game or company doesn't do well, and attempt to put it all together at the end for a deduction explaining how or why the game failed based on the evidence gathered.
Sources:
web.archive.org/web/200707072...
i.imgur.com/dPIrM.png
www.randalolson.com/wp-content...
web.archive.org/web/200511030...
web.archive.org/web/200511030...
lineage2.fandom.com/wiki/Updates
www.ign.com/articles/2003/05/...
www.mmorpg.com/lineage-2/news...
www.businesswire.com/news/hom...
www.gamespot.com/reviews/line...
www.ign.com/articles/2004/06/...
pc.gamespy.com/pc/lineage-ii-t...
www.businesswire.com/news/hom...
www.gamesindustry.biz/article...
• Lineage II Chronicle 5...
www.gamesindustry.biz/article...
www.businesswire.com/news/hom...
www.wired.com/2010/08/lineage...
www.engadget.com/2011/04/28/g...
www.pcinvasion.com/lineage-2-...
global.ncsoft.com/global/ir/qu...
www.gamerbraves.com/lineage-i...
www.pcgamer.com/lineage-2-cla...
sensortower.com/blog/lineage-...
venturebeat.com/2018/12/09/ho...
massivelyop.com/2019/08/06/li...
lineage2.plaync.com/events/20...
www.pocketgamer.biz/asia/news... - เกม
One thing I planned to cover far more was the effect of the black market, and more specifically automated forms of playing the game (botting). I unfortunately didn't, and I regret that. That being said, it's incredibly difficult to assign the failure of Lineage 2 to the existence of a black market because I am going to shock many of you but...every MMO has a black market and in my experience has had a blackmarket. It's just games like Lineage 1/2 are much easier to bot, due to being click based games.
Anyway, hope you guys enjoyed the video and I know you will enjoy solving this next mystery :)
I wonder how much a black market has affected other MMOs as well as this one. Could make for an interesting video.
@@mrsoupmuffin I have been involved in the black market since I was a child (age 7 maybe?) So at this point, I think I am very over-qualified to speak about it. I used to sell accounts even. I think it's extremely difficult to track how much it effects things, but without an economy that has enough time sinks/money sinks I think inflation happens anyway overtime. So I don't think it's as big of an issue in an MMO as it would be in the real world.
It's actually funny that the game now has a built in basic bot.
@@nerdSlayerstudioss Well it's a big miss. As a teon and franz veteran, and for anyone who played vanilla back then: the game got ruined by bots, mostly ran by chinese clans. But the real cause for all of this was the result of NCsoft korean styled grind, and they're non existent enforcement on bots and farmers bans for pretty much the entire life of the game on the US/EU servers.
There was a point on most populated servers that the only way to kill mobs in the most XP/loot efficient spots of the game, was to PK the chinese bots. The problem was made 10 times worse by the fact that nothing was instanced in the game.
It was impossible if you were not in a top pvp guild to enjoy properly any of the mid to high end content of the game (which was already almost non existent).
So on one hand you had abysmal content and insane grind, on the other hand you couldn't even xp properly or get decent gear without botting or buying gold. All the while NCsoft doing jack shit about all of this.
All MMOs have had black markets and boting, especially back then, but of all the MMOs I've played, and I pllayed quiet a lot, I can't remember another one where the game experience of the average player had been affected so much by the issue. Cause I'm not even getting into how that made the price skyrockets to level where a legit player couldn't even afford basic gear.
@@nerdSlayerstudioss I feel like there are some great stories to be told there. I always find it fascinating how Venezuelan bot have impacted games like OSRS and the ethical/within game economical impacts associated with it. I guess the game having an active player base makes it ineligible for your series though:P
Just hearing the words "Lineage 2" makes me wanna cry from nostalgia. It was the most popular game in Greece for such a long time with a hardcore playerbase.
I'm from Argentina and played for 6 years RPG Club with a CP from Greece, we were a great team :'(
Malaka.
@xrhdin bro i can confirm that, in greece back when most homes didnt have internet we would play L2 in netcafes
bes L2damage.com
Etsi akribws einai l2 global l2 bnb anattixiazw ..... Epi 3 server ..... Foberes epoxes
@@higheloplayer1409 nai. bite l2 miracle
Damn i was surprised when you said that Lineage 2 wasn't very popular in the west, in Russia it has a legendary status and it is still really popular
Fellow Russian but writing in English for our foreign readers:
Heck, I remember a classmate lending me copied Lineage 2 disks with install instructions given verbally. It didn't engage me very much because the guy never played with me after introducing me, and I think it was a private server, but I know I tried it and got hit right in the face by the "endless grind until 20" wall which I failed to surmount.
To me ToI is a russian monument of death. Where every grind turned into a full on war with any player daring to enter the top floors.. which made entire clans showing up. Without ruskies I would have never experienced the great pvp of L2..
You can have your weird smileys back though)
Russia is irrelevant as a market, you guys are just to poor to make profit
In Poland we were more about Tibia and MU online, later Metin 2, but Lineage II was popular too.
It's because he didn't talk about private servers, just about the official NCSoft servers :P I've played maybe one month on official server, and like 10 years on private servers.
Dude, Lineage 2 was THE shit for a Slav. But it was only played on private servers.
finally dude who gets it. russian privates still have 5-10k online on thier top servers on launches, ofc old chronicles only cause goddes and other crap is shit. lithuania, poland, romania, greece had so many players i think usa never even had that much.
Yeah but Ncsoft didn't make any money out of that so it doesn't count
I wonder if it's some kind of a world record.. Like "the biggest fanbase that didn't support the developer" or something :D
@@senaya haha, yah probably. I started to play L2 because of my sister who throw me there and didnt play herself. Got stuck there for next 7 years, funny thing when russian official servers started, people went there to try it aaand it had more " donation " things in cash shop with a lot more p2w then top tier private servers on that time..we were shocked and went back to private servers, where gameplay was more fair XD
@@NostalgicMem0ries wasnt really that popular in romania xD
For me, and dare I say so, the whole East Europe region, Lineage II was THE mmo: everyone played it, everyone has fond memories about it, everyone get's extremely nostalgic about those days. Thousand of servers (official and not so) were home to young and all. Heh, those were the days :(
Everyone I knew played L2 in C3/C4. After that everyone spread out over WoW and other non-MMOs.
Same here in Brazil
@@MATCHLESS789 Also Interlude. C4 and C6 were the shieeettt
South America As well
No not many in the EU knew about lineage 1 or 2. since advertisement was not done for either of the games. it's a shame since many more would have played those games.
I played both. and I still play Lineage 1 to this day. it far the best of the two.
And I hope the next lineage will be built out from lineage 1. like they have said they would. since then I'm game to try it.
Dude when I was in highscool back in 2006 or 2007 I used to leave my pc on during school hours, with my character just sitting on that main city, selling stuff on my own private store. I used to love doing that, and coming back from school and seeing all my stuff being sold
Haha I did the same thing during those exact years while in highschool
Legend m8 played in the same years also in highschool lol i know the exact fun you had, i hope you are well brother.
