Defense of Rune Midgard - Unique(?) Server Interest Check!

[CCK]

After 2 years since I last touched RO, I got the feeling to start working again on this idea I had back 10 years ago when I first started hosting RO private servers. I wanted to make the game more of a community. The itch here is that players are almost always alone. To fight for a single prize or position at Number 1. Those who do not wish to be number 1, but still want their presence to be felt, have no other way to do it.

Choosing between 2 (or more, later on) Factions, a group bigger than Guild, your actions affects the whole faction, not just yourself. Spend Zeny on a Pharmacy Upgrade that helps provide better Potion unlocks to your whole faction. Or collect and pool items to unlock quest for your whole faction to summon a special MvP. Or fight your way to become the Faction Leader, by force (1v1 Dueling), by democracy (Faction Members Voting), or by a secret quest that rewrites the whole faction's memory to remember you as their leader (Solo Questing).

Defense of Rune Midgard (DoRM) is down for 2 years already, so I hope I'm not breaking any rules of advertising or something on this forums.
I'm just trying to have an interest check, to see if there are people who wants to play on such a server and if there are people who are interested to help in such a server.

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EDIT: I should ask properly structured questions:

1) Have you tried servers that has such features before?
Similar settings of Factions vs Factions, etc.

2) What do you think of the features? Are the features a positive customization to RO?
Does it feel like it improves the overall gameplay of RO? Or it's just unnecessary changes?

3) Why would you or would you not play this server?
Too much customizations? Already committed to other servers of the same setup?

4) In 1 word, how would you describe this idea?
Interesting? Stupid? Unrefined? Pointless?

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Below are the features that I believe, makes this server special.

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< Defense of Rune Midgard Story Line >
All names written here used to be the players of DoRM. They became part of the story.

Spoiler

Prelude: World Guardian vs The Apocalypse.

This is not a war of the century. Nor did it start a long time ago. Every one was at peace. The Guardians have their fair share of luxury distributed by The King.. And The Apocalypse, they were finding ways to defeat Satan Morocc and it's demons. While we are still in the midst of figuring out how did the chain of events ended things up like this, we can only know for sure, the apocalypse, sure hate the guardians now.

You were once a Guardian too. You volunteered to be part of the 66th battalion. You crawled your way through the ranks and finally gotten noticed by The King. Only a small group of people gets noticed by Him. Why would someone of importance know anyone else? You were a great fighter and was granted whatever you want. Of cause your family became wealthy too.

All is well, until one, not so fine day, Dr. D. Crime, the 38th leader of The Apocalypse, grandfather of Kyrie Crime, came knocking on the Guardians gates....

That day, was the last day of your life. Yes. Your life ended gloriously. Don't worry if you can't remember a thing. It happened quite some time ago.. Or did it..?

Dr. D. Crime, is a High Level Professor, with every single magical spell in the book up his sleeves. Every creature in Rune Midgard fears the sight of him as it will only spell doom with him waiving spells so instinctively fast, it was almost instant! Only Satan Morocc, disregards his presence.

The day before, was Sunday. Everyone was in church, praying for Dr. D.'s journey to complete Mission: Satan Morocc. A group of brave and really high leveled warriors went on a Quest to end Satan Morocc. The party's High Priest Mermer, alongside with a Paladin Black Panda, started off giving Blessings and providing Gospel to everyone in the party. Elvina, was there too, a Lord Knight, blades were faster than the speed of light, you don't want to be in the other end of her blade. Let's not forget about Neko, a battle Champion that never fails to prove her Asura Strike could kill all most any creature out there.

Surely, a Professor, a Lord knight, a High Priest, a Champion and a Paladin won't be able to take down Satan Morocc. There were another 20 more members in the party eager to take that monster down.

Yes, they do know their chances of losing is extremely high, but their faith in Dr D. is much higher. And so it begins... Right after the party enters Dimension Gorge, waves of creeps approached the group with fiendish glares, it takes no more than a second, waiving of Dr. D.'s hands sends down countless of elemental bolts, allowing them to walk right through the field unharmed. While the rest of the party cheer from behind, Satan Morocc is watching their every move.

Without warning, huge fiery boulders came into sight. Lighting up the dark skies of Morocc. "Meteor!" Cries Black Panda as she rushes with her shield up to protect the members from the incoming meteors.

