HeRO

[Fruit Pie~]

Hello again! This is another tag team review documenting our first impressions of a server. This time, the Wheel of Fate brought us to the long-running low rate server heRO. I'm Fruit Pie and my text is green - in-game I was Euphemism the Rogue. My old friend Rose Tea has maroon text, and he played Eponymous the Bard. Let's do this!

THE SITE

No, this isn't standards compliant. I ain't hearing it.

I am so sorry I've mocked sites with "the bar" before. This is it. This is the biggest waste of screen space. It looks OKAY, but would it hurt if it was a little, I dunno, larger? I'd have far less problems with "the bar" if it was all the same size, but it seems to vary per site!

The website is, I think, designed for somebody with an 800x600 monitor. Even I have a healthy dose of white space on every side. The text is tiny, the actual site area itself is tiny, everything is tiny. Why is it so tiny? I can't say. Aside from that, the design is functional enough. What follows is our usual foray into the Wiki to see what exactly we're getting ourselves into.

I am very scared.

THE WIKI

Fishing! Fishing is apparently a fun and exciting way to sit around in one spot and click+mash enter to gather fish. Fish heal both HP and SP at various levels : the weakest being just a red potion, then orange+grape, yellow+grape juice, white+blue, then straight-up ygg seed and ygg berry with some downsides. Hilariously, only the Guppy, Salmon, and Mutant Fish weigh less than the two items the fish heal like: Trout and Bass are heavier. There's also an Angel Fish, which heals 700-1000 HP and 100-130 SP (or ~1.5 mastelas and ~2.5 blue pots) These can't be used in WoE, which is a good call in my opinion. Actually worth the effort? Can't tell yet.
Fishing is made much more useful (arguably a bit too useful) with the Fish in the Mouth, which has been modified to make fish much better healing items. No, you can't have one of those, since you didn't join specifically in April 2012, as well as not voting 50 times. But more on this later.

Mining is something several RO servers have put in but have failed to make interesing or exciting. Given the wiki fails to mention much interactivity in the mining process, I'm not expecting this to be much better. Mining looks to be a great source of various minerals and ores (you could guess the list, really). Notably on the list is Gold, and I suppose if you were lucky enough to find one, you could NPC it, buy 130 more pickaxes to get more things to NPC. Infinite Zeny Fountain? We'll see.
Mining is something best done by a macro program. Since heRO uses Harmony (or whichever other shield starts with "H"), you have to use a third-world Autohotkey clone, a Python script or, if you're a more eSports inclined person, a Razer overpriced piece of crap. Depending on the drop rates, mining might actually give you more zeny than you spend which will, in fact, result in the Infinite Zeny Fountain - always a sign of a well-though-out system.

The Light/Dark system is an alignment mechanic that seems to serve the roleplay side of the server. I'm interested to check this out. The Wiki also has several large pages dedicated to the Chronicle of the Heroes, apparently the ongoing storyline to the server that I can't make heads nor tails of. Related to this is the monthly Light vs. Dark event, the Trial of Heroes, which I will not be participating in for obvious reasons.
The RP events are important because apparently the availability of some items and maps are determined by those RP events. I suspect some are ONLY available through RP events, but I can't be sure about this.
The Light/Dark allegiance thing is... surprisingly underwhelming, actually. You earn ranking within your color, which allows you to paint yourself white/black, make a wide variety of cruddy (but cute-looking) helmets or tame an Angeling/Deviling cute pet! I know I'm sounding like a powergamer here, but color me impressed.

The remaining pages on the wiki talk mostly about the custom quests and items on the server, which are numerous and eyebrow-raising to some extent. Tons and tons and tons of the headgears seem out of stock: if you weren't there when they were available, well you're out of luck. The wings seem somewhat interesting, but they use both the Lower Headgear and Armor slots, so they aren't actually practical for PVP, and highly situational for PVM.
One thing to note here is that, according to the wiki, the Lower Head and Body things count refinement twice (so a +4 Wing is actually +8). This doesn't seem TOO powerful until you realize there are body armor cards such as Seyren Windsor that give you absurd stat bonuses when on a refined armor. This STILL doesn't sound too bad until the Wiki states that cards count twice on those, and that's when everything hits the fan.
And while MVP cards are still rare, just imagine one of those with a Tao Gunka. Not a pretty sight.

This is about as close to LibertarianRO as we'll ever get. Those who joined early get incredible benefits for no effort - the anniversary gear never goes away like the ones in iRO, and some of them are amazing. Getting them appears to be a simple matter of voting. Things are also changed to be harder every now and then (if I remember correctly, picking your allegiance used to be a simple matter of talking to an NPC, but it requires a quest since mid-2011), but never easier (as it might hurt the veterans' feelings, I assume).

For other headgears, there's the Mr. Hatter quest. The Mr. Hatter quest involves giving a guy cards, collecting 100 of an item he chooses, and some other stuff. "Hatter cards" seem to go for 300k and the card drop rate here is 0.03%. Once you do this, you have a roughly 1% chance to get any given hat on his list. If you actually want a hat for aesthetic reasons, you're probably better buying it (or going on a server where it's more easily obtained). Otherwise, good luck, since Ramen Hats and slotted mids are obtainable here.

ROSE TEA'S RUN

My adventure begins in a somewhat custom newbie island. It's quite big, but I was never given an immediate reason to check out anything except the first two NPCs in front of me, so exploring it was not on today's menu. The NPC told me all the rules, then quizzed me on the rules, then gave me a nice +100 HP hat and +100 HP armor, each with their own little bonuses while I was under level 30. Sure, whatever.
I took a while to start playing since I had problems with my internet connection, but I'm still going to comment on what Rose Tea's seen and done on his first day.

Choice E : Buy Talon Coins

You cannot warp anywhere by default: you have to travel to the place first, then unlock the warp by paying zeny. This isn't necessarily a BAD system, but I'd prefer it for dungeons more than just towns, going to Pront/Payon/Izlude/Alberta/Morroc/ect. to unlock them is just busy work. Hell, there's a quest to do that unlocks the towns for free... as soon as you get there in the first place! Come on, seriously?
Official RO at least has the decency of having those colored Butterfly Wings that take you to the job change towns for free. Also, random item boxes appear to be a running gag in this server - donating gives you a few of those instead of an actual item. It's not BAD, but I've grown to expect something solid out of my donations. If your luck is particularly rotten, five bucks will net you three Worm Peelings, a Jellopy, a Fire Arrow and two Mr Smiles. This is like something out of the Horseman of Famine's private server bulding guide.

As for unlocking things, the prices can actually be rather steep. 2500 is nothing to sneeze at as a newbie entering Payon Cave, and I forget how much Lighthalzen was but I think it was 25k. As a final prank on you, warps to towns/dungeons are 200/500 respectively, I was lucky and got a Claymore out of my novice OPB, but I could very easily see a new player bankrupting themselves just trying to get around.

Make note of that timestamp. Just make note of it.

While iRO may have looked at the job quests and said "Nevermind on these, you don't have to do them", heRO sticks to tradition where there are no job changers or platinum NPCs. Trunk collecting ahoy, and you better grab someone else to make elemental arrows if you want them. Or if you just want fire arrows, you can do those on your own... by walking over to the Sunken Ship.
jRO went even further and removed the quests for ALL job changes, because even the fairly hardcore Japanese RO crowd knows when too much is too much.

The second part of the warper's quest was essentially a fetch quest. Talk to the Prontera Save Girl to see what she needs, go get it, go back to Prontera, then walk to whatever place she wanted the thing delivered to. Free unlock, go back to Prontera, repeat. This is mind-numbing in nature, and the rewards were never, ever, ever worth the individual time.

YIPPIE-KI-YAY, A GIFT BOX. Please note that part 1 has only taken 10 minutes.

Suddenly, my questing was interrupted by a Novice Poring Smasher event. Sure, why not?

Really, now? Also, Gold was about a 2.6% drop rate from the Ghostrings.

I found it lucrative. Far, far too lucrative. I receivered 3 Gold, 6 Blue Potions (NPCable if nothing else), and a Bloody Branch. For a quest that was as difficult as "make a novice then talk to the NPC at the starting area", this seemed pretty... free? Context suggests to me that somebody else initiated the event... somehow. Maybe they paid out the butt for it, I don't know. If they did, it's an interesting (if sort of boring: click poring mob, click poring mob, click poring mob... oh its over) way to spread the wealth. If not, then... free money? Either way, through minimal effort on my part I got at least 360k in NPCable items, and possibly over one million if I vended.
Three Gold! In a 3x server! With the nerfed Alchemist Quest! This is a fairly absurd event, and I can see this review stopping much earlier had it not happened.

The rest of my loot. Not a bad haul, for something that took no effort on my part and had no risk whatsoever.

I ran into this trio of nice ladies at Payon, apparently a moderator and a GM (on her legit? Didn't look like a GM to me). I was given 100k in starting zeny because I "looked nice" and we had a bit of chit-chat. On the global scale, main chat was quick to answer questions and help me whenever I asked something. A pleasant enough start, the community certainly can't be faulted.
I wish I was there to see the questions and answers so I could feel that 2006 vibe like I always do in these low rate servers.

Thanks, nice ladies! You won't be forgotten!

