I feel you here. I went down the list here. If it has been realeasd in the last 5 years, I have played it. Many of them feel stale and played out. Art style has some to do with it as well. Look like all the big titles are either new year, or don't even have a release date. It's a real low time for mmorpgs imo.

Originally posted by zymurgeist

A Corporation CANNOT lie about things like that in public statements. The CEO would go to jail. You have no idea how many active accounts they have beyond what they tell you.

I must admit, the tinfoil hat theory was more fun. But yes, I agree with the notion we have zero clue as to what is currently going on in the sub base.

Moreover, I can't help but feel like people are actually happy to see the juggernaut weakening in any way. It is really thanks to WoW (say what you like, it really is the truth) for showing other companies that MMORPGs are a viable monkey making commodity. Don't be so quick to think ill of Blizzard people. They make good games, they don't run sweat shops run by children to make puppy slaying devices.

Originally posted by Fendel84M

I have to admit. This game interests me, but it seems like a HUGE gamble for me to pay $50 to try. I just got burned buying Rift and being bored with it after a day.

This almost exactly. A 50$ buy-in with a premium subscription fee feels rather outdated, or at the very least unwise for an unestablished IP. They would do better to cut the initial cost by at least half if they want to boost their numbers some. 

Here's hoping for a free trial soon.

Originally posted by Mannish

A level 50 player is a low level player that has not seen anything this game has to offer. Now the game does not even begin till you get S grade. As for the the upcomming expansion its named Freya which is already out in Korea. It goes live in Japan on May 25th and Taiwan on May  26 so the western community is estimating sometime in June for us.

Here is some of the info we have right now.

http://l2.eogamer.com/wiki/Freya_Sneak_Peek

 

http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/SimonLim/20100208/4361/Lineage_2_Freya_Update_Is_Just_a_Beginning_9312.php

Ha, and it returns to piss and moan with its pushy views. That is a rather elitist view to have really. A game that takes 2-3 months to begin while expecting the player to go it largely alone is alienating new players and somewhat kill the whole MMO part. Isn't the fun of a game in the journey, not just a mad rush to reach max level? 

Now perhaps with a more attractive pay model >_>

I kid mostly.

Originally posted by Torak

Originally posted by Delondial

No insult at all. The vitality system as well as the base quests make gaining 20 and leaving the newbie areas an investment of 30 min or so. I personally only made it to 50, encountering nothing but bots (you can tell by the targeting cycles, running into walls, etc) in the hunting fields with the exception of having my pet hatching ganked. I'll certainly admit that I was never in a castle siege and will certainly be on the look out for that in the future if I ever rescrib. 

Perhaps I should state a bit more clearly my meaning by class diversity. I do not count the number of classes so much as the unique play style they offer. It is rather cut and dry, at least for my taste.

That being said, I feel I must restate that I do like this game. I just don't think they can justify a 14.99$ subscription in this competitive market. Of course they ARE still doing well from their annual reports, so perhaps the old adage "stfu and l2p" applies. I'm simply curious if there are other people who felt the same, and what they would do to improve on it.

Innocent enough of a question.

In todays day and age you are probably getting a lot of flak because of the trend to go F2P that a lot of old MMOers like myself frankly don't like but hey, who doesn't like stuff for free? I have Runes of Magic installed on my PC.

Bots have always been an issue in L2, IMHO that has to do with the engine/coding...see L2 is made with the Unreal2 engine, a highly mod-able and easy to use engine.

I don't really agree on the class diversity thing but one thing I never liked is lack of class variation within each class. Everyone was basically the same but that is a PvP balance thing. The more divergence, the more difficult it becomes to keep everything in line. If you want a lot of PvP based classes, some with some interesting twist, take a look at DAoC.

At this point I imagine the community mainly consist of the hard core / high level die hard fans and not a whole lot of new blood.

Sovrath, why are you here? I was looking for in VG like an hour ago... I needed more coffee...it was like 6am my time

Yes, perhaps appealing to the hardcore is what this game is trying to do. As I read in threads past, there was some animosity over the addition of vitality and newbie buffs. While I must admit being largely ignorant of L2 history apart from a 3 month stint in 06, I tend believe that there is a game for everyone, be you hardcore or casual. This game does seem to have a sense of leaning more into the hardcore. Fine enough, I just didn't ever feel there was much of a community to rally behind or talk to. I spent a large amount of my time on Lineage 2 Wiki trying to figure out the acronyms, jargon, and classes, finding a pretty fair amount of obsolete data.