Lineage 2 died after H5. There are still private servers coming out and gather 1-2k people from time to time and nice to get your mates and try to dominate a server until it dies. Castle sieges are the best thing in this game and I can’t find another MMo to do it this well. The grind is nice and you can power level quite easy if you know the game and the pvp is nuts. PVP is the only thing that keeps this game alive to date. I still play from time to time with friends when a promising server comes up and it’s quite fun. It’s a game where bots are a problem but eventually everyone will hit the cap level and gear and then only the skill and teamwork matters. It’s not a dead game. It’s only played by a niche player base that want pure PVP. The kind of PVP you won’t find anywhere else.
Edit: the best music you’ll find in a MMO 👌💪
L2 dead ? That's what I thought... Before I discovered L2 Destiny H5 private servers... Tens of thousands of players still play it. This game is Legendary in EU, Russia and Korea. If u want experience true Lineage 2 go play private servers. Global servers is garbage.
Hi5 is a garbage update, noone plays Territory wars for pvp, noble quest can be skiped, perma fear, anakim transf is ridiculous, anything below moirai is trash set and when u get elegia u basically cant die vs anything lower. L2 didnt die on hi5...it was alrdy on its death bed long before that(on west).
NCsoft is already started making L2 rework in Unreal Engine 4. This proves that game is still worth worth them, it still makes money.
epilogue was start of all that, destroying old zones, adding stupid easy quests, vitality and other exp boosts...
Problem is I’m sick of leveling to 80 farming top gear PvPing twice over AQ and Baium then server dies .. lmao done it 1,000,000x
Lineage 2 was the crack cocaine of Bulgaria. We were addicted!
most slavic countries too, it was like eastern side wow, just better
Haha true!!
True words
I can confirm ❤
Dion will forever be my home away from home. Shepard's flute still brings a tear to my eye. A toast to all L2 players! To my enemies, to my friends and to those I have never met. It's been an honor!
that town and song owns
Lineage 2 soundtrack was really godlike
You might want to check out 22Timan22 mixes. Especially Aden Sex Party. Every time it comes up in shuffle I smile a lot. And imagine a running dark elf female. Ahhh.
Dion theme is pure euphoria.
@@TheLastPhoen1x Dion was my main town to chill at. I liked to sit at one of the gates and shoot shit with other high-ish level players, giving buffs and rezzing people that lost in PvP. Being a prophet main was fun.
Oh damn just remembered how good it was while hearing the iconic songs in the background ofthis video
Giran Town Theme, my favorite.
To all of my Devianne brothers and sisters, I have nothing but good memories! I will never forget the C2-C4 era... But, also private servers really blew this game up. Greeks vs Slavs vs BRs vs NA. The drama, the clan wars, the grief, the farm--I miss it all.
L2 was crazy popular in Lithuania, probably even more that WoW
Taip seniukai
We were one of biggest communities in Europe along with Russian players that played on EU servers
@@arvydaskamandulis765 ot yra kuo didzuotis :DDDD
@@tonymakaroni2898 Same in bulgaria and czech republic. :) Everyone who knew about MMO's was playing Lineage 2 in Bulgaria..
Sounds like it was an eastern block thing :D
Lineage 2 will never die, it still lives in my hearth.
Yes man this video is shit ;)
I'm playing it right now..
and i still have accs on naia lol it wont die never ever lol
Undergames ixion NEW sever lauch 01/29/2020 h5
I started playing again today
Let me guess. Next game is Valve's Artifact.
That sound bite was perfect.
we already know why that one failed right? greed/cash grabbing and hubris
there's likely a longer list of issues and a interesting BTS story but still, just saying, still if that is next I'll still watch lolz
behind the scenes stories is good IMO
@@davidbreen4830 The "AAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWW" heard 'round the world.
I've been waiting for that episode so I'm glad that he's FINALLY covering it.
Red Lantern's Rage
- Game is not free to play while all other digital TCG alternatives are.
- Pay to play the game, and then pay more to actually get anywhere.
- Overly complicated system that many people wouldn’t bother try out because it was paygated. People might have given it a chance if it was free.
Lineage 2 was love, Lineage 2 was life.
At least Lineage 2 will live in private servers. For many players yet to experience it. Just like retro games, but mmo games.
The truth
Thats why I run my own L2 server still, 8+ years and still active! :)
@@Asagofficial be sure to keep backup files in case if something happens. Also server client file sharing is also important, so more people could run their own servers as well.
It's great thing you do, also.
Try l2classic.club 1st private classic L2 serwer in Europe still have great population, bots are actually banned, cuclic macros are forbitten to ppls cant hit after that witth bots. There are 4 sides on serwer so its heathy. And there are peoples fro all around world EU, NA, Asia... everyhere.
Anybody know a good pve (low rate) server with minimal p2w donations? Really hard to find, honestly.
I adored L2 back in 2005. Back then we all had slow internet connections and it encouraged meeting offline since you couldn't really share music and pictures outside of the game fast enough, so a huge portion of players were actually awkward teens getting out of their shells and acquired important real life skills like talking to people you don't know. Most of mmo games which appeared later already entered an era of fast internet connections which allowed you to have many friends online but being lonely when you log off. For the same reason I know I won't ever be able to enjoy it the same way. I don't know if it's a regional thing but that's what I experienced. With all that said, I'm still getting back to the OST, that's always tickling my nostalgic feels.
Holy shit, the music was amazing. I remember getting up early to grind on free spots on some janky private servers. Good old times. The game was such an insane grindfest, probably way too much for western audiences. Anybody who knows the pain of leveling in Wall of Argos knows what Im talking about ;) And I have no idea how they called the world not compelling. Maybe it wasnt very original but it was the essence of well crafted high fantasy. It was kinda basic but also really cool and understandable.
In Greece, Lineage 2 is still enjoying a cult following and was quite relevant for many, many years... However, one needs to note that almost noone was playing in official servers. Everyone was playing in free to play custom servers. As a result, not a single penny went to the company.
I do not know anyone who played the original Lineage.
P.S: Everyone in Greece is pronouncing Lineage as Line Age. Which is hilarious.
Same pronounciation in europe
Same pronounciation here in the philippines 😁
I'm PRETTY sure the way to say it is indeed "line-age" and not "lineage". At least everyone used to call that way.
Heh, I encountered that when I lived in Ukraine for 7 years. I was an English teacher and one of my students was talking about "Line-Age 2". It took me a minute to figure out they were talking about "Lineage 2".
@@LucasCunhaRocha I was an NCsoft employee for the first 2 years of this games existence. I can assure you that the official pronunciation is how it's said in the video.
It was a cold night, my partner led in through the door and held it open for me to arrive on the scene. And there it was, it corpse was withers away, as if all life with in it was slowly drained from it.
Detective N.S.:Another day, another dead MMO.”
nice flavor! reminded me of the DresdenFiles
@Bandoolero Wish that tv show they made about the books was better.
my god your username is a bionicle reference. Now there's something I wish I'd see more on YT
I need to disagree with your, sir.
No one knew at that time that l2 was a prequel to l1. And no1 cared.
Actual issues were like an iceberg - most parts were hidden for not active players.
