TalonRO

[DeePee]

I have to agree, $100 for a headgear is too pricey and I would never, ever pay that for it.
The thing is though, I cannot possibly believe that anyone ever bought a LKH on TalonRO with a donation, simply because it's over 3x cheaper to just buy them ingame, so there is no need really to lower it for now. And yeah, a lot of the prices are still from the previous server where sponsor offers could be done, so it was rather easy there to get free ads for items like these. A couple of things have already been lowered in price a lot, so if the prices for LKH's will go up ingame too much, I'm quite sure the donation price will lower as well.

I can't tell really if they make a lot of money with it. From what I know, they have the standard server costs, but also marketing costs. They have several subscriptions to promote the server at a cost of $15 each month, on about...6-10 sites I'm guessing. But yeah...who knows what comes in through donations If the owner of the server actually makes more money with it than the costs are, that's fine by me honestly. I mean, some of the GM's spent literally 16 hours a day working on the Aegis->eAthena transfer and they spend a lot of time on it daily. Even if it's a passion to run such a server, it's not that weird to get a small reward for something you spend that much time on.

[hikaru_]

Nice review you've done Dee Pee! I guess you know who this is after all. We have an extra command that I helped The GMs code by showing how it works. It is !main and I am sure you have used it. I have to write an extensive review on the server I joined before this. Good luck on your  reviews.

[z3i]

Even if they are available in shops now from other players, it still means there was a sucker who paid for it a while ago

If you're saying a person who donates is a sucker because he's wasting perfectly good, real money that he could be spending on food or books or maybe even an iPod, I agree.

If you think he's a sucker because he feels forced to give money to the server, that's totally wrong in my opinion. On TalonRO you definitely don't have to donate to have good items. Just take the time to pick up loot, sell or vend it, and slowly but surely you'll be able to afford your way to the top.

[bulbasteve]

I really don't see anything in the review to back up the claim that it is "one of the most advanced servers on the planet". Some minor card changes and working on implementing stuff that half the other servers are trying to implement doesn't really sell me on the "advanced" part.

So sell me!

[DeePee]

True, not all of these functions have been implemented yet. Though, talonRO now does have a fully functional Moscovia, WoE 2.0 and Satan Morroc quest. The PvP Battlegrounds and Endless Tower are in a far state of development, so this shouldn't take too long to be released.
But in my opinion, even without BG and ET, this still makes the server one of the most advanced (I'm not saying the most advanced) ones currently available.

[overkill]

 :oSound good :Pmaybe i'll try to play this server.

[_claire_]

you should try overkill....

Bump up....

[bleu]

I am new to TRO, just started playing a few weeks. Here is what I have to say.

Community
Friendly. Very helpful towards new players. I was showered with gifts of meat, grape juice, zenies, some gears to start out, tanking, levelling advice, etc... Nope. I was not playing a girl character. Nope. They are not guildies... just random strangers u see walking in Prontera. I even got an Old Purple Box from a random stranger as a welcome to TRO gift.

Levelling
TRO is a low rate server. Sure u will not rebirth after only playing for 30 minutes, my highest character atm is lvl98 (Almost there.. hope to make it to 99 by end of the week) but I like the challenge. I use my non-trans time discovering what I want....constantly experiementing with new builts, perfecting my skills and trying to really understanding my characters. There's a great deal of flexibility - u can solo if u want, when u want especially with enchanced HP restoring items and easily available/affordable SP recovery items. There are several maps which players frequent the most due to the enhanced spawn rates. However, I dont get much parties... u do get the occassional 2 person party with a guildie, but nothing of a larger scale. Maybe I am just new.. and have not made the correct connections to get invited to larger parties such as BioLab3.

GM Team
There's a very close relationship between the GM Team and the players. U will constantly see most of them (every day.. they will make an announcement Heya... Good morning everyone etc... which I think is kinda a nice touch). They do listen and act in the best interest of the community as a whole. The GMs are very active in organizing events - at the moment, we have BioLab3 Event, Weekly Screenshot Event, Loading Screen Event, and regular random events ad hoc basis- Hide n Seek, Spawning of MVPs and other mobs.

eAthena Platform
I played on iRO. And I can tell u I have more lags and other technical problems on iRO than on TRO. So, this is a very welcoming PLUS. The ability to vend while not logged on is a dream come true. We are looking forward to more new goodies in the coming months - opening of Rachel Sanctuary, re-opening of Nameless Island, Battleground, Endless Tower and Auction System just to name a few.