"Take care of the minions! Quick! D. can't cast a land protector with this much creeps! Mermer! Cast Sanctuary! Elvina, lure those creeps away! Hurry!", Neko shouted while she rest in between her Asura Strikes.

But it was too late.. The meteor storm was so huge, it took down 6 men with it before being absorbed into the void of the land protector. It was the work of Satan Morocc. Nobody expected to engage so early into the fight. Mermer created a warp portal to warp those dead bodies back directly to Sanctuary, to allow their family members to give them a proper burial. The rest of the party carried on without looking back.

"Hey! It's Belladonna! And Big Daddy B. What are they doing in this wretched place?", exclaimed Elvina, recognizing them from afar. "Are they farming Demon Gears? Or maybe they could help us!". Soon after, the 2 World Guardians fade into the wall of sand and dust, unwary of the other party's presence.

Not long, they reached the lairs of Satan Morocc. To their surprise, Bella and DaddyB has already wounded Satan Morocc! The party went in closer to take a better look. With a final Bowling Bash by DaddyB, Satan Morocc, went down.

"Hoho, look at this... A Dark Bacilium ..." Exclaimed DaddyB, as he picked the item up. Dr. D's party walked closer and the party of two vanished into thin air. Instantaneously, Satan Morocc raised from the ashes. Everyone froze, not knowing what to do.. And before the next thought could occurred, they were cursed and was unable to control their movement.

"Good.. Good.. Mwahahahaha.... Today will be the last day of peace. Never again will your faction nor World Guardians be near each other without spilling blood. Heads will roll. Bodies will shatter. Nothing will be the same again..." Bellowed Morocc while he casts a spell. In a blink of an eye, everyone in the party arrived at the gates of Geffen.

And that was when it all started.. Snipers were strafing the gates, Meteors, acid bottles, everything that could be casted, was thrown at the gates! With no time to spare, you rushed to Eldor, the Monster Summoner. You had enough materials to summon a Kiel, 2 Gloom under night and a Baphomet. *Summoning Complete!*

With those summoned, you rush back to report to The King. Ensuring The King's safety, you prepared for the worst. With whatever men you have, "Raise your swords! This will be your most difficult test in your life. Give it your all and the King will ensure the protection of your families. And tonight, WE DINE IN HELL!", somehow those words came out of your mouth.

"Open the Gates!" You commanded. It's chaotic out there. And right in front of you, stood a man, it's Dr. D. Raising his arm, "Run!" He said. It's the Faction Commander Badge! And within 5 seconds, Guilds after Guilds after Guilds from The Apocalypse were summoned. Unknown to the curse laid upon D's party that started all these, the retaliation of the Guardians were the only thing the Guilds saw.

Everything happened really quick.. And there you are, the last man standing, right beside The King. Dead Bodies littered the once luxurious throne room. The King whispered to you, "Do not worry, your family, will be safe and sound." With that, the King teleported away. That was the last words you heard before a Frost Driver came your way. A Champion body relocated beside you. Giving you a , he casted an Asura Strike...

And that, is how you died... and how the war started..

[close]

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< Last Entry before the server went down >
Chapter 1.1.0.1 - Dark Days..

Spoiler

Defense of Rune Midgard

Since the attack, not a single soul was in town. Only bodies were seen motionless everywhere. Innocent, but thought to be dead venders. It was as though, time has frozen.. Were those people still holding on to the slightest hope that the streets will once again fill up with liveliness? We will never know...

It was 2 months since it all started.. Those who have died in the war, has their graves erected in Sanctuary. Those are the ones who have been Relentless in helping the foundation of their modern Factions. They will be missed dearly.

"There are still hope!" Said one of them. "No! Give up this war, lay down your arms and repent!" Said the wives of many. It has been getting much more frequent.. "We will recruit more Defenders" said both sides, as the war (barely) rages on.

It's really conflicting hearing and seeing all these. Yet Some has gone as far as Yuno to recruit people into their cause. Their efforts are appreciated but isn't effective, as the number of defenders are always dwindling. Everyone is losing hope. Not knowing what directions this war will head to. They just wish there were more on their side to fight, not wanting to give up the fight.

As time passes, there's always a random stranger shouting on the updates of the war. Only a few, yet, dedicated warriors replied to those calls. The King wants revenge for the deaths of so many men. And, The Apocalypse, are fighting for Dr. D's name. As rumors have spread all around the faction, that it was them who started this war, not The King. Nobody wants to accept their leader as a warmonger. So they continued silencing World Guardians on sight... whoever that is left, that is..