Bots and bot developers. The thing is - l2 game protocol used encryption and game had mem protection. But for "unknown" reason there was a "weak spot" like an api for bot programs to connect to. And it was never-ever closed, just changed a few times. So in fact - bot program (l2walker) was supported by ncsoft or someone in the company. And that program made millions of dollars.
GMs never cared about bots. In fact - they used bots for the game market - banning them from time to time, but never too often, and almost never active players that were botting. Internal info that ncsoft had only 2(!) GMs in US timezone (and 0 in EU).
Black market. The HUGEST black market of in-game money and literally hacked in-game items.
You have no idea how many money was made on the black market of a game. And LOTS of pirate servers. With their own black markets.
And I absolutely agree about "grind and pvp only" in the game. And literally nothing else. But... L2 had best sieges that were ever made in any MMO.
It may seem bad now, but i had the absolute time of my life back in those days...L2 was just something else
This guy knows his shit. 14 year off and on L2 player here..he speaks the truth.
L2 was like EVERYTHING in my country, and one of the best spent days in my life amen
Shadowbane had much much better sieges, the best yet and nothing has come close since.
Funny facts from l2 from my experience:
- la2 was a PVP sandbox focused on constant player parties, with a hardcore organization inside, worse than a second job. If someone was late for 10 min for exp time - I made a phone call - "wtf why are you late?"
- organization of sieges was a top-level for us - our siege (and alliance leader) he was one of a top stracraft players of past time, so he organized sieges like... like starcraft, but he was operating not with units, but with parties and blobs of hundreds of players.
- when game protection of latest versions of la2 (classic) became really strong - I found a guy from Kaspersky lab who hacked it. And rejected to take money - he did that just for fun.
Level of dramas, romances, betrayal, scumming. Only EVE Online had more dramas, but EVE players population is 96% male, and in la2 it was like 65% male and 35 female, so players had lots of relationships...
Lineage 2 is still my favorite MMO when it comes to music and overall aesthetic/theme. It used to be really grounded in visuals and had that folk-y vibe, felt like a real virtual world with vast empty spaces, local/server wide economies, friendships and rivalries.
Stopped playing soon after C6 came out. While gameplay wise it was just more of the same (except for herbs, gave me arcadey feeling) I didn't like where they wen't conceptually(?) by introducing dinosaurs. It just felt like it didn't fit the rest of the world. I used to check out what's new until around GoD when I dropped it completely and haven't even thought about it until today. It felt like every update further destroyed that consistent thematic virtual world feel to me - dinosaurs, one-winged angels as a playable race, flying ships, super flashy brittle looking armors instead of actually practical and non-magical looking sets of the past (dark elf females are an exception).
And all of that just from the 'vibe' and immersion viewpoint.
Armours in Lineage 2 is something else. I still hope into privete x1000 exp servers just for the fashion. Never found a game who had such amazing and simple armory ever gain, expect maybe Fashion Souls.
I stopped playing around goddess of destruction, but I still listen to that magnificent music. I sometimes download some pirate server's client and go sit in elven village. My main character was high elf mage created in 2005.
@@randomnickname2140 a couple years back I, uh, acquired the entire soundtrack and now sometimes listen to it while playing other games. Unfortunately (or fortunately, maybe) every track is really short, sometimes not even a minute long and is made to be looped.
I'll never forget Giran's warehouse music.
Dinosaurs is funny. Neverwinter Online also introduced dinosaurs shortly after I dropped that game several years ago. What a truly shit game that is. Anyone who drops money into that right now is a bigger fool than they ever think is possible.
Totally agree with you bud, all these new chronicles released every year just disbalanced game more and more. For me the perfect fun was C3 chronicle, where you had interesting world, just enough variety of gear and skills, nobody became this powerful to take down players in couple hits and the map was just perfect with enough spots to have fun and not to feel empty.
After C3 everything just went down hill for me, with more and more OP classes, armor sets etc. This games just should have stayed simple as it was since the beta opening.
Miss those days:(
isn't Lineage 2 getting remastered like... as we speak? I still play the game from time to time, it was my first MMORPG and i will never drop it, even if i'm the last one grinding out in dragon valley
It is yes
@@bamboogameplay138 Where can we read about it?
Throne&Liberty = Lineage 3
Already playable in Korea
Oh man, I remember this game being absolutely georgeous. I was more of a WoW guy, but I often visited Lineage 2 just because I loved how the world looked and sounded.
Thank you for covering one of my favorite game.
But i'm shocked when you said Lineage 2 is considered flop in West. This game were one of few well-known mmorpg in Indonesia. Even when Indonesian server were closed it's angered all of the active player.
This game will always be the best game i've ever play.
I agree, I still randomly play on private servers ever since h5 interlude. When I left OG servers.
This is still my forever game
It was closed for a good reason imho, GoD update was a huge mistake, in fact some active players were already quit just a few months after H5 update (at least in Bartz, not sure in Sieghart)
i don't know if you know, but lineage is still today very very popular on private servers, a lot of people like me don't like to play on the original server because most players dislike the quests and the new chronics, thats part of the reason of low populatiry of the original lineage 2
Agreed. There are many people who prefers older chronicles and decide to play on private servers for the sake of playing on older versions. And that might be another reason of official servers not being so "lively" - private servers. There are many of them. We have to take a count too at the fact, they existed long before lineage went f2p, as there was always that part of audience which couldn't afford monthly subscriptions to play the game and I'm sure people still might prefer playing on private servers, mainly because of higher rates, which basically means less grindfest.
(EDIT) I actually never seen so far any other MMO which could have so many private servers to choose from, but I guess there might be some other MMO's with bigger amount of private servers than this one.
@@Terdonis Totally agree on that. I played private servers only because I didnt have money to afford playing the original server. Also my machine sucks (and sucked as well back then), so thinking in playing Goddess of Destruction was a nevermind to me. Also there are a lot of games that have a lot of private servers. There are pages in which you can find private servers top 100 lists as it is the case of Ragnarok Online (I played it a lot along with L2).
Classic is being around since 2015, wtf
I stopped after interlude , what did they do to the questing? They made it more like wow where you just endlessly quest and follow a trail? Type stuff? I always wondered if that would work for US audience instead of L2 grind fest
@@Havie There's no quest grind in L2, there are very very few quests that serves a purpose and then you're done, the only way to achieve any progression is through kill grind
I actually really loved Lineage 2, I played a ton of MMOs back in the day and hands down Lineage 2 had the best world. I remember hours just running around looking at stuff, there was tons of interesting locations that no one even knew existed and the world would transition naturally between locations it felt like an actual place. Unlike WoW which felt like a theme park, nothing interesting would exist in places you wheren't guided too or meant to look at, areas would lazily and abruptly run into each other with obvious lines of demarcation. I also loved how unique playing a character felt, you could look at another player who was wearing the same armor set as you but you could easily tell what gender they where, what race they where and what class they where because the armor design would change to reflect all 3 factors but yet you could still tell what armor set they where wearing too. Also armor looked fantastic, it looked like functioning armor, not like a painted T-shirt with glowy floaty shit all over it. Even the newbie trash gear looked great. Lineage 2 was a true MMO you could really live in its world and be apart of it.
