Interview with Plakis
Q: Tell us about yourself (Name, age, place of living)
A: I'm 23 years old Lithuanian guy living in Denmark. I don't see how my name is important for this interview, for the sake of interview just think that my name is plakis :)
Q: What does a fish photo on your site mean? What kind of fish is it?
A: It is a silly joke between me and my friend (both of us playing Korean Classic). We both like fishing and often name our characters with fish names. It does not have any real meaning.
Q: What are you doing except playing Lineage 2?
A: I'm a freelance programmer. I do all sorts of programming - websites, applications, bots, lineage 2 servers and so on. I like to code for fun so when I do not have any active projects I do code things for myself - this is how Korean classic bot and whole plakis.eu portal came to life.
Q: What hobbies do you have except Lineage 2?
A: Fishing, programming, cars, gaming
Q: Name three most famous, in your opinion, Lineage 2 players of all time.
A: plakis, anyzius, jolka,
Q: What MMORPGs did you use to play? Which did you like, which didn’t?
A: I've tried quite a few MMORPGS but there are only 2 which I've played longer than week. The two are: EVE-Online and Lineage2. Both of them very enjoyable and interesting MMOs.
Q: Tell us about playing on Korean Lineage 2 Classic server. What characters do you play, what are your current aims and plans in the game?
A: At the beginning I started playing Korean classic only by myself with the idea to play it for a week just to see how things are. Since I knew that it will be very hard to get adena I've decided to go and play solo as a spoiler. However, two days later my friend, seeing that it was quite fun, decided to join and play as well. Since I was playing spoiler already our mini party needed someone that could heal and buff so the best option for him was to play prophet (Elven Wizard -> Cleric -> Prophet). So for the first month we only had spoiler and cleric in our mini party. During that month me and my friend did a lot of bot griefing (aggroing big group of mobs onto bots, stunning them and so on with the idea to get them killed to get item drop and earn adena) and we realized that we needed an extra character with bleed to make it easier to grief bots and people. The Bladedancer was a perfect class for our mini party. It has bleed, aggro, good dps and dances. Very good for bot/player griefing and PVE. So about a month later "anyzius" was born. From there on our party composition has not changed and it is now: Spoiler, BladeDancer and Prophet. At the moment our goal is to get haste spellbook drop. As of today it been 17 days and still no book.
Q: What do you like about Lineage 2 Classic? What are you waiting for in future updates? What would you like to see first of all, and what will you not appreciate?
A: Classic brings back the old fun of Lineage2 and most importantly - makes the game hard and rewarding. The biggest thing that I like is that even tiniest mistake can result in big consequences such as losing your weapon or dying in general. When you do kill someone in classic you do actually know that it will hurt that player and it will take him long time to recover the lost XP. Because of that you always have to stay focused. Killing players over and over again in any other version or server (no matter the rates) is far less satisfying than killing or griefing someone in classic. To sum it up - with great risk comes great reward. This what makes classic fun.
Speaking of updates: there isn't such thing that I'm waiting for. At the moment there is more than enough things for my level (47) at the game already. NCSOFT is actively following the situation in the server and is implementing small updates almost every week. For example, since there are now quite a few players that are 50+lvl and there was only 1 zone where you could XP with 50+lvl party (Dragon valley), they've introduced an extra 50+ lvl party zone: Enchanted Valley on October 1st so players would have more spots to PVE and fight for.
The current balance of the classic is perfect (the hardcore aspect too) so I would not like if they changed any of that.
Q: What is the current global situation of korean servers? What are the average levels and equipment quality of active players?
A: At the moment the korean servers (Talking Island in particular) are very stable. The online has not dropped for 2 months now and is even slowly rising, reaching 6000 during peak times.
It is really hard to tell the average level and equipment quality. The level and equipment spread is very equal. There are plenty of players who are still in D grade and players who are already in C grade. The 30lvl zones are just as full as 50lvl zones. My guess is that the average level in the server is around 40.
The thing about equipment is that most people who do not play classic do not know is that there are only few B grade items so even the top players (58+lvl) are still in C grade. For example - there are only 3 B grade weapons in Classic 1.0 - Valhalla, Great Sword and Keshanberk so the top bow for archers is the C grade - Eminence. Another thing - there are no B grade sets. There are Zubey/Avadon helms, breastplates and gaiters. However, there are no gloves/boots and light/robe armors so noone uses B grade armors because C grade full plate set is much better than B grade heavy armors.
Q: Will you play on Russian La2 Classic servers? If yes, then in which role? Will you join any guild or your mini-constparty will be enough for you?
