Historical Archive · Timeline
Timeline · 508 dated events
From the founding of the publishers to Metin2's official return to China. Each row carries the most precise date the documents allow, a degree of certainty and the code of the internal report that supports it.
F fact, with a dated document or verified metadata
T testimony (one or a few documents)
V community rumour
S debunked
I strong inference
Highlighted rows are the turning points of the story. The code in the last column (e.g. q3, g0) is the research project's internal report documenting the row: the report stays in the private archive.
1995-2003 352004-2008 1572009 1112010-2013 1122014 182015-2026 75in the code
Before the game: Ymir, the publishers, the early betas
| Date of event | Event | ref. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1995-08-01 | Registration of catv.net: the future Chinese publisher's domain exists nine years before the game |
F | 10, k3 |
| 1998-11 | Start of Ymir's activity («1998년 11월에 설립», Webzen deed 2011). A fifteen-year-old, Kim Hyun-joong, «lays the foundations of Metin» that year (etnews 2005) | F | q6 |
| 1999-05-28 | Incorporation of 中广亚广播信息网络有限公司 (brand 中广网 / CATV.net; original name «traffic information»), from 广电总局 + 北亚集团. It is the mainland publisher of Metin2. The acronym CIBN was the company's own acronym (address @cibn.com from 2004): not the CIBN of China Radio International | F | 10, k3, q4 |
| 1999-08-26 | Domain metin.co.kr registered (still held by Webzen in 2026, renewed through 2027) |
F | k4 |
| 1999-11-17 | Incorporation of (주)이미르엔터테인먼트 in Seoul, Mapo-gu (CEO 이대영 Lee Dae-young, ex Samsung Engineering). Corrects the «15 November» of Korean Wikipedia | F | 05, 11, q6 |
| 2000 | 北亚集团 withdraws its investment from 中广亚 «due to the shift in industrial policy»: at the launch of 倚天Ⅱ the publisher is no longer backed by the listed company | F | q4 |
| 2000-01-29 | Domain ymir.co.kr registered |
F | k4 |
| 2000-05-19 | Metin 1 classified in Korea (전체이용가, no. 2000-CR0083), applicant 이미르엔터테인먼트 |
F | k4 |
| 2001 (end) | 《倚天》 (Metin 1) comes out in China and is dubbed «the second Legend of Mir». Metin's Chinese story starts here, not in 2004 | F | 10, k3 |
| 2001-08-07 | The address that will become Ymir's client server serves another customer in 2001, with a single file, golf2001.exe (99 MB): the IP was reassigned before 2003 |
F | i3 |
| 2002-01 | Development of Metin2 begins: 45 people, 2 years, ~4 billion won | F | 11 |
| 2002-05-24 | Incorporation of 雲起遊戲代理有限公司 / Run Up Game Distribution Ltd (Hong Kong): the entity from which the 2009 files will come | F | q3 |
| 2002-11-09 | Domain metin2.co.kr registered: the earliest date for the name «Metin2», two months before the oldest dated comment in the code (2003.01.09 myevan) |
F | k4 |
| 2002-11-09 | Webzen (then Ymir) registers the domain metin2.co.kr — 24 days before Ruliweb's announcement of the 1st CBT (3/12/2002); still registered to WEBZEN Inc. until 9/11/2026, but with dead DNS delegation |
F | g6 |
| 2002-12-03 | Ruliweb: Ymir announces the first closed beta of 메틴2 from 19 December 2002; www.metin2.co.kr already online |
F | f6 |
| 2002-12-03 | Ruliweb announces Metin2's 1st Korean CBT, «from 19 December» — the oldest news on Metin2 the project holds | F | i5 |
| 2002-12-05 | Gamemeca: 1st CBT from 19/12, 3,000 testers, sign-ups by 12/12; the official site www.metin2.com opens the same 19/12; three races 아사드·에카·반; the game is sold as a production system (villages, houses, farming) |
F | i5 |
| 2002-12-05 | The Korean press (gamemeca) publishes an article on 메틴 2 / Metin 2: the oldest dated document the project has encountered | F | i8 |
| 2002-12-19 | Start of Metin2's 1st Korean closed beta | F | f6 |
| 2002-12-19 | 1st Korean closed beta and opening of www.metin2.com |
F | i5 |
| 2002-12-21 | The official Korean site already features the METIN II Beta Client, with DirectX 8.1 and drivers for Voodoo/Rage128 | F | g2 |
| 2002-12-21 | The client page on www.metin2.com announces the «METIN II Beta Client 최신버젼» on two servers, but the client is not yet available: there are only DirectX 8.1 KOR and 43 video drivers |
F | i3 |
| 2003 | The character concept sheets carry the copyright «Metin2 Characters (C)Latte/(C) YMIR CO.,LTD.2003»: «Latte» is a co-author never identified | F | i5 |
| 2003-01-16 | Signature anoa in PythonShop.h:8: «first pass completed». Sixth known Ymir signature |
F | 12 |
| 2003-01-18 | 中广亚 enters video games with 《破天一剑》 | T | k3 |
| 2003-02 | The Korean magazine NetPower devotes a feature to Metin 2 on p. 131 of the February issue | F | i8 |
| 2003-03-08 | 2nd CBT already underway: Ymir sends selected players the page with the client MetinII0_0_1.exe, hosted on two KORNET/Korea Telecom servers. The 1st CBT had had «many graphics card problems» |
F | i5 |
| 2003-04 | metin2.com and metin2.co.kr/~metin2/ serve byte-identical pages (MD5 f518936236506106a7a56a5f358578c6): they are the same site, a vhost on the UserDir |
F | i3 |
| 2003-04-03 | The Apache UserDir metin2.co.kr/~metin2/ is attested for the first time |
F | i3 |
| 2003-04-04 | The CBT client is now MetinII0_0_3.exe; DirectX moves to 9.0. Between 8/3 (0.0.1) and 4/4 the version climbs to 0.0.3 |
F | i3 |
| 2003-06-05 | Official notice against a decoy site: Metin 1's domain in China is metin.com.cn |
F | k3 |
| 2003-06-13 | The client's server 1 switches from an IP address to the name metin2.co.kr: metin2.co.kr is already operating eight months before the site opens (23/2/2004) |
F | i3 |
| 2003-07-07 | 2nd Korean closed beta underway: +500 testers; characters, maps and UI redone; hugs/kisses/villages built by players | F | f6 |
| 2003-07-07 | 2nd CBT: 500 more testers for the load test. The two declared features: emotion animations (arm-in-arm, kiss, hug) and player-built villages with diplomacy between races | F | i5 |
| 2003-11-06 | the toolchain the server is compiled with (GCC 3.3.3 FreeBSD) | F | g0 |
The game launches: Korea, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Europe
| Date of event | Event | ref. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2004-02-23 | 3rd CBT and opening of www.metin2.co.kr |
F | i5 |
| 2004-02-28 | Korean CBT news for Metin2 (news no. 4 from metin2.co.kr, cited on 2ch in 2006). To be verified |
T | q7 |
| 2004-04-17 / 05-25 | 文化部 establishes the imported-game censorship committee: 公测 only after approval, a number to be displayed; Hong Kong treated as abroad | F | q4 |
| 2004-07-02 | Korean open beta: 10,000 concurrent on day one, 500,000 registered in under a month; then voluntary shutdown of the servers to redo the balancing and reopening at 3,000 users (Lee, 11/10/2004) | F | 11, 16, q6 |
| 2004-07-09 | Metin2 classified by the Korean board: no. 2004-OL0647, 15세이용가, applicant (주)이미르엔터테인먼트. A primary document never cited by the scene |
F | k4 |
| 2004-07-16 06:14:22 UTC | The official Korean launcher/patcher Metin2.exe (540,672 B) is compiled |
F | i8 |
| 2004-07-28 | Ymir's open letter to Chinese players: «gather in the 4th region of the Korean servers, put CN in your name» | F | q4 |
| 2004-08 (≤11) | Paper magazine 《家用电脑与游戏》 no.9/2004 p.55: Chinese preview of Metin2 with «代理 未定», «can only be tried on the Korean server» — the Chinese press was following it before the license | F | f6 |
| 2004-08 | August 2004's PC Power Zine includes a 64-page guide to Metin2 — the first printed item devoted to the game |
F | i5 |
| 2004-08-07 | SBS, «Game Show 즐거운세상»: segment «게임 견문록» on 《파병》 and 《메틴2》 (private adventure dungeons, free PVP channels) | F | i5 |
| 2004-08-18 | 七夜魔君 (UID 247024) registers on 2000fun: the future HK announcer of the first two Chinese pservers of 倚天2 |
F | g3 |
| 2004-08-20 | The official Chinese site of 《倚天2》 opens with its own forum (record 11,129 messages/day on 26/8) | F | q2, q4 |
| 2004-08-25 → 08-31 | First Chinese closed beta: six days, data wiped; Korea too suspends its 公测 to redo the game. On 3/9, 中广网–Ymir negotiations in Beijing; Ymir programmers in Beijing on 22/9 | F | q4 |
| 2004-08-25 | 游民星空 publishes the listing of the Chinese closed-beta client of 《倚天2》, 199.0 MB | F | i1 |
| 2004-09 | 《家用电脑与游戏》 Vol.121 publishes the listing «倚天2 (Metin2), developer YMIR, Chinese publisher: not yet decided, Chinese version; for now can only be tried on the Korean server» — earliest dated Chinese mention | F | g4 |
| 2004-09 | The magazine 少年电脑世界 (no. 9/2004, p. 51) presents 《倚天II》 and its «meteorite system» (陨石系统): the Metin stones before the name. The page says «公测», but the beta was still closed (sdnsj-2004-09-rivista-p51) | F | teca |
| 2004-10-03 15:55 | The Chinese client's PC.epk is written: the characters go into the package last, five days before the second beta |
F | teca |
| 2004-10-08 | yt2_pack.exe (299,662 B, MD5 e0373b84…): official package of the Chinese 《倚天Ⅱ》 edition |
F | i3 |
| 2004-10-08 → 10-15 | Second Chinese closed beta (内测2). Its build (root.epk from 00:02 on 8/10) is the oldest complete Metin2 client preserved (yitian2-client-2004-10, the exhibit) |
F | teca |
| 2004-10-11 | yt2_pack98.exe (295,681 B, MD5 b371c494…), Windows 98 variant |
F | i3 |
| 2004-11 | Run Up moves into the 龍駒企業大廈 (Mongkok): the game will take its name from the publisher's building, two and a half years later | F | q3 |
| 2004-11 | The CD bundled with 少年电脑世界 no. 11/2004 puts the complete 内测2 installer on newsstands: it is the disc that preserved it for twenty years (sdnsj-2004-11-cd) | F | teca |
| 2004-11-08 | official Chinese release of 《倚天Ⅱ》; developer YMIR, publisher 中广亚广播信息网络有限公司 | T | i1 |
| 2004-11-16 | Press conference at the CIBN studio in the TV Tower with officials from 新闻出版总署; chairman 王平 | F | q4 |
| 2004-11-18 | 8pm: the public beta of 《倚天Ⅱ》 opens in China, three server groups (天罡星/天机星/天勇星), 170,000 logins in 10 minutes. (Baidu Baike says 8 November: that is wrong) | F | 10, 11, k3 |