I can feel this so much with wow, every area is surrounded with huge mountains and you can only move to the next area by going through small openings in the mountains, makes the whole world feels unrealistic and disconnected and I hate that. I've never seen a game nail open world as well as L2 since it came out, nothing has even come close.
you failed to mention the real reason, ocean of bots since as early as chronical 2, and ncsoft's absolute ignorance of them. by the way the cultural reference, maybe it is true, but existing irl doesn't make it any less garbage.
Not just that, I think World of Warcraft, Guild Wars 1 and Guild Wars 2 should have been a lot more emphasized. L2 came out squeezed between both WoW and GW1, and need I remind you, GW2 was also incredibly successful. Honestly, it's astounding that L2 even got the playerbase it did in the west. And then when the last juggernaut that was GW2 came out, it pretty much finished L2 off.
But here's the thing though. NCSoft still absolutely won here. I think it's clear that L2 was never intended to compete seriously in the west. That was what GW1 and 2 were for. They were NCSoft's real answer to WoW's dominance. And considering the Guild Wars series was and is the only MMO that succeeds in putting up a very nice fight against it, it's clear NCSoft had a damn good answer. And the Lineage 2 launch over in the west? It was just a nice little bonus.
What I feel really brought L2 to it's knees, is the pay to win aspect of it. Events where you have to buy NCoin to purchase boxes for loot, which will either give you a massive advantage, or just take your money. Anyone who still plays retail Lineage 2, has spent at least $1000's in the game for armor or weapons, boss jewels or Adena to purchase items. Top level items now (+12 R110 armor and +15/16 PvP weapons are in the $15k range, especially if you count level 3 boss weapons) they added too much stuff.
@@arnox4554 GW2 is very different game from LA2, I'd rather say BDO sucked last juices from LA2
@@randomnickname2140 Yes, it is a very different game, but that's why it succeeded in the west and L2 didn't. As to BDO, do you have any hard numbers in terms of western playercounts?
@@q2subzero $15k for in-game items is just way too much. Miss me with this shit, fam. It's no wonder why many others don't see MMOs as being viable for having fun or enjoyable. This is straight up garbage and I'm not trolling. I'm simply expressing my opinion.
I have people that I recognize that are still playing Warframe almost exclusively when there are so many good games out there right now. It's insane.
Lineage 2 is loved until today here in Brasil. There's a lot of people hyped by the new Lineage announcements.
L2 here in Russia actually used to rival WoW in popularity
and nobody gives two f***s about russia
As a south american, i used to envy Lineage 2's popularity on Russia.
@@kurojima and less about your rude opinion '-'
@@mattwo7 which the U.S. is, but russia as a market is just not relevant, not enough money to make there due to poor economy, no profit in it
@@kurojima things change, lately Russians spend more and more on online games. Still not as huge as asia and west but they're getting there.
Not a single mention of bots and gold sellers. That’s what truly killed/hindered L2’s growth in the western market. Blessed scrolls of escape killed pvp. Lots of interesting points, many things missed.
While I did want to cover it somewhat (my notes show this much), and I regret not mentioning the gold selling, botting, and such more in length. I also believe it's something that is incredibly overblown. For example, you pointed it out as this crucial issue. You didn't however, make an argument nor provided any evidence to follow your claim as it's what "truly killed" Lineage 2. (I think that's really hard to prove)
Cheating in linage 2 was a topic in forums 10 years ago and brought up always -I cant stand the "western style " which so asian and never did .Cant they run as humans ..obviosly not but as we in west see ghost move or float as running or walking -that is not how my character will move in any game.
@@nerdSlayerstudioss its not overblown I think. Ease of automation (some players were using macro clickers as a bot - next target and attack) and insane value of money led to a huge bot and RMT problem. Lineage 2 was relying heavily on player interaction to make it fun.
While RMT easiness and profit led to the following:
- Many places were overcrowded with bots, directly impacting your gameplay - they were fending off players, because there were no instances. Bots were eating space for humans. Even if you find some free space keep in mind that playing alone wasn't fun. My first character didn't met a lot of bots, but when I was helping leveling clan support characters around C4-C5 the problem was already massive. Whole catacombs full with autoattacking dwarfs.
- A lot of people were lured by money but didn't like the game they had to play. For the game that relied heavily on community they were like a plague.
Gold selling and botting, and ofc private servers, were the indication of what killed L2, not the cause. Gearing properly without a solid income system (I was one of the top d weapon sellers at Dion on Teon server for 3 years) and not having a lot of time to grind xp you were to lose on pvp (if not also gear), drove away a lot of players to WoW, and the main reason why i left also when life demanded more and more time.
@@nerdSlayerstudioss You must've not really played Lineage 2... Botting until today is killing even private servers, heck, a new server that opened up 2 months ago is seeing decrease in players because GMs is not doing anything about bots.
So many memories and nostalgia from this amazing mmo... The Draconic armor set for human male looks so cool... The soundtracks, art of the entire game, the PVP, the sieges, the epic bosses, the craft system... All in this game is GOLD.
yea and much much more. Since i first time played L2 in 2006, in next 15 years I still didnt find any game like it.
This one is going to hurt my heart. I just know it.
I played Lineage 2 from Beta, and really hit it full-bore with Chronicle 3. Played the hell out of it for the next 4+ years, and loved it.
Wasn't a perfect game. NCSoft was terrible about dealing with certain in-game issues (ie bots), but you learned to play around that.
I have never before, or since played a PVP MMORPG with a community quite as "mature" as L2's during that period. They differentiated "PvP'ers" from "gankers". They didn't suffer serial pk'ers ruining the experience for new players and driving them away. They realized that maybe more than any other genre, PvP MMOs live and die by their player populations. I've never seen camaraderie or team spirit in guilds/clans like I did in L2. It just had so much right - and a lot of that due to NCSoft's very "hands-off" approach to player moderation. Unless it crossed the line into personal harassment, they didn't interfere with PvP or Ganking or any of that. They'd tell you "Make friends, and fight back". And people did just that.
Never seen a MMORPG marry PvE and PvP so perfectly, either. People say such a thing isn't possible, but they're mistaken. NCSoft nailed it, making PvP and PvE support and work off each other. The trick was, they were designed to complement each other in the core design. PvP wasn't tagged on to a PvE game, or vice versa.
After FFXI (pre-Abyssea), L2 was my go-to MMORPG.
Then Goddess of Destruction happened, and it destroyed all of that.
It's nice hearing people's MMO stories, I played a trashy Korean game that I've come to find out was mostly stolen, at least were the engine is concerned (although I'm probably wrong as it's third hand knowledge) called Conquer Online, had a very similar atmosphere as what you've mentioned, well aside from many people trying to rescue newbies anyway it wasn't unheard of but outside of the group of people I knew it was fairly uncommon.
There is a certain kind of natural story telling that emerges in multiplayer sandboxes that just can't be beaten when everything clicks right, you literally get people who are akin to infamous villains and epic ass heroes on a server, even CO as trashy and pay to win as it was and leaned even more into in it's later years captured some of that magic.