This is a period of dark days. How will this 2 faction survive this ordeal? Would the 2 just crumble into their tombs as some nameless community that they always were...? Only time will tell if their faith will reward them with the most honorable fight of their lives to crown themselves legends... Or die off quietly like all those who seek out a name for themselves in this dark and cruel world of RO.

We can only hope, that there are many out there, who are going to get their hands bloodied.. In this Massacre...

[close]

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[CCK]

< Basic Server Settings >

There are 2 Servers, Relentless and Massacre, for 2 different Gameplay. Not enough players and GMs, so previously only Relentless was running.

Relentless is a persistent Server. You keep everything. Nothing Wipe.
Massacre is a Competitive Server. Game is set in Cycles. Objective is for your Faction to conquer all of the towns. Rewards will be given in Relentless server for winning. Once Cycle ends or objective achieved, server is wiped and ready for a new cycle after giving rewards.

Spoiler

DoRM: Relentless

30x / 30x / 7x
3 Hourly Rates Boosters(Upto 50x/50x)
Pre Renewal
Cards 0.07%
MvP Cards 0.02%
120% Mobs
2 x Faster Spawn for Normal Mobs
FvF Fights Enabled after level 55
Towns and Dugeon Level 1 Warper
Time + Paid Healer
Certain MvP Cards are Consumable Items
(Eg. GTB Card: 10s Magic Block 5s Item Delay.)
No 3rd Job enabled

Faction Names:

World Guardian (+20 Luk Bonus)
The Apocalypse (+5 Str Bonus)

[close]

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< Non Faction Custom Features >

Spoiler

EX Card
Great for specializing your characters.
These cards provide additional stats over normal cards which strengthens anyone who has it to a new level.
The only downside is your weaker side, just got weaker.

eXo Booster
Got the Z and lazy to level?
Try your luck opening a booster pack.
You could get a level up card for your lvl 98 character!

Gachapon
Lots of fillers in here, but once you get lucky,
you may hit it off with the best accessory card in the server!
Banana Juice included.

Premium Rush
Every 7th, 14th, 21st and 28th day of the month, a new Rush is set! Contribute as a Faction Member to complete the quest together. Once completed, your leader will collect the rewards daily for the whole month! Think the whole faction can complete the quest on the day itself? GOOD! Cause you'll be getting a whole lot of Bubble Gums over the Month!

Custom Quests
Some loves custom headgear while others don't.
Those who do has the ability to do so here! And it's not those, take this and that and give it to me.
It's a story. And it may connect you to this server's storyline.

Custom Events
Who loves collecting poop?
Help out with Mr. Poo at his zoo and trade them for The Card!
Remember to wash your hands after.
We got Poring Catcher too, if you can find the real one that is..
Many more to be implemented along the way!

[close]

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< Faction Features >

Spoiler

Loki's Playground
(To be Available on 50 Players Count)
Loki's been up to mischief again...
He just turned himself into a small girl to trick players into His playground..
Placing rare items randomly around his playground, I'm sure Factions will start to kill each other if they meet there..
(Implemented in Beta, but will be implemented later when Beta Ends)

Faction Assault
Do you think you're safe at home? Someone may be plotting an assault on your town.
The healer you needed so badly might just be dead already.
Factions may try to enter their opposing towns to destroy essential members (NPCs).
Once dead, it pretty much affects everything you do.

Monster Defenders
Unlock monsters to defend your hometown! What about summoning Garm to freeze them all?
Or get Orc Hero to Earthquake them with 999,999 damage?
You will be able to do your part for your faction by giving much needed items for this to happen.
Once you unlock them, your faction may summon them at a fraction of the cost.
Oh, and they are really loyal to you.

Faction Quest
This server is about your faction.
Do your part for them!
From defeating 1000 Baphomets, to donating 10 Billion Zeny.
Finish these quest together bit by bit and you can unlock powerful Relics that may prove too strong for your opponents.
Oh, how about Battle Manuals and Bubblegums Sold in Shops?

Town Assault
Towns that are once neutral in the war between the two factions are now victims in the bloodbath.
Conquer these strategically and bulldoze your opposing faction with ease.
Each town produces different specialties. And faction leaders will be able to collect them daily for free.
From alchemy (slim pots), mining (ori, elu), farming (berries), to banking (zeny).
Pick your spot for your assaults!

