I’ve decided to give my two cents on the current state of the Lineage 2 NCWest servers. Take it or leave it, these are my opinions and experiences.

„Who are you?“

I’m posting from a throw away account, because I do not want people to know who my main is, nor do I want NCSoft to ban me from simply speaking my mind. I’m a level 99 Sigil Knight with maxed out gear: +6 R99, Full +++ Epics, OE’d R99 Weapon, Power Shirt, OE’d Skills, etc, etc, etc. I’ve been playing Lineage 2 since Chronicle 3 and have seen its ups and downs and the rise of 3rd party program use which has propelled me to make this thread.

„What is the current end game like?“

Despite of adamant denials from the top clans on each of the servers, 3rd party program use has become an integral part of Lineage 2 on these servers. End game revolves around a few key gameplay mechanics:
• Grinding to 99/99/80/80: Very few people do this without the use of 3rd party programs. The grind is incredibly boring, so most people hold it to NCSoft’s fault for making such a grindy game. The majority of my clan, along with nearly every other top clan, uses botting as a means to get their characters to max level.
• Grinding Adena to max out your gear: Within each of the major clans are Adena farmers that run multiple trains of bots to farm adena for themselves, and to sell at discounted prices to their clan and alliance mates. Once again 3rd party program use and real money trading permeate this aspect of the game. I, myself, along with probably 10 or so of my clan mates run a few trains. Some have enjoyed the profits so much, they do it on other servers, just to turn a profit. Other clans on our server, and other servers also compete for spots, hunting zone and we often make deals sharing and splitting up areas between our bot trains.
• PvP: Definitely the main lure of Lineage 2. However recently more and more groups have been using PvP scripts to automate certain parts of their PvP. I personally do not and am actually extremely opposed to the idea of automating the best of Lineage 2. While some groups in my clan use PvP scripts, it is also well known what other clans on our server, and other servers, use scripts. Often our clan scripters will trade and sell PvP Scripts to other clans. Our Yul Archer script in particularly was highly demanded on Chronos and Naia and sold for quite a bit of money.

„Why haven’t you and others that use 3rd Party Programs been banned!?!?“

The answer is rather simple, NCWest wants to make money.

If you have adena trains and are selling portions of your farmed adena, you are turning a profit and making money. Regularly buying NCCoin on your bots and your main characters is a sure way to not to get banned. For every bot train you see, there is a very good chance those bots are purchasing 500 to 1000 NCCoin a month, essentially pouring the profits of the Adena selling back into NC Soft. In my personal experience, I’ve never had any of my bots banned using this method and the only bots I’ve ever get seen banned were ones that were not buying NCCoin.

„Atleast NCWest is making an attempt to hold legitimate events with the Battle Tourney“

I thought that as well initially, and was extremely pumped that I’d get to face everyone without the use of PvP Scripts (as I said earlier I’m extremely opposed to PvP scripts). However, before the first round had even started our clan’s scripter was in contact with other clan’s scripters on Chronos and Naia as to what scripts would be undetectable and which ones might get caught. Sure enough, even in the first round PvP scripts were being used by several of the teams. For me, this was a major let down, that even right in front of the GMs and Community Managers, people were able to use PvP scripts and not get caught.

„So I am a new and/or legit player, that would rather not have to spend money on adena, bot, and use 3rd party programs. What should I do?“

You really have three options:
Stick it out. There is a chance NCWest may get its act together one day and solve the issues surrounding botting. Or perhaps they will open a premium server where they charge a monthly fee to play on, but ensure no bots or 3rd party programs can be used.
Learn Russian and move to one of the many Russian servers. Russia does a fairly good job at policing its servers. However the down side is that you need to know Russian.
Play on a private server. Many private servers offer solid protection with active GMs that sweep through bot areas and make sure no 3rd party programs are being used. Also many private servers have a larger population than NCWest, especially if you take into account that everyone is actually playing, and not using bots. I won’t give specific names, but feel free to PM me if you want links to the best private servers out there.

Thanks for reading. I wonder how long this post/account will be up