The second round of Siege War has concluded. To address the stagnant dynamics observed in the first round, a patch was introduced to add castle gates. However, this backfired by favoring larger factions, leading to a '3-castle sweep' across most servers. On the Heine server, the deletion of the top-ranked character has become a major topic of discussion, alongside growing complaints about frequent game crashes and issues with subscription and authentication requirements.

■ The Era of 3-Castle Monopolies in Siege War! Is an Additional Patch Needed?

In Lineage Classic, Siege War is the biggest event and a critical point that influences the in-game economy, drawing intense focus from both players and the developer. Reflecting this, immediately after the first Siege War, an update added one gate to each castle and fortress.

The intent behind adding gates is simple. Since Siege War is structurally biased toward the defenders, the goal was to diversify entry points, forcing defenders to spread their forces and thereby making the exchange of control more dynamic.

However, the reality proved different, as the risk of spreading forces hit smaller factions harder. Larger factions could distribute their troops across multiple gates with relatively little impact, successfully defending their positions. In contrast, smaller factions, even when they managed to capture a castle, could not defend against enemies pouring in from multiple paths, ultimately losing their hold on the towers.

Since the power balance on most servers is not a perfect 5:5 split, the result across the board was a uniform '3-castle sweep.' Current server leaders and streamers do not expect a rollback; instead, they predict further patches that might add even more gates, opening up enough paths to make perfect defense impossible even for the largest factions.

■ Deletion of Server's Top Character, Driven by Dissatisfaction with 'Cube'-Centric Operations

A major incident occurred on the Heine server involving the deletion of the top-ranked 'Boss' and 'Yojung' characters. On Monday the 29th, streamer 'Hye-seo' announced via her YouTube community that she had received the top-ranked Knight character 'Boss' and the Elf character 'Yojung' from the Heine server. She explained that the original owner did not want their account to fall into the hands of the enemy faction and potentially harm their remaining guildmates. Furthermore, as she could not afford the maintenance costs for such high-end characters, she decided to host a broadcast to delete them, aiming for a resolution that would satisfy everyone.

A few hours later, Hye-seo posted an update: 'Seven days is too long, and people's minds might change. Also, to dispel doubts that I might not actually go through with it, I will lower the level and delete them immediately.'

During the subsequent four-hour live stream, various topics were discussed, but the core issue was singular: the current state of Lineage Classic is far from what players expected, and the model of selling Skills and Items through 'Cubes' is neither understandable nor tolerable. The broadcast concluded with the level 29 character disappearing after a 10-second countdown.

Questions have been consistently raised about the practice of releasing core materials for Rare Gear or Boss drop Skills primarily through Cubes. The deletion of the server's top character has highlighted the gravity of player dissatisfaction. Some streamers dismissed the current system, stating, 'I understand the intention to provide a path via Cash because once a faction falls behind, a comeback is impossible if Boss Skills and Rare Gear materials are tightly locked behind drops. However, the current Cube system is excessive and too far removed from the 'Classic' experience we wanted to relive.'

■ Recent Surge in Crashes and Authentication Issues: Causes and Solutions?

Recently, there have been growing complaints regarding frequent 'crashes' in Lineage Classic, along with reports that subscription cancellations and authentication requests are malfunctioning.

Regarding the crashes, the game simply exits with a 'Disconnected from server' message without any warning. These crashes occur regardless of time or situation—whether the character is standing in town, hunting, or in combat. While restarting the game resolves the issue, it is inconvenient for players who leave their characters running, such as when using ATS, as they lose time.

Simultaneously, there are claims that frequent subscription cancellation and authentication prompts are hindering gameplay. Following the announcement of changes to subscription products last week, existing subscribers were asked to agree to automatic payments for the new products. Since then, reports of unintended subscription cancellations and failed authentication have surfaced.

In these cases, the game reportedly displays a message stating 'Game terminated by operator,' triggers temporary protection, and demands identity verification. Some users have reported that even after attempting verification, it fails, leading to the exhaustion of the eight daily attempts and a 24-hour access ban.

While there is no clear explanation yet, various theories are circulating: some claim it is a system bug, others suggest it involves abnormal users such as those using multi-accounts or accounts under someone else's name, and some believe it is caused by 'workshops' using macros to report innocent players as spammers. Regardless of the cause, these crashes and connection issues are causing direct inconvenience to players, leading to calls for a swift investigation and official announcement.