WoE
To be honest, why fight a small war in tight narrow places when you're fighting for your factions?
Or wait, you want to fight your own faction mates of a different guild?
Sure, just take over the right town and you can play around there.
Don't forget the treasures for Godly Items!
No matter what, it's your faction, no matter who wins.
Shake hands after.

WoE:SE
Hmm, not enough fights yet?
Ok, get it at the Second Edition, same rules apply.
And treasures will be there too for your newer God items.
So game on!

[close]

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< Feature 2.3 - Town Domination >

Spoiler

Town Domination is our server's Highlight. Players will fight for Towns instead of Castles to enable resources to be gained daily.

[ Relentless ]
:: Town Domination Provides
- Resources
- NPCs Unlock
- Special Equips
- Ranking Points
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[ Massacre ]
:: Town Domination is the objective in this server. Annexing towns provides:
- Resources
- Ranking Points
- Enabling Faction Base Domination
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[ Settings ]

:: Neutral Towns
~ Monster Defenders
- 50 x Gemini-S58
- 50 x Harword
- 50 x Seyren
- 50 x Shecil
- 3 x Mini Valkyrie Randgris
- 5 x Knight of Windstorm (Inside Buildings)
:: Vital Stones (Can be upgraded in Relentless)
- 3 x Cloaking Stones
- 1 x Firm Emperium

:: Resources gained Daily

[ Massacre ] : All resources amount are Fixed
~ Prontera
- Banking : 100,000,000z
~ Morocc
- Mining: 200 Enriched And 50 HD Oridecon And Elunium
~ Al De Baran (1 Box = 500 Pots)
- Alchemy: 10 Box of Light Whites and Blue Pots

[ Relentless ] : All resources can be leveled to produce more daily
~ Prontera
- [Resource Level 1 - 20] - Banking : 10,000,000z / Level
- [Resource Level 21+] - Banking : 15,000,000z / Level
~ Morocc
- [Resource Level 1 - 20] - Mining: 20 Enriched Oridecon And Elunium / Level
- [Resource Level 21+] - Mining: 20 HD Oridecon and Elunium / Level
~ Al De Baran (1 Box = 500 Pots)
- [Resource Level 1 - 20] - Alchemy: 1 Box of Light Whites Pots / Level
- [Resource Level 21+] - Alchemy: 1 Box of Light Blue Pots / Level
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[ Timing ]
Town Domination will be running 24/7. Without proper co-ordination, conquering of towns will be near to impossible.
:: Neutral Towns
~ Cloaking Stones - On minute 0 every hour (Respawn)
~ Emperium - On minute 0 every 3 Hours (Change Uncloaking Location)
~ Monster Defenders - On minute 0 every 1 Hour (Respawn)
~ MVPs - On minute 0 every 6 Hours (Respawn)
:: Conquered Towns
~ Summoning of New Cloaking Stones - 30 minutes
~ Moving of Emperium Location - 1 Hour
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[ Ranking Points Rewards ]
~ 3 Points - Normal Monster Defenders
~ 5 Points - Boss Monster Defenders
~ 10 Points - Mini Valkyrie Randgris Defender
~ 5 Points - Cloaking Stones
~ 50 Points - Neutral Town Emperiums
~ 200 Points - Alberta / Geffen Emperiums
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[ Game Play ]
Here is a brief description on how Town Domination will work

You and your Faction Mates are trying to take over a Neutral Town, Prontera. When you enter, you will have to break into groups. From there, you have an hour until a new group of Defenders spawning. Respawns occurs on 00 minute hourly. So plan properly.

There will be hoards of Monsters defending the town, so try not to get mobbed. Your groups will have to find 3 Cloaking Stones randomly spawned in Town. Once 3 stones are broken, the Town's Emperium will be uncloaked Inside of town, Eg. Prt_In. There will be Knight of Windstorms guarding inside. So, do not just rush in like that. Emperium will be spawned in 1 of the 3 Fixed location.

