Server: IntenseRo
Rates: 150x/150x/custom
3rd Class: Available
About Me:
I decided it's best to let you know a bit about me before you decide how legit and reasonable my opinions of this server are.
I've been in the Ragnarok scene for ~4 years on and off. I've played low rates, mid rates and high rates.
I've played heavily customized servers, played woe orientated servers, played non trans, trans and 3rd classes.
I've met lots of players from all over the world, I've been in plenty of guilds both bad and great.
After a break from Ro, I came back looking to enjoy the pvm scene again, to chill out, chat and enjoy myself in a server.
Reading IntenseRo's RMS player reviews and server description, it instantly caught my eye.
Friendly, full of quests, intense woes, very up-to-date with little or no down time and no wipes.
Here is my review of IntenseRo in detail for those interested in whether it's the server for them:
Server
Stability (8/10)
Server stability was definitely on the good side. Server was only down when they did updates such as for quests etc. The maintenance was always mentioned beforehand and players all (well the ones paying attention) were notified. Server downtime was minimal and this is a real highlight for the server. Didn't achieve the full 10 points as I did experience the rare lag spikes from time to time. They were rare, must have had about 2 or 3 in the 2 months I played on the server. Upon asking the GM what was causing the lag, their typical answer was, it's not the server, it's us. How many times have I heard that before? I don't even want to start on this, but anyway, thankfully these lag situations are rare indeed.
Availability (8/10)
Similar answer as above. Server was only down when they were making updates. Unforunately for me, a european player, most updates were done during european peak time. To define this more clearly, the server states they are international but the majority of players including the head GM are pinoys from the phillipines. So when the GM makes the updates, they make it when most of the pinoys are asleep, which is around 8-11pm GMT+0 time. So for european players, you'll probably be twiddling your thumbs more often. This isn't a GM problem though, not saying it's their fault. I just wanted to point out that fact to european players to expect more downtime than other players.
Community
Friendliness (1/10)
Is it ever acceptable to give 1? Ok I may have possibly gave them 1 because I was not in the best of moods with the server at the time. However, a score of 3 maximum would have been my rating had I not been so enraged when I wrote this review. It might be a culture thing for the asians/pinoys but they're a very close nit bunch. Anyone who doesn't speak their language is often ignored. They claim english is their 2nd language but a lot of the players would rather shun you then start up a conversation. Before I joined the server, this was one of the big parts I was searching for. They advertised to be friendly. The forum was reasonably friendly, the GMs were mad friendly. The server community ... here's an example of their community.
I started the server but I'm experienced enough to know how to level up without being dependent on anyone. However, it's never that fun grinding on your own. So I searched for a guild in forum, a pvm one. None were suggested, and when they were (a week later), they were people who didn't even bother reading what I wrote in the first place. Now an ingame story. I was reasonably high level and although I could level up on my own all the way to 150, it would be boring. I was in Abbey 3 and luckily found a rare party leveling up there. When I say found, I meant, I saw them leveling there. I decided to ask politely if I could level with them. The level range on this server is 30 so getting parties shouldn't be too hard. Their response would be censored here. Nice impression of the community right? You can say, well that's just 1 story or you can't use that story to talk about the whole server. True but most of the people there ignore me. I'm not even talking about afkers.
My experience: People chatting, I say hi, blanked. People walking around, i ask for help, blanked. People leveling in parties, can I join? blanked. People in pvp (not many pvp), I try to talk, killed and blanked. I go to woe (castle is pretty empty), try to chat because there's no woe active, blanked and killed instantly. The only time I never got blanked was when I put a request to a GM for help. I asked them a question and 2 correct replies came in 5 seconds. Unless you're pinoy, you won't make many friends on this server. To end this part, I'm not saying you won't be able to make friends, it's just more difficult on this server.
Eventfulness (5/10)
There's 2 hourly events, automated. Finding the Poring (searching and killing the correct poring) and Poring Race (betting on which poring will win). There's dodgeball, very rare, but people just abuse it dropping loot everywhere. The GMs do private events from time to time, and they're not too bad. I'm talking about the custom maps, custom quests finding the loot and npcs etc. They think outside the box, and do something different. The community as always will complain when it doesn't suit their mood. I think the GMs, sometimes, are too eager with their event prizes. They do a quiz or a game such as hide and seek but give out prizes worth a lot of money. In my opinion it affects the economy too much.
They also do something called Fortress Lords, which is just another name for GvG (guild vs guild). The GM recalls 2 guilds into an arena and they battle it out. Winner of "x" rounds wins. They do this monthly. A nice idea, except the woe competition ... or rather, the guild competition on this server is ... not that good. Could've said trash but that borders into flaming. This next bit might not be exactly true, I was only told this by someone, so I may not have any base to tell but like they say, no smoke without fire. The guilds on this server aren't exactly big, so when I see guilds doing FL that are maxed out in sizes of 40ish. Something isn't quite right. A player on the server told me that when FL happens, the GL will just recruit randoms/friends/available players just to fill out their size. So as not to get out numbered or muscled by the enemy. This is what I've been told by someone who knows the guilds on the server better than I do.
I really do digress, but if you like quizzes, hide and seek, poring games, poring race, custom events etc, events do exist.