Myself, as stated so many times already, I felt alone in a massive world grinding to hopefully after a few months be able to play with the rest of the community. Just didn't seem like it was a worthwhile investment. 

Originally posted by Sovrath

Originally posted by Delondial

Originally posted by Sovrath

Originally posted by Delondial

Tried this game off and on for a few years, admittedly much more off than on. Despite the vast amount of bots, the spotty live community (at least at 50-), repetitive combat, and lack of true class diversity, it  is still a far cry from the noobie eater it started out to be. That in itself makes the game appealing to at least start up long enough to look past such (perceived) flaws. Still could do with some polishing I dare to say. Found more than a few great deal of broken quests, translation errors, graphic hiccups, and sparse community.

The overall experience of the game is fine enough, but it is just so; fine. Seems to me this (and perhaps other NC Soft titles) could use an FTP model like many other aging titles for added numbers and micro transaction revenue. 

Well, I played the game for over 4 years and I have to say that it is one of the most polished asian games out there. Oh sure, when it launched there were some odd issues like "the effect of none has left" where "none" was the name of the debuff but for some reason it didn't register.

but I can't really recall a lot of translatoin errors.

Most of the players are 75 plus with subclasses, some higher with the third class transfer. It's an older population to say the least.

I don't think it requires the polishing you say it does. Oh sure, NC is sloppy and have left issues (such as the tear in the silenos area) go unfixed for a while but all in all the game is pretty polished.

As others have said, lineage and lineage 2 are nc's main titles. They designed these games to be p2p in the west and there are many players who would bristle at having their subscription based game given an item shop. You might notice that item shops don't seem to go well on this forum and certainly not on the L2 forum.

My opinion is that the game needs better development in that the devs just throw whatever they think is neat into the game without really thinking about the game as a whole.

And this is because that's how they work it at NC. At least for this game. There are groups/people working on projects, they suggest them, the head deve thinks "neat" and it's then worked on to be included in the game.

 No this game is rather well refined as far as all that goes. There are still some respawning issues (mobs spawning on buildings, out of reach topographical features), falling through the world and so forth, and a class transfer quest that was rather dodgey (my greatest frustration actually, there was some nerd rage I must admit). However your point of development may perhaps be the answer, at least to myself, as to what it would take to justify the monthly 14.99$. As it stands however, I personally could not justify the fee for a single player experience (joined two clans, both of which were heavily populated by afk merchants and people who never signed on). 

yeah but I've seen those mobs respawning on buildings such as, ugh, that area south of giran with the two headed ettin looking things, or here and there and for a world so huge, that is pretty minor. should be fixed I'll give you that but you can still find all the mobs you want around the area.

I haven't fallen through the world since C2. I suppose it could happen but that's several years after that I never experienced it.

Again, the developers are just sloppy. There was no reason at all that they should have left that tear in the world in the silenos. I came across it, expressed my shock in clan chat only to get "oh, that's been like that for months".

months!

Blizzard would not have stood for that.

the lineage 2 team is just sloppy.

Afraid the content you're talking about is beyond my scope. Perhaps I've become too demanding, but I would like to see a bit more in the way of group finding methods and the like. But again, I only got to 50. Could very well have missed such devices.

Originally posted by sojobo69

Someone said lineage 2 is getting another expansion next month, but i can not find any information on it.. ?? did not see it on the main web site either.

Expansion? I've heard about Lineage 3, but apart from content updates, I do not think anything of that nature is in the pipeline.

Originally posted by Sovrath

Originally posted by Delondial

Tried this game off and on for a few years, admittedly much more off than on. Despite the vast amount of bots, the spotty live community (at least at 50-), repetitive combat, and lack of true class diversity, it  is still a far cry from the noobie eater it started out to be. That in itself makes the game appealing to at least start up long enough to look past such (perceived) flaws. Still could do with some polishing I dare to say. Found more than a few great deal of broken quests, translation errors, graphic hiccups, and sparse community.

The overall experience of the game is fine enough, but it is just so; fine. Seems to me this (and perhaps other NC Soft titles) could use an FTP model like many other aging titles for added numbers and micro transaction revenue. 

Well, I played the game for over 4 years and I have to say that it is one of the most polished asian games out there. Oh sure, when it launched there were some odd issues like "the effect of none has left" where "none" was the name of the debuff but for some reason it didn't register.

but I can't really recall a lot of translatoin errors.

