heRO server

[mahawirasd]

[spoiler: 1st review]Hi, I'm Wira from Indonesia. I'm kinda new to RO, probably started playing about 6 months ago. Started out in PVP idRO, but the botting, GM corruption, in-game unbalanced scripts, and childish behaviour finally got to me so i left.

I browsed around RMS for a bit (not the forums, sorry but i found it too jumbled up) in the server section, looked for low-med rates with a decent balance. I browsed several servers but i found heRO to have the best donation option. Why do i say the best? because it only gives you random item-generating-items (OCA, GB, OBB) and in less amounts than what most other servers give for the same amount of donation.

Second of all, although it does possess custom equipments, i can tell even before playing the game (checked out the forum) that the quests are not easy. Furthermore, the wings and hats are no where near IMBA so i liked that concept. Especially the hatter quests which really soak up all those otherwise useless cards and give some boost for newbies who happen to get some. Well they increased poring card rates to 5x the server rate (for a total of 0.15%), but all other rates seem to apply in general. (Rates are 5/5/3 btw).

the AT merchants are quite good and there are many readily available. There is also a fun and tenacious person who sets up AT merchants in various places. Good one.

WOE times are around Sunday afternoon GMT and wednesday morning GMT if i'm not mistaken. I don't participate because of RL, but around those times the population do get to about 200++ (minus 40-60 for AT merchs).

Anyway, i like it here because there are no bots (ppl often get banned for that), quite a lively community, and the ppl are just wayyy tooo nice... seriously!! i'm shocked myself, but i have found that after about a month playing there, that other than about 3-5 annoying/obnoxious ppl, most of the other ppl there are warm and nice... there's almost always a GM online and they're pretty helpful... +1 to Ayu..

I don't get to play as often as i'd like to, but even with about an hour a day i was able to join their most amazing event TOH!!! 6+ hours!! it's like ZOMG... +1 to Pandora for her labor of love... it's fun, lotsa ppl come to play together, and it's definitely rewarding...
(didn't get the wings though... ... next time i shall overcome! )

heRO is based in Canada, but playing from Indonesia, although there is a bit of a lag, it's not too bothersome... and it's also probably not their fault coz in SE Asia infrastructure's ain't that great (well except for Singapore i guess)...

the forums are quite active, probably about 20 ppl there online at all times... some ppl post more than play (such as i) it seems... i can relate to them coz i'm also writing this from the office lol...

so i really don't think there's a better low-rate server out there than heRO...

score
balance 10/10
players 9/10 (the usual bad egg...)
economy (AT) 9/10
custom quests 9/10 (making it hard and worthwhile)
custom gear 10/10 (nothing too IMBA)
rates 9/10
events 20/10 (i mean seriously, i have never found such dedicated event GMs, and so many players also make their own events...)

so total: 9.5/10


-w-[/spoiler]

time to update a bit... was unsure whether i should make a new post or rewrite the old one at first, but i decided that perhaps re-using the old thread would be a better idea. If this was a wrong move (i'm sorry but i have read the guidelines yet i could find no clear instructions regarding this issue), please tell me so that i can remedy the situation. Thx.

so, what's changed after almost a year of playing in HeRO?
not much from the basic server setting side, donators are still only at a slightly more advantage, nothing a few hours of grinding can't catch up with.
 most of the ppl are still very nice, the GMs are still available, the mods are active. True we had our share of not-so-nice ppl, and yes i would say that although GM availability is relatively high that it won't be a bad idea to recruit some more GMs. Not that the current GMs don't know what they're doing, and not that they aren't trying to recruit more (there are several new ones that are having on-the-job-training i can see), but it's just that personally i think there should be 1 GM for every 40 or 50 players. Personally i feel that lately i have come to experience a bit more bad eggs, luckily none of them are too problematic for the mods and GMs.
Would also be lovely to get a GM who is available in the wee hours of server time for those of us who live on the other side, but i would understand certain reservations and considerations that would inhibit that notion.

Overall eventfullness is still high, i have yet to find another server who can think up something as grand as ToH (not that i'm looking that hardly, just through whatever adverts i come by). The hatter and other customs are still balanced and the recent update with Styla definitely pleases a lot of people. Eye candy everywhere, really a girl's server if i can say so myself. Not that i don't enjoy it, and not in a bad way either, coz i think all these eye candies are what really got to my wife. She loves it here.

There's players from nearly everywhere i can think of: SE Asia, E Asia, S Asia, Europe (britain, germany, italy), S Africa!, coast to coast Australia, and of course N and S America. Now if we can get some players from Antartica and the North Pole ;
My wife is a bit shy and really doesn't say much (a subject of ridicule sometimes in my guild), yet she has made friends with ppl from Canada, Vietnam, and other countries. Really goes to show how friendly most ppl are in HeRO.

