Recent posts

#1
  I'll preface this with saying that, like many of you, I have played this game on and off over the past fifteen years.  I have tried classic low rates, mid rates, and even some high rates for fun.  From long term 1x servers to "for fun" 255 servers, I have been around Rune Midgard a fair amount.  I cannot categorize Return to Morroc in the same way as those servers.  It is its own completely new entity.  The ideas and thoughts behind many of the new custom mechanics and ideas are very innovative for Ragnarok Online, and they often go unnoticed in their complexity.  I feel like I owe it to the time I spent on this server to try and bring my interpretation of the server to light, so perhaps you too could give it a try.  I truly believe this server to be a hidden gem worth trying at least once.

  I will start with what I believe to be the most important and obvious change.  The class system, and how you interact with it.  In PRM, there is only one starting class.  The Orphan.  It is basically the equivalent of the Novice in classic RO, but a more refined Novice.  You will not spend a lot of time as an Orphan but if you pay close enough attention, you will realize your job levels as an Orphan are actually meaningful.  Built into the job levels of Orphan are your universal heal, agility up, loot ability, and PRMs own twist, a very long universal buff.  It is a refinement on the classic Novice job levels which give you the ability to do things like sit down or regenerate sp or trade.  Why do I bring this up?  Well, because its a universal theme on PRM.  If you look closely enough at the new mechanics and ideas, you will see a lot of well thought out design behind them.  Even the basic Novice has been revamped into a way that is more meaningful.

  Another important difference is the divergence from the holy trinity.  Classic RO has already done this by constantly introducing more and more transcendent classes that basically made classes more independent.  That is in part because of the emergence of more prominent solo play in not only RO, but in most MMOS.  PRM starts off with no trinity (as of now, could change in the future?).  Every class is a capable solo class which can do all content all the way up to the soft cap of level 130 with relatively no problems if you do the tiniest amount of research or read your skills and understand the strengths of your class.  You have, at your disposal, the abilities that made playing classic RO more convenient or fun at the ready in the form of "manuals", a very smart idea of an item that takes a costume slot to give you the abilities that you might consider necessary to play RO.  Abilities such as Heal, Agility up, Portal, Fly wing (blink manual), or even hiding.  They are accessible by all classes.  In party play, anyone can heal or throw down a portal for the party.  You might be asking "What about blessing", to which I would ask you, "Why do we need blessing?" its a flat stat increase.  If your game is already well balanced around not having blessing, do you really need it?

  There is a lot of thought behind even the universal buffs.  Heal is balanced a particular way, you cannot fly wing blink constantly (a good decision in my opinion as fly wings turn the game into a slideshow) and portal still needs blue gems.  Hide especially, is extremely important in PRM.  If you come to this server, put hide one of your most used hotkeys.  Hide in PRM is essentially an evade, and many monsters can be out played by using hide.  If you are familiar with Dark Souls, Hide is essentially a dodge roll in PRM.  You can evade a large amount of casted spells and AOE with it, and it is very helpful to master.  This adds a gameplay interaction I personally have not seen in RO in all my years.  Perhaps some server has given hide as a universal before, but I have not played it and I absolutely love this idea.  Introducing a skill based combat interaction on an emulated 20 year game is no easy feat, and most server admins would not even think to innovate like this, and on the note of innovation, I would like to provide an example.

  Everyone is familiar with Monks in classic RO.  If you know Monks, you know combo monk or physical based monk.  The class that basically was somewhat inconsistent to get started due to combos, worked okay in endgame with enough gear and was sort of less than optimal to play over standard Asura Strike monk.  Ornstein has taken the classic combo monk and turned it into a finely tuned class.  I would like to introduce Executioner/Gravekeeper, whos skill tree has the playstyle of combo monk built into it, but more refined.  Instead of praying for triple strike to proc, haven't you ever just wanted to walk up to mobs and start doing combos on them like you're Liu Kang in a fighting game or something?  Thats what Combo Executioner/Gravekeeper does.  It still has the classic Monk fury, in its own iteration of it, and works much in the same way of hitting buttons to do your combo.  It goes an extra step in its design however, because Gravekeeper has a thematic "Lex Aterna" ability called "Loki's Mark".  This means you can Lex Aterna any part of your combo if you build properly.  I should mention that It is done in a balanced way, in order for Executioner to feel like a fast combo monk, you must build ACD (after cast delay) to make your combos faster.  The classes are designed to have strengths and weaknesses to exploit or build around.  That is not the only way to build this class however, it has another build option on the skill tree more focused to doing AOE, as most classes do, and these skill trees are fully custom.  They obviously use RO assets and effects, so expect to see those, but these playstyle designs are fresh and fun to a jaded RO player like myself, and I'm sure you will enjoy them too if you give them a try.

