What would make you play iRO Classic?

[Hardc0re]

I said to myself I wouldn't bother help iRO in any way, but I just love this game too much and I honestly think that iRO Loki is the server which has the most chance of trully putting everyone together.
Apart from the mistakes WarpPortal always make, it seems that they are taking some steps in the right direction. They recently posted a "roadmap" of what they plan to do to improve the server. You can follow the topic here: http://forums.warpportal.com/index.php?/topic/169664-classic-2015-q1-roadmap/

I think they are really stupid in not marketing their server here (again, they are really stupid in lots of things actually, but for the first time in a long while they want to actually listen to the community, guess that's what a dying server does to a company right?)

As you can see, I'm not making any polictics here and I'm the first one to say that WarpPortal is indeed stupid in lots of its decisions. But I want to know RMS' oppinion. I want you to be totally honest, and you can honestly curse and swear all you want, I think it's all positive, I really want honesty here.

I want to know what would make you play on iRO Loki (Classic Server). If you played there before and quit, why did you quit? If you never even tried, why is that so?
What does a low-rate private offers that iRO isn't offering? How do you think WarpPortal could change the server for the better? Why are you playing xyzRO instead of iRO? What features you can't live without on that server?
Of course there are things they wouldn't change so it's a no-brainer for discussion (for instance, the server will never become a high-rate).

Well, I hope we can have a honest discussion here

[Hardc0re]

Cmon guys we have over 100 views here an no replies?
There's really nothing you want to say?

[ShadesOfDusk]

I played for a while when it first opened, but the lag was pretty bad. I would disconnect going through portals. I had to use Lower Ping(iirc) to play well. That mixed with the people I played with quitting made me quit. I considered joining again during Janeway though 

[Soratim]

Remove pay2win. Remove "free"2play.

Go back to subs. Sell skins in shop.

[nile]

if it didnt have unbearable lag and actually gave me a reason to play there

[Xarale]

Honestly, I don't think anything would.  While I did enjoy playing iRO a decade ago, I just don't have the time to commit to such low rates again.  I don't mind playing low-rate pre-renewal private servers with say, 8x rates or so.. but 1x is just too low for me now.  iRO Chaos feels nicer with its easier renewal levelling curve, but I don't think I'd go back there either due to the issues I'll discuss below.

My main gripe with iRO is that I don't like playing alongside armies of bots.  Most decent private servers out there managed to prevent botting on their servers years ago, and yet iRO is still being overrun by them.  It's just not fun to grind away as a legit player and see bots doing it alongside you with no effort at all.  Sure I can report all the bots, but A) Due to the high number of bots out there, I'd probably spend more time writing reports than playing the game since Gravity still has no effective way of quickly reporting bots in-game, and B) A fair amount of bots don't appear to get banned even after reporting.

Finally, the cash shop.  I would prefer to see a return to a monthly sub rather than the awful pay2win cash shop they have right now.  Sadly I think it's probably too late for them to revert to that idea now, as the damage has already been done.

Also the lag issues.

-X.

[Aeon]

Terrible lag, bots, p2win system, extremely low rates, difficulty to farm WoE mats.

[Zhin]

My main gripe with iRO is that I don't like playing alongside armies of bots.  Most decent private servers out there managed to prevent botting on their servers years ago, and yet iRO is still being overrun by them.  It's just not fun to grind away as a legit player and see bots doing it alongside you with no effort at all.  Sure I can report all the bots, but A) Due to the high number of bots out there, I'd probably spend more time writing reports than playing the game since Gravity still has no effective way of quickly reporting bots in-game, and B) A fair amount of bots don't appear to get banned even after reporting.

I don't understand why any official server for any game struggles so hard with bots [or 24/7 cash for gold spam]. All it takes is one or two active people dedicated to making sure these things are rooted out and banned, and with the resources an official server has, it would be only a matter of hiring someone at minimum wage to do it. Hell, I bet you could hire volunteers from your player base to do it. It's one of those things that has always amazed me. Something with such a simple solution, yet ... So many games and servers have constant issues with it.

[Suspension]

Removing bots, lag, pay2win (aka VIP system), players and a "less grinding" rework.

[Playtester]

Unlike others, I don't really mind the cash shop much and I'm actually playing on iRO classics occasionally.

But what bothers me most and is the reason why I really don't play more on it:
1. Bots bots bots bots... it's hard to find a real player inside dungeons.
2. No main chat... no way to talk with actual human players.
3. Doesn't allow umlauts and other special characters which is annoying if you want to talk with someone in your mother tongue.
4. Very high latency. When I click it takes like 1 second until the server reacts. All the fun tactics in RO just don't work like that (like hit and run).

