RO Server's today.

[Warock]

THats the point saw how this topic Ragnarok server today changed into HeRO server review hahah Foolishness

[XicoR4]

The problem with the RO private server community is that there are too many servers.

And honestly, 90% of them are a complete waste of the player's time, left to dig around the server listing for another couple hours to find "that one server".

While I agree there is a big problem with servers nowadays, it's not just the servers themselves, the RO community has also gotten older and tired. As such, there's a lot more bad seeds and elitist players which turn off possible new RO players from joining and as people know, no new players means the game will die. (At least as far as a MMO is concerned)
All this besides the fact that RO itself is an old old game that's just not that attractive anymore.

[Warock]

thats what I believe instead of nurturing new bies competition between each servers trying to show each other bad in the process which is keeping the Newbies away from the game

[Xerxes]

thats the uniqueness of private servers.. xD

[Ganondorf]

Currently going through this myself.  I used to play Ragnarok Frontier long ago when I had the time to play Low Rates, now that I don't have that time anymore, I've been forced to move to Mid Rates and beyond.  A lot of these said rated servers either had an Admin who is absurdly terrible at balancing the game, implemented some whacky and ridiculous donations/customs, decided to go corrupt for their friends or simply let their server burn to hell out of laziness.

The last really good server I played was PoisonRO last year, it was a Super High Rate that felt more like a Mid Rate with enhanced stat damage.  You still had to work for your cards and equipment and the Admin really gave class balancing a good run for its money, which isn't commonly seen on a Super High Rate.  When it died however, the game died with it for me.  The few great servers that I did run into during my 8 - 10 month server hop either died within a month like some have already stated in this thread, or one of my above situations above occurred, making the server not so desirable anymore or straight up killing it.

[Cheese Time]

I have to agree with ganon, poison was also the best server i have been to, even though it was my first one, evey server seems dull and practicly the same now, there isnt anything new

[Ruchi]

Tried heRO myself, left there after 10minutes. Not saying it's bad, just saying that it's not RO the way RO is supposed to be imho. I'm thinking RO will never get another decent Lowrate at all. Which is also the reason i decided to stop trying and do something else with my time. It's no use playing on a server that's not up to par and has an extremely lazy GM team and all people do is jump from server to server. (Not talking about heRO here, just priv servers these days in general.)

Piece out RO

[Majinken Souga]

I have to agree with ganon, poison was also the best server i have been to, even though it was my first one, evey server seems dull and practicly the same now, there isnt anything new

That's another problem. Seen one RO server, you've pretty much seen them all. Almost nobody has any creativity left when it comes to making new servers. Granted there are exceptions to the rule, but this is the case for most servers.

[Cheese Time]

No no no, that wasnt the only server ive been to, that was just my first after 2-3 months in valkyrie, i just saw an advert and iw as like, meh, ill try it out looks, okay o.o.

I try it, and i was like gawd, i wish lvling was so easy on iRO q__q..

Well, back on topic, after that server broke up, I server hopped for well, im still server hopping (not actually right now, waiting to get my computer back from being fixed)
the only servers i actually stayed on was, Kodama, and MAYBE Charm if you sum up the times i was there (stayed there like a month or 2, quit, came back after a month or two, and played a month more, quit.) xDD

Charm was crap to me though :s
Kodama, was a pleasure to be with, Admin was fun, GM's were fun (could of been me but nooo xD), but it kinda did get boring at one time
if i remember correctly, woe never started, and we were 40+?

[Usagimimi]

I've searched... three years, actually, for a decent server, and I've fallen on some good teams with bad structure, and some great structures with bad teams.

Doesn't help that pServers are feeding people the "easy" plate either with all those custom, imba' NPCs from eAthena. Competition is not like it used to be, as it has steadily been declining and worsening. Some dub RO a "dying" game but it's not really that, moreso as the OP said, the RO pop' is spread amongst a lot of servers since any 13-year-old could open a server and set it up.

Most people are just after quick-open, acquire donations, and close anyway. Seen my share of those types, as they are the majority of server owners.

Can't say I'm any better for it, though, as I've done my share of disappointing, co-admin or not.

[Gankz]

I've searched... three years, actually, for a decent server, and I've fallen on some good teams with bad structure, and some great structures with bad teams.

Doesn't help that pServers are feeding people the "easy" plate either with all those custom, imba' NPCs from eAthena. Competition is not like it used to be, as it has steadily been declining and worsening. Some dub RO a "dying" game but it's not really that, moreso as the OP said, the RO pop' is spread amongst a lot of servers since any 13-year-old could open a server and set it up.

Most people are just after quick-open, acquire donations, and close anyway. Seen my share of those types, as they are the majority of server owners.

Can't say I'm any better for it, though, as I've done my share of disappointing, co-admin or not.

I can sympathize with that, it's the same with me.

My opinion is rather biased since I'm on iRO, but I just see private servers as dying all together. Most people playing private servers have been around them for a while and has redone their work again and again and moved from server to server. No one wants to deal with the same old crap anymore, so they move on and stop playing all together. This situation is just making itself worse, because many people like myself will think "Well then I'll just make the perfect server, the rest of these are crap and I'll do much better than them!". This just makes things worse because people either end up not being able to handle the situation or get greedy. People will find this server rather good and just get further disappointed when s*** goes down =|

I don't know what else to say on the matter, just that I wish people would just stick to a previously established server such as heRO, Euph, Frontier, iRO, etc. Stop feeding these new servers =|

[DeePee]

Then again, most people who join such servers are the type of people you don't really want on your server in the first place.

[Kuprin]

Official servers: hackers, botters, and people with no life for years and years, farming ridiculous gear. Plus OH GOD GRIND on a 1x server.

Private servers these days have gotten much worse, I agree, and most of them are donation scams. It would be nice if people would start doing something about those bastards, like beating them silly, but that probably won't happen.

As for customs, I agree, but LOOK AT iRO. The new stuff on iRO is as broken as what we called gamebreaking customs only a few years ago!

What RO needs is some serious re-imagining, some major redesign. I have a TON of documentation from back when I worked on EuphRO with Forge on some of the things we cooked up in our fantasy sessions with the tech team. Things we'd do if time, admins, and manpower allowed it. If anyone cares, PM me. If anyone hears of a server receptive to some interesting rebalancing to make WoE/PvP/BG a lot more fun, PM me. If anyone knows of a server that has more of the oldschool mentality and just DOESN'T SUCK, please post it in this thread!

[Cheese Time]

Then again, most people who join such servers are the type of people you don't really want on your server in the first place.

I love you DeePee.

[Yomi]

QUIT MAKING PRIVATE SERVERS IF YOU DON'T KNOW HOW! MAKE SURE YOU HAVE THE TIME TO DO IT AND DON'T TREAT THE SERVER AS A BUSINESS!

Also, in the words of sketchyphoenix on eAthena's forums:

RO is old and populated by a bunch of idiots that like to run around with their poorly designed custom headgears on high rates one shotting porings because it's so ecks dee fun.

+1 to this.