  That being said, there exists completely new classes which basically have no equal in RO.  I cannot think of a class similar to Kingslayer, a tank class which uses area of effect control abilities to do damage.  Dark knight which is basically a class which leverages HP percent to do very thematic skills and damage, and on top of it all "shadow" set items which use up their own slot, add their own abilities and playstyles.  There is a TON of design to dissect here and create builds around.  Each class has a level of complexity to it that you will notice if you pay close attention to it, and there is class specific discord channels you could ask questions to if you have trouble grasping ideas on how the class functions.  You can also come to the Black Plague class group therapy channel for memes, the choice is yours.

  The items.  This is another huge one.  Items in PRM roll with random attributes.  You might be thinking "That sounds awful, what if they break on the upgrade?"  Items dont break on upgrade.  Infact materials have been made more rare and have had a static zeny value added to them at blacksmith npcs as a zeny sink.  the items are also mostly custom, and have had bonuses applied to them statically and on refine amount, so be mindful that one item can completely change how your class feels.  Nothing breaks though, just your wallet trying to upgrade these items  /heh .

  The map is different, there are no instances and all dungeons are fields that have specific custom entrances.  Some dungeons are completely new and nice looking, I consider observatory to be quite a spectacle, with custom sprites and environment.  They also have their own loot pools of course.  How you interact with each mob appears to have been thought out and tested, the MvPs too.  On the note of MvPs, they have been toned down to be solo able and the cards they drop are less deterministic in what you are able to do, and they are more accessible than most servers with PRMS custom relic system which lets you drop items to summon MvPs.  All very well thought out systems.

  There is a central hub that you will always have a teleport to, an identifier that will identify items, and npcs which sell all the essentials.  There is also a custom introduction if you choose to interact with it, and neat custom class job quests with hints at more lore related content in the future if that's your thing.  Ideas such as arrows being a static amount and not lost upon skill use and other convenient things.  The formulas for stats are different, ASPD is different, alot of is different and im probably missing other things that are worth mentioning.  There is just too much work put in there to explain in one forum post.

  I'd like to talk about the server Admin, Ornstein himself.  I never needed to interact with the person to understand that there was alot of passion in PRM, its obvious in the design that alot of time was invested here, and it must have not been easy to do this as just one person.  Most servers would just do a few custom things here and there, put a donation system in, and be done with it.  This server is the complete opposite.  The costumes are mostly tasteful, with only one personal exception.  I dislike wings, and there appears to be one set of wings that is accessible through achievements or perhaps the shop?  I am not sure from where.  Ornstein, delete those immediately  /ok .  Wings always gave me the impression of really imbalanced high rate servers, which is the complete opposite of PRM.  Ornstein himself is very active in the discord, for better or worse, and even is willing to thoroughly explain his decisions and designs to even me when I suggested a change.  The problem is not alot of people are listening  /heh , so I can understand after some time of constantly working on the server and dealing with people who complain or dont read all by himself, sometimes he might be alittle irritated, but he is mostly a fun person who will meme with you.  This is truly quite an impressive project he has created here, so Im very respectful of his decisions and given what I've seen, he makes pretty good ones.  He does not appear to be slowing down either, having recently teased an entire custome city, and even MORE new classes.  This guy is a madman.

  The one negative thing I think REALLY needs to be changed is the vending system.  Ornstein has mentioned this is difficult because of how the server functions, but it does hurt the economy.  When the vending system is so unintuitive to use, it is very discouraging for me or even new players to even try to get a merchant running to sell items, this in turn hurts the amount of items in the economy.  The catalogue system that lets you search items is very nice and convenient though, and there's always trade chat. B>Ancestral Funeral Set +3 Luk btw.

  The future is looking bright and fresh on this completely custom server, with its wild end game dungeons and new classes.  I can see myself playing this server for a very long time until I have tried every well designed class out, except Night Ravens, because no one likes those (not the class, the players).  It also has something more like a game designer behind it and not just your typical RO admin, who's willing to discord interact with the community.  There is alot to try here, and it would be a shame to pass this much work up, so please give PRM a try.

  TLDR:  Yo come try out these new classes and dungeons!  They are pretty great! /gg





  Ornstein please buff physical Black Plague.

 
#2
I've been casually playing this server for ~60 days, leved 3 characters to lv 130 (the endgame softcap) for now and I want to drop a quick review for people on the fence about testing the server, praise some stuff they do right and give some feedback about things that could be changed.