| 2004-2006 | In the Chinese trade press (UCG, 电子游戏软件, 游戏日, 网络游戏一点通; ~170 issues) Metin2 never appears | F | g4 |
| 2005 | Webzen's E3 2005 press kit contains no Metin: Ymir was still independent | F | k5 |
| 2005 (end) | Gameforge 4D GmbH is founded, the MMO licensing company | F | k8 |
| 2005-02-04 | Song Young-jin (Ymir's development director): «there's talk that we're focusing on China and abandoning Korea» | F | q6 |
| 2005-02-04 | The Chinese content host's news page points to www.yt2.com.cn (2005 New Year campaign): the host is official Chinese, not a pserver |
F | i3 |
| 2005-02-09 | First attestation of metin.cn |
F | i3 |
| 2005-02-24 | Home page of yt2.catv.net: «一骑当千» version, point-based billing, 京ICP证010581号 and no 文网游备字 number shown |
F | q8 |
| 2005-03-09 | Ymir declares Metin2 «평생 무료» (free for life) in Korea | F | f6 |
| 2005-03-18 | Official Korean service; in China a new server 天魁星, then 天烁星, 天佑星, 天英星: timed play (1 point = 36 s) | F | 16, q2 |
| 2005-04-12 | China: official anti-Japanese in-game event «誓杀倭寇 反日入常» | F | q2 |
| 2005-06-08 | Interview with 송영진, head of Metin2's development team (GameMeca): the game «didn't deliver the expected results» | F | i5 |
| 2005-06-11 | Registration of the domain mcncc.com (Chinese forum for private servers in general, Sichuan ICP). Same owner until 2026 |
F | 06, k2, q2 |
| 2005-08-14 | www.fyyt.net (风云倚天) is a commercial Chinese Metin2 pserver in operation: sells gear for RMB, call center in Xi'an (029-68880079), client + launcher + IP patch, exp up to 1000× |
F | i3 |
| 2005-08-16 | 游民星空 catalogs 《倚天2》最新完整客户端 gs_yt2.exe, 315.0 MB: the oldest attestation of a complete CN client |
F | f6 |
| 2005-08-18 | The server 天禄星 opens in Jiangsu in partnership with 江苏电信 | F | k3 |
| 2005-09 | China: national tournament «天下至尊» in over a thousand internet cafés | F | q2 |
| 2005-09-05 18:14:38 | This is the date of the MSI inside the installer of the Chinese Yitian2/CATV client (304,870,262 B) — the oldest Metin2 client the project holds | F | i8 |
| 2005-10-01 | First client package of 风云倚天: fyyt.exe, 422,712 B, MD5 589ace9c… |
F | i3 |
| 2005-10-23 | Korean in-game screenshots (server 천마, channel 4) — Ruliweb users | F | f6 |
| 2005-11-13 | ip_chn.es lists the game servers: 219.153.34.73, 60.208.77.183, 61.236.229.238 |
F | i3 |
| 2005-11-20 | Koreans on Metin 1 Chinese servers (fyyt.net), instructions on Naver |
T | f6 |
| 2005-11-20 | First Korean trace of «중국메틴»: instructions for pointing the official Korean Metin client to the Chinese server fyyt.net by swapping ip_kor.es↔ip_chn.es. Four months before Metin 1's official Chinese launch |
F/T | i5 |
| 2005-11-27 | client_string.txt: Korean→Chinese localization table for Metin2's maps, eng column empty — translation was done from the original Korean client |
F | i3 |
| 2005-12-09 | PK倚天.exe (659,968 B) inside the same kit |
F | i3 |
| 2005-12-13 | Timestamp of an account row from a Chinese private server of Metin 1: the Chinese Metin pserver scene exists before the official mainland launch | F | q1 |
| 2005-12-31 | fyyt.exe grows to 844,503 B (MD5 41345984…) |
F | i3 |
| 2005-2006 ca. | The 倚天2吧 opens on Baidu Tieba, fid 60854: the Chinese community organizes itself around the Chinese name (the metin2吧 will have fid 19.571.621, over ten years later) |
F | i7 |
| 2006-02 | (lead i5) pkyt.com as a Chinese PK server — the current domain has only been registered since 2011-04-20: the 2006 one is a registration that later expired |
F | i7 |
| 2006-02-02 | Baidu Zhidao: full guide to setting up a Metin 1 pserver (FreeBSD, db/chat/mark/log/game/account): 3 years and 7 months before the Metin2 leak | F | q1 |
| 2006-02-10 | Ymir in Xi'an: 陕西至尊网络 (incorporated 2/3/2006; 李继宏 60%, 赵建刚 40%) becomes the operator of 《新倚天》 (Metin 1) for mainland China | F | k3, q5 |
| 2006-02-11 | PK server of Chinese Metin: registration at pkyt.com/reg.jsp and regcnc.jsp; «on the right-hand server there are more Koreans» |
F | i5 |
| 2006-02-20 | Guide in traditional Chinese (reposted from 龍之語超級論壇 on CSDN) for registering on the Korean server with a fake 주민등록번호: «90% of the players are Taiwanese» | F | g4 |
| 2006-02-24 | 4Gamer announces the Japanese edition メティン2 (CJ Internet Japan / Netmarble); on 25/2 the first discussion on 2ch, where the Japanese sign up on the Chinese server yt2.catv.net to try the game |
F | q7 |
| 2006-02-24 | 4Gamer publishes two メティン2 promotional videos (metin2-1.zip 10.9 MB and metin2-2.zip 33.7 MB) and 20 press photos, with the original mtime |
F | i6 |
| 2006-03-03 | Japanese players get hold of the Chinese client of 倚天II through the P2P clients Gigaget and 迅雷 | T | i6 |
| 2006-03-07 | Lee Dae-young in Tokyo with 宋栄鎮 Song Young-jin, Ymir's development director: Korea 800,000 registered, 20,000 concurrent | F | q7 |
| 2006-03-10 03:00 | Client build of the Japanese CBT: 20060310_0300_METIN2JAPAN.EXE, distributed by Netmarble Japan; the name circulates on 2ch from 14:26 the same day |
F | i6 |
| 2006-03-24 | Opening of the Japanese メティン2 service (Netmarble) | F | q7 |
| 2006-03-24 | Client of the open Japanese service: Metin2Japan_0001.exe, same Netmarble distribution. Installed to C:\Program Files\NetmarbleJP\METIN2\, NMJ_Util.exe in system32, Config.exe not localized |
F | i6 |
| 2006-04 | Gameforge 4D contract for Europe (Ymir's official chronology); Run Up's Taiwanese subsidiary registered on 19/4 (no. 27937939) | F | q6, q3 |
| 2006-04-08 | The «중국메틴» package circulates in Korea via 네오폴더 (NeoFolder), Korean P2P | F | i5 |
| 2006-05 | Run Up contract for Metin2 in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau | F | q6 |
| 2006-07-06 18:00 | 무쌍, a Korean server 18+ only, opens | F | i5 |
| 2006-07-29 | Run Up HK publishes metin2_060729.exe, the client of 龍駒Online: the oldest file name of the entity ever surfaced. Served from two bare IPs on third-party hosting, not from a Run Up domain |
F | 24, n3 |
| 2006-08-14 | metin2.de goes online. Gameforge 4D declares «over three million players» in the Far East |
F | k8 |
| 2006-08-14 | 龍駒's 公測 in Hong Kong according to hehagame HK (consistent with the client metin2_060729.exe) |
T | f6 |
| 2006-08-23 | The client page on 龍駒's HK site is online (first attestation) | F | f5 |
| 2006-08-23 | The HK site lists nine third-party distribution points (2000Fun, 16talk, insforum, discuz-hk, hkisee, 8cyber, Sina HK, dler, Ani-ware): the official client circulated through forums from the very start | F | 24, n3 |
| 2006-09 | Hong Kong is Metin2's first paying foreign market, three months before Germany | F | q6 |
| 2006-09-27 | The two Korean servers are classified separately: 메틴2(천마서버) and 메틴2(무쌍서버) |
F | k4 |
| 2006-10-04 | Registration of Gameforge 4D GmbH (Mannheim HRB 111190), 69 days before commercial launch | F | 05, k8 |
| 2006-11-23 | Metin2 becomes playable in the West: German OPEN BETA, free. The same day Metin2 goes free-to-play in Korea. The first European day, not 12 December | F | k8, q6 |
| 2006-12-09 | Offline user meetup in Sinchon; 이상현, Metin2's 기획팀장 | F | i5 |
| 2006-12-12 | Start des Commercial Service. Free, but past level 15 a Spiel-Pass at €6.66/month is required | F | 16, k8 |
| 2006-12-12 | MetinPatch.EXE («METIN II AUTO PATCH», Ymir Entertainment) compiled at 08:22:58 UTC: a single binary with resources in Korean, German, Japanese and Chinese and five hosts hardcoded inside (the Korean, German and Chinese sites and two patch servers, one of which is a Chinese one never identified before). It's the launcher of the first international client (Metin2_EN_20070608) |
F | h5 |
| 2006-12-13 | Expansion 사귀타워 (Tower of Demons), 9 quest floors, and 거미던전 | F | i5 |
| 2007-01-16 | 中广网 announces the license of 《强化版倚天Ⅱ》 (ADV METIN2) for mainland China, free | F | 10, k3 |
| 2007-01-24 | Interview with 李大泳 (Lee Dae-young): Metin2 is official in Korea, China, Hong Kong, Japan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Germany; China is the only paying market; «the 倚天3 project is already underway»; 强化版 = «倚天2.5» | F | 11, 16, k3, q4 |
| 2007-01-26 | China: announcement of 《倚天Ⅱ自由世界》, a free remake («the Chinese version only had two skill tiers»); open beta with no wipe on 16/3/2007 | F | q2 |
| 2007-02-02 | 雲起遊戲 (Run Up) announces 《龍駒 Online》: the official name of Metin2 in Hong Kong and Taiwan. «LongJu» was a publisher's brand | F | 10, k3 |
| 2007-02-26 | Sina: the TW site of 《龙驹online》 opens; Run Up declares licenses for «TW, HK, mainland China, Japan, Germany» | F | f6 |
| 2007-03-08 / 03-17 | 龍駒 Online: closed beta and public beta in Taiwan; servers named after famous horses (閃電, 流星, 追風, 赤兔) | F | 10, k3 |
| 2007-03-22 | A Japanese player, reading the strings, establishes that the JP client is the CHINESE version retouched, with Korean grafts added later | T | i6 |
| 2007-03-28 | All 57 .epk files of the Metin2_EN_20070608.exe client carry the mtime 28/3/2007 18:49: the EU client from June 2007 is a repackaging of the 28 March one |
F | g6 |
| 2007-05 | End of the Spiel-Pass after five months | T | k8 |
| 2007-05-23 | patch 070523 of 《倚天Ⅱ自由世界》: from 不删档内测 to the «new map». Publisher indexed as 中广网 | T | i1 |
| 2007-08-04 | Ymir in Xi'an renews 陕西至尊网络's exclusive on 《新倚天》 through 31/12/2010 | F | q4 |
| 2007-08-09 | The HK/TW build already has the 修羅 (Sura) class: skill guide at level 55 on Bahamut | F | i4 |
| 2007-08-20 | 《龍駒Online》: official notice of extended maintenance «全伺服器» reposted on the board | F | i4 |
| 2007-09-03 | A TW player opens a ticket for a guild-war bug; 雲起 replies the same day «問題已回報給原遊戲開發公司» | F | i4 |
| 2007-09-13 | In Taiwan 龍駒's 新手包 (starter kit on CD) is no longer sold: only the installer distributed online remains | T | g4 |
| 2007-09-14 | China: complete client 《自由世界2.0》 «神奇四侠公测版» for the 公测 of 20/9 | F | f6 |
