Griefing Definition

For all us noobs out there, a short explanation of what a griefer is about:

"A griefer is a player who plays a game simply
to aggravate and harass other players." (Wiki)

It refers to a player whose only objective in the game is to cause grief, and who cannot thus be deterred by penalties related to in-game goals, because they have no in-game goals other than to cause grief (see Summoner's post about PK motives).

A form of cyber-bullying.

Activities one player considers griefing may be understood by another to be part of normal gameplay.

It is often a form of emergent gameplay, the creative use of a game in ways unexpected by the game designer's original intent. In several games, e.g. first-person shooters, game glitches or physics quirks can become viable strategies, or even spawn their own game types. I think we have lots and lots of those in LII, although in each update they try to stop them.

An act of griefing involves the following three types of actions to be considered grief play: The use or abuse of a game mechanic that was not intended by the game's developers. The inability of the victim to exact some means of retribution beyond utilizing similar unintended game mechanics. The intended purpose of an act of griefing must be to negatively impact the game play of another person. An act of griefing usually meets all these criteria as well as any game specific criteria set by the developers of the game.

The South Park Episode 1008, titled "Make Love Not War", is an excellent parody of the issue based on WoW.






Note: Next week there will be a blog post examining the possible motives and solutions of the issue.

PK motives

It happens quite often that some people will attack a live player for no reason at all apparently.
I understand the motive behind bot-killers or the marking of territory by attacking someone who entered and started stealing mobs from one's grinding spot.
Yesterday, as I was moving around places, I was attacked once by a Red (AKA marked idiot) and another time by a white-turned-purple player.
Since the recent patches (the previous one I think), there is no chance of dropping any item upon the death of a non-red player. So there is no possible bonus for PK a white player.
The penalty for turning red can be quite annoying:
1) the town guards will attack a Red player on sight and they are lvl 62, so this should be especially annoying for the PKers running around Dion, who cannot be higher than 45.
2) the NPC stores will not trade with Reds, except 3 special NPCs (Floran,Hardin's,Spider Nest), but who charge double prices then.
3) The Sin Eater quest is a huge pain.

So what could be the motive for attacking a harmless live player?
I asked the purple man attacking me, why he wished to turn himself Red and he was kind enough to enlighten me:
"I want to increase my PK count" said the player "GreekPower"... (apparently power does not get along well with wits)
Can someone please explain this to me?
Can a high PK count on mid-levels lead to anything other than an adena-drain and possible delevelling from town guards and higher level players, who can easily kill a Red without getting Karma (no penalty and besides there was Hero chat yesterday calling for high-level people to go to Cruma and enjoy a feast on Reds).
Finally there is still the chance to get a dropped weapon from Reds (only the Red players still have a chance to drop their weapon upon death), which should be a detterent for people turning red, provided their brain could process the situation rationally.

Is there any logic really behind increasing the PK count ?

Gracia Part 2

It's time to start exploring the next update, Gracia Part 2!

Today we introduce few pictures only, but more news will soon be made available.

	To start with, players will be able to acquire one of those little followers. Contrary to angel and devil agathions, these guys (how should I call them?) are actually useful, each of them producing different results.
The player will be able to choose whatever follower suits him/her best. Can you imagine a well-known short hero of Teon (Tzonakos!!) with a cute little and fierce squirrel like this one? He said he will definitely get one :)
	I personally love the blue mage-on-robes one! "Mom? He followed me  home,  can I keep him?"
I wonder what they do and how much they will cost. It is possible that they will be part of the (new) paid services, which means that we will have to pay for those little guys with real world currency.

Included a picture of a character plus follower, in order for you to see the relative size.

Some mini games will be included too! I wish we could play these at work :-)

 

Propheti told me about a new mount made available, so here it is! A white stallion, just for you. Each of the race (and probably gender too) will have a different position when on top of the horse.




More info will be soon added - stay tuned!

Clan news: Zenais back!

Update 27/8/08: Zenais is in Athens!!

Woot!! Zenais, our beloved Kamael is coming home for short vacations next week!

During the past months, Zenais is doing his military service somewhere close to Orestiada - the northeasternmost and northernmost city of Greece, working 24x7 in awful conditions.

I have an old picture of Zenais and his s.o. Sarafi,

from the academy graduation ceremony :)

Welcome back!!