Things they do right
- New Lore and Worldbuilding, custom maps, custom dungeons, a main quest with dialogue changing according to your class.
- Most classes feel unique, it's fresh and yet similar to ragnarok. timing your heals matters even positioning matters when fighting regular monsters. There is a combo system that reminds me of FFXIV.
- The entire server staff is one guy, there's no gm drama and groupie cliques with moderators. You break the rules you get banned. If any guild does something wrong they all will be banned.
- Fairly organized discord/wiki it's easy to find info, you don't see that in custom servers very often.
- Balanced rates that respect your time without rushing you to endgame.
- Very few bugs, nothing gamebreaking, we get some server crashes like once every 2 weeks but they get fixed in minutes.
- Server culture is pretty chill, leveling parties every level bracket and people are eager to help newcomers.
- No pure "support" class, most jobs have 1 maybe 2 supporting skills at best, it's up to you to use it or not.
- New stuff to look foward, I've seen a lot of new content being released in just 2 months.
- No p2win, actually the cash shop sucks, I see no reason to donating unless you wanna support the dev, everything in the cash shop is tradeable but no one gives a s*** about the costumes they are dirt cheap.

Some feedback/ Things to keep in mind
- People don't care about guild content, barely any  active recruiting guilds, if you are looking into guild content this server is not for you.
- Market is a mess, not just prices.
- I feel like endgame has some huge statchecks, don't get me wrong you are not doing any endgame content if you are bad at the game with god gear but you will struggle a lot if you are the average player with average gear. This is offset by gear not breaking at refining I guess.
- No mage class feels good to play as a High Wizard/Warlock, most Arcane Mage players are always angry about the class balance. 
- Most classes start as a thief, keep in mind thief is a very easy to build in any way you want class here, you can be a thief archer, mage, aa, auto spell but not everyone knows that, I've seen some people refusing to play this server just because they think you have to level a thief in order to do anything.


So what
IMO return to morroc is not a perfect server by any means and is not for everyone but as someone who loves custom content it is a labor of love and it is getting better, so I'm not leaving anytime soon.
#3
General Discussion / Re: "RMT Enabled" servers.
Last post by Orange - Today at 04:46 PM
Player to player RMT happens on every single server, at least every one with >100 online.

I quite like the system itself if you look at it on its own, ClashRO(Recently closed server) had RMT tickets where the server owner would keep 10% when you cashed out. There are other games that have enabled RMT in some form(Diablo has done it, its the whole concept behind crypto/NFT games, trading card games and other MMO's)

The best example, while not classic "player to player" RMT I think is Magic the Gathering Online, an actual card game that has a nearly 1:1 online version. You still have to buy booster packs to get cards, you can still trade cards between eachother but "tix" can be purchased for 1 USD from wizards of the coast. They can never be turned back into real money but the economy is large enough to support people always buying them. They get used for event entry which pays out booster packs and such. I would much rather spend $1,000 on MTGO than $100 on Magic Arena(their more recent, functions like hearthstone no player to player stuff client)

Many problems arise when its a small private server, not backed by anything other than "some guy" - Everyone is vulnerable to a "rug pull", once enough $ are in circulation the server owner can just disappear and not honor paying out any of the RMT tickets that people purchased with the deal being that they get ingame items or 90% of their money back at some point. Someone can put $1000 into MTGO and as long as a multi-billion dollar company doesn't randomly shut down a game making them millions of dollars they can almost surely recoup 70-80% of that, someone putting $1000 into a private server is relying entirely on some guys honesty.

It also attracts the "underground" players - For starters servers with this have MORE player to player RMT because the server has more people willing to pay and they have a set price they just need to undercut a little. There is simply more cash floating around, there is a greater incentive to scam, exploit and cheat. Although I love the system I would not recommend server owners do it and don't recommend people to play on servers with it. You can run into legal issues, more scams on the server can get eyes on your server, more so you run into payment processor issues - Lots of chargebacks is the main culprit but the end result is the server owners paypal or actual bank account might get locked down and at that stage they're probably just closing the server instead of dealing with it all.

Doing all that doesn't make your server immune from classic GM corruption or shady RMT anyway, I would never trust "Admin Poring" and noone will attach their real name with a real reputation to a server because of the above, if a server like this started making actual money one day Gravity would come have a look and oh boy is that not a fun time.

tl;dr good concept, impossible to execute well, basically dealing with problems that come with running an unregulated casino just to host a server.
#4
Server Discussion / Re: What happened to ClashRO?
Last post by Felione - Today at 03:07 PM
I think the name itself put me off of this server. Clash is a mobile title, and their thumbnail also looked very mobile-like. Judging a book by it's cover has some benefits sometimes. :D
#5
General Discussion / "RMT Enabled" servers.
Last post by Felione - Today at 02:58 PM
I'm not very familiar with RMT, or how to find a site where such transactions take place, safely most importantly, but being involved in the black market world (due to an ambitious ex-boyfriend), I can see this become VERY profitable to server owners.