| 2007-10 | Metin2 launches in Turkey, paid; it will become the largest community in the world | F | 14, q6 |
| 2007-10-24 | Compile date of metin2.exe (593,920 bytes) in the 2009 Turkish client |
F | k11 |
| 2007-11 (end) | 龍駒 Online merges its four servers into one (玉馬) | F | k3 |
| 2007-11-14/25 | A Cantonese user circulates a complete Metin2 client in 11 parts (541,581,312 B), with its own patch: the Hong Kong client of November 2007 | F | g2 |
| 2007-11-29 | Yonhap: the first Korean case against private servers. NCSoft+Webzen: 46 identified, 1 arrested, 45 reported; in the record: MU's client and server «were stolen abroad». Metin2 is not among the games hit | F | k4 |
| 2007-12-03 | First dated official Western client among Gameforge's: Metin2_20071203.exe (DE); ES 18/12/2007, TR 16/1/2008, PL 17/1/2008 |
F | g2 |
| 2007-12-13 | Taiwan's MOEA enacts the mandatory clauses of the online-game standard contract: whoever ends service must announce it 30 days in advance. This is the rule within which Run Up's 2010 shutdowns will play out | F | 24, n4 |
| 2007-12-21 | China: V3.0 «迷域集结» 公测; client of 18/12/2007 | F | q2 |
| 2007-12-31 | Japanese players migrate to the US server («Japan ~1000 players, America ~2000») | T | q7 |
| 2008-02-26 03:33 | the HK server's file tree is planted on the machine: 10,958 files with this date | F | g0 |
| 2008-02-26 | The OX quiz of the hongkong locale cites info@runup.com.tw and mt2.runup.com.tw: Run Up already presents itself to players with a Taiwanese domain in February 2008 |
F | 24, n2 |
| 2008-02-27 | auth/VERSION.txt = game svn revision 407: auth comes from a different branch than game (r404). Corrects caccia/g0 §3 |
F | 24, n2 |
| 2008-02-28 → 12-14 | Inferna, Ymir's next game: three closed betas, never released | F | q6 |
| 2008-03-01 | elitepvpers.de: guide to registering on Korean Metin2 with a KSSN: first German bridge to Asia | T | q8 |
| 2008-03-10 07:58 | big5_string.txt of the hongkong locale |
F | g0 |
| 2008-03-11 | Last 17173 news item on 《新倚天》 signed 至尊; silence in the press until 2017 | F | q5 |
| 2008-03-27 | 龍駒 TW client mt2_20080327.exe (cited on Bahamut on 1/6/2008 to a user with the CD-ROM version) |
F | f6 |
| 2008-04-28 | The 文化部 order is real, but it hit 《新倚天》 (Metin 1, 陕西至尊), operating without a number after the 2006 change of publisher: NOT 倚天Ⅱ. Chinese Metin2 never closed: weekly maintenance, events and new zones without interruption from 2008 to 2012 | T | q4, q2, k3 |
| 2008-05-16 | mt2.runup.com.tw responds from 203.67.81.241, SEEDNET block «Seednet-TaipeiDP Colocation», Taipei: Run Up's machines were in commercial colocation, not on its own network |
F | 24, n1 |
| 2008-05-19 | 中广网 lists all its games (4) for the Sichuan mourning: the paid 倚天Ⅱ is no longer there, absorbed into 自由世界 without an announcement | F | q4 |
| 2008-05-27 | Run Up HK publishes the official patch metin2patch_20080527.exe |
F | 24, n3 |
| 2008-06-02 | The client of the first Chinese pserver, 龙驹在线.rar (446,173,153 B), is packaged at 11:32 UTC by the same pserver (龙驹在线, mt2ol.com) with BitComet, five days before the open beta of 7/6/2008, and put on two peer-to-peer networks at once: first material proof that this channel was used by the entity in China, and that the distribution was the pserver's own |
F | i2 |
| 2008-06-04 | 2000fun (HK): 倚天2 pserver in Fuzhou (mt2ol.com), «last year's Hong Kong version», client 龍駒主程式: the HK 2007 serverfiles run in China 15 months before rain |
F | f2 |
| 2008-06-04 / 07-12 | The same HK user (七夜魔君) announces mt2ol (Fuzhou) and 龍駒II (Sichuan): the two first mainland pservers pass through a single Hong Kong promoter, who does the same for 石器, 天使之戀, 亂, 勇者魔力 |
F | g3 |
| 2008-06-06 | mt2ol.com (Fuzhou): the operator states the client is the «港版正統主程» modified, launcher mt2.exe |
F | f7 |
| 2008-06-07 | mt2ol.com (龙驹在线, Fuzhou) in open beta: «last year's HK version», the channel status shows the HK server's, exp 10x, forum runup.uu1001.com | F | f5 |
| 2008-06-07 | mt2ol/龙驹在线 opens its open beta claiming to run on the «last year's Hong Kong version», exp 10× the HK server, seven QQ groups of players already full | F | g2 |
| 2008-07-02 | On 2000FUN a Hongkonger asks for help on the Chinese pserver: «I can't communicate with the mainlanders». The client runs on XP SP2/SP3, not on Vista | F | i3 |
| 2008-07-03 | The same ticket is closed: «已請相關原廠進行修正» — ten months in the Run Up→Ymir chain | F | i4 |
| 2008-07-12 | 2000fun: Longju2 (longju2.cn, Sichuan), client longju2setup.exe; 497 replies in HK |
F | f2 |
| 2008-07-13 | longju2.cn (龙驹II) online with its own client longju2setup.exe; version «0812» on 12/8/2008 | F | f5 |
| 2008-07-18 | The Longju2 pserver (longju2.cn, Sichuan) distributes its own client longju2setup.exe and has its own patch server |
F | 24, n3 |
| 2008-07-30 | Declared date of mt2_20070529.exe, 421 MB: the last version the HK branch will ever have |
F | 24, n3 |
| 2008-08-12 | Webzen files the METIN2 trademark with the EUIPO, two and a half years before buying Ymir. Gameforge never held the trademark in Europe | F | k8 |
| 2008-08-15 | WinTotal.de opens its «Metin2» entry (datePublished 2008-08-15T17:32, «Aktualisiert 15.08.2008»), which links to the official German site | F | g6 |
| 2008-08-28 | mt2.runup.com.hk responds from 203.105.59.129, POWERBASE-HK: in Hong Kong too Run Up is a guest of a commercial datacenter |
F | 24, n1 |
| 2008-09-03 | Metin2Bot v5.1.1 (637,153 B, internal mtime 16:50:30): a year before the serverfile leak, the Metin2 cheat scene is already at a fifth major version; it travels alongside MultiHack Zoon.nebel by Hurrican (26/11/2008, DE scene) and a BotDePesca (8/1/2009, BR scene) |
F | h5 |
| 2008-09-08 | Run Up's site is hiring GMs, game/engine/tools programmers and comic-shop clerks: no sysadmin, network, or 機房 role | F | 24, n4 |
| 2008-09-13 | First elitepvpers discussion on a Chinese pserver («acc. für Longju2»): start of the Longju corpus, 304 threads by 2010 | F | q8 |
| 2008-09-18 | First member of the wtmt2.uu1001.com forum (網通倚天2): birth of 91 LongJu | F | f5 |
| 2008-09-22 | 91longju.com online: official HK client mt2_20070529.exe, patch 91mt2.rar |
F | f5 |
| 2008-09-23 | 5imt2.com online with the same text as 91 LongJu; patch 5imt2.rar from a Fujian host | F | f5 |
| 2008-10-08 | «XuXiang» claims the Longju serverfiles on elitepvpers on behalf of a Beijing group: the oldest Western claim, unproven | V | k10 |
| 2008-10-17/18 | 91 LongJu (www.91longju.com, 網通/China Netcom): German guide 17/10, HK announcement 18/10 «get the client of the Hong Kong server»; launcher 91mt2.exe (4/11) |
F | f2 |
| 2008-10-18 | On Baidu Zhidao someone asks about an item «on a 倚天II pserver»: the Metin2 pserver question in China precedes rain by 11 months | T | q1 |
| 2008-10-18 | 91longju.com's registration form is titled «注册--5I倚天2--游戏帐号»: 91 LongJu and 5imt2 are the same operator | F | f5 |
| 2008-10-20 | Mondo Metin2 is born on ForumCommunity: Italy is there before the private servers | F | 13 |
| 2008-10-28 | 91 LongJu's top-up is called 龙驹在线@倚天2 and links to mt2ol.com: 91 LongJu = mt2ol | F | f5 |
| 2008-11-01 | alladyn5 (Tychy, Poland) registers on RaGEZONE, ten months before the leak |
F | g2 |
| 2008-11-09 | Private server «91 LongJu» (91longju.com) already active, played by Spanish- and Turkish-speakers with the official TW client mt2_20080923.exe + patch 91mt2.rar: ten months before rain |
F | f6 |
| 2008-11-18 | 91 LongJu's registration requires a Korean KSSN: the account portal is Ymir's, recycled | T | f2 |
| 2008-11-28 | China: V5.0 «宝石计划»; V5.0 client dated 28/11/2008, offered unchanged until 2012 (the mainland client of the leak era) | F | q2 |
| 2008-12-01 | 1st renewal of the Gameforge contract (Europe, Arabia, South America); 2nd renewal 2013-02 | F | q6 |
| 2008-12-01 | longju3.com (经典龙驹) online: launcher goodmt2.exe, HK client mt2_20080923.exe | F | f5 |
| 2008-12-03 | 5imt2 announces the update to the HK client mt2_20080923.exe for 4/12: server-side aligned to the HK version from 10 weeks earlier | F | f5 |
| 2008-12-04 | The Chinese pserver 网通龙驹 (wtmt2.uu1001.com, Zhejiang) has 540 members and 7,653 messages |
F | g2 |
| 2008-12-05 | Gameforge distributes the DE client also via peer-to-peer | F | g2 |
| 2008-12-05 | Gameforge publishes the four «Softonic» DE/ES/FR/IT clients (Metin2_20081204_softonic.exe, 5/12/2008 between 14:21 and 14:26 GMT): the oldest official Gameforge clients preserved with their original date |
F | g6 |
| 2008-12-06 | 龍駒世界 (godmt2.com) opens with «international lines» and MSN support for HK/TW/MY/SG |
F | f2 |
| 2008-12-19 | 91 LongJu adopts mt2_20080923.exe, with the patch all_91mt2.rar | F | f5 |
2009: the theft of the binaries
| Date of event | Event | ref. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | Ymir's golden year: revenue 17,375 million won (+92% over 2008), operating margin 69%, 17 employees. The year of the binary leak leaves no trace in the accounts | F | q6 |
| 2009-01-09 | 10:53:31 UTC - Pacote_MetiN2_Hacks.rar (2,620,516 B, SupramaX, BR): the first appearance of Metin2 on Western sharing services, and it is neither the game nor the server, it's a Brazilian cheat package. Eight months before rain |
F | h1 |
| 2009-01-12 | 5imt2 (www.5imt2.com, launcher 5imt2.exe) announced in HK with the same text as 91 LongJu: same operator |
F | f2 |
| 2009-01-29 | The user rain (UID 3) registers on mcncc.com: he is the forum's administrator, still active in 2017 |
F | 08, k2 |
| 2009-02-13 17:20:08 UTC | From February 2009 Ymir's MetinPatch.EXE (PE 12/12/2006) circulates under some thirty names, including Angelbot v3.exe, S4LHack.exe, Metin2 Multihack v3.9, Metin2 Tradehack, seven months before the binary leak: the official launcher was repackaged by the scene as a cheat and bot |
