FrozenGladeRO - In-Depth Review

[narukagami]

FrozenGladeRO Review
RMS listing: http://ratemyserver.net/index.php?page=detailedlistserver&serid=2416&itv=6&url_sname=FrozengladeRO

Rates: 1000/1000/50/1 (base EXP/job EXP/drop/boss card drop)
Max Level: 99/50, and 99/70 for advanced classes | Max Stats: 99

I've played on FrozenGladeRO for over two years now, and it has recently wiped as of June 8, 2008. Although parts of my review may still be influenced on pre-wipe, I feel that this is still very accurate.

Server - Stability: 10/10
While playing on FrozenGladeRO, I have rarely experienced any form of crash, freeze, or intolerable lag. This made for very smooth game-play even during the hecticness of WoE or graphic-heavy maps (Yuno, Lighthalzen, etc.)

Server - Availability: 10/10
FrozenGladeRO is online 24/7. Again, I've rarely experience any downtime here.

Although recently there had been a few server-side problems unabling players to connect, this has since been fixed by Fen, the Admin. And the server was back online in no-time - which is really reassuring.

Community - Friendliness: 8/10
This is one of the server's assets, and 'Community' is FrozenGladeRO's middle name. Both in-game and on the forum, the community atmosphere is pleasantly familiar. Even when I was a new player, I didn't have a hard time finding a place here.

What I have encountered across FrozenGladeRO are some of its many skilled players. Which I consider to be a rare finding. This has created a viable sense of competition in PvP, and is definitely another asset of the server. I've picked up many tips and tricks off the other players here, and more and more people continue to experiment with different stat/skill/equipment combinations and strategies.

Although, on the other hand, there will always be a few "stupid" players who seem to be bent on nothing but to annoy you. These are, thankfully, easily shrugged off and ignored.

One more thing that I feel is important to be noted: the majority of FrozenGladeRO's population speak either English, Tagalog (or possibly other Filipino dialects), or Spanish. In the past, I have also seen players from Brazil, Poland, France, and Germany.

Community - Eventfulness: 8/10
I, personally, don't take part in events. This is purely out of play-style preference, and not because they aren't fun or worthwhile or anything. I do have some credible input, however...

Major events (these usually involve in-game competition, ie. limited party member PvP or GvG), are well-thought out and have a topic posted in the forum well-beforehand. This gives players the opportunity to plan ahead, post their opinions on the details of the event, and maybe even suggest a thing or two. These events usually occur once a month, and the prizes won are often very rare.

Lesser events (these usually involve just for fun games, ie. hide and seek, quizzes related to RO, etc.), always keep players engaged with the server. I consider these to be more of a relaxing and mellow mood where players just have fun and might even get a good laugh out of it. These events usually occur quite often ranging from daily to every other day depending on GM activity, and the prizes won are often very useless.

Game Masters - Friendliness: 7/10
Friendliness is definitely an important quality in GMs, but I don't feel that rating this quality is entirely necessary compared to availability and helpfulness. Nonetheless, the FrozenGladeRO staff are very friendly. They spend a lot of their time interacting with the other players in-game and on the forum. They can be cold at times, which is to be expected as they are almost always busy with other players, though they make up for it in the next two ratings.

Game Masters - Availability: 8/10
I made this rating quite a while ago, and if I were to change it now I'd make it a 9/10. The FrozenGladeRO GM Team have definitely upped their activity, and I see at least two online everyday. They'll broadcast server-wide when they come online making it easy for players to find them. And making it even easier, players can post on the forums for an even quicker reply from a staff member.

Game Masters - Helpfulness: 10/10
Absolutely wonderful. The FrozenGladeRO staff are very experienced with the RO world, and at least two of them are skilled with source scripting. Definitely a great asset to the server. And when you have a question or problem, you'll always receive a satisfactory answer from a GM.

Also, having GMs specializing in different language support is definitely useful for such an international server as this.

Game-Play - Economy: 7/10
I admit, I've never understood the economy on this server. It's always changing and it changes in extremes. People will sell you completely useless items, then another time they'll sell everything you need. Vending prices will drop significantly, then rise ridiculously the next. Zeny is continuously losing and gaining value in-game, and I just don't get it.

Game-Play - Guild Competition: 8/10
As previously mentioned, there's a viable sense of competition on FrozenGladeRO. The PvP is quite fun, and the guilds here work together producing good defenses and attacks during WoE. I'd say the guild competition is pretty fair for the moment, and the rivalries are very clear. Although I'd like to see new guilds out there sometime.

Game-Play - Class Balance: 7/10
There's always been a few too many SinXs. That one is a given. Sometimes people don't understand the difference it makes for class variation. Although I do not believe that one class is significantly overpowered than another.