WOE/PVP
I think PVP is pretty vibrant. There are even separate PVP arena for non-trans class if u feel disadvantage. We have WOE 1.0 and 2.0 and they run at different times. Not all castles are open, perhaps due to the size of the WOE population... so this in fact encourages more actions among guilds. TRO is no different to any other servers, it takes time/zeny/effort to get a good set of WOE gears to be effective. But that does not mean u cannot enjoy yourself with basic gears. There's even a castle for non-Trans. By no means, should it be mistaken that non-Trans players are any less geared than their Trans counterpart - most active WOEers do come with Ghostring, GBT, Undead/Unfrozen armor, other godly custom gears and custom MVP cards. So, yes.. it will be challenging for a new starter on TRO to defeat most of them, but u can try to outsmart them.

[Ephemeral]

Bit of a topic Redemptio considering I've never spoken up about tRO before, though a warning - this will be a long post.

Bit of personal background to understand where I'm coming from: I have been with Talon since it's birth, back to even the days when it was still Anima, so I guess I'm classified as a Veteran. I've played on several other servers since TalonRO began to present day for periods of time ranging from 3 weeks to 4 months, including 1/1/1's, highly populated mid-rates and servers with what was considered to provide 'non-game-breaking' donation items. And yet, after all that, I still return to Talon.. Read on.

Server Stability & Availability
Very stable. There have been a few instances I can recall where I've suddenly experienced hardcore lag spikes, but it usually always turned out to be my internet, my location or the server host. Downtime usually lasts anywhere between 15 minutes for a reboot to an hour and a half for updates. Every now and again, I error out or crash suddenly only to realise I needed to update my Sakray or patch up - which says a lot on the update-rate of the server.

tl;dr - Stable.

Community Friendliness and Eventfulness
Talon's community is very tight knit - probably because of the fact that it's at a small player base at the moment and the length of server-life. Although everyone knows each other (generally ), that doesn't mean that the tRO community are snobs and fail to welcome newbie players - both new to RO as a whole and new to Talon from another server. I've heard of many uplifting stories about a newer player retelling a story about how one person donated a few hundred meats or grape juice for levelling, buffing at will, tanking, easy conversation and over all receiving advice and directions of where particular custom features are. As with every server, there will be tension, and sure Talon has it's handful of flame wars and 'KoS-ing' and, thankfully, these usually die down with apologies or truces. Hate doesn't last long here . Events are plentiful on the server. Seiren and Shiris are both active event facilitators and it keeps us all amused. I always feel like a child in preschool constantly being kept entertained . Examples of events is the perennial Forum events of search and screenie, Shiris' LH Survivor event, TalonRO World Cup and even player-run events such as The Reaper's Game, and not to mention events in the past such as the Halloween Coin Event and the Christmas Toy Factory Quiz. Quests keep an individual entertained for hours too - not only eA's usual quests but tRO's Super Quest Item series and the recently introduced Hat Dyeing quests.

tl;dr - Friendly, mature community, helpful, ever-ready to help. Lots of events.

Game Master Availability, Friendliness and Helpfulness.
Good grief, where do I start? Talon GMs have to be the most awesome, most creative (Faith), most knowledgeable (Shiris), most hard working (Boreas), and most player-friendly (Seiren) I have ever experienced. I'm not sure what to say about Black Talon though... he has his active spurts and then his incognito periods of time, but I'm empathetic because I know how time consuming real life committments can be. There have been bumps in availability because of RL commitments, but the slack is usually picked up by the other members of the team. There is almost always a GM present, even in my deserted timezone (I live in Australia), most notably Seiren, who seems like he doesn't sleep just to keep the forums clean and user friendly. They are incredibly helpful - and this goes hand in hand with their individual experience of long years playing RO. I notice that they don't speak unless they are certain of their information which is always accurate and they outsource material for guides too. One thing that I know a few players have been having a problem with lately is the few unanswered Support Tickets which require a High GM's attention, mainly for the inclusion of non-existing customized Kahos which require server reboots. They are all very friendly... I think it's the Talon GMs that are the glue to the community being so tight.

tl;dr - The best.

