EarlyRO

[horo]

For a little while I've been playing EarlyRO until today, when, due to the server using an oudated SVN with most of its exploits intact, someone happily duped OCA and somehow did 100k DS in PvP, and the very sensible admins solution is pending between completely wiping all items and zeny, or having a rollback of a full week (I suppose that's how rarely backups are made). So with the upcoming death of the server, I'd thought I'd post a review of it!

Server

Stability: 7
Heavy position lag bugs and whatnot were caused more by the SVN than the server itself, and I didn't experience problems in this category otherwise.

Availability: 10
Wasn't down even once for the duration of my stay since there weren't any patches or fixes implemented either.


Community

Friendliness: 8
Small communities tend to be more close-knit, and with about 30-40 active players outside of WoE new players were welcomed warmly and treated nicely. I quickly found a friendly guild and a good bunch of people to party with. Minus 2 points for the inevitable rare idiot that is bound to inhabit any server.

Eventfulness: 2
Besides a scripted daily event that is spawning a non-aggressive mob in a random town with ~120k hp to be devoured by any monk within seconds, I've not witnessed a single event.



Game Master

Friendliness: 9
Pretty much the only trait the GM do exhibit is friendliness.

Availability: 2
Prior to the aforementioned incident, I've seen a GM online only once for about a minute, not doing anything in particular. Very hard to get timely answers.

Helpfulness: 2
The GM are overall quite incapable, disorganized and helpless, as they do not know how to deal with bots, exploits or making decisions about the server setup. People using exploits and WPE has been known for a while, yet GM did not act upon it. Overall the server seems abandoned by the GM team safe for emergencies.


Gameplay

Economy: 5
More auto-traders than players, and much spam of B/S/T in @main all around the clock. Items were generally overpriced, often insanely, and finding what you wanted for sale was hard to impossible as everyone was looking for the same items but too lazy to hunt them. If you were willing to pay the price though, you could find this or that.

Guild Competition: 2
Absolute one guild dominance. Some other guilds exist, but they're insignificant when it comes to WoE.

Class Balance: 3
The outdated SVN this is running out has a lot of bugs restricting some classes, and 'features' like BB doing only one hit, making for a lack of damage dealers overall. Armor status cards are set to 10%/20%/30% respectively making them extremely overpowered and unbalancing the server further. GM do not seem to have any grasp on game balance and display an attitude of 'If it's in the SVN it's supposed to be there'.


Overall I'm a fan of the classic server concept, but the execution was once again lacking, with the GM adding this and that, turning the server not so classic anymore. Even before the poorly handled incident the playerbase was dwindling and might have gone extinct eventually; certainly it cannot take the blow it is about to, yet the administration seems ignorant towards this.

While my score would not have differed much a week ago, I would have recommended it to people interested in the concept to check it out, as a community can make or break a server, and you could certainly make friends quickly on EarlyRO. Unfortunately GM are another factor that can break a server, and they seem about to.