I don't like the idea of being ganked as a newbie but I have to admit that a world that subjects you to the danger and will of others is far more exciting than the rigid and limited PvE worlds of many MMO's
I may sound grumpy but when Kamael hit the live servers it was the start of the end and thr population started diminishing in both Official and Private servers. When GoD launched the end came with it. The game was no longer the game that we've been playing and spending so much time on. It was sth else that had lost its soul.
Why did GOD destroy the game?
@@BleedForTheWorld because it was no longer l2. It was sth else that resembled l2. Geodata changed everywhere. Classes while pre GoD were unique post God they were the same. Having sane skills and usages. The only difference were the race traits. The game became heavily unbalanced and heavy p2w. Nowadays if you want to be somewhat competitive you have to spend at least 1.5k eu.
@@Alexis5224 Incredible. NC brutalized the game. 1.5k euro and I bet the same amount that people have spent much more than that just to win with digital pixels that don't exist. People are insane.
Spend most of my teen days playing this game with my friend, an exceedingly amount of hours spent and enjoyed.
A quick note would be that most of the players would and will be playing on private servers. The "official" server on the west was and still is empty as the Chronicles basically destroyed the game we all use to know and love with uneeded forced content instead of the sandbox style that made the game midly successful.
That and all of us growing older with less time, I am not an emotional guy but this game man, was fun while it lasted. Always treasure hunter in my heart
This game was magical for me. That launch screen when you enter creds. Specially of interlude. Oh my... And music in the towns and cities. I will remember this game forever.
I wish i could return to those times
I missed the charging soul shot sound effect. -BEEOWW!!!!
And after the sound of critical hit!
@@SaKeD3LiK yup that shits like crack
Ah the C4 times, they ll always have a special place in my heart. Rest in peace Lineage 2.
c4 and c6 were absolute peak of lineage 2
"So the company, which has offices in Austin, called the FBI. The suspect was apparently lining his own pockets from “donations” and ads on his site while his pirated version of the game, “Lineage II,” was siphoning $750,000 a month in potential revenues from the company."
so i would say private servers in Lineage 2 were quite a big deal, probably biggest we have seen so far... game on retail had issues, which were solved on lots of the private servers. Increased rates, working anti-cheat/botting protection, no multiboxing. I feel like with tweaks like that the game would have been much more successful here in west. Official servers really had reputation where you just don't play the game without buying multiple accounts and botting it, which always was downfall of the game in my mind.
L2 Extreme conducted massive fraud. I was playing on it at the time and knew one of the owners. I remember the day when FBI announced on their mIRC channel that the server is getting shut down.
I was obsessed with L2 for years. Amazing game, no hand holding there. PVP was brutal too.
The timing on this video was perfect.
Just a couple weeks ago i was having a nostalgic episode remembering all the time i spent playing Lineage 2 (i used to play on an argentinian fan-server). This video really brought a lot of memories back.
I stopped playing back on 2010, leaving my old and beloved clan behind. Two weeks ago i decided to go back just to found out that the entire clan was banned back in 2016 because the new leaders (all the old leaders and clan members that i knew had abandon the server too by that point) had established a gold black market!
So yeah... even if i went back to the game, all the people that i knew are no longer there.
Estás hablando de un server argentino q duró tantos años? Playonline?
Nah, me refiero a Gravedad Zero. Sorpresivamente el server sigue online aun hoy en dia.
I remember in the late 2000s while I was playing WoW, I made friends with people who were playing hardcore Lineage 2 private servers. It was a very small community in France, and they were all playing literally every new French private server that opened. Everyone was playing on potato laptops and it would take literally 10s of minutes to start up the game, and it was not uncommon that it would crash in the middle of that, or textures wouldn't load in the game. It was absolutely ridiculous to me, a fervent WoW player who was used to low framerates yes, but at least the game would start almost instantly.
The PvP system in this game blew my mind. It was, for all intents and purposes, a true PvP MMORPG. People were making clans, alliances, could declare war on each other so they would not have to flag for PvP combat to kill each other (if you kill a player that is not flagged for PvP, you enter a state where you can drop your gear if you get killed until you kill some mobs, so it was a very dangerous thing to do). Clans were fighting for world bosses. I remember a clan fight for Barakiel that looked absolutely daunting because of the sheer scale, even though the combat system was so simple, everyone had a role and you could definitely spot the bad, good and great players in the midst, as opposed to WoW where basically the number advantage is everything.
Powerful clans had the Heroes, players who were the 1st ranked in Olympic Games, essentially the equivalent of arena in WoW, but in 1v1. Some people rolled classes like Overlord that is pretty much only a clan buffer class, just so they could have easy access to a Hero title, because it gave you incredible abilities to use in PvP combat, like Ultimate Defense skills that would basically make you invincible for 10s of seconds if not minutes, among other things. There were win trading strategies to give more OG points to certain players because others wouldn't need as many points to be 1st of their class, or simply clan members giving points to the player of the same class to ensure they would get the Hero title. It seemed kind of unfair, but thinking back it also gives you incentives to play for the clan and not for yourself, and that in my opinion is a good thing in a MMORPG.
Overall I had trouble getting into the game because, let's face it, WoW shaped my view in terms of playstyle because the basic combat system was so intuitive and simple, as opposed to games like Lineage 2 that had many many more styles of play, more combination of skills that allowed for creative play and overall a more sophisticated class interactions. You could play a Warcryer, who is basically useless outside of giving his party buffs, but those buffs were so powerful that it could make a group of 5 people destroy a group of 10s of people very easily, and that was incredible to me. And Warcryer was not even the only class like this, there were several buffer classes. Rolling a class was almost always rewarding because every class was so different, something that WoW was already originally lacking and as the game progressed, was even more dampened by Blizzard giving all classes the same mechanics like healing effects reduction or spell cast interrupts, or raid buffs that would not stack with other classes' similar buffs.
It's really a shame that this game was not as successful, because as a long time WoW player I consider Lineage 2 to be a much better game because large scale world PvP seems much more appealing to me than instanciated PvE content. Not to mention the arena system that is a complete joke, where some classes lose their main characteristic, like rogues not being able to pick their fight because they're thrown in a context where everyone knows they are part of the enemy team; and where basically half the game is disabled because you can't use consumes or professions, or longer cooldown abilities like Recklessness for warriors. In that regard I truly think WoW was the worst thing that could have happened to the MMORPG scene, because it had such a monopoly that everyone was forced to copy them, or try to distinguish so much from them that they would implement dumb, overengineered and unintuitive mechanics in their game. The MMORPG genre basically became the PvE Theme Park genre, because everything else was not commercially successful, or as successful as WoW, which made their company consider it a failure.
This was such a good game . They lost me when they added the same skills to all classes. I hope big changes come when the remaster comes out.
There is no remaster. Its just another mobile trash.
Here in Argentina L2 was really popular, but nobody played the official server, they played unnoficial "free" servers with experience boosts and other stuff.
Lineage 2 has a special place for me, I was like 16 when it came out. I had a girlfriend that broke up with me. I was playing with a really kindhearted Canadian kid a bunch at the time. I said something to the effect that my girlfriend broke up with me, I was super sad and I wish I was dead. He (with the best intentions I'm sure) let the authorities know I was suicidal (I wasn't at all) and I got a really awkward call into the principals' office to make sure I was alright. I was really embarrassed but looking back on it he was very kind to care for my well-being. I'll never forget that kindness
Private servers from c1-c5 had over all much greater online players - that Why
In Lithuania the game was really popular, i think it did a big impact in mmo rpgs till this day.
