Shining Moon RO

[eflow]

Since the last review for SMRO seems to be from Dec 2017, I thought I'd write a little blurb in hopes more people will join.

The Basics:

Stability   9/10:
The server is hosted in Canada (where I am) so I personally have very little lag. Other players from EU and SEA also seem to be playing fine. The dev is very dedicated and one of the occasions where the server went down, one of the GMs were able to call him and wake him from his sleep in order to get the server back on.

Staff   10/10:
Hands down the best Dev/GM team I've experienced. The dev, Lunar, is very competent and approachable. The GMs are super friendly and there's always at least one GM available.

Gameplay   9/10:
Shining Moon RO is a renewal server with a bunch of custom features, some of which are central and core to SMRO:

The World Gate System basically means SMRO has "realms" (currently there's Helheim and Niflheim). Each realm can be considered a separate server in that your char's class and items are separate. However, creating a character makes a character in all realms, aka your character's name will be the same. Also, the #global and #support channel are connected so players can chat across realms. You can change between realms ingame at anytime in any major town by using the World Gate NPC.

Helheim is the new realm that just opened (Feb 15, 2019) and is heavily based on kRO.

Niflheim is the older realm (year and half now?) and has a  kRO base with the addition of jRO and iRO items. Niflheim also has some of the more.. "custom" content like costume Naruto wings and a Soul System. Basically, Niflheim's power level in endgame is much higher than Helheim/kRO.

The looting system has been completely re-hauled and is affectionately called Looting System 2.0. There are two major components to this system: basically, it makes partying beneficial in terms of looting and gives a bonus to drop rate if your character chooses a lower Exp Rate. You can visit the wiki for more details.

That brings us to the Player Chosen Exp Rate feature. On SMRO, you can choose your base and job rate from 1x to 100x (can be changed at anytime). Why would you choose a lower rate? Well, if you manage to level your character to lvl175 using 1x rate for example, that character will receive a permanent 50% boost to drop rate (think: weaker bubblegum). You can also choose other rates like 2x, 5x, 10x, etc etc. This is a pretty fun feature imho though its not advised to make a 1x character as your first one.

The last core feature that I'll touch on is the World Boss. This feature summons a World Boss on a special map whenever the realm's mobkills reaches 150k. There are 7 unique world bosses and each world boss has its own skillset and shtick. When the WB spawns, players on the realm will receive a notification and can go to the special map via NPC or command. All damage to the WB is tracked and when the WB is killed, players will receive special rewards via RODex (the mail) based on their damage ranking.

This is a pretty cool feature as its a source of competition, but for PvM! Also, the rewards are great as they include some nice gears, currency, or refining materials. Newbies are able to participate too as players will receive a rewards as long as they deal one damage. (Your character have to be able to actually deal that one damage though... look up the world bosses and don't use neutral attacks on Ghost 3 please.)

There are a LOT more features ranging from the common (Healer, Warper, custom town) to less common (World Drops, Instance UI). The plethora of features is sort of a downside to new players as the initial learning curve is steep. Heck, I didn't realize there was an Instance UI until a month after I started playing!

Economy and Cash Shop   8/10:
The economy is pretty good as zeny is valuable as its used in a variety of ways (good zeny sinks). Market prices are fairly stable though it might be hard to find people selling basic gear on Niflheim. As the older realm, Niflheim is full of end-game gear though they command an end-game zeny price... Helheim is fresh so the economy is still be shaping up - people are still gearing up and farming away.

There are two types of premium currency: Moonlight Coins (MLC) and Moon Coins (MC). MLCs can be gained from a large number of in-game ways like automated events, world drops, world boss, daily login, etc. MCs are rarer though still obtainable ingame though the main source of MCs are from other players converting their cash points to MC. MLCs can be converted to cash points at 12 MLCs : 100pts but cannot be converted back. MCs are convertable both ways at 1:100pts.

MLCs are mainly used in the Lucky 3 slots which gives a variety of goodies like +10 stat foods, convex mirrors, refining ores, etc.
Also, MC prices are fairly stable at around 2-2.5m zeny each on the player market.

Community and Population   8/10:
The community is quite friendly and helpful. With the opening of Helheim, the server population is now around 300 (220-400, depending on time).
The Discord is VERY active though the forums are sorta dead.

Overall: 8.8/10

Other Stuff and Shameless Plug:

If you're looking for a low/mid rate Renewal server that has QoL features then give SMRO a try!

Choose Helheim if you like a fresh new server and/or want to follow lord kRO.
Choose Niflheim if you want to be as OP as possible in end-game and don't mind people running around with crazy looking Naruto wings. (jRO gears are crazy).

The website: Shining Moon RO
My referral link: http://tinyurl.com/SMROShill   <- will lead to account creation page.
You don't need to use the referral link of course, but doing so will give your first character some free goodies upon leveling up!

Hope to see you on SMRO~