GhostShadow

I'm actually surprised that they didn't remove the items from the previous prestige & destiny packs. It wouldn't be the first time that they wiped inventories of boosts, even though we paid for them. (Somewhere in the fine print they reserve the right to do this.) At the end of the day, we all know this is a money grab. The only question is, who does it help? I'm happy to plod along in my mid-grade gear, which is quickly becoming low grade, because L grade stuff is around the corner and I can barely get a +10 R110 bloody/dark set, let alone a +30 to upgrade. But I have been playing since C1, so this is kind of like a 50-year bad marriage that people stay in because divorce just gets you an empty house with 4 blank walls. I do not know how you win new players this way. And I doubt they will be able to keep old players for very long. Only real-life wealthy people are going to empty wallets for this game, and that's a very, very short list of players.

I got one each on two characters, but none on my other 6 characters.

I think maybe 1 or 2 people will do it just because they can, cost (and common sense) no limiting factor. Some of them probably already have the DW in storage, it's just the other ingredients missing...and knowing the Devs, there will be an event sometime that will help speed that along. It might take a year or two, but someone in that tiny 0.001% will do it. The rest of the population? Like always, forced to hope and dream and wait forever for something that will never happen in their life.

Tomorrow. The servers will be down for 5 hours.

I agree that they should have never allowed restoration of any kind. I also wish they'd removed the success probability % from the enchant window. Take it back to C1 days when you didn't know the odds and you either succeeded or you got crystals. No restoration, no saves, no Heavenly/Divine or Shining scrolls. Just you and the Fates. But nowadays everything is enchantable -- and in many cases, restorable -- and it's ruined the game.

Watermelon event seems... uninspiring... after an anniversary.

I'd like to see the Party Level XP difference removed completely, BUT... ... how does this address the primary issue with new players who will most assuredly lack the funds to properly equip their characters? Sure, clans that are wealthy enough to help gear low levels are great, but most new players will be in for a tough time trying to get by with just Exalted items. Maybe it's time to reconsider the rewards for that quest to allow new players to be fully viable at least through 115? It's one of the many reasons why I think many were calling for the Black coupons and inclusion of Blessed Exalted Weapon and Armor enchants as either repeat quest rewards or mob drops. If you want to get new people addicted to this game, you have to give them a little taste of the "good stuff."

Yep. And even though in theory it should be cheaper to make a +20 Blessed Exalted weapon (and add other items to make up the 150 attribute difference) than it is to make a +20 Bloody Krishna weapon, I doubt any of us will still be playing the game when NCSoft finally decides to get its head out of its arse and do right by the playerbase. Blessed Exalted Weapon and Armor scrolls should be regular in-game drops--or Exalted quest reward items-- even if it means littering the fields with Treasure Chests/Mimics again.

Depends on the swag...like always. Could just be more Chrono weapons, or fireworks sticks. Happy Anniversary. Then divorce maybe.

Of course. They're bored and wanted to play with me. They're the leisurely wealthy types, so I don't expect them to stay long ... just until they find something else that interests them.

Hard to convince new people to come play this game if things like this keep happening. My friends are all giving me the evil eye now. Thanks, guys. Also, can you make the noob armor tix, xp scrolls and buff pots available somehow? It really should be complimentary whenever a new account is opened, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

For the people paying billions and billions of adena -- to say nothing of real life money -- just to get 1% - 4% more damage, I think it does.

They refuse to listen to their patrons. If you vastly improve the chances of getting a top prize, you actually generate more revenue, because people always spend more when the good prizes drop more frequently. But the flipside of that coin is that players just aren't paying attention. Everyone has been saying for months now that the odds of getting anything good in all of these events is worse, not better, than previous versions of the same event. Nevertheless, people keep reaching for their credit cards and spending like crazy. That will never convince NCSoft to change their ways. Ever. Why should they? They are getting far more from you than you, the consumer, get in return. That's the definition of the perfect business transaction. Look it up in the dictionary and you'll see faces of current L2 players next to the term. Welcome to the wonderful world of Lineage. Enjoy your time...and please do leave your wallet.

Clan Malefic has been transferred to a new owner and leader. Thanks, everyone. Good luck and have fun.

