Ragnarok Reborn deserves a chance :o

[Hell if I know]

I'm usually really harsh on servers and it's pretty rare for me to actually go out of my way to praise one like this. I really want this project to succeed though so I'd like to bring Ragnarok Reborn to everyone's attention and share my experience with it. The server is pretty much nearly perfect with the only exception, you guessed it, of population. Normally I would've left by now but that'd just be part of the problem. This server is something else, and deserves a chance.

The main point of the server is to have a pre-renewal, trans server updated to the latest renewal content, with everything being converted into pre-renewal. That said though, it plays just like a regular trans server to me, just with the ability to explore a few new areas and get some equip that is skillfully and properly balanced to work with 99/70 trans classes. That said not all new content is for higher levels, you are given somewhat easier acces to new world and renewal places some of which are balanced for earlier levels.  Do not be fooled, this is NOT a renewal server and it never will be. The renewal to pre-renewal conversion of content is slow but surely happening, and each new piece of equipment is discussed upon before implementing it.

The server has many small quality of life improvements but nothing game breaking: Town warper for a fee, Expensive as s*** resetter so that mistakes are allowed but you cant abuse it for every single situation you're in, Jobchanger for a fee, some Monster hunting quests, Inn healer moved closer to Kafras (still the same price at high enough level).

The Staff: Eclipse, the admin, is really passionate, hard working and most importantly is not your average immature/clueless GM who got a server up and running just because it's so easy to do so these days. He seems to be very knowledgeable and mature. He speaks proper English. I did a bit of research and he's obviously put time and effort into researching things and seeking opinions for the server. There are regular updates each week during scheduled maintenance that are usually 1 hour long. Any other problem that might rise up gets hotfixed almost instantly. He's very active, hard working and competent. He seems to have a good idea of how to balance things for 99/70 trans and how to deal fairly with people. That's pretty rare. Comes off as fairly professional overall. I just feel he needs to spread the word more and possibly spend some more money in advertising.

Rates - Base: 5x / Job: 5x / Consumables: 3x / Equip: 5x / Cards: 10x / Card-based: 3x / MVP drops: 1x Not much to say. Card drop rate was increased to 10x recently as a way of stimulating the economy and it kinda worked, way more cards on the market now and I feel 1 in 1000 kills is reasonable. Leveling is a bit easier than you'd expect since there are turn-in quests on top of the 5x rate, however, there are no battle manuals or bubble gums, which is a plus if you ask me. If you know what you're doing you can get to lvl ~90 in like a couple days, and hunting stuff doesn't feel too bad with 10x card drop. It's pretty reasonable and satisfying.

Economy - Used to be problematic with everyone wanting to buy everything and too much Zeny around and no one selling stuff, especially cards, towards the beginning. It's fairly okay now, you can find useful stuff in shops pretty frequently. Money is not useless. Some pretty good zeny sinks: Socket enchant, Spy quest, Hidden armor stat enchants, expensive resets.

Events - None of that automated soulless bs. There's only been a halloween event so far, which involved a major update, several new (harmless) headgears, a Zombie survival arena, special Jakks spawns on every map and stuff like that. From what I can tell events will be based on holidays or time of the year, season or whatever coming with a specific update with new, temporary scripts for each one of them. That's much better than having automated events.

Donations - Incredibly balanced. I think Eclipse was considering not having any donations at all, but ultimately realized there's no point in advertising the fact that you have no donations because servers that do that don't particularly stand out or anything. The donation items are either statless costumes, or some of the headgears we usually see up for donation in other servers BUT here's the catch: those with stats are nerfed to the point where they are actually worse than in-game items. (IE Robo eye only gives 1 def and no stats, Little angel doll is only +2 dex, etc) Donating should be done to support the server and not to buy better equipment. In general, not just regarding donations, all items are reasonably balanced. This server nails it.

