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Lineage II adopting a hybrid business model

by Eliot Lefebvre on Oct 11th 2011 9:30PM

Fantasy, Lineage 2, Business Models, MMO Industry, News Items, Free-to-Play

Lineage II is in the minority among NCsoft's US offerings in that it requires a subscription fee -- but now even that is going away. According to an announcement from the company, the game will be adopting a hybrid business model in the near future to allow players to enjoy the game for free, in a similar vein to the recent City of Heroes conversion. This comes hand-in-hand with the announcement that the game will be receiving a Russian launch in the near future.

While specific details regarding the new model have yet to be announced, the press release promises that it will allow players of all varieties to enjoy the game's several years of content. Considering the game's latest expansion, Goddess of Destruction, is promised for later this year, this seems like good news for anyone looking for a new title to try out in the near future.

[Source: NCsoft press release]

More coverage: Official Site

Tags: announcements, business-models, f2p, free-to-play, goddess-of-destruction, hybrid, l2, lII, lineage-2, lineage-II, ncsoft, updates

Reader Comments (33)

Yes!! I know it that was going to happen ... NCsoft have a nice shot to bring lots people to the game from the zillions private servers ..

Hope they do it right!

Cya!

@dlinden

Eh... is the game still a massive grindfest, and how much of the game will be locked behind the Cash Shop, I wonder?

sweeeeeeet

I enjoyed the trial, but really didn't want to drop the money for a monthly fee. I can get behind this.

And her.

I always stayed away from this game because I heard bots and gold farmers were rampant. Is this [still] the case? I have been considering playing older games since the newer ones tend to be bad.

Nice to hear. Honestly I tried playing the game, and while the graphics were nice, its biggest issue for me was the whole "click to move" system. I just can't handle that in a P2P game though...

Going F2P though, and its fine! (Odd I know)

@DevilSei I was under the impression they have WASD movement....Does it not work well?

@paterah

I'll admit I played it a couple years back on a whim, and for the life of me I couldn't find anything for WASD movement.

@DevilSei yeah, you have to turn on "press enter to start chatting" in the options menu, and then you can use WASD. It's not smooth though.

Oh how I hope Aion won't follow the same fate. Doubt it, though, since it's still one of the largest games in Asia.

I'm glad this news came out before my subscription renewed.

I know I'm usually gung-ho about games going freemium being a great thing and I'll typically want to try it out, but this time I think I'll pass. I mean, unless someone can convince me there's a lot more to do than grind, which is all I've ever heard about.

@JuliusSeizure iirc, the breast physics are impressive.

@JuliusSeizure

The GoD update will add quest that make leveling a lot faster. From what I've read on the forums, 1 - 40 is like what 1 - 20 is now, which is a few quest. Then 40 to 76 being like 20 to 40. So, it wont take very long to level at all.

@Dukeun But is it fun?

@Sente
"Fun" is far too dependent on personal taste, so the only way to answer that is to do research based on your tastes and try it out. Certainly, from what I've heard, if you love PVP its supposed to be a great game.

poor russians ... do they have to wait this long for every game release?

@Resurge Actually the gama has already been released in Russia by the same comapny in question (Innova). It has been F2P in Russia for a long, long time.

@Resurge Russian release was almost three years ago, as well as this "new hybrid system".

@Bulat well that's cool i guess, but then why does the story say : "This comes hand-in-hand with the announcement that the game will be receiving a Russian launch in the near future." ?

@Resurge they misread the press release. The Russian company is now taking over the publishing for the European market.

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Lineage II adopting a hybrid business model

Reader Comments (33)

Posted: Oct 11th 2011 9:39PM dlinden said

Posted: Oct 11th 2011 10:45PM ShivanSwordsman said

Posted: Oct 11th 2011 9:47PM Baby Choo Choo said

Posted: Oct 11th 2011 9:48PM ephesym said

Posted: Oct 11th 2011 9:58PM DevilSei said

Posted: Oct 12th 2011 5:18AM paterah said

Posted: Oct 12th 2011 12:04PM DevilSei said

Posted: Oct 16th 2011 11:21PM DerpMchurson said

Posted: Oct 11th 2011 10:12PM J45neoboy said

Posted: Oct 11th 2011 10:31PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Oct 11th 2011 10:40PM JuliusSeizure said

Posted: Oct 11th 2011 10:51PM Lucidus said

Posted: Oct 12th 2011 12:12AM Dukeun said

Posted: Oct 12th 2011 4:12PM Sente said

Posted: Oct 12th 2011 4:59PM Sam not Spam said

Posted: Oct 11th 2011 11:25PM Resurge said

Posted: Oct 12th 2011 12:21AM Stilllove said

Posted: Oct 12th 2011 10:18AM Bulat said

Posted: Oct 12th 2011 11:14AM Resurge said

Posted: Oct 12th 2011 3:03PM coderdroid said

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