Tried the server, here's my thoughts..

[LadyZENITH]

It took some time to go through so freaking many pages 90% filled with pointless flames,like there is some race called "who got bigger stronger balls here flaming the other one no matters what" ,but after many attempts i succeeded to get what is this all about.
Damn slow xp coz of low rates.
First of all i want to point that i am the owner of few high lvl chars,my main is sort of complete, fully geared ,so dont even dare to put any of ur fingers on me.Coz no,im not "qq'ing" to get any advantage or benefits so i could finally "finish my chars".
All i know is that we started as a full clan,i even got hard times coz of not enough spots for all the old pals who started to play here from the very first moment of server,but nowadays from our crowd only max 5 players keep playing,some of them logging time to time only to check how things are...
We became so damn bored so even if we had a 4-5 players clan,we wared every clan we saw around, so we started to check on for ppl we could pvp with. Was me and my mate,a bp,both noble. Each of us logged a support and happily started to hunt on all freaking possible spots where normally we should find ppl working on their chars.Was an easy thing to do coz of easy portings due to our nobless.Guess what: all those spots were almost empty..,rarely we could find 1-2 players wanking there. Damn freaking hard to understand why spots like HS,FOG,IT,Varka,700 mobs spots and so on were empty. But well,sadly, it might be coz what happened to our clan,prolly happened to others as well. This explains the lack of activity on the most used for improving chars spots.
Yesterday i was checking on sieges. Schuttgart,Giran,Rune...no1 attacked...Dont come here with "guards hit hard" coz this is only schuttgart's case,knowing this castle is still owned by npcs. Others not. Im wondering how is possible sieges to be boring on a 3 months old server?? Did u ever think it might be coz , except those "big" 3 sides on server (FC/cruel,exci/encalve,FW/sindy) ,rest of players didnt succeed to finish their chars?? Or r too afraid to lose their xp by being killed? All this leads us again to xp rates,slow lvling stuff...
Dont come to tell me it doesnt matter..Doing a simple math,ppl not playing with any of those 3 big sides i mentioned, should be ~1500 players,coz i doubt those 3 big sides count more than 500 players all together xd
Drake himself said the main issue ppl complained about was low rates,slow xp. Now leave away ur hate or stuborness and ask urself if its possible those low rates might bring boredom which,sadly,lead ppl sooner or later to quit.
All i can say i noticed is that ppl who claim they "love" the rates are mostly ppl who got complete high lvl chars.
Also don't ignore the fact that lot of ppl who go through hard times xping,might be afraid to come and complain about coz of our forum trolls wannabe or those 23894756348976 l2 guru we got.
Now feel free to flame me,hate me,throw rocks on me,i couldnt care less.
This is how i see things,this is my oppinion,agree with it or not.

Cheers

P.S. I am sorry for sh1tty english,i know my post is chaotical,but i hope u got my point. tx

I got ya. But I see it completely differently.

I wanted to come here to join an oldschool low-rate L2 server, here on DN, with substack, the promises lookes nice. No exploits lot of fixes, no mutantsubs, weird dynamic exp which I did not like but whatever that was the only blunder. I was off L2 for say 7 years, and I wanted to relive the old infi experience cause modern L2 and everything connected to it suxx for me and I refuse to touch it.

But it seems like half of the other server saw it the other way. They saw old dragon, so easy lolipop server with easy exp, and moved here based on clans that were active till now, thus with people bored to gear, bored to lvl, people with single plan to rush to endgame asap and then do... something I guess. All those who could not keep up were just ditched and ofc it became boring for them so they stopped to play.

I thought we would be gearing for months, having massive sieges in B grades like the old days, zergs would form vs the few nolifers that would outgear them. Etc, etc. But nope, nothing like that happened. Instead all rushed, and those who did blocked the path for others, and they, instead of fighting back, rather give up. As i mentioned in my big rant before, if my CP fails to push me trough Ill rather quit then try to do something bigger, that is the mentality of today's players.

I do not think the server is set wrong, its in the people. For me when everyone gets lvl fast, sub dast, get S weapons fast and the armor they want fast that is boring. Cause they you have just clones bashing against each other. People in L2 are not meant to be equal that is. Those who invest more effort and do not f*** it up shall be stronger then casuals. Thats how it is. But now, none wants to play the weaker one. Everyone wants to be super ready before entering the war. Thats why we have so many cowards who go like "ill not pvp until Im geared and noble", hell we got whole massive clans applying that approach, look at Wolves.