PVP/WOE - We've only had one WoE so far but it was pretty healthy. 3-4 guilds around, only one castle open at the moment, in Pront. Personally it motivated me to farm more and get ready for the next one. Sometimes people would go to the pvp room (easily accessible and you can see the pvp player count in every town) after woe. Would be even better with more people. WoE was made easily accessible to everyone with some very sub-par, basic rental gear as it was the first WoE of the server. Again all items are VERY reasonably balanced/nerfed. (These are only available during WoE)

In general I feel like the administration has a pretty good idea of what is balanced for a 99/70 trans server in terms of equipment, we are all very wary of the OP s*** that comes with new world/renewal so I'm glad its taken care of properly. Each single stat or slot increase is reviewed and discussed upon multiple times with community feedback being considered, but at the same time not bending to every player's request.

Now the problem and message I'd like to get across:

The population. It's stuck in the 70~100 player+vendor nonsense that might discourage some people from joining. Some people quit because the population is low, and the population is low because some people quit. Yeah. bs. That said we still get some new people here and there sometimes, so if people would just be patient and stop the endless cycle of quitting, we would just have people.

This is the ONLY non-pinoy based server that isn't customized up the a$$. It deserves a chance. Don't let the "renewal to pre-renewal" stuff throw you off because as much as I'd never touch renewal with a ten foot pole it doesn't have much of an impact here and it's properly being implemented in pre-renewal terms.

We as a community are hoping to spread the word a bit more and our experience with this server, it's your typical "everything is nearly perfect except it needs more people" scenario.
So, I'd like you guys to check it out with an open mind, the admin has recently expressed interest in keeping the server running AND up to date each week for a long time. We welcome newcomers. This server is something else, a hidden gem in the rough. Hard to find anything like this these days. It's kinda heart breaking to see something like this not get enough attention while some openly corrupt and pay to win servers get 1000s of people. What the hell is wrong with this world.

Keep in mind that I haven't covered every aspect of the server in this review as I'm doing this by the seat of my pants, I'm welcoming anyone from Ragnarok Reborn to add more if possible.

[Viridithon]

This server is pretty chill IMO. Not a ton of censorship on #main so long as it stays civil and respectful. Please, share your favorite alcohol with us (if you're of drinking age)! Laugh at all the jiggly bits on the sprites (keep it respectful)! And do share the color of your socks too. Our community is one of the best I've seen from a server and I've played quite a few. Just remember to use English on #main to the best of your ability. If we can figure out what you're trying to say, your English is good enough! Other languages are allowed elsewhere though too, just not #main.

There's the feeling of competition in the race to be geared and finding good drops, but it's not in your face and you're not really discriminated against for wanting to play casually or overly competitively. Play the classes you like rather than just what's popular! We're thinking up ways of being more "eventful" and more inclusive for new players too. Come join us on the forums and put your 2 cents in.

Contrary to what our OP said, resets aren't stupidly expensive at the lower levels if you, say, decide at the last minute to change what class you're going for, just late game when you're all set to go. Resetting my Swordie's skills for a last minute change from a Sader-to-be to a Knight-to-be at 64/47 only cost me 37.5k. Maybe a good chunk of change for a new player depending on where you level, but it's certainly not out of reach. I haven't needed to reset anything high level, but that I hear actually can get expensive to prevent people from just switching builds every time WoE comes around.

The OP was a pretty thorough review. Just be aware that you'll probably still have to do a fair amount of hunting yourself.

Edit: Whoops, forgot to change one of the @'s to an # to reflect the actual usage.

[XSquare]

Well, I share most of that the OP said so there is not that much I can add. I really want to spread the word about this server because it is sad that we have such a low pop (60 - 100 players) given the quality of the server.

My overall experience in this server has been really good, I haven't seen such a good server in a while! The admin Eclipse seems passionate and dedicated and, most importantly, he seems to know what he's doing. One of the unique features of the server is that renewal content has been adapted to pre-re keeping balance between old and new content, which is pretty cool! Other features include Warper and Job Changer for zeny, which was intended to be in such a way that you have to travel and do the quests with your first char as in the old days. Still, if new players ask by chat there is always someone that pays it for them  , the community is also a big plus!

