Ragnarok Online - A New Venture

[pranavrules]

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This following post can also be found on the RagnarokOnline subreddit on Reddit.com
Follow this link: http://www.reddit.com/r/RagnarokOnline/comments/17561k/ragnarok_online_a_new_venture/

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Hello,

My name is Pranav. For a long time now, I have been planning to start a RO server dedicated to players from the old-school era. Now,this server will cater to a targeted set of players and will have a unique approach to keeping players engaged.

I want to do this because several things bother me about the current existing servers. They don't have life - They don't last long. Eventually, they start to suck. I see a very simple reason behind it. It's usually run by someone who's just found out what emulators like eAthena or Aegis are and want to make a quick buck or want the "power" of controlling others' characters.

My vision is something else. I am looking at this server from a player's perspective, something that almost every owner fails to do. Making money should NOT the ultimate goal of a server, rather I believe player satisfaction should be the goal.

I just finished school a few months ago and now have a full time job as a programmer. So I can assure you, I have enough technical expertise to handle the stuff that goes on behind the scenes. As far as the ingame experience is concerned; I have been playing Ragnarok Online from 2005 and I have not found a game that I can play for the rest of my life and give up RO completely. Although I will not have the time to grind, level and farm items, I definitely will have time to do something else; like managing a server.

Over the past few months I have saved up some funds to kick-start a server, but it has been a long time since I ran one by myself. And the last one I did manage to run, I was still quite young, without experience, didn't know how to keep players engaged and most importantly of all - didn't have the funds to keep upgrading as we progressed..

I've had plenty of experience running a server starting as an Admin right down to a simple Support GM. I've been on almost every position possible, ever since I found out about eAthena and the very existence of private RO servers. Here's a link to my old abandoned server I was talking about:

**Eternia-RO** [Link to RMS](http://ratemyserver.net/index.php?page=detailedlistserver&serid=6648&url_sname=Eternia%20Ragnarok%20Online)

I've thought about this long and hard and I figured it's time to take this idea from a drawing board concept to practical nuts and bolts. I've been observing all the successful and no so successful servers for the past few months to trace trends and observe their shortcomings and things that set them apart. Trust me, this is not to get or steal players from already accomplished servers, no, not at all. If that was the case, I wouldn't be here out in the open, I would've preferred a guerilla tactics instead.. All my research is purely unorthodox and completely unheard of. Although I would love to, but I can't share my results, which believe you me, are in multiple spreadsheets, charts and documents.

One thing that keeps an organization alive is - Innovation. Plain and simple. There's no rocket science involved, it's just about keeping your player's attention grasped long enough to be successful. The server also requires a strong marketer's perspective to give it the attention it needs from the mass.. Funds are never going to be an issue in this project, donations will be welcome to keep the server improving itself (better ad placements, higher CPM, etc.). The next most important thing to me is **TRANSPARENCY **. If there's money involved, there's always going to be some sort of corruption tagging along with it. I will NOT tolerate any of that in the lifespan of this project. Game-Masters with an urge of competing in power-struggles with their Admins, staff or even players for instance can cause irreversible damage to the server - even to it's shutting down! Believe me, I've experienced a lot of that nonsense as most of you out there must have..

Transparency requires honesty - To ensure this, I plan to keep all the logs of all the commands that can be used by any player/staff and keep it on the server's website open to all. There should not be even a shred of doubt of what's going on. Same goes for the donations - all the transactions taking place from paypal will be visible (Anonymity will obviously kept in terms of sensitive data - emails, transaction ids, etc.) These two things being open to all, will cause no kinds of issues amongst players and/or staff members.

Moving onto the staff; The people involved in running and maintaining the server will be PAID members. They will NOT be volunteers, rather responsible-for-their-own-actions kind of EMPLOYEES. This will create structure, hierarchy and a culture among the people taking part.