Lineage in Greek

A new blog has been created: Lineage II στα Ελληνικά

The new blog will be in greek and the articles will mainly be translations from game guides and news announcements. Long term planning incudes a site to properly store all the translations (..hopefully!)

Please forward the link to anyone who could be interested, especially greek-speaking game fans who do not read english articles.

Guys? What are you doing on Friday night?

Have you heard about the Game Convention 2008? Have you heard about NC Soft's party??

As far as the Convention is concerned, it seems that NC provides some means of following what's going on there, even from home.

As far as Clan Members are concerned, remember there is a coffee-and-cookies meeting on Saturday morning (..in Athens), so please don't stay up too late on Friday's party (..in Leipzig).

Gracia Poll Results

Gracia - First Impression?

• I like it! 83%
• Hate it! 10%
• n/a 7%

Thank you all for your votes!

Mammon Suggestion

Suggestion:

Always keep an alt toon in the level range 20 to 39 for two reasons:

1. Free teleports throughout the map.
2. Free subscription to 7 Signs.

Thus you can have this toon moving around the catas and necros to deal with the BS and Merchant of Mammon. Your main char will not spend any money/time and will not have to move away from the current hunting place.

Vitality Summarised

1. Basic info at http://www.lineage2.com/guide/vitality_system.html

2. You gain Vitality Points the quickest if you are logged out (Alyra).
o Staying logged in a Peace Zone will still earn you Vitality Points, but not as quickly as being logged out.
o It doesn't matter where you log out -- the rate at which you earn Vitality Points is the same.
o It doesn't matter if you are dead while logged out -- the rate at which you earn Vitality Points is the same.

3. Vitality Points are only depleted when you kill a monster that is not a raid boss or quest mob, but not while running around at TOI, trying to reach floor 114 (needs further testing). Note that kamaloka are not RB, thus you loose points, not gain.

4. Vitality points are calculated per character, not per account (Alyra).
Which means that it is a good idea to have a dwarf at your account. When you finish exp-ing, you can relog with your dwarf, arrange to sell/buy what you need, then go to sleep. Your main char will gain vitality points all night through!

5. Karma drops faster when vitality level is higher.
This is because karma drops based on the number of exp points gained.

6. The "Energy Points" earned when killing an RB are actually "Vitality Points", which are counted towards increasing your vitality level sooner (Alyra).

7. Once you reach a certain number of Vitality Points, you get bumped to the next Vitality Level.

8. The Vitality level affects both the XP and SP. So if you get have vitality x3, that means that you get triple the XP AND the SP for hunting a given mob.

This text will be updated as soon as we have additional info. Please post your ideas and we will incorporate them.

Info gathered from related posts at the lineage2.com forums and endless testing.

The addition of the "Alyra" mark means that the specific piece of information was given by Alyra, the official voice of NCSoft.

Enchant Scrolls from Freightman

Post updated on 18/8/2008

News Flash: The quest A Special Order (lvl 40+) was finally activated!

1. Go to Helvetia in Giran Grocery, take quest. If you get the fisherman, go to step 2, if you get the warehouse chief go to step 3. You can abort the quest and re-take it, in order to try the other path.

2. The fisherman asks you for 30 Orange fish (10 ugly, 10 nimble, 10 fat). Talk to him again (with the fish!) and he gives you an item for Helvetia. Go to step 4.

3. The warehouse chief asks your for 120 manor fruits (Cobol). Talk to him again (with the fruit!) and he gives you an item for Helvetia.

4. Talk to Helvetia. She gives you a Wondrous Cubic and the quest ends.

Now that you have the Wondrous Cubic (non-tradable), you can use it once per 24 hours. It produces a colored item (tradable), randomly, which you can give to any warehouse freightman (plus adena) and buy enchant scrolls!


Scroll Prices:

• EWD: 1 Fine Blue Cubic Piece + 150.000a
• EAD: 1 Rough Blue Cubic Piece + 18.000a
• EWC: 1 Fine Yellow Cubic Piece + 330.000a
• EAC: 1 Rough Yellow Cubic Piece + 45.000a
• EWB: 1 Fine Green Cubic Piece + 1.500.000a
• EAB: 1 Rough Green Cubic Piece + 80.000a
• EWA: 1 Fine Red Cubic Piece + 5.400.000a
• EAA: 1 Rough Red Cubic Piece + 720.000a
• EWS: 1 Fine White Cubic Piece + 15.000.000a
• EAS: 1 Rough White Cubic Piece + 1.500.000a

Some additional info on fishing:

• Small, big and high grade fish are no good for this quest.
• Buy an equal quantity of each lure color (green/yellow/purple), since you need an equal quantity of ugly/nimble/fat fish. Presumably 'nimble' = 'fast'.
  