Once you are able to find and break the Emperium, the town will change hands to your faction. Everyone in (Eg.) Prontera will be warped to Sanctuary. You may now use the Warper to warp into Prontera and start summoning Defenders and upgrade your resource level!
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[ Massacre Only ]
When the game ends, once all 3 Neutral Towns and Opponent's Base is conquered by a single faction, there will be a 60 minutes delay for players to rake as much Massacre Points during this last 60 minutes. Winning Faction will receive a random 2,000 - 5,000 Total Points added to their final points. Top 3 Players will be announced. Players score will be saved for 10 Seasons. Top 3 of Each Faction will be saved forever.

Individual Player's Massacre Points can be used to unlock/trade for special equipments, costumes and unique headgears. They may also pool their points to the Special Category called "Server Feature Unlocks". These Unlocks will have Single Faction pooling types and Multi Faction Pooling types. Examples will be given below.

Faction Total Score Massacre Points will be usable by Faction Leaders. All points will be divided by 10 and can only be used in the Server Feature Unlocks.

Server Feature Unlocks will have Features that can be unlocked by a Single Faction if that feature affects that faction, or Multi faction, if the features affects everyone. Multi Faction Features can be New Factions (I have 2 in mind currently), Custom Spawn MVPs. And Single Features can be like, Unlocking of a new NPC recruit to your base, Story Line MVPs (The King, Dr. D.'s Reincarnation) and many others.

[close]

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I have not touched these for 2 years already, so I might miss out exciting information here and there. So below are some reference on this server:

FB: Here!
RMS Review 1: Here!
RMS Review 2: Here!

[CCK]

Some Pictures to show what's going on...

Faction Leader Board:

Spoiler

[close]

Faction Assault Reward Table:

Spoiler

[close]

Monster Defender:

Spoiler

[close]

Faction Quests:

Spoiler

[close]

Ex Cards:

Spoiler

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Gachapon:

Spoiler

[close]

[Bue]

Faction bring back very bad memories from other MMORPG; i.e. players tend to jump sinking ships and one faction becomes dominant very fast.

And RO is more about tight-knit guilds than factions. I think you'll have better success replacing factions with nationality, i.e. Team USA, Team EU, etc.

[CCK]

Hmm, good idea!

Names like:

United States of Alberta (USA)
Payon Headquarters (PH)
Einbroch United (EU)
Dewata Executors Union (DEU)

But it will either bring them in or keep them out if they don't have a town to "Settle in".. If everything works perfectly in paper, it will definitely bring everyone in for a fight.. Then comes conflicting time zone..

BUT, that would make a great advertising campaign!

1) Get a landing page to vote for which country would dominate in RO.
2) Users Create a game account, vote.
3) They can vote daily to unlock themselves a City [1,000], then their own customized City Name[5,000], then starting status perks [10,000] (else it's random), etc, until server open
4) Most active member of the county gets to be the country's President!

Lol.. that would be fun too!

Guilds renamed as political parties.. They fight for policies to their own agenda within their own country.. have meetings with the United Nations, GM/Devs, to discuss what should be implemented next. Presidents can declare war with other countries.. Once war is active, those countries can fight each other.. Hahahaha...

Is there anywhere else to discuss these to get more feedback?

[Bue]

come back to reality for sec.

ragnarok is all about woe for gvg and bg for tvt, but not factions.

they are difficult to get right and brs, pinoys, and usa/eu will never fight under the same faction.

[CCK]

tl;dr
Wouldn't FvF bring out a whole new meta for RO gameplay? New strategies, new playstyles, etc etc. In normal servers, one guild usually becomes overpowered, other guilds will either leave or join up with that guild, too, right?


=====================================

Yeah, what I meant was having similar features but instead of Factions, it's Countries, so players will still fight for their country even if they are losing...?

Their home towns will be named after their countries, so they have their own spawn points, etc. Able to upgrade their town features like banks for Weekly Zeny payouts, mining for Oridecons and Eluniums, etc.

WoE will be held in towns which are neutral, so whichever country conquered that town with WoE, can play around in there, for their own political parties, for voting rights? While their leaders will get to loot treasure chests anyways.

BG will still be there for everyone to fight in.

All these features are configurable. I'm trying to create the butterfly effect, *From Wiki* the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state.

Kind of like, knowing what the next target our faction is heading for, help out as much/little I can, still get the benefits once target is achieved. Especially things like MvP drops that are limited. Either help out the greater good or stay silent, it's up to you, nobody knows except yourself. You get to choose to sell it to your opponents if you so wish your Faction/Country to fall into your enemy's hand. But if you choose to help, you are recognized.

