EssenceRO

[Indued]

1-Bad
10-Excellent

Stability - 5
For the most part, this server is rather stable, although when it goes down, it goes down for a long time, mainly due to the inactivity of the Staff considering there are only maybe 1 or 2 staff members that can actually do anything about it. The most recent downtime exceeded 15 hours, and the one before that lasted for at least a day.

Availability - 7
Server's available for the most part, except when it goes down. No problems here.

Community Friendliness - 3
The server fails in this aspect. The community is split up into 3 main divisions: people who WoE, people who PvM, and then the hat makers. Main chat is full of idiotic people who just talk nonsense half the time and then there are those who violate rules yet don't get punished. Forums are probably the worst part of the server. The PvM junkies try to make game breaking suggestions against certain skills that have a major effect in the WoE/BG/PvP Environment and then lash out at anyone who provides a reasonable counterargument. The hat makers (mainly the Final Sacrifice guild) simply troll the WoE community, and have done so ever since the WoE community asked for an overhaul in WoE, nearly a year and a half ago.

Eventfulness - 2
Terrible. No events whatsoever.

GM Friendliness - 1
The Staff is very hypocritical. I can provide examples of at least 4 incidents in which someone was either hacked or banned without any reasonable justification and although the staff maintains that they will listen to any appeals on the player's behalf, they usually turn a deaf ear to said appeals. They do not listen to the community and instead implement their own version of "what players want," which is usually the opposite of what the playing populace actually wants.

GM Availability - 2
The staff is usually available through the irc channel, but good luck actually finding one ingame to actually ask for support. Most of the time you're stuck having to ask Main chat for a solution to a problem.

GM Helpfulness - 1
Like previously mentioned, the staff fails in this section. They do not listen to the community, and instead just dish out forum bans and ingame bans to those who have valid points. It's gotten to the point where many people who have played on the server for more than a year have just gotten tired of the staff's inaction towards improving the general quality of the server and left.

Economy - 3
The economy is broken. Too many custom items and not enough zeny sinks to get rid of excess zeny. There was a recent spike in inflation and the server suffered dearly for that

Class Balance - 2
Here is another area where the staff dropped the ball. The inclusion of 3rd jobs has literally broken the point of skill builds considering that all 3rd jobs can get every single first and second class skill available to them, which makes many classes quite unbalanced. Most of the skill changes were not even necessary. Take Tarot card of fate, which originally had a static success chance. Essence has quite literally f*** the mechanic of the skill up so that one can stack LUK to give it a higher success chance, which when coupled with Perfect Dodge working on physical attack skills like Asura Strike and Sacrifice, makes clowns/gypsies nigh unkillable. The Level caps are quite ridiculous too.

Guild Competition - 1
Competition? What is that? EssenceRO has no guild competition whatsoever, which isn't a surprise considering the f*** up mechanics of WoE. When you have more SE castles open than guilds who actually participate in SE then you have a VERY SERIOUS PROBLEM. Half the time when someone tried to initiate competition, everyone would back off because it was so easy to obtain castles on the server, so why bother for competition. Also, the server lies about its 1000+ population for WoE. The amount of people who actually WoE nowadays barely hits 100, much less 200. Quite possibly the worst server out there in terms of competition.

Overall Score: 27/100

I do not recommend this server to anyone looking for a competitive WoE environment. The staff bans people unjustly, then turns a deaf ear to their appeals, which is bad considering half the time they don't have any actual proof of any wrongdoing. As a matter of fact, one staff member was using GRF edits and quite literally posted a video with proof on the server, yet the rest of the staff did nothing about it. Another instance was when a gm @kill'd a player because her guild was getting PK'd on an MvP map. Again the staff did nothing about it.
The staff however, is good at silencing people at the first sign of any attempts to incite competition, or when someone is posting solid fact. The staff simply clicks the lolwarn button and that's that. Threads get deleted without any reason, they get locked the moment someone says f***" or s***" or "murked."
The staff also has no idea about competitive mechanics or how to fix them. WoE has been a joke for nearly a year, and yet the staff has done absolutely nothing to fix that. Yet they keep implementing hats and other insignificant gameplay changes because they're all easier to do. Someone suggested that the benches in Geffen be sittable on and the staff IMMEDIATELY moved that suggestion to Pending, whereas the Suggestions to improve WoE/BG/PvP have been sitting idle for nearly a year, with clear solutions posted by the players themselves.
Overall, this server is on a downward spiral and the staff is too busy banning players and deleting important forum threads regarding significant server improvements to notice it.