Hell, before my old comrades arrived I played here with a couple of nice guys I actually trusted and you know what they did? Asslick-joined FC and Cruel. First it was "just to get horn" then it was "just to get retail" and then it was "just to get noble" and 14 days later half told me that they are leaving the server cause there is none to fight and they are bored. Eghm... sorry, instead off fighting against the top power you decide to asslick-them to moon, and then complain you do not have enough enemies? How about leaving and attacking them? Huh, that would be many enemies, but also no real chance for epics and stuff for a while so so... no, that would be hard, no, no, lets have all easy, so we will rather be cowards and asslick till we leave.

I think this whole issue is related to the current "I want all now and easy" mentality that is all around us and MMO's adopted it as well. It is a sucking mentality and I share no mercy for people that live by it.

A fix for the server? There is no fix as there is nothing fundamentally wrong. Making it faster and easier will annoy all that played till now and kill the server very fast. I say leave it be, and the players that stayed till now will probably stay, and we will see how the game looks after a few months, if people stop asslicking and start playing the good old L2. If we will end up with 50% of the stable community comparing to the launch, i think we are OK.

[Csenky]

I do not think the server is set wrong, its in the people.

This.

The core engine of Lineage 2 is that you are never done. You work on exp, you work on class change (pvp @ woa and varka/ketra ftw), you work for gear, you fight for good spots, you fight for castle, you fight for fun, you work on noblesse...
These things are THE GAME ITSELF. It's not WoW, like "get maxlv, get maxgear, go arena" bullshit. The whole game is the progression of your character from creation to endless pvp on highlvl.

I understand that ppl has only a few hours a day, it's fine, go play some moba, fps, rts, anything WITHOUT PROGRESSION. Just log in, and be equal with everyone. This is not that type of a game. 50x server would bring in more players, true. For a month. Then everyone would leave their 80/80/80/80 full geared characters here to rot.

[N!k]

LZ +1 about fighting & not joining wining side.
But also you should understand that no1 like to loose and feed so it's stupid to blame people who want to build up their chars on lvl to be able to answer.

[Vandana]

I got ya. But I see it completely differently.

I wanted to come here to join an oldschool low-rate L2 server, here on DN, with substack, the promises lookes nice. No exploits lot of fixes, no mutantsubs, weird dynamic exp which I did not like but whatever that was the only blunder. I was off L2 for say 7 years, and I wanted to relive the old infi experience cause modern L2 and everything connected to it suxx for me and I refuse to touch it.

But it seems like half of the other server saw it the other way. They saw old dragon, so easy lolipop server with easy exp, and moved here based on clans that were active till now, thus with people bored to gear, bored to lvl, people with single plan to rush to endgame asap and then do... something I guess. All those who could not keep up were just ditched and ofc it became boring for them so they stopped to play.

I thought we would be gearing for months, having massive sieges in B grades like the old days, zergs would form vs the few nolifers that would outgear them. Etc, etc. But nope, nothing like that happened. Instead all rushed, and those who did blocked the path for others, and they, instead of fighting back, rather give up. As i mentioned in my big rant before, if my CP fails to push me trough Ill rather quit then try to do something bigger, that is the mentality of today's players.

I do not think the server is set wrong, its in the people. For me when everyone gets lvl fast, sub dast, get S weapons fast and the armor they want fast that is boring. Cause they you have just clones bashing against each other. People in L2 are not meant to be equal that is. Those who invest more effort and do not freak it us shall be stronger then casuals. Thats how it is. But now, none wants to play the weaker one. Everyone wants to be super ready before entering the war. Thats why we have so many cowards who go like "ill not pvp until Im geared and noble", hell we got whole massive clans applying that approach, look at Wolves.

Hell, before my old comrades arrived I played here with a couple of nice guys I actually trusted and you know what they did? Asslick-joined FC and Cruel. First it was "just to get horn" then it was "just to get retail" and then it was "just to get noble" and 14 days later half told me that they are leaving the server cause there is none to fight and they are bored. Eghm... sorry, instead off fighting against the top power you decide to asslick-them to moon, and then complain you do not have enough enemies? How about leaving and attacking them? Huh, that would be many enemies, but also no real chance for epics and stuff for a while so so... no, that would be hard, no, no, lets have all easy, so we will rather be cowards and asslick till we leave.