• Fishing expertise lvl 13- 15 required for orange.
• If you have higher level of expertise, use orange potion from Fishing Master (6.750a). It lasts for 1 hour. There is also an antidote-potion, which gets you back to your initial expertise level (also 6.750a).
  
• Fishing guide.
  

Some additional info on manoring:

• You can buy seeds from any area/manor that offers the appropriate seeds, not only Giran. You can check which seeds are sold in every area/manor from any town, you do not have to travel there.
• Manoring guide1 and guide2.
  

NEW CRYSTAL PRICES

After the Gracia went live yesterday, the current crystal cost in LIVE are presented after crystalising weapons bought at Giran NPC shop at 10% tax.

D crystal: 650 adena
C crystal: 3000 adena
B crystal: 9461 adena
A Crystal: ?

Note
The mammon merchant prices have not changed.

FOUNDATION ITEMS

Here is the deal with the new rare type of equipment called "foundation".
Whenever a dwarf artisan (warsmith,maestro) crafts an B or higher grade item, be it weapon, armor, jewel, there is a chance that the item will not be normal, but a special (improved) "foundation" version of this item.
Hence, I guess that in lower grades (D and C) the chance for bonus is to get 2 items instead of one.
If you craft such an item, then you can unseal its bonus by following these steps:
1) Go to the Merchant of Mammon and buy "Mammon's Varnish Enhancer" (VE) for Foundation items... for B grade Foundation items you need 1 VE, for A and S you need 2,3 up to 7 for S/S80 grade weapons. The VE cost is 100K adena (thankfully not AA)
2) Go to the Blacksmith of Mammon with the given foundation item and the "Varnish Enhancer" and he will unseal the bonus.

Now the general rule for the bonus on each item category is:
WEAPON
The weapon will get an extra special ability, which can be similar to Focus (extra Crit rate), Health (extra HP), extra max MP (most mage weapons get it) etc.
For special dual swords, you craft and unseal a "foundation" sword, for example a "Damascus - Lightning" and use it at the Mammon BS as part of the dual set. Then the Dama*Dama duals will have the "Lightning" foundation ability and you can enchant the duals to +4 and they will get their usual special ability as well (e.g. for Dama*Dama "Accuracy will increase by 6").
As another example, I recall the "foundation" bonus for the Kris (mid B- grade dagger, actually most/all? Foundation daggers get this); increased Evasion special ability, which can stack with its usual "Evasion" SA if you choose it instead of the popular "Focus"...or you give it the "Focus" SA and it gets increased Evasion from its "foundation" bonus.

Note that the "foundation" bonus is predetermined for any given weapon... you do not get any choices or random results after unsealing the "foundation" weapon. e.g. the Kris will always get extra evasion.

ARMOR
The armor piece will get a bonus similar to the armor bonus of the normal set, plus a bit extra. So for pieces of a robe set, the extra bonus is PDef, for parts of a LA set, the bonus is extra evasion, and for pieces of a heavy set the bonus is extra HP. Unfortunately a masterwork item does not combine with normal items as a set. Moreover, it does not combine with other masterwork items to create a set... it just gives the bonus by itself. So if you have a complete set of masterwork items, you get a bit higher bonus than the standard set, but no attribute modifications.
For example, a complete masterwork Dark Crystal Robe Set gives a total 18% casting speed increase instead of the normal 15%, but it does not modify the attributes WIT +2, MEN -2, so that the final result is that you get less casting speed with the masterwork set than the normal set. I have already read many posts complaining about this "feature".

JEWELS
I checked a few jewels and the "foundation" bonus may give extra CP or MP, resistance to poison or bleeding or magic etc.

Gracia 1 Launch: 12/8/2008

Just Released:

The 2nd Throne - Gracia™ 1 update going live on Tuesday

Tuesday 12/8/2008 - that's less than a week!