From what I felt from joining WoE, it's like cramp spaces in castles that often having AoE constantly casted, AD flying, etc? Maybe I've not experienced super large scale WoE, so I'm not too sure if my exp are what the general population feels.

And lastly, what I'm trying to create is a new meta-game of taking over towns with half of the whole community and the other quarter defending and another quarter counter attacking, instead of having an end game of full gears, max lvl, 1 hit ko, number 1 pvp-er, etc, which usually are experienced by only a handful of hardcore players.

I got to admit, I don't have the motivation to be top PvP-er, etc, but I always wanted to do something for a community that will have a lasting impact. And the servers that I played, are usually, download -> install -> train -> meet 1 good player, and 3 bad ones -> WoE/PvP -> can't contribute/achieve much -> left. And those that I stayed longer than usual is often it's another solo feature of hitting lvl 500 or to try out a unique server feature..


P.s. Thanks for the reply Bue.


Edit:
Anyways, I think I should just realize I'm bad in starting a RO server that are attractive to players. Since I couldn't get any successful server even after 10 years. Hahaha.

[Bue]

I got an idea.

Replace factions with alliances, where guilds form an alliance rather than players form a faction.

This has two advantages:
1. Guild alliances is more likely than player collectivism.
2. Alliance system handle a few guilds versus many players.

Just take advantage of the existing ally and enemy in the guild system that is already implemented.

The next step.
1. Set a diminishing return mechanism and limit the reward proportional the number of guilds for each alliance, which forces alliances to balance the quantity and quality of guilds.

2. Scale the difficulty exponentially for acquiring more 'control', which require the dominating alliance to stretch their control thin and allow smaller alliances to take advantages of their weaker positions.

3. Create ranking systems for players and guilds, which makes a guild attractive to an alliance and makes a player attractive to a guild. But game theory must be applied, meaning a guild is better than the sum of players individually and a alliance is better than the sum of guilds individually.

How do this work?

#1 prevents the top 3 guilds from forming an alliance because each guild can obtain more rewards as a separate alliance.
#2 prevents the top alliances from controlling everything because extending control require exponential more resources.
#3 encourages players to join guilds and guilds to join alliances, or encourages alliance to recruit guilds and encourages guilds to recruit players.

You can implement your features surrounding alliances thereafter.

[DieYouSay]

Hey man, I really like this server idea. Really, I can appreciate any effort to change up this game. We all know it by heart, yet keep coming back to it, 12 years going now. I would love to play on any server trying to bring some change and variety into the everyday life of playing a Ragnarok character.

I actually played on a server that did something really similar to what you suggest, I almost wonder if you might have been the guy hosting it? At the start of the game, you were nothing but a spirit who floated down a winding road, then you met an NPC and had to choose a race to reincarnate into. There was Dragon, Devil, Beast, and Human, and I'm pretty sure you were account-bound into whatever race you picked. The Dragon and Devil races all had horns and wings permanently put into costume slots, the beasts had tails and fuzzy ears. All of the major cities were under lockdown, and had to be unlocked and won by one of the factions during what was essentially WoE... Unfortunately I don't think this feature was ever totally implemented, which meant the cities and their conveniences were essentially removed from the server.    Instead, your faction had a base camp that was put in place of an actual map and had nothing on it to start. There was an architect NPC who would require materials to construct the essential conveniences of Ragnarok. I think the first building unlocked was healer, then tool shop, job change NPC, warper and so on. Most buildings required large sums of oridecon and elunium, and it was pretty cool to see your base come together as an entire team. Oh, and PVP was always active towards anyone outside of your race!

As you can imagine, it was a lot of fun with a lot of downsides. After a few months it boiled down to only 2 races seriously competing with each other, and people had even more of a reason to jump ship on their race because they could immediately start playing on a race that had a warper and shops and stuff. Those starting days, having to walk everywhere, farm basic equips, they were pretty rough. But they also forced people to get creative, and running into another ragtag group of different race made for some awesome low-level pvp. It was kind of amazing how much it got people to socialize. If you ran into someone your own race, it's like they were instantly your buddy. You want buffs? f*** it you wanna party up since we're both here? You're working for the same goal in the end, and it made people eager to party up. The people who joined in after about a month missed all of that, and were wondering why the hell they were stuck without any resources while tigers and dragons were warping back into maps and had all this cool s***. Also not having any cities effectively wrecked some classes, I think alchemists got the worst of it since they couldn't make homunculi.