Game Master
Friendliness (8/10)
Very friendly (but then again they have to don't they? keep up the player-gm relations). I've no problem with their friendliness. They're very helpful and are glad to help when they're online. They're also probably the most talkative or active in the forums too. I know being active in the forum is part of their job. They welcomed me in my introduction thread. Well they kind of swarmed me in that thread as they do in all the other introduction threads. More GMs than players welcome you (not always true) but in this case it was.
Availability (5/10)
This isn't their fault. Just that I live in a time zone when most of them are asleep. I'm european. A lot of the time I'm online, they're not there.
On weekends when I can play longer, they are around. So for the asian community, they're pretty active (I hope).
Helpfulness (8/10)
Very helpful. I requested assistance, replies came instantly. They're always patrolling the main towns, making their presence known. They have a few rules which I don't fully agree on, however that's not for this part. I might not even mention it at all to be honest. Overall, most impressed by the GMs of the server. However, I haven't seen them in dealing with problematic cases. What I mean is, I haven't fully checked whether they do all their jobs correctly (dealing with bugs, dealing with possible ks/scam/difficult issues, etc) so I may not have seen their full capabilities yet. I don't know how fair/competent/corrupt they are from the 2 months of playing.
Game-Play
Economy (1/10)
Atrocious. As the server has 3rd classes, getting +7 equips is a safe refine. Prices here, for example, feather beret seems to sell at 15~25mil. A +7 would sell at ~25mil. No one sells +8s. +9 is about 40~45mil. And +10 is about 150~180mil. Whereas if you want to buy an mvp card (there are lots around) such as deviling, you would have to pay in the region of Ts, which stands for token. Each token is worth approximately 24mil. The deviling card is around 680T. You may argue on my prices here, but this is about my experience, not yours. This works out to be:16,320,000,000. Yep. 16 billion zeny for a deviling. A slotted +9 ice pick is worth around 400mil. An abysmal knight card is worth 4mil. These are some random prices I've plucked from the game. The extremes can be seen. Economy is highly unstable, especially at the top end.
Guild Competition (1/10)
Server has 3 main guilds. Apologies to those I offend by not calling them a main guild. Of those 3 main guilds, 2 of them play 3rd classes only and the last plays trans only. Competition is close to zilch, nil, nada. My last woe on this server, the trans guild was practically standing in the same spot from start to finish. No one came at them, not because they were scared. There just weren't any enemies. You could point to the time slot. Or maybe it's not a good woe day. Actually, IntenseRo has many woe days and times to try to suit everyone. Which is why when you go to woe, sometimes it looks pretty empty. The important word here is sometimes. There's always 1 or 2 guilds around, but the competition is dire compared to what I've experienced in the past in past servers. If you are looking for a server with good competition, this isn't the one contrary to what other people from the server would say.
There's only 2 proper 3rd class guilds. In terms of competition, one of them streamrolls the other constantly.
There's only 1 (or 2) proper trans guilds. Again competition is very low.
Don't come to this server expecting action packed "intense" woes.
Class Balance (1/10)
The MVP cards, the 3rd class skills, the +10 equips that most vets of the server have.
New players starting out, and even intermediates will not have any MVP cards. Most of the time it's the vets.
They won't just have 1 or 2. If you're talking about guilds, collectively they have about 30+ (they'll never admit it and play it down).
They play 3rd class characters with pre-renewal system, just saying.
I'm not a trans-lover-3rdclass-hater. I joined with an open mind to experience the 3rd classes on intensero and combined with the equips and cards available, I haven't been impressed.
Rangers killing most MVPs in a couple of seconds. Killing big mvps in under a minute.
ET finished in under 2 hours from start to end.
Guilds wiped clean thanks to mvp-rich-guilds.
Overall Statement:
After playing IntenseRo for 2 months, I've played it long enough to make a reasonable judgement on the server. It didn't live up to expectations. A lot of the RMS reviews from other players about IntenseRo were overhyped. Community was really poor. Very very poor.
The server boasts having up to 500 online at a time.
That's only if you want to count all the vendors online.
If the GMs want to argue this with me, go ahead, you only want to defend the reputation of your server, I understand.
In my honest opinion, server has around 150 online at a time, which is still a good amount.
When GM events (the on-the-spot-ones) are made, usually a good 10~30 participate.
All my opinions and points above can easily be countered and argued.
This review was my opinion of a server that I had high expectations but had been severely let down.
The GMs have done a fabulous job (not being sarcastic here).
The ones who have let the server down is the community and if it continues like this, I don't see a future in the server.
I could rant about the community in more depth in another 5k word essay but that would only bore you as you probably get the gist and my point. I would like to finish by saying, of course not all the community in IntenseRo are bad. I did meet a couple of friends and joined a guild of nice people. The GMs seemed really nice and helpful and I was able to meet some european and US players too. These people are rare in the server. Would be like finding a card in a low rate server (don't bother asking what rates lol). It was these people that kept me playing an extra month after I decided to leave.
However, being unsatisfied, I decided to leave IntenseRo on bad terms.
Although I was really pissed off when I gave it the initial review and ratings, everything I wrote above is my story and opinion of the server (maybe apart from the bit I called it a rumour, but that was told to me).
This doesn't mean, I'm telling you not to join. Far from, you're free to join any server you want.
It's definitely a server more suited to a certain group of people. What group you ask?
That's for you to decide after reading my review.
Hopefully I won't have to write another server review so dissected with distaste and hate in the future.