Other Comments:
I was delightfully surprised with this server. I grew up with a 2x/2x/2x server, and low rates were all I was interested in. Though when I come into a server like FrozenGladeRO, it becomes a completely different game with a completely different way of playing it. It's not about the grind anymore, it's more about the player-to-player portion of RO and I think that's a great way to approach a server. Having no custom items, it's still completely balanced as far as Gravity intended the game to be.

The @commands are very useful, and @autoloot is amazing. Other commands that I find myself using are @showexp (shows exp given from defeating a monster), @autotrade (keeps your character on Vending without needing to keep the program open), @duel (invite a player to a PvP fight which can be used in towns and fields), @whodrops (lists what monsters drop an item), @mi (shows a monsters statistics and drops).

Another thing I like about this server is how active and useful the forum is. It's definitely the place to go when I first get a problem or question. There's a marketplace and guild recruitment boards too.

I most certainly recommend this server for any type of RO player.

[jagiwe]

im also a Frozengladian 2 years or 2 years and half playing the server its fun challenging though i was scammed hacked by GM Infinitum when he still a lvl 70 gm >.> but i keep playing fg i was hacked 3 times makes wanna comeback ang player fg thats why im old in FG wish u luck Gm Fen i wish all the best im moving to another server >.>

[Dart]

I'll steal first post evaluation method >D

Server - Stability: 9/10
Except for some lag spikes, server tends to be very stable now... one of the bests cause most of the time the lag is 0

Server - Availability: 9/10
Is rare to see a shutdown of the server recently, only when they need to fix some problems... and is just a few minutes

Community - Friendliness: 6.5/10
I'm on the fence about this one, in one side, you will find lots of cool players to deal with. I'm pretty sure you can learn a lot about them and their styles of fighting, some of them are very friendly too. But in the other hand, you must be careful, not only with things that are part of the game like trashtalk and ganking, also you must watch your pocket and items, since maybe a player (specially those that comes from the Phillipines) will try to get your items by scamming.

Community - Eventfulness: 8/10
Depend on what kind of events you like and what are you looking for by participating. Minor events are kinda daily, but the prices aren't that great, those are the kind of events just for fun, if you like them then you will enjoy it. Major events tends to be monthly, and the prices are important too, if you're greedy, you maybe need to wait a bit, but they're awersome too.

Game Masters - Friendliness: 7/10
They're friendly, a few of them are constantly chating with the players in the main city and they always are helpful, there are others that are more shadow-workers, so don't espect too much sociabily from them, not because they're mean, is just that they don't chat too much.

Game Masters - Availability: 9/10
Very active, the people GMs are connecting daily, definitely in this apartment FG improves a lot compared to the before-wipe server.

Game Masters - Helpfulness: 9/10
This is the area where they improved a lot, we have specific GMs for specific areas, isn't a desorganized team anymore and they know a lot about RO too.

Game-Play - Economy: 7/10
Economy is kinda duh, but is like in every server, prices are adjusted in base in how useful the item is or how useful a player can make the item be. Usually you can find stuff for all kind of job in the market place, so you just need the zeny.

Game-Play - Guild Competition: 7/10
Actually there is zero guild competition, but that's because the server is kinda fresh so I'm not going to be hard on this one. Now, PvP really shines with the last changes, there are five rooms, each one with his own caracteristics. And since the drop of the boss and mini-boss cards was lowered to 0,01% (just like officials) there's no overpowered people, there's a room for non-trans fanatics and rooms where you can't use boss cards or potions. If you're a PvP addict, when the server grows a bit, you will enjoy at maximum, is one of the best things this server has.

Game-Play - Class Balance: 8/10
Thanks to the new drops and boss cards out from donations, there is a pretty good balance, of course there are classes that are a must from lots of people... but that's a part of the design of RO, like EDP Sonic Blow or Soul Destroyer sinX or Creators with Vanil homunculus, but now is very easy to deal with them without those overpowered stuff, the thypical unbeatable people or job of other private servers doesn't exist here.

Other Comments:
I will say... that I'm not a FG footlicker, I was one of the most critical players about this server, the old FG was completely screwed up with suck lame WoE, PvP rooms and totally unactive GMs. But the wipe changes everything, the new changes, the new GMs hired, removing some overpowered items from donation list, the new PvP rooms... every change (some of them was unespected for me) that was made after the wipe was wonderful.

Is a 99/70 server, so high rates, mid rates and low rates players can enjoy it... Join now!, you won't going to be dissapointed!

[ulzimate]

I'll give this a shot, too. I just wrote a review in the listing, but there wasn't enough room.