F | i9 |
| 2009-02-21 | Last live home page of 91longju.com (patch all_91mt2.rar); parked from 2/2010 | F | f5 |
| 2009-02-27 | Multihacks, auto-yang and auto-fishing circulate in Turkey: the tampering of the client precedes the binary leak by seven months | F | k7 |
| 2009-03-09 | The mcncc brand is already active: pack «Mcncc完美国际单机», authors 这家伙很懒 / X2IN / 绝对领域, universal password mcncc.com, forum on mcncc.com |
F | g4 |
| 2009-03-25 | Metin 2/setup.exe (531,173,368 bytes) from the Oyungezer DVD, April 2009: the Turkish client on a magazine disc. Same SFX stub as the Turkish CD-R: this was the standard form of disc distribution |
F | k11 |
| 2009-04-06 | The «MCNCC coLinux platform» exists, the technical base of the Chinese one-click packages | F | g4 |
| 2009-04-06 | PMBDnldr.exe (Pando Media Booster) VeriSign-signed, PE 20:44:20 UTC: the Metin2Downloader.exe distributed by Gameforge was a Pando P2P client |
F | h5 |
| 2009-04-17 | 14:30:44 UTC - mt2.5.zip (17,851,057 B): it is NOT Metin2, it's a cracked MadTracker 2.5 (mt250_full.exe from 2005, .mt2 modules). False positive verified and closed |
F | h1 |
| 2009-04-27 | 文化部 notice: change of operator or shutdown → the import number lapses | F | q4 |
| 2009-05 | TEC Interactive contract for Singapore (paid service from September): the 2011 and 2013 complainant is a licensee | F | q6 |
| 2009-05 (by the 24th) | That server has ~279 accounts (85% with emails on .it domains), 205 player IPs, 191 of them Italian (Telecom Italia, Wind, Fastweb, Vodafone) and five GMs (Legolas93, Dulaan, Vodafono2, Gio01, Chucckino). In Italy people were playing on the Hong Kong files four months before rain's release |
F/I | 24, n2 |
| 2009-05 | On the same instance coexist clubmt2_forum, forums_gilda, l2jdb (Lineage 2), ogame, world/worldd/worlddd (MaNGOS/WoW): a stable of private servers. ClubMT2 is remembered as the first Italian Metin2 pserver |
F | 24, n2 |
| 2009-05 | That machine's administrator runs 56 GRANTs as root@net-93-148-218-110.t2.dsl.vodafone.it: from an Italian Vodafone ADSL line |
F | 24, n2 |
| 2009-05-07 | A «technical-research only, open GMs» pserver that uses the official TW installer mt2_20080923.exe as its client |
F | f2 |
| 2009-05-08 | Webzen files METIN2 with the German DPMA | F | k8 |
| 2009-05-14 | «國戰天下» event Taiwan vs Hong Kong on a temporary dedicated server | F | q3 |
| 2009-05-15 10:24→10:33 | The MySQL datadir of an Italian private server is copied onto an OVH/Kimsufi dedicated box 94.23.20.144 (AS16276): it is metin2_db+mysql.rar. The database is named metin2_runup, big5_bin, LOCALE = hongkong — the files are Run Up's |
F | 24, n2 |
| 2009-05-20 16:38→18:00 | someone reassembles auth, db and the 7 channels from scratch: 80 minutes readable minute by minute | F | g0 |
| 2009-05-22 | TurkMMO: «NewLongju is Metin2's pserver; Longju existed before and shut down; all in Chinese» — the Turks on the Chinese pservers | T | f5 |
| 2009-05-25 | In the same thread: «At first I didn't know what 倚天2 was: it was 龍駒» — the equivalence of the names stated by a player | F | i3 |
| 2009-05-31/06-07 | In Hong Kong, in 2000FUN's private-server section, «how do you get a serverfile» goes unanswered: 28 messages of pure skepticism | F | g4 |
| 2009-06/09 | LongjuYT2 = www.metin35.com, 4 servers, item shop and launcher on a China Telecom Jiangsu IP (61.160.247.x) |
F | f2 |
| 2009-06-05 | USK-boxed DVD «Published by Gameforge 4D GmbH»: only the network installer inside. Gameforge made discs, as a short-run giveaway | F | k5, k11 |
| 2009-06-06 | Before the 167 threads about LongjuYT2, a Chinese pserver with a Chinese client and a «DE exe» (150 in June-July): Germans were playing on Chinese pservers three months before rain | F | q8 |
| 2009-06-07 | 永恒龙驹 (longjuyt2.com, Jiangsu) opens its open beta at 19:00, exp 150x, launcher yongheng0923.rar | F | f5 |
| 2009-06-10 15:45 | On elitepvpers, user Caro92 posts the connection IP of the Chinese pserver LongjuYT2: 203.70.68.11 port 13000. The 203.70.68.0/25 block is SEEDNET «Seednet-TaipeiDP-S», TaipeiDP Colocation, Taipei: the same facility Run Up's servers were in, in the same months |
F | 24, n1 |
| 2009-06-16 | A pserver site (yt2sf.com) clones the official HK client page: 500 MB client, 550 MB TW client (19/12/2008), 10 MB launcher |
F | f5 |
| 2009-06-24/25 | Metin2_Brasil_v08.part1..6.rar, 513 MB: a complete Brazilian Metin2 client is already circulating three months before rain |
F | h1 |
| 2009-06-25 15:25 | the game binary (56,773,057 B, MD5 d49d0498…) placed in share_data |
F | g0 |
| 2009-06-27 | First attempt on RaGEZONE: «Posible Metin2 ServerFiles» → dismissed as fake | F | 01, 06 |
| 2009-06-28 | Inside Softwares MT2.rar: Change connect.rar, python-2.6.1.msi and uhooker_v1.3.rar with mtimes 04:23-04:28 - the workshop for attacking the Metin2 client is already up the same week as the 27/6/2009 RaGEZONE thread |
F | h1 |
| 2009-07-03 | TW client: mt2_20080923.exe, 500 MB, from 23/9/2008 (HK: mt2_20070529.exe, 421 MB); it will stay the same until closure. Same day: last attestation of yt2.catv.net before the leak; mcncc has 5,122 members and no 倚天2 section |
F | q3, q2 |
| 2009-07-03 | mt2.runup.com.tw responds from 203.67.81.195, same colocation |
F | 24, n1 |
| 2009-07-07 | On a Turkish forum, the name metin2_db+mysql.rar circulates, a Metin2 DB dump, 10 weeks before rain |
T | f5 |
| 2009-07-14 | Latest known news from mt2.runup.com.hk (event «龍神傳說3»): the HK service is alive and being promoted |
F | q8 |
| 2009-07-18 | metin2_db+mysql.rar (677,197 B) is already in the hands of an American on 18/7/2009 at 08:05 UTC: the leak's database half is in the West TWO MONTHS before rain's release and eleven days after the 7/7/2009 Turkish thread that carried the same file name |
F | h1 |
| 2009-07-29 | metin35.com = 永恒龙驹 in English, 4 areas, longjuyt@live.cn | F | f5 |
| 2009-07-29 | metin35.com: a Chinese 龙驹 pserver with an English-language storefront, four areas and sale of in-game currency to Westerners via ICQ/MSN (contacts longjuyt@live.cn, QQ 415887113) |
F | g2 |
| 2009-07-31 06:35 | the FreeBSD user gogo (uid 1001) is created on the machine |
F | g0 |
| 2009-07-31 | metin2client.exe (813,568 B, compressed by a packer, uses python22.dll and granny2.dll) compiled at 15:47:55 UTC: the oldest surviving Metin2 game binary, inside metin2client.rar — six weeks before the September 2009 leak |
F/T | h2 |
| 2009-08 | Characters longju/longju33 appear in the server's memory: it is a server from the Longju chain |
T | 24, n2 |
| 2009-08-05 | Run Up announces the merger of the Hong Kong and Taiwan servers of 龍駒 Online; on 6/8 the Philippines branch opens | F | 10, k3, q3 |
| 2009-08-05→09 | the drop tables of the hongkong locale are still under maintenance |
F | g0 |
| 2009-08-05 13:03 | Official notice 【香港雲起提供】: the HK→TW merger is set for 26/8 at 10:00; the HK server 「狂雷」 merges into the TW 「玉馬」; «after MANY MONTHS of testing and evaluation» | F | i4 |
| 2009-08-06→18 | six game.core files of 60-353 MB: the server kept crashing |
F | g0 |
| 2009-08-06→18 | The server game0901.tar.gz comes from runs on two machines in Shenzhen, 121.12.173.58 and 121.12.173.49, a /24 of 深圳市亿信科技有限公司 (CHINANET-GD, Luohu), SSH on port 5573, hostname www.idc.com and /etc/hosts with localhost.idc.com: iron rented from a data center, not a publisher's own plant |
F | 24, n2 |
| 2009-08-06→18 | That server's administrators connect from three Sichuan addresses (125.70.88.63, 118.112.221.23, 118.112.221.122, CHINANET-SC): the same province as mcncc's and Longju2's ICP |
F | 24, n2 |
| 2009-08-07 23:50 | game1.filepart (18 MB): an interrupted transfer of a new binary |
F | g0 |
| 2009-08-17 | Metin Crack files by Ghi.rar (1,987,146 B, mtime 21:08:06), inside Softwares MT2.rar |
F | h1 |
| 2009-08-24 | Last press release of 《龍駒 Online》 (Bahamut GNN) | F | k3 |
| 2009-08-24 | Notice 【台灣雲起提供】: first joint TW+HK event, 27/8 → 21/9/2009 | F | i4 |
| 2009-08-26 | 10:00: merger executed, the HK server «狂雷» enters the TW server「玉馬」. A merger is the operation in which a full dump is made. Six days later, the timestamp of game0901.tar.gz |
F/T | q3 |
| 2009-08-26 | TW players describe the merger with the Hong Kong server («跟港服合併! 人變多了»): two economies in a single database | T | g4 |
| 2009-08-26 10:00 | Merger executed (recounted on 29/8 by a TW player: «8月26合併的») | F | i4 |
| 2009-08-26 | On the day of the HK→TW merger, the HK site still offers a client stuck at 30/7/2008 and a patch stuck at 27/5/2008: the HK branch had been on minimal maintenance for over a year | F | 24, n3 |
| 2009-08-27 → 09-21 | Joint HK+TW event «厄難之神的復甦»: the game was in full promotional swing in the days of the theft. On 27/8 +9 weapons appear on the market «traded for 雲起 cards from the company»; the same day mcncc hits a record of 11,915 concurrent users | F/T | q3, q2 |
| 2009-08-27 10:49 | The day after the merger the TW market fills with +9 lv80 and +9 lv70 at bargain prices brought in by HK players, «obtained by trading 雲卡 with 雲起»: contemporary confirmation of the accusation that the GMs were selling gear | T | i4 |
| 2009-09 → 12 | Naver News: zero Korean articles on Metin2 in the leak months. And the Japanese discussion opened on 27/9 never mentions emulators or China | S | q6, q7 |
| 2009-09-01 | Internal timestamp of game0901.tar.gz: 13:02:29 UTC. The date of the theft. |
F | 01, 17 |
| 2009-09-01 12:48 | the seven VERSION.txt files are written: game svn revision 404, «with new ai» |
F | g0 |
| 2009-09-01 12:58:53 | the .killscript files are created: the server is stopped |
F | g0 |
| 2009-09-01 13:02:29 UTC | game0901.tar.gz is compressed: the file's birth certificate |
F | g0 |
