Over the years many of us have fallen in love with Lineage. I have some extremely fond memories from the L2 beta and in many ways, it lead to my first job in the industry over at WarCry. So what's going on with the genre nowadays? Quite a bit actually! We had the chance to sit down with Sam Han, Lineage II Producer for NCsoft West and Young Park, the original Lineage Production Assistant for NCsoft West to talk about it.

Tamat : Hello there! Thanks for joining me to talk about the Lineage franchise.

Sam Han : Hello Allakhazam!

Tamat : When did you start working on the Lineage franchise?

Sam Han : I’ve worked on Lineage 2 since 2004. Like many producers in the MMO industry, I started as a GM (Game Master) and worked my way up to a producer position this year.

The Lineage II team has announced that all paid services will be temporarily suspended from Dec. 16 to Jan. 6 due to the holiday season.

These services will be turned off at 9:00am (CST) on December 16th, and resume again at 9:00am (CST) on January 6th. All requests that are made between December 9 - 16 will be implemented during maintenance on the 16th. Paid services will be disabled after that time.

NCsoft has announced today through a press release that Gracia Part 2, the newest Lineage II expansion, has been released for free to all subscribers. According to NCsoft, this expansion will greatly speed up character progression in the game.

Players of all levels will be able to enjoy Gracia Part 2. The expansion includes the Labyrinth of the Abyss, a multi-tiered new section of the Kamaloka hunting area; Kratei’s Cube, an arena where players fight against monsters and each other for special items; and the addition of the Vitality Replenishing Herb, which will keep the player from expending their current Vitality Points.

More information on the second part of the Gracia trilogy can be found here. The full press release can be found after the jump.

Gracia Part 2 will be hitting live servers on Tuesday, Oct. 28, but until that time it needs to be tested. Hop on to the Public Test Server and try out the update with some added perks, such as x4 experience and x6 drop rates, but don't forget to reporter any bugs you find.

The full patch notes for Gracia Part 2 can be found in this thread on the PTS forum or below.

The Halloween Haunt event will kick off on Oct. 28 to celebrate the launch of Gracia Part 2, but you can begin preparing for it now. Full information can be found here.

During the next couple of weeks, Omega will be setting up shop in Giran on the PTS. He won’t be there all the time, so you’ll have to catch him when you can. You’ll find him in a buy shop, looking for random items that he will be using to create his special trick or treat goodies.

NCsoft has just launched a preview site for Gracia Part 2 , the newest Lineage II update.

For hunting grounds, the update will add Kamaloka, Labyrinth of the Abyss, a dimensional tiered cavern full of battles and bosses; three Pailaka zones, which will force you to embark on three separate quests for entry to test your solo abilities; and Kratei's Cube, which will be a battle against up to 25 players in an arena setting.

As for additional changes, monsters now have a chance to drop a Vitality, and repleshing herbs that give you a short timed boost while hunting Vitality are only consumed after level 9; when armor is enchanted to +4 or higher, the item being enchanted will receive a +HP bonus; and a mini-game will be added to help you pass the time between battles and boss spawns. From the Web site, the game looks similar to Bejeweled.

The Lineage II team has put together the contest winners for the Lookalike contest!

The Lineage® II Lookalike Contest has come to an end. And what a tough decision it was! But after much deliberation, here are the winners. Congratulations to Heza from Phoenix for Best Resemblance, Pinkye from Aria for Funniest and Glarawen from Sayha for Most Creative ! Picking the winners for this contest was extremely difficult, and the voting was incredibly close due to the amount of fantastic entries we received. We'd like to thank everyone who participated in this contest.

Want to see who won? Please visit this page to see if you recognize any of the winners. And don't forget to peek at the Honorable Mentions down at the bottom of the page!!

Congrats to the winners!  Now I'm going to go see what MMO creature I can turn my dog into looking like!

NCsoft Europe announced today that feedback for Gracia , the latest Lineage II update, has been "overwhelmingly positive." According to a press release from the developer, the record for concurrent users on EU servers has now been broken for six weeks running, and the number of new characters created has risen substantially alongside daily raid figures.

With Gracia , leveling is much quicker thanks to a new vitality system. It also includes a range of additional benefits, such as free teleports and special buffs, new skills, innovation within the crafting system, and new and challenging instanced dungeons.

The full press release is posted below.

Lineage II has just released new information regarding their upcoming free expansion, Gracia. Highlights include a new dungeon, faster leveling, and new skills and items!

Part of the notion of a quicker, more accessible and fun Lineage II with the release of Gracia doesn't involve just faster leveling. We've improved many of the skills so that playing Lineage II is even more fun and exciting than ever before. The amount of inventory items has increased greatly-we've filled up the lower tier of items so new players can get decent gear a lot sooner, added new tier weapons to shops and even the chance of refining items into more rare and valuable items. Finally, we've spruced up some of the hunting areas in the game, like the Cruma Tower, so players can get more use out of them.

The skill system has undergone many changes, all for much for the better. The idea is to let skills help players in battle a lot more, enabling them to defeat more, tougher opponents, support each other better in raids, and let them advance in status quicker. Generally, all short-ranged physical skills now enjoy a boost in power along with a reduction in MP cost. In other words, they hit harder for a lot less mana. A couple of popular, useable skills like "Escape Shackle" have reduced casting times as well. Kamael skills can now be used without souls (though the more souls you use, the more powerful they are), which is a nice boon to our newest race. We've also increased the critical damage rate for magic across the board.

"…Numerous and mysterious disasters suddenly befell the peoples of Aden: whole fields of healthy crops blighted overnight, unknown plagues laid waste to entire villages, and the weather itself became strange and unpredictable. Doomsayers, once deemed insane, took on a fresh and terrifying confidence. The sages sought to reassure the people, but their words lacked conviction-they too had gazed into their crystal globes and read the cards, and they too felt foreboding deep in their bones.

The land's adventurers and other citizens had been encountering strange dreams, where they fought against endless hordes of shadowy enemies until overwhelmed. Some would wake up with headaches or wounds; some wouldn't wake up at all. The sages determined that the increasing tales of a dream world and the tales of prophecies had to be connected. They studied the bodies of the dream-killed and listened to the tales of the survivors.

Check out the five new screen shots that accompany this dev diary, and read on for the rest of the diary!

Lots of changes were made to the Lineage II public test server!

The 2nd Throne - Gracia - Part 1 update is now live on the Public Test Server! Be one of the first to try out the new Vitality System, new quests and skills, changes to crafting and PVP, and much more!

Check the official Public Test Server forum for more info on The 2nd Throne - Gracia - Part 1 update Public Test Server!

More details of what to expect in this Gracia update can be found on the Gracia Preview Site !