Game news

Not-so-new "pumpkin" event (also knows us "Summer Squash Event") with not-so-interesting rewards will take place from June 9th to June 16th. NPCs will remain around for another week. At least you gain quest items by hunting mobs in your lvl, so it's not that bad.

The quest history, about the poor farmer.. nurturing plants with love.. blah blah, evil blah blah, seeds infused with anger blah blah.. Same as last year.

Now for the important news....

The "subclass change" paid service will start! Yeap! On June 9th!

Not much detail has been published, but expectations and rumors are that it will allow swapping between main and subclass! It took place once before, for a limited time (Jolcyk changed from a short dwarfette to a sexy female human!). It will cost €30 / $50.

Excellent news for healers

You will never believe this! In the next update, healers will be able to choose skills from their fellow healer classes! At least according to the patch notes - it will get verified soon, when it gets live at Korea.

Requirement: 3rd class

• Cardinals get 1 skill (used to be 2).
• Eva's Saints get 1 skill (used to be 2).
• Silien Saints possibly get 4 skills (they haven't changed that yet)!

Choices can be altered, but deleting a skill learned this way costs 10M.

Caution, not all skills are available. For example Balance Life seems to be missing from the table. Oh well. Still we (= Silien Saints) can get clarity! At last those stupid sorcerers will now party with us!

More info and discussion at EllieBelly's site!

Will we ever enter Aerial Cleft?

Well, chances are that it will take some time. At least at Teon.

Note added on May 9th, 2009: OK, cleft is finally open. Let's go!!

According to the patch notes :

"One can enter (aerial cleft) only when either the Seed of Destruction or Seed of Infinity is in a stable state".

If "stable state" means that the Keuceraus Alliance (that's us, the players!) should be occupying one of the Seeds, which it does, then I am afraid that a lot of coordination, power and expertise is required.

As Elmar said at EllieBelly.net

"Because at least one of the Seed strongholds must be taken for the Cleft to become accessible. In the Seed of Infinity you need a party of lower level players to do the first instance so that the 80+ people can get to the Epic Boss. That's unrealistic on Western servers; even in Korea it very rarely happens. So the only practical way would be to kill Tiat in the Seed of Destruction."

Now I think Tiat has been killed on Teon, however something has not yet been fulfilled since the cleft has not yet open.

L2WH free for few days

The l2wh site has not yet been updated with all gracia final info.

Thus they have decided to let all advanced site features free, until they update their site, in few days.

Caution: a new sniffer will be released too.

New round of bans

Many accounts were yesterday banned, following a short server down-time.

Chromatic, Hot Springs and other busy places were empty this morning.

Should I use these cubic pieces today or not?

If you have a cubic (award from A Special Order quest), you daily get a cubic piece.

Each cubic piece (plus some adena) can be exchanged for an enchant scroll.

Scroll Exchange 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

I would assume that it's always worth getting your enchant scrolls like that, instead of buying them in player shops. However few weeks ago, there was a strange phenomenon and the scrolls were sold in very low prices, even less than the adena needed to exchange your cubic piece for a scroll. Rumors said that this was due to a bug exploit. In any case, it was not worth exchanging your cubic pieces any longer.

Recently I had a look at l2wh.com (Teon sellers) prices and here are the results, comparing the price:

• if you directly buy the scroll from a player shop
• if you already own the cubic piece, and exchange it for a scroll
• if you buy the cubic piece from a player shop, and exchange it for a scroll
  

	buy scroll	exchange piece	buy + exchange piece
EWD	270k	150k	120k + 150k
EAD	27k	18k	10k + 18k
EWC	600k	330k	300k + 330k
EAC	150k	45k	55k + 45k
EWB	3M	1.5M	1.3M + 1.5M
EAB	200k	80k	170k + 80k
EWA	5.8M	5.4M	2.5M + 5.4M
EAA	800k	720k	300k + 720k
EWS	79M	15M	60M + 15M
EAS	7M	1.5M	45M + 1.5M (?!)

So things are back to normal, keep exchanging your cubic pieces!

If you do not have enough of the pieces you need, check the table above to see if it is worth buying the scroll or the (respective) piece. 

GM @ Teon (again!)

Chryssa told me that a GM was seen yesterday!!

.. of course there was lots of banning too.

.... followed by heros cursing each other for unknown reasons ;-)

Rune @ Teon

It seems that ITT (Unforgiven) still holds Rune, after this week's siege.

X-mas agathions

One of the possible Santa presents is this plush-looking agathion. It is the cutest little creature!





I do not know the actual chance of getting this present, but it seems very slim. Some people suggest that hitting an NPC overnight helps (force-attack, make sure you are outside a peace zone).