| 2009-09-01 | Inside the package travel seven qc.core files, memory images of a Korean machine (LANG=ko_KR.eucKR, user metin2, /home/metin2/hongkong/…): a fragment of Ymir's workshop inside the leak file |
F | 24, n2 |
| 2009-09-08 | First Italian guide to starting up a server (Sciax2, grunks) |
F | 13 |
| 2009-09-09/19 | The 倚天2 section is born on mcncc.com | F | 08 |
| 2009-09-15 | 175you.cn: 龍駒 pserver advertised in HK (4 days before rain) | F | f2 |
| 2009-09-16 | 霸氣龍駒 (87yt2.cn) «倚天2港版» opened on 15/9 at 23:00 on the Guangzhou/Jiangsu/Zhanjiang servers |
F | f2 |
| 2009-09-17 | Two 龍駒 launchers are dated 17/9 14:15 and 18/9 00:33 UTC (UUID v1) — before rain's post | F | f2 |
| 2009-09-18 | 新領域龍駒 (175gs.com) opens at 14:00, 247 replies in HK: the day before rain's post |
F | f2 |
| 2009-09-18 | The two binaries of the mc kit are compiled between 13:22:00 and 13:39:26 UTC (mc.dll PE 2009-09-18 13:22:00Z, shura.exe PE 2009-09-18 13:39:26Z): the day after the first HK launcher appeared on 2000fun and THE DAY BEFORE rain's publication. They are the earliest dated bytes we have as files from the HK chain |
F | h1 |
| 2009-09-19 | The very first release ever, at 00:56: «Mc倚天2一键服务端 (稳定版) — 更新为龙驹原版完整服务端», author rain. A turnkey private server inside a VirtualPC disk (639 MB), account rain/12345, MySQL root/123456; the client was the official one from the Taiwanese publisher mt2.runup.com.tw. (The 155 MB yt2.rar cannot be this package: it is the «原版» from another thread) |
F | 08, 17, k2, q1 |
| 2009-09-19/23 | The serverfiles are «龙驹原版»: the Hong Kong/Taiwan build. The leak is not mainland: it is Run Up's retreating exercise | F | 01, 08, 10, k3 |
| 2009-09-19 | rain publishes «Mc倚天2一键服务端 (稳定版)»: VPC, Mc倚天2一键.exe, rain/12345, root/123456, client from Run Up sites | F | f5 |
| 2009-09-19 01:35 | rain also publishes 倚天2工具包.7z (32.74 MB) and, at 02:04, 倚天2WEB注册和商城一键套件.7z (39.87 MB) — Beijing time | F | f5 |
| 2009-09-19 00:56 | rain publishes it on mcncc (18 days later) | F | g0 |
| 2009-09-19 | rain publishes on mcncc with the title «Mc倚天2一键服务端 (稳定版) — 更新为龙驹原版完整服务端»: the package is declared to be the complete original 龍駒 serverfile | F | g4 |
| 2009-09-19 / 2010-04-29 | Between rain's release and the end of April 2010 no copy of the server files is attested in the West: the seven-month gap is measured, not assumed | F | h1 |
| 2009-09-21 | 藏宝湾 fully copies rain's post: the MD5 151a972a… of Mc倚天2一键.exe (636,979,265 B) is attested two days after the leak |
F | g4 |
| 2009-09-23 | rain's post «倚天2龙驹原版服务端 - metin2 server», password mcncc.com. As of 9 December 2009 it has no price and no buyers: the 20-coin paywall and the 148 buyers are added between December 2009 and October 2010, after the West had shown up |
F | 08, k2 |
| 2009-10-01 | 龙驹时代 (longjushidai.com) and 175gs.com open, mainland pservers with 电信/网通 lines | F | f7 |
| 2009-10-02 | 帝王龙驹 (dwyt2.com, at 12:00 and 17:00) and 无双龙驹 (metin2ol.cn, closed within a day) open | F | f7 |
| 2009-10-03 | On elitepvpers: «look in Rains forum m c n c c . c o m»: the Western scene learns of the Chinese source within two weeks | F | k10 |
| 2009-10-04 | First Western mention of mcncc.com on RaGEZONE | F | 01 |
| 2009-10-06 | Hong Kong, 2000fun, moderator 極樂: FreeBSD «半一鍵» guide with game.tar.gz 142,394,597 bytes, MD5 9e954c11cf065bdd647bfbb6d6fa9344 = game0901.tar.gz. Oldest attestation of the fingerprint |
F | f2 |
| 2009-10-06 | In the same thread: «Mcncc's Mc倚天2一键服务端 is easier» — rain's package is known in HK by name | F | f2 |
| 2009-10-08 | Translation of the Chinese guide: «Full Yitian 2 server + database + tutorial set up!» | F | 01 |
| 2009-10-09 | Posted on RaGEZONE «because I heard some people sell them» | F | 01 |
| 2009-10-09 22:04 | alladyn5 steps into the RaGEZONE thread opened that day (KillerStefan 16:48): he's already there, before appearing among rain's 148 buyers |
F | g3 |
| 2009-10-11 | At 03:36, Ekşi Sözlük: «after the Chinese servers the Turks too are making their own private server and going through Hamachi…»: the Turkish scene dated to the minute, 22 days after rain. The same day 冲天神龙 publishes the first VBOX version (931 MB) on mcncc |
F | k7, k1, q1 |
| 2009-10-12 | Run Up announces the Funmily 歡樂派 platform | F | q3 |
| 2009-10-16 | The Western package «InstantServer» by Raven circulates in 4 parts of 200 MiB each (≈800 MiB total) |
F | g2 |
| 2009-10-17 | alladyn5: «DesktopFreeBSD Server Work» — the first Westerner on the list of 148 to declare a server up and running |
F | g3 |
| 2009-10-18 | On Sciax2: «Starting up the Chinese launcher xylongjju»: Italy enters through the Chinese door | F | 13 |
| 2009-10-18 | 2000fun: HK thread on the «偷端» (stolen serverfiles) of 倚天/女神/天外 | F | f2 |
| 2009-10-20 | 2009ms.com points to the copy put online by rain as the client |
F | f2 |
| 2009-10-22 | elitepvpers: «Neuer China Pserver! Longjufy» dismissed, «there are already enough German pservers». One month after rain, the scene has flipped | T | q8 |
| 2009-10-23 | First Italian tutorial on YouTube: 206,205 views | F | 13 |
| 2009-10-24 | A Spanish impostor (dementork, «hola soy killerstefan») looks for the «virtual disk mcnncc.com»: mcncc's name circulates garbled on RaGEZONE |
F | g3 |
| 2009-10-29 | Gameforge 4D files METIN2 in Brazil: the only Gameforge trademark registrations, later lapsed | F | k8 |
| 2009-11 | Musa Kang, twelve years old, kidnapped and killed in Erzurum: the case that triggers the Turkish provincial bans | F | k7 |
| 2009-11-09 | Internal Ymir memo in the code: «the percentage of German warriors is close to 70%» | F | 12 |
| 2009-11-19 | On Bahamut: «Is 龍駒 already history?» | T | q3 |
| 2009-12-03 | 中广网 announces 《倚天2外传》; closed beta on 15/12/2009 on the Ymir 2009 build (修罗, 亡灵塔, quests 77-85). Three months after the leak the mainland publisher is expanding: between June and December it opens 网通八区 and 电信九区, no merger | F | 10, k3, q2, q1 |
| 2009-12-09/13 | 《自由世界》冬季运动会 on yt2.catv.net across at least 9 zone-servers: the July 2009-February 2010 window is not blind | F | q8 |
| 2009-12-15 | the closed beta of 《倚天2外传》 opens at 18:00, sequel to 倚天2; operator 中广网, site yt2w.catv.net |
F | i1 |
| 2009-12-22 | 藏宝湾: «倚天2，台湾龙驹的服务端？如果是那个，早就有了»: a Chinese forum regular calls the leak Taiwanese and already old news | F | q1 |
| 2009-12-24 | Gaziantep bans Metin2 by law, «all Metin2 derivatives with a website and the sites that run them»: the first public act in the world against the pserver ecosystem | F | k7 |
2010-2013: the scene, the Turkish law, Webzen buys Ymir
| Date of event | Event | ref. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | Peak: 7 million active accounts in Europe, record of 300,000 concurrent players (TR+DE) | F | 16 |
| c. 2010 | The package «MC倚天2一键服务端» (607.47 MB = 636,979,265 B) circulated together with the web+shop kit (39.87 MB), «傻瓜工具» (2.63 MB), «开外网» (254.94 KB), «集成工具包» (32.74 MB) | T | i7 |
| ~2010 | 《倚天2》VBOX一键端 第三版 BY 冲天神龙 (1150 MB, QQ 6147879) circulates: it contains VirtualBox 3.0.12, released on 17/12/2009 ⇒ the earliest datable Chinese package is later than rain. The «keystone» of 19/9/2009 holds | F | 24, n3 |
| 2010-01-09 | 20:01:36 UTC - metin2 files.rar appears: the Hong Kong client (locale/hongkong among its strings) renamed mc.exe, with the IP 59.57.14.132 hardcoded inside - RDAP APNIC: 59.56.0.0-59.61.255.255, CHINANET-FJ, «CHINANET fujian province network» - plus the injector mc.dll and the launcher shura.exe. The Chinese «一键» mechanics reach Brazil, independently confirming Fujian |
F | h1 |
| 2010-01-13 | longjuyt2.com «Wel Come To Metin35»: a german.zip patch for German players |
F | f5 |
| 2010-01-16 | Registration of txmt2.com, «first 龙驹 pserver listing site»: the Chinese Metin2 private-server market is born, 119 days after rain. Alive in 2026, with weekly openings |
F | 10, k3, q1 |
| 2010-01-18 | BambooMT2 opens, the monument of the Italian scene | F | 06, 13 |
| 2010-01-24 | The Turkish pserver DeviLongju 2 (patch.queenmt2.eu) still runs on a Chinese Longju base |
F | g2 |
| 2010-02-05 | Hatay bans Metin2 (scan of the act preserved) | F | k7 |
| 2010-02-09 | mcncc.com: 21,048 members; rain's thread is the forum's second most-read (43,434) | F | q2 |
| 2010-02-10 | 《梁山群俠 Online》 (licensor Opus) closes in Taiwan | T | 24, n4 |
| 2010-02-24 | 龍駒 TW: packages pulled from the shop | F | q3 |
| 2010-03-03 | Official closure announcement of 《龍駒Online》 on the TW in-game board (title preserved; body lost) | F | q3 |
| 2010-03-03 19:51 | Body of the closure announcement: «未能與原廠達成共識…原廠已決定不再續予官方營運權» — the Korean licensor refuses to renew Run Up's operating rights; shutdown set for 7/4/2010 at 12:00 | F | i4 |
| 2010-03-12 | «E-Runs»: Run Up sells product codes in Hong Kong 7-Elevens; the revenue model is prepaid | F | 24, n4 |
| 2010-03-17 | Remaining points from 《龍駒》 accounts are automatically transferred into the 【雲起會員網】 account and remain spendable on Run Up's other games | F | i4 |
| 2010-04-02 | On mcncc tts001 shares a tool for opening EPKs; petition by Japanese players for NHN Japan (104 signatures) |
F | k1, q7 |
| 2010-04-07 | 《龍駒 Online》 ends service in Hong Kong and Taiwan, seven months after the theft. On 20-22/4 Bahamut removes the moderator: «it's dead, delete the board» | F | 10, k3, q3 |
| 2010-04-08 | Fred (CD-Action, Poland) writes about SirMamutPOL, third in the world at level 99 |
F | k7 |
| 2010-04-19 | 《真少林傳奇 Online》 (玩酷科技) closes in Taiwan | T | 24, n4 |
| 2010-04-22 | 《倚天2外传》 client v.20100423, 623.55 MB, MD5 ea78ccd635b49d05564a056ee83e0943 |
F | f6 |
| 2010-04-23 | A complete 倚天2外傳 client exists under the name YT2WZ_LSNC_20100423 (612 MB) |
F | 24, n3 |
| 2010-04-29 | The oldest attested Western copy of game0901.tar.gz (Poland, 12:25:24 UTC) has size 142394597 and md5 9e954c11cf065bdd647bfbb6d6fa9344: identical to the Hong Kong attestation of 6/10/2009 |
