No, over the past years they had mid rate h5 servers, one every year or so, actually long lived servers.
The classic server is still healthy after 2 months, of course it does not have 6k players, there's like 2,5k shops, but the server is alive, you can find players everywhere, there's always 20-30 players at oly and stuff.

But the classic server will die when the new h5 server is released, so no not worth playing this late.

The issue is that most people buy into it, to a degree at least. You will gain more players if you lie about the numbers than if you are honest. The people who join because of numbers outnumber the ones who won't join because of lies. The fault doesn't lie with the server admins, but with the community. Not faking the online counter automatically puts the server at a disadvantage: those who think it's fake will think there's much less people online, and those who think it's true won't be impressed by the numbers since everyone else has bigger numbers.

Found something interesting over at maxcheaters: https://maxcheaters.com/topic/222577-l2 ... -projects/
These guys are claiming that Lionna belongs to the same owner as the other servers I mentioned and that he's corrupt af.
Just a heads up.

The issue is that most people buy into it, to a degree at least. You will gain more players if you lie about the numbers than if you are honest. The people who join because of numbers outnumber the ones who won't join because of lies. The fault doesn't lie with the server admins, but with the community. Not faking the online counter automatically puts the server at a disadvantage: those who think it's fake will think there's much less people online, and those who think it's true won't be impressed by the numbers since everyone else has bigger numbers.

The issue there is finding that sweet spot which I'd call an "ethical faking", that is - if the server has online numbers close to some kind of breaking point like 500, 1000 etc., it's perfectly ok to pump up the numbers a slightly bit to get just above that.

It's just how players think, when they're used to going to servers with average population, and see the server has for example ~470 online, they won't join because it's "less than 500". But when you fake it to look lets say ~520, they very well might just join and see absolutely no difference in actual gameplay. Everyone is winner there.

I like to believe that's how it started in the beginning but then admins began one-upping each other to ridiculous numbers for the sake of quick money.

To the point where not only are they lying about the population by thousands of players, but also faking players ingame. I saw a script which simulated players directly from the server the other day, practically a full on bot that spawns 'players' which roam around the city to make it seem like it's populated.
Fucking disgusting.

As sad as it may sound but this is only one of the many common practices admins have been using throughout the years. Just to name a few: admins selling in-game currency to Adena seller, DDoS attacking the competition, advertisement contests in which players are encouraged to spam as many places as possible in exchange for in-game currency/rewards... sadly the list goes on and on

Basically if you're a small little owner who wants to open a nice server and actually get enough people's attention, you should prepare your wallet for DDoS protection. Pretty horseshit.