Back to the Warper Quest, the individual rewards were... never, ever worthwhile. Ever. Forever. 5 Aloe Leaflets, some Oridecon/Elunium, a Mr. Smile (seriously?), sometimes I was just given a ltitle bit of zeny. One reward was 5 firecrackers, which seemed like the ultimate mockery to me.

Seriously, lady?

Finally, I was rewarded for all my hard work. Please note the timestamp in this picture:

This wasn't really a triumphant fanfare so much as the price is right failure horn.

00:00:20. Two hours, twenty minutes later, this quest was finally complete. My reward? The Buddy Beanie, which gives +600 HP, +80 SP, and +3% Experience... while you're under level 70. My one confusion about this: Had I actually ignored this quest entirely and stuck to the routine for the last two hours: Payon Dungeon a bit, maybe Wolves, moving up to Metalings and in the future Moscovia (perhaps? Metalings might work just fine with less travel), I'd either be at or pretty close to 70 anyway.
Perhaps not 70, but Rose Tea could at least have changed jobs by then. Metalings are some serious EXP bags when the fields are empty - which they are, since this server has few people playing on it. Yes, the population counter says 350, right there, but a simple check at the Who's Online will inform you that it's almost all Merchants. Counting here, there's 310 merchant classes and 40 other classes, as well as many of the vendors appearing to belong to the same few people and just being there to inflate the player count. You sneaky little devils.

I'm not kidding, look! These are all the same person!

The hoodie I got way back as a novice for doing the rules quiz recommended doing this quest once the hat stops being effective. I almost feel cheated off this, Nearly 2 and a half hours for something that stops working at level 70. At least a Hat [1] with a Willow Card would give the SP and work no matter what level I am. This reward just feels... not as helpful as something that takes 2 hours, 20 minutes should be.

I guess on a 5/5/3, I should be thankful for whatever I get. Unless it's Event Time and I get 3 golds and a bloody branch. I just don't know.
Going by how Rose Tea talks about them, those events kinda remind me of SHR gold rooms. I know this is becoming a cliche by now, but... it's a high rate feature in a low rate server.

By the way, the healer costs 10*level to heal you. It's free under level 20 (I think?) but, again, if you're not new and didn't have my incredible strike of fortune, have fun with this one.

After sleeping on this incredible bounty heRO has bestowed to me, I began another day of playing significantly less optimistic. Somehow, this server was more difficult than iRO at things (Comparing the warper quest to the Eden Group). Logging in, I decided to check out the vendors...

Wait, what? A BG Key? That's not something I usually associate with Battleground. I went to Izlude (since a BG was apparently starting and that's where you go for Battlegrounds here) to find out what the deal is.

Waaaaaaaaait a second, I have to pay 50k to enter battlegrounds? Seriously? I can't redeem medals for straight-up anything, so I'll have to grind out each class I want BG stuff for instead of playing as one guy constantly?

BATTLEGROUNDS ARE ONLY ONCE AN HOUR? Interestingly, I could find nothing at all explaining what the BG Keys are or where to get them. I assume they let you manually start a Battlegrounds. Given they vend for ~200k, getting your battlegrounds equipment is either going to be a very, very long-term zeny sink, or a much faster grind but spending infinitely more zeny. How is this better in any way?
50k for BG and entering once an hour? Isn't BG meant to be a quick way to raise a PVP character? I'm okay with bound items (I figure I'm just used to them), but by my estimates, considering classic Flavius with the iRO reward scale, you'd spend upwards of 15 million zeny as well as two weeks of non-stop play time to get basic BG gear. This is absolutely insane considering BG was originally created to make gearing up for PVP an EASIER task (official BG being free and happening every 10 minutes or so).

The Moscovia Access Quest is in, so I went farming for the materals. Halfway through it I got bored and decided to check out the customs instead, which would be far more interesting to type about. I got the materials I needed to go fishing and...

He's not there. The Fishing NPC is gone. Apparently it was causing crashes, so no fishing for now. For lack of anything else to base fishing on, I went to mining instead and assumed the two systems would be similar to each other.
I wonder if it's just the fishing quest that's gone or if it's the entire fishing system. Because if it's just the quest, that's just screwing over newbies.

[RoseTea]

Strong picks weigh a ridiculous amount (50!), making a dedicated mining merchant alt probably the best way to go for this. As for the mining itself, these two screenshots show basically what you'll do:

That's it. You click the spot, mash enter until you get a result (your pick breaks or you get a goodie), you click again. It seems moderately profitable, so somebody who makes a rudimentary mash-left-click macro and lines up the windows right can probably make a tidy sum while eating dinner or something. At least, that's what I was wishing I did, because I can't think of a more boring way to implement mining. If fishing is at all similar to this, then expect your attention to be demanded to click buttons if you want to get these resources.

The final joke of it is that mining, at least at the basic level, really doesn't give you anything custom at all. Just the same vanilla minerals/ores that RO has. Advanced Level mining can get you Orichalcum (which is needed for the worst God Item and a mining hat to... mine better), and such luxurious prizes as a Marin Card (WOW!!!!). By comparison, fishing can give you a Damp Card Album, and even the "junk" list is better than mining: it includes Alchol and Fabric.

I'd have rather spent my time fishing, but it's gone for now, so that was a wash.

Well, the Alignment System's still up for investigation. I decided as a (future) Bard, I should sing the songs of joy to spread the truth and Light to the world, so I applied for the Light Side.

The quest to change your Alignment is to kill these dudes until you get 5 Valor Badges. The 20-hp, plant-defense Mini Devils never seemed to drop one, ever, so the Dark Pinguiculas were my prey. There was the even tougher one but it did 1000+ damage a hit so I didn't want to risk it. As is, I barely survived. Seems like a bit of a shoddy quest to me, but whatever.
Just want to say I have no idea how a non-Archer is supposed to do this, at least not this early on.

Then I had to swear allegiance to the Light Side.

Finally, I was a Light Sider, which meant __________, because Trial of Heroes wasn't active yet and all the allegiance-based rewards seem to come from that. In the meantime, I could do quests like "give a girl some dolls", or "explore around the place and find a mystery NPC" to gain allegiance points, which are good for... not much, really. A new costume color, Geffen Dungeon's 4th floor, and a pair of quests. Whoop-dee-doo.
The "give a girl dolls" quest is probably just the one where you give Bapho Dolls to a little girl in Alberta in exchange for Ygg Berries, but changed around. Much of this server's "custom features" are just that.

And now, the final kick in the butt I discovered when rolling a second character:

Your unlocked warps are per-character, not account.

YOUR UNLOCKED WARPS ARE PER-CHARACTER, NOT ACCOUNT.

As much as we poked fun at it, TalonRO at the very least got out of the way of PVM, with account-shared dromedary poop madness and other such amenities. HeRO aims to get IN the way of leveling and gearing up as much as possible.

Well that just about did it for me. I messed around a tiny bit when FruitPie went online (and a nice man farmed all of Moscovia's items for me. Thanks friend, sorry I didn't stick around to fully apprecaite it) but I had about had it with the server.

FRUIT PIE'S RUN

My internet issues are gone, so it's time for me to give heRO a spin
Fruit Pie's run is probably much more what you'd expect from a player not actively running around trying to find all the customs to review. Let's see how a typical player would handle heRO.

Right off the bat it's bad, bad news. Creating an account requires e-mail validation, which is fine but kinda annoying. And then you enter the voting for points screen...

Not a good start, now is it? Anyway, onto the game!

I, uh... well, it's good to see Meruru has never stopped being an egocentric turd. I'm feeling back in jRO again! The rules are absolutely brutal on "cheaters", including bans on RCX and dual-clienting, as well as Homunculus leveling. Amusingly, it also bans macros, despite them being a hardware thing depending on your setup (Razer again) and ENTIRELY UNDETECTABLE as long as you aren't completely AFK. Good luck enforcing that one!
Banning RCX is hilarious and adorable because it really doesn't provide any pro strats, just makes RO something slightly approaching playable in a crowded PvP or PvM situation. Leave it to heRO to be a No Convenience Zone, I guess.

Why are vends only allowed in maps without aggressive mobs? Did this server have some real problems with enterprising level 28 Merchants selling Grape Juice in the upper right corner of Bio 3?

At the end of the quiz, the nice old lady asks me if I want to go to the Novice Grounds or one of the six main towns, which is like asking if you want to sleep in a nice hotel room or under the bridge.

I'm immediately given a Sheep Hat on steroids, which I assume is the +100 HP one Rose Tea talked about. This server has a bit of a, uh... how do you put it? A "kawaii-hat sentiment" to it? Anyway, this happens to also be a supercharged Cramp Card while you're low level, which is of course silly because Cramp gives you zeny based on mob level.

My OPB wasn't nearly as good as Rose Tea's, giving me a Bee Sting. EDP materials must be worth a lot, right? And this is the problem with giving random boxes as a reward.

The events appear to be hosted by players. I missed one JUST as I logged in, which is a shame - I really wanted to see what a low rate gold room looks like.

This server has @showexp turned on by default. You cannot turn it off. The battle log can't be modified to turn it off. I can't help but feel bad for the social players who also happen to play mobbing classes.

My god, I just noticed : this is still using the old pre-Renewal GUI! F12 switching and everything! I absolutely love it, but it caught me off-guard here. ...except the skill tree, which is inexplicably the Renewal one. Can't win them all.