I think this whole issue is related to the current "I want all now and easy" mentality that is all around us and MMO's adopted it as well. It is a sucking mentality and I share no mercy for people that live by it.

A fix for the server? There is no fix as there is nothing fundamentally wrong. Making it faster and easier will annoy all that played till now and kill the server very fast. I say leave it be, and the players that stayed till now will probably stay, and we will see how the game looks after a few months, if people stop asslicking and start playing the good old L2. If we will end up with 50% of the stable community comparing to the launch, i think we are OK.

Im not going to say i agree with ur point of view yet i respect it. Everyone got their own oppinion others can share it or not.
1 thing id like to mention,smth being stuck on my mind, smth present in every single post of urs. Its related to "why others dont get together to create a strong enough side to face FC/cruel ally". Coz i rlly dunno who got enough strength to get together lot of ppl from different clans,ppl who never played with each other and make them work like one. Thats a hell hard work to do,thats why i got doubts will ever happen. Or,better,why dont u try it to make it? Hm?? Its always easier to stay aside and blame anyone else for not doing things instead of starting it by urself. Pls dont get me wrong,im only stating facts
Related to what u said on the other topic,the one related to changed lvl of being able to sub at...u expect some "reward" in change of what u did to sub ur chars or for those who used a premium horn to sub... Im one of those who used premium horn but i dont expect anything in change. If this will revive the server,will bring more actions,will get things better in general,there is nothing more i could wish for. As far as boredom will get vanished i wont give a flying fuk on what i did or how much i worked to get my chars to a decent stat. More ppl not being scared of losing xp by pvp,more and more ppl on daily actions is the best reward we can get.

@ Nik --> we both know who i was talking about and its obviously not ur case

[Kabally]

I have a break from active Dragon like half year & when i joined back i noticed that people here dont really know how to play in team or create one. (Not talking about big clans). The main problem is that all want to play as end-game-mode, and i cant blame no1 for that bcoz i have same feeling.But  what people need is to start making this small teams in order to get some stuff togeather.
All this chronicals are based on quests of killing XX mobs in YY location in order to get : rec's, manor, enchants and rest. & as second step - boss farming.
For example on GOD NCsoft improve the possibility of making this small teams by creating peace-farming aka inctances+ ALL commonity from 1 to 99 are using party matching. On our current chronical is abit harder but still you need same- group of people to make things to work.

That party matching option is really usefull and its working,but seems nobody using..it works a lot yes,and in official i see players doing it from 1 to 99..that true

[Mordyn]

If you want people to be more open to pvp there needs to be less of a penalty xp wise. The rates are so low people know better than to flag, die & lose an hour of leveling.

[kramligz]

If you want people to be more open to pvp there needs to be less of a penalty xp wise. The rates are so low people know better than to flag, die & lose an hour of leveling.

I agree with you dude. Maybe if Admin will not changing the exp rate, Change please the exp lose so that players have guts not loosing exp and promote pvp. Yes! I am one of them afraid always on loosing exp but I did not ever denied players kicking my ass.

[LadyZENITH]

Im not going to say i agree with ur point of view yet i respect it. Everyone got their own oppinion others can share it or not.
1 thing id like to mention,smth being stuck on my mind, smth present in every single post of urs. Its related to "why others dont get together to create a strong enough side to face FC/cruel ally". Coz i rlly dunno who got enough strength to get together lot of ppl from different clans,ppl who never played with each other and make them work like one. Thats a hell hard work to do,thats why i got doubts will ever happen. Or,better,why dont u try it to make it? Hm?? Its always easier to stay aside and blame anyone else for not doing things instead of starting it by urself. Pls dont get me wrong,im only stating facts
Related to what u said on the other topic,the one related to changed lvl of being able to sub at...u expect some "reward" in change of what u did to sub ur chars or for those who used a premium horn to sub... Im one of those who used premium horn but i dont expect anything in change. If this will revive the server,will bring more actions,will get things better in general,there is nothing more i could wish for. As far as boredom will get vanished i wont give a flying fuk on what i did or how much i worked to get my chars to a decent stat. More ppl not being scared of losing xp by pvp,more and more ppl on daily actions is the best reward we can get.

