Tag: NCSoft

Dr. NCSoft Prescribes Extra Lineage II Server


Lineage II’s free to play launched almost as expected: the servers were steamrolled by the Persian Army sized group of newcomers, and naturally players experienced problems reliably logging in and staying logged in last night. In preparation for the transition, NCSoft opened a brand new server (Shilen) and today revealed yet another new server, Magmeld.

Announced on Twitter and on the main website, NCSoft is advertising the server to new players and new players only. In fact, much like Shilen before it, character transfers have been disabled to Magmeld. Similar to Shilen, NCSoft is adding rewards for server firsts.

NCSoft’s next quarterly report should be rather interesting.

Lineage II Free To Play Brings Login Woes


Although Lineage II unofficially went free to play a week ago when NCSoft opened up all existing accounts, today brings the full release of Lineage II: Goddess of Destruction. With it brings the Path to Awakening, a system that gives players an incentive to grind through the levels (Lineage II is not an MMO where you can level solely through questing) by offering rewards, and the Goddess of Destruction expansion. You can head over to the Lineage II website to download the client and find more information on the game. Truly Free places forward all content free of charge to anyone willing to participate, while the cash shop is promised to sell only convenience items.

Of course, with the amount of people logging in today and creating accounts, the servers have become rather sluggish and have been coming down regularly. NCWest promises that they are working on the issue, and will be giving more information as it appears. Until then, you shouldn’t have any problem downloading and patching the game.

Just Kidding: Lineage II Becomes Free To Play Today


Omali you cheeky person, you say while you flick through the calendar here on MMO Fallout and see that yes, indeed, the free to play switch was announced for November 30th. You would be half correct: The Goddess of Destruction patch goes live on the 30th. Today, however, NCsoft has taken down the Lineage 2 servers at approximately 8am eastern for an estimated ten hours for maintenance. The patch notes are as follows:

  • The Vesper Dreams event continues.
  • The European server, Naia, will be moved to the United States. Moving forward it will be in the same physical location as Chronos. The Naia server time in-game will remain European: the next Castle Siege and Territory Wars on Naia will occur this weekend (November 26 and 27) as originally planned.
  • All Lineage II game accounts become Truly Free.
  • All characters’ vitality will be refilled. A vitality refill will happen with every regular weekly maintenance.

For now, the NCsoft account management is down for maintenance. You can find the announcement here, in case you still don’t believe me. You’re going to need an eleven gigabyte download for the client, so get to work!

Update: The NCsoft website is back up and accounts should be displayed as “playable” with an NCcoin amount listed.

Mark Your Calendars: Lineage II Free To Play


What do Lineage II and Ragnarok Online have in common? Nothing. Last month, NCSoft announced that Lineage II will mark the next product in their line to make the great transition to free to play, and what a transition it promises to be. Dubbed “Play Your Way,” players can still opt to pay a subscription for bonus loot, experience, and more, or they can opt to play the entirety of the game absolutely free. There are no content locks, so you can experience all the game has to offer completely free of charge.

The home page for Lineage II now displays a release date of November 30th. Head over to the link for more information, but it appears our source from the previous article was spot on that this would follow in lockstep with Innova’s service in other regions:

Anyone can play for free. However, if you pay the monthly subscription, you get permanent 2x Exp, SP, Drops, Spoils.Item store includes items like Buff Milks, 30-day rent-a-Buffpet, 30 day rent-a-Mount, New Hair Accessories, etc.

14 Minutes Of Lineage Eternal


NCSoft last week announced Lineage Eternal: Twilight Resistance. Although you won’t be fighting back hordes of sparkling vampires, the game promises massive battles, siege warfare, destructible environments, and more. The game is presented in the original Lineage isometric view, etc.

The trailer shows off some amazing concepts. Large scale battles, the destruction engine, boss creatures, cutscenes and more. The game looks like it will play similar to the isometric dungeon crawlers ala Diablo and Torchlight, with a few twists. The player character is shown using abilities by dragging the mouse and making patterns. A circle around the player unleashes a swirling blade slash that destroys everything around him. Enemies do not display health bars in the trailer. A grappling mechanic allows the player to both pull mobs within reach and scale normally blocked terrain.

You’ll have to watch the video to see all the glory for what it is.

NCSoft Third Quarter Finances: Profit/Revenues Down


NCSoft has released its financial documents for the third quarter, and the report starts with “Revenue and Operating Income came down due to soft promotions for in-game items sales versus Q2.” In fact, the publisher is reporting a 22% loss quarter over quarter and 32% year over year loss in operating profit, as well as a 12% loss in sales over last quarter, and a 33% loss in net income over the same quarter.