I gotta give credit to whoever ran that server though, because they also created the framework of an elaborate king of the hill battle which was supposed to be how races could capture the major cities and regain access. There were six large pads throughout the city that the attacking race would try to stand on, while the race who owned the city had to keep them from getting on all six at once. At first since the cities were unowned, they were populated with super high statted sword and bow guardians that you could only take down with like 50+ people and good gears, which nobody really had at that time. So we took six novices and trick dead on the buttons and unlocked the city which made the admin disable all the cities again to work on the script some more.

Unfortunately I think the server died rather soon after, and the grand-scale battles that could have been never were. I wonder if anyone else remembers playing on this or possibly the name of it? Anyways I really like your ideas and hope you can pull this off and avoid some pitfalls in the process!

[CCK]

@Bue

We won't be too sure which will actually work. Factions or Alliance. Both requires players. And actually, it's just a way of naming different size of groups and using available underused systems vs a custom untested system (in RO).

The mechanism/methods/calculations of creating the balanced out gameplay is almost the same, and the things you suggested are excellent. I am very confident of doing a good job on that. But I should conclude that I am unable to get the amount of players to try any of them out. Either wrong release dates or lack of team/can't scale fast enough.

I'd really like to thank you for your time replying, I'll put some thoughts into how to revamp the idea, but unless I can get the attention of many, (say at least 100 for a start?) There isn't a demand for such a server, which ultimately going to close down, again. Hahaha.. Let's see if there are more who are interested, from there, these ideas can be refined!~

===

@DieYouSay

That server sounds fun and is really similar to what I'm planning to do! The Architect NPC helps the notion of building up your own town, I didn't thought of that, just went straight the having the basic NPCs instead. Opposing Factions can disable them though. Haha. And I've thought out previously on having Job related NPCs placed inside Sanctuary which is a neutral ground for Factions.

I have created features over the years that would kind of help extend the required time to reach end game, from
Ex Cards that provides a more specialized playstyle (+ this stats, but - that stats).

Having Party Quests (Impossible to Solo Boss Fights) at Level 99, 109 and 119 to advance to 100, 110 and 120, without additional stats after 99, just bonus HP/SP, so players can enter harder difficulty areas.

Zeny Sinks with Gachapon, random items/headgears. Loki's Playground, a PvP map for Factions that spawns useful items like enriched elu/ori so faction members can fight inside in hopes of getting those items.

eXo Booster Packs that are themed like Leveling, and later on special one time use spell cards, which is another Zeny Sink, which provides players a chance of 5 random cards that helps to level up characters.

And all those Faction Features that I listed above, they are already scripted.

But like I said to Bue, I think I have to conclude that I can't get enough players to play in time to bring in more players. =\ I created like 6 servers, and the best was 120 players, when private RO servers were still, fairly new. I am weak in bringing in new players, so most probably the end product may not happen. Unless a miracle happens!~

[DieYouSay]

It's pretty awesome that you've made so much for this game... Sadly it is an old game. People don't really get introduced to this game anymore, and the population of private server players seems to be definitely declining. And unfortunately a lot of the people who have stuck around don't seem to want Ragnarok to really change (although renewal is kinda crappy lol). I feel like guild mentality has kind of caused the stagnation, people have practiced their meta-game for a long time now. They know how to get into a server and start fighting for the top, and they have pretty elaborate routines for grinding up gears for WoE. And I totally get that this is still fun to do, and I totally understand why you wouldn't want too much change in Ragnarok to mess with that. At the same time I hope there are some players out there who are looking to sort of "re-learn" the game. Players who wouldn't mind getting stomped in WoE one week as long as they figured out a new skill combo to use the next. Maybe I'm too much in love with oldschool make-your-map RPGs, I would love to have to make a brand new wiki to document a server instead of constantly flipping back to RMS.

I really like your ideas for having 1 persistent server and 1 revolving server. I'm always looking for new servers opening up because I enjoy that rush of the first few days when everybody is hungry for cards and gear. And it's usually just a huge waste of time when the server shuts down after the first few WoEs, but it would be so awesome to actually have that effort go towards something on the persistent server!

Hang in there man. This game has a weird way of drawing people back to it. One day the community will be ready for your server.