This is a time capsule from the past on how it felt playing Lineage back in the day.  Thought you might find it a fun read.

8/3/03

Well, this is my first entry for my lineage Journal. After the day I had, I had to start one.
Just a little background before I start. I have been playing for about 2 years and have leveled a lot of characters but have never got a char to level 50 yet. I have a level 47.80 knight and a level 47.11 mage on the Depardieu server. I had a level 48.30 knight on the test server. I currently have a level 48.01 and a level 48.07 mage on LOA. I only play LOA now because I found it is a lot more fun than other servers are.
I have 2 accounts and 2 computers so I can play 2 characters at the same time. As most of my friends know, I use one mage to 'buff' (haste, strength, and dexterity my other mage.) I started Akasha back when LOA started and leveled her to level 48 and realized that I didn't like her statistics (18con, 18whis,16int). She was struggling in fire valley, and I just wanted to try an 18cha, 18con mage to see if it would help me enjoy hunting in harder areas so I started my current character Oreo.
For the first time in a long time I finally fell in love with a character. Oreo is now my main character and my favorite. I doubt I will ever love another character more than her. Everything has come together with her, from her great name to her statistics. I think it wouldn't have been nearly as fun had I not leveled Akasha to 48 either. A summon mage doesn’t have the mana to hasten its own summons and still have mana to hunt with. But having Akasha, a whis mage, with plenty of mana to hasten Oreos' summons and keep her buffed has made it great. Oreo summons her 4 king bugbears in town and does her nails and fixes her hair while her mum Akasha quickly hastes all of them for 30 min. So, when Oreo goes out to hunt, she has full MP and 4 hastes king bugbears for 30 min. It makes her a tough mage and totally fun to play with.
Oreo hunts with a hunter bow or a SOM Depending on the area she is hunting. I have found Fire Valley is better with a hunter bow while a SOM is better in dragon valley. But back to talking about Oreo.
She has -4Xac when she hunts with a bow and -5Xac when she uses her SOM. She uses a +7 hunter bow and a +8 SOM.

Ok enough about her statistics and all. I like to leave a little to the imagination.
8/13/03
I finally hit level 48 with Oreo today. I was leveling about 5%-8% a day towards the end of level 47 because I finally found some really good experience spots for her and her skeleton guards to hunt. I started her in June and loved every minute of leveling her. I had good items for her to wear from leveling Akasha so getting items for her wasn't an issue. I didn’t even bother summoning until I was level 43. At level 44 I was an 'all-consuming mop black hole'. If it moved, I would kill it. I didn't worry how much it cost me in pots if I was in the kill and getting experience, I was happy. I would take up as many pots as I could carry and kill everything. I did find later to be a little more selective about what I killed because my summons would fill up fast if I killed some junk mops. Even with selective hunting they always fill up in about 15-20 min anyway. I would hunt for 30-min bursts and return to town, regenerate and start over. Akasha would be full mana points and waiting for me like a supportive mom waiting for a child to return from soccer practice with a PB&J sandwich and a tall glass of milk.
I thought I had a lot of friends with Akasha, but Oreo made friends faster than BIC makes lighters. LOA has been a lot friendlier than Depardieu to me. Depardieu always seemed to always have bad ducks that were just there to make others hurt, angry or quit. And the lack of support from NC Korea to stop the bad people from chasing off the up-and-coming next generation of mages, knights, elves, and royals has been let’s say sad. The idea of hell for people who kill others just for a rise on LOA and the balance of classes makes LOA a lot brighter place to play from the dark evil-lurking Depardieu server. I remember the horrible experience I had leaving Hidden Valley on Depardieu and asking for help about the game from others. People were like 'shut up and learn yourself noobie.' Or asking for 30 Adena to access my storage and having ppl say, 'Go hunt for it yourself noobie.' I had my dogs killed in a doorway in town not knowing that it was a combat zone. And having people laugh and tell me to go back to Hidden Valley because I was a noobie. And the thought of leaving Hidden Valley was so bad that I would de-level over and over so I could stay level 9. Yea, thinking of Depardieu and the rude people that were let run that server, and the lack of policing makes me shutter. NC Korea really dropped the ball when it came to making sure that new subscribers had a good experience and stuck with the game. The only things that kept me logging back on were my faithful dogs.
Enough of my ranting. I'm sure I will come back to this topic later but for now, we are talking about LOA and the great time I have had here. I made friends fast here. High level people and low-level people, Elves, knights, royals all get along for the most part. It’s a ‘Hi’ while passing or a listening ear at the dwarf I'm talking about. People telling jokes and others laughing, buffs, a person asking for 30 Adena and 3-4 people dropping 200-300 Adena on the ground. A new player was asking a question and a veteran answering it. It all adds up to a happy, light-hearted server that I really am glad to be a part of. Great job and kudos to Captstrum for looking at Depardieu and having an answer to the mass exodus.
I have 3 real life friends I have got to play lineage. I was very embarrassed on Depardieu by the rude people, but here, I'm proud of my server and the quality of conversation.
So I hit level 48 and wow what a change from skeletons to king bugbears. Although skeletons have 300hp and king bugbears have 330hp, the king bugbears don't get hurt nearly and bad as the skeletons. I think king bugbears have a better ac then the skeletons and a harder hit that kill the mop faster. For example, I ran into the Ifrit 4 times between level 44 and 48 and the iffy won every time. Iffy would just hit my summons 2-3 times and kill them all. But when iffy hit my king bugbears they kept heading for iffy and got to him and killed him before iffy could kill him. Cockatrices were the same with my skeletons. After freezing me, he would kill at least one of my summons, but now my summons always win.
I'm now coming into my prime. I got a setup that works for me. I love my hunts and love my character.

