Even if i'm a bit late for this, i have to state some things out after reading through all of your replies.
One important thing - and you might hate me for saying this - is the unjustified blame on gameforge. I totally agree on the itemshop / pay2win blaming though. But everything that goes beyond this is just bunk. Gameforge, as the publisher of Metin2 in most of the countries has all and every right to take any action against privately, not licensed versions of the game and the related people. Blaming them for doing this shows, how some of you think about others property. You HAVE to keep in mind that you steal others property and making profit of it. That's not legal. In no country.
The files are not free, not open source or something similar. Metin2 was created by YMIR back in the days and the company who owns YMIR is the legal holder of all rights regarding this game.
Blaming and ranting them for this is more than wrong.
Never the less i believe that private servers have given a lot to the game and its live. It would be a shame to see this dying soon but I wouldn't necessarily be sad either due to some individuals that try to squeeze every possible euro from their players and the game.