A: Maybe. Will depend on few factors. If I do end up playing it will be me with my few friends in a mini-const party. I'm not going to disclose the OP combination of the party that we have planned, lol.
Q: Are you going to study Russian?
A: No. I can read Russian and understand about 30% of it. That is enough for me. For everything else - google translate.
Q: Do you know about Innova’s (who is Russian Lineage 2 Classic localizer) anticheat system (Frost)?
A: Yes. It is really stupid way of detecting bots and other 3rd party software that does not really work and usually ends up flagging innocent people and getting them banned. No matter how hard or big of the antibot/soft protection you make there will always be people who will crack it, rendering that protection useless.
Q: Why do you use bots? What is the final aim of your game? What things should happen so that you can say “I finished the game”?
A: It is not possible to play and enjoy Classic without bot. If you do try to play it without bot - the game will not be fun for you and you will get bored within few weeks. As I've mentioned in the goha forums - the Classic gameplay consists of 95% boring stuff (PVE) and 5% of fun (PVP, Griefing and so on). In other words - for 95 hours of boring play you will only get 5 hours of fun. So the question is: why not let the bot do the boring stuff so you would be only left with the fun?
I can not imagine playing classic without bot and I do think that most of the people who have seen my stream will agree on it, that playing without bot after level 40 is not possible. There simply would not be any enjoyment in the game. 15 days of 24/7 hunting in Ivory crater for Death Whisper book? You would get bored and would want to quit after 2 days if you tried to do it without bot.
There is no 'final aim' in classic. You play and you enjoy, there is no certain point where you go and say "I've finished the game" because, well, realistically - you can not. Remember, Korean Classic 1.0 is already 6 months old and still there are only several people on server who are above 58lvl so even after 6 months of gameplay they are still far from achieving the 'final level'.
Q: You show everybody through your stream, that you’re botting. Are not you afraid of a ban? Do you know about bans on Korean servers? How does administration of Korean servers treat bot users?
A: No, I'm not afraid of ban. Koreans understand that playing Classic without bot is impossible and because of this botting in Korean classic is acceptable (but not legal). The admins do not ban players who use bots for themselves (that is legit players who actually play game, not only farm gold 24/7).
If admins would start banning and hunting all bots then noone would play and servers will be empty. I'm 100% positive that if the admins of RU classic will hunt and ban all bots the RU classic will die within 1-2 months. It is fun to play first weeks without bot where you actually can level up at least once per few days and change spot every several days, however, once you reach higher level (30+) and it takes days and thousands of mobs just to level up people will start leaving because the game will be too boring and repetitive to actually enjoy. And once people do start leaving - everyone will follow because noone will want to play Classic in a half-empty server.
I really want for the RU Classic to succeed but seeing how majority of Russian players are so against the bots the life of RU classic might be very short. Lineage2 Classic brings new era of Lineage. An era where you either play with bot or you do not play at all and both people and admins have to understand this if they want it to succeed. Koreans are perfect example - they do understand it and this is why it is so successful over there. You have to let the real players to use bots and ban only the adena farming parties (adena sellers). That is how koreans treat bots and I wish that it will be the same in RU classic if they for the RU classic to succeed.
Q: How do korean players treat you? Do they prevent you from botting? Did you have any funny ingame situations?
A: Its mixed. However, most of them do hate non Korean players and in 99% cases will team up with each other to fight you. A good example - we've been hunting in Sea of Spores for about 17 days now and if we do ever kill some korean guy chances are that he will run through all Sea of Spores asking for the help from others koreans and they will all team up just to come and kill us (or in most cases - die from us, lol).
I can tell you a funny story (this was all on stream too) - about a week ago we PK'ed one guy and he kept coming and annoying us so we went on PK'ing spree: PKing him, his clan mates and his friends (total ~7PK). Right after the PK'ing we had to go and clean our karma, however, koreans started 'server wide operation' - kill plakis. Dozens of players started running around the map asking everyone whether they saw me and trying to find me so they could kill me and prevent from cleaning the karma. It took them few hours to give up. It was funny as hell seeing random players running all around the map trying to find us.
Speaking of koreans preventing us botting: That happens a lot. Lineage2 Classic has very good "anti-bot" mechanic in game - you drop items when you die from NPCs so if a player who is not botting at that moment sees a bot party (without a real player) he wil try to aggro big group of mobs onto them or stun them or do many other things just to make them die from NPCS. If you do try to bot without checking your screen every few minutes - you will die and you will lose your items. 99% of bot parties above 40lvl have atleast one active player watching all the time. When I do change spot with my mini party players often try to stun/aggro big group of mobs onto me hoping that I'm not watching but everytime they try that - they die themselves. Dwarf stun is OP. Usually it takes few days for the players around your spot to recognise that you're always watching and if they do try to grief you - they will die so they stop trying to get you killed.