It's such a shame that the world doesn't have much video footage of the early lineage 2 days from 2004 on. Lineage 2 2004 was such a magical time. It's a time and memories that we will never get back and those who played will always remember. I remember just getting my drivers license and my buddy on Delta Force: Blackhawk down at the time told me I need to go get lineage 2. I drove to my local game stop and I was looking thru the PC game section and I found it. Just looking at the box art got me hyped and reading the game description almost sent me over the edge. Goddamn I loved this game and I wish I could go back.
Great review, howerver in this review, related to "Death of a game" there should've been some focus on the private servers side of things.
Myself, having played since C4 can say with certainty, there were way more players playing on private servers than on L2 official ones.
Agree.
I played Lineage 2 for more than 10 years and I only tried the official server when 4Games released it Free to Play and there was this weird 7 classes only on the endgame.
I never wanted to be an Aeore Healer, I was a Cardinal!🤣
I was playing Lineage 2 for 12 years :) even tho im still getting into servers time to time just for good feelings , u guys don't understand but believe me even its soundtracks are amazing its kinda sword art online when you really feel the game almost like you're in it , i play Dion theme on guitar actually played today too and sentiments are amazing . i consider my self as a PRO player and i can tell , the whole point of lineage 2 is to learn i mean its hard AF but when u learn its essence Trust me you'll never forget ...
Yep, the game has so much to offer played it for a similar amount of time as you. Too bad NCsoft ruined it.
I played Lineage 1 and 2. It was very successful for many years in America as well as SK. I will always have the best memories and hearing the music brings back so many great memories! RIP! You Mad?❤
Why would someone be mad that you had fun?
still waiting for lineage 3 to this day
Damn Lineage 2 was mine first and the only one MMO where I've spent tons of hours in. Up until GoD chronicle was released.
Also the music in towns is glorious.
"We have had 4 Million Customers."
I'm not surprised, NCSoft do the same thing with Guild Wars 2, claiming something like 3 Million Active Players as of April last year. It is highly dubious since when I logged on for the first time in two years, I saw a total of about twenty five people in Lion's Arch, nine of whom were ERPing with Charr and Asura characters openly on the Map Chat, as well as there being a total of three parties looking for party members on the entire server.
Everytime I see old footage of lineage 2 or hear the music I want to cry, soo nostalgic. I use to play a love this game, and is really sad seeing the game in his last moments. I'm speaking from a latinoamerican perspective though.
I have played Lineage 2 from open beta till Goddes of Destruction. While I agree that the game was grindy but it was this what made the game so much memorable for me. The sense of achievement of gaining that last 0.01% to get to the next level, being so happy to announce that DING sound you have been working for days/weeks/months in clanchat was priceless. And the fear of losing this progress because of PvP was thrilling. The PvP alone was masterly done because it enabled the social expect of the game. Many wars/conflicts were won through diplomacy ingame or forums and there were consequences for your actions. You had to upheld a reputation in this game to achieve your goals. You could go on a mindless killingspree if you wanted but that would not get you so far. The karma system was in place so that there was risk for a PK were you could lose your precious gear. Heck even saw people lose extremely valuable epic raid jewels, gear that would net you a few thousand dollars on the black market, because said player went red by engaging a 1 sides PvP and killing its opponent to be killed himself later.
IMO what killed the game was the poor ballancing of the game by NC Soft and the inability to react fast to said imbalances. One example was how crazy high damage archers could lay down by silly critical damage modifiers this game had. With certain buffs and high end gear, archers could 1 or 2 shot shot even tanks in this game which let to elite 7 man parties killing whole clans on siege fields. Since the game had no instanced raids, PvP was the deciding factor who got the spoils in the end. This let the strongest clan hoard the best epic gear from raids because their opponents could not touch them. The strongest clans also had a lock down on the best hunting spots so they could level faster and gain better skills/buffs and the power gap went even bigger. Because of this people could not progress further and were just canon fodder for these players. Alot of players left because of this and the players on the top sometimes got bored of the lack of challenge and that made them leave also. This let another clan to gain power and the cycle was repeating.
I could write novels about my time playing this game but we could summarise as follow: it was hard but it was a damn beautifull experience.
I had some of the most fun online on lineage 2 and met a lot of great people. I think the greatest barrier to western players is they dont realise how dependent you are on clans in the game to progress. I dedicated over 10 years to this game and I dont feel like I regret any of it!
i live in eastern eu and EVERYONE talked about lineage 2 when I was in high school but we all played on private servers so no profits for ncsoft lmao
Lineage 2 also had such a beautiful Soundtrack, its bring memories, going to Dion ad Hunter Village to wait for MP to recover
Still one of my favourite series on TH-cam. Thanks for you work NS.
Ironic that a game called "Lineage" failed to spawn a successful progeny. Great video, as always, Slayer!
Artifact is next i think? this video is a long time coming, actually, it was already dead on arrival, great video my dude, every time i watch a D.O.A.G reminds me all the years i played Cabal Online, which is now dead pretty much. Keep up the good work ;)
L2 died with the launch of Goddess of Destruction and i cashed in on all my accounts few months later.The L2 community never really cared about this game.
I can't thank you enough for making this video. It puts a true gentle knife through my bleeding nostalgic heart. I still think of a time I enjoyed L2C4, but whenever I do I can bring up this video and tell myself: leave the past in the past.❤
Thank you so much for the lunch/dinner!
Oh gods, I've played so much Lineage 2 while in middle school way back around 2004-2007. So many good memories! It was fun too, even though grind was real.
Man the SoundTrack of this game is the best EVER!
I have a couple strong memories associated with this game and the early days of my foray into MMOs. My first character was a dwarf spoiler and I barely spoke English which made things more difficult than they actually were.
First one is stupid and funny but at the time it was devastating. I was very new to the game and from the moment I saw someone riding a strider I knew I wanted one. So my 11 year old worked his ass off and a few weeks later with the help of friends I've made on the way I've finally completed what at the time felt like an excruciating questline I've finally obtained my hatchling.
Immediately I rushed off to start levelling it. It was very weak and I was really bad so I started levelling it at some low lvl ruins. I don't think I've got a single level before my hatchling died to the mobs. I panicked for a second but had a resurrection scroll on me, revived it, told myself to be more careful and carried on. Then it died again. No worries, same thing.. except I was out of resurrection scrolls. Panic starts to set in, I quickly ask if my pet's corpse will remain there if I port to town to get some resurrection scrolls and thankfully they said that it will stay for around 5 minutes. Still panicking but now with a plan in mind I open my inventory and start looking for Scroll of Escape, my heart pounding faster and faster until I realize that I'm out of those scrolls, too! Panic completely overtook me as I started spamming local/shout chat channels for help - 'someone please SoR or SoE, I beg you'. A couple minutes went by with no help at all as it seems that the only things in this area were my dying hatchling and I.