I didn't plan to write such a long post when I started, but as things kept coming to me, I kept writing them down. The project has no specific start date YET. The sole reason of that is I need to know if this is a good idea. I myself know that this a good idea, but for a second person, that would just be an opinion. Once I get enough replies and/or comments (+ve) I will put the plan into motion.

The first step would be releasing my survey and getting everyone's opinion. The survey will be CRITICAL in terms of getting vital information about the player's interest, opinions and ideas. Please keep this post flame-free, I know I might sound obnoxious or over-ambitious, but I'm not. I'm just a simple old-school RO player who wants to give something substantial and useful back to the community. I appreciate any concerns and suggestions at this point. Thank you for your time.

Warm Regards,
Pranavr time.

Warm Regards,
Pranav

[yC]

You are mature, you got the funding and you have the long term plan for how the server is going to run.  My advise is those are not the only elements that will make a successful server.  Though, taking out the helping-friends, hand out items and greed out of the server formula is the right attitude to begin a server.

Now the most important work would be to pick the right people and make the right decisions when the server is online.  I can recall at least a couple of servers made this way and in the end it only take a couple of missteps by the admin (not corrupt, just balancing / game-play related decisions) that kills it.  You can say you will listen to the players but it is never easy when there's many voices from many directions. 

Okay, so you have a full time job and you plan to pay your staff.  Definitely, you can pay your staff but that doesn't assure the quality.  You are one person that earns one income from one job.  It's not possible to hire someone with the same ability as you for the server (otherwise the person would be on a full time job making as much as you).  So I don't expect you to pay out too much to the staff.  The supply of good quality staff even if you are willing to pay, is still limited in the RO community.  Good staff that loves the server he or she works on is better than any paid staff that has no interest in RO or the RO server.  As you said, you work full time so I don't know how you are going spend time and watch over the server day to day operations.  In the end you are the one that make decisions, you should be involved with the server as much as possible.  This is one problem I see. 

When kind of time span you have for making this server?  From now to when it start to any population goal etc? 

I hope I am simply bringing out the problem I see into focus rather than saying a bunch of things that discourages you.  Usually I am not the one that says "good good good do it" without a "but you have to deal with these first".

Oh yea, you do got some good reviews back then: http://ratemyserver.net/index.php?page=serverstat&serid=6648&itv=999&url_sname=Eternia%20Ragnarok%20Online&page_num=1

[pranavrules]

You are mature, you got the funding and you have the long term plan for how the server is going to run.  My advise is those are not the only elements that will make a successful server.  Though, taking out the helping-friends, hand out items and greed out of the server formula is the right attitude to begin a server.

Now the most important work would be to pick the right people and make the right decisions when the server is online.  I can recall at least a couple of servers made this way and in the end it only take a couple of missteps by the admin (not corrupt, just balancing / game-play related decisions) that kills it.  You can say you will listen to the players but it is never easy when there's many voices from many directions. 

Okay, so you have a full time job and you plan to pay your staff.  Definitely, you can pay your staff but that doesn't assure the quality.  You are one person that earns one income from one job.  It's not possible to hire someone with the same ability as you for the server (otherwise the person would be on a full time job making as much as you).  So I don't expect you to pay out too much to the staff.  The supply of good quality staff even if you are willing to pay, is still limited in the RO community.  Good staff that loves the server he or she works on is better than any paid staff that has no interest in RO or the RO server.  As you said, you work full time so I don't know how you are going spend time and watch over the server day to day operations.  In the end you are the one that make decisions, you should be involved with the server as much as possible.  This is one problem I see. 

When kind of time span you have for making this server?  From now to when it start to any population goal etc? 

I hope I am simply bringing out the problem I see into focus rather than saying a bunch of things that discourages you.  Usually I am not the one that says "good good good do it" without a "but you have to deal with these first".