Unfortunately, this a game rife with exploiters, and the PK system is still too flawed to be counted as a legitimate means of rectifying the issues being discussed.

I started Clan Malefic back in C1 on the Devianne server. The clan has been entirely PVE based and comprised of my numerous alts. If you're on Chronos and are interested in owning a level 6 clan with corresponding Advent and room for 54/55 members, please reply here, or mail Elegy in game. Again, I'm giving the clan away for free, no strings. Assuming there are a number of applicants, later this week I plan to randomly choose one person to add to the clan and submit the request to transfer leadership and full privileges to them. (Please be aware that I operate on the Pacific Standard Time.) Best of luck, one and all.

I appreciate what you're saying, but nevertheless... I've been playing off and on since open beta. I literally have a character for every L2 class type, although admittedly most never made it higher than 110. And trust me when I say that I've played with both highly stacked characters and with characters that used the bare minimum just to log in and grind as part of my mental escape from the real world. I know that the key to effective character building encompasses more than just equipment. All that to say, I truly speak from an informed viewpoint when I say the Challenger weapons that you get with the bundle are not that great -- they could have made them better.

Yes, I know. And it's still not all that great.

It's great in some ways, but not in every way. The Enhanced Challenger weapons are terrible. Let's be honest. The consumables are nice, but somewhere around level 107 the XP rate slows and you'll go through all of the pots before you level up, unless it's an XP event. 300 pots sounds like a ton, but it really isn't -- especially since you'll be operating with 0 vitality bar within mere seconds of hunting . That's what they should have included in the bundle -- 300 vitality cakes, or a 7-day vitality rune. Anything really that keeps your vitality bar full. Further, the purchasing limit on the number of Blessed Exalted bundles that you can buy per account is also ridiculously shortsighted. These items are supposed to be in the store "permanently," but odds are high that sales of the packs will drop off severely after the first few months, because of the limitation. I could go on, but I'll stop there. Yes, it's a decent bundle considering all that you get in terms of armor, jewels, helmet, etc., but it could be better. Like everything else in L2, it could always be better.

Of all of this games features, I think I miss drops the most. Granted, it was rare after about C5 to get anything, but at least there was hope. Not anymore. Reasonable crafting is probably the second thing that I miss the most. I still don't quite understand why it takes so much ether to craft anything. Actually, I do understand, I just don't like what it says about NCSoft's agenda.

Congratz! Now go go +30 and beyond. You're playing with house money and winning, so no need to stop now.

Remember when it was stated that the enchants had a 2 in 3 chance of a successful enchant? Yet despite that high percentage of success, people failed OEing stuff like crazy? Well, some people. Not everyone. Superstition is just human nature. Whether people actually believe it brings them luck, I can't say. But as someone who used to enchant all of the time, I confess that I had my rituals. We obviously can't simultaneously glimpse alternate realities to see how the enchant turns out, if we change some variable. We can only rely on the data we have available based on outcomes. In theory, the entire process until you click "OK" is neutral: if it doesn't bring good luck, then it shouldn't bring bad luck, either. But here we are and nothing creates superstitious habits -- rituals -- like bad experiences. And, sadly, no matter what the stated chances of success may be, it does seem like the massive number of failures that occur -- failures that in their own way encouraged NCSoft to introduce token restoration -- seem to promote superstition ... because the mathematical probabilities don't seem quite right. For every person that gets to +21 in a single go, there are hundreds, if not thousands of others who will fail trying to reach only +5. I mean, there's a reason why there aren't more +30 weapons around several years after they instituted the new glows. Further, if they took away Red Libra, there probably wouldn't be many highly enchanted mage weapons -- which was something else that we later found out was not quite right according to the stated chances. With all that players have working against them, some known variables, others not so much, well, you might as well be a little superstitious.

I thought most EU players were playing on our servers?

I believe in the past they did reduce the number of mobs in areas that aren't frequented by players. They probably could probably go further and remove all mobs from areas that aren't specifically quest related, but I suspect that alone won't address the lag.

Decided to run a 6 character party and everything looks ok...so far. But server is still light. I expect that to change soon. Edit: Spoke too soon. Lag came back the minute the Demon swords started dropping.