A review for the mid-rate server, EssenceRO. If you are of a PVP type and love to talk smack, kill noobs, pick on friendly players, and everything else in the typical RO attitude of things- This server is for YOU, 100%,
If you're a more modest and mature player, you may want to continue reading my fair warning.
I'll start off with that from the outside looking into Essence, it seems like a fantastic midrate server. Full of unique customs, quests, and events. All custom headgear quests do require a lot of grind, but that's nothing to complain over. With just a first look on the website, you'll easily see over 1,000 online players. I'll warn you in saying that a good chunk of that is in vendors or those who dual client with tons of Alchemist's with Homuncs who camp area for items.... I witnessed myself one man with 10 Alchemists just to collect over 2,000 Blue Herbs.. Talk about a rich boy's lazy way of hunting. So with that, Essence's current player count is still well within at least 400 individual players. That's still impressive, but it loses points with me when such cheap things are allowed with alchemists. Morroc, Old Payon, Prontera, and Alberta are nearly always filled with the merchants in their allowed vending locations. You'll spot a few random vendors in other towns as well. This is both great at first, as you'll find many good and cheap items to buy for starting out. It becomes progressively worse when you can't even sell good items at cheap prices just to keep up with the community. I personally only believe the reason why Essence's community as spiked up in number is the half-implemented Third classes of Rune Knight, Guillotine Cross, Ranger, Warlock, and Arch Bishop. The server is loaded with Warlocks and Arch Bishops especially.
With such a large population I often experienced random little 2 second lag spikes every 2-5 minutes once the player count reached over 1,000. When it climbs higher the spikes become more frequent to the point where I can become randomly disconnected. Some people have this issue while others don't. I know it isn't my ISP as another server I play on with around 500 online people never gives me lag spikes. Though, this will still arguably be only my problem and not the fact the server of 1k average players, the website, and the forums are all hosted on 1 machine.. Just saying, maybe splitting up the load with the obvious nice amount of money from donates would be helpful to reduce server stress. So with that, Stability of the server for me was below average on such a hyped up server. Especially when they just moved to a great, new box.
The GMs of Essence, when they are in GM Mode, are very attentive and i'd say by far the more intelligent team i've seen together. I do believe they begin to fall down when it comes to actually enforcing much among players. I've seen even the great Tira fall to the likes of a 14 year old, which is odd when you see her conduct herself in a very mature and thoughtful way most of the time. I would honestly believe the GMs don't bother with players so much in game as they may be more helpful on the forums or IRC. I know they are human but I do believe there could be more done to create a more general-player friendly environment. They may be use to the rude names of players such as "I DONT LIKE FAT b****" announcing random things on the server constantly, not to mention the PVP-hyped up enthusiasts who begin to trash talk over the broadcast with a lot of vulgar language. If you're with your friends somewhere or even just in PVP and you use vulgarity, that's no problem with me as even I'll be immature and do it too at times. I don't need to be assaulted with random players provokes to other guilds on a broadcast though. I'm sure this turns away a lot of more modest players in the beginning. I do believe the GMs are above average but they do lack something in this department.
Working for your good gear makes it all the more worth while. The quests in Essence can keep you busy for a long time, especially with the very scarce information you'll find on them. I wouldn't recommend asking anyone in game as chances are, no one will answer you about anything. You may get lucky and find 1 kind soul out of 100 in the main hometowns of Payon or Prontera. The quests become down right tedious and much more of a zeny grind fest to buy the MVP items from players. It doesn't sound so bad right? I don't think so either, but when the average item you need goes for over 20mil a piece, one begins to wonder if it's even worth it. The easiest quests are Valkyrie Helm, Bee Wings, and Blue Butterfly Wings. I was lucky enough to find a site that featured information on most of the headgears of Essence, as the NPC's in game are not very informative. "Yeah bring me these items. Okay go see this npc, bye!" Not even a hint to the next location... That's extremely cruel to do when you want to encourage people to do the quests without having official information about them even allowed on the main website or forums. To improve that I would recommend actually including hints or directions in the NPC's to the next destination. The dialogues of most of the quest NPC's are extremely lacking in the originality department. Elemental Wings being one of the more original content. "Go find Violet" .... Okay I shall go search every single map to find 1 npc that you couldn't take 5 more second to type "She's usually lurking around a busy merchant town". Which narrows it down from 1,000 maps to about 3 without completely holding a player's hand through everything.
