DreamerRO - A newcomer's review

[ToastedBread]

First and foremost, I am writing this review after having played for only 1 day. But I will update this again after a month.

Let's start from the beginning, the download, I hadn't played RO in quite some time, years. So I chose the 'full install' download. 1.6GB I believe. Amazingly this download took only 15 minutes. After 3, possibly 4, minutes of patching I was ready to log in.

The first thing I noticed was the whopping 700 people logged in, it had been a long, long, long time since I had seen a server with so many people logged in. I remember thinking 250 was a ton of people. But my hopes of a bustling server were nearly crushed when I got to the main city, approximately 50, or maybe more, people sitting in silence. In fact it was approximately 8 hours before anyone would talk to me. I hadn't played RO in years so I wasn't familiar with mercenaries. I was making an Arch Bishop, a class I still don't know how to play, as all of the new spells seem totally useless to me. I was having a good time, managed to keep myself alive even. But then the server had a meltdown and all of the mob AI went out the window, enemies would spawn, but they didn't move, the didn't attack. The game essentially became PVP only, but I continued to grind on AI-less enemies. Even the MVP arena was at a standstill. Around level 300 or so I started getting PKed in the MVP arena, a lot. it turned what could have been a 4 hour leveling spree into a 7 hour one. no matter which rooms I chose, they hunted the newbie caster.  But no big deal, except they also had to steal my kills, greatly slowing my leveling. Finally after around 90 or so PK's they let up and I could level in peace once more. Did I mention these PKers didn't even talk? Not even to trash-talk the newbie, just silent murder.

Finally at lvl 500, the maximum level. I proceeded into the PvP arena, where I didn't expect to live, but I went in anyway. In PvP I quickly learned that Mdef was either incredibly nerfed or simply non-exsistant. with the maximum int(also 500) I continued to take massive damage from other casters. I died in one hit from most spells. Especially multiple hit spells like Jupiter Thunder, my squishy healer just couldn't take 10 hits of 40k. The only class I could indeed kill were hunters/snipers/rangers, who were genuinely humiliated when they learned I didn't have any cards, and was using a simple bible and the equipment given to me at the beginning of the tutorial.

I finally found somebody who talked after around 8 hours. Now mind you I wasn't going around asking people to talk to me, but to see no conversation anywhere for so long just seems eerie. Rationalizing it as people only talking in party/guildchat I continued getting wrecked in PvP.

So that was my first day of DreamerRO, overall fun, but way to quiet for so many players. And the AI problem was interesting, though it made leveling incredibly easy.

I did not participate in any events, but I saw system announcements for several, I'm not sure if they were automated or if a GM was online, but there seemed to be around 10 or so events in the 9 hours I played yesterday.

Update 04/15/2010

Okay, so I've played for 5 days... Not much has changed, I remade my character from a Arch Bishop to be a Ranger, PvM is pretty easy now.

My main issue with this server has to be how nerfed most of these 3rd classes are. some points are absolutely ridiculous. Lets take the rune knight for instance. A rune knight's skill called dragon's breath has a RIDICULOUSLY HUGE range. The range on this skill is just under the range of an archer class. like 9 maybe 10 cells, but in every direction. I don't know what this ridiculous skills damage is based on, as the skill description is pathetic to say the least. But I'm seeing it kill 10+ players in one hit, I understand the rune knights have cards and either donates or donate clones, but One rune knight claimed to be able to hit 10,000,000 damage with ONE dragon's breath against palis. The same knight one hit my ranger who has about 700k hp and only 50vit.

A smaller issue I have with this server is how many items reduce skill delays. On top of kiels stacking, which was removed from official servers years ago. Anyone who's played 20 days and voted all 20 days can get enough equipment to reduce the skill delay by about 120% if they have 2 kiels or 60% without any. Which means veteran players who have 2 or more kiels can spam they're strongest spells as fast as they can hit the buttons.

Something that's just annoyed me since I started is that all of the cards seem to lie. The effects of cards are increased quite a bit with the rates, but the description of every card(that has been effected) seems to say it does way more than it actually does. Let's look at yoyo card for instance. The official iRO Yoyo card gives +5 perfect dodge. In dRO the card reads that it gives +25 perfect dodge. though in actuality it only gives +10 perfect dodge.

The more I play this server the more this server seems so out of balance.

On a side note, something I found hilarious, with how much damage these classes can dish out, the Warg used by Rangers auto-attack function(meaning if you aren't riding your warg it would attack whatever you attack, like a pet) was disabled because it did "too much damage" Further reducing the already crappy capabilities of the class.

And lastly, something I have noticed. I do not have any issues with this, but it is noteworthy for anyone who considers playing. It seems that out of the people who frequently talk, many are 'pinoy' and do not speak English well, if at all. That's not to say there aren't people who speak English.

[DarkDevine]

Sounds like a pretty crappy high rate server for me, thanks for the review.

[Nish]

Thanks for the first impression review.

I know dreamerRo is heavily dominated by donators who are PK crazy so I could imagine lvling being rather rough and if it was me I would have quit after being pked 10 or some times hehe.

I don't mind PK servers but when there is an obvious advantage to donators it doesn't seem worth it.

I know you can buy donations with zeny but it's like an insane ammount so if you wan't fast PVP action i guess you really do need to donate.

Won't be a server I will try anytime soon tho.

[ToastedBread]

Okay, so lets just jump right in. Game Breakers and Makers

Maker: Very well done, albeit unbalanced, 3rd job classes. Fun to try out stuff I hadn't seen before.