@ Nik --> we both know who i was talking about and its obviously not ur case

Long rant coming! Skip it everyone, except you.

If I knew how to fix this I would. None of the old big personalities play, or the few they do, are not significant in any way. But I was there when it was still possible. Best example would be good old "emperor" DragNeR. A guy that made seemingly impossible on old infinity. He was an enemy of mine, that trough years, gained so much respect that I started liking him. He was a leader if massive ancient ally called TLA. After few good deeds and start, parts of that ally turned to kinda of a symbol of terror. C3, the only place to lvl over 70 was on kariks... and those guys were relentless.

Back then people lived by the game. Leaving or giving up was not an option, so an opposition rised, that later became known as SemperFidelis (SF) which resulted in massive war everywhere. Summer 2006 DN updated to full C4 core, not just client. And the old TLA C1 beta core optimized army became weak, the daggers whiches skills were ignoring pdef before were now useless, the B armors and weapons outdated. Some people even left the server, so TLA started loosing. Almost every person on the server fought against them, that was the "masses versus tyrant" scenario that we needed here and never happened. Here is the video that market the end, aka the final victory over Giran. Traditionally, who holds Giran, rules the server. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceI0ox6oMgA&list=PLb_72EZuIWLOWXr9w9YWKegQq1L7R69rJ&index=5

Its old video on old computers and all but sure you can feel the omps, the names in the beginning are not of clans but entire alliances participating on this last massive attack.

Yet.... this guy did not give up. At the brink of defeat (SF had most of the castles and raids) he kept recruiting more, getting people together. There were stories being told about TLA, an underground propaganda machine was rolling. Every person kept during their best to turn the tides. He was really nice guy, people who came to play around him came to support his cause. Back then we had strong sides on server, enemies were hated, there was no way you could leave and join them just like that. Everything had serious consequences. And few months after that, he was able to recreate his ally, without allienating Fraternity, he managed to create an army so large and so loyal, that SF was destroyed, and after couple of more months, he could celebrate the ultimate victory that happened only once in the history of the server, aka captured all the castles.

But the game went on, and we managed to seed a new opposition that gave them run for their money, this time centered around Fatals. And later the server was struck by adena dupe and other exploits, which killed it and many people left. And yet, by that point people were fighting for years for the same clans and the same sides. The leaders had respect, clans had respect. So big, that one day DragNeR called "last call to war" aka the last and most epic siege to decide. That call was answered even by the players that did not play anymore. And after that, Intocables had ceremony with NW in Aden castle, those guys hated each other so much, but the same time they got so much attached to each other that when it was about to end, the respect for a great enemy took over and they had this almost RP-ish goodbye event.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UBzhWvaJTE&list=PLb_72EZuIWLMnPxib5z3qhv6A06MS4n5z&index=9

So what is this all about. Well, couple of things. First people were playing "no retreat no surrender" way. You logged in thinking not how to exp fastest or how to noble fastest, people thought how are we gonna ruin our enemy today. There was extreme loyalty to clan and ally, cause that was the only thing keeping you alive. You betrayed them, you were on your own, aka death, enemy would never accept you in their ranks fearing you are just a spy sent there. There were days when people lost in pvp more % then they exped in a week. Yet they did not cry. The war lasted 3 years, I played 2 from that and in the end I was not even noble. Cause there was no time to exp some shitty retail, one was always bussy doing PVP or politics or preparing for the next siege or epic raid. There was no middle time or moment of peace. There was no hour without having to PVP for your life in IT, LOA, Varka, FOG, you name it. Here... we had a week without PVP in IT, and when someone found us they... just went to take other room.

You see there is no push, and when you stomp someone, they try to asslick someone stronger or QQ, not fight back. You asked me "why not change it yourself" First Im not that talented. And second, there is none willing to join. Everyone is about their own ass or CP. Give me the names of the people willing to sack their own progress for months just to stand against SF for example. Heh. Yeah. There is nobody. I actually had a plan in the beginning, a devious one like in the old days. It included infiltration, betray and a lot of true hate. Hehe, yeah but... Nobody fallowed it trough till the end. Most of them turned in to "noble first" morons that left the server already. Well, about half left, not all. Few still play as traitors in the ranks of SF which they sworn to betray, and only very few did so as they promissed. One of them still there even made hero..... Ill not name you, but you know, and you know you can do better then that. You attack the tyrant, not join them!

