As far as I know, the first Lineage 2 that implemented as F2P is Lineage 2 in my country.  And an interesting part of this implementation is the additional features of “fatigue system”.  While my first experience with Korean Lineage 2: it didn’t have anything like this system.

For any of you who doesn’t familiar with fatigue system, I will try to explain it briefly.  Fatigue system is a system where you will receive certain benefit if your fatigue bar is higher.  Your character will have an fatigue bar, while in full bar condition in this Lineage 2 case,  will receive 300% experience.  The bar will slowly dropping whenever you enter hunting area, but will filling up when you are in town, safety zone, or offline.  In my country they called it Vitality system.

So some players are feeling that this system is kinda handicapping their playing time.  But I think that it is not that bad.

1. More efficient playing time.

A 24/7 bot (yeah I wanna say players, but who can play a game with no rest unless he or she ends up resting in peace?) will eventually made the character only receive 50% experience (with assumption of 6 bars of fatigue system and 2 bars is 100% normal experience).  While a regular 3-4 hours daily players like me, will still receive a 300% experience.

So:

The bot receive 1/6 (50% : 300%) of my experience.

The bot play for 24 hours a day, which is 4 hours playing worth of experience.

I play 4 hours daily and still can match the bot amount of experience.

It will make bot less popular.  Alas, Lineage 2 only implement them on experience and doesn’t include drop rate or money.  So yeah people are still trying using bot to get items, although I really appreciate how the publisher and GM are fighting as best as they can to eliminate bots.

But still, it help people like me not to be left behind in terms of experience point.

2. Less time playing the game, more time for else.

So for people with jobs to keep, family to take care of, social life to get involved to, I would consider fatigue system really help me a lot.  Now, while usually I have to take some of my rest time to play the game seriously (that would count as 4 hours top), now I can play it for 1-2 hours with better experience compare to usual online game.  OR, if you like trying new things like I do, I can play 2 games at once with this kind of system.

3. Healthy tendencies.

Now we heard that online games already had death victims or any other negative effects.  But not everybody read articles about the good side of games.  So sometimes it’s up to the publishers to give some advice to the players.  Some games only displaying message like “playing game for a long time with no rest or food will damage your health” things.  But by giving fatigue system, I start to see a healthy community in online game.

Now to my count, mathematically, fatigue system is a plus.  I know and understand that for hardcore gamers, it is a handicap.  But maybe it is time to consider other side of the system.