Lady Equistrius (who I do not know) was my model for the pictures, and a kind dark elf named Introspect demonstrated the agathion skill. Soooo cute (the agathion, not the dark elf)!

The description of this event, and the design of the agathion, make me think that there are new people in NC Soft's Lineage II team!


PS Chryssa had told me that the agathions (try to) sing x-mas carols, but I guess she was pulling my leg!

l2wh is free for x-mas

The well-known http://www.l2wh.com site has all functions freely available for Christmas!!! Go on, try it - if you havent already. Pasting their message:


For Christmas, Advanced features are enabled for everybody !!
Discover and enjoy all advanced features !

Merry Christmas !

Himred.

Disappearance of "walker" site for few days

During the past few days there were some problems concerning the company which sells the software program named walker.

Walker is a botting program for L2, probably the one with the largest number of users. It requires a monthly fee of 4-5 euros that you can pay online in order to receive a "walker code" which you use to unlock the software.

The site selling the codes went allegedly offline for few days - although inner pages of the site, and alternative urls, were still available to buy the necessary codes. Users who had already bought their codes, continued to play normally.

According to South Korea media, NC Soft asked the police to investigate the companies involved in botting for multiple NC games - walker being just one of them (chinease article, translated version).

A detailed discussion started at l2blah@guru - as expected :)

We will not publish the url of the walker site in our blog for obvious reasons.

However we tested it, and it seems to be fully functional.

screenshot about GMs

We were sent this screenshot link - someone was shouting at Giran about GMs not banning (him) for using walker.

Bug Rumors!

Recent rumors suggest that there was (is?) a bug with the cubics!

The players, who have found a way to exploit the bug, were able to re-use the cubic continuously, without having to wait the regular 24 hour interval, producing a plethora of enchant scrolls!

Results:

=> More enchant scrolls available in the market.

=> Lower prices for enchant scrolls.

=> Lots of overenchanting trials.

=> Lots of broken weapons/armors.

=> Lots of crystals available in the market.

=> Lower prices for crystals (especially S and A).

=> Lower prices for shots (especially S and A).


Time to go shopping :)

GMs have a sense of humor

System Announcement:

That's from http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/9115/spam2tt7.jpg , you can also check http://s1.ipicture.ru/uploads/081111/kM5g7c2vw1.jpg for another similar shot.

Many thanx to Archmage for digging these.

Gracia flying videos!

Links from the official forum about the future impressive flying features in Gracia:

Solo flight and combat

Flying ship

GM Spam

Check this out - it's wonderful! Click on the picture to load the larger version of the image and make sure you read GM Spam's words.

It is said that half an hour later, IT was empty :-D

Many thanx to a lovely Nercocerer for sending the shot.

Rift SA crystal nerf

It has been reported by Teon's PP hero that after the patch the hero rift RB does not level SA crystals in the same way.

Before the patch the whole party had a chance to level a crystal (i.e. all 9 at once), now just a few of the members have the chance.

Halloween event: second item revealed

On Tuesday 28th, together with the new upgrade, a Halloween event starts.

NC Soft has posted most of the details, indicating the first gift we all get is a pumpkin transformation item that will last for 30 (calendar) days.

It is only recently though, that the second gift was revealed: Five vitality-replenishing items with no expiration day.

Gracia Part 2 on PTS + Helloween event

Gracia Part 2 will go live on October 28th! All CT 2.2 expected changes are published, including:

• Instace "Kamaloka - Labyrinth of the Abyss" added, 45 min duration, 2-9 members party.
• Instance "Pailaka" added, need quest to enter, covers lvls 36-73 , 60 or 90 mins duration depending on lvl range.
• PvP instance "Kratei's Cube" added, for characters above lvl 70. Each holds a max of 25 characters at a time with various nice rewards. 
• When armor over-enchanted to +4 or higher, bonus to HP given. 
• Vitality Replenishing Herb added.
• A bot reporting button has been added to the Actions window.

Gracia Part 2 is already released on PTS.

• Characters start at lvl 40 with 100M.
• A boost will be made on the 23rd of October. 
• Experience is set to times four (x4).
• Drop rates are set to times six (x6).
  

 
A Helloween event will start on October 28th too. Helloween is one of the american things I love! 

• Each char gets pumpkin-ghost transformation stick. Can be used for 30 days, then it disappears, at the same time for everyone. Cannot be exchanged, dropped or destroyed. 
• Various (still secret) gifts.

 

The Helloween event is already available on PTS. 

• A GM, Omega, will be setting up buy shop in Giran on PTS, looking for random items. 
• Selling him items is not mandatory but it helps in getting better event awards.
  

Change of Server Downtime

Reminder:

This week's maintenance is moved from Tuesday to Wednesday.

Corollary: This week's coffee / going out / staying late at work is moved from Tuesday to Wednesday.