[Head Monocle of DOOM]

Hmmm. You have lots of words and a nicely formatted review but I see a distinct lack of proof for which to help your arguement.

I like the review but I can't bring myself to believe it if you don't show me proof.

[Usagimimi]

GMs are in-game seldom, true, but they're forum-active and players will help you. Why does it have to be a GM that supports, when the massive player base is only too willing?

They're helpful on the forum, too, always answering questions, responding to bug reports, etc.

3rd jobs are in PvE, not PvP / WoE (last time I played) and they balanced out Sniper to be able to pass Pneuma.

I see a lot of issues with what you've written.

[Chojiro]

Gives a pretty bad impression, huh. I wouldn't play on a server like this. Sounds like the forum is just a load of trolls who don't play the server, community is important to me too.

GMs are in-game seldom, true, but they're forum-active and players will help you. Why does it have to be a GM that supports, when the massive player base is only too willing?

GM support is not the same as player support

I would rather take the advice of people and try to make it better than to simply blow down their arguments and say things are false. I guess that shows the admins attitude.

[Kuprin]

I recall having similar issues with EssenceRO myself. Bad server.

[Betrayed]

I played on EssenceRO for about 6 to 8 months. My time there was forgettable, once I had maxed and hunted the basics, I did nothing but grind for WoE items, and even then, that wasn't great once Shatterpoint was gone.

Honestly, I liked the server at first, especially in the extremely early days, but these days... I don't think I could honestly say I'd have a friend play there.

[MeowyMeow]

Terrible server. Yes, it's all about proof.

To be honest, when I joined eRO, I had much fun. (yes i'm a late player btw). No one really does anything right now, WoE competition is terrible, bad guilds, f*** everything, MvP card spree, everything.

GMs, or Enforcement GMs, ban/warn/delete your posts for anything, and everything. Let's say for example someone's new to the server and we're answering truthfully, they delete our posts too. Truth hurts, yes. But this server should been dead, long ago. Or a wipe, at least.

EssenceRO isn't even Ragnarok Online. For those who played there for long, you'll know what I'm talking about.

[Envirotologist]

I've been playing for about two years on eRO and trust me the last year and a half the server have been going downhill.

GM abuse. GM Aria just a short while after she was appointed as Support GM this happened:
Her and her guild were getting PK'ed by ONE wizard. She got mad and jumped onto her GM character and start @killing. You want proof?
Spoil yourself:



When asked of her respond of this case, she didn't give any form of formal apology, in fact her response were along the line of "not sorry"

Another GM, GM Praetor was banning people including his guildmates for grf-ing. Here's the twist he had known they were using GRF for weeks prior to, here's a double twist, he.was.using.grf.too.

2nd point: WoE scene.

Absolute joke...
Reason being, too much open castle and not enough guild participating for that many castles. 5 castles for FE, 3 castles for SE, obviously guilds will fight for the best castle however the excess amount of castle become a place where guilds that couldn't compete spending 1 hour precasting with no one even attempting to take the castle from them.

The arguments against are that small guilds will be unable to grow, for the past year or so it has been one guild chasing the other guilds, these guys doesn't even care what castles they end up with or what treasure, all they want was battle. But other guilds wants a castle of their own whether the treasure or incentive is good or s***, if they can't end up with the best castle they can still get items from a castle no one cares about.Ask yourself this question; how can small guilds grow if they're not actually 'participating' in battles?

Even for SE which is the supposedly be the main WoE, only 2 guilds competing, for 3 castles...before it was 3 guilds.

If you'd like to spend your time reading http://forums.essencero.com/topic/36286-number-of-open-castles-during-woe/, you'd see after 7-8 months of suggesting to lower the amount of castles, the result is null.

The good news seems fading aswell Tira (server owner) came back and considering the proposal of lowering castle amount, however as soon as she posted this

PENDING: ETA 09/21/2010

ref:http://forums.essencero.com/topic/39767-general-woe-mechanics-finalising/page__st__160

We have yet to hear from her as I'm typing this. Even with 2 Development Staff, these guys are afraid to take the responsibility to their hand and go ahead with the change even after Tira already gave the OK to go.