Oh yea, you do got some good reviews back then: http://ratemyserver.net/index.php?page=serverstat&serid=6648&itv=999&url_sname=Eternia%20Ragnarok%20Online&page_num=1

Thank you yC, that was absolutely SPOT ON! I couldn't agree with you more..

Like you said, the main challenge lies with the morality of the staff, their loyalty, passion and involvement; all of which I cannot control or monitor all the time. The idea of paying the staff was essentially a controlling mechanism I was toying with. It's not written in stone that that would solve these issues, but I was hoping that it would at least take me a step closer to it. This "might" make them feel responsible, in a way that you feel when you are at a real job. If done correctly, your bosses indeed notice you, if not, you might end up getting a memo? I don't know, I haven't thought this through, hence this post here on the forums.

I need this to be a "COMMUNITY" server, a server built on some kind of a strong experience - experience that only failures would teach in certain cases.. People like you, yC, who have seen ups and downs of all kinds of RO servers would definitely be a key in making this happen.. You would have a certain demographic knowledge about how these things go about in these private servers and what they did that made them the way they were..

I can only do so much when it comes to agreeing with every opinion thrown out there as well; which would definitely cause some sorrow among players whose voices were not heard. Being in favor of all is certainly not possible, and I will have to definitely devise a plan to overcome that shortcoming. I just haven't figure out how. As you can make out, I'm not even 5% into launching a server, this is something that I want to do absolutely by the book - as cleanly and clearly as possible. I will appreciate any and all kinds of suggestions from experienced and informed individuals like yourself and help guide me into setting up a successful server that would make everyone feel right at home!

Thank you for your appreciative comment yC, it really put me in a positive and a "moving-forward-in-a-right-direction" kind of a mood! And yes, Eternia-RO was my baby.. I feel extremely disheartened everytime I see that page.. It was the best time I ever had in my lifetime of playing RO.. And I want to repeat that again, only this time, I don't want to give it up..

Warm Regards to all,
Pranav ~

[Boreas]

Ragnarok is slowly dying, there are big servers out there, what makes you think that people will quit there to join your server?

Don't get me wrong, your concept is great and stuff, but in the end you will waste your time on a project which won't be successful anyway.

My advise: just don't. Save yourself the work.

[Necrophiliac]

Just wait for Karei to announce EternityRO v4.0 and disappear a couple months later and you'll have lots of people looking for a server.  I would love for there to be a populated LR that isn't full of wings or selling MVP cards.

[RoseTea]

Ragnarok is slowly dying, there are big servers out there, what makes you think that people will quit there to join your server?

Don't get me wrong, your concept is great and stuff, but in the end you will waste your time on a project which won't be successful anyway.

My advise: just don't. Save yourself the work.

You are an optimistic bundle of joy and must be a big hit at parties.

pranavrules, for as much as you're saying, I'm not really seeing anything concrete.  Logging actions and donations isn't that ground-breaking, and that's really all you've given us so far.

Then again, if you're actually aiming for "innovation" in RO, there's more than one person who might be interested in helping you do that, depending on what you're actually doing.  I'd like to know a bit more about what you're doing, maybe interrogate you a bit, send me one if you're up for it.

[DeePee]

You are an optimistic bundle of joy and must be a big hit at parties.

Hi. You must be new on RMS. There have been a LOT of ideas like this one. People who believe they have the key to starting a successful server. However I cannot recall any of them reaching their potential.

You will have to come up with something concrete and a promise that you can actually keep.

People often say money is no issue at all. However they often do not take everything in consideration. Eventually people will start complaining about lag. You will need to rent better, faster servers. You will need dedicated downloads, terabytes of bandwidth, etc. Let's not mention someone DDoSing your server. Are you willing (and able) to switch to a host that protects you from that for 600 bucks a month? Together with paying your staff and advertising, that will likely result in a server bill of at least 1-2k every month. Donations will not help out much when starting off. You'll have a handful of players and only like 10% of them ever donate anything.