If you look at this closely, it is an easy pay-for-your-gear-and-cards scenario, provided by a GM directly. I understand that players will have the ability to potentially sell a card or an armor upgrade, but a GM can definitely make a more enticing product, one you can directly ask for in terms of preference. This is such an opportunistic window, and I'm sure this is the new standard. As they say, if you can't beat them, join them.

This is of course just an assumption, but seeing as RMT is apparently profitable, and more servers are pushing for P2W, this is a great alternative to that, and one with a definite high value prospect to it. I'm sure mvp cards will go for hundreds of dollars each, which is a fantastic proposition for a private server owner, and knowing the correct avenues of these sites and their communities, can directly benefit a server owner.

So, what do you think about this concept? and do you think server owners would or do already use these types of services to sell items to players? and why would they not, if it's all just for profit?
#6
I personally cannot get into this server because a 1x is far too grindy for me. HOWEVER, I must say that Ragnagoats seems to be a labour of love. The server seems clean, well put together, and is always receiving updates. You can tell the GMs actually care(a rare thing these days, really). If you're a vanilla 1x enthusiast, this one is the one for you.
#7
Server Discussion / Re: Midgard Legends
Last post by yC - Today at 04:09 AM
Server is closed.  Time to close this discussion as anything beyond this point is pure speculation.

The topic itself is a story from a player's perspective, keep in mind that different player might have a different experience.  So make your own judgement based on what is presented.


To anyone that is reporting posts for sharing private chat, our global forum rules will support take down of personal information such as real life photo, phone number, addresses etc.  If there is such, you will need to point out exactly where to look for in your report.  Thank you.

 
#8
Report Dead Servers Here / Re: demon ro closed?
Last post by yC - Today at 03:24 AM
No idea from just a dead website link, do you have their discord or social media page check for activities?
#9
Server Discussion / Re: Midgard Legends
Last post by ForgotMyOldAccount - Yesterday at 11:58 PM
Quote from: luckyblackat on Yesterday at 10:01 PMwall of text
Seriously, blackat, don't bother. After seeing the attack on a server that isn't even open with unfounded claims with 0 evidence, I'm less inclined to believe 2k2 from the beginning. This guy is unhinged, and while your server has flaws that are as the result of GM negligence(this I will not excuse you from), the rest seems to be unfounded nonsense with not a shred of evidence. The Ragnarok Online community can be toxic and generally unforgiving, but the rewards of actually playing the game and making servers worth forming memories around are incomparable. You seem like a good person, so let me advise you thoroughly:

  • Do not participate in drama. If you do, do it very briefly and reply with facts only. An appeal to emotion is not sufficient.
  • Do not allow any form of toxicity on your server of any kind. Even light-hearted "trash-talk" will escalate. Gamers are incapable of keeping their cool.
  • Thoroughly test everything. ALWAYS assume that gamers will try to break your game. Ragnarok Online is inherently competitive and gamers will destroy your server just to 1 UP their rivals.


Most of all-

  • Have fun. If something or someone bothers you to the point of you quitting development. Ban them, block them, mute them, get rid of them. There is no server without a staff willing to deliver it.

#10
Server Discussion / Re: Midgard Legends
Last post by Orange - Yesterday at 10:40 PM
Quote from: luckyblackat on Yesterday at 10:01 PMFinally, Orange/Island, you are a really weird person and very manipulative, you act like a friendly person, you lie to people in order to try to play a good guy, but in the end you are just as bad as any exploiter

To be clear I did not lie to pretend to be a good guy; I don't justify my actions with anything other than "I wanna have fun" and "I do not like scammers/corrupt servers" - I'm just some wannabe coffeezilla/kitboga if you want to put it that way. You guys telling hundreds of people you checked logs for a month is lying to look like a good guy. You guys saying you'll ban p2w the first time they do something then ignoring them causing a wipe, using slurs in your discord and exploiting on the server for its entire runtime is lying to look like the good guy.

I just want to reiterate that in my 20 year ragnarok online history I have not been banned for exploiting or cheating on a single server, including this one. I have never so much as been tied to an exploit besides dumb things like tanking mi gao's when metamorphesis was in the game. The most serious thing I did on your server was pay 130m for a combat knife and the actual exploiters took it from there. If you are seriously comparing me to the people that actually destroyed your server I am at a loss for words.

I used social engineering to get the RMTers and exploiters to expose themselves because I was dissatisfied with the actions the server itself took towards them.

I'd love to see the code that generated a 96% dragon resistance armor btw.