Griefing bots is the best and fastest way to earn adena at lower levels (lower than 40).
Q: How do you treat Korean PvP style of play - fixed fights Ally vs Ally. As we know, common PvP 1x1 or Party vs Party aren’t popular there, but such thing can’t be said about Russia. What is your opinion about this?
A: The assumption that 1x1 or party vs party isn't popular is wrong. The koreans do all sorts of pvp. The people who do follow my stream will see that there are plenty of small group PvP and people who do see korean youtube videos will see that there are plenty of ally vs ally fights. There are no real differences on how they fight. Its pretty straight forward - they fight until only one side remains alive. The only difference that I've noticed is that koreans do fight for fun. Alliance leaders organize with other leaders, decide a place of fight and then both alliances group up and basically count from 3 to 1 and start killing each other. I have not seen alliances fighting like that just 'for fun' anywhere else besides Korea, especially in a server where you lose so much XP when you die.
Q: As we know thankfully to your stream, one of your characters is a spoiler. Could you tell which mobs are better suited for spoiling - red, yellow, white, green or maybe blue? Is there any chance penalty of successive spoil? Which items should players spoil? Resources, key materials?
A: There is no difference whether you spoil red, yellow or white mobs. The chance is same. You can even spoil blue mobs, the chance is only slightly lower. The thing that is much different in classic than 'normal' Lineage2 is that even deep blue mobs drop adena at same rate as white mobs. Speaking of materials - all resources are worth to spoil and in the end - you will gain about the same. For example: at the moment varnish costs around 250 adena and stone of purity costs about 15k but the spoil chance of stone of purity is very low. For example - 43lvl Enchanted Golem spoils Varnish at about 1/3 rate while Windus (39lvl mob) spoils stone of purity at about 1/100 rate.
The thing is: you do not chose your mobs by the items they spoil, you chose the mobs that you can kill/can get good spot. Sometimes it is more worth to spoil mobs that spoil random recipes and item parts or weapon blades and just sell those to shop and you will get more adena than spoiling materials and selling them to players.
Q: Is it real to play spoiler solo? What is needed for this?
A: You can play solo until 20lvl. After that - 1 mob and you have to rest. The higher the level you to, the harder it will get. Do not even think to play solo spoiler, you will only kill 100 mobs per day if you do.
Q: Which kind of parties are better used for spoil - archer, mage or melee?
A: Melee. If you do play in mage/archer party all you will do will be just run around and not really contribute to the party. Most of the people should understand the reason why spoiler is bad in mage/archer party.
Q: Do you have any statistic of gained experience by your characters?
A: I can not remember the exact numbers but XP'ing with very good equipment at certain levels with my mini party: 35 lvl - ~5%/hour, 40lvl - ~3%/hour, 47lvl - ~1.5%/hour. Keep in mind that at all levels all characters of party had very good equipment. At 35lvl spoiler had Tarbar, phantom knight had Sword of Revolution and cleric had Top D duals. At 40lvl spoiler had war axe, bd had stormbringer * stormbringer duals and prp had best d duals. At 47 level spoiler has Yaksa, bd stormbringer * stormbringer duals and prp best d duals. It is unlikely that anyone will have that kind of equipment in RU classic within the first 2 months of game so the XPing rates will be even lower.
Q: Do new players come to Korean servers nowadays?
A: Yes, some players leave but their spot is quickly filled by new players. The online has not dropped for 2 months now. There are some non koreans who go and try korean classic (and stream it) however, they all go to the empty servers (not Talking Island) so it might seem to the people who are watching their streams that there are no people in low lvl zones at all. That is wrong, they’re just playing in the wrong servers.
Q: What advices will you give to people, who are going to play on Lineage 2 Classic?
A: People who will play Lineage2 classic have to understand that Classic is not x5 or x100 server. You can not play it the same way - the way that everyone are used to. Playing Lineage2 classic is not a sprint. It is a game of stamina. That is what worries me. Nowadays everyone is used to playing Lineage2 as a sprint race: wait for the server to open then play as many hours nonstop as you can for a week and then just quit server. New one opens - same story continues, rush everything, leave a week later. If you do try to play the same way in Lineage2 Classic - you will not enjoy game and you will quit within month. The level is least important statistic in classic. Your equipment, your skills and their level - this is what is important. The people who watch my stream will see that we’re sacrificing our level to get better equipment and better skills. Why?
The logic is simple.
