As many of you know NC / Innova recently started offering some Lineage 2 Classic servers which has really renewed interest in the game for those that love old style Lineage 2. Unfortunately the same old problems exist on the Lineage 2 Classic servers. Bots run rampant, and gold sellers doing business as usual. Not to mention that they have decided to again try the pay to play model. Thought they would have learned by now that this is not a good model these days. While the excitement over these servers was widespread many people have stopped playing them due to the issues mentioned above.
Will we ever see a Lineage 2 Classic Server that we all have wanted for so long?
Luckily for the community the answer is a resounding YES!
L2Citadel is a project that has been designed to give everybody this Lineage 2 Classic server that they want. To succeed where NC and Innova have in large failed. L2Citadel started Closed Beta testing and development 6 months ago. The project brings alot to the table with the biggest Lineage 2 private server project in history. I recently had a chance to chat with "Charlie" on L2Citadels IRC server.
Interview With Charlie one of the Owner / Admins of L2Citadel
So Charlie how was L2 Citadel born?
Charlie: I was chatting with an old friend (MrLonely) on Skype about the upcoming Lineage 2 Classic servers and how they would be setup. We had a pretty good idea how they would go and figured we could offer something that the community enjoy more than the official classic servers. We just jumped in and started making things happen and within a month we had an extremely talented partnership of 3, 2 of the best developers in the industry, and the beginnings on our core Closed Beta testing team.
The project looks like a huge amount of work and also quite an investment. Is the project geared towards making a profit?
Charlie: It has been the biggest project on any type that I have ever undertaken, and I have been involved in some pretty substantial projects (non L2 related). Between all aspects of the project we are now in the 10's of thousands of manhours spent. The server has always been and always will be geared towards giving the players a free to play, no pay to win Lineage 2 Classic Server that is professionally run and maintained. It is not geared towards making a profit, though we do of course hope to cover all investments and would like to have a little extra in our pockets at the end of the day.
Private servers have a pretty bad rap, and many players stay away from them. How do you plan to overcome this and get these people playing on your server?
Charlie: Word of mouth is a powerful thing, and already it is spreading. I have talked with many players that used to play on official and have refused to play on private servers until now. The work, attention to detail, quality, and organization of our project shines through and people are seeing we are the real deal.
What is the Chronicle you will offer, and what will the rates be?
Charlie: We will be offering Lineage 2 HellBound at 5x rates. Some quest rates will be modified to fit the 5x rates.
That is a rare chronicle, why HellBound?
Charlie: That is one of the main reasons, it is rare. It is also considered by many old-school players to be the last of the hardcore chronicles. Considering that l2Citadel is a Lineage 2 Classic server oldschool hardcore players is one of our main targets.
What else is different from your project compared to other Lineage2 private servers?
Charlie: Pheww, well where to start.. Firstly we have access to both the core files and scripts, our files are privately developed. This allows us to make any changes needed to fix what needs to be fixed. Our anti-bot system is new and the best currently out there, we also have access to the source for this, so should it be bypassed we can quickly patch it. Our testing and development is second to none, and never before has a private server project been done in this scope. We test everything, and I mean everything. We have found and fixed multiple bugs and exploits that have been present on the official servers and still are in most cases. To put it simply we are the first of our kind and already others are trying to follow in our footsteps.
Our back office guy (Shepard) has developed an extremely cool account panel system, that people will see nowhere else. Web based item transfer, auction system, IP protection, stats, and much more.
Charlie thank you for taking the time to speak to me. The hype I am seeing for L2Citadel I have not seen since since the days of Supremes C5 servers. This project looks like it will be epic and I know I will be playing there when the time comes. Good luck to you and your team, and thank you for bringing us this project.
Charlie: You are welcome, and we look forward to seeing everybody when open beta comes. We are pushing hard to get it open before 2015! Also would like to put a big shout out to our Closed Beta testing team, without these guys amazing work we would be nowhere close to where we are now. Also to all those peeps that have been showing their support and encouraging us, this means a lot to everybody on the team. Thank You!
<End of interview>
So there you go folks, a serious alternative Lineage 2 Classic server running HellBound!
Home: http://l2citadel.com
Wiki: http://l2citadel.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/L2Citadel