Economy, Guild Competition and Class Balance
The economy has improved a lot considering what it used to be. MVP cards range from 9 million to (approx) 25 million zeny depending on the card in question. I know some people have gripes that 25million is a lot of money for a newbie to raise single handedly on Talon, and all I can say to that is if you don't put in the hard yards, you won't reap the benefits - and it's not like you won't receive help. Also, it was mentioned earlier by someone where they said that with all the MVP cards on TalonRO, that even though they're obtainable through zeny, that SOMEone donated for them at one point in time. I think with that, people are forgetting that Talon was once a part of AnimaRO. If you consider the fact that a large quantity of the existing MVP cards on the server existed even before Talon officially began, that lessens the magnitude of what people think of the amount of donations that have truly been put into Talon. Guild competition at the moment is not as great as it could be. With most of the top tier guilds opting out of WoE because of inactivity, it's mostly Non Trans and small Trans guilds that really participate during WoE. Talon has 3 weekly Wars of Emperium - 2 'normal' old school style WoE's with a limited number of castles and WoE 2.0. My only concern with WoE's in this style is 2.0 where the gameplay of 2.0 and it's mechanic really require a population that Talon currently do not have. Concerning Class Balance, I think it is level. People complain about GTB in PvP against Wizards, but I've witnessed plenty of innovative HW's who have easily bypassed that. As a side note, Talon has a thriving Champion population - probably because Champ duels in PvP are quite fun and competitive. Custom SQI items and Custom MVP cards to TalonRO are in the process of being under review by the GMs in an attempt to further balance the classes, so I can damn well say for sure that it's heading in the right direction.

tl;dr - Economy is generally fair. Guild competition could do with a boost. Class balance is fair at the moment, and Cards/Gears are up for review.



Other Notes:

PvP
PvP is very competitive in Talon. It's amazing to think how many skilled, innovative and determined players tRO has when it comes to PvP. As previously stated, there is a healthy Champ population, but that doesn't mean Talon's dry in classes elsewhere. If you live in the Americas or Europe, you'll most probably find that PvP is always abuzz with action. If you live on an Island like me (Australiaaa!), it's quiet at the times you'd usually get on to play. Players do KoS in PvP and I don't think much can be done about that - unless it evolves to personal harassment, and at that point, GMs intervene . A lot of players treat PvP as a 'meet up' zone. I usually see most of my friends in PvP, and we talk and socialise, violently poke, and heal up, kill, 'misclick-kill' (haha) and have fun and banter in Public PvP. Talon also has a Non Trans only PvP for players who are not so well geared. I'd have to say that the tRO 'veterans' have adjusted well to the change from Aegis to eAthena PvP - it's all so exciting now.

Population
The server player count states that there's around 250 or so players on at a time. I admit that around 100-120 of those logged in are autovenders, but a small population certainly has its charms... like an un-laggy Prontera, clean streets with no street venders, easy not to feel so overwhelmed, easy to find vends, not all your MVPs are camped religiously and it's certainly a little more personal than say a server with 1000+ players.

Donations
Someone also mentioned earlier in this thread about the pricing of donation items available in TalonRO. Yeah, $100 for LKH is steep and pricey... but the last time I have ever heard anyone actually donate for LKH's was probably... a year ago? Around about there. For the past few months, the only donations that I see people paying for are Name Changes, Sex Changes, Kaho Customization and the sort. MVP cards... Rarely hear about anyone donating for MVP cards since the free server-wide unslot many months ago. All in all, I think the donations are pretty much set, though that's my personal point of view .

Talon Main Site & Forums
The Talon front page was recently revamped thanks to GM Seiren and GM Faith. How sexy is it?! It's easy to navigate, everything is easy on the eyes and it doesn't have six million 'reasons why you should vote for us!!11oneeleven' signs. It's sleek and professional . The TalonRO forums are generally quite active. I guess a lot of players are just social butterflies. Lots of banter and play happen on the forums as well as strategic discussions. The players are always kept informed via the Forums, so it's best that if you join, you register and say hello . A few things bother me personally though concerning the forums - namely the sea of porn bots and the rare occasion there's a lack of decency shown by players towards other players. Our neighbourhood forum moderator Seiren always reigns those porn bots in and tactfully mediates the threads. All in all, it's a very enjoyable place to socialise.




In conclusion...
Talon's a great server. Best I've personally ever seen. It'll be the last server I'll ever play on, and I stated in my review that I'm sticking with Talon till it dies. There's something about this server that just tickles my loyalty buds.
I hope my review wasn't extremely biased.. I tried to be objective on all counts. And I also hope that this helps someone else in their search for more (err.. more-more) information concerning TalonRO.

Ephemeral - aka Anixiel.