Finally panic dissipates and tears roll in. It seems hilarious now, but back then it felt like nothing I've ever experienced before. Even my mom came into my room to ask what happened and I felt like shit telling her that my 'pet' died to nothing else but my own inability to take care of it.
Later in town I noticed that I still have the flute and to my surprise after using it it still summoned my hatchling (or rather his corpse)! I resurrected him and felt the biggest relief I've ever felt so far.
The second story is a lit shorter and I think happened prior to the first one. Anyways, I was a Dwarf Scavenger, not the greatest killing machine around and for some reason I was using a dagger. A mage dagger. C Grade mage dagger which I've somehow got to +8. Anyways, having recently found out about enchanting I was really curious about how to get it higher. One day some guy told me he knows a trick. I think you know where I'm going.
He told me to meet up outside Giran's gate near the Silenas where he will divulge how this trick supposedly works. 'Enter the inventory, double-click on the enchant, select your dagger but don't confirm, drop it on the floor, wait 10 seconds and then pick it up'. Shockingly the dagger the disappeared. 'Sometimes it still doesn't work and gets crystallized anyways' he told me. It was at that point I realized something was fishy here (give me a break, I was a dumb child). I told my clan what happened and don't know how but a few hours later they got my dagger back. I've never felt so dumb and embarrassed ever again.
I've never fallen to another scam again. On the other hand - I'm still trying to work out my trust issues to this day.
I love MMO war stories, hahaha. Your strider story is absolutely fantastic.
I played this game from C1 to Interlude, the sieges and hunting enemies were really fun when you get the high levels. I still listen the soundtrack from time to time, great memories.
As person who lives in Russa, learning that Lineage 2 is "dead" was very bizarre, to say the least. It's still is going big here and is one of the most profitable internet business projects, if you want to "own" online gaming server, official Innova servers are extremely populated and I've seen people investing 40-80k $ just to "test out" characters. In the west, though, nothing could ever be compared to WoW in terms of popularity over years.
Well i did see some news that Lineage 2 will be getting remastered on the Unreal 4 engine.
It already got remastered in a shitty “classic” version
Well, there goes my adolescence. I used to play Lineage 2 from 2005 to 2012 or so. Made a lot of friends, and it was part of my life. But yeah, the game is a boring grindfest with little reward if you don't really like politics and economics.
The music was great tho, and i'm glad i can experience the joy of playing lots different games instead of a single one for years.
Still, Lineage 2 is a great game to play on a private server with high rates, since the endgame warring between castles is just so much fun.
(The last server i played was a Red vs Blue kind of thing. Lots of PvP minigames, so much fun.)
what server were you playing on? which expansion did it have?
I love L2,even if I haven't played it in like 5 years now and I swear it,if all of my friends that use to played come again to play it,I will be there with them. So much memories,from failing to kill a boss with my friends to grinding my ass off to make gear and Subclass and Noblesse quest chains are forever burned in my memory. I remember clan(guild)leaders I had,I even remember some "enemies" I had,making friends,breaking bonds,treason,making up and so much more
You know I just found some of your old Character study videos and really like them, any chance of doing more videos of that type in the future?
Do Immortality of a Game: Lineage 1. I wanna see that hour long video.
Well alot of private servers are still alive and kicking.
Just found your channel. I've been missing out holy shit
Back in the day lineage 2 put my geforce 4000 on fire, i mean my graphic card literally burnt and there was smoke coming out of my PC, this is a true story that i will never ever forget
Lineage 2, the memories, the feels... thank you.
Next Death of a game : Blade & soul. Kappa
BnS was death in birth.
@@vasilmirchev4555 I would say its release felt "promising". But Ncwest fucked it all up as soon as microtransactions became more agressive (aka p2w) and fail to deliver in term of pacing the content.
Yeah BnS is really dying and it would be nice to touch upon upcoming ue4 update
@@itisthefear Update =/= popularity & players. Please sir. We are talking about failure too, not only games that have been shut down...
@@Kyrrua_ I know. That's also my point but I disagree with you updates generally bring people back to the games to test them etc. I'd like to hear an in depth video about BnS since the long awaited ue4 is around the corner
Lineage 2 was my first mmo.. Although admittidly I played it on private servers. Anyone remember L2J?
Finally, someone talking about this topic, nice video! . New suscriber btw
it triggers me so much seeing my childhood falling off like that :(
i still play lineage 2 :P and a lot of servers are alive with a suprising amount of players
are there in europe ? ANy before godes chronicle?
@@leodoingthings1706 L2 Reborn, x1, no dualbox, now we have big online like 2k real players
I have 2 main memories of playing Lineage II. The first was trying to leave the newbie starter town on the starter island and having a max level PKer just outside the range of the NPC guards who was literally one-shot killing everyone, and being essentially locked in the town unable to progress. After filing a ticket with support about this griefer, I was summarily told that GMs could not interfere in player disputes and to "get a group together to kill them"; except the entire population of Lvl 1-5 players on the island wouldn't stand a chance of killing this guy together even if we tried. Oh, and you'd de-level if you died enough...
The second memory is of trying to sell a really good low-level bow I'd found and realizing that the only way to sell player goods to other players was to create a bazaar; which involved finding a public place with a lot of traffic, setting up a shop, and then just hoping that someone came along, inspected what your character was selling, and was interested in buying. Oh, and you needed to be logged in the entire time this was happening. Just staring at your character sitting on a bridge or a roadway...for hours and hours on end...unable to do anything else. I think I spent something like 3 hours sitting outside the entrance to a hub city before giving up. This was at a time when WoW had Auction Houses, which just made Lineage seem clunky and ridiculous.
So yeah, other than liking the art style, I can't really recall much about L2 that I enjoyed. I think I used the first free month of subscription time and then abandoned it.
Man I'm just overwhelmed by nostalgia. This game had a huge scene on private servers, mostly c4 and c6 chronicles.
I played this game religiously/competitively for most of my childhood on midrate servers (x20 - x75). We were always the same few thousand people hopping from one server to another, we fought each other in mass pvp/sieges for thousands of hours, made a metric fuckton of flaming posts on server forums just clowning each other, recorded edited and posted thousands of hours of footage from all that pvp against each other's clans.. The first few days/weeks of a server launch were just magical. The initial rush to the end game pvp (which we'd reach about 3 days into a server) and then the end game mass pvp around epic bosses and castles was so competitive on most servers that clans of 80-100 people would literally no-life farm and pvp for days on end, all in the same ventrilo/teamspeak server, just to get an advantage over the enemy clans doing the same, all for bragging rights lol
Most good clans even got to the point of being paid by server admins to come on their server, bring allies and enemies, and make videos of mass pvp to post on the forums in order to attract new players and donations. I'm pretty sure russian private servers still do this and still thrive, even with older chronicles. Even back then when I played, the russians had a massive presence. Every 2-3 years we'd ally up with past enemies just to attempt and compete against russian zergs in the top russian servers. Good fucking times man..
Lineage II was my first ever MMORPG, and I've enjoyed playing it for the past 16 years. I still come back to it every now and then. And by that I mean almost bi-monthly I'll have a week long spree of killing enemies on various private servers. What I like now is seeing how various private servers change game mechanics and make the game seem fresh again (I have even hosted my own server in the past).