So yeah, I'm usually rather sceptical about these kind of servers. Cause face it, not many people are willing to keep a server up if it costs them hundreds or thousands of dollars every month.

Let's not forget about team morale. Money is one thing, but try keeping someone motivated if they are working on stuff that only 10 people play (which is what you'll start off with). It's not easy.

[pranavrules]

Ragnarok is slowly dying, there are big servers out there, what makes you think that people will quit there to join your server?

Don't get me wrong, your concept is great and stuff, but in the end you will waste your time on a project which won't be successful anyway.

My advise: just don't. Save yourself the work.

I completely agree with you 100%. That is why I haven't already purchased a domain, setup a server and hoping people would leave their old servers and join this new one. Let's face it, there're no players who STILL play Ragnarok Online left out there without a server. If they are, they're probably not looking to get back to this game either.

As I mentioned earlier, this is not an attack to the existing servers. I respect them a lot to do anything like that. Servers like TalonRO or HeRO have been here long enough to see many young servers come after them and fail miserably. I myself play on a reputable server that's been here for more than 5 years, so I can understand from a player's psyche what it feels like to leave a server just to end up as a novice with no zeny or items in a server with absolutely no friends.

Having that said, that is NOT the intent of this server. This project has one mission - to make something that people WANT to be a part of. I can keep rambling on about the ideologies that are barged up in my mind regarding this, but that won't make my case. I don't plan to either. The one thing I would like to say would be the reason I am even considering this is that I just respect the people who played Ragnarok Online in the vanilla days and left the game because of the changes brought about by Gravity. Change is good, but not all of it. Innovation requires change, but these changes would be closely aligned with the interests of the old-school player and not the whims of my own.

I hope I am not disrespecting you in any way by replying with a long message like this. I just want to give back something to the community that helped me get through some of the most difficult years of my life. If it wasn't for this game and the friends I made through it, I would have been a totally different person altogether..

Please don't feel obliged to stop replying to this post - This is the whole reason I wrote the article in the first place. I want to get as many informed and critical opinions I can get.

Thank you for your time, I really appreciate it

Warm Regards,
Pranav

[pranavrules]

Just wait for Karei to announce EternityRO v4.0 and disappear a couple months later and you'll have lots of people looking for a server.  I would love for there to be a populated LR that isn't full of wings or selling MVP cards.

Honestly, I am not looking to capitalize on a situation that might be hurtful to someone else. Although it would definitely help this project grow - it wouldn't be ethical to respond to a situation that way.

As veteran RO player, I have to agree with you on the terms of having distaste about a server flooded with customs and MvP cards. That would have to involve some kind of corruption or a trick to just get more and more donations. The simplest trick in the book is to quietly spread a few donation-based over-powered items compelling honest players to get them to compete with those players on equal grounds. And thus continues the chain. Believe me, I have seen this happen once too often.

But yes, what you say is definitely note-worthy. LRs are somehow the trend these days and this project will have to consider or look in that direction.

[pranavrules]

You are an optimistic bundle of joy and must be a big hit at parties.

pranavrules, for as much as you're saying, I'm not really seeing anything concrete.  Logging actions and donations isn't that ground-breaking, and that's really all you've given us so far.

Then again, if you're actually aiming for "innovation" in RO, there's more than one person who might be interested in helping you do that, depending on what you're actually doing.  I'd like to know a bit more about what you're doing, maybe interrogate you a bit, send me one if you're up for it.

@RoseTea,

You are more than welcome to contact me through the forum's messaging system or email me. I would be glad to run you through what I have in mind. Although it's a bit premature at this point, it still can make sense to optimistic players.

I am waiting for a sign that would tell me it's time to release the survey and get the concrete information I've been aspiring for and start working on the project. This article is to get players stirred up and give me their honest outlook of the future of this game. I hope that makes sense?

[pranavrules]

Hi. You must be new on RMS. There have been a LOT of ideas like this one. People who believe they have the key to starting a successful server. However I cannot recall any of them reaching their potential.