Most of the players are 75 plus with subclasses, some higher with the third class transfer. It's an older population to say the least.

I don't think it requires the polishing you say it does. Oh sure, NC is sloppy and have left issues (such as the tear in the silenos area) go unfixed for a while but all in all the game is pretty polished.

As others have said, lineage and lineage 2 are nc's main titles. They designed these games to be p2p in the west and there are many players who would bristle at having their subscription based game given an item shop. You might notice that item shops don't seem to go well on this forum and certainly not on the L2 forum.

My opinion is that the game needs better development in that the devs just throw whatever they think is neat into the game without really thinking about the game as a whole.

And this is because that's how they work it at NC. At least for this game. There are groups/people working on projects, they suggest them, the head deve thinks "neat" and it's then worked on to be included in the game.

 No this game is rather well refined as far as all that goes. There are still some respawning issues (mobs spawning on buildings, out of reach topographical features), falling through the world and so forth, and a class transfer quest that was rather dodgey (my greatest frustration actually, there was some nerd rage I must admit). However your point of development may perhaps be the answer, at least to myself, as to what it would take to justify the monthly 14.99$. As it stands however, I personally could not justify the fee for a single player experience (joined two clans, both of which were heavily populated by afk merchants and people who never signed on). 

Originally posted by Torak

Originally posted by Delondial

Tried this game off and on for a few years, admittedly much more off than on. Despite the vast amount of bots, the spotty live community (at least at 50-), repetitive combat, and lack of true class diversity, it  is still a far cry from the noobie eater it started out to be. That in itself makes the game appealing to at least start up long enough to look past such (perceived) flaws. Still could do with some polishing I dare to say. Found more than a few great deal of broken quests, translation errors, graphic hiccups, and sparse community.

The overall experience of the game is fine enough, but it is just so; fine. Seems to me this (and perhaps other NC Soft titles) could use an FTP model like many other aging titles for added numbers and micro transaction revenue. 

Lineage 1 and 2 still account for the vast majority of NCSofts revenue world wide. It's pretty doubtful they will make anything free to play. As a company they tend to design upfront either P2P and F2P.

They tried F2P in the western market (Dungeon Runners and Xteel) and it was a blood bath failure.

  Conversion is a big job as the entire game needs to be revamped. Since a lot of what normally exist in an item shop in a F2P is now in the game, they would need to remove that. You know how MMO players react when a company starts taking stuff out and then charging for it. It's gaming suicide. 

Looking at your post...I have to ask...and I mean no insult...but...did you ever make it out of the starter areas? Your "lack of class diversity" comment really is what made me scratch my head...and Spares community? Have you been to a siege? The vast majority of players in L2 are over the level 60 mark and most are subclassed. The good thing is they lightened up the grind to the point that you can hit 60 in about a month of sane play. It is a pretty dull trip though.

Dunno, maybe the game emptied out over the last 2 years.../shrug.

No insult at all. The vitality system as well as the base quests make gaining 20 and leaving the newbie areas an investment of 30 min or so. I personally only made it to 50, encountering nothing but bots (you can tell by the targeting cycles, running into walls, etc) in the hunting fields with the exception of having my pet hatching ganked. I'll certainly admit that I was never in a castle siege and will certainly be on the look out for that in the future if I ever rescrib. 

Perhaps I should state a bit more clearly my meaning by class diversity. I do not count the number of classes so much as the unique play style they offer. It is rather cut and dry, at least for my taste.

That being said, I feel I must restate that I do like this game. I just don't think they can justify a 14.99$ subscription in this competitive market. Of course they ARE still doing well from their annual reports, so perhaps the old adage "stfu and l2p" applies. I'm simply curious if there are other people who felt the same, and what they would do to improve on it.

Originally posted by Mannish

Originally posted by Delondial

Originally posted by Mannish

 

Originally posted by Delondial

Originally posted by Mannish

Lineage 2 is doing fine just the way it is. There is no reason at all to make the game free to play. Bottom line is the game is what it is. Either accept it and play or move on to something else.

Think you missed the point. The game itself is an Asian style grind which obviously has a decent level of success. Personally I enjoyed my time for the most part. I'm simply talking about an update to the age old subscription format. Relax and remember it is simply an objective discussion mate. Otherwise you could come off sounding a bit like what is colloquially known as a "fanboi".

