Before the age of World of Warcraft’s absolute domination of the MMORPG market and the subsequent “WoW Killers” that attempted to compete Blizzard’s behemoth of a game, the MMORPG scene was ripe with a healthy selection of different titles. While this age of MMORPGs is on the cusp of returning, there are still some games of that era that have managed to hang on.
One such game is Lineage II, an entry in NCSOFT’s highly successful Lineage series. However, the game itself isn’t thriving through NCSOFT’s official servers but through a dedicated classic scene that exists on private servers. There are two major factors that contribute to Lineage II’s small but dedicated player base: Community and nostalgia. For the sake of those interviewed for the piece, both their names and the Classic server they play on have been designated to their in-game username and, in the case of the Classic server, omitted.
While the Classic community is very much alive, though not as thriving as Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft Classic servers, the most populated pockets of players are not found on NCSOFT’s official Classic-era servers. Instead, their time is dedicated to independently hosted Classic servers that provide an experience closer to how Lineage II functioned in 2004 up to late 2009.
While reception to the addition of the Kamael through the lifespan of these Classic servers remains contentious, as was their introduction to the retail version of the game back in the mid-00’s, these servers rarely ever progress past the Gracia Epilogue update. After that point, Lineage II experienced fundamental change, which impacted how classes played, and even included some restructuring as to how new players experienced the world, with the unique racial starting zones still existing but not being a point of entry.
That was instead designed to Talking Island, the Human starting zone, with the world not having shifted as dramatically as, say, the Cataclysm expansion in World of Warcraft, but mechanically, Lineage II became a very different game — cutting away what made it so unique and community-focused in favor of clear homogenization.
To explain it very simply, Lineage II had a pretty expansive Class system that was designated by what race you picked for your characters (think Blade & Soul, or the gender-locking in Lost Ark), and you could later Cross-Class to pick up what wasn’t immediately available to you with some exceptions.
And even though NCSOFT did make its own Classic server for Lineage II dubbed Lineage II Classic, players that looked to re-experience the familiar were inundated with microtransactions. Theyrs, a leader of a prominent Clan on the server he and his friends have called home, explained to me that this is what led him to seek out a private server that would be more focused on the true “classic” experience, tedious grind and all. I mean this in the most affectionate way possible.
To preface this, I myself am a Lineage II player, having started in 2004 when I was still in middle school. I subsequently played on and off until I abandoned the game when all of those aforementioned gameplay changes came into effect. I checked out Lineage II Classic once, but seeing those microtransactions turned me away from the server for the very same reason as Thesys.
“It was pay to win.” He told me. “Everything had microtransactions, and I felt like I had to log in every day or I would be missing something. There was a lot of pressure there.”
But Thesys wasn’t ready to give up on the game and eventually sought out servers that emulated the experience of playing the game he’d enjoyed for almost twenty years.
These servers generally have fairly strict rules, which can sometimes include no multi-boxing to encourage players to actively engage with one another instead of creating multiple accounts to run their own party through macros. It also creates an environment where every one of Lineage II’s Classes are sought after.
While the game does have a meta in terms of what is most efficient or effective, everyone has a role to play and is for the most part appreciated. The community that Thesys told me about is one that’s run deep for him, with some of the players he still raids with having been friends from the start of his storied career with the game.
“We used to meet up in person, about sixty of us. But we’re older now. We have wives, kids. So it’s not as big, but we try to get together,” he said. I asked him if playing Lineage II Classic was a way that they continued to stay in touch, and he said yes. “We play two hours a day and just chat over voice.” Voice chat is an essential part of being in Thesys’ Clan. He elaborated and said that he believes that it helps people get to know one another, and it makes the environment more casual, and while players do go through a short interview process before joining the Clan, they do need a decent mic to join.
Another player and member of Thesys’ Clan, Spellcaster, shared that nostalgia was why he gravitated back to the game after taking a long break from Lineage II. He returned to the game in 2023, starting in 2004 with Prelude.
“It was nostalgia for me,” Spellcaster tells me. But even after Spellcaster took a hiatus from the game, attempting to jump into other MMORPGs, it just wasn’t the same. “I tried Final Fantasy XIV and World of Warcraft, but nothing stuck. Lineage II was a different game, and it looked incredible when it came out.”
While Lineage II is no longer one of the best-looking MMORPGs on the market, there is a small effort by a dedicated fan community to upgrade the game to Unreal Engine 5, which honestly looks pretty OK. It’s that dedication and passion that has kept its player base going, even as it continues to shrink.
“A lot of information about the game is gone now,” Thesys told me after he shared that he had contemplated making an online resource just for the sake of archival. “What players know is mostly told through oral history. Nothing is written down. It’s just passed on.”
To confirm this, I ended up looking for the sites that previously housed information about Lineage II before its massive transformation, and found that he was correct. All of the sites that had detailed drop rates, where monsters spawned, and unique class information — it was all gone. There was nothing left.
“I’m probably one of the youngest people on the server, and I’m 35.” I asked him if the game was accessible to new players, younger players, that might keep it alive once its core demographic has aged out of the game. “Absolutely not.” He laughed.
However, Lineage II was a point of bonding for important people in Spellcaster and Thesys’s lives. For Thesys, he ended up meeting his wife through the game, whereas Spellcaster fondly recalls the time he spent with his son. Both Spellcaster and Thesys mentioned that they could see themselves playing for another ten to twenty years or however much longer the server they’re on stays open.
It’s incredible to see Lineage II exist as it was, in some ways, a relic of a different school of MMORPG that bred a different type of player altogether. But there’s something bittersweet about this as well, knowing that the player base isn’t getting younger or growing at any rate that feels sustainable for its incredibly passionate community.