F | f5 |
| 2010-05-03 | «mcncc.com 网进不去了»: the site starts going down intermittently | T | g4 |
| 2010-05-03 | 《聖光II Online》 (Fiesta, OnsOn Soft): 【重要公告】結束營運公告, shutdown on 4/6 — Run Up's second closure in two months. With 龍駒 (Ymir) and the other two titles, that makes four different licensors in three months: Run Up didn't lose one license, it lost the catalog | F | 24, n4 |
| 2010-05-24 | «Metin2 Alma patch 1.0» (Portuguese private server): item.epk 13,699,866 B and icon.epk 2,385,720 B with mtime 2010-05-24, item_list.txt 2010-05-22 — the oldest dated .epk packs known |
F | h2 |
| 2010-05-31 | Metin2 closes in Japan (21:00); rights revert to Ymir | F | q7 |
| 2010-06 | 冲天神龙 finishes the third VBOX version «in Guangdong» (FreeBSD 7.2, launcher mc.exe); republished by a Chinese site on 9/10/2010 (1.16 GB). The fourth version (~2012) is the 15-yuan merchandise sold on Taobao in 2023-2026 |
F/T | q1 |
| 2010-06 | 冲天神龙 signs the 3rd version of the 倚天2 一键端 in Guangdong (FreeBSD 7.2, VirtualBox 3.0.12, 1150 MB), QQ 6147879, group 63244710 |
F | i7 |
| c. 2010-06 | Before the 3rd version, a fake «third version» was already circulating, not the author's work | T | i7 |
| 2010-06-02 | Gameforge publishes the 12 Metin2_XX_201005xx.exe clients in a single batch (08:37-08:57 GMT): the dates in the names (7-28 May) are build dates, the publication itself is from 2 June 2010 |
F | g6 |
| 2010-06-11 | Uncompressed Metin2 client binary (metin2.bin, 2,248,704 B) with METIN2 BINARY DISTRIBUTE VERSION %s and the paths d:/ymir work/effect/..., D:/Ymir Work/UI/ intact; a twin (Metin2.exe, 2,279,936 B) is from 2010-09-10: nine months after the leak the Western pserver client pipeline is in full activity |
F | h2 |
| 2010-06-14 | Lawsuit for severance pay against Run Up's TW subsidiary (內湖簡易庭); appeal 30/6/2011 | F | q3 |
| 2010-06-20 | Turkish guide «FreeBSD Metin2 kurulumu»: installing a Metin2 server rests on game0901.tar.gz |
F | f5 |
| 2010-07 → 2011-01 | 33 official announcements of 《倚天2外传》/《自由世界》 in the 新浪游戏 roll | F | i1 |
| 2010-07-09 | A Chinese software site re-catalogs rain's package and the VBOX (with 龙神倚天2第三版 a week later), two days before a second site | F | f2 |
| 2010-07-11 | A second Chinese site republishes rain's package (639 MB, «root/mcncc.com»): a second witness independent from mcncc | F | q1 |
| 2010-07-14 | Muğla bans Metin2, with a university expert opinion | F | k7 |
| 2010-07-29 | VBOX 第三版 BY 冲天神龙, published on mcncc: the forum is alive with ~14,000 threads | F | g4 |
| 2010-07-30 | Run Up's Taiwanese portal is down to four games; the ls. and sl2. sites are stubs |
F | 24, n4 |
| 2010-07-31 | mcncc: a player asks for «a 倚天2 server in Simplified Chinese»: rain's files were in Traditional (HK/TW) | F | q2 |
| 2010-08 | Europe still runs on the Chinese image: shell prompt Mcncc#, root /usr/rain/, rain.tar.gz archives |
F | 01, k10 |
| 2010-08-16 / 10-28 | Rubin 66. AG conducts the public offer for Frogster | F | k8 |
| 2010-08-29 | 2000fun: first 龍駒 pserver «traditional, real Taiwan/Hong Kong lines» | F | f2 |
| 2010-09-01 | Sankando signs the exclusive Japanese license with Ymir | F | q7 |
| 2010-09-09 | mt2.runup.com.hk replies «DB Query Error»: the HK game database is disconnected. On 10/9 mcncc has 44,925 members and a Chinese pserver «圣战龙驹» |
F | q3, q2 |
| 2010-09-09 | mt2.runup.com.hk has migrated to 58.64.182.83, NWTiDC-HK: a datacenter change five months after 龍駒's closure |
F | 24, n1 |
| 2010-10-09 | The 3rd version enters 987654321sf.com's catalog (1.16 GB): four months after the author's signature |
F | i7 |
| 2010-10-27 | The APNIC role RUGD1-AP «RUN UP GAME DISTRIBUTION LIMITED — network administrator» is created: six months after the end of 龍駒, and it is the only Hong Kong network object ever registered to the company |
F | 24, n4 |
| 2010-12-03 | Bahamut reports Metin2's Japanese rebirth: closed beta from 17/12/2010, foreign IPs blocked | F | i4 |
| 2010-12-09 | Webzen commissions Samil (PwC) to appraise Ymir: DCF 11.22%, value 66.7-84.6 billion won | F | q6 |
| 2010-12-17 | Rubin 66. AG is merged into Gameforge AG | F | k8 |
| c. 2010-12-24 | Opening of the Japanese wiki atwiki.jp/metin2jp for the Sankando rebirth; the previous wiki (metin2wiki.3amop.com, formerly Netmarble) had been locked read-only |
F | i6 |
| 2011 | First 메틴2 line in a Webzen financial statement: 14,610 million won (25% of the group); then 13,065 (2012), 11,359 (2013), 8,934 (2014) | F | q6 |
| 2011-01-26 | Acquisition deed: Webzen takes over 100% of Ymir, 1,000,000 shares × 77,800 won = 77.8 billion (58.83% of Webzen's assets); sellers «Lee Dae-young and 7 others»; Lee: «I'm selling for health reasons». Closing on 16/2 (goodwill 39.36 bn, intangibles 20.11 bn, never written down). LC_WE_KOREA appears in the code |
F | 05, 12, q6 |
| 2011-02-04 | FreeBSD forums ban all support for anyone running Metin2 | F | 05 |
| 2011-02-05 | First Japanese mention of a Metin2 エミュ鯖; on 15/2 the Japanese service reopens (Sankando) | T | q7 |
| 2011-02-14 | War3zone (Czech Republic): «one of the best is RAIN, where you have to do everything yourself»: «Rain» is the common Czech name for the files | T | q8 |
| 2011-03 | Mass resignation of Gameforge's volunteer staff («300 members») | T | k7 |
| 2011-03-01 | The private server the Japanese migrate to is metin2united.com: starting at lv30 with everything +9, bonuses and blessings in the shop; a screenshot survives, dated by the FC2 server to 2011-02-28 22:49 GMT |
F | i6 |
| 2011-03-02 / 2011-04-19…27 | TR client 1/3/2011 and the April 2011 batch (11 languages) published within a day of the date in the filename | F | g6 |
| 2011-03-06 | metin2united blocks Asian connections; the Japanese talk for the first time about moving to a Chinese private server («チャイP鯖») |
T | i6 |
| 2011-03-11 | Spanish blog: tutorial renaming «(chinese signs).vmc» to mt2.vmc: rain's VirtualPC runs in the West under its unreadable Chinese name | F | q1 |
| 2011-06 → 2011-12 | Ymir hands TW/HK/Macau over to Webzen Taiwan. In the Korean filings (KIND: Ymir acquisition 26/1/2011, Webzen FY2011 사업보고서) the Run Up license enters («2006.05 RUNUP과 계약 체결») and never exits: between 04/2010 and 09/2010 there is no 계약해지, no 소송, no 분쟁. The silence has the shape of an unrenewed expiry | F | 24, n4 |
| 2011-06-11 | A Japanese player who has tried several private servers: the best are the English and German ones, the American one is chaos | T | i6 |
| 2011-06-28 | Webzen Ymir Games registers METIN2 in Korea | F | k8 |
| 2011-07-22 | elitepvpers «Tec Interactive und die Pserver»: Webzen/TEC ultimatum to European pservers for 30 July 2011; «2Good4name» already shut down. TEC's first action in Europe pushes back to July 2011 | T | q8 |
| 2011-07-24 | Thread on elitepvpers about TEC's action (50 replies) | T | k10 |
| 2011-09-30 | TEC Interactive's full cease-and-desist notice on elitepvpers against BambooMT2, InfinityMetin and LOCMT2, on behalf of YMIR | F | k10, 01b |
| 2011-10-31 | Ymir moves into Webzen's offices (Yeoksam) | F | q6 |
| 2011-11-09 | Suspension of the Japanese Sankando service amid the operator's collapse | F | q7 |
| 2011-12-08 | 台灣網禪 brings Metin2 back to Taiwan as 《鬥 III 國》, public beta at 15:00 (announced 18/11) | F | k3, q3 |
| 2011-12-08 | Bahamut's 龍駒 board is repurposed for 《鬥 III 國》, the game's Taiwanese relaunch; players' install path: D:\webzen\Metin2\metin2.exe |
F | i4 |
| 2011-12-11 | Repost in Hong Kong (2000fun) of rain's package: Mc倚天2一键.exe = 636,979,265 bytes, MD5 151a972a47778a47a09dccab0acb87f3 |
F | f2 |
| 2011-12-11 | HK thread «倚天2龍駒 一鍵服務端» on 2000fun: the one-click package reaches Hong Kong with a tutorial | F | f6 |
| 2011-12-19 | Metin2_xx_20111216.exe batch (18 languages) published in 14 minutes (13:29-13:43 GMT) |
F | g6 |
| 2012-02-05 → 2012-08-08 | The Japanese national archive (WARP) captures Japanese university wikis injected with links to Turkish pservers (Metin2_Pvp_Serverler.html on Kyushu, Ryūkyū, Hiroshima): an independent measure of the Turkish scene's SEO pressure in 2012 |
F | i3 |
| 2012-03-20 | Incorporation of 西安游狗网络科技有限公司 (Xi'an, 井智强): a different company, not a succession of 至尊 | F | q5 |
| 2012-04-04 | A Chinese CSDN blog (debugyt) publishes the reverse-engineered Metin2 network cipher (16-round TEA, three 16-byte keys): 21 months before kraizy |
F | g4 |
| 2012-04-06 | 03:53:40 UTC - a game.tar.gz (82,036,991 B, actually bzip2): complete serverfile with locale/germany, VERSION.txt = «game svn revision: 2089M - lastmirage@:/usr/home/lastmirage/develop/trunk/game/src», and two scripts (clear_logs.sh, 116 B) with mtime 2008-02-26 03:33:52 surviving intact from the original tree |
F | h1 |
| 2012-06-18 | mirkosd's census on Sciax2: 33 Italian private servers. Today only one remains up |
F | 13 |
| 2012-08-14 | In APNIC the netname Runup-Hosting appears («Runup, Patimas») on the Malaysian /24 113.23.135.0/24: the only time «hosting» sits next to the Run Up name, and it is two years and four months after losing the license |
F | 24, n4 |
| 2012-09-16 | In the VBOX packages still in circulation, the account rain is still present |
T | g4 |
| 2012-10-29 | rtsummit expands the shop for «a new currency»: SHOP_COIN_TYPE_SECONDARY_COIN exists and no one has ever used it |
F | 12 |
| 2012-11-22 | Third Japanese life: CRUEL WAR -RETURN OF THE METIN2- (OG Entertainment) | F | q7 |
| 2012-11-23 | Ymir becomes Webzen Ymir Games | F | 11 |
| 2013 (through June) | last documented active period of 《倚天2自由世界》/《倚天2外传》 in China | F | i1 |
| 2013-01 | The Chinese pirate server 《新八零倚天》 (Metin 1) opens, closed in July 2018 | F | q5 |
| 2013-01-29 → 02-12 | A Korean quest writer signs seven consecutive files, from lv99 to lv105. The corpus's last dated quests |
F | 12 |