Market prices fluctuate, but they are now even more than half a year ago reaching a stable market price due to the influx of people. More people = more people hunting stuff, more stuff = more competition (both for buying and for selling) = more suitable prices. Personally i prefer smaller servers, but i must say up to this point the Benefit-Cost-Ratio for me is acceptable because fish is becoming increasingly cheaper and high end equips are also becoming more readily available at a decent price.

WoE, again is not my forte, but i would say that it's good to see no one guild really dominating all that much. Yes, there are better equipped guilds with better players, but it doesn't mean the newcomers don't play a role. On the contrary i've seen some very good startup guilds. And there are all kinds of guilds for whatever it is you want to do; from lounging, AFKing, ATing, to pvp, woe, and mvps.

Custom quests here are very good, but it seems the last few months there are no major custom quests, it's the off-season i guess... I should probably spend some time to learn some RO scripting and find a holiday or something for a custom quest ;
Anyway, you guys gotta check out the custom MVPs!! it's like OMG that's genius! well evil-genius at times (especially Ayu), but hey i gotta hand it to them to think up monsters that fill in challenges other monsters/mvps don't always provide. Again, genius with the drop settings.
Oh and muspel is just wonderful. Automated, weekly, changing times (so that other ppl may join other weeks), challenging, and rewarding! More challenging than rewarding imho, but hey evil-genius! ;

Report
Balance 10/10
Players 8.5/10
Economy (AT) 9.5/10
custom quests 9/10
custom gear 10/10
custom monsters 10/10
rates 9/10
events 10/10

total: 9.5/10

srsly, try it out for yourself, i'm not pulling anyone's chain here...


-w-

[Pandora]

Thanks for your kind words ^_^ it really made my day

Sorry to hear you didn't get your wings in the Trials of Heroes event, hope you try again next month!

[Aaronock]

Hey Wira, what's up!  Anyway, I figure I should throw my real top notch review of heRO on here.  So I know this is on second page, but I feel that what he has said still applies pretty strongly today.

I don't know how to really type these sorts of reviews, I don't really want to go over everything RMS does for ratings so I think I'll just write how I feel about the server instead.  Now where to start with this...well I've been a player on heRO now since June of 2007, so I suppose this makes me a veteran of the server.  HeRO has been online for just a little over 3 years now.  We had a birthday bash week last week, and the increased rates to 7/7/4 for celebrating was the push I needed to become the first 99 Professor on the server!  Definentely a fun week filled with events and showing off the best of what I feel heRO server is about.

Which I suppose brings me to the next point.  The community is a decent sized one.  Typically about 120-200 players are on.  If you do not count the autotrade merchants then there should be about 40-150 active players on at any given time.  The @main channel automatically being turned on allows for easy communication to players even when down in the dirtiest of dungeons.  @main is often very good at responding to any questions one may have, especially if they need help.  And if it ever bothers you, at least its easy to turn off. 

The GM's on this server host TONS of events throughout the week.  Typically they try to have at least 1 event a day if they are able to.  These events range from novice events to the interesting Run Hydro Run, to trivia, to many other things.  They have a whole slew of events that they do listed around in the wiki.  I personally am not a huge fan of novice events, but I do understand that they make players who don't feel as powerful as others feel they are on equal grounds with these players when in novice based events.  GM Team is also very responsive should you send them a support ticket about any matter.  I believe any tickets I have sent in were responded to in about 24 hours or so, usually sooner.  Many GM's also make responses on our forums and even chat in game with us.  GM Ayu is especially known for her forum posts and chats in game.  My only complaint is we haven't really done much with our Roleplay events lately but they are trying to improve these events for the better.

Now when it comes to guild and WoE, I got a bit more of a mixed review here.  There are several guilds that WoE on heRO.  There are about 3 major WoE guilds: Behemoth, Death Dealers, and Legendary Warriors, followed by other smaller guilds like Bamboo Squad, Irony of Fate, Tricolor, Ordo Phoenicieus (I think I spelt that right).  Of course there are a couple of social guilds too like Legion of Laziness, so there is a guild I think on heRO that will fit you.  However, when it comes to WoE competition, at times it can feel lacking, there is a small dominance by one guild in WoE at this time, because they have held a castle so long.  However their castle was taken for a small while yesterday during the WoE hours, which shows a pick up in the competition hopefully again.  Many feel that they cannot start a guild of their own on heRO, but I believe with a bit of teamwork one could definentely could get themselves into the WoE environment, or even make establishment as a social guild.  Of course, you can always join one of the many guilds that are there already, and these are usually very good at helping you get geared up. 

I guess overall I do admit to liking heRO a great deal, its fun to play on, it has an overall awesome community, it has great and active GM's, and it has lots of customs that aren't the easiest to get but always satisfying to receive.  Definentely at least give us a try if you are interested in a lowrate experience!