Prontera is all snowy and christmassy, which surprised me given it's mid-February and not winter anymore (is it? I can never tell how things work up in the Northern hemisphere).

I'm still not sure if this brings back memories or repressed nightmares. Maybe both.

I haven't listened to Believe In Yourself in-game in years now, and I dunno whether to feel good or bad about it. Anyway, this is sort of why people have been taking down job quests, even in official servers - they're kinda boring. It's a lot of time you spend not actually killing things, and RO's main draw is killing things really fast.

Half an hour of Wolves into it and I realize how right Rose Tea was - that quest was a waste of time. Level 40, no effort and I still unlocked quite a few warps on my way there. I can probably do the quest for the beanie later, when I've got a faster character, but eh.

Turns out there IS a way to turn off @showexp (but it's not shown anywhere other than @commands, I guess). It does not carry over from relogs, so you have to type it over and over again while leveling in Metalings. Which is weird, because autoloot DOES carry over.

Haven't seen this many Novices since bRO opened its F2P server.

Dangerously close to Rogue, an event begins! You have to make a new novice (like my cleverly named character here) and bop Porings in the head for items. You have a limited amount of HP recovery, kinda similar to RWC except in PVM.

All are gone, all but one~
No contest nowhere to ruuun!~
No more leeeft, only one~
This is the countdown to extiiinctiooon~

In the end, though, it didn't matter too much as I had the foresight to bring some VIT along and things were hitting me for 1 damage, including the boss of the event. Some people wanted to bring down the boss for a sick Lunatic card, but other, smarter individuals wished to grab the Gold and run. I wasn't a smart individual. I'm a sucker for boss fights, even the silliest ones - and is this fight ever silly! It's a giant Marin who spams Cicada Skin Shed and Sightrasher. It's like I'm playing MouRO again!

Even without focusing on the gold dropping Porings, I still managed to get a ton of loot that probably vends really well. This is surprisingly quick zeny, I wonder how much that one lady spent to open it up for everyone.

This lady followed me around healing me for no particular reason, which is far better than what I usually get - people healing the Metalings.

Speaking of which, the community in this server is really nice. Like, really really nice. Even their @main fights are hilariously subdued and passive, and they've all been okay to talk with.

One lucky Rogue quest run later (you really have to be extra lucky or extra patient to avoid Grimtooths), I'm finally a Rogue! Now it's time to do what Rogues do best when leveling : Repeatable EXP Quests! There's one near Morroc for absurd amounts of EXP in Hodes and Frilldoras!

Missing top and mid.

Waaait a minute. There's no repeatable EXP quests! I am now playing an unglorified Knight! I... I dunno why the REQs aren't there. There's no real reason for the lack of REQs, it WAS added before 2010 (the last game update in heRO), it just makes things go much smoother overall. It makes dagger Rogues PLAYABLE, would you believe it?

And that's it for me. There's hardcore and then there's just going out of your way to be extra hardcore, and somewhere along that path the line is drawn.

FINAL THOUGHTS

So what went WRONG here?
Actually, that's pessimistic.
What went RIGHT?

The community went right!
I liked them, at least from what interactions I had.
And, uh... the hats were cute.
That was without a doubt the best community I've seen.
And you liking the community is a shocker since you're by far the more loner type of us.
At least so far, yes, it was!
And yes, I'm generally not much into community interaction.
But they're pretty warm and receptive, I can't say no.
I'm guessing it's in Brazilian genetics to just naturally be repelled from everyone.
You don't understand how hard it is for me to find a guild.

Anyway, what did go wrong?
Well, a lot of things.
I think our biggest failing on the server was not playing it in 2008 and only starting it in 2013.
If we had been playing for 5 years, great server.
If not, we'll never see a Fish in Mouth.
A shame, it's my favorite bottom headgear.
We'd never see a lot of stuff. Hell even after a few years I'm not sure we'd really get into the custom bosses either.
Like, how much content is marred simply because it's a 5/5/3 and you have to work your way over literal months to reach that point.
Maybe not months on a 5/5/3 with actual, honest to god warpers and quests.
But this is the thing that gets me.

The warper is marginally better than in iRO, while the quest content is much worse. No REQs!
I thought the warper was okay but the amount of zeny needed to unlock places was downright nasty and hates new players.
I don't necessarily have a PROBLEM with it, but a combination of it plus having to do every access quest really, really bogs the game down for what advantage?
Plus the Healer being a scam.
You could literally save in the Alberta inn.
And have quick access to cheap healing as well as the warper.
I'd be okay with "warp anyway, but do the quests" or "no quests but unlock warps" would be good, just the worst of both worls was painful.

Also the warper unlocking quest, which I'm sure you don't want to speak of anymore.
What's hilarious is once I hit 2nd job the 80 SP I got from that hat was a drop in the bucket, without it I'd still have like 400+
+3% is a joke and really a non-factor. Just not much redeeming value in that hat.
And what's really a kick in the butt for us newbies is Moscovia once didn't have a quest at all, you could just go to the dungeon and still save the warp.
But we were unfortunate enough to join AFTER they put it in, so sucks to be us I guess
I dunno why would they put that in. What does it add other than another barrier to PVM as a newbie?
Maybe if it was there since the beginning.
But teasing us like that is just mean.
I take a lot of iRO's crap for granted because it's been like that (or harder) since the beginning.
They made it harder for people in the future but didn't force the vets to jump thorugh the hoops everyone else would have to.
This server has been EASIER and was made harder for... apparently no reason? I dunno.

I get the feeling the fish would have made levelling a million times less painful, but they just didn't exist for us.
I still don't know if they disabled fishing or just the quest.
I think they disabled all fishing.
Ah. I HOPE so, at least, because people were still trying to buy fish and talking about fishing in @main.
There wasn't a fishing spot that I could see, so it didn't seem possible to fish.

There was mining, but it seems like that didn't work out for you?
Mining was a bore and didn't really give good rewards aside from being a slow-paced infinite zeny fountain.
Buy picks, be a 99 str/vit blacksmith, mine all day, NPC your loot, you'll break even or profit, repeat forever.
Save some of the stuff for the various wing quests I guess.

This and the gold room events seem like high-rate-ish things.
And conflict really hard with the rest of the server.
Gold Room event makes no sense.
That was the ONE thing that made this slightly tolerable, just having that zeny surge.
It was an actually pretty good starter thing.
300k go a long way into making warp-acquiring less annoying.
25k for Lighthalzen is suddenly pocket change.
Until you realize that's about how much every non-Midgard town costs
I'm really curious as to what all dungeons and towns would cost.
Like, if you were to roam around and get all of them.
There's 48 dungeon warps and 26 towns, IIRC.
I think you'd have to specifically grind zeny.

"Specifically grind zeny" seems to be the rule to go by in this server.
Everything is a bunch of zeny.
The economy is twisted.
What economy?
There's not many people vending.
Just a bunch of people with upwards of 16 merchants each.
Actually, everyone's vending. Over 2/3 the population is vending.
The population is 40!

I wouldn't join this server if I was looking for a strong PvM adventure because most of it is busy work just to get the actually killing monsters part. Hat collecting is out of the picture because the go-to hat quest, Hatter, is stupidly hard to spam, along with some hats just being out of reach for you nowadays. There's so much setup to actually properly PvP that I can't see a guild joining for the hot WoE scene either when there's so many mid-rates that do BG/PvP/WoE just better in every way.
So, really... I can't see a reason to join it at all.
I am actually dumbfounded at this. Talon has people so there's that at least, you can donate if you want an easy mode for low-rates I guess. HeRO... has nothing going for it.

Maybe if you were new to RO, heRO would be a nice way to get your feet wet and see the world, since it kinda forces you to explore and look around and find things out, but staying here for long is likely an exercise in frustration. I also don't see the PVP scene being active with all the hurdles and barriers you have to go through to gear up, whereas in regular servers with normal BG it's a matter of grabbing your set, a slotted shield, a couple easily farmed cards and going for it.
And as I said before, usually servers try to get out of the way of your leveling. You hop in, kill monsters and get out. In heRO making a new character is a long, painful ritual that you have to do before you get your creature slaying in full swing.
It's amazing, because the idea of heRO is pretty fun for casual ROing, but overall it seems targeted at the worst kind of hardcore player - the ones that like it harder than the damn official servers.

Bonus picture! The site in 800x600. It still has bars. Mother of God.

[Tom~]

I always enjoy reading your reviews, even if sometimes I feel that you guys are expecting a bit too much from servers, haha.

I played heRO too at one point and was really annoyed by the warper quests. They would've been acceptable if I didn't have to do them over and over again for every char I made. 

So yeah, looking forward to more reviews by you two. Fun read.

[Meta]

I tried heRO years ago when the GM suggested it in one of my LR seeking threads here at RMS. I got in and tried the warper quest thinking it'd be an interesting one-time distraction. I tried making another character, probably a merchant, and couldn't warp anywhere. I asked main why. "You have to do the quests on each character."

Nope.

[Fruit Pie~]

I always enjoy reading your reviews, even if sometimes I feel that you guys are expecting a bit too much from servers, haha.

I played heRO too at one point and was really annoyed by the warper quests. They would've been acceptable if I didn't have to do them over and over again for every char I made. 

So yeah, looking forward to more reviews by you two. Fun read.

Thank you!

