RetRO

[Vanidel]

RetRO.

Stability.

10/10


Class Balance.

Its Retro.
You know what that means? Every class can do their job.  There are no AD creos running about. No EDP sinxes 1 shotting people.  No instant cast. No BG gears. Nothing that could break away from balance. Each class has their role and they can do it just fine.

Economy.
Holy s*** does this economy rock.
I bought a creamy clip for 400k.
Everything is moderately priced and nothing is overpriced.

PVP.

No one really goes there. But there are people in there occasionally. Its mostly concentrating on WoE.

GMs.

They few GMs that I see are friendly and helpful and always willing to chat.



Now.

For one thing, this game is a grind.
There are no novice grounds.
No NPCs that give hand outs.
No teleporter.
No healer.
No stylist.
Nothing.
You work with what you are given. 
The players here are very friendly, very helpful and I can always find a good party.
Its got a low population, but even then there is a good econ and a good amount of parties when you get into range.

Donations are even more balanced.
Cute hats that give +2 int. No slotted items. Dyes for out out of the ordinary colors. But nothing at all that could be used to someone's advantage.


Its a server for the oldschoolers who like to work for for their goodies.
It really separates the newbies and veterans on here.
Every party that ive been in is filled with competence and good players.

TL:DR.

If you are looking for a good server with no-trans to call home with balance. This server is for you.

[frequency]

While on the same thread I might as well throw my review up here too. Ret-RO is a pre-trans server that takes content primarily from the Yuno Episode (6.5). Although there are some customizations (such as implementing a few headgear quests from episodes 7-9) they don't interfere with the mechanics or gameplay at all.

Tons of skills are reverted and monsters spawn at different places so you never played pre-trans RO you're pretty much playing a brand new game. MVPs also behave differently and are in their old spawn locations (Baphomet at Castle 2 <3!). This makes a wider variety of viable leveling spots which are overshadowed by newer maps in later episodes.

Stability -
Well-established, lag-free server that's been around for a year. Very few (if any) exploits or bugs. Pre-trans RO really doesn't let you abuse much.
Also abusive stuff in official pre-trans RO (such as MVPs not tele-ing on rude) have been patched out to make the server a bit more challenging. No qualm about that from here.

Class Balance & WOE -
Pre-trans WoE is VERY different than trans WoE like in conventional servers. It's much slower paced and DPS is much lower so fights are MUCH longer. On this server, I remember a few epic GvGs with non-stop fights for 20+ minutes.

God Items and GTB Card are non-existent here and impossible to obtain. This makes everyone on an equal cap on equips and stats since the best gears go up to Buckler[1]!

Economy -
Don't let the log2 drop rates fool you. This is RO before the inflation patch. This essentially makes low-leveled monsters drop their rares at MUCH higher rates, such as Pupa Card at .15%. Here's a slightly more in-depth explanation on the community/fan-wiki: http://ret-ro.wikia.com/wiki/Anti-Inflation_Patch

This makes starting off much easier and interesting. Also cards generally drop at .03% to account for how Aegis handles .01% drops.

GMs -
GMs are a bit naive and inexperienced to the current RO trends but they're willing to listen if you argue your point. GMs as a whole are level-headed, not corrupt (only admin has @item) and generally drama-free. Admin is a bit obsessive on "balance" (they failed to properly revert Alde GD to the good ol' days based on this premise  ). Not too active nor intrusive to your RO experience. The server really runs itself.

Server -
There's not a whole lot of customizations like you see in other servers. Most NPCs are official so quests are needed. Donations are mostly for vanity.
If you want bare-bones, nostalgic and classy RO, this is for you. Not really for the afkemist/insta-99 types.

Also, to any potential/new players. Make an introduction thread on the Ret-RO forums and indicate you're from RMS and I'll be happy to deliver you a starter pack completely from community donations. There's also a community-driven guild starter pack if you're willing to try out the server with your guild.

[Vanidel]

Awww yea~  Nothing is good like this server.

Also, frequency, what do you think makes the GMs naive? They seemed somewhat knowledgeable to me.
Then again the only GM I've talked to in depth is Retro
Its fun chatting with him.

