Lineage 2 has a large number of dedicated fansites, most of which host forums where heated debates on the game are usually raged and walkthroughs on the game’s quests can be found.

Chock-full of comprehensive information on the game’s items, quests, and various features, as well as the intriguing political battles fought on the game’s servers, sites like Warcry and L2Orphus provide useful databases and sounding boards for the game’s fan base.

Off the Beaten Track

A little different from the others though, is L2Grind.

Describing themselves as “a bunch of ragtag artists and writers” on their site, the webmasters of the site don’t put up any of the forums that are the norm in other fansites. Instead, what draws people here are web comics based on the Lineage 2 MMORPG. L2grind is updated 3 times a week and provides an amusing insight into Lineage 2‘s quirks and eccentricities.

Grace Kim, 25, one of L2grind‘s writers, explained “L2grind is where people with like minds come together to laugh and enjoy the game that we all love so very much in game and out of game during those pesky server maintenances. It also gives people a more pleasant perspective about the hardest MMORPG. Not a lot to gain but almost everything to lose in my opinion; but there is still something about this game that we all love enough to stick with it.”

“We want to promote all the good things and laugh at all the bad things that can happen. Also we know how negative a lot of the forums are from L2’s personal site to other fansites and we did not want any of that to happen on our site. We want to have fun and to laugh while enjoying a game that is both beautiful and exciting to partake in,” Grace added with a laugh.

25-year-old Fehed Said, the webmaster of L2grind, and co-writer of some of its comics, who plays an Elven Wizard character in the game, describes how these comics are birthed.

“Well, everyone has a different process, so I can only tell about my own. It’s more along the lines of we play till something silly happens. Then I just take that moment of silliness and try to script it out into something with a punchline,” explained Fehed.

“Most of the time, it’s really dry or maybe a little crude, but that’s my style, I can’t help it,” he joked. “The art is what makes it funny.”

So how did the site and its comics come about anyway?

Passionate about writing and gaming, Grace admitted, “Well, it all started off as an idea. I really, really wanted to make a personal blogging page, but I could never think of a good name, but I had a great idea .about how I would compare it to life and the game that I love to play.

“Then suddenly my webmaster, who is my best friend, btw, and I talked to Fehed who talked to Elarion and it exploded into a myriad of ideas that started with several bloggers to several comickers to other things that you see on L2grind. I was going to originally name my personal website L2grind but I thought that it would be best to donate the name to a great cause and ta dah!”

Fehed, meanwhile, took a different route to end up at L2grind.

“I write the gags for Shari (one of the site’s artists) for the strips, we’re actually a comic team. We’ve worked on comics together for years and have our own online comic strip. That’s how we met Angela, who was a fan, then somewhere down the line we both got into Lineage 2 and eventually got to work on this fan site together,” explained Fehed.

“Angela first told us how her and her friend Grayce wanted to make a role-playing journal site based on the L2 characters they played. She asked if me and Shari, if we wanted to join in on it.

“I then got a little over-excited at the idea and started brain-storming other features we could add, eventually decided that doing a fan-based comic strip and Role-Play journal site might be fun,” he said.

Taking a slightly more serious tone, Fehed noted that “content-wise, comics attract more readers.”

So, who does what, exactly?

Although the workload and moderation duties of the site are divided among the various team members, each of them has an integral role in maintaining the site’s content.
First off, “there’s Angela, who’s an artist on the site and she also did the fantastic layout design we have,” gushes Fehed. “Then there’s Shari, who’s another artist, who also took Angela’s design and actually made the site layout using it… she’s a wiz with CSS, that girl.”

“Then there’s Grayce, who was the original brains behind the site, as it was her idea to make it first, she’s a blog contributor and an L2 addict.”

And finally, “Will, who’s another artist on the site and he also has contributed with journal entries and brainstormed many new ideas with me and the crew.”

“He’s working on making the Raid Boss list on the site currently,” added Fehed.

So, what’s in store for the future?

“Well, we want to get another 2 artists on the site. We’re trying to have 1 strip a day for the full 5 working days of the week. But it’s hard getting the attention of dedicated artists,” said Fehed with a sigh.

While eager to work on promoting their favourite game with other Lineage 2fansites, the team at L2grind is, however, cautious in their outlook.

“We would love to have some kind of affiliation with other fan sites, that’s our next step, I was looking into that earlier today, but I’m not sure how to go about it quite yet” we don’t want to have to compromise our own site in anyway,” said Fehed, “Granted, we are considering being a semi-serious one, too, to some scale, by having some useful game info on the site, but that comes in second place.”

“Most fan sites we’ve seen are all very serious,” said Fehed, expressing his concerns, “We’re just trying to be silly and have a bit of fun.”

“We want it to be popular and enjoyable. We want to have more artists and people that submit their fan art and ideas. We do want to expand and figure out new things to keep the site fresh and full of patrons,” said Grace, “The sky is the limit.”

Picture from http://L2Grind.com