As much as this game holds such an important place in my heart and will always remain my favourite MMORPG ever, I can also tell how dated it is. Goddess of Destruction, as much as I love the newly added features, had ruined my nostalgia with the game and that is what kept bringing me back. Aside from nostalgia, Lineage II doesn't offer much that other games don't already offer but better...
I'm hopeful that the remake of Lineage II will bring it back up to par, but at the same time, the dev team will not just have to upgrade the engine, but also change some core parts of the game WITHOUT altering the SOUL of the game. If the Lineage II remake doesn't work out well.. I can always petition for a Lineage 3.
I love the game, I love it. I always have and always will. There is nothing that keeps me from hoping for its upcoming success and I hope whatever changes they will make can cause the game to catch on in the MMORPG community once again. As much as I am hopeful, however, I am also realistic, and I know that the last two paragraphs are very unlikely to ever come to pass. I will have to see how the remake turns out, but I will be there...will you?
Many things you got bad, as player who played lineage 2 since 2005, i must say downfall was actually after gracia chronicle, you left out gracia-epilogue-freya-h5 chronicles that were major downfall. Game peaked at c4 and c6 chronicles, and west never been major thing for lineage 2 community. Asia and eastern europe were most important communities, had most legendarily clans and allies in all servers. This game was unique and original when it didnt had that stupid quest for exp quest for item system, grind and crafting was most amazing thing, it was grind but you felt amazing achivement when you got that 2nd or 3rd class, or nobles/hero, while other games like world of warcraft always felt stupid in pvp, no true end game fun, and it felt so stupid when you played l2 for long time and tried wow, it was like child stuff (wow) vs mature gaming (l2)
Also you didnt mentioned private servers that at some times had higher onlines than global servers.... and even today thousands of servers all around have thousands of players but most popular chronicles in privates always was c6 aka interlude, gracia final. Russia, lithuania, poland were major gaming countries in lineage 2.
30+ classes, MASSIVE map, without loading crap, you could run all around in hours. Having 10+ zones for each level to level up, not just 1 or 2 zones like other games have. Also one of best soundtracks by bill brown, that dion, giran, hunter village themes still are masterpieces and nostalgie bombs for players
Goddes of destruction is a disgrace and should not even be mentioned.... it had nothing to do with original game that we loved.
Private servers had a lot of impact on their retail activity aswell, there were and still are tons of private servers, and even with the old engine, and grindy system, the game has a certain appeal that no other game has, if you played Lineage 2, eventually you'll find yourself returning to it cause nowdays mmos sucks and are cosmetic shit focused.
Private Servers are a big part of what killed the game, since nobody played classic when they could play private with all the hard parts cut out + free
@@Trepanation21 by the time ncsoft classic came out (first classic was actually a private RU server), the company already killed the game with microtransactions and all kinds of p2w stuff, even then classic was sorta good until version 2.0, after that point devs turned it into sh1t again...
Man, I remember being in school in Ukraine and most of people I knew were spending money in internet cafe's playing Lineage II. And when they would talk about the game I couldn't understand what they were saying. Hell, I remember a story of someone getting into a switchbox and turning off electricity in an entire apartment building to sabotage a siege for the defending clan a bunch of people from wich lived in the same building.
Thank you greatly for the sources! Great video. I agree with most of your assessment. Sensitivity to the market is important for growth and success.
They got some clips of the video from your videos. Cool.
Oh man, I've spent a ton of hours in this game.
Lineage 2 was the only competitor to dominate WOW for a "quiet long" time. L2 had enough subs and was peaking out at c3. L2 was highly successful till Interlude. L2 is till this day still played a lot. Ofc no match for modern WOW but still enough to keep the game developed and earn money with it. I basically played L2 forever, from Korean closed beta all the way up to Kamael and from time to time i still play it till this day. What makes it unique is that L2 as way ahead of its time but just not good received for the european market. It was hard, slow paced, and punishing but on the other hand rewarding and had superb teamplay. There were no useless classes like in WOW classic where you cant even enter a raid as Shadow Priest. No other game back then had such a high depth and density in the class composition than L2. I for myself would consider L2 from C1 - Interlude as strong as WOW from Classic - Wotlk.
Lineage 2 classic returned in 2015 and was also a great shot for NcSoft. I believe that even Blizzard saw that and copied that with WOW Classic.
The only shame to be honest is...There is no Lineage 3 after almost 16 years now.
True, you said it all... And L2M just launched and guess what, it has nothing to do with thr actual L2, good news for L2 fans is that NC seems to be planning to make a remaster in the unreal 5, which can make the game visually improved by a lot if they keep the current design intact, I'm excited to to hear more about it
Very well said. I wish they kept the name and went for Lineage 3, it would have been a huge success in my opinion. Instead they went for mobile and that just ruined it for me. Also GoD update was the final nail in the coffin..
Pls pls pls have an Aion video. I've been jus watching the entire channel all day lol. You brought back so many memories. I was a die-hard Lineage 2 fan, probably why I like BDO so much.
Was waiting for the day you will tackle L2, great video as always.
"It wasn't made for you!"-To quote Brie Larson.
Nice timing, they just announced L2 Remastered afaik. :D
Everyone played Lineage 2 here in Argentina back in 2005 and around.
Not... subscription-based, but people still played it.
What a terrible, grindy game. I love it to bits.
Feeling pain when I read Lineage 2.
Memories, memories and memories.
I wanted to type a huge comment about my Lineage 2 life.. but I don't know from where to start, what first to say, how to explain without standing in front of people and explaining everything.
Lineage 2 was something much more than just a game.
Huh. Nostalgia. C4.
(Dragon Network, Dragon 15x, xxXGeForceXxx, Duelist/HellKnight - LimitedEdition Ally | Kosanostra Clan)
Private servers gather 95% of the L2 Population nowadays. L2 Is not DEAD... Just the Official servers that became pay2win.
Also i must add that since Lineage came to europe , at least in my country, GREECE , almost everyone was playing on a Private Server instead of the official, that is why the numbers are way too much down on sales.
Started playing L2 in the closed beta and finally quit at the end of GoD and I gotta say....as crazy of an experience as it was I value it more than my 700+ days played in WoW or my thousands of hours playing looter shooters. I'd say the most unappealing aspect of the game for western players was the fact that the social systems and economies favored those who worked hardest earliest....because in turn those people held all the cards when it came to materials, high level crafting, and access to the end game zones. Also the fact that you could lose weeks worth of progress in an hour of pvp was a huge turnoff to players that wanted no consequences to their actions. I wish you would have mentioned the Karma based PvP system the game used because honestly its the most superior form of pvp that has ever existed in an MMO. I see lots of threads about botters and cheaters of which there were a few but I never remember them being a problem....killing them was kind of a sport really since you could buff and heal the mobs they were fighting. Ultimately IMO it died like every NC game dies...by way of P2W mtx plain and simple.
3:53
that background music there will be forever known as the end theme to end all end themes.
build up, epic finale, and... roll credits.
L2's soundtrack is a masterpiece.
The artefact reveal reaction video! I could recognize that disappointment anywhere.