50 lvl with best c grade equipment + haste + death whisper VS 52lvl with mid c grade equipment without haste and death whisper. The choice should be obvious. And the longer the game goes the bigger difference there will be. At 55 lvl it will take about 2 weeks to get 1 level so if you had spent 2 weeks focusing on adena and your skills you would lose only 1 level. That is 54 lvl with best possible equipment and all skills vs 55 lvl with mid equipment and no skills.
To sum it up: play it slowly and play it smart, do not rush.
Q: What was the most difficult thing during your time in Lineage 2 Classic?
A: The hardest part in classic is getting D grade equipment in early levels (~30). Without D grade it is very hard to hunt at this level and even if you do save every single adena that you get leveling from 0 to 30 you will still not have enough adena for D grade weapon. I was lucky and managed to get through this step quite easily by griefing bots and getting some good drops. At 21lvl I got a Falchion and Improved Mace (Top NG weapons) by griefing bots which made my life much easier and later I got a Maingauche (top D dagger) and some random d grade items by killing bots which allowed me to get the best D grade equipment.
However, thing is, this will not be possible in Lineage2 RU classic right after the server start because simply - no one will have this kind of equipment for first months so I do think that for every player that will play at RU classic the game at around level 30 will be the hardest.
Q: How do you treat Russian-speaking and Korean communities? Do they have any features, advantages or disadvantages?
A: They’re about the same. The only difference that I’ve noticed is that at in classic koreans do not play with constant parties, they focus on clans and alliances. In my mind this is the correct way to play classic because the problem with constant parties is that if one or two guys leave - the constant party is in trouble and in a lot of cases this ends up with whole constant party leaving or stopping playing. The thing with classic is that you will not be playing it for 1 week or 2 weeks. You will be playing it for months or even years so only a small percentage of constant parties will not split up after long time. Because of this koreans focus on forming clans instead of constant parties because if one member in clan stops playing or leaves - the clan will not be in any trouble.
Q: Do you still plan to make drop and market databases on Russian language? If yes, then when? Didn’t you think about asking our community to help you with translating?
A: Yes, I’m still planning on it. I do not need any help because everything has been translated already in the RU Lineage2 version.
Q: Are you going to monetize your database like, for example, L2on.net or similar to it?
A: Not planning on it.
Q: Many Goha users are interested about “market” price for Adena. Could you describe the history of its price changing and name the factors, which affected it?
A: The prices fluctuate and change all the time. For example back when there aren’t that many 40lvl players the price of Akat Bow was about 5 million because everyone who reached 40lvl needed it and there were no free bows for sale. However, few months later, most of the people who had/bought Akat Bows are upgrading to Eminences so there are a lot of Akat Bows for sale and their price has dropped quite a lot - 3.5 million adena. Same logic applies for all times, the prices are most expensive for the items that are mostly needed at that time. Simple economics rules apply here. Demand vs supply.
Q: You have been trying to drop a spellbook for prophet for weeks. Isn’t it easier to farm adena and buy this speelbook on market?
A: Haste spellbook is extremely rare. It does not have price. In the last month I’ve only seen 2 Haste books on market. One was for 25kk and the other one was for 85kk. The player that has it sets the price so even if you had millions of adena chances are that you would not be able to buy it because no one has one for sale. And even if there was one for sale, lets say at 25kk - to get 25kk would take nearly 2 months of nonstop farming.
Q: Could you name the race which was the most popular on servers opening?
A: I can not say which race was most popular at the opening of the server because I started playing almost 3 months after the start. however, at the moment most popular class is Archers and to be exact - Silver Ranger because they are the fastest ranged class. Perfect for PVP kiting. Speed matters a lot in classic.
Q: Tell us about mechanics of PK count reducing. What is the price for a scroll of PK reducing? Has its price changed? Where can it be bought? Which conditions should be met for its usage? In your opinion, which system of PK count reducing is better: the old or the new one?
A: In classic you can reduce your PK count by 1 by using the PK removal scroll (It does not remove karma). Just like the “death penalty” scrolls the PK removal scrolls are split into grades, no grade, d grade, c grade and b grade. No grade scroll costs 500, d grade - 3000, c grade- 9000 and b grade - 18000. The scrolls can be bought at Windmill near the Floran village. There scroll grade that you are using have to match you grade in order to use them. If you are 40 level you must use C grade scrolls and so on.
The PK removal scrolls are one of the best addition to Lineage2 and especially to classic. It makes the game much more versatile and challenging and ofcourse - fun. Back in old times, lets say - C3 x1 you could not PK people that were assholes to you and kept stealing mobs or just were annoying because it would take ages (many hours) for you to clean the karma if you had PK’ed someone already. Basically what I meant was that by PK’ing someone you would put yourself at a huge disadvantage and would cause much more trouble for yourself than the person you PKed.