| 2013-02-04 / 02-28 / 03-07 | Official Korean closure calendar (90% discount on 68 items; end of the item mall and of character transfers; end of service at 15:00 and refunds opening) — the official notice's text, presumed lost, has survived | F | i5 |
| 2013-02-28 | Closure of the Korean shop (refund reference date) | F | q6 |
| 2013-03-07 | Metin2 closes in Korea, 15:00. It appears in no Webzen corporate filing; the only press trace is a passing mention in Dailygame (27/3). Refunds 25/4-24/5/2013 via fax and ymir_refund@. North America closes in April |
F | 11, 16, q6 |
| 2013-03-31 | event_easter_2013.quest: the last dated server-side event content |
F | 12 |
| 2013-04-08 / 2013-04-16 | Metin2_gflive_EN_20130328.exe published on 8/4/2013 and ..._20130313.exe on 16/4/2013: the «13.03» client was republished after the «28.03» one |
F | g6 |
| 2013-04-20 | The 第四版 circulates inside quyan123456789's «over a hundred 网单» collection (no. 85) |
F | g4 |
| 2013-07 | Metin2.SG's game files: they will become the «34k» | F | 02 |
| 2013-07 | Kang Ji-hoon (강지훈), Ymir's CEO and head of Metin2 after the Webzen acquisition, leaves and founds Paranoid Joy: the leadership changes between the Korean closure (3/2013) and the TEC email (11/2013) | F | g3 |
| 2013-08/09 | The original Gameforge 4D is incorporated into Gameforge Berlin AG (formerly Frogster); the name passes onto Frogster's shell. Metin2's European publisher is, legally, the old Frogster | F | k8 |
| 2013-08-09 | «SG/WOM riped serverfiles»: the thread stays up for 3 hours on elitepvpers, then vanishes | T | 08 |
| 2013-09-11 | Last date by Ymir's hand in the code (battle.cpp:712). The same day switches off the Chinese experience table |
F | 12, 03 |
| 2013-09-18 | Final end of Metin2 in Japan, six months after Korea | F | q7 |
| 2013-09-19 | 中广网 delegation in Seoul; Ymir's president 姜志勋 talks about the «new Ymir after Webzen» | F | q4 |
| 2013-09-24 | 22:14: last 2013 timestamp in the serverfiles; then four months of total silence until 22 January 2014 | F | 12, 03 |
| 2013-10-11 | Seoul: 中广网 obtains exclusive rights to 《倚天2》欧洲版 2.0 «and later versions» for China: six weeks before the TEC email, the «Europe 2.0» branch was being handed over to Beijing. 《新倚天2》 in closed beta (内测) from 19/12, with no approval in the NPPA lists 2012-2017. Last 中广网 press release: 14/10/2013 | F | q4 |
| 2013-10-11 | Terminus ante quem for the WoM2 file leak, from the Czech forum war3zone.eu |
F | k10 |
| 2013-11-10/13 | «Herkunft der Metin2 Dateien» (elitepvpers), the founding document of Western memory, READ (p1-p2 of 3): nico_w (former Metin2.SG dev) reconstructs the chain China→mcncc→newMt2/DoofMt2→Instant-Files→rev.404→SG leak rev.1765→34083 and says «rain was probably an admin of 5imt2»; .Shōgun: «the first files came from the HK licensee RunUp, who rented VPS to Chinese pservers and lost the license»: an independent contemporary witness to the HK/TW thesis | T | q8 |
| 2013-11-13 | The full text of .Shōgun's post (13/11, 08:12) survives as authentic vBulletin HTML: the testimony is a document, its content remains [T] — and contains a factual error («instead of running their own server») |
F | 24, n1 |
| 2013-11-25 | TEC → Webzen Ymir email, «SERVER FILE LEAKAGE»: the sources taken from patch.metin.co.kr |
F | 16 |
| 2013-12 | «New CIBN server in China» in Ymir's official timeline | F | q6 |
| 2013-12 → 2014-04 | Naver News: zero Korean articles about Metin2 in the months of the source leak | S | q6 |
| 2013-12-29 | The «40k» appears on Cyber-Gamers | F | 02 |
| 2013-12-31 | «Game r40250 unstripped»: binaries, not source. Webzen Ymir Games: 27 employees, net profit 7.6 billion | F | 08, q6 |
2014: the source code theft
| Date of event | Event | ref. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2014-01-02 | kraizy.tgz appears on RaGEZONE. The same day, #wj 2014.1.2. in game.py:124: the most recent date by a Korean hand in the corpus |
F | 03, 12 |
| 2014-01-03 | A tutorial «Gamecore R40250 Source Code Configuration» is already circulating | F | 08 |
| 2014-01-05 | Balıkesir bans Metin2 | F | k7 |
| 2014-01-07/08 | alladyn5 also publishes «Server Metin2 Windows» on RaGEZONE (MySQL mt2/xps1sz79) alongside kraizy's fingerprints |
F | g3 |
| 2014-01-08 | Fingerprints published: 2,792,119,901 bytes, SHA-256 FA557C38… |
F | 03 |
| 2014-01-31 | «【2014马年快乐！】倚天2--源码» appears on 藏宝湾: kraizy's sources reach China ~4 weeks later | T | g4 |
| 2014-02 | Release of the «34k untouched»: earlier releases had backdoors | F | 02 |
| 2014-02-01 | metin2.dev is born | F | 06 |
| 2014-02-03 | Shogun publishes on metin2.dev the 304,870,262 B file as «Metin2 2004 Beta Client» (filename: Metin2_2004.exe) — wrong dating, the file is from 5/9/2005 |
F | i8 |
| 2014-02-04 | Rumor publishes the «Metin2 Rain Files 2004»; the VHD password, found again in 2021, is mcncc.com |
T | i8 |
| 2014-02-07 | The Vanilla core is announced | F | 02 |
| 2014-02-20 | Korean comments in uidragonsoul.py: Ymir's code keeps leaking out passively through the official client |
F | 12, 04 |
| 2014-04-18 | Merger resolution (1:0, «cost reduction»); last change to ymir.co.kr's registration record |
F | k4, q6 |
| 2014-05-10 | Czech thread: the VM's root password is literally mcncc.com |
F | k10 |
| 2014-07-01 | Ymir ceases to exist: absorbed into Webzen. No goodwill write-down, ever | F | 11, q6 |
| 2014-07-03 | Webzen re-files Metin 1's rating under its own name. Metin2's is never re-filed | F | k4 |
| 2014-07-10 | The Korean Ministry of Culture announces with the Prosecutor's Office a campaign against private servers targeting «pservers, their operators and web hosting companies»; estimated damage 163.3 billion won a year | F | 24, n4 |
| 2014-08-29 | The formula is codified: mainline server + novaline client | F | 03 |
2015-2026: the law, the spec, the return to China
| Date of event | Event | ref. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 (early) | The GVU begins online investigations into Metin2 pservers | F | q8 |
| 2015-01-18 | Someone asks how to remove the «timebomb and Ymir license» from mainline_released |
F | 04 |
| 2015-02-05 | The «Vanilla» core is itself leaked in turn | F | 04 |
| 2015-02-26 | Webzen Ymir Games' DMCA notice to GitHub against the entire enhanceMT account (user KevinSupertramp) |
F | 04, 05, k8 |
| 2015-03-04 | GitHub publishes the notice: out of 22,114, it's the only one about Metin2 | F | 05, k8 |
| 2015-07-06 | Last batch of official clients: 16 Metin2_gflive_XX_2015070x.exe (13:25-14:05 GMT) |
F | g6 |
| 2015-10-09 | Softpedia: «Metin2 Client 15.7», 542 MB (the only Metin2 entry that survives on the portal) | F | g6 |
| 2015-12-08 | Version.h: 08,12,2015, a number hand-rewritten by the scene |
F | 12 |
| 2015-12-31 | Run Up transfers all its games to Funmily (its own offshoot, alive in 2026); the company survives as a shell, never dissolved (last change to the TW registry 6/11/2018) | F | q3 |
| 2016 | Inforge's honor roll «Metin2 Server of the Year 2016»: ImperiaWorld, The Last War, BambooMt2 | F | k10, 13 |
| 2016-01 | The Chinese pirate server 《倚世天下》 (Metin 1) opens | F | q5 |
| 2016-01-21 | Antalya bans Metin2: the fifth Turkish province in seven years | F | k7 |
| 2016-02-16 | Between 18:43 and 20:26 UTC, source code and binaries from the 2013-2016 scene resurface together: VS_novaline_bin (563,589,897 B), wolf_source.rar (134,521,880 B, Server/db/db_r41999), client_source_clean.7z (2013 client source), SursaVanilla.rar, ProtoTool.7z, ymir work folder.rar |
F | h1 |
| 2016-09-14 | Searches by the Heidelberg Prosecutor's Office (Cyperia and a second server); 11 other Metin2 servers shut down in a chain reaction (GVU press release 21/9) | F | 05, q8 |
| 2016-10-31 | Webzen grants 西安游狗 the right to use 《新倚天》's IP; announced 14/2/2017 with a contractual obligation to pursue pirates | F | q5 |
| 2016-2017 | The mass wave of Metin2 files on file-sharing services arrives in 2016-2017, five times 2009's level: two to three years after the 2014 source leak, not after the 2009 leak | F | h1 |
| 2017-08-04 | TurkMMO: the death of Hakan Ekinci, thirteen years old | F | k7 |
| 2017-12-23 | 冲天神龙 republishes the FreeBSD 第四版 | F | g4 |
| 2018-03-16 | Sixth German case: Berlin's LKA searches the operator of «Tsuyoshi2» (~7 years, 2,500 concurrent), pre-trial detention (GVU press release 19/4) | F | k8, 05, q8 |
| 2018-04-20 | Heidelberg AG ruling: 90 day-fines × €20, ~€110,000 seized; servers «Cyperia» and «Hardcore Reloaded» | F | 05, k8 |
| 2018-08/09 | Breach in the Gameforge forums | F | 04 |
| 2018-08-28 / 09-03 | Webzen sends two DMCA notices over Rappelz listing nine forks: it knows how to chase an emulator, but never does so again on Metin2 | F | k8 |
| 2018-11-08 | Kassel ruling: €121,000 between 2014 and 2017 | F | 07 |
| 2019-07 | Gameforge shuts down Rubinum and on 21/7 opens official servers called «Rubinum» | F | 05, 07 |
| 2019-07-09 | 極樂's last login and last post on 2000fun (still 版主 in 2026) |
F | g3 |
| 2019-09-23 | First Chinese conviction for a pirate Metin server (《倚世天下》, Metin 1): 3 years, suspended. In 2023 on appeal, 3 years and 6 months for 《新八零倚天》, a case commended by the National Copyright Administration. Never on Metin2 | F | q5 |
| 2019-12-03 | The 메틴 마이너 갤러리 opens on DCInside | F | i5 |
| 2020-01-07 | 七夜魔君's last login on 2000fun (last post 4/5/2014): the announcer of the first pserver logged into the forum six years after his last message |
F | g3 |
| 2020-02-10 | The Chinese state approves 《新倚天外传》 as a domestic game (国新出审[2020]234号) | F | q5 |
| 2020-04-04 | Ar.雋's last login (HK 2011 repost) on 2000fun; his forum losed.tk is dead |
F | g3 |
| 2020-04-20 | Exynox publishes the «Official Client Collection» on metin2.dev: the census of the 82 official Gameforge clients 2008-2015 | F | g6 |