So I kinda gave up. Normally I would be very pissed, but hey my old buddies from infi, exp clanmates, now clanmates again arrived just when that happened. So I started playing with them, and I continue to do so. Guess why, cause for the most part, we are loyal to each other and they remember the days of honor and glory. And maybe, just maybe, in due time, something will happen. Like back then, there were many hopeless months and sleepless nights, but the glory after was that sweater. I can now only hope things go on and on, Wolves start to PVP to make the server more juicy and we stick loyal to each other and support whoever side it needs it the most, and off course, the most enjoyable part, hunt the vile traitors. Still I feel like a flower blooming without any bees feasting on it. Its too quiet and peaceful everywhere, by now I have more stuff, equip, wealth and exp then I had on infi after two years with pulling in 2x more hours a day... how come... I cant even daily PVP. None attacks me. If i attack them the either have big enough zerg to kill me with that, or they just die, say nothing and leave (so I have to go on PK) or start QQ so I start talking with them why the QQ and they tell me "Im not noble and full equip yet so ill not fight you". What the freak...

Look at it, castles not even taken from NPC's... None attacks even the populated castles, Even dead Fatals did not lose their castle, cause none took it. Welel.. just for the sake of it we will try tak some next sieges, but really it is tragic state of L2. When there is none to take undefended castle... you ask me "why don't you form the army yourself".. yeah. You see why.

[Mordyn]

You do realize that this has to do with two things, right?
The rate
The age of the game

You can't fit one of the above, want to guess which one?
I'm not suggesting that Drake make's the server a super high rate, I'm suggesting that he get's real with the situation. ESPECIALLY when a server already has it's main powers, to come in now and try to catch up is almost pointless. You will grief, pvp/pk them off the server before they can compete, all the while thinking you are the shit because noone can stop you.
Stop worrying about how "hard" you had it afew months ago compared to what new comers might have it. I'd love to bring my crew here and give you a run for your money, but I openly admit that we wouldn't be able to catch up enough with the current state of the game.
Stop thinking about yourself and be realistic.

[DaggerIsMyLife]

Everything here is just NO LIFERS Dominate and dont want to see any changes, while people who cant play that long want to get on their lvl in some shorter way.

[Denzo]

Everything here is just NO LIFERS Dominate and dont want to see any changes, while people who cant play that long want to get on their lvl in some shorter way.

are we playing same server? tarantula? Each of clans got like ~5-10 nolifers rest of guys working like u or me. Not a big deal to reach end game so fast if u are working on it with friendly partys or even with more guys playing with same characters.. and gearing, xping it.
No matter which rate we are playing if u have problems with it, u will have problems with new style too cus u are just a nonfactor.

xp rates  higher-> hit lvl79 in C gr, no sp for skills, higher lvl noob then before, cant sub faster no matter what, cant kill rbs alone, cant go to epics alone etc...

while people who cant play that long want to get on their lvl in some shorter way.

agree with this, we were lvling in current rates and some high rate kids whos using ch buffs only.. crying about hard to xp to even 70 or 76. No matter which rate u are playing if u are alone with sh1tty buffs u got right to change on this, get buffer get friends get party. IF u are mage or archer there is perfect buffers for fast lvling..

When i ve started SWS, made an SH too just for xping faster, but HEY its cheating and not allowed to use everbody else...

find ur balls, join to clan and start playing rather then be an other forum hero

[Naiz]

If you want people to be more open to pvp there needs to be less of a penalty xp wise. The rates are so low people know better than to flag, die & lose an hour of leveling.

I actually think that it would be a big + for this server. I'd even be up to make no loss of exp IF YOU'RE KILLED BY THE PLAYER, NOT MOB. That would change a lof of ppl mentality. "Hey, you want to kill me? I'm gonna try to kill you instead. I won't loose any exp even if i fail, so i don't mind fighting back." I know it might sound stupid, but after looking on many ppl behaviour i think it would help a lot.