 

 

 No I did not miss the point at all. Why should Lineage 2 go FTP? What makes Lineage 2 the only mmo out there that should go FTP if all you are talking about is an update to the age old subsciption format which nearly all MMOs use?. Why not make EQ 2 FTP? Why not make Darkfall FTP? Why not make Final Fanasy XI FTP? Lineage 2 is still one of the most successfull MMOs ever released and if you look at World Wide numbers you will see that its still doing very well. The game is a grind and thats the way we like it.  As I said before it is what it is. Take it or leave it.

There are actually a lot of MMOs that would benefit from a pay model update. But seeing as this is the Lineage 2 forum, we're limited to talking about Lineage 2. And you either have a low attention span, or  you are simply in this thread on some self declare crusade to purge any scrutiny of your beloved title. Otherwise you would see that the aspect of a grind heavy game has no bearing on my suggestion for a pay model change. Rather fond of a heavy grind session after a fashion. Please stop acting as if I'm picking on Lineage 2.

As for the success of this MMO, their quarterly report shows more growth in Lineage 1 than 2. Take it for what you will, but it still stands that they can greatly increase the community's health, and possibly fetch back some of those estimated quarter million accounts on private servers. Now there are any number of possibilities to increase this, FTP being only one. I'm certainly open to suggestions as that is the spirit of this thread.

 

This thread as a total waste of time. Good luck on you FTP crusade.  We will keep playing our game and loving it just the way it is.

You're either a selective reader or a poor one, both of which makes your contribution to the thread worthless. We're here for conjecture and mucking about, nothing more or less. Thank you for taking your finite views elsewhere. 

Originally posted by Daywolf

FF dev said they put instances all over the place, so it didn't make my list ;)
Op said "worth playing"
Well, may be worth playing for FF fans, but if so instanced, imo not worth paying by the month, so still gets the seal of disapproval at this point in time from me. Makes the list if they either sparsely use instances or simply takes GW or DDO's marketing approach. "All over the place" doesn’t even sound moderately instanced for crying out loud...
 

Same with me, heavily instanced content is a massive turn off as far as I'm concerned. Paying a monthly fee for a dungeon crawler just defeats my own personal definition of what an MMO should be.

Originally posted by MMO_Doubter

Originally posted by Kyelthis

Most of my posts here have been on Warhammer and Guild Wars 2, because those are honestly the only MMOs that I've enjoyed/or are looking forward to. For example: When GW2 comes out, a year passes and (hypothetically) it drops to the realm of 100k-150k, would you say they should let that game die too? A game that has that size of population/subscriber base is FAR from dead.

I don't think WH Online has anything close to 100,000 paying subs. Not even close.

Down to four servers in NA (and looks like they are priming to merge again). How many left in Europe?

Down to 4 servers in NA? Bloody hell. Didn't realize it had become so bad. Ended my "re-subscription" over 6 months ago due to the population and instanced pvp queues (Battlegrounds?). Couldn't justify paying 14.99 a month for single player mode, though the lower tiers did seem to be rather lively in spurts.  Pity though, I had such high hopes for this title years ago.

Originally posted by Mannish

 

Originally posted by Delondial

Originally posted by Mannish

Lineage 2 is doing fine just the way it is. There is no reason at all to make the game free to play. Bottom line is the game is what it is. Either accept it and play or move on to something else.

Think you missed the point. The game itself is an Asian style grind which obviously has a decent level of success. Personally I enjoyed my time for the most part. I'm simply talking about an update to the age old subscription format. Relax and remember it is simply an objective discussion mate. Otherwise you could come off sounding a bit like what is colloquially known as a "fanboi".

 

 

 No I did not miss the point at all. Why should Lineage 2 go FTP? What makes Lineage 2 the only mmo out there that should go FTP if all you are talking about is an update to the age old subsciption format which nearly all MMOs use?. Why not make EQ 2 FTP? Why not make Darkfall FTP? Why not make Final Fanasy XI FTP? Lineage 2 is still one of the most successfull MMOs ever released and if you look at World Wide numbers you will see that its still doing very well. The game is a grind and thats the way we like it.  As I said before it is what it is. Take it or leave it.

There are actually a lot of MMOs that would benefit from a pay model update. But seeing as this is the Lineage 2 forum, we're limited to talking about Lineage 2. And you either have a low attention span, or  you are simply in this thread on some self declare crusade to purge any scrutiny of your beloved title. Otherwise you would see that the aspect of a grind heavy game has no bearing on my suggestion for a pay model change. Rather fond of a heavy grind session after a fashion. Please stop acting as if I'm picking on Lineage 2.

