Leika-RO

[Susurro]

I'm just going to skip introducing myself, since it doesn't really contribute to the review. The majority of people here are veteran RO players, playing on and off since the beginning, myself included. So as far as validity goes, the only relevant thing that I need to say is that I have played and enjoyed many servers, both private and official, low rate and high rate.

TL;DR Overall Score
Leika-RO is an amazing server already, with the potential to become the best renewal server out there. There aren't many bugs to begin with, but if you run into any they get fixed and implemented on the next maintenance. GM's are available and listen to feedback. There is continuous innovation and updates. The people are kind, the focus is on playing in groups and there are no silly customized things such as narutowings. It is also impossible to pay 2 win, as getting anywhere in this server requires teamwork.
The only downside is the slow rate in which the population is growing. For me to enjoy a server fully, and for the server to thrive, there has to be a big playerbase. Preferably one that keeps growing. To which this review can contribute if people realize what a great experience this server offers.

Let's get on with it

Server

Stability 8/10
As far as server stability goes, I rate the server pretty high. There have been little crashes every once in a blue moon, which never lasted long as the admins are always available on IRC. The longest I have gone without being able to play was probably 2 hours, which was a very welcoming change so I could do some house chores and cleaning for once. Since the hardware upgrade I haven't run into any downtime, which gives the impression that the server is really trying to be here for the long run, since they actually invest in new servers to keep the server running smooth and steady.

Lag 9/10
I am lucky to blessed with an amazing connection, and hardly ever have lag in anything I do. This also goes for playing on Leika-RO. No lag, not ever, and that while the server is half the world away from my location. Another thing which makes this easily noticeable is the way monsters behave and how they chase you. There is no delay kiting or mobbing, making it fluent and smooth, a very pleasant feature.

Updates& Version 9/10
The server is so up to date, there is (official) content I have never seen before. Scary and exciting for an established player, to have that feeling of discovering new things again, something I haven't gotten from any RO server in a long time. Furthermore this server has actual developers, who know their way around RO scripting and everything technical that I do not know about. These devs are responsible for a constant stream of updates, fixes, patches, changes, and server maintenance. They put so much effort into improving the server, the only way their hard work can boost the server is up. You have to realise that having actual devs who can tweak and work on Ragnarok is a really rare thing, let alone devs actually involving their players, listening to feedback, and putting (almost full time) working-hours into the server.

Bug Fixes 9/10
Everyone hates running into bugs, no matter how game breaking. When running into a bug or glitch in Leika-ro, all you have to do is take note of the circumstances, describe the bug on the Bug Tracker forum and magical pixies will fix these bugs in the next maintenance (or the following maintenance). But seriously out of the few bugs I ran into, 9 out of 10 were fixed in the next maintenance with the remaining bug fixed in the maintenance after that.
I shouldn't have to mention how this is one of the best features of the server. Seriously think about it. Bugs actually get Fixed.

Community
As the more technical part of Leika-RO scoredvery high in my review, the community leaves a little more room for improvement.

Players 6/10
The server has peaked a little over 200 players. Right now there is a stable playerbase of 125-175 people. With the majority of players being helpful and kind, there is still a lack of actual player numbers. An obvious point of improvement is attracting more players, one of the main reasons why I am writing this review. I play on Leika-RO, and I think the server has incredible potential having at least 3 developers who know Ragnarok inside and out. A server that keeps innovating is a server that stays alive for a long time. If you would play on Leika you would find that the many problems other servers have are simply being dealt with and solved on Leika.
The score is mostly based on playercount, something I want to see improved, rather than being based on the behavior or character of the players.

Helpfulness/ Friendliness 7/10
There are obviously people who keep to themselves or even rude players. But the majority of Leika are very helpful and friendly players. Even the worst and loudest players often hand out zeny and goods to new players, since their initial rudeness is just a shield from the kind soul they are inside. Next to the playerbase being helpful and friendly, there are also appointed community Helpers, which are sort of GM's, except without powers, purely online just to answer and help players who run into problems or questions. They're often willing to throw you some buffs too!

