Ragnagoats - 1/1/1 (An in-depth review)

[Aeroskye]

Background

I have been playing this server for a collective of about 8 months (including both my time on ExcelRO & now RagnaGoats).

The server staff is the same with a few additions and removal of the previous admin. The previous admin was not a technical person nor did he have much in-depth game knowledge owing to which the server was ridden with bugs and issues for which some difficult calls needed to be made hence, the restructuring was done with a clearer vision of the server with a much capable & technically sound staff who know the game inside out.

It is NOT a "pure" classic. There is a fair bit of customizations done and a documented detailed description with the rationale behind every change available for everybody to read.

Basic details:

1. Population lurks around 90~130 most of the day with about ~50 vendors.
2. Population is well split between Europe, NA, SA, and some Asians.
3. WoE is active - Castle cap of 10 people per guild.
4. Server has episodic progression.
5. Server comes with its own testing realm for builds & Skill simulator.
6. No multiclient. You can transfer your gears/zeny between the vendor & your account via mail free of cost.
7. RMS page: https://ratemyserver.net/index.php?page=detailedlistserver&serid=22121&itv=6&url_sname=Ragnagoats
8. Server Website: https://ragnagoats.eu/
9. Discord Link: https://discord.gg/BsKFqVcDjq
10. Max Level 99/70 (Trans without extended classes available)
11. Current patch: Taekwon classes introduced (as of 01.03.2024)
12. Future episode: Juperos Dungeon

Server Features

1. It's a true 1x server.

2. There's a concept of Map/Race of the day that gives you a +15% exp bonus. It changes every day and is at random, hence, there's some aid to the 1x leveling experience.

3. Fair bit of skill changes around. You will have to read the core mechanics document available to the public to get a full grasp of everything.

4. Testing Arena : My favourite feature of the server. Admins realize the server has little to no room for errors and that is why there's a parallel test realm where you can test your builds. You can test your DPS, and Killspeed, and even has a PvP & GvG test room.

5. Guild tax can go up to 99%.

6. No anti-inflation patch, so it makes it easier for you to start. (Basically, low-end cards have higher drop rates and are not set at 0.01%. For example, Fabre card is 0.15%).

7. Party tap bonuses. Skills have been tweaked to make tapping easier for all classes. For example, sight taps mobs it touches whether they hide or not. Same with pneuma. Just another QOL feature that makes life for hardcore (less useful party) classes to contribute to the party. Also, eases the pains of leveling.

8. Guild dungeons are accessible to everyone and each guild dungeon has a different method of getting into.

9. The slot enchantment process has been altered and made deterministic.

10. Goat Points: An alternative currency in the game that accumulates as you tap/kill monsters. Gather up as you play. Those can be exchanged for services like Storage capacity enhancement, Name Change, Stylist Coupons, Costume coupons, etc.

11. You can convert every hat in the game into a costume of your choice through a costume coupon available via Goatpoints.

12. Many costume hat quests also exist. None of those happen to be those crazy wings and fairy s***. It's mostly official item sprites without the effects like Rideword hat for example. The quest NPCs are spread across the world and you'll come across them randomly during your hunts.

13. Kafra warps you across all cities connected by Kafras (except cities off the port of Alberta). Just another QOL feature that doesn't need you to hop from town to town. For example, you can go to Lutie, directly via warp from any town. You can go from Alde to Comodo directly. The cost is the sum of the Kafra warp cost it'd require you if you were to hop the conventional way.

14. Some raw zeny drops have been curbed to control inflation.

15. Small tweaks with a lot of things can be expected. A detailed report/discussion is generally done before making any change.

Game Masters

1. I have personally never seen admin & technical staff this sound and adept with game behavior. They're constantly looking to improve the player experience & go as deep as fixing the attack animations of desync'd mobs which are probably not even noticeable to 99% of the people. Just an example of how deep they're into this, to almost the point of obsession.

2. They also seem very approachable as feedback is taken into consideration very quickly and if found useful implemented just as quickly.

3. The player experience is their top priority and that is also why there have been regular host shifting to ensure nobody has issues in the game.

4. Some regions like SEA were having issues with the connection so a new proxy has been put in for them.

5. Also a big heads up for the Community Manager who is super active on Discord as well as in-game with interesting events from time to time handling all the queries.