Server - Stability: 9/10
I'm in China at the moment, so I can't say anything about lag or the such about the server right this instant. However, for the past two years, there has been little to no lag for at least American players. Being in Asia is giving me a perspective on what kind of connection that S.E. Asians or Filipinos might have to the server, but on the whole it's still tolerable. There are rarely any server crashes or rollbacks that I am aware of. FrozenGlade has a great host that's based in Texas somewhere (I believe either Houston or Dallas). However, lag and crashes still do exist, rare as they are, so I can't really give a 10/10.

Server - Availability: 10/10
As mentioned, the server rarely crashes. The GMs were a little slow to upgrade and perform technical work in the past, so downtime for maintenance used to vary. After the recent wipe, updates were quick and painless, so there's nothing for me to complain about here. The 10/10 is well deserved.

However, a test server could be helpful to prevent bugs from occurring in the future, such as the PvP NPC not duplicating properly (even until this present day).

Community - Friendliness: 7/10
From an American's standpoint, the community is very mediocre. The server is comprised mainly of Filipinos (and when I say mainly, I mean 90%), and while I'm not trying to be racist, I wish there were more English players on this server. It becomes tiring when nearly everybody you meet is Filipino, as well as the fact that they try to speak to you with pure gibberish.

However, the overall skill level of the server, regarding PvP and WoE, is actually very high. Many of the top players in the server are from official servers, such as iRO and pRO, where I believe the best players originate from. Newer players learn how the professionals play very quickly, and thus PvP is very challenging at times. Every class has a few pioneers that used to or still create new techniques and utilize old ones, so every class is properly represented in PvP and WoE. Still, I'm not going to lie and say every player on the server is skilled.

Community - Eventfullness: 5/10
The majority of the events on the server are poorly thought out and held in a very lackadaisical manner. They usually have either poor, unimaginative prizes, or none at all.
There are larger events that are advertised on the forums, and those usually turn ont well. The prizes are serious and balanced (sometimes), the rules are clearly dictated, and the GMs are very serious in holding them.

Game Masters - Friendliness: 9/10
Most of them are very friendly and very willing to help out anybody in need ingame. On the forums, they may sometimes be sarcastic or demeaning, but very rarely. They're a huge improvement from past GMs, who were very self absorbed or very lazy.

Game Masters - Availability: 5/10
It may be that I'm in a poor timezone, but I rarely see GMs on, other than to quickly broadcast a message and log off or to hold a meager event. They occasionally log on to answer questions or to offer help, but much of the day can pass before a GM is spotted. The newer GMs don't seem to be given any information on what they're supposed to be doing, so they may be hanging out with friends instead of fulfilling duties. There's a slight improvement over the previous GMs, but not a great one.

Game Masters - Helpfulness: 7/10
The GMs are always willing to help or to address questions, provided that they're online in the first place. Inactivity is a major issue. Nothing else to say here.

I couldn't find a category to fit this in, so this is as a side note. The GMs don't always seem to be the "cream of the crop", if you will, so sometimes a GM that is picked may be inexperienced in their job or may not have a sufficient knowledge of the mechanics of the game. I'm personally extremely critical of GMs, so many people may not notice these issues in them.

Game-Play - Economy: 4/10
Even with max level 99, it's still a high rate server, so the economy is terrible. There are still a few bots that manage to bypass the anti-bot system. Also, @autotrade tends to set a trend of overpricing. The vending mall was a good idea, but there nobody abides by the organizational rules, which need to really be inforced. Also, @whosells (or whatever that command is supposed to be) would be a very helpful command to navigate the vending mall.

Game-Play - Guild Competition: 6/10
There is one dominant guild that dominates both WoE v1 and WoE v2. Even with the whole server against the guild, their emperiums are rarely broken (kudos). WoE would be more enjoyable with more guilds and players participating.

Game-Play - Class Balance: 9/10
The recent wipe brought everyone back down to the same level again. Donation was a large issue that contributed to classes becoming overly powerful, such as Berzebub cards for Mages. God items could even be donated for, but luckily few chose to partake in that endeavor. MvP and miniboss cards will be removed from the donation list when donation is enabled again, so nobody will be abusing full MvP sets in PvP anymore. MvP drops were also severely lowered, with their card drop rates lowered to .01%. The vast amount of Poison Bottles obtained from botting were wiped, so Assassin Crosses aren't as overpowered as before.


FrozenGlade is overall a much better place than previously. Fen actively updates now, constantly debugging and working out kinks in scripts. It's not completely updated in terms of eAthena versions, but it's still a good place to be.

If you're looking to learn more about PvP or WoE, this is definitely a great server to join...especially if you're Filipino. You'll fit right in.