2001-2003 --
The Official RO Journey->
iRO beta -- my high school friend introduced it to me during 2001's christmas break, i played until the holiday ends which is just from Dec to Jan
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iRO beta -- in the summer of 2002 i was bored and somehow run into this game again, found out it's still free and my account from Jan still exist, so i picked it up again, after one week or so, they went down for a while and introduced beta2 == wiped. So i started off fresh again, but shortly after, while i was trying to make a sin, i still remember that scene, i was leveling at mt. mjlr on caramels chatting with my guildies in End.Of.Time. (it was one of the few first guilds in iRO i believe, ppl jealous that i have an emblem next to my name
) and then all of a sudden, words of god colored yellow droped from the sky said iRO is out of funding or whatever with hacking etc, that it has to shut down for 2 months. I think i still have some screen shot of these somewhere lol.
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jRO -- yep, after iRO shut down in the middle of the summer holiday, i found ways to jump onto jRO (the japanese RO, it was free at the time) played it a while, ppl were extremely nice, no ksing, free healing in town, i think there were sidewalk vending too. I made a wizard there, but then one day, after they did an update, all non-japan ip can't get on anymore including me of course
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cRO -- continue my RO journey, since i am chinese, i can read chinese char but can't type. I figured there are official servers opened in taiwan. haha obviously i moved there after iRO and jRO. They were kinda new and still free so i got to play and met a few friends there. There were lots of botters and mean ppl. Typical chinese players xD, but still some are nice. They once used the prontera fountain as a display case for botters, warp bots there and let ppl see lol it was funny to look. I can read what they say, it's better than jRO where i only got slight clues in convosation unless they talk in english. As expected, like my fate with iRO and jRO... cRO won't let me stay
!!! After I made my wizard there (was trying to continue my jRO goal) they go pay 2 play. Not that i dont have the money, but they relay on stupid pay card, i don't live in taiwan it was almost impossible for me to buy them her in toronto. I heard ppl said they had them for sell in china town in the US bleh, not here, so forget it i was forced to quit...(this should be around Sept - Oct)
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back to iRO -- Haha, not long after i "quit", iRO annouced they are going to reopen, it was during November or December. I think they were in closed beta or pay 2 play beta testing. The price $15 or $20 to play from Nov to Jan. Of course i signed up and paid the fee. It was the first time i feel "I BELONG HERE" since i paid and it's in english so they cant shut their door on me like jRO and cRO did. But my real life friend don't have a credit card to pay 2 play with me, that was the sad part. I was going to ask her to play with me (She was the friend that introduced me the game in the beginning, she was also there with my in cRO, she's chinese too.). So i made an account, we shared it, tho we can't play together, we can each have a taste of the game lol. She wasn't too active so there were no conflict between us. Hmm, I first started a swordman, it was an easy class to make money and all that, just level slow cuz it was a vit build (vit used to be good without the 3 or more monster hitting u = minus 10 vit etc thingie). During Decemeber when I had exams i vended all day in Izlude weapon/armor shop, restock whenever needed, i was
[email protected], very famous in izlude xD cuz i gave refund/exchange and do business nicely
. But due to the fact that i cant concentrate studying, i kept checking shops, reply to pm from newbs, talk about deals/trades ... i failed a course that term damnit >>><<<. Then i said to myself, damnit, i shouldn't put so much time in this game, it ruins me, so in Jan 2003 i think i started to step away from it for a few months. ahh, somewhere between that, I made 6m and bought a raydric card!!! it was the biggest purchase of my life at the time lol ... Still, i renewed the payment in Feb, then played till the end of March. and guess what?! NO, it wasn't wipe, they just annouced they'll open loki and goes free of charge again. April = exam again >_> it was not a good time, but dont worry i did good that term hehe. So the freeloader came back to usual RO forums etc, and i run into my iRO beta friends from End.Of.Time. again. hehe, they decided to start in loki (my knight & merchant with lots of wealth etc from the paid period was in chaos, it wasn't good to start fresh in chaos since ppl from the paid period are still there, hard to catch up to the economy) so i follow them to start new there, we renamed the guild to "The Chosen Ones" if i remember correctly... The time between April to the start of May was when gravity do their fixing and preparing, no RO at the time. good, i concentrated to study exams but still read about RO in forums after study xD. I think the free period started in May, they released a new client and everyone was so excited about it, i keep trying to download it but can't hmm get corrupted files / can't connect here and there / tried using BT the first time in my life lol with the default sucky BT client too... So it started, May 2 or so, free!! again!!! i made a job 50 wizard by lvling at agriope and stings in less than 2 weeks (maybe it was double rated?). But noooo things happen again....At the end of May, Gravity annouced iRO is going commercial LOL screwed all the freeloaders haha. It was ok for me cuz i could pay to keep my account like i did before. but for friends well not everyone can pay. As i told my friend (the one that introduced me to RO) i am going to pay, she told me a guy from our high school opened a private server, and she's going to play there...first i was like WTF no i am not gonna move again after all that RO journey i have been thru... After thinking for a while, i think playing with my friend is better than playing + paying on iRO, and if i dont have to pay, i dont have to play much and can let my account rot hehe. So, at the end of May...i started to play on a private server. It was just a server with 10-20 ppl, private server was not popular at all back in 2003. The funny thing is, i gave away all my stuff to the ppl that were gonna pay to play iRO, what iRO did was rollback item for 3 days to screw the ppl that paid to play and god their stuff from ppl that quit hahaha ...
2003-2006 The Private Servers Daysto be continued...sick of writing xD
why am i writing so much ... i should split this into a different topic about "Your Ro History Journal" ... ok w/e i'll continue this later