Community

1. The community is super friendly and helpful with the main chat being fairly active.

2. There are rare drop announcements that work as a great instigator for the community to interact and even trade. Drops that are 0.05% or lower get announced.

3. You will see a fair bit of parties coming along once you hit 60+ although not every day of the week. The most effective way to level is probably parties though I'd recommend if you do play you want to make some friends who you can duo/trio more regularly.

4. Population is well split between Europe, NA, SA, and some Asians.

5. We have small in-game events like sightseeing, hide and seek, and screenshots of the month perpetually ongoing from time to time.

Economy

1. Considering the low population things can be hard to find. You wouldn't find everything in the market. You will find fair stuff from time to time but you cannot completely rely on just farming raw zeny and gearing yourself up off buying stuff in the market.

2. Prices aren't too obscure. Some days you'll find a 6mil Raydric while other days it'll have 10mil Raydrics, but for the most part, the prices aren't insane. I personally buy a lot of stuff from the market regularly.

3. WoE mats don't sell as much, which is the biggest instigator of the market, but that comes from the low population. As time passes that issue will hopefully resolve itself as more WoE guilds show up.

4. You can connect with top forgers & brewers who provide the server and get your elemental gears.

Events

1. Smaller events like screenshot event, hide and seek, and some other random events are hosted fairly regularly by the Community Manager.

2. Season events like summer events are also available that reward you with temporary exp bonus headgear. Currently the Summer event is on.

3. Events are also well thought out, especially the seasonal ones as I have seen 4 of them happen during my time (Halloween, Easter, Summer, Winter). All the 3 have been completely different from each other.

War of Emperium

1. There are currently 2 major guilds. 3rd seems to be in the making.

2. Only 1 castle is open at a time and it's rotated seasonally.

3. The castle cap for each guild is 10. So you cannot have more than 10 members of the same guild participating at the same time in the castle. Also, the castle has just 2 floors including the emp room (recent development). So basically when you enter the castle you land directly on the floor before the emp room. This is for more frequent fighting and making attacks easier in 2 guild scenarios.

4. Items dropped in treasure boxes have been marginally buffed in the real world. So they're easier to get in the real world so that it's not disproportionately benefitting people who play and win WoE. Also most of it is stock gears so nothing that can't be quite easily got outside.

5. No God items drop.

6. Staff is proactive with feedback received from guilds. Rules are regularly tweaked to suitor the small population.


Donations

1. You can donate but there are no benefits, except you can accumulate goatpoints faster if you donate. You have to do it purely out of your love for the server which shows where the hearts of the GMs are at.

2. Existence of goat points further bolsters the fact that they don't wish to have any services with real money and everybody irrespective of whether they can afford to donate or not have access to those QOL features.


Overall a potentially great server is on its way to slowly building up. The only thing it needs is more people. I understand that will not happen overnight on a server that is 1x. It isn't for everybody but slowly & steadily it's growing and hopefully, it'll continue to do so.


P.S. I'll add to the list if I am missing stuff and edit on features that show up so the post is updated. Also, I'll be adding some screenshots for all to see which I'll collect in the coming few days.

[Aeroskye]

Bumped.

P.S Had loaded the SS incorrectly, but no option to delete response x_x

[Aeroskye]

Here are some screenshots I collated from the community (WoE, Test Room, Random ingame stuff)

[2k2]

No multiclient is such a turn off in a small server like this one; hate this new idea admins think the community likes it lol. The screenshots though actually made me want to try. No costumes and everyone on poo hat/sunglasses/AoA/flu mask etc imo is very nostalgic and classic. The 10 guild cap also looks very healthy for the server size.

[Aeroskye]

Hehehe indeed, you can cover your hats with costumes, but they're turned off in WoE maps.


Also to your point of multiclient, it definitely is a turnoff for a lot, but not for people playing here. Also you eventually get used to the pace. You only feel slow when you're comparing to how your speed was in other servers you played. This server has its own pace you'd progress at. Comparison is the killer of joy .

Also, while multi-client may be a turn-off, RO isn't supposed to be played that way. What multi-client does is get everyone to play solo in a multiplayer game which for me personally is a bigger turn-off.

I had this experience in Origins (which otherwise was a very lovely server) that everybody I knew and more had 5-6 extra clients rolling around. I knew people with 12-15 clients too. In fact, rarely did I see anyone not playing with at least 3 multiclient.