On the topic of gear, when you see +8 gear as the normal +'d equipment for sale, it gets discouraging. The more established players will have much more of an advantage. I often see Buying and Selling of many +9 and +10 Armor and Level 4 weapons. You can get Enriched Oridecon and Elunium but you have to be lucky enough to win mini game tokens for this, such as with the only way i now how is the Survival Arena. The Survival Arena is a nice idea of an auto running event, however it fills so quickly that you'll very rarely get a chance to get in. It's usually always the same people who do. If you are a donator you'll have much easier access to such things as tokens and what not, making the average player start to drop into the dull category. Then when these same people begin to trash talk you because you aren't as cool as them and their guild that donated over 500$ to the server.... Well I suppose you can see the problem I have.
WoE and PVP aren't as balanced as people would like to think here. Instant Cast is very common and easy to obtain and you have many caster classes ready to rip into you. Trying out both myself proved just how wrong my classic builds of a status hunter failed on these people. Immunity to statuses is easy achieved and cripples many more creative builds. You are forced to only go one way for pvp, and that is with a big guild to gang bang people in PVP itself. You may not want to enter until you have at least +9 Equipment with +10 of whatever weapon you will be using. My build was fantastic and so strong on monsters that I solo'ed anywhere I went. I feel like a Novice being eaten by Salamanders in the PVP and WoE maps. PVP is also on every MVP map, which is pretty bad. When it comes to some maps like Abey lvl 2, where you'd like to try and get some Tidal's to you know, catch up to the +9 wearers and all you do is get ganked by people who just like to be rude. What can you do about this? They're FFA maps, so anything goes. Even innocent training noobs in Toy Factory lvl 2, an ideal place for any new starting player, is FFA and often Rangers will come down there to kill everyone on sight. Pretty sad to see a big bad level 170 pick on a First Class player. But yet, these things continue and nothing will be done as only those who like a peaceful playing environment will really say anything. The GMs are in support of the more rude FFA PVP so that outranks everyone else.
I do not have screen shots as I believe anyone can try out this server and see all the points about it. The good and the extremely bad. Maybe I was terribly unlucky to not find friendly people to guild with or even just chat with. My second day, I helped out a few people in the guild of Zodiac Cross. The next day i'm just ragged on by 1 specific member for a good few hours before I finally defended myself. I conducted myself at first just in a joking manner but then I just became irritated as I was told I could be expelled. So, I and my friend excused ourselves from the guild. How much of it can you take with someone at first calling you a cross dresser, then you're gay, then that you have no life, then that you're lame, then that they know better than you.. for a good few hours? I think anyone would eventually defend themselves at that point.
There have been countless players that probably integrated well into this community. I'm an older player who just can't keep up with the times anymore. I can't keep going on and on with the insults and trashing in PVP. I can't grind for hours, code up a good bot, or multi-client myself. I believe every new player will have a small chance to get in good with the players here, but if you miss that chance it's gone forever. EssenceRO is a very difficult server to integrate into. No one wants to play as an outsider constantly but I became that way here. Unless you are one of those people who love conflict, dramatizing, and the rest of the PVP package, I recommend looking elsewhere for a server. EssenceRO isn't a place for older and more modest players. Perhaps that is just my opinion. EssenceRO's currently popularity streak has only been increased due to the implementation of the third classes, which is a very poor preview of them. I'd rather have full implementation with correct animations, job stat bonuses, and working skills then what EssenceRO offers for these classes.
As with Essence, I see the same patterns on every server. I believe the community of RO to be running bone dry of good, decent players and left many as just shallow individuals seeking virtual gratification. A sign to move on to better things. I've learned that no matter how good a GM team and how well a server is maintained, there is always corruption. There is always a seed of hateful players that spreads like the plague through the communities and all that's left is what you see today. A handful of still good people and the rest just rotten trolls ready to pounce on everyone.
Thank you for reading. You may reply any way you wish but I will not flatter anyone with an argument. My opinion will not change. I'm sure that no one will really bother to read this though. And one more person retires from RO. 1 Less number to make that player count look more special to others.