Breaker: Too much downtime. I guess one of the GM's was hosting the server themselves, as anytime the server went down, which happened 2 or more times a week it seemed. We would have to wait HOURS for some GM to either wake up or get home.

Breaker: Extremely unbalanced PvP, any newcomers should be prepared to be stomped into the ground, spit on, and then stomped on some more, but that's fairly typical for any server that offers donation items. But some of the 3rd jobs I mentioned are so nerfed beyond reasoning *cough* Rune Knight *cough* that they can 1-hit max level players who aren't decked out in godly equipment.

Breaker: Hero, I don't know who had an aneurysm, but hero weapons are NOT supposed to be trade-able. You're not even supposed to be able to store them or drop them. But, nooooo, gotta deal with every rich player(multi-billionares) carrying about 3 or more rank B+ hero weapons with uberdamage and 4 slots.

Breaker: Land of the dead, so few of people talked that the game seemed like a single-player game for a while.

I could go on with more game-breaking bad news, but I'm sure everyone's gotten the point by now. I no longer have any fun at this server, at all.


NOTE: You may be curious why I'm ragging on the Rune Knight. It's because of the skill "Dragon's Breath" a skill whose description literally could not tell you less about the skill I believe it reads "Dragon's Breath damage is determined by riders status" and nothing more. Rider's Status.... what does that even mean, I guess it means that they have OverPowered status or something, because for a skill that hits a HUGE range, 10x10 cells, it does WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too much damage. I was one-hit by this skill, I don't know how many times, and I had low defense/vitality and over 2,000,000HP, I tried getting as much hp as I possibly could, with common cards came out to be about 4mil HP, and i was STILL dying in one hit, even if they had thana, that's ridiculous for that large of an AoE skill. That's comparable to say Storm Gusting a poring.

[GorthexTiger]

You should read my HoS topic. (First link in Signature).

The official iRO Yoyo card gives +5 perfect dodge. In dRO the card reads that it gives +25 perfect dodge. though in actuality it only gives +10 perfect dodge.

Wow, that still hasn't been fixed? That was like, about two years ago when I was working for them.

My my, how things change. [/sarcasm]

[khang]

Hi all, Sorry if i necro'ed the thread.

First of all, i don't know much about normal players about dreamer but for me (They know who am i and probably most of you do) i still think it's a great server. Because of the recent event that happened to dreamer, think it's time for me to say something.

Haze no doubt kinda make a lot of double donation points event for whatever reason he could throw it out. The things i respect about him and the only thing that made me stop is his guts, his efforts and his courage. He has been very patient towards all these hacking and what not and he defended the server for a very long time now. Which a lot of you won't see it.

The truth is, it is not easy to hack dreamer ro like what others has described. Of course doing what i did i need lotsa backups to continue doing what i do and tried my best to hide it from Haze himself but all i can tell you is that eathena server are secure in a way to a normal server owners and programmers but there are bound to have a few vulnerabilities that hasn't been found yet. Enough of that~

I've done this since the moment i joined dreamer about .. maybe 2 years now? and left briefly about 5~6 months ago.. Grew tired and bored of RO and needed to concentrate on my life now, so i left what i've made to my fellow friends. As a result, being greedy and tempted by the powers i've granted them.. they manage to piss off literally 100+ innocent players in the server.

To sum it up, whether i'm here to save my friends or the server it doesn't matter cause i am really, really, really am impressed by Haze on how he put up with all these hackings and he never gives up. Haze is a very good admin despite all the dramas that has been going on (there's no perfect server). As for the reason for my post is.. and i can safely say that the hacking from me will stop. I've removed all my tools and access that i've given out.

I know a lot of you wanted proof that i'm legit.. to proves it, Haze have to reveal my email via subject "Verify me" in [email protected] or [email protected] for what i've done to verify that i am real and compare it with my email registered here. That's the only verification i can give to you guys and peace to all of you.

[GorthexTiger]

Hi all, Sorry if i necro'ed the thread.

First of all, i don't know much about normal players about dreamer but for me (They know who am i and probably most of you do) i still think it's a great server. Because of the recent event that happened to dreamer, think it's time for me to say something.

Haze no doubt kinda make a lot of double donation points event for whatever reason he could throw it out. The things i respect about him and the only thing that made me stop is his guts, his efforts and his courage. He has been very patient towards all these hacking and what not and he defended the server for a very long time now. Which a lot of you won't see it.

The truth is, it is not easy to hack dreamer ro like what others has described. Of course doing what i did i need lotsa backups to continue doing what i do and tried my best to hide it from Haze himself but all i can tell you is that eathena server are secure in a way to a normal server owners and programmers but there are bound to have a few vulnerabilities that hasn't been found yet. Enough of that~

I've done this since the moment i joined dreamer about .. maybe 2 years now? and left briefly about 5~6 months ago.. Grew tired and bored of RO and needed to concentrate on my life now, so i left what i've made to my fellow friends. As a result, being greedy and tempted by the powers i've granted them.. they manage to piss off literally 100+ innocent players in the server.

To sum it up, whether i'm here to save my friends or the server it doesn't matter cause i am really, really, really am impressed by Haze on how he put up with all these hackings and he never gives up. Haze is a very good admin despite all the dramas that has been going on (there's no perfect server). As for the reason for my post is.. and i can safely say that the hacking from me will stop. I've removed all my tools and access that i've given out.

I know a lot of you wanted proof that i'm legit.. to proves it, Haze have to reveal my email via subject "Verify me" in [email protected] or [email protected] for what i've done to verify that i am real and compare it with my email registered here. That's the only verification i can give to you guys and peace to all of you.

You not hacking it anymore khang doesn't make it any less of a s***.

/thread.