As for the success of this MMO, their quarterly report shows more growth in Lineage 1 than 2. Take it for what you will, but it still stands that they can greatly increase the community's health, and possibly fetch back some of those estimated quarter million accounts on private servers. Now there are any number of possibilities to increase this, FTP being only one. I'm certainly open to suggestions as that is the spirit of this thread.

Very similar situation myself. Afraid RDR doesn't appeal to me in the least either. Tried at least 8 new FTP MMOs with no long lasting candidates. What's worse is that there isn't an announced MMO release that I'm remotely anticipating.

There really should be a proper diagnostic for this; perhaps MMO depression?  

Originally posted by Mannish

Lineage 2 is doing fine just the way it is. There is no reason at all to make the game free to play. Bottom line is the game is what it is. Either accept it and play or move on to something else.

Think you missed the point. The game itself is an Asian style grind which obviously has a decent level of success. Personally I enjoyed my time for the most part. I'm simply talking about an update to the age old subscription format. Relax and remember it is simply an objective discussion mate. Otherwise you could come off sounding a bit like what is colloquially known as a "fanboi".

Tried this game off and on for a few years, admittedly much more off than on. Despite the vast amount of bots, the spotty live community (at least at 50-), repetitive combat, and lack of true class diversity, it  is still a far cry from the noobie eater it started out to be. That in itself makes the game appealing to at least start up long enough to look past such (perceived) flaws. Still could do with some polishing I dare to say. Found more than a few great deal of broken quests, translation errors, graphic hiccups, and sparse community.

The overall experience of the game is fine enough, but it is just so; fine. Seems to me this (and perhaps other NC Soft titles) could use an FTP model like many other aging titles for added numbers and micro transaction revenue. 

Originally posted by krugve

 

---

Originally posted by Dysmetria

 

I'd particulalry like to experience the glory of all the hacks they have since removed.  People soloing BWL a week after it was added was a pretty common occurrence.

---

 

 

If you're going to lie at least try to make it credible. BWL week after it was added was bugged and it was impossible to reach further bosses. And no, hacks in WoW were never common occurence and cheaters were farming 5 man instances for gold, not raids for phat loot.

And yeah, no one who actually experienced raid content in vanilla, BC or WotLK would agrue the superiority of the former. There were some hard encounters but they were accesible only to few, in later expansions more people could enter raid dungeons but the hardest mode is still only completed by the same few.

 Actually there was such a bug with Paladins I believe. Their retribution (or something along those line) was stacking to an unlimited number, making them able to one shot bosses if they built it up enough. The exact details are a blur as it has been a long while, but such bugs did exist to my memory. Rampant hacking? I only ever saw it on rare occasion (always in Sithilas for some reason)
As per classic raids being better than current, meh. I don't really think the raid encounters are what has choked out the majority of hardcore, I think it is the over availability of comparable loot that is attainable through "lesser" means. Working for weeks/ months to get your set only to see someone who pvps a few hours a day for a week having nearly as good of a set as you is a bit disconcerting. But that can go either way I suppose, I only speculate. 
Vanilla server? I can't really say I was oh so much happier then. I've always been a druid, and lets face it, we were a laugh riot in most respects. Resto was the only thing that worked, but you were pretty much an innervate whore. I like having the option to do something other than throw HT or pray that the other druid doesn't have more +healing than me, otherwise his HoT cancels mine >:o
 

 I doubt I'll be absent much longer, WoW despite my distaste for a lot of what it has become holds a large amount of nostalgia for me. But this new x-pack is certainly interesting because it looks like a throw back to classic Azeroth. I'll be the first to admit having been overly critical of WoW in the past. Maybe I should just settle down, take it for what it is, and play to have fun.

I can see the OP's point here. I am drawn to a player driven world. Giving players control of almost every aspect (i.e economy, city conrol blah blah) is something that should in my opionon set MMOs apart from co-op RPGs. Story is secondary only because it should, in theory, be subject to what the masses are doing in the world.

I am open to this new concept of Bioware's, but will as always be careful about getting excited. As is, I reserve judgement until I get my hands on a final copy.  

Don't #%&* it up Bioware...or I'll do to you what I did to Galaxies....Buwahaha! /endjoke 

Penis is fine in games. If I have to see a bunch of boobs flooping about in EVERY aspect of media now days then let me see some pen15.