Over a year has passed since TalonRO's start and after a tough period, the server can now finally show its full potential.
Some information about the server:
- eAthena Episode 12.1 (Satan Morroc)
- Low Rate (5x/5x/3x)
- Max Level 99/70
- No silly eAthena customs (like nightmode, wings, tons of @commands), only !whosell, !main and !autotrade
- WoE 2.0
- Endless Tower
- PvP Battlegrounds
- Moscovia
A short historyAs most people who play on this server know, this server split up from the old AnimaRO. This is not what I want to talk about now though. It's the past so let's keep it like that. Let's stick to a little history of the server itself.
TalonRO started late March 2007 as an Aegis server and the players were promised many updates, like Aegis Episode 11.2. We've waited and waited, but in the end this never happened. The main reason for this is that the owner, Black Talon (to be called BT from now on), is simply too busy IRL and thus doesn't have a lot of time for coding on the server. He did almost have it running, but this project was cancelled because of a huge change to the server, which I will tell about in a sec.
Even though there were no updates to the game itself, we did have some epic events and mainly the XMas Event 2007 was probably the most advanced RO event done in an Aegis server ever. Many people had great fun in this event, but the ending was unfortunately very bitter as there was a bug exploit in the rewards NPC which quite some people abused.
Anyway, the server started off with about 300 players on. But, with all the broken promises about updates (and the bans from the xmas event), this dropped to around 60 with around 150 at WoE times.
Big changes, the situation nowMany people have been shouting for a long time that the server needs a change. A few months ago, this finally happened. BT finally loosened up a bit and gave the other GM's more space. Also probably one of the most amazing things in an RO server ever happened. In secret, GM Boreas has been scripting on a script to convert EVERYTHING from the Aegis server to an eAthena server. Several months after this project started, this finally succeeded. After a short beta test, the new server is finally up. As said before, basically everything was transfered. Characters, storages, carts, guilds, homunculi and even family trees were converted from an Aegis 10.2 (with 10.4 features) server to a brand new eAthena 12.1 server.
BT is of course still the owner of the server, but the server is now mostly administrated by GM Boreas and GM Faith. Boreas as the main scripter and Faith as the game balance GM. More abou this later.
Together with the amazing transfer to eAthena, the GM's have also been busy on some other projects. GM Boreas has been scripting on new features like Endless Tower, WoE 2.0 and PvP Battlegrounds. They are not implemented just yet as there are still some bugs to be worked out, but I tested some of them and they work great. The server is totally stable so far and with the dedication of the GM's I'm sure it will stay like this. Player amounts have already gone up to about 100 at normal times and lots of old players are planning to return.
The futureWith the other GM's having more control over the server, the future of the server looks bright. The new features (Endless Tower, WoE 2.0, PvP Battlegrounds) will be implemented soon, which will give a great load of fun to the server.
Not only are there more features, also there's a great deal of game balancing going on. GM Faith is mainly working on this with feedback of the community. The server split up from a server where donation items were widely available, so of course TalonRO is a donation server as well. This might scare off new players for a bit, but do know that these items are widely available to anyone. Even though everything was converted to eAthena, some of the GM's would more than gladly have wiped the entire server, mainly because of the incredible amount of donation items available. But the community does not want this, so it does not happen. What does happen though is a great deal of balancing on this part. For example the Doppelganger card, which normally gives a 33% aspd boost, now only gives a 22% boost. Or the GTB card, which previously blocked 100% magic damage, now only blocks 60%. Also important is that the GM team supports party play. The MVP's are a LOT tougher than they were before and it is necessary that you have a good party to kill them. They're all do-able, as long as you have a team that knows how to work together rather than to work alone.
Anyway. Apart from the current features and those that are coming shortly, there will be a great deal of new features available. We've been promised Custom Quests and an advanced new Control Panel. Along with everything else, this will make TalonRO a great unique server.
The communityThe community overall is great. There are some elitist pvp bastards, but hey, which server does not have those
Overall the community is very friendly though and will gladly help new players out on the server. For example: many players have shops up specially for new players that offer good items at low prices.
The GM'sThe GM team is very friendly and has a lot of understanding about RO mechanics. Sometimes they have to be pretty hard on the community. This is done with a reason though, like when a commonly used MVP card is being nerfed and some people whine about it, they just have to be set straight sometimes.
The judgementBefore the big change, the server would probably die pretty soon. I would probably give it a
6/10.
Now with the big changes and a bright future, I can easily give this server a
9/10.
All the server needs is some fresh new players. As explained, they are welcomed greatly and you'll be sure to have a great time.
For more info, check here:
http://ratemyserver.net/index.php?page=detailedlistserver&serid=1491&url_sname=TalonROScreenshots