I don't feel Rose Tea and I expect too much from private servers. Our preferences and tastes vary, but we both agree on one thing : we like servers that let us get to the "killing stuff" part quickly, PVM or PVP. Because, well, that's frankly where we think half the fun of RO is - it's a super fast MMORPG where you kill dozens of mobs per minute (or mobs by the dozen). The other half is in the freeform skill/stat spreads and silly gear bonuses that allow you to make crazy, gimmicky builds, which is the sort of freedom MMOs don't offer anymore.

The less barriers a server has to actually go and play the game, the better. Aside from that, we really don't mind anything else (we'll play on any rates, even) unless it's so intensely bad it detracts from "killing stuff" at a basic level : bad customization, overpowered donations, misguided balance changes, that sort of stuff. Any well-implemented features act like a bonus that's applied when the basics are done well in the first place.

[yC]

I haven't get to read the whole review, the overall tone make me sad when I skim it because it has been one of the longest running server out there.    So I want to make a coffee have a cheese cake and read it one day to see what problems you two see there.  I have to admit the amount of vendors on heRO isn't helping the server growth, it creates an illusion of the population but in reality it isn't anywhere near its glory days of 400 online =/ before @at exists.

But to the previous post, it seems weird you look for "fast" in low-rates like heRO.  I know you reviewed TalonRO which should fit into the low-rate but fast type.  For me, the low-rate standard is close to official so all the hurdles in warping/walking are suppose to be there ...

[Fruit Pie~]

I haven't get to read the whole review, the overall tone make me sad when I skim it because it has been one of the longest running server out there.    So I want to make a coffee have a cheese cake and read it one day to see what problems you two see there.  I have to admit the amount of vendors on heRO isn't helping the server growth, it creates an illusion of the population but in reality it isn't anywhere near its glory days of 400 online =/ before @at exists.

But to the previous post, it seems weird you look for "fast" in low-rates like heRO.  I know you reviewed TalonRO which should fit into the low-rate but fast type.  For me, the low-rate standard is close to official so all the hurdles in warping/walking are suppose to be there ...

I just feel the @at Merch population can't be anything but on purpose - those four merchants selling Shields, Armor, Weapons and Headgear in this screenshot, for example, had literally three items each. Doesn't Vending allow you to put up to 12 items at once? There's @whosells in this server, so it doesn't make sense even from a customer convenience perspective.

The problem with heRO is that it's not close to official servers. Customization notwithstanding, it doesn't include features that were put in official servers to make everything move along at a quicker pace, like the colored Butterfly Wings, repeatable EXP quests or an Eden-ish thing (which WAS in some servers before Renewal, so there's no excuse). Also notable is the fact that official servers have been removing job quests to various extents - iRO only requires Trans and 3rd to be quested for IIRC, jRO pretty much has a job changer NPC like the private server ones, I think bRO removed/was going to remove the first job quest? Can't be sure, I left before it happened. They've also added a warper to the Expedition Camp that takes you to pretty much every city, directly or indirectly, so that's another feature official servers do have.

Essentially, RO has been moving forward in terms of convenience and usability features, it's just that some servers stick to how they remember official servers being, rather than how official servers are actually doing things, and that's where we call shenanigans.

[RoseTea]

But to the previous post, it seems weird you look for "fast" in low-rates like heRO.  I know you reviewed TalonRO which should fit into the low-rate but fast type.  For me, the low-rate standard is close to official so all the hurdles in warping/walking are suppose to be there ...

We're not in 2003 anymore.  We're not even in 2008 anymore.  We're in 2013, World of Warcraft has happened, we're starting to understand what this whole MMO nonsense is and how that sort of game gets designed.  We're not a profit-driven business either (well, some servers...), and a lot of RO "as it was/is supposed to be" were typical Korean grindfest traps: Gravity actually made the game HARDER at some points because stuff was too easy to do for their tastes.

And really, RO doesn't have much gameplay.  It's biggest, most unique thing is the speedy nature of its combat compared to nearly every other MMORPG out there.  That is it's redeeming quality.  What we want isn't that difficult to understand: we want to play the speedy combat part of RO, the part that makes it special.  It can be PvM or PvP, we don't mind either one, just let us reach that part easily.  Instead, heRO praises itself on the hurdles, the mucky stuff intended to make a game not more fun, just take longer.

This is our problem with a lot of servers: people in 2013 defaulting to design from 2003, as made by a company wanting to keep people JUST interested enough to want to keep going for the next grind.  I want to see people taking it and, instead, making a proper game, something for the current time and place.

[yC]

xD pretty sure I am in the 2003 and I enjoyed the game that way more.  Maybe I should say "For me, the low-rate standard is close to pre-renewal-2003-to-2006 official".

Lately I played some RO2 and it's just non-stop talking to npc quest quest quest kill the requested mob report back to npc and then talk to the next npc kill more mob level kill .. well so far it's like this at low level and I am not enjoying it.  It seems there's "endless" things to do but it's just one big one chained quest that you can't skip.

So just curious, which lucky server is keeping your two souls these days?  Or the last played server, dead or alive ...

[Fruit Pie~]

xD pretty sure I am in the 2003 and I enjoyed the game that way more.  Maybe I should say "For me, the low-rate standard is close to pre-renewal-2003-to-2006 official".

Lately I played some RO2 and it's just non-stop talking to npc quest quest quest kill the requested mob report back to npc and then talk to the next npc kill more mob level kill .. well so far it's like this at low level and I am not enjoying it.  It seems there's "endless" things to do but it's just one big one chained quest that you can't skip.

So just curious, which lucky server is keeping your two souls these days?  Or the last played server, dead or alive ...

Surprisingly enough, one that's stuck in the 2004 era. I figure the difference here is that people seem to remember early RO for the many hoops you had to jump through while I remember early RO because mobbing in the old Clock Tower High Orcs map (without Arclice and Brilights) with pre-Heritage Endure that lasts forever is really fun. All about perspective. o/

On a related note, this is how you do an oldschool RO server, IMO. It gives you the full 2004 experience without holding back on the modern features - job changer, warper, healer that gives you a move speed boost, PVP rooms that give you temporary consumables when you enter, it's all designed so you spend the least time possible not doing things.

Also, I have to agree on RO2, unfortunately. :/ Maybe I was expecting too much out of it, but it just feels like WoW with a nice coat of paint to make it look like RO. "Feels like WoW" is such a cliche, I know, but still!

EDIT : Okay, you like 2003-2006 RO.  That's super.  I'd like to see what people 7-10 years in the future can come up with instead.  I'm not sure what RO2 has to do with anything or why you're posting about it in a review thread about heRO, but it's not a game I like because it doesn't have what I liked about RO1: the speedy combat. (RoseTea asked me to complete my post with this ~Fruit)

[yC]

I just feel the @at Merch population can't be anything but on purpose - those four merchants selling Shields, Armor, Weapons and Headgear in this screenshot, for example, had literally three items each. Doesn't Vending allow you to put up to 12 items at once? There's @whosells in this server, so it doesn't make sense even from a customer convenience perspective.

Oh yea I wanna cover this a little.  Not sure about leveling on a low-rate anymore it has been a while since I created any merchants.  At level 1 vending you can only vend 3 items.  But plus the pushcart and other requirements it takes a while to get that 1 point into vending on a 3x server.  Could it be that lower level leveling is more efficient compare to getting a char to level 30~40 to max vending? 

Otherwise I could only think that having more merchants taking up a block of premium space is a sales strategy.

[MrCharc]

Heyo. 

This was a bit surprising. I think I saw Eponymous around but unfortunately, I never got the chance to greet you. I was just about to write my own review for heRO when I saw this and felt compelled to read it. It made me sad because of the overall negative tone of the review of a great server. I don't think I could really write a review and pretend that this post doesn't exist, so I just wanted to get this out here first.

Firstly, I don't consider myself a hardcore RO player. I've been playing in heRO for almost three years now but I don't really consider myself a veteran (I think I'm more like an ultra noob).

HeRO is a pretty old server. It's not as up-to-date as some people might hope for, but what heRO prides itself in, like most private servers, are its customs and friendly community. Reading through the review, I could tell that you weren't impressed with the customs and felt that a lot of it was a just an extra pain in the butt. I believe heRO is more suited for a more casual player (such as myself) than a hardcore one.

In my opinion and experience, I feel that a lot of the negativities that were in the review were slightly exaggerated or taken out of context. The fishing and mining systems were often mentioned in this review. I can't deny, the simple point and click, rinse and repeat isn't as fun as a lot of people would hope it to be but I think this partly comes from high expectations. Although, I must also admit that once you get in the groove of fishing, it's sometimes difficult to stop. There was also just a recent update that expanded on the fishing feature. However, it was unfortunate that you guys came at the time when repairs were being made.

Another feature that I saw that was a "negative" was the warper. Although it would be nice to have them all unlocked already, I never really thought of it as an inconvenience. Most of the main towns warps cost just few thousand zeny, which would allow you to warp there for 150-250z (better than the cheapskate Kafras). Also, for the record, when I first joined, I thought the Warp Save girl was the save point and I thought I had to pay to save (common misconception; still save at the Kafra). Anyways, the beginning quest does unlock the main towns and dungeons for free at the cost of a few easily obtainable items. You are in no way required to do this quest, but I think its a good beginning especially for new people that "don't know what to do next." And in the case of re-doing the quest on new characters, the items needed for the quest are really simple items that most beginners get in the beginning anyways. So if you've finished the quest on one character and got a few levels in, you'd probably already have a stock of these items in your storage and/or enough money to skip the quest in the first place.