BG: Oh God BG is dead 1 day after it was launched, no/expensive incentive, consumables are way too expensive to get, even if you do get them they're s***. Blessing scroll for 100 medals? you're lucky if you can get 100 in a few hours. It's slow to start, and you'd probably spend more consumables than to farm them through BG, you probably better off farming outside BG...

Economy: OP pretty much spot on, they just made MVP easier to kill so that everyone can kill them with little help potentially increase the number of MVP cards dropped. Previously you'd need a party of healer/tanker/dps which encourage team work and group participation, that's no longer the case.

Overall the GM staff are bad decision makers, for example a friend of mine have a forum account and was warned 5% for trolling, then he made another account for trolling purpose. One day that trolling account was notified and got warned to up to 25% and his other account got 100% (wtf?) after his banned ended, the 100% was never taken off and the next day both his account are banned and permabanned without further notification.

If you want a server that will hold your hand in joy and harmony, hit and giggles with your friends, making kawaii hats and just terribad playing with other terribaddies. This one for ya.

[Head Monocle of DOOM]

Envirotologist has proofs, go him.

I had a shuffi though the forums already and yup the GMs suck.

[Gankz]

All the "nerfs" they've applied are s*** crazy and it made the community think it's okay to change any skill if they can't win against it. I left that server ages ago and I've never looked back.

[ahbenzz]

All the "nerfs" they've applied are s*** crazy and it made the community think it's okay to change any skill if they can't win against it. I left that server ages ago and I've never looked back.

Exactly, and that's what they call: "capturing the essence of ragnarok online"

[Betrayed]

Don't forget the part where they won't give any nerfs to the Bard/Dancer branch despite how out of hand they've gotten there.

The GMs there really are trash. Hidden does a lot of work, sure, but he's also an idiot. I remember going to PvP one day. Why did I go? To PvP. So some Gypsy that just wants to sit around and talk keeps getting killed by everybody and cries HARASSMENT and gets immunity there. What the hell is up with that?

It's almost as bad as not being able to say "Good game, guys" in a WoE thread because you'll get warned for "trolling"

[Euphie]

I think this is the first negative review I've read in terms of Essence, many people seem to think its one of the best (if not the best) pserver around. Well not that I've searched for reviews of it but still xD
I can say from experience that its quite a big undertaking even to just gm on a large server (with a small team that is), but thats no excuse for corruption or negligence.

[Betrayed]

If you just go play the server and don't get into PvP, WoE, MvPing, the market or the community at all then yeah, it's nice.

But... what would be the point of playing there? That's the conclusion I came to when I left the server months ago.

PvP wasn't fun. GMs giving immunity to people, class balance a disaster and a half, and you'd be lucky to not get ganked walking in.

WoE rarely had two guilds genuinely challenging eachother. I'm not saying it never did, the fact that I stayed there for over half a year for nothing but WoE meant something at least.

MvPing, good luck unless you've got a guild and people that know what they're doing from the get-go.

The market... hah... hahahaha. BlackoutRO is arguably better in this concern.

The community... see, I liked RO from the beginning because it was a very social game. Essence is anything but, with most players held up in private guild towns or not talking to anybody in Old Payon.

[Myteriouss]

If you just go play the server and don't get into PvP, WoE, MvPing, the market or the community at all then yeah, it's nice.

But... what would be the point of playing there? That's the conclusion I came to when I left the server months ago.

PvP wasn't fun. GMs giving immunity to people, class balance a disaster and a half, and you'd be lucky to not get ganked walking in.

WoE rarely had two guilds genuinely challenging eachother. I'm not saying it never did, the fact that I stayed there for over half a year for nothing but WoE meant something at least.

MvPing, good luck unless you've got a guild and people that know what they're doing from the get-go.

The market... hah... hahahaha. BlackoutRO is arguably better in this concern.

The community... see, I liked RO from the beginning because it was a very social game. Essence is anything but, with most players held up in private guild towns or not talking to anybody in Old Payon.

That sucks right there; Game Masters giving Immunity? It seems Essence doesn't care about players, and their staff that is corrupted. It seems they don't care if people leave (from the looks of it). In my opinion, it seems the owner just cares about the money he/she is making off. 1) He/she doesn't care about corrupted Staff members. 2) He/she doesn't care what people have to say (take in suggestions). 3) He/she doesn't care what is happening to his/her own server.

