As one of the few long-running MMORPGs, NCsoft's major title, Lineage,
which has been in the market for more than 10 years, will finally
become history. NCsoft has announced in the game's official site that
North American servers will shut down permanently on Wednesday, June 29.
Players can now play for free before the servers shut down. For those
unused game time, NCsoft has prepared a refund program and meanwhile
Ruleset changes and some great events are still planned for the next two
month. Below is the official announcement:

May 11, 2011 -After much deliberation, NCsoft has made
the difficult decision to shut down Lineage servers in its Western
markets. Unfortunately, after more than 10 years, the original Lineage
franchise is no longer financially viable in the West. On June 29, 2011, at the normal maintenance time, all the original Lineage NA servers maintained by NCsoft will shut down permanently.

As of today, no new accounts can be created. We will no
longer charge anyone whose account is set to recurring billing, and Time
Cards can no longer be used to add additional game time. We have
reactivated all existing accounts in good standing, and everyone can play for free* for the remaining time that the servers are open.

We are committed to refunding any unused game time that
might have already been applied to your account. If you are due a
refund, refunds will be made automatically back to the method of payment
that was originally used in most cases. Please see our refund policy for details.

Nyx, Jetzen, and Unicycle plan to go out with a bang. We
will not be making any additional content updates, but we do have US
Ruleset changes and lots of great events planned for the next two
months. We want to give you every opportunity to make all of your
remaining Lineage dreams come true. We hope that everyone will stick
around to have fun with the game you love in the time we have left.

We know that we have incredibly loyal fans that have
stood by us for the past ten years. As painful as it was, as a business,
we had to make a very difficult, but necessary, decision. We thank you
for your continued support. We want you to know that we will be offering
you a chance to try other NCsoft games for free to express our
gratitude for your years of loyalty to Lineage. Please click here for more details on Player Appreciation Rewards.

With great respect to you, our players,

The Lineage Team

Source: Official site

About time it ended. I wonder how much money they made from that game alone...