Like many MMORPGs, Lineage II has been the target of botting, in which an external program is used to simulate the actions of a player. Such activity is prohibited and is a bannable offense, though seemingly rarely enforced. Nevertheless, players continue this practice, since the player is able to leave his/her computer and the bot will continue doing what it has been programmed to do. Some of the most well-known bots are L2Walker and Superman (formerly known as L2Wind). There is a conspiracy theory, based on fine coding, numerous features and versatility of those programs (surpassing the official game client by far), that developers of Wind and Walker were/are in league with NCsoft itself.[citation needed]
Apart from easing some of the more mundane aspects of gameplay, botting can also be used as a way to generate Adena (Lineage II currency) which is then sold for real world cash. This phenomenon, Economy Interaction, is quite controversial and is common in most of today's large MMORPGs.
It should be noted that GameGuard, the "anti-cheat" system used by Lineage II, allows a player to run the game with the aforementioned bot programs running in the background; the player does not need any form of "anti-cheat" bypass to bot in this game. On the other hand, some other tools are blocked by GameGuard, like the "GameCam" program which is not a cheating tool but a program used to produce videos from in-game footage. The majority of private Lineage II servers make it impossible to start the game when a bot program is detected on the player's computer.
Controversy
Current As of Interlude, NCsoft has released two weapons called "The Demonic Sword Zariche" and "The Blood Sword Akamanah". These swords are very powerful, but are also temporary: they disappear once their "health" runs out. The swords are found as random drops from slain enemies. The developers have said that they are willing to see if these swords will help stop botting because of the strength that they possess, but players use the swords mainly for powerleveling.