I'm sure a lot of you here have heard of the server "FrozenRO" and how it's one of the few non-transcendant servers out there. A lot of people had high hopes of this server, but there were a lot of problems since the very begining of the server. Since then, the server only seemed to get worse, and very little was being done about it.
The ServerAt the begining of the server, people who had played FrozenRO and RetRO before the wipe logged into their accounts they had back then, to find 1/1 novices wearing all their equipment. This was really imbalancing to the new players, since while some novices were running around wearing pupas, raydrics, high refined weapons and what not, they were just starting with knifes and cotton shirts. The really odd part about this, is that it wasn't the new players that complained the most, it was the old players from FrozenRO because their characters where deleted! In the end, the items that were on the characters were wiped, but the accounts storage remained intact, so people still kept a large amount of their equipment and items, and Scars refunded the old players with 3000 donation points. So, as an example, I kept all my knights gear from RetRO, got 30 OPPs, 30 OBBs and 10 Ocas, and 2 boxes of +10 Str Food. It was pretty imbalancing, even to the players who got compensated, and again people told Scars not to refund anyone cause it wasn't fair, but he still did.
The servers forums went chaotic at this point, and they went worse once people realised that, for a non-transcendent classic server (episode 7 or 8 if I remember, one of them) the warper warped you to every dungeon and town. Thankfully, the mobs that didn't relate to the episode were removed, but the NPCs were in. This meant that virtually everyone on the server did every single exp quest, and the GMs finally decided to remove it, but it was too late then. Nearly everyone had an alt in the 80's through quests alone, usually first classes as well who were 8x/4x. This really eliminated the point of people grinding, and for the people who didn't want to do the quests, a good majority of them ended up leaving the server.
In addition to this, unfair donation items were added. There were boxes which gave OCAs, Boxes of +10 stat foods (It wouldn't be as bad if people could make food, but..) and there were reseting items. (We had an NPC for a ONE TIME reset below level 80, but anyone who hit 99 could just donate and reset to a more WoE suitable build) A lot of people expressed their views, but the GMs didn't change it, regardless of everyone pretty much stating that the donations were unfair.
The only thing keeping the community playing was WoE. But even then, the GMs did something stupid and before it even started players didn't bother. They decided to have 4 WoE days, 2 of them in a completely different timezone. The server barely has 40 players on regulary, and there were 4 WoEs. A lot of people told the GMs to change it to 2 because there weren't enough players for even one. The head GM decided to keep it in the end, completely ignoring the players.
The Community and GMsThe community overall was friendly and nice, but naturally with trolls and idiots. Sadly, it's displayed otherwise on the servers forums. A few of the people who post there are trolls who left the server with nothing better to do or forum bots, although there are the nice people who respond to questions that are on the forums from other players.
The GM team is.. quite something. There are 2 active GMs, GM Neko and GM Fifthy, who are both nice and try their best to answer to any questions or suggestions the players have. GM Neko does seem to ignore some of the players though, such as with the WoE issue. he has listened to a player over a debate over the GTB card and removing the quests, but that seems to be it. Apart from that, he is a decent GM, he knows his way around the server and knows enough to get the job done. GM Fifthy is one of those GMs where she takes her job seriously but has a laugh during it. She is often sitting in prontera, joining in our conversations and just having fun, but when she isn't around she is most likely working on the server. These two are almost always available, but I don't see much of Neko because he lives in a timezone where when he is on, I'll be asleep ;_;
The Admin of the server, Scars, is actually never around. He stopped logging in once he had set up everything related to the donations, and people have naturally assumed he only cared about the donations. He doesn't even bother looking at the forums or even at the frozenRO website, because there are pornographic pop-ups on both of them and have been for a while now, and he doesn't even have any input to what the GMs are deciding to do on the forums. Everyone knows he is working on his other server, burnRO, but it would be nice if he even bothered with this server instead of leaving it up to the other GMs.
The GMs haven't held any events apart from the race to 99 event, where the first 3 people got donation points. The old event GM, GM Andy, held one event, but as I wasn't there I can't comment on it, but many people said that their skills were ruined because of it. He was then removed from the GM team because he was lazy, kept spamming skills in town, kept going into PvP and killing everyone, and was just a nuisence overall. Probably one of the best decisions by the GMs in my opinion
Game-PlayThe economy is pretty atrocious. In the vending area, there is a lot of junk that is extremely overpriced due to some players making money of the enchanted peach tree drops. Very few players actually buy these items due to these high prices, and just end up hunting them, so supply and demand is pretty low. It's pretty easy to make zeny for archer classes as they can go to peach trees by level 50 or so. Cards are gained mostly through OCAs which donators have used, and they just flood the market.
The guild competition aswell is pretty atrocious. At first, it looked like a lot of people would WoE, but people began leaving before WoE and then when it came around, Aesthetic (a guild there who had 17 players on during WoE) ended up spliting into two groups to make their own competition. When we reformed half way through, we got attacked by about 10 people intotal throughout 3 guilds, and even then those 3 fought with each other and barely made it to the emp room. Aesthetic has kept both castles without much problems, and as each day goes by it's hard to see any more competition coming up.
The balance with the server is also not as good as it could be thanks to the +10 stat foods. There are wizards with insane cast times and damage and hunters with insane ASPD and Damage, while the other foods don't really benefit the other classes much for it to be imbalancing.
______I'm not out to bash the server or give it a negative reputation, I am stating my experience as I was there and the events that occured during my time there. I've noticed in a lot of the threads that you should come with proof to show what you say is true. My proof is the other players and the forums. Unless they deleted the posts and threads, what I have said should be there. The server was good at first, everything seemed okay, but it's just become another RetRO; The idea was great, it was executed poorly.
If you want to know anything more, just say and I'll explain it in more detail. Thank you for reading.
For GMs from the server reading this, my username is Mana, just to stop any of this "You played the server once and probably got banned blah blah blah" crap that I've been seeing lately. I'm not banned from the server or anything, on the contrary, I'm infact quite active.