| 2020-04-21 | Fourth independent testimony about GMs selling equipment: «個時香港個代理好似有GM賣裝 之後幾隻同一間代理都有» | T | i4 |
| 2020-05-28 08:57:05 UTC | The Korean launcher from 16/7/2004 (540,672 B) has been circulating since 2020 under three neutral names (Metin2.exe, MetinPatch, MetinPatch.EXE) and no one dates it — the oldest Metin2 binary in circulation was out there with nobody knowing what it was |
F | i9 |
| 2020-09-06 | Yohara's beta packages hit the scene 3 days before launch | F | 04 |
| 2021→2023 | In Korea, MapleStory's private servers are wiped out within three years: the proof by contradiction of why the Metin2 scene grew outside Korea | T | k4 |
| 2021-06-29 | First dated announcement of a Korean Metin 1 private server, JMETIN, which calls itself «중국메틴» |
F | i5 |
| 2021-07-20 | «[40250] Reference Serverfile»: the modern canonical base | F | 04 |
| 2021-09-08 | Community petition: asks for a license. 35 signatures | F | 05 |
| 2021-12 / 2022-02 / 2023-02 | M2Bob, Voria2, siriusmt2.to proceedings | F | 05 |
| 2022→ | The leak becomes a specification: clean rewrites of the protocol | F | 04 |
| 2022-07-18 | On metin2.dev sshyzhe republishes a «metin2 newcibn client 2007» found «on a Chinese forum», with rain server files: the 2007 Chinese client family is still circulating, behind a login |
T | h4 |
| 2023-02-16 | The 3rd version is republished on a Chinese site, with an explicit reference back to mcncc's original thread | F | i7 |
| 2023-06-15 | Gameforge crashes Magic to Master's Kickstarter: $600,000 | T | 04 |
| 2023-08-15 | «倚天2龙驹VM一键端 作者：诸葛卧龙版» republished on two Chinese sites, with 13 screenshots | F | i7 |
| 2023-09-25 | Software «倚天2:觉醒 V1.0» finished: Webzen's license for Metin2 in China predates it | F | q5 |
| 2023-12-14 | Exynox publishes the metin2-clients collection: 105 official installers, 96.1 GB, with fingerprints |
F | k5, k11 |
| 2023-12-14 | Exynox publicly catalogs 108 official clients with MD5+SHA1+CRC32: all 105 installers of the collection are in the museum | F | i8 |
| 2024-03-17 | Exynox publishes the fingerprints of game0901.tar.gz |
F | 17 |
| 2024-03-17 | Exynox publishes the complete fingerprints of game0901.tar.gz and the story of the find; it is the only thread in the world that names the files of yt2.rar |
F | i8 |
| 2024-04-21 | On metin2.dev, thanks to a Turkish user, the Metin2.exe from 16.07.2004 resurfaces: the official Korean launcher |
F | i8 |
| 2024-10-06 | Okami, metin2.dev: the only message of his life, «corrupted archive from late 2009, 梦回倚天2（新区2）.rar». The name exists in no other index in the world: it has the format of a private server's name, not a file's |
F | q1 |
| 2024-10-06 | Okami claims to own 梦回倚天2（新区2）.rar, «corrupted», from late 2009 — it is yt2.rar under its real commercial name |
T | i8 |
| 2024-11-24 | «倚天2 官方源代码 — Official Global Server Files new_1-120_global_files_multilangue.rar» published on a Chinese site |
T | i7 |
| 2024-11-25 | On a second Chinese site, the package sold as «倚天2 官方源代码» is actually the Western new_1-120_global_files_multilangue.rar: the flow has reversed, the West now supplies China |
F | 24, n3 |
| 2025 | Metin2 in Webzen's accounts: 29,993 million won, 100% foreign, 17% of the group | F | q6 |
| 2025-01-20 | 国新出审〔2025〕188号: 《倚天2：觉醒》 approved (imported; publisher 三秦出版社; ISBN 978-7-498-14571-0). State document preserved | F | q5 |
| 2025-06-30 | Exynox publicly asks Okami to release the archive even if corrupted. No reply to this day | F | i8 |
| 2025-09-12 | A GM tutorial for 倚天2 entirely AI-generated (nonexistent commands) appears on a Taobao domain | F | i7 |
| 2025-11-21 | RDAP of mcncc.com: not a domain resquat, same owner for twenty-one years |
F | 17, k2 |
| 2025-11-24 | Aamon's official protos unpacked 6 days after launch | F | 04 |
| 2026-02 | A copy titled «metin-2-2005-client» is byte-for-byte Exynox's Metin2_CN_2005.exe, tied to yt2.catv.net: it is not from 2005 |
T | 17, k11 |
| 2026-03-26 | Open beta (公测) of 《倚天2：觉醒》: Metin2 officially returns to China (Webzen license, publisher 西安游狗, classic client reissued at 1.68 GB, PC only). Webzen Q1 2026: Metin2 +42%. Monthly subscription from 3/9/2026 | F | 10, k1, q5 |
| 2026-04-17 | BSmetin, a Korean private server for Metin 1, publishes its own registration address: 47.80.11.23 = Alibaba Cloud |
F | i5 |
| 2026-05-22 | Among the open pservers, «倚天2 - 欧洲官服 独家欧洲官服版本华人专属» appears: Chinese players running the official European files | F | i7 |
| 2026-06-30 | Okami's last login on the forum: still reachable (profile updated on 12/5/2026, declared country China) | F | i8 |
| 2026-07/08 | txmt2.com lists 9 Chinese 倚天2 pservers opened in six weeks: the Chinese scene is alive | F | q1 |
| 2026-07-31 | Latest known Chinese release: «倚天2-龙驹2025修改版», with a video tutorial on bilibili: the chain that started with rain is alive after 17 years | F | 24, n3 |
| 2026-08 | txmt2.com is alive: a listing of 龙驹/倚天2 pservers up and running (江湖龙驹, 倚天2风雨江湖6区 «for 8 months», 弑神龙驹, 永恒龙驹二区) |
F | 24, n3 |
| 2026-08-05 | On rexuexia.com a user still asks «80后求个可玩的倚天(metin)单机»: the scene is alive this month |
F | i7 |
| 2026-08-20 | Exynox's last login: active, runs old-metin2.com |
F | i8 |
| 2026-09-04 | Status: 2,040 servers counted on a toplist, 169 active. No new source leak since 2014 | F | 07, 04 |
| 2026-09-04 | In metin.co.kr's still-live DNS zone, the names of the patch server and Ymir's internal hosts survive (wiki, bugtracker, svn): none of them answer |
F | k4 |
| 2026-09-04 | yt2.rar confirmed lost: no copy has survived |
F | 17, k1 |
| 2026-09-05 | The HK client from November 2007 (11 parts, 541,581,312 B) is lost | F | h4 |
| 2026-09-05 | Funmily is alive and keeps four 雲起 registries: hk, tw, my and cn (大陸雲起會員) — Run Up had registered accounts in mainland China too |
F | i4 |
Permanent facts read in the code
They have no date: they are in the source code released in 2014 and hold for the whole story.
| What | Fact | ref. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Changelist | «34k / 40k / 40250» are Ymir's Perforce changelists: Version.py:7 calls p4 changes -m1 |
F | 12, 02 |
| TEC | TEC (Singapore) is spelled out by name in Locale.cpp:282, next to CIBN (Free world) |
F | 12, 16 |
| China | QID_PROTECT_CHILD = 7, PROTECT_CHILD_FOR_NEWCIBN: the fossil of the Chinese anti-addiction system, twin to yt2.catv.net's 2008 防沉迷 pages |
F | 12, 10, q2 |
| Bug tracker | Ymir kept four projects: [M2EU], [M2KR], [M2CN], [M2AE]; Gameforge had its own (GF mantis #113524) |
F | 12, 05 |
| Gameforge | Gameforge's layer has a name: the Lua table gameforge.*, 8,860 keys |
F | 12 |
| Login | Login key in plaintext: 1234abcd5678efgh for Gameforge, testtesttesttest for Korea, China, Japan, Brazil, Hong Kong, Singapore and Canada |
F | 12 |
| Territories | 33 territories in the eLocalization enum, including a LOCALE_SERVICE_VIETNAM_MILD (censored edition) |
F | 12, 16 |
The eight theses the story rests on
- These are two events, not one. September 2009 = binaries: the figure of the administrator is born. January 2014 = sources: the figure of the dev is born. Whoever confuses them understands nothing of the scene.
- The origin is not Korean, it's Chinese: to be precise, Hong Kong and Taiwan. The «龙驹原版» build of the 《龍駒 Online》 edition by Run Up (Mongkok), posted on a Chinese forum as a turnkey private server. The Chinese themselves, in December 2009, called it «the Taiwanese 龙驹 server». The West got it for free at first; the 20-coin price came later. And it has a prehistory: the HK 2007 build was already running in Chinese pservers from June 2008 (sixth batch).
- A single tarball carries the whole thing. No new source leak is attested after 2014: twelve years of world scene rest on 2.79 GB bit-identical to themselves.
- Resources leak, the server never does. Modern content reaches the scene within days, but only client-side: the server implementation has never come out.
- The law exists, but it has three geographies and three targets. In Germany, six cases in twenty years, all about commerce (Webzen hits the code with a DMCA measured on 22,114; Gameforge hits the trade through GVU). In Turkey, the only country to have banned Metin2 by law, the driver is child protection: five provinces from 2009 to 2016, and Gaziantep literally targets private servers. In China the Xi'an licensee got three pirate-server operators convicted, but over Metin 1: on Metin2 no one has ever taken action in China. In Korea the law prosecutes ex officio, and in 2007 Webzen had 46 MU Online operators identified. It's not that they don't act: they don't act in Europe, and not on Metin2.
- A game in retreat is not being watched. In September 2009 the Hong Kong and Taiwan operation was merging its servers: merger executed on 26 August at 10:00, theft timestamp six days later. Metin2 closes in Korea in March 2013, and nine months later the scene has the source code. The Chinese shutdown of April 2008 hit Metin 1: Chinese Metin2 never closed, and in the leak's quarter it was launching a new build. The leak leaves no trace in the accounts: 2009 was Ymir's golden year, and the Korean press wrote not a line about it, neither in 2009 nor in 2014.
- Italy was there from day one, and doesn't know it. Italian guide on 8 September 2009, ahead of the West; the servers were called LongJu, that is, the official signage of a Mongkok company that had taken the name from its own building; and the «40k» of 2013 was credited to Italians.
- The community built an institution. Metin2Dev has rules like a legal deposit, a marketplace, terms of sale and a pillory: all the scaffolding of commerce except the right to sell. And the story has a mirror side: in the West fans made private servers, in China a company born around the game bought the rights and in 2026 brought it back to life with an act of the State.