You will have to come up with something concrete and a promise that you can actually keep.

People often say money is no issue at all. However they often do not take everything in consideration. Eventually people will start complaining about lag. You will need to rent better, faster servers. You will need dedicated downloads, terabytes of bandwidth, etc. Let's not mention someone DDoSing your server. Are you willing (and able) to switch to a host that protects you from that for 600 bucks a month? Together with paying your staff and advertising, that will likely result in a server bill of at least 1-2k every month. Donations will not help out much when starting off. You'll have a handful of players and only like 10% of them ever donate anything.

So yeah, I'm usually rather sceptical about these kind of servers. Cause face it, not many people are willing to keep a server up if it costs them hundreds or thousands of dollars every month.

Let's not forget about team morale. Money is one thing, but try keeping someone motivated if they are working on stuff that only 10 people play (which is what you'll start off with). It's not easy.

I wouldn't label you as a skeptic. Not at all.. That's what experience teaches you!! You start off planning and then re-planning and then plan some more, but not everything always goes according to plan.. DDoS attacks are not noted in advance, they just happen! The downtime is costly, fixing the issues caused by it would be even costlier! But that's the part of running a server. It comes with certain responsibilities that all the money in the world also couldn't take care of. The last server I ran cost me around $200 per month (including all the additional costs) and I was a student with absolutely no steady source of income. I made money by freelancing my programming and/or writing services online to make a few bucks to keep it running. I don't expect to gain many donations, but nevertheless any amount does account towards the betterment of the server. Also, It wasn't the lack of funds that caused problems for me, it was the team.

You're dead on about the team morale part. They begin with more enthusiasm then you yourself about running the server, but once some time passes and they realize that they don't really have any "power" (since I had stripped their accounts of all corruptible commands) they started to lose interest. Mind you, these were "volunteers" and not paid personnel. So I had no control or say in what they do whatsoever. They would have no bindings of time to follow or adhere to, which led to them coming on and off whenever they felt like it. But then again, who's to blame them? I myself didn't have proper structure or understanding of what needed to be done, I couldn't expect them to follow me into the dark either; which wouldn't be the case this time around..

I hope I am not discouraging or making myself sound stupid by posting all these replies, I just want to hear what everyone has to say and accept it humbly and make a definite note of it. I would like to encourage you in fact, to keep posting your thoughts. As soon as I get the survey up and running with all the appropriate questions, we will be in business.

Thank you for your time, I appreciate it much more than you guys think!

Warm Regards,
Pranav ~

[Klassione]

There have been a LOT of ideas like this one. People who believe they have the key to starting a successful server. However I cannot recall any of them reaching their potential.

You will have to come up with something concrete and a promise that you can actually keep.

I agree with DeePee (and Boreas, to an extent) on that above. He did mention a selection of other pointers to consider. But that stands the most.

Your OP sounds nice (I doubt anyone will dispute that). Plan, execute, and sustain.

Good luck.

[pranavrules]

I agree with DeePee (and Boreas, to an extent) on that above. He did mention a selection of other pointers to consider. But that stands the most.

Your OP sounds nice (I doubt anyone will dispute that). Plan, execute, and sustain.

Good luck.

Thank you kindly. I am hoping to make the survey public this weekend.

[Bue]

Just how much do you currently know about eA or rA? If both, then what is the difference?

[pranavrules]

Just how much do you currently know about eA or rA? If both, then what is the difference?

I haven't been in touch with eA ever since I ran my last server, which was a year or two ago.. Although I have heard about rA, All I know is that eA is not what it used to be and rAthena seems to be taking it's place (Renewal being the key difference)..

I don't mind spending a substantial amount of time catching up, it's not going to be a big deal. Since I'm a programmer by profession, those things don't scare me as much. You can trust me on that one.

Did you have a concern about this part though?