Lightkeeper

That's the saddest part - there were probably real 5k+ on each Talking Island and Giran when it started, and even though many would've left naturally because Classic isn't for them, there still could've been more than double the active players we have right now if NCsoft didn't take so many wrong steps. But in short, it required two main things: 1. Hire more GMs to guard the main spots. Pay them overtime, too. If the GMs are active enough and botters need to make new chars every few hours, many of them would've just given up. Sure there'd still be some, but it wouldn't be such a botfest it is now - I mean ffs, it was the first weekend after launch and neither Hime or Juji logged because fk it, it's weekend, ain't working. Paying them and the GMs (which don't exist) would've been an investment to retain more players. 2. The damned rates. It's just a clown fiesta at this point, but a week after launch it was apparent that absolute majority of players hate the rates and are not willing to suffer them in longterm. It was the awful decision to keep postponing it (until they ultimately took the wrong decision anyway) But it's just messed up. Most people just left to illegal server, some of them left back on a different chronicle servers, some unfortunately just gave up on L2 completely. NCsoft should be added to dictionary under "wasted potential".

+1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 Sorry for language but the f*** did they put it down for? It's not just actual information, it's a piece history right there, please give it back to us, PLEASE!

There is nothing wrong with that principle, but they're doing it wrong way - these XP/SP boosts and things like the PK scrolls are supposed to look like they're not P2W, but they're much more P2W than if they sold actual physical items like 30-day weapons and such. The problem is that they're adding on top of what P2Winners can obtain from adena sellers. If they sold the gear instead, they'd take the revenue away from RMT-ers and the game would be much less P2W. And yes, being able to PK anyone with basically zero consequence is a major benefit. I get that they need money, but look at l2classic.club - they have close to zero P2W and they've been online for over 3 years, so it's not like you need to sell OP P2W stuff to get by financially.

l2classic.club is >3 years old and it's still going strong so it's not like old server = dead one.