8/23/03
All I can say I wow. Things started happening really fast today. Last week Stopheart (from Depardieu and my real-life friend were heading to the casino to do a little gambling and were talking about what I should start saving up for. I wanted a ring of summons control; he wanted me to get a ring of teleport control. We discussed the pros of each ring and the cons and came to the decision that the ring of teleport control would be better to get first. Now the hard part, coming up with the insane amount of money it would take or hunting for it. Well, I started hunting for it the next day (by the way, I made $130 on the poker tables). It went good for a bit, but then 3 succubi hit me. 2 queens and a regular succubus and that was that. My magic resistance is 67% and I don't have elemental rings, so I was killed in seconds. So, I went back again and hunted for the rest of the day and still nothing. The next day I died again trying to heal on of my summons and called it a lesson in pain. No more hunting for ring of teleport control 'til I get higher magic resistance.
Then today the ball just started to roll right for me. It was a Saturday, and I was up early. I met up with my good friend Kristal and we camped the top drake and talked forever. The drake never showed so I was walking away when I saw a Gnoll in dragon valley. Huh? And it was green? Then I see the reason… a yellow Gnoll was following him. Faruuk, the boss mop was right there! I had never seen him before, so I ran up on him to hit him. Blam! Cancelled by someone! No, wait, it was Faruuk that canceled me. He cancelled me again and about 4 knights started to run at him. I got my king bugbears on him and hasted. It was over in about 45 seconds. My first boss kill beside iffy was over. Everybody called out his or her drops and I collected from my summons. Blessed scroll of enchant weapon and regular scroll of enchant weapon! We all met up at the lower drake later and I sold the blessed scroll of enchant weapon there for 500k. This is a good day, right? It gets better. Just wait.
About 2 hours and a regular scroll of enchant armor later I kill an ogre and get ogre blood! 2 years of playing and I get it when I wasn't even thinking about it. I try to call anybody that would listen, my best friend that plays; my best friend that I went gambling with and everybody is still asleep!
So I decide to make the power gloves and try them out. The whole time I was doing this I was thinking about the ring of teleport control we had talked about earlier that week. So, I make the power gloves and head to Oren to sell them. A friend says I should get at least 3.5 million for them, so I start selling them for 4 million. I get an offer for 3.9 million and I hold out for 4 million. Then a guy starts selling a blessed scroll of enchant armor for 500k and I'm like well if I don’t get 4 million for the +0 power gloves, I'll use the blessed scroll of enchant armor on them and sell them. After a bit of time the seller of the blessed scroll of enchant armor asked if the blessed scroll of enchant armor went +2 and I was like "I haven't tried it yet." And he says that the other 2 he got for lesser dragons had both gone +2 so I'm thinking, "ok I'll try it". Bingo. It goes +2 on the +3 power gloves and now I'm selling +5 power gloves. So, I resell the +5 and I get the offer of 4.7 million and I sold them.
Now I got 6.5 million in the bank and I'm thinking ring of teleport control is just that much closer. I yell in town that I want to buy a ring of teleport control, and I get a response quickly. 'Offer' he says. I know they were 12 million earlier, so I offer 10.5 million hoping the ring of teleport control was cheaper now and he says ok. I got 6.5 and I need 4 mil more, so I decided to sell my +8 SOM and do it. Mind you all my friends are still asleep and I'm making the biggest deal of my life. I sell the SOM fast. I think I could have got more than 4 mil in hindsight but in the heat of the moment I just wanted to finish the deal and get my ring of teleport control. Well, my friend Stopheart calls me and I'm just finishing the deal with the ring of teleport control. I can hear in his voice that he's stunned. We just had a discussion about the ring of teleport control 3 days earlier and he thought I would not get it for at least 4 months or so. And while he was sleeping, I pull off the deal of the century and get it!
It is an item that I use all the time. Now I teleport everywhere. I don’t walk from the dwarf to the store. I teleport from one drake to the next and back again. Saturday night he came over for our LAN party (I'll tell you about them later) and just watched in awe as I killed drake after drake.

08/24/03

Dad's birthday! Happy birthday dad! Wow you have been there though it all and love you tons!

Well guess what I get today? Chad (Stopheart) calls me up "I think I can sell one of my power gloves (he has 2 pair) and I'll have 7 mil in the bank. Then I can sell my +8bkat and a TQD…" I'm like why do you want to sell all of your stuff? He's like "well I was watching you last night kill all the drakes, and I think I need one too."
Ha! He yelled at me for selling the power gloves now he's selling his! Well, well. I knew he was just mad because I got the ring of teleport control. He apologized. I had a feeling he was just mad because I got the ring of teleport control. See we are the same in the fact that we both want the other to get cool items, but we want to ALREADY have the cool item before the other gets it. He had power gloves so he would have been happy if I got them. But since I got the ring of teleport control it was different. That was his dream item and now I had it. I'm no different. I had a +7 Tsurugi and I was like "I hope you get a Tsurugi soon too". But the guy went too far! That lucky guy got a blessed Tsurugi during the Heine event. All of the sudden my Tsurugi looked so blah. It's been like this with us forever. We have been friends for years before we started playing lineage.
I didn't even play that much today. Just kind of watched TV and called friends. I can't act to happy to have the ring of teleport control. Ya know. Keeping a level head is the name of the game.