[Envirotologist]

I think this is the first negative review I've read in terms of Essence, many people seem to think its one of the best (if not the best) pserver around. Well not that I've searched for reviews of it but still xD
I can say from experience that its quite a big undertaking even to just gm on a large server (with a small team that is), but thats no excuse for corruption or negligence.

The reviews are based on players that don't do PvP aspect of the server such as WoE/BG/PvP, most if not all of them are biased towards PvM and MvP. Most of these players are lacking knowledge in their own class eventhough someone posted the builds of WoE players, which if you'd participate you'd see the clear gap of skills.

The server focuses so much on aesthetic values with the likes of hats. There's no serious commitment from staff nor players, pretty much just hit and giggles.

[MeowyMeow]

I think this is the first negative review I've read in terms of Essence, many people seem to think its one of the best (if not the best) pserver around. Well not that I've searched for reviews of it but still xD
I can say from experience that its quite a big undertaking even to just gm on a large server (with a small team that is), but thats no excuse for corruption or negligence.

The reviews are based on players that don't do PvP aspect of the server such as WoE/BG/PvP, most if not all of them are biased towards PvM and MvP. Most of these players are lacking knowledge in their own class eventhough someone posted the builds of WoE players, which if you'd participate you'd see the clear gap of skills.

The server focuses so much on aesthetic values with the likes of hats. There's no serious commitment from staff nor players, pretty much just hit and giggles.

sums up everything, so know where you're headed to

[Mikael]

Yep that is truth.

I have been doing summon and mvp with my guild and when we do that always coming people to kill them (no matter if we change of map) we talk with gms and: special request!

So i have been posting like 4 reports and nothing, one report got lost ! deleted and no one know how! LOL

In that report, the guy i have reported was friend of GMs lol so there is the answer about my deleted report...

And this is very important, in the main you must write only in english, cause if not you get banned , you canttalk in spanish, chinesse, nothing.

That´s all.

[emperium]

server is terrible

GMs are corrupt. they delete threads in forums that practically criticize the server. requests takes forever to happen. punishment is a joke. some GM named Faustus who has been a GM for a long piece of crap time does nothing at all. players who ask for updates in the forums have their threads deleted

GMs don't even log-in

only reason the server gets donations is because of hats

WoE is TERRIBLE. WoE oriented players requested changes months ago, still no update as of now and only 1 GM working on it, who is only god knows where she is currently at, IF SHE IS EVEN ALIVE. 3 SE castles, 2 WoE guilds doing it

WoE is about who breaks more emperiums rather than GvGs

current WoE players are stupid and even fail at f***

Battlegrounds is dead. despite a promise of an update, still nothing

PvP has become party-based and a source of income due to pvp exclusive hats/gear

MvP is terrible. some mvps can be solo'd while some can't be killed at all even with a decent party

guild towns killed the social aspect of the game

too many custom additions

zenny is retarded. too easy too farm stuff (20m/hour basis)

donations as a source of in-game income (1 donation credit = around 10m, 1 donation credit = 1 pound or USD)

Main Chat is filled with retards

no bot/3rd party program protection at all

and more

[Abversen]

I played there when the server first opened as a character named "Alex", a Paladin. My forum name was also Alex. That's how early I got in.

I played through the days of Rutilus Dextera and Backstab, those were fun days. Back when Survival Mode was super hard on the Extreme difficulty and you were legend to beat it, the server was amazing. However, like all things, if it's good it just won't last and this server definitely did not.

I quit a little over a year ago back when the GM's only activity was to abuse their power and elsewise were to be no where in sight. I'd not only NOT recommend this server to people, I'd tell them to turn away.

Not to mention Tira herself told me she's only keeping it up for the $$$ at this point, not that she actually cares, but I can't prove that (regardless of how painstakingly obvious it is).

[Envirotologist]

It's not like the WOE players are complaining about the lack of competition/updates, that phased has been done and failed. It's more like the lack of staff's punctuality and empty promises. They have all these plans set out and told us it'll come, but it's been months and they are yet to finish it.

3rd classes are still broken and yet to be completed, the unfair ability of 3rd classes ability to max out all (if not all 2nd classes) skill points and their advantage over non-reborn classes. Hidden was the only one working on this and no other GM's are planning to continue this.