As announced, the estimated maintenance period is 1:00 PM to 7:00 PM GMT (I think this is 14:00 to 20:00 greek time - damn!). Event Gatekeepers will come, but I don't know for which event %-)

August Misc News

1. In the Gracia update, we will be able to bypass the 2nd class change quests by doing a mini-quest (includes paying 3M). EllyBelly has already compiled a guide.

2. The blog's poll regarding the next clan skill was conclusive: MDef (93%) was chosen over HP Regen (6%).

3. Remember what did the clan's financial advisors (!) suggested we do before Gracia:

• Sell D, C and low B weapons. Sell kesh*kesh duals too.
• Sell Avadon and Zubei armors.
• Sell expensive D and C armor and jewels (except shirts).
  
• Buy Lifestones and dual craft stamps.

4. An interview with an NC guy is published at the MMOFury site. It's not very interesting, however 3 quotes to note:

• "Artisans can now create special items and have a chance to craft more than one item with one set of materials (up to C grade items)".
  Only up to C grade? More info anyone?
  
• "I don’t have an exact count at the moment of Kamael meshes in the next update".
  What's a mesh and why was he asked about Kamael meshes' specifically?
  
• "We plan to launch Part 1 live in August and are scheduling Part 2 to be released some time before the end of the year".
  OK you knew that :)

5. Clan meetings every other weekend at exotic places: Palini and/or Glyfada. Ubba, Chryssa, LAXTARAS, Fyonar are (still) on vacations.

Detail from the noob comic of 4/11/2007

Fallen Orc Shaman's secret

If you are a mage and lvl 55+, one of the best places for XP is Forsaken Planes (Aden territory). It is there that you 'll encounter a mob with the name "Fallen Orc Shaman". Actually there are two mobs with the same name and their main difference is that one of them, after the first hit, transforms into a white tiger. This one gives 12983 XP, 1110 SP and 1737 - 3540 adena.

Being a mage and playing solo, one of your main considerations is MP preservation. Although there are MP herbs that drop over there, most of the time you 'll find yourself sitting on a safe spot for recharge. So, one good technique is to to maximize XP/SP and minimize MP consumption. You set your mage to walking (so MP regenerates as fast as possiple while still playing) and you target that precious "Fallen Orc Shaman". First hit "Wind Strike" to force it transform while consuming the minimum MP. Then 2 to 3 hits depending of your Matck power. In that way you can XP for a long time, although the pace is slow. Better than sitting.

But there is also the other mob, the other "Fallen Orc Shaman" which does not transform.

I have read in several forums that it is not possible to distiguish between these two mobs because they look the same. That is true. They do look exactly the same. But... do they move the same? The answer here is no! You can distinguish them by their movement!

This morning I had in front of me these two mobs and I knew that the one was a transformer and the other was not. But which was which? Suddently I noticed that one of them raised its staff in a movement like the /socialcharge action we have. I kept looking at them without attacking. After a while, again, the same mob, did that movement. The other, again, did not. Is this the way to distiguish them, I asked myself. I did a full attack on the mob. It did not transform. After that I attacked the second and it did. I did it again and again to test my theory. Every time I was right! The Fallen Orc Shaman that DOES MAKES THIS MOVMENT is the one that DOES NOT TRANSFORMS into a tiger!

Dedicated to all Sorcerers who struggle their way up the XP scale.

Knulp

August Heroes

Duelist - Aurelija
Pheonix knight - Thehaunted
Saggitarious - Execut1oner
Archmage - Localhost
Arcana Lord- jissaya
Hierophant - Nyae
Sword Muse - Errora
Moonlight sentinel - Prinz
Elementar master- albns
Shiellen templar - Lowbyyhn
Ghost hunter - lianviks
Stormscreamer - xxkrilxx
Shiellen saint - Scorpi
Grandkhavatari - warriorCDkiller
Doomcryer - Dantal1on
Maestro - Venera
Soul hound - Optty
Dreadnought - ashandri
Hell knight - Arag0rn
Adventurer - Juletta
Soul taker - Danidefo
Cardinal - Pichi
Evas templar - Extentior
wind rider - boranis
Mystic muse - Nestia
Eva saint - Syntasy
Spectral Dancer - Pellegri
Ghost sentinel - Sovenok
Spectral master - glinar
Titan - fengrush
Dominator - Northon
fortune seeker - Korobkin
Doombringer - Irsen
Trickster - RD

Based on Fuma's post @ l2guru