We all have those memories, don't we? Spending all night at a PC bang with friends back in our school days. As someone who still holds onto that nostalgia, I spent this past weekend gathering with old mates to dive back into the world of Lineage Classic.

While many of us are just there for the memories, there’s always a crowd looking to exploit the system for a quick buck. Usually, that’s a clear-cut crime. But looking at the recent 'Infinite Armor Enchant Scroll duplication and refund' debacle in Lineage Classic, the situation feels a bit, well, peculiar.

NCSoft has announced strict sanctions against those who exploited the system, but if you strip back the legal layers, you’ll find that the real culprit here might just be NCSoft themselves.

In this 'Precedent.zip', we’ll look at real-world legal cases to understand how 'bug exploitation' is actually punished, why it’s incredibly difficult to hold these players accountable, and how NCSoft’s own operational incompetence and sloppy systems have effectively tied their own noose.

To grasp the gravity of this Lineage situation, we first need to understand how 'payment bug exploitation' is handled in the eyes of the law.

A 2023 appellate court ruling from the Daejeon District Court (2023No1145) sets a clear precedent. Back in 2019, a user stumbled upon a fatal system error during the online game payment process. If they attempted to top up game cash while exceeding their daily bank transfer limit, the cash would appear in their account without the money actually leaving their bank.

The user didn't stop there; they used family accounts to milk the glitch. They performed 41 transactions, netting about 267 million won in game cash for free, then sold the items for about 116 million won in cash.

The result? The appellate court handed down a one-year prison sentence and ordered the forfeiture of about 100 million won in criminal proceeds.

The charges were 'Fraud using computers' and 'Obstruction of business'. The court ruled that by inputting 'illegal commands' to gain financial benefits and shifting those ill-gotten items to third parties, the user had deceived the company’s service management systems.

In short, when you deceive a system or force abnormal data flows to profit, the law brings the hammer down.

Now, let’s look at the current Lineage Classic situation. It all started with the 'Limited 90-day Pass'. NCSoft offered a 'Pixie's Feather' as a permanent bonus for subscribers.

The rub was that these feathers could be traded for Armor Enchant Scrolls, which were tradable. Some clever users used multiple accounts to buy the pass, grab the feathers, exchange them for scrolls, and then immediately refund the pass. They then dumped the scrolls on external trading sites for cold, hard cash. It’s said they pocketed tens of millions of won, leaving regular players feeling understandably bitter while browsing the 'proof' on community boards.

On the surface, it looks just like the Daejeon District Court case. You’d think these players should be headed to jail.

But if you read the actual 'Subscription Payment and Refund Notice' from NCSoft, the narrative flips 180 degrees. The 'illegal commands' and 'deception' seen in past cases are entirely absent here.

Usually, when a game company issues a refund, they reclaim the bonus items. If those items were already used, the standard practice is to deny the refund altogether to protect the game's economy.

However, NCSoft’s refund policy included a rather surprising line: "When a product is refunded, the value of the received items will be deducted." In plain English, they essentially said if you used the item, they’d just subtract its value from your refund rather than taking the item back.

This means the users weren't exploiting a 'bug'—they were simply following the refund rules NCSoft themselves had put in place.

Now, some might argue: "Even if the policy says it’s deducted, isn't it still 'obstruction of business' or 'fraud' to repeat the process hundreds of times to mass-produce scrolls?"

That’s a fair point in common sense terms. But here is the critical legal blunder by NCSoft that makes the players’ actions look more like a comedy of errors than a criminal conspiracy.

Looking at the detailed refund FAQ, NCSoft lumped all three 'Support Benefit' items together at a total value of 38,500 won. They never once provided a breakdown for how much a single item like a 'Pixie's Feather' would cost if used partially.

According to various reports, NCSoft seems to have been calculating the value of the feather separately behind the scenes. Allegedly, when a user paid 70,000 won for a pass and used only the feather, the system automatically deducted 12,000 won for the feather and refunded the remaining 58,000 won.

If these reports are true, compare this to the Daejeon court case. The previous defendant 'deceived' the company with illegal commands. In this case, the Lineage players just clicked 'Refund', and the server essentially calculated: "The feather is worth 12,000 won, so here is your change." The users simply agreed to the company's own math.

The company failed to clearly define the deduction criteria, and their own server was coded to hand over items for a pittance.

So, the million-won question: even if NCSoft’s sloppy policy was the root cause, can we criminally prosecute those who exploited it to rake in cash?

The short answer is: it’s going to be incredibly difficult to charge them with fraud or obstruction of business. There are two major legal hurdles.

First, the 'illegal command' required for 'fraud using computers' is missing. Unlike the previous case, these users didn't hack or disrupt the network; they just clicked the 'Refund' button provided by the game service. The 12,000 won deduction wasn't a user-manipulated value; it was the result of NCSoft’s own server calculation.

Second, the logical prerequisite for 'obstruction of business'—NCSoft’s actual business—is shaky. In the 2023No1145 case, the court recognized the company’s 'partially paid policy' as a protected business interest. The criminal had directly caused financial loss by flooding the market with cheap, illegal cash items.

But what was NCSoft’s stance during the Lineage Classic refund crisis? At launch, the company touted 'fair monetization' to various media outlets, claiming, "It’s a pure monthly subscription with no other monetization added." While they broke that promise later, at the time of the incident, NCSoft wasn't even selling scrolls directly in the shop.

Because they weren't selling scrolls to generate revenue as a core business practice, it’s hard to argue that players getting them through a flawed refund system and selling them externally 'obstructed' a business that didn't technically exist yet. The argument becomes even weaker when you consider they only started selling scrolls for cash later.

That said, not every user gets a clean slate. Those who used 'macros' to cause abnormal server load or stole other people’s identities to bypass account limits are an exception. Those actions, in and of themselves, could lead to serious charges under obstruction of business, the Resident Registration Act, or the Personal Information Protection Act.

Ultimately, this isn't about malicious hacking or abuse by the player base. It’s a total disaster born from NCSoft’s flawed business model and sloppy terms of service.

If you’re going to slap the label 'Classic' on a game, you should respect the original’s spirit. Instead, NCSoft tried to force items that directly impact balance—like Armor and Weapon Enchant Scrolls—into subscription packages, and that’s where the trouble began.

Professional gold farmers who stole identities and used macros should be punished. But holding regular users responsible for using a refund system that the company itself built and mismanaged? That’s a tough sell in any court.

Trying to shift the blame for their own planning failures onto the players by handing out permanent bans—a classic 'scapegoating' move—won’t fix the broken economy or the cold gaze of the players.

As I said, I’m back in the game too, chasing those precious memories with my old friends. The Aden world we loved back then wasn't built on complicated, aggressive monetization.

I hope NCSoft keeps the promise they made when they first promoted Lineage Classic: stick to pure subscriptions or cosmetic skins. Please, look at the hearts of the players who came back for the nostalgia, fix the balance, restore the trust, and make this a 'truly classic' experience. That’s my only wish as a player.