My suggestion would be that if you are looking for a new server take a look on this one! If we manage to gather some more people passionate about RO this would be nearly perfect! ^^

[HollyDolly]

I agree with this. The server is awesome, and all it needs is for more people to join. Everyone is really friendly, and the players that are here are very helpful to new comers. My experience so far is:

Economy: OK as far as I can tell. Lots of vendor's in Prontera that sell all manner of items at competitive prices. Is very affordable for new comer's to have what they need here.

Community: Everyone is super nice and friendly. If you need any help, there is always someone there to show you the way or help you fix an issue. Players here from what I can tell are quite nice and I've not seen any drama or toxicity in main chats. GM staff is very active and friendly.

Game Play: It's great. I love the 5/5/5 rates because it gives the feel of an old school low rate, without being too low. MVP and boss rates are set to 1x which is nice because it means the market isn't flooded with rare equipment that players should hunt and strive for. MVP gear is supposed to be end game, or rewarding and on so many server's that feeling is gone. There is a job changer and a warper, but it's not like how most server's have one. The job changer is balanced, and set up in a way that new comer's are encouraged to do job change quest's before accessing the job changer which I found rather unique and nice. The warper is a special kafra that takes you only to town's at a cost similar to Kafra services. I think it works really well, and it's nice to see a Kafra NPC being used in such a way as it blends in with the lore of the game. I haven't had to use the Resetter yet, but the prices on the Resetter are tiered and the NPC is implemented in a very balanced way. The healer is basically the Inn keeper, you pay her to heal you and the higher level you are the more expensive it gets, very balanced.

Content: Lots of nice content, and is up to date. There is also monster hunt NPC that randomly assigns you a monster to kill based on your job level range which is nice and unlike most server's it does not ask you to kill an insane amount of monsters for a lackluster reward. Some dungeon entrances also have NPC's which give you quest's to do which are relevant to the dungeon you're in, such as monster hunting. The only thing is I wish these dungeon NPC quest's were repeatable. There is a lot of nice aesthetic item's, and headgear's that are not overpowered or unbalanced in any way. I like how the pre-renewal is set up with the renewal content in a way that it fits the lore of the game. The monster's and items have not become unbalanced, but instead are specifically made to blend in with the pre-renewal classes and leveling system. The admin's have done a great job at implementing this and I couldn't be happier. So many server's out there don't go to great lengths and attention to detail in this area. I am still discovering what this server has to offer, there is just so much!


Donations: Not pay to win. As other reviewer's have said it is extremely balanced. The items in there are not going to make you better than players who don't donate. It's set up in a way that donation is purely for those who wish to support the server and not have an advantage over other players. The vote point shop is also very balanced, offering items that are useful yet not unbalanced. There are no cheat items or field manuals.


My conclusion is that this is a very fun server with a nice community and lots to do to keep players busy. It does get quiet at times, but hopefully that will change as more new people join us and play! All I can really say is, if you are looking for a up to date and balanced low rate server with an authentic feel to official RO without all the gimmicks then come to Reborn. The admin is very active and the server is getting even better as user's participate in which features should be added.

[snakeside]

A lot of the posts above mine have already stated all the good things about Ragnarok Reborn.

I usually never bother with low population servers, and just hop to another one if the population of a server is not high enough. But not for Ragnarok Reborn. Similar to the people who have expressed their opinion in this thread, I am staying in the hopes that the server will grow in population.

I have also met other people in the server who have the same sentiments as I:
"I don't usually bother to vote, but I vote so we can get more players."
"I never wrote an RMS review. It's my first time to write a review because I really want to server to be succesful"

With all the things said in this thread, I believe Ragnarok Reborn is worth staying for 

[Yuzo]

sounds like it's a nice server. if it gets more players hope not too much toxic. your poor community would get devastated

[tnznt]

Completely agree with almost everything said there.

The community is awesome!
Once I play enough I'll also do a review.