Similarly, the most you'd have to pay the healer is 990z to get full HP and SP, which I think is a decent deal compared to buying a bunch of potions to heal yourself.

The v4p headgears that was mentioned to be "out of reach" are actually released every year during certain months. Similarly the Hatter NPC is a quest that gives you a chance to get some nice headgears. The cards that he asks for ('"Hatter Cards") are cards that aren't very great but easy to get because these monsters are hunted often. Hatter Cards are often sold in the market and also given as prizes for events such as the Poring Smash shown above. With this, these cards are at least of more use than just a shop placeholder. The only items that are most closely "out of reach" are the monthly Fairy Auction items, which don't necessarily stay exclusive for too long or you can just get enough zeny to outbid people.  

Also as I've already mentioned, there are player-activated events (on top of GM events) such as the Poring Smash you mentioned. These come from event bags that you get get from certain prizes and such and allow people to start an event (from a choice of three) for everyone in the server to join. (Most people play Poring Smash because it's the newest addition and have a greatest potential for profit, but the other two events are fun too.)

Lastly, there are the numerous merchants. Simply put, it a sales strategy just as yC said. Some people have a lot of things to sell and some people just want to organize what they sell into categories. Also, creating a sort of "brand name" for yourself makes you seem more professional and increasing the likelihood that people will buy from you. Seeing the row of stores organized by weapon categories is a lot more appealing than one or two stores called "Mehrunes Stuff."

(I'm sorry I can't say much about PvP since I'm not a PvPer)

I understand that most of this are your personal opinions and I respect that; however, I didn't want this one side  to influence the entire look of the server. I strongly felt the need to write this simply because this is my favorite low rate server. Like you said, the community is absolutely wonderful. There are plenty of things to do and strive for and everything is well-balanced. I think the custom quests and gears are perfect for players that enjoy playing casually and striving to get some nice custom stuff. At least from what I think, people come for the customs, but they stay for the community. To me, this server is more than just for playing RO. It is where I've met many great people and made friends from all over the world.

I see a lot of server names getting mentioned a lot because of the corruption and all out bad stuff, and I think heRO gets overshadowed because it doesn't really have these problems. HeRO hasn't been one to advertise itself a lot and put itself out there, but I think it deserves to be number one.  All the GMs really ask for from the players is to vote and leave a review and I feel that I've just been taking this server for granted.

Obviously, there are a lot more things about that weren't mentioned here but I feel this has gotten a bit too long of a reply. (Sorry about that ) Anyways, I encourage people to try the server out. I think it deserves at least that much.

[Fruit Pie~]

Hello there!

It's good to have a nice counterbalance to our usual grumpiness. Just addressing some points~

HeRO is a pretty old server. It's not as up-to-date as some people might hope for, but what heRO prides itself in, like most private servers, are its customs and friendly community. Reading through the review, I could tell that you weren't impressed with the customs and felt that a lot of it was a just an extra pain in the butt. I believe heRO is more suited for a more casual player (such as myself) than a hardcore one.

I feel the reason we weren't impressed with the customs is that all they did was look cute and be grotesquely inaccessible. The part of it we felt was a pain in the butt was mostly the lack of conveniences (or the healer that outright scams you, but we'll get there!). HeRO can genuinely pride itself on its community, though, unlike a lot of servers who claim a "super awesome community" or something.

Similarly, the most you'd have to pay the healer is 990z to get full HP and SP, which I think is a decent deal compared to buying a bunch of potions to heal yourself.

Why would you buy a bunch of potions, though? Literally every town (well, except Niflheim, Izlude and Morroc) has an inn! The inn charges you 500 zeny, acts as a save point and they're generally not far away from Kafras (or the warper, for that matter).

The v4p headgears that was mentioned to be "out of reach" are actually released every year during certain months. Similarly the Hatter NPC is a quest that gives you a chance to get some nice headgears. The cards that he asks for ('"Hatter Cards") are cards that aren't very great but easy to get because these monsters are hunted often. Hatter Cards are often sold in the market and also given as prizes for events such as the Poring Smash shown above. With this, these cards are at least of more use than just a shop placeholder.

I thought the Hatter Card thing was alright, it was an interesting way to value those cards. Very RO-ish. We didn't know the monthly vote headgears could be acquired later because, well, nowhere does it say that. Your post is the first time we've been informed of it, and we scoured the wiki looking for ways to get hats. Unless it was in a really out-of-the-way page or we missed something really obvious, there was no way for us to know it!

(Most people play Poring Smash because it's the newest addition and have a greatest potential for profit, but the other two events are fun too.)

Seemed to be the only one going on in our time there. I think we caught four Poring Smashes over the course of two days.

Lastly, there are the numerous merchants. Simply put, it a sales strategy just as yC said. Some people have a lot of things to sell and some people just want to organize what they sell into categories. Also, creating a sort of "brand name" for yourself makes you seem more professional and increasing the likelihood that people will buy from you. Seeing the row of stores organized by weapon categories is a lot more appealing than one or two stores called "Mehrunes Stuff."

There's @whosell! Why would you DO THIS when there's @whosell? You could literally be selling Grape Juice with your Merchant in the upper right corner of Bio 3 and name your shop "stuff im selling" and people would find you and buy your items. I actually kinda pointed that out in another post here - it could be for convenience (or a number of reasons, like you and yC pointed out), but @whosell makes the whole scheme moot.

Obviously, there are a lot more things about that weren't mentioned here but I feel this has gotten a bit too long of a reply. (Sorry about that ) Anyways, I encourage people to try the server out. I think it deserves at least that much.

You're posting in one of our threads. We literally break character limits here. Don't worry too much about reply length.

HeRO is definitely one server to try out, I just think it doesn't offer anything for the seen-it-all-before RO veteran. I feel the newer you are to the game, the better heRO is going to be, since it at least encourages you to explore and provides basic directions to newbies. And they wouldn't be as likely to be scared away by the community.

[MrCharc]

Yeah, I guess it wouldn't hurt to clarify these things more, but if anything, the list of v4p gears is also on the forums and asking on main never hurt as well.

Most of the customs aren't difficult obtain, but they do require some bit of work to earn them. As said, v4p headgears are every month. More than 100 headgears are obtainable from the hatter quest, and the other wings have their own quests as well. The light/dark wings are earnable from the monthly Trial of Heroes that anyone can join (at a certain level of course). New heagears also come from the seasonal events such as the recent Valentine and the Chinese New Year quest (holiday quests also give you a chance to get the seasonal gears from previous years). And of course, there are custom gears and custom cards from custom monsters in custom dungeons. (Did I mention they are custom?  )

I hope that the wiki would clarify these things more so that it's more visible. 

And also, I'm not too sure since I haven't used it in a while, but from what I remember, the inns cost 5000z.

[demishock]

As someone who loves heRO, wants to help make it better, and recently signed on to be able to edit the wiki, this was helpful in letting me know what kinds of specific info newcomers are looking for when they search there. It can be hard to think of the articles from a blank-slate perspective, and sometimes info that more veteran players know off-hand gets overlooked. I've already gone into the Vote for Points page and updated it based on this review - hopefully it is more clear now that they are available more often than just the one time! Over the weekend I will see what I can do to make the Mining and Fishing pages more clear as well, and I will be sure to mention heRO's "no macros" rule so people can decide right away whether or not it's for them.

I'm not a huge RPer, so someone who is will have to see about the Light vs. Dark storyline info. I've participated in my fair share of Trial of Heroes events, though, which also needs expansion on the wiki. In my defense, there is a new version of the Item Trial in the works by the GM team, and I've been putting off the wiki entry so I don't have to write up two explanations back-to-back. Ho-hum. >.>; Something of note, though, is that the price for the warp NPC is lower for whichever Allegiance last won the ToH "Mass PVP Battle," from that victory until the next ToH. It is meant to give players incentive to fight for their side (since some people, like you saw in Poring Smash with the boss vs. solo porings situation, drop out after the solo-rounds rather than sticking around for the team round). I think there used to be a discount for the Healer NPC as well but I am not sure if that is still in effect (I'm on Dark, and we haven't won mass battle in a few months. orz) so I'll have to look into it.

Anyway, I'm sorry the experience wasn't so great for you, but I'm glad you've brought it to our attention. I hope that people will still give heRO a shot, and I will try to keep all of this in mind when I add information to our wiki!

[RoseTea]

Over the weekend I will see what I can do to make the Mining and Fishing pages more clear as well, and I will be sure to mention heRO's "no macros" rule so people can decide right away whether or not it's for them.

The only demographic Mining and Fishing are for, I can find, are players who love the thrill of clicking a spot then mashing enter.  The "no macros" rule only prevents the one possible thing that would make the process bearable: automation (not that it'd stop a determined person from macroing anyway).

Mining and fishing could least be a puzzle, a minigame, some kind of activity that actually justifies forcing my absolute attention at it.  Hell, it could be automatically done, doing the work for me at the expense of a 100% vulnerable character, using the picks as usual (or faster if you really hate the automation idea for some reason).  Instead I click a spot then mash enter.  When I say it's "not for me", I'm saying I'm the demographic of "prefers playing a video game".