The PK scrolls fix that. If there is someone who is annoying you, stealing your mobs or hunting in your spot and will not flag (pvp with you) then you have an option to PK him and it will hurt the person whom you PKed more than yourself.
But do not think that you can just go and PK everyone that you see and keep cleaning your PK with PK scrolls. At level 40 to clean 1 PK will cost you 9000 adena. That is 2 hours of nonstop adena farming. People only PK you if you deserve it, noone PKs ‘just for fun’ because it is very expensive to so do.
This PK scroll mechanic is much much better than the old one (imp). It makes the game much more interesting, challenging and unpredictable.
Q: Tell us about mechanics of resurrection. Does increase of WIT affect percentage of experience, which is being restored after “Resurrection”? Example: Resurrection 70%: 50% standard + 20% bonus. Does it work similar in Lineage 2 Classic?
A: Can not comment on it since I have not experienced it myself.
Q: If it is possible, tell anything about summoners. How do they feel themselves in Lineage 2 Classic? What good and bad features do they have? In your opinion, which kind of summoner is better for PvE and why?
A: Summoners are very rare in Classic 1.0 mainly because they suck in PvP. There are no shots for summons so their damage compared to other classes when it comes to PvP is very low. The only good thing about summoners is that they are easy to PvE with (if you can find an empty spot). Besides that - they suck and I would not recommend playing them unless all you will do is PvE.
Q: Have you seen how do necromancers exp in Lineage 2 Classic? If yes, how do they do this? What will you advice for future corpse exploders?
A: Yes, I have. However, necromancers are very very rare. Since the price for cursed bones is so high (compared to adena drop) you can not afford to use death spike for PvE so the only other option you have is to PvE with drain or 35lvl skills. I’ve seen necros PvE’ing both with drains and with 35lvl skills myself.
However, the other way to PvE with necro is to play as summoner. Necro has strong summons so use that advantage.
For the ones who are considering playing necro because it ‘owns in PvP’ - don’t. It is very hard to play it past the 40 lvl.
Q: Top C-grade weapon (Eminence bow etc) or low B-grade: what will be cheaper and more practical in Lineage 2 Classic realty?
A: Top C grade weapon prices vary a lot because it is easier to get heads/blades for one weapon and harder for the other. For example it is very easy to get samurai long sword blades but very hard to get Eminence shafts so the price difference is almost double. Samurai long sword costs 6kk while Eminence costs 11kk.
When it comes to top C vs low B swords (samurai long sword vs keshanberk) the keshanberk costs ~14kk vs 6kk of samurai long sword so the keshanberk is much more expensive than samurai long sword and thats once again - because keshanberk blades are not very easy to get.
However, when we compare valhalla vs homunkulus - the homu costs around 8kk while valhalla can be seen a cheap as 11kk. The difference is not that high because it is easy to get blades for the valhalla but not so easy to get for the homu.
That being said. All B grade weapons will be more expensive than top C, however, the price difference for some might be very low.
Q: What is your opinion about holywars like: Who is a better buffer - Prophet or Warcryer? Who is a better archer - SR or Hawkeye? A better mage: Sorc or MM?
A: Prophet for smaller parties, warcryer for full parties (if you have healer). Common sense. Also, it is easier to get amulets (rage/vampyric and so on) for warcryer than spellbooks(haste, deathwhisper) for prophet.
Q: Are there any secrets in Lineage 2 Classic, which aren’t still discussed in mass-media? Anything closed from our eyes? Or the game was studied enough and is opened for community?
A: I do not think that there are secrets, the Lineage2 is an open book to study for everyone. However, the assumption that the game was studied enough is wrong. Lineage2 Classic is a different game. It is not C1, not C4, not Interlude, not H5. It is a new version and the things that ‘worked great’ on C4 or Interlude will probably not work in Classic. Even tho the classic looks very similar to C1, C4 or whatever version you want - it can not be compared because the gameplay and strategies are much much different than you were used to playing with. Do not think that you will be ‘the all knowing god’ in classic just because you’ve been playing Lineage2 for 8 years because you will not be.
Q: Lineage 2 - MMORPG with enormous quantity of professions. And as usual some of them aren’t very popular as they are not useful enough or just weak in comparison with others. Are there any obvious outsiders in Lineage 2 Classic?
A: Destroyers and tyrants are the biggest outsiders since they do not have any roles and suck both in PvP and PvE.
Source: Goha.ru English and Russian interviews
Stream: http://www.twitch.tv/ciurkoslesa
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