[tynnm89]

I've been playing on this server for a few years and on a few other servers simultaneously, but TalonRO has something that I'm drawn to. Over the years, it has gotten better and better and it seems there is no limit to that.

Server Rating

Stability:
The server is always up. I'm pretty sure that anyone that has ever played on TalonRO for a decent amount of time can agree to that. There is virtually no downtime except for the bi-weekly reboot for updates. I have to admit that the server's host has been quite annoying lately which is, of course, detrimental to the server. I'm hoping we'll find a better host in the near future since the occasional lag is probably the only big issue here. Then again, it's hard to make it so that everyone around the world has perfect connection.

Availability:
Always up and running.

Community Rating

Friendliness:
Every server has good people and bad people. TalonRO is no exception. You'll be quick to find help 90% of the time. PvP is where most of the "bad" people are, but it's PvP. What do you expect? It's a competitive atmosphere.

Eventfulness:
Events several times a week. All kinds of events from PvP events to games of luck & chance to just simple things like scavenger hunts. That's just the tip of the iceberg. It's almost as if the GMs never run out of ideas for things to do.

Game Master Rating

Friendliness:
The GMs on this server are always friendly and helpful. It's not uncommon to find a GM somewhere having a casual conversation with someone. All the GMs here are approachable and easy to joke with. Unlike some servers where they ban their GMs from talking to players or whatever. It's definitely not the case here and that's one of the reasons why I enjoy this server.

Availability:
There's almost always a GM online in-game, on forums, or on IRC. They're very easy to contact and will always make an effort to be around if need be.

Helpfulness:
Definitely high on the helpfulness scale. On top of being able to throw update after update and event after event together, they still have time to show up and lend a hand whenever someone needs something. There is such thing as a stupid question and there are plenty of people with a list of stupid questions, but the GMs are always patient and do what they can to help a player with the game.

Game Play Rating

Economy:
The economy on this server has been improving over the last year. It's still feeling the after-effects of the past but it's recovering rapidly. With a rapidly growing new player base, newer players are more able to provide for each other and whatnot. Thus improving that area of the economy. The server still has a handful of already wealthy veterans but they are doing their part to help out the newer players as well. The gap is slowly, but steadily, closing as days ago by.

Guild Competition:
I haven't been extremely active in WoE but as far as I can tell from observing the occasional WoE, there are slow days and fast days. It just depends on the day since GMs have tried to make WoE times as friendly to everyone around the world as possible. Saturdays and Sundays tend to be more active and when the WoEs are active, they're VERY active. Vanilla WoE was implemented almost a year ago and it's the first step for newer players to experience WoE and work their way towards the heavier WoEs.

Class Balance:
There's a wide range of classes here. Probably the only overpowered class on this server is the Champion but that will probably change in the future considering the GMs are working on revamping SQIs. Aside from champs, the class balance is very, well, balanced. If you log in and ask for tips on how to play a certain class, you'll more than likely find someone who plays that particular class as a main character to help you out.

All in all, I think that this server is slowly working it's way towards the top. There's only good for the future of TalonRO.

[Speedwagon]

I'm not sure how fair the first post's review is, given DeePee is a GM there.

Every other review seems legitimate enough.

[DeePee]

(I wasn't a GM yet back then )

[Speedwagon]

(I wasn't a GM yet back then )

Touche.

Also so far my experience with TalonRO is: Another server where nobody talks to you because you're new.

[tynnm89]

(I wasn't a GM yet back then )

Touche.

Also so far my experience with TalonRO is: Another server where nobody talks to you because you're new.

Well, I don't know how long you played on TalonRO for before you decided that but it takes two to tango. I'm not sure if you asked people questions and talked to people and they completely ignored you or if you just expect people to come up to new players and talk to them. Some people do talk to and help out new players. TalonRO has a server-wide chat function. !main is basically a server-wide chat. If you need someone to party with you or if you have any questions or you just need someone to talk to, I'm pretty sure you'll get a response if you use !main. Majority of the server is friendly and willing to be a friend but you have to meet them halfway. The server has been getting quite a handful of new players lately and some have even been added into guilds, guided around, etc. If you're friendly then others will be friendly back, I think.

[tracer]

tRO put in alot of content for there server, which for a lowrate is extremely desirable, so I give alot of respect to tRO. But they changed alot of stuff too, so not too sure if that is gonna work. And too bad they aren't a midrate or highrate tho, then they coulda ateast get +400 player base with the stuff they come up with.