[demishock]

The only demographic Mining and Fishing are for, I can find, are players who love the thrill of clicking a spot then mashing enter.  The "no macros" rule only prevents the one possible thing that would make the process bearable: automation (not that it'd stop a determined person from macroing anyway).

Mining and fishing could least be a puzzle, a minigame, some kind of activity that actually justifies forcing my absolute attention at it.  Hell, it could be automatically done, doing the work for me at the expense of a 100% vulnerable character, using the picks as usual (or faster if you really hate the automation idea for some reason).  Instead I click a spot then mash enter.  When I say it's "not for me", I'm saying I'm the demographic of "prefers playing a video game".

I politely disagree. I know that Fishing was removed while you were playing, but it's since been put back in, and it's been around for quite some time. The revamped version we recently got has a function to randomly give pop-up trivia questions to keep people from botting it. Fishing is a good alternative for people like me who don't feel like building a pure-brewer alch and farming pot materials, or don't feel like blowing all their zeny on pots, and would rather just spend an hour spamming click+enter for fish and then go back to killing things to their heart's content. But it's true - if you're into automation, then heRO's not a good choice. Personally, automation is not "playing a video game" for me. Could Fishing (and Mining) be made more challenging? Of course! And I think they could certainly benefit from that. I'm not a GM/admin and I don't make the rules, so I can't speak to that side of it. All I can speak to is the fact that those rules have never hindered my own personal RO experience, so to each their own.

As for Mining, it's not something I do a lot of, but I know there is a fair number of players who use it to farm level 4 weapon materials all in one place, and people are always buying/selling them on main chat, so obviously someone's getting something out of it.

[RoseTea]

I'm not sure what fishing being around "for quite some time" has to do with anything, but that's nice to know I guess.

People still use brewer alchemists for potions in heRO?  I know the server's a trip back in time and all, but Fresh Fish exist, there's a Grape Juice guy.  Potions are probably the worst healing item possible.  Given the unreliability of what fish you get, "blowing your zeny" on those over fish bait can be a more consistent option.

I also think you're missing the point completely with my remarks on automation: It's not that I'm terribly eager to bot the hell out of them; I don't do that sort of thing anywhere and I think you're assuming I'm a big botting fan. They're so terminally unfun and boring, though, why WOULDN'T I want to?  Mining, after all, is an infinite zeny fountain: you explained so yourself, and there's even gold to NPC from it if you don't care to vend with players.  Massive tedium, only gentle risk, but massive rewards.

You know what would have been fun for a fishing revamp (Thanks Fruit Pie~ for this)?  Actually summoning fish mobs then beating the crap out of them.  Make a fish zone or whatever for it.  Mining lets out Stapo-like mobs to bonk for goodies.  A lot of RO's fun is in the combat, that'd certainly be an RO-ish way of doing them and making them a refreshing detour.

Nope.  Click a spot, mash enter.  But to each their own, like you say.

[Fruit Pie~]

People still use brewer alchemists for potions in heRO?  I know the server's a trip back in time and all, but Fresh Fish exist, there's a Grape Juice guy.  Potions are probably the worst healing item possible.  Given the unreliability of what fish you get, "blowing your zeny" on those over fish bait can be a more consistent option.

Wrong server, dude. The Grape Juice guy was in PokemonRO.

But yeah, man, potion brewer Alchemists. Haven't seen those since the Amatsu/Gonryun update added easy Mastelas and Royal Jellies to the game. Really brings me back!

Also, I'm the bot network owner here, not Rose Tea. To him, the day he wants to solve a problem by throwing a macro at it is the day a mechanic finally makes him snap by being so mundane, so boring, so repetitive that he wants to automate it. To me, it's Tuesday. What I'm trying to get at here is that Mining broke him. Poor guy. :/

Also also, it's not about being "made challenging", just made interesting. As it stands Fishing is the alternative version of heading over to Amatsu (or Izlude if you're a lowbie) and buying healing items, except it's designed for extremely patient people who want to maximize their profits at the expense of silly things like fun. A fitting metaphor for heRO, all things considered!

EDIT : Oh, that's right, I forgot all about Jesus in Aldebaran. Yep, this one has a Grape Juice guy too. If you count TalonRO's grape-and-bottles shop, this means EVERY server we reviewed so far has a Grape Juice NPC, which I'm sure is one of the signs of the end according to the book of Revelation.

[MrCharc]

People still use brewer alchemists for potions in heRO?  I know the server's a trip back in time and all, but Fresh Fish exist, there's a Grape Juice guy.  Potions are probably the worst healing item possible.  Given the unreliability of what fish you get, "blowing your zeny" on those over fish bait can be a more consistent option.

I also think you're missing the point completely with my remarks on automation: It's not that I'm terribly eager to bot the hell out of them; I don't do that sort of thing anywhere and I think you're assuming I'm a big botting fan. They're so terminally unfun and boring, though, why WOULDN'T I want to?  Mining, after all, is an infinite zeny fountain: you explained so yourself, and there's even gold to NPC from it if you don't care to vend with players.  Massive tedium, only gentle risk, but massive rewards.

Like I pointed out before and as demishock said, I think the wiki does need a good lookover so that it's easier to navigate and find information for newcomers.

I'm not sure if you knew this, but the fishing system is separated into levels, and the rank of the fish that you get within these levels differ greatly. Although in the basic spot you mostly get guppies (heals like a red pot), as you progress you'll begin to consistently get higher ranking fish such as salmon (heals like white pot + blue pot), angel fish (custom, but higher than white pot + blue pot), dories ( heals like ygg seed), and nemos (heals like ygg berry). These fishies are useful when you create a new character (with the abundance of guppies and trouts you get from levelling and progressing) or at a high-level trans character when you're soloing kasas. At a decent enough level, spending 15,000z for 100 baits can yield you plenty of high-ranked fish, making it well-worth the cost.

In regards to the getting gold from mining and poring smashes, heRO features a nobility system that requires you to give up a certain amount of gold. Being a noble not only gives you certain privileges (along with a custom headgear only for nobles) but also allows your character to be recognized within the server. Of course the nobility is bound to the character you wish to become a noble, but there is no limit on how many characters you can turn noble. Gold, being the main ingredient here, is rarely NPCed and often kept for yourself or sold to other players.

[RoseTea]

I'm not sure if you knew this, but the fishing system is separated into levels

The wiki told me this fine, thanks.  You have completely missed the point of what you quoted.

[Things about Gold and Nobility]

You have, again, completely missed the point of what you quoted.

I'm starting to think neither of you are actually trying to respond to my posts at all.

[MrCharc]

I apologize if the quote I chose was too broad.

I understand that your main point was in regards to the system and automation. Of course, we all agree that fishing/mining is tedious work and obviously not as fun as everything else you can do on RO, but it is custom and it's difficult to create a completely fun and balanced system. Although the idea of killing monsters to fish/mine sounds a heck of a lot more fun, it would create a huge disadvantage to lower level characters, especially with classes that can't mob.

My previous post wasn't meant to defend the "fun-ness" of the system; I wanted to point out the examples you chose to use as a basis for the usefulness of the fishing/mining systems and further expand on it. In short, fishies are arguably the best healing items in the game and mining is not an infinite zeny sink. 

I personally don't mine much (although I probably should) just because I feel that fishing would come to be of more use to me for another time. The systems could be a lot more fun and of course more people would would do it if that happens. But as it is now, it is decent, balanced way to work for some useful items you might need.

As previously said, it largely depends on if the player is willing to spend some time on it. It's not the most fun, but it's useful, easy, and balanced.

[RoseTea]

I understand that your main point was in regards to the system and automation.

If that's how you understand what my main point is, then I really don't see why I, or yourself for that matter, should bother to continue posting about this.  Look at this:

mining is not an infinite zeny sink

In the review itself, and I believe I've posted a couple times afterward, that mining is an infinite zeny FOUNTAIN.  As in, doing it indefinitely will almost never result in a loss, you can even NPC everything and gain zeny from it.  You fundamentally failed to read anything I've said, and went on to defend its profitability as if I thought it was a zeny sink of some sort.

It's not the most fun

This is the entire point of what I've been posting about.  Why ISN'T it the most fun?  Why is it click, mash enter?

I don't see any point in continuing to post about this.  I've been strawmanned enough

[MrCharc]

I'm sorry, I meant "fountain".

I also apologize for any misunderstanding I had about your point.

I agree that continuing this post won't do any more good than it already has. Still, we appreciate your input and I hope that we can use it to be more appealing to other people.

[Renard]

People still use brewer alchemists for potions in heRO?  I know the server's a trip back in time and all, but Fresh Fish exist, there's a Grape Juice guy.  Potions are probably the worst healing item possible.

Not realy, there is much worse stuff that potions, for example Freash Fish which doesnt weight much but also doesnt heal much, means your healing per second rate is lower then on white potions.
Only stuff i know, thats better than slim white pots, are: Ygg Beery/Seed, Mastela Fruit and Aloe Leaflet.
And on Grape Juice... even strawberries are better.

[Fruit Pie~]

Not realy, there is much worse stuff that potions, for example Freash Fish which doesnt weight much but also doesnt heal much, means your healing per second rate is lower then on white potions.
Only stuff i know, thats better than slim white pots, are: Ygg Beery/Seed, Mastela Fruit and Aloe Leaflet.
And on Grape Juice... even strawberries are better.

