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Yet another dramatic rant if you're bored


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With the coronavirus stuff going on and being stuck at home for the last few weeks, I've become bored enough to write what is definitely an overly bloated essay about things that have been said a million times already. But... I've little else to do at the moment, so here goes. Read it if you're bored like me, or just pass it by. It's probably exactly what you expect it to be. And it would be nice, but totally not expecting it, if someone from NCSoft would read this, since it's mostly directed at you people. So, here goes.

I played Lineage 2 on Bartz since C2 with my 2 brothers, who both played since prelude. It was the best game in the world. It got me through a rough patch in life, so yeah, I realize I may be a little attached to the past when it comes to this game. Some of my best gaming memories are from Lineage 2 and I played up until shortly after Awakening. So many fun memories of things like waiting in a Cata entrance yelling for a group, before the party finder, and usually getting in one pretty quick. My first character was a Bishop, so that helped. If I were bored I'd give bishy buffs by the GK in Gludin for recs or tips (back when you could only give 1 rec without relogging). So many fond memories... Bishops only had an undead damaging nuke back then, so it was REALLY difficult to solo. Eventually all my clannies had passed me by and were lvling subclasses (when they first came out) so I rerolled a DD class that I could solo with a boxed SE. Not all the memories are great of course. Sometimes the game was overly tedious... I remember leveling (before vit) on non optimal mobs, but those that I could 2 hit as a spellsinger to save adena on Bsps. 6 mobs... S I X mobs I had to kill to get .01%... Point zero one! (this was lvl 74ish in FoD vamp spot I think...) Anyway, I was sps/mm main with bishop, sws, and LE dagger subs maxed. (Loved the transformations for your main class that you got when the sub was maxed btw! Was something kind of show-off-y and rare you didn't see too often.) Anyway I was MM for the longest time until I did a subclass -> main class switch when it was offered, and became a LE dagger main. Then when Awakening came out and you could awaken to any class, I, tired of being so squishy, awakened as a Tank main. The first castle siege with new class changes at 85 was great! Was so much fun to fight on equal footing with everyone else again! Two weeks later at the next castle siege however, when the "top" clan of the server (People from Bartz know which clan this was *coughstartswithanNcoughcough*) had updated their programs, and botted for 2 weeks they were already 87-90 and ahead of everyone else. So they destroyed everyone. Full-on -- simply target a healer (not even cast or attack, just target) and immediately get hit by 3 archers -- type bulls^@t. The game ceased being fun at that point and I quit shortly after. The obvious pay-to-win style of free-to-play that NCSoft had taken up made me not even bother coming back for more than a week or 2 at a time to talk to old friends.

When Classic was announced I was obviously stoked. I mean, how hard could it be to re-release a 12+ year old game in its original form? (On a side note, though I despise WoW because of it being prime L2 competition, they MASTERFULLY released a classic version. It's pretty much perfect and exactly what it should be.) At the top of my dream list for Classic L2 was that they'd make it a bit of an homage to the original. A gift of sorts to the dedicated players who stuck with this game for so long. Straight up blast from the past of the game exactly as it was. Bots under control. GMs doing their jobs... Maybe even taking a little loss by not being so focused on taking our money. Though I thankfully didn't get my hopes up too high for that. I was definitely worried about how they'd factor the FTP nonsense into it, but still had high hopes. I wasn't exactly looking forward to having to activate every individual soul shot again, but I was ready for it lol.

I actually enjoyed the game for a little bit. Lot's of crazy old memories of times on Talking Island, helping noobs, or killing PKers...Using total garbage NG weapons and armor till you lucked out on a drop that was only slightly better, but being SO excited about it... Spending more than a fraction of a second to kill a mob, so you could actually look at and enjoy the art and time put into even the low level monsters. The game just wasn't right though. Little things were off, like the menus were different. The ss and sps had designated spots beside the skill bars, instead of having to drag them there if you wanted to use them... Nothing too major there though. Not everything was horrible. You didn't drop gear/items when you died, as you used to. I remember, back in the day, lvling on Bishy near the Ant Queen, and not knowing that her minions were near and looked just like the normal ants. I died and dropped my banana suit gloves my brother had given me...! (Part of the Elven Mithril robe set.) My brothers gave the set and dual 107s (the top D duals) to me since I had only been playing a few weeks at that time, and had very little adena, so I was rather distraught about losing them. Thankfully, a kind soul happened by and picked them up, which made me assume the worst, but then ressed me, and gave them back to me! Was a great moment to come across a decent player, since my only major experience with others (outside of my brothers) was being PKed by ProjectPat, a higher level LE female archer on Talking Island LOL... On the upside of dropping gear when one died, my younger brother (A human summoner who was hero a few times [Anyone remember Ipsius??]) would go with me to Alli Island to kill bots. We both DESPISED bots and cheaters of any sort, and I still do. HATE them. Anyway, he'd gather a HUGE train of mobs with mew and send it over to the bots till it died. We'd stay pretty far away so we could log after we left combat, so they wouldn't come for us after. We'd log back and Ips would summon Mew again to move the train away and I'd pick up their armor and weapons and stuff they'd drop when they died. Then we'd move to the next bot group. Was a BLAST. We kept the whole island in check for a while, and made a killing. At one point, in horrible English, the botters offered to pay my brother to stop killing them. He agreed, took their adena, and then continued to kill them. They even equipped them with poles eventually to try and combat the trains... didn't work. Was just another item to drop for us :D. So many good memories... but, I digress...