So while it gives a "sense" of a huge population, the game isn't being played how it is meant to be. Solo meta develops. The social aspect of the game for me is lost.

Having said that, to each their own. I hope you like it here if you do try. Goodluck!

[misterj]

man, all those so called classic servers always use trans mechanics... pass lol

[Aeroskye]

man, all those so called classic servers always use trans mechanics... pass lol

https://ragnagoats.eu/?module=about&action=vision

[OrcLordDaddy]

RO isn't supposed to be played that way.

That applies to all of the changes and "QOLs" the server has, but hey pick and choose buffet am I right?

[Playtester]

I personally believe in that in an MMORPG you should always only play one character whose role you take. Even when I still played on the original euRO I only had my Priest and no other character. Not even a vending merchant.

I don't think multi-clienting adds any fun to the game, it makes leveling more effective yes, but it's not more fun to play when you have to switch around various clients, it's just annoying. I'd actually claim almost nobody really truly wants to multi-client.

So not allowing it is actually a benefit to everyone, assuming everybody follows the rules.

I feel like people are way too worried about things that don't really matter that much at all. I always played on large servers because I thought I won't find a party on smaller ones. But then I played on a really small server and I probably had more partying on there than any other server even though there weren't any benefits in doing so. That's simply because everybody just played for fun and not for efficiency so everybody would just party with everyone online.

In the end, a server is the most defined by the people playing on it rather than its settings and rules. (But the settings and rules determine who joins that server, so you basically define what community you want to have by that.)

[Aeroskye]

That applies to all of the changes and "QOLs" the server has, but hey pick and choose buffet am I right?

Nope. One thing doesn't affect the gameplay and meta at all. Other thing completely does. There's a huge difference between a QOL and being able to multiclient.

Multiclienting makes it a different game altogether. A solo assassin cross is not supposed to have priest buffs, link, endow, adrenaline rush, overthrust & Gospel buff on it while it farms. Autoloot makes the game different too. It benefits AOE and ranged classes and makes classes like Rogue a lot subpar that they are intended to be than other classes like farming Knights, Hunters, Wizards, Performers etc.

An example of a QOL change is being able to smash fewer buttons to brew 1000 white pots before WoE. Instead of choosing to do 3 taps per pot, here you need to do 1, hence saving your keyboard. Another is being able to warp further. You pay the same but instead of talking to Kafra twice, you need to do it once.

A world of difference between the two. Blows me that people don't see that, but I guess convenience for over a decade makes it difficult to rationalize that when you're so used to it.

Also, I really like your Orc Lord profile pic.


P.S. Also, I made a server review of a server I liked playing on highlighting its features. Idk why it's becoming an "I don't like this feature" response page. I have highlighted everything about the server crystal clear. The server & player philosophy here may not match your preference for the game, which is fine. If it's not for you, it isn't. We'd love to welcome you folks on here if you do decide to play. Cheers!

[inKontroL]

Hello, I wanted to ask if you know if the Hispanic, Spanish/Latino community plays on this server and if so, what is the name of the guild?

[Aeroskye]

Hello, I wanted to ask if you know if the Hispanic, Spanish/Latino community plays on this server and if so, what is the name of the guild?

Hi, yes there's an entire Brazilian PvM guild of nearly 8-10 active people called "Aqua Dropou". If you hop on discord you'd want to look for them or a guy named Lenii.
There's another guild called "enemy" which have 3-4 people too. You'd want to look for Trust on discord for it.

[misterj]

https://ragnagoats.eu/?module=about&action=vision

yeah that's all well and good but if you have trans bowling bash and trans songs, then it's just a crappy version of trans woe.

[Aeroskye]

yeah that's all well and good but if you have trans bowling bash and trans songs, then it's just a crappy version of trans woe.

I believe its a matter of preference. I did not play RO back when in pure classic days I guess. Having said that, I have never seen anyone complain about the mechanics so far, so I guess all is well.

[misterj]

I believe its a matter of preference. I did not play RO back when in pure classic days I guess. Having said that, I have never seen anyone complain about the mechanics so far, so I guess all is well.

yes, i know. because most of em didnt actually play back then. either way it changes things drastically and negatively to have permanent of every song buff vs only getting to have one at a time.