Organizing Parties/Instances 8/10
Leika is focused on players teaming up and playing in groups. There is often people searching or making parties in main chat for leveling, instances, mvping, or other activities. I've often reached out to people, and ended up partying up with total strangers who later turned into friends.

Forum 8,5/10
There is an active forum, that is always available when people need to be heard. It has crazy talented people, funny threads to keep you busy at work and it's active. The bug tracker is part of this and is in my eyes one of the best things on this server. (Since bugs actually get looked at and fixed, yes it feels good when you find a bug, post it, and it gets fixed. Gives you something to gloat about, look at me the bug-hunter, this should be the plot to an anime, ©)

PVP 6/10
There is a semi active Battlegrounds community, which consist of several players who always want to play BG, but are just waiting for some fresh PVP meat. There are often calls on main or via the BG shout system for players to join Battlegrounds. After which there are a few rounds of KVM/Flavius and sometimes Terra.

Pvp rooms occasionally have people in them, but with use of main chat it's really easy to get people to do some pvp.

War of Emperium is also enabled since two weeks. Two castles are enabled and are eligible for woe, one on Saturday for one hour, and one on Sunday for one hour. Right now it's pretty much two big sides clashing against each other, with several small fractions scattered in the middle. Since it just started there's not much to say about it yet.

Features
Just like any server, Leika has many features that make playing there more pleasant. It's easier to just look these features up on the serverpage on RMS, or even better the website itself. However there are somethings I want to highlight.

Ofcourse there is a warper, which is the perfect mix of functionality versus balance. You can warp to most places, but never to dungeon levels higher than level 1. Apart from mvp maps or dungeons, you can basically /memo everywhere, which is an outcome for supports making it easy to get to a map or place you want to grind.

CustomPets! Omg Wild Rose and Sedora pets, so adorable,  don't expect to get these easy though! You can even fill out your own Pet-talk lines and the GM's might implement them as the lines your pet will say when he/she becomes loyal.

There are items that I have never seen before, Gold/silver/bronze lockboxes, that you can open with keys that you can win from events or get from the cash shop. These boxes contain awesome goodies, including (custom?) equipment that are upgraded versions of outdated pre-renewal items. Whilst not giving anything overpowered that makes it pay2win.

Events
There are several automated events, which are always fun because many people join them and try to poke fun at each other. Next to that, Event GM's hold events almost daily and they are very diverse. They range from fun simple events, to extra-effort forum events. The best one I joined so far was a customized Hugel race.


Support

GM Team 8/10
The GM team is amazing. Dedicated, online around the clock and most importantly experienced and knowledgeable about the game. The only point of critique I could offer is that the more tech-savvy GM's aren't as experienced in the communication field as I would like to see from someone who works with players on a frequent basis. I do however have to admit that this is easily balanced by a Community GM (who in turn knows less about the game technicalities) and Helpers who are honestly always online and willing to provide useful and meaningful assistance.

Availability 10/10
GM'sand/or helpers are almost always present, be it in hiding or visible in Prontera. If by rare occasion you can't seem to reach a gm, which is almost impossible since you can @request and it gets a reply without fail within minutes. You can always reach the GM's on Leika-RO's IRC channel, who seem to have settled there and made it their "Come in and ask/flame/suggest/beg/criticize a gm anything."

Thank you for reading & maybe see you soon

P.S If you have never tried Renewal because you hate how they messed with your awesome classic Ragnarok nostalgia experience. I advice you to absolutely just try out renewal, it's still Ragnarok, it just evolved and become better. Yes I said it, and I used to intensely hate the thought of playing anything but classic.

Peace,

Susurro

[Terpsichore]

Thank you for going through the effort of writing this, seeing actual reviews is a rarity nowadays, and it's our first as well!

[Zhin]

Holy snickers, Batman.

Susurro, you kept threatening to write a review. I admit I had my doubts, but here it is in all its three page glory.

You and Riggs are my favourite people right now. Thanks for the positive feedback, man. I hope Leika can continue to be awesome for many moons.