Hey all, I need all of you if possible to download Lineage II if you don't already have it...

I'm trying to test out my private server I just fired up. I've tested it with my friend Blake for short-distance lag time, and I've tested it with Wayne for long-distance. Now I want to see if it can handle a few more people at once.

So here's what you do. Download the program, then when the install is done, choose to start the program. It'll actually just start the launcher, letting it update. Go ahead and finish the update, but DON'T launch the game when the update's done. Instead, go to the folder where you installed Lineage II, and then into the "system" subfolder. In there is L2.exe. Make a shortcut to this. (Using the "Lineage2.exe" in the main folder gives you the launcher, which you don't want from here on.)

OK, you've made your shortcut. Don't click it yet.

Go to your Windows folder, then into "system32" then "drivers" then "etc". With me so far? Now open the file that says "hosts". Add the following line at the bottom:

70.251.82.150 l2authd.lineage2.com

Just copy and paste it. If there's already another entry in the hosts file that mentions Lineage, overwrite it with the one I just gave you.

NOW launch Lineage. My server will automatically create an account for you (if the server is up), so just type in whatever username and password you want. It'll take a second to process, but shouldn't take any longer than 10 seconds on even the slowest connections. You'll see a license agreement pop up. Hit Agree, then create your character and enter the world.

If you've dealt with private servers before, you know about XP rates and such. I haven't modified the rates any (and probably won't unless I get requests to), so right now it plays exactly like retail in pretty much every way I can think of.

Anyway, I'll leave the server on when I'm at work each weekday, and it'll probably be up most of the time during the evenings, but I want to see about arranging a time for this whole crew to be on and see how well the server handles it.

Sound cool?

I'll check it out. But the game will take forever to download.

Oh yeah, there IS one difference between this and retail... WASD movement is not supported for some reason. It's all mouse, and then just using the keyboard for chat, hotkeys and macros.

If you guys enjoy Lineage, what I'd like to work toward is seeing if we can hold our staff meetings in-game in a conference room or something. By this I mean our team AND Wayne's. Even for those whose Internet just absolutely won't support a download this big, I can still send you guys a CD with the whole thing on it, then all you have to do is install and update (which is only like 10 mins or so).

I won't be able to do this because I'll be back at school soon and it has a firewall. Because of this I went ahead and canceled the download for now.

I KNEW you'd be the first one to say you couldn't do it!

I can't help it that school has a firewall and most things don't work there.
I'm going to give it a shot, but I really doubt it.

At the moment my computer is filled with anime, various games, and various MMOs. Due to this... I am not really able to download another large MMO at this time. I need to either get rid of stuff or burn some stuff. My computer HD is kinda... full...

I wish I had a DVD burner so I could borrow and burn some anime but alas I don't. Anyways you must have a ton of stuff on there. I'll let you know if I will be able to get in Jake.

One word: Macintosh.

Instead of all downloading a huge file to boost meeting attendance, why don't we just actually show up to meetings we say we'll show up to? We're not little kids, we can be responsible.

I beg to differ... This idea actually arose when Wayne was helping me test the server himself, and asked me if I had any ideas for how to ensure people show up for meetings. I thought, why not give this a try.

Lineage II also contains an in-game MSN Messenger, so that we can still hold the meetings with our non-in-game people if they have MSN Messenger. (Could come in handy for Props.)

Besides...I still have another idea for this server...

Sshh.