A lot of the skills and stats were different, which wasn't ALL horrible. But the sin eater and PK system was all messed up. The fishing for XP was... disappointing to see. Especially when it involved buying things from the NCStore. The bracelets being present was a huge red flag... I know they need to make money from the game somehow, I KNOW this... But for the life of me I can't figure out why they didn't go with a monthly fee again. I doubt many (honestly I would of course) would pay the full original price to play a 15 year old game, but I'm sure most would pay $5 a month. Maybe $10 if they actually had dedicated GMs doing something about bots and script users. But anyway, the reliance on buying L2 store items to actually enjoy playing and the unnecessary and annoying changes to the game grew heavier and heavier on me till I just quit in the middle of my lvl 40 class change quests. (Something I was amazed and stoked to see again! I mean, they sucked to do, but it was still refreshing to see them back. Completing them was another testament to the dedication and hard work one originally had to put into the game. )

I saw on Facebook recently that all of the EU servers were shut down, and there were only 2 American servers now. I hadn't played classic for many months, if not over a year after getting sick of how they butchered it, but I thought I'd check it out again. I mean, who knows, maybe NCSoft finally got their sh$t together and fixed things? I had been resisting the urge to get my hopes up and try the game again for a few months now but finally caved in. I came back to give it another try today and HOLY $%*# they made it even worse...! Wtf are they doing to this game?!? Where the hell is the combat log window? How can I separate chat from the endless chain of damage info (something I also DO want to see... but IN ITS OWN WINDOW...)? And seriously...? A straight up bot-button smack dab in the middle of the bottom of the screen that you can't close or even move? (Or can you? I was so disgusted I didn't try very hard) WTF??? They didn't want to put in the work to police botters and cheaters, so to take that revenue away from the 3rd party program makers/ power levelers they straight up MADE BOTTING A PART OF THE GAME?!?!?! WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?!??! The main thing that made this game great was how you had to grind and EARN things. You had to put in the time and work to get where you wanted to be. Reaching a new level or class change was an accomplishment! Not something where you clicked once, and left your computer for a few hours to return and, "voila, you're 5 levels higher now!" I just can't believe it. I don't even want to imagine what the good XP or adena spots look like now. Auto leveling groups taking up every good spot 24 hours a day, seven days a week? And without a single actual person there, they can even defend themselves from being PKed to clear the spot?!? AS  PART  OF     THE  GAME?!?!?!?!?!? I mean... I can't even put into words how far this game has fallen. NCSoft should sue THEMSELVES for how they've ruined this game. It's an insult to the real Lineage 2.

I've said in before and I'll say it again. Bite the bullet and take a page out of WoW's book. It obviously doesn't have to be every server, but make a new server that is monthly fee based. Make the game as close to the original as you can. Maybe cosmetics if you must, but no Pay-to-Win XP Items, overpowered gear, or temporary item NCStore crap. I cannot fathom why on Earth you guys went the route you did, but I imagine it was nothing but dollar signs in your eyes instead of, what I assumed, giving your players a great game to enjoy. I guess you got exactly what you (And everyone else who actually played and enjoyed Lineage 2) were expecting though: a short lived monetary gain exploiting dedicated L2 fans and players, and now only 2 servers left that are fading fast. After playing for 10 minutes I've had enough already. I guess I'll check back in a few months. Again, I'm not getting my hopes up, and DEFINITELY am not buying anything from the NCStore.

 

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I had the same problem with trying to move autohunt at first. I eventually figured out you can left click drag it on the very edge of the main circle. It's super unintuitive and just one example of how terrible the "new" UI is.

Ncsoft makes far more money off their mobile division then everything else combined. So they only care about loot boxes and MTs.

Edited by Tool_of_Society
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On 4/14/2020 at 8:33 PM, ogfullmelt said:

I'm with you ya man, and even the website and forums were better then 

/agree! Omg the memories from forums xD And the Website was so much better. Whole pages on Lineage 2 lore. Competitions... I think someone won an Alienware gaming laptop back in the day if I remember correctly... first to level 40?

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