Fresh Fish is the best value healing item for higher level characters. It's sort of what Milk is to lowbies : they're both super cheap for what they heal and pretty light too. Surprisingly, Fresh Fish is more efficient than unranked Slim Whites in terms of weight (and obviously cost), it's just got a lower heal per second. Basically it's the go-to item when you don't need to outpot 10k DPS or something.

Strawberries are marginally better than Grape Juice for the same weight. The thing that makes them the better SP item is that they're much easier to come across than Grapes (doesn't help that they drop from the prime repeatable EXP quest mob), and we're not even talking about the sheer effort that goes into making juice. x.x

Of course, with our Lord and Savior turning water into wine in heRO as well as the lack of EXP quests, the availability of Grape Juice shoots WAY up compared to Strawberries, and thus it's the better SP healing item unless you really like killing squirrels.

EDIT : My bad, GJ weighs 4! So yeah, Strawberries are way more efficient then. Still, making a level 13 Aco and giving him Empty Bottles beats hunting squirrels for strawberries all day. It's all about the ease of acquiring them!

[Nipp]

Me and another guy have played on HeRO for a long time. The oldest character I had there was six years or something. I'm sort of an semi-casual player that plays intensely for a couple of months, then goes away for several months. I've had a lot of good times on HeRO. Even now the server has great potential ... but

Things have been building up for me over a long time, which leads me to this conclusion:

DON'T PLAY ON HERO!

I will not log into HeRO again before some of my grievances are addressed (and I don't expect they will.) It wasn't even anything specific that happened. All the s*** just slowly overwhelmed me, and in a fit of frustration we just gave away our thousands of millions worth of stuff and deleted all our characters. Why? Sort of hard to explain, but I'll try.

1. The community.

It SUCKS. I'll cover this first, since the reviewers seems to have been lulled by first impressions into thinking HeRO has a great community. Well, first off ... I guess 30 people and their 200 autovend merchants counts as a community of sorts. So let's accept the theory that there even is a community. But then, what's wrong with it?

Well... If you have a raunchy sense of humor, or like a good word fight ... if you like sarcasm or making fun of stupidity ... if your opinions doesn't radiate 100.0% mildness and tolerance ... prepare to be banned ... The HeROic life is not for you!

HeRO is for people that are politically correct in every way. People whose most potent curse word is 'poop' (preferably with asterixes for o's.) It's a server for victorian women. There is a reason why the community seems so nice and placid (and small.) Everyone who doesn't enjoy this rose-colored fascism has left a long time ago. Imagine soviet russia at it's worst ... then dress it up in a pink princess gown ... this is the HeRO community.

It wasn't always this way. HerO actually had a great community once, with lots of fun people. Of course, you had to hide your true self from the GM's and their noob friends, but that was OK. Now all the good people seem to have moved on. And why would that be?

2. Serious problems are never fixed.

Like the economy. The economy is completely ruined. It has been for years. If you start playing HeRO today, prepare to be a poor pauper for the rest of your HeROic life. You will never approach a tiny fraction of the wealth of the old players.

And they will rip you off at every turn. You would think that when a server is so obviously dying, people would try to give newcomers a boost by making stuff accessible and purchasable. Sort of go out of their way to get some new blood in. But that is not the way of the HeRO! Even if you have 100 ramen hats ... ramen hats must sell for 30m because that's the price of ramen hats. Get it? (This is an example, I don't remember the price of ramen hats.) If someone tries to sell things cheaper, you buy it with your insane fortune, and overcharge it at accepted HeRO rates in your autovend.

You can log in to HeRO a couple of months apart, and see the same crap being sold in the same autovends. HeROes are a patient and greedy bunch! To take your place among us, you must accept your place as peon scum for the great olde time HeROes!

I've lost count of the nice people I've seen come and go (with a play time of some weeks,) because everything is so f*** expensive. This in itself wouldn't be a problem if you could find the items you want by yourself ... but you can't, because when there are so few players, there are almost no parties. So, have fun grinding gold by yourself. Grind away for weeks, so that old player who has 1000m zeny in the bank can squeeze you for a few more.

The logic of HeROes dictate that it's better to get a couple of million zeny you don't need from a new player before he quits and never returns ... than a happy new player that will stay on the server.

3. The custom stuff.

The Trial of HeROes. Trial is the word. I looked up the word trial in the dictionary and it read: "A state of pain or anguish that tests patience, endurance, or belief" Yeah, thats what I feel when when I play Trial of HeROes. Like my endurance is being ... anguished.

Don't get me wrong, kudos for trying to make some custom stuff. But when the implementation is so poor ... and stays poor for years on end ... then the custom stuff becomes just another annoyance.

Trials of HeROes lasts forever, and is basically about waiting. It's an endurance run. You sit in lines and wait, and wait, and then you wait. Then you do stuff for a minute, and then it's back to waiting. Wait, wait, wait. You'd think in 5+ years you would make some automation in the scripts when the event is 7.5 hours of waiting and half an hour of action. I get that you're not a programmer, that's fine ... but how about using some of that donation dough to hire one? There are even those who would do it for free.

And it's not like you can NOT do the Trial of HeROes. Because you must have the wings. Wings ... that's another thing. Double refine, double card bonus. Take a minute and contemplate that. Like slotting your armor with two cards ... Come on. If that's not crazy imbalanced I don't know what is. It basically renders 99% of the other armors obsolete. For a bonus it takes up the lower head slot too, so half the graphical customization of characters is gone. Be prepared to see a lot of blank anime jaws. The wings are such an horrible idea on so many levels that I can't express it properly.

As an added insult, if you're not a tank or a hunter, you can pretty much forget about cutting it in Trial of HeROes. The second you think "damn I need those wings," just roll a blacksmith. My main is a priest, so no wings for me until I took to my HeROic senses and made a smith. Also, the difficulty is of course adjusted for the old players. So no noobs in the Trial!

And the fishing and mining ... Come oooooon... Could you make it any more boring? It's even more boring than Trial of HeROes! Of course you macro. If you don't you're god damn rainman. Who would think it's fun to sit and mash the same button for hours on end? Are there really such people out there? Where are these people? What is wrong with them!? It truly boggles the mind!

So, now they've "fixed" it by adding trivia questions to stop macroing. That's great. There can be two outcomes by this: Either fish vanishes as a commodity OR HeROes are more retarded than I could have ever dreamed of.

4. Conclusion.

Just to show that I'm not just an angry a******, I'll say something good about HeRO, and add some constructive criticism too.

As I said it's a server with potential. At times it has been good, and it could be good again. The perseverance of continuing to make custom stuff is impressive. And from the brief talks I've had with Pandora and the GM's, it seems to me they are well meaning persons.

BUT.

The economy must be fixed. Before it is fixed, new players will not stay, and old players will continue to leave. I reiterate: FIX THE ECONOMY OR YOUR SERVER REMAINS DEAD.

Get someone who understand programming to re-implement things like the trial and fishing/mining. Make fishing and mining fun or remove it. It's just stupid the way it is. For normal human beings clicking a button is not fun. Trivia macro traps does NOT make it more fun.

As other people points out ... the warp system. We actually took the time of adding the warp point prices up. The total? About 3.000.000 Zeny. PER CHARACTER. Just for being able to PAY to warp places. Come on!!! This is money that just vanishes. Hard earned cash that is just deleted! And it hits new players the hardest. FIX THE ECONOMY?? Isn't it enough you have to walk there? Make it a symbolic sum if you have to! At least account based. Come on!

And please be a little more tolerant. The enforced pleasantness is pretty choking and drives people away.

so... my conclusion again: DON'T PLAY ON HERO!

But keep an eye on it. Because if they start getting their act together, with such dedicated core people, this server CAN become something great!

[Fruit Pie~]

Well... If you have a raunchy sense of humor, or like a good word fight ... if you like sarcasm or making fun of stupidity ... if your opinions doesn't radiate 100.0% mildness and tolerance ... prepare to be banned ... The HeROic life is not for you!

HeRO is for people that are politically correct in every way. People whose most potent curse word is 'poop' (preferably with asterixes for o's.) It's a server for victorian women. There is a reason why the community seems so nice and placid (and small.) Everyone who doesn't enjoy this rose-colored fascism has left a long time ago. Imagine soviet russia at it's worst ... then dress it up in a pink princess gown ... this is the HeRO community.

So it's a place where gamers can't act like gamers?

Genius! If my opinion on the server hinged entirely on this, I'd be giving this 11/10, server of the year all years. Despite what my demeanor might trick people into thinking, I hate the typical gamer and HeRO provided none of those as far as I could see. I've thoroughly bashed the server, but this is the one point where I can't see how it could be bad.

If people want to earnestly discuss how rape victims are to blame while spamming image macro memes and curse words like they're 14-year-old kids in the bodies of 34-year-old store clerks with nothing better to do than to play korean MMOs all night, they can go to Reddit for all I care (or preferably kill themselves).

And they will rip you off at every turn. You would think that when a server is so obviously dying, people would try to give newcomers a boost by making stuff accessible and purchasable. Sort of go out of their way to get some new blood in. But that is not the way of the HeRO! Even if you have 100 ramen hats ... ramen hats must sell for 30m because that's the price of ramen hats. Get it? (This is an example, I don't remember the price of ramen hats.) If someone tries to sell things cheaper, you buy it with your insane fortune, and overcharge it at accepted HeRO rates in your autovend.