Income from Aion rose slightly over the last quarter, with Lineage coming down from its big jump. Lineage 2 lost less than it did last quarter, while income from Guild Wars continued its decline and City of Heroes increased slightly. Lineage’s loss of revenue is noted as being related to scaling back of cash shop items in the game’s Korean and Taiwan distributions. The quarter over quarter expense increase is due to NCsoft’s Japan donation.

Now to talk region distribution. North America’s share dropped 10% over last quarter, with Europe dropping 6% of its sales. Japan’s share increased 6% over last quarter, with Korea dropping 13% and royalties taking a dip as well.

Next quarter will see a dramatic rise in sales by City of Heroes, and hopefully Aion with the number of content updates. The announcement of Lineage Eternal should bring some interest to the other two games.

Appeals Court Rules In Favor of Richard Garriot


Backstory: Richard Garriot partnered with NCsoft to create Tabula Rasa, a sci-fi shooter MMO that rather famously launched in late 2007 and shut down in early 2009 following a poor reception. Before Tabula Rasa shut down, however, NCsoft published a letter of resignation purportedly from Richard Garriot that he was leaving the company to pursue other careers. Garriot shot back, suing NCsoft with the claim that he was fired from the company, and then marked as voluntarily resigning in order to defraud him out of stock options that were available but expired upon his “resignation.”

Last year I reported that Richard Garriot had won $28 million in his lawsuit against NCsoft, although the final amount was $32 million, after lawyer fees and other costs added on. I also pointed out that NCsoft would undoubtedly appeal, and appeal they did. The 5th Circuit Court, however, saw Garriot’s side of the story (yet again) and shot NCsoft down, affirming the judgement.

“It would be unjust to allow NCsoft to sit back during trial, observe Garriott’s litigation strategy, and then demand a new trial on damages when it dislikes the verdict.”

NCsoft noted the lawsuit in their 2010 financial documents as a notable dent in their revenue.

Lineage 2 Heading Free To Play


NCsoft wants you to play Lineage II your way. Coming off the heels of City of Heroes taking the free to play route comes the announcement that NC is pairing up with Innova to bring free to play to Lineage II. The new model is being called “Play Your Way,” and is not being referred to as free to play, but rather a hybrid model, by NCsoft. So far the details are sparse, but user Pocket Medic of the Lineage II forums posted specifics from Innova’s other services:

Anyone can play for free. However, if you pay the monthly subscription, you get permanent 2x Exp, SP, Drops, Spoils.Item store includes items like Buff Milks, 30-day rent-a-Buffpet, 30 day rent-a-Mount, New Hair Accessories, etc.

More on this to come. Lineage II is one of NCsoft’s best performing games, and I think the dip this past quarter may have been the first indication that the west would go free to play or follow in Lineage’s footsteps and simply shut down.

Has Aion Embraced Pay To Win?


Pay to win is a highly controversial label in the MMO business, and I should know. I haven’t even finished the second sentence for this article, yet there is already a mob forming inside of my house ready to beat me to death if I show even a hint of unwavering and militant opposition to the monetary scheme. Going back to our old rule book, it’s important to remember the rule of perception: The important factor is not your intent, it is the player’s reception. If players viewed Turbine’s survey wall as an underhanded, deliberate scam, that is how it will be remembered.

Aion has a special sale going on in the NCsoft store that has managed to ruffle more than a few feathers: The publisher is selling Felicitous Socketing in both Fabled and Eternal flavors, in single sets or bundles of three. The items is single-use and allows you to socket a manastone with 100% success rate. If this makes no sense to you, you’ve probably seen socketing in games like Diablo or Torchlight, except in Aion this system is designed to be unreliable. Failing a socket will cost you the manastone. Couple low success rates with higher level armor/manastones, and you have an expensive recipe for disaster. When researching this topic, I came across a notable amount of posters claiming losses rising up to and over ten million Kinah.

To top it off, the items are only available until October 12th, after which they will be removed from the store. So I’ll leave this one up to the viewers. Do you think this constitutes pay to win?

City of Heroes Officially Free


Dust the cobwebs off of that old City of Heroes account, kids, because everyone’s favorite super hero MMO from that time only us old people remember is officially free. For new players, head on over to this website to get started with a new account. For prior subscribers, all you have to do is log in and away you go. As I pointed out last week, if you are still running the old standalone launcher, you’re going to have to upgrade to NCsoft’s in-house client.

New to City of Heroes? Check out the new user guide. Otherwise, get in there and get fighting for good…or evil.