BG re-vamp plan hasn't been updated since August (and this is started months after BG was launched), and as previously mentioned no GMs are willing to take over the WOE re-vamp from Tira and actually to put their hand up and say "I'll continue this and finish her plan"

To be honest, looking at the current GM lineup; Faustus, Okale, Lumiere, Aria, Nez, Mulder, Cier, even Paradox I doubt any of them would do just that.

[Rudolph Zyaber]

lol WoE was dying on this server when I left it for dead in 2009.  I'm not surprised to see it's gone down the drain.  This is a hat server now.  It's been going in that direction for as long as I can remember. 

Sorry to res topic, but I used to play/woe on this server religiously last year and just before all the 3rd classes got released I left it.

My biggest faults with it were these: THIS WAS BACK IN 2009 AND PROBABLY DOESN'T APPLY TO CURRENT ESSENCE

-GM's weren't active ingame enough (if they were they ran with their own crowd)
-Guild towns made main towns "retard only" zones where you couldn't go unless you wanted to hit up the main vending spot.
-Abracadabra MVPing was the only real way to MVP (faster, no pking, just you and your friends) and that led to a massive influx of MVP gear without any limit or cap.
-Zeny had nothing stopping it from coming into the server.
-WoE scene was dying out because as I remember it: Small guilds couldn't compete against the massive ones and any castle could be zerg rushed if you were big enough.  b****-taking was the only WoE strat and people were complaining that you either sat in the s*** castle until the right before the end of WoE when you e-called on the emp of the good castle or you zerg'd the good one for an hour straight. 
-The uselessness of some classes without good gear and the massive inflation that I saw slowly building up. 
-MVP card point system or no, there was just too many MVP cards and Maya P's on the server at that point.
-At the time I was leaving, WoE SE had been implemented for maybe 2-3 months.  Maybe 2 guilds were doing it.


Anyway that's all stuff that just eventually pissed me off, not to mention guild drama and friend drama in that game.  I was also a forum admin and I got to see the underbelly of it all.  People just like to piss you off when for no reason when you're in a position above them and it gets to you after awhile. At that point I had been playing the server for nearly 2 years so you've got to excuse me if I had felt I'd done enough with it all.  I still wouldn't take it all back though.  I made a lot of good friends on this server and at it's early peak (before the first major wipe) it was a really fun server.

[hansmans]

im playing on essencero for a rely long time now and like it alot so why do you complain and stuff?

[MeowyMeow]

Because you're not in the WoE scene and other s***, obviously? I doubt you even know what's RCX, GRFing and other s***. Judging from your grammar and s*** in that post you made, I doubt you even visit the forums or do anything.

[hansmans]

sorry

[DeadOwnz]

yea im in the woe scene, i woe with symp but i know the GM's are lazy and some are defiantly curropt but u can go onthe serer and ask if anyne has been banned for GRFing its not like they let it slide, it just a hard thing to catch.
As far as RCX i wont go into that because its just for people who lagg with effects.
And woe about breaking more???
Obviously u dont 2.0 where real GVG goes down.
Ill give that to 1.0 thou.. 1.0 is all about breaking.

[Judgement]

I like where this thread is going.

[Envirotologist]

yea im in the woe scene, i woe with symp but i know the GM's are lazy and some are defiantly curropt but u can go onthe serer and ask if anyne has been banned for GRFing its not like they let it slide, it just a hard thing to catch.
As far as RCX i wont go into that because its just for people who lagg with effects.
And woe about breaking more???
Obviously u dont 2.0 where real GVG goes down.
Ill give that to 1.0 thou.. 1.0 is all about breaking.

Real GVG? mind explaining to me in depth of what exactly do you see in that 1 hour of 2.0? and I'll let the opinion of the people who GvG full time on WoE server contradict yours.

[scenestar]

i remember my times in essence. players are somewhat rude. and gms ignores me most of the time. they enjoy talking with donators or veterans of the game. it is like a 5 months ago since i quit.

[andykho]

Yeah the server sucks a lot. There was a time when I was chatting with the GM. I was asking some basic questions and they replied 'NO, GET OUT. YOU ARE NOT WORTH IT2x'. Well, all I can say is that, the server sucks, the self-dedicated nerf-ing sucks, the GM sucks, the community sucks. I think they should rename their server to SucksRO, that's much better. The server is surely doomed to fail, the clock is ticking.