This. Low rate servers in general have a weird thing for controlling the economy - the quintessential example remains TalonRO where item prices are literally defined by the GMs, but HeRO's community picks up the GMs' slack here, pretty much setting standard prices for things. Also about the "same crap being sold all the time", those Mehrunes shops are probably still there, still selling the same items and still not selling any Dagons (which was perhaps my greatest disappointment in HeRO).

Don't get me wrong, kudos for trying to make some custom stuff. But when the implementation is so poor ... and stays poor for years on end ... then the custom stuff becomes just another annoyance.

This doesn't scratch the surface! HeRO has, bar none, the worst implementation of Battlegrounds I've seen - I got to learn about it after the review was done, so it wasn't part of the main thing, but I feel I have to mention it here... HeRO's BG has teamkilling. That's pretty much all that needs to be said, right?

As an added insult, if you're not a tank or a hunter, you can pretty much forget about cutting it in Trial of HeROes. The second you think "damn I need those wings," just roll a blacksmith. My main is a priest, so no wings for me until I took to my HeROic senses and made a smith. Also, the difficulty is of course adjusted for the old players. So no noobs in the Trial!

You could've gone Priest. Priests are better tanks than Blacksmiths. Please do not make Blacksmiths. No, not even in HeRO. A Leaf Cat kitten dies whenever you make a Blacksmith. ._.

Get someone who understand programming to re-implement things like the trial and fishing/mining. Make fishing and mining fun or remove it. It's just stupid the way it is. For normal human beings clicking a button is not fun. Trivia macro traps does NOT make it more fun.

Surprisingly, I don't think programming is the issue here. HeRO's customs are competently coded. It's a matter of design - it was, from the ground up, designed to be a skinner box that also happens to be very hard on the index finger. If nothing else improves, I'd really, really like HeRO to fix the bug where mining sometimes gives you carpal tunnel syndrome.

Also, my god that zeny count for all the warps. o.o Me and Tea had been wondering how much it'd cost.

[lyeak]

I myself play heRO for so many years already. Now i dont know whats the main reason for this ranting of warping fee. There are so many ways of earning zeny and you cant even find one way to earn it to open warps? 
Besides that, nowadays people in pront willingly warp you to whatever town you want which is a ++. U should think of other people who didnt get the warp at all and need to walk their way up the airship to other cities 

For the big rant up there, price is surely wrong, ramen did drop from 30m to 15m in few months time.

[Nipp]

So it's a place where gamers can't act like gamers?

Genius! If my opinion on the server hinged entirely on this, I'd be giving this 11/10, server of the year all years. Despite what my demeanor might trick people into thinking, I hate the typical gamer and HeRO provided none of those as far as I could see. I've thoroughly bashed the server, but this is the one point where I can't see how it could be bad..

Well, that's a matter of opinion of course. I know I thought like that for a long while too. I won't push the point, but personally I've grown to find it repressive. I guess things can be at extremes at either end, and there must be some middle ground between fainting in shock when someone says f*** and spamming rape jokes.

This doesn't scratch the surface! HeRO has, bar none, the worst implementation of Battlegrounds I've seen - I got to learn about it after the review was done, so it wasn't part of the main thing, but I feel I have to mention it here... HeRO's BG has teamkilling. That's pretty much all that needs to be said, right?

Yeah, I don't play BG's so I wouldn't know. Probably right.

Surprisingly, I don't think programming is the issue here. HeRO's customs are competently coded. It's a matter of design - it was, from the ground up, designed to be a skinner box that also happens to be very hard on the index finger.

Well, yes and no. Being a good programmer is a kind of a mindset. As in any craft, design is a part of it. Of course, you are correct that it is predominantly weak design, but ... it's just that I recognize the way of doing things from dealing with poor programmers over many years ... when someone don't understand the potential of what they're doing. Like waiting in lines for hours on end while the GM's run around frantically trying to keep things in order, when you could have just made a sign up npc that handled it all. It's just ... a big waste of time for everyone. This is predominantly directed towards the Trial of Heroes. The mining/fishing stuff is just insane.

(This is an example, I don't remember the price of ramen hats.)

I myself play heRO for so many years already. Now i dont know whats the main reason for this ranting of warping fee. There are so many ways of earning zeny and you cant even find one way to earn it to open warps? 
Besides that, nowadays people in pront willingly warp you to whatever town you want which is a ++. U should think of other people who didnt get the warp at all and need to walk their way up the airship to other cities 

For the big rant up there, price is surely wrong, ramen did drop from 30m to 15m in few months time.

You, my inarticulate friend, are a true HeRO!

[lyeak]

Quote from: Nipp on Yesterday at 05:01 pm

    (This is an example, I don't remember the price of ramen hats.)


I myself play heRO for so many years already. Now i dont know whats the main reason for this ranting of warping fee. There are so many ways of earning zeny and you cant even find one way to earn it to open warps? 
Besides that, nowadays people in pront willingly warp you to whatever town you want which is a ++. U should think of other people who didnt get the warp at all and need to walk their way up the airship to other cities 

For the big rant up there, price is surely wrong, ramen did drop from 30m to 15m in few months time.

What i mean is your way of saying economy sucks and keep getting constant price. PRICE DOES DECREASE OVERTIME IF SUPPLY MORE THAN DEMAND...

And your way of saying the community just shows that you are the one who sucks in playing. U r just like the robber who says it is the cops who is bad. Community if fine most of the time until SOME STUPID troller spoilt the fun. People like you are the one who always make new players leave the server.
Except for the TOH part which i dont know at all, most of what you say are incorrect.
But oh well, to show that HeRO community does have tolerance, let me wish you a goodbye and good luck in finding a new game/server.

[Nika]

And your way of saying the community just shows that you are the one who sucks in playing. U r just like the robber who says it is the cops who is bad. Community if fine most of the time until SOME STUPID troller spoilt the fun. People like you are the one who always make new players leave the server.

But oh well, to show that HeRO community does have tolerance, let me wish you a goodbye and good luck in finding a new game/server.

^ THIS.

To the negative reviewers: Also taking time to read the rules, which is upfront... and forum posts alerting (of most) general "of the moment" changes (fishing for example that time) would be a smart idea, no? You cant really blame a server and it's community for not reading for yourself beforehand. Wish you luck in finding a server that better fits your needs - be it constant cursing, seriously inappropriate jokes or not being charged nominal fees for warping and such...whatever it is that may float your boat.

[Fruit Pie~]

Reading the forum news for the last few weeks shouldn't be a pre-requisite for a new player to start playing on your server. It's sort of why so many heavily customized servers fall - you need a five hundred page manual to tell you how to install and run the damn thing.

The lack of fishing made no sense to me, as a starting player who just hopped into the server, because mining was still there and they're quite literally the same thing, just with different rewards list and resource spots.

Also, no amount of reading would fix this little issue I had with the server. But please tell me all about how the server's website actively working against players is my fault!

[lyeak]

Reading the forum news for the last few weeks shouldn't be a pre-requisite for a new player to start playing on your server. It's sort of why so many heavily customized servers fall - you need a five hundred page manual to tell you how to install and run the damn thing.

Yes, there isnt a pre-requisite for reading forum news, but it is always encourage. There is always @main which helps most of the time. And do you have so much trouble to install the installer? Sorry to say but what i only did is install the whole thing i download and just use the patcher to get the game working. So i dont really know what you mean.

The lack of fishing made no sense to me, as a starting player who just hopped into the server, because mining was still there and they're quite literally the same thing, just with different rewards list and resource spots.

Fishing didnt stop, GM had open it back a few months back already but i guess you didnt get to see fishing get put back into the game. I guess you are just pure bad luck to face the problem of cannot fishing when you play last time.

For the 3rd one, i dont know what is it, so i wont comment much. Just to say i could log in every now and then in control panel, forum etc and find no problem in doing this.

[Fruit Pie~]

No no, I wasn't talking about HeRO's installer - it's pretty clean and easy to use. I mean servers that require you to do absolutely ridiculous things to get them running and then wonder why there's been no new players since March 2011. (ain't life unfair, Skotlex?)

Reading the forum news for the last few weeks to get into the server fits the same description of "hurdles to be overcome before you can actually play the damn thing". Roleplaying servers get a pass because there is an established lore and story going on, but even they might want to have a short, readable version for newbies.

EDIT : Also, it could've been stated somewhere other than the forums. The wiki is the first place we usually look at to find out about the server's features. Assuming that's true of more people than two random idiots from RateMyServer, and that it's not much trouble to go there and insert a single line into the Fishing page...

[RoseTea]

Fishing didnt stop, GM had open it back a few months back already but i guess you didnt get to see fishing get put back into the game. I guess you are just pure bad luck to face the problem of cannot fishing when you play last time.

I know this would require heRO to be player-friendly and have a forward thinking approach to things, but the easiest solution to the Fishing Issue was simply to have an NPC at the fishing spots that said "Fishing's broken, it'll come back soon" instead of nothing there, leaving me baffled and confused as to what just happened.

But I guess it was my fault for wanting to play the game right away.  I know when I started playing Starcraft 2 I sat down and read the last month or so of news and changelogs before I downloaded it, so silly of me to have broken the habit.