Also I'm not really sure if all their custom changes will help much. They are "too little". Their goal is to make all the maps interesting instead of just some, but adding an HP or SP restoration item to a useless mob will not make players suddenly hunt it instead of wolves/metalings/geographers/anubis.

It also will depend strongly on viewable these changes will be. Like if a website will adopt them so you can check. Just reading a massive list of changelogs isn't very conformtable if you just want to know where you can hunt a certain mob best.

Also many custom changes are quite debatable and not all people agree to them. Like e.g. having 70 Bathories AND 70 Anolians in Clock Tower B4. That's nice for exp maybe, but what if someone just wants to hunt Witch Starsands on a character that isn't good vs. Anolians?

[Xarale]

I don't understand why any official server for any game struggles so hard with bots [or 24/7 cash for gold spam]. All it takes is one or two active people dedicated to making sure these things are rooted out and banned, and with the resources an official server has, it would be only a matter of hiring someone at minimum wage to do it. Hell, I bet you could hire volunteers from your player base to do it. It's one of those things that has always amazed me. Something with such a simple solution, yet ... So many games and servers have constant issues with it.

I totally agree.  They could very easily purge iRO of most of its bots if they wanted, just like private servers have been able to do with anti-bot protection software.  Thing is, I don't think they actually want to do such a thing due to a few beneficial market bots that many iRO players seem to rely on. (ie. Ragial/Ragnastats)  That, and their online player count would drop dramatically since a large portion of them are simply just bots.  Plus during my time on iRO, I noticed a lot of bots going as far as wearing cash shop headgears, meaning botters are possibly generating some slight income for Warp Portal/Gravity by making use of the cash shop. (either that or they just bought them from players with the zeny they collected from their bot farms)

I'd love to see WP hire more volunteers to help combat the bot problem, but I doubt it'll ever happen sadly.  They don't seem to realise just how many people are put off by the ridiculous number of bots on their servers.  Hell even some iRO veterans who still play just seem to simply accept the bots now, which is kinda sad really. (this thread HERE has examples of both previous points)  No one should have to just accept the fact that you're playing alongside cheaters who are blatantly getting away with cheating.

Also as Playtester mentioned, I think they really need to add a Main chat of some sort so that actual human players can talk to each other.  When I was playing iRO Chaos, I was often guildless since quite a few of the bigger/active guilds don't want you unless you're 3rd class and/or are willing to WoE, so it felt lonely to level out there in a world where practically everyone around you was a bot.  Having Main chat enabled would've helped to combat that feeling by giving me actual human players to talk to whilst levelling.  I'm sure the same scenario could be applied to iRO Classic too.  It wouldn't be enough to make me want to play on iRO again, but it would definitely be a step in the right direction.

-X.

[Rider]

I honestly think they already know what's wrong with the game but choose to ignore it. Bots are indeed the biggest issue and they could've easily taken care of it so many years ago but their goals are different from the players expectations. The game is a business for them and they just cant afford losing their current player base. Just taking care of bots won't do and they know it because with the high latency issues and the p2w cash system their players are already narrowed down to people who don't care much about such things.

And yeah, I agree with improving the chat system to speak to the world just like other MMORPGs. They could also try to do something about the lag issues by upgrading their server. But no, they would rather add more content to keep the cash inflow constant.

[Playtester]

I think you overestimate what Gravity earns with RO.

Say they have 20000 active players total (not playing at the same time), statistically on average only 10% of the players actually use the cash shop and those that use it spend $20 per month on average. That means they have 2000 players spending $20 which means they earn $40000 per month from it. That isn't much. Their RO staff is basically 2 members plus a technician and I doubt they can actually higher much more than that.

And volunteers are a possibility, but it leads to risk of corruption, that's why many publishers don't do that anymore. Not to mention that in many countries it is against the law to have unpaid GMs (not sure about US, though).

Before that law came in Europe, euRO used to have many volunteer GMs and that server was completely bot-free and it was really easy to get support. Don't know if there was any corruption, though.

[Chilly]

They would basically have to make it like a low-mid rate server for me to play it, or they could just make it like jro and give it all the newer episodes and content that is balanced for pre-renewal.  Of course, no op cash shop, no bots, and convenient warper/healer/job change/etc would always be a +

[Viridithon]

Less bots, a higher population or at least a feeling of not being so isolated from everything, a way for newbies or people without much time to compete with those that are already established or have tons of time, better ways of obtaining KP without cash than just the occasional survey. Those barely pay for the magic stone boxes to get to 2nd class. Still, I prefer $1 a character over a subscription. It's cheaper for students and younger people which is where most of the new players would be coming from. The rates aren't as big of a deal as long as it stays free to play. I would also like it if there wasn't 3% exp loss per death for non-VIPs. That's a harsh penalty on 1x rates for a death that may not even be the player's fault.