[frequency]

I made that statement because some GMs lack Ragnarok and GMing experience in general. At one point dual-clienting was illegal (it's now legal though) so they considered ridiculous policies such as being AFK/autofollowing/leaving bard & dancer songs on to be bannable offenses. GMs were accidentally interfering with placing traps in WoE. Also, innocuous staples that most RO players use such as RCX, hexing your zoom, reducing lag through woe grfs are currently illegal (although it's impossible for them to catch you unless you leave proof).

The GM Team in general also have a history of poor player relations. There's been multiple instances in the past of them offending large groups of people due to dubious (although often very temporary) bans and/or perceived neglect from inactivity. Experienced GM teams often have accountable proof before considering something as serious as the banhammer to avoid potential fall outs (for example in eRO where GMs would fraps bot captures/bans).

Don't let my rant discourage you though, most of my complaints about the administration stem from mostly resolved issues from the past. The GM team have always been very receptive to player feedback and willing to change their policies. They are still phenomenal at maintaining mature and respectable image while being completely corruption-free. It only needs a bit more work in finding active staff to respond to small things (such as donation points) in a more timely manner.

Also, to any potential/new players. Make an introduction thread on the Ret-RO forums and indicate you're from RMS and I'll be happy to deliver you a starter pack completely from community donations. There's also a community-driven guild starter pack if you're willing to try out the server with your guild.

[LeetDragon]

One amazing server. Extremely fun WoEs that are really really competitive. Tons of new players everyday and its the perfect server for nostalgic guilds. I highly recommend this server if you are wanting a serious blast to the past. A very good economy with plenty of MVP items to go around. (supposedly only 1 MVP card) . A very helpful and active GM team. Always doing their best to make the best server available. One of the best servers I have played in a long long time.

[Domino]

Stability -

Well this server has been around over 1 year, so thats that! No downtimes, I never lag, and the only automated server wide event is WoE.

Class Balance & WOE -

AH, THE JOYOUS BALANCE OF PRE TRANS. Nothing is imba. Monks have to summon spheres one by one, no edp, acid demo, soul linkers or any other stupid s***.

2 Major Guilds fight it out, and recently there is a new guild (16+ actives) that is kicking donkey getting ready to join the fight.

Economy -

If you want something, you can buy it. Its pre trans so the list of items you need to WoE succesfully is not long. Muffler/Mant[1], Shield/Mirror/Buckler/Guard[1], Shoes/Boots[1], and so on. No silly Dragon s*** or combo item s***. Everything can be purchased, so your money DOES have value.

GMs -

There are 2 Active GMS (Fuxa and Yrgav) and the owner (Retro). Retro only pops on for updates and events (PvP Event), but the other 2 GMs are online a lot. One is Euro Timezone, and the other US Timezone. They bothunt like mad dogs.

Server -

Server has been up 1.5 years, so its a mature server item-wise. There are 0 MvP Cards being used in the game. The one MvP card that dropped is owned by a player who only played on the server for a short time and it rots in storage. There are 2 dominant guilds (lvl 9x geared players, 15+ online each for WoE), and a new guild (16+ actives) is preparing to join the WoE scene soon.

IF YOU ARE READING THIS AND CONSIDERING JOINING, CONSIDER THOSE NUMBERS. If you can bring a new guild to the server, have 10+ WoE players obtain decent lvls and gears, you WILL be competitive, and have a shot at the castle. WoE is closeley contested every weekend, so any new guild joining the action will not be disappointed at the fun factor of WoE.

There are also new player packages available IF YOU MENTION YOU CAME FROM RMS, and guild packages available if you put forth effort towards WoE. GOOD packages. Slotted gears, tharas, etc.

[kiran]

I liked the server's features so i thought i would try it. But i keep getting disconnected/rejected from server. So I went to retro forums & it says Guest u r banned.
How can a guest be banned 
So with no access to forums i thought i would ask here..........
Is the server down or something? Been trying for 3 days now.......

[DavionFuxa]

Server is still up.

You were banned for botting on the server which is why you no longer have access to it.

[kiran]

  true banned ids dont have access. But even new ids dont have access
You mean to say even if i input some unregistered id & pass it will still say disconnected/rejected from server??
Well i tried that, username: <anything>, pass: <anything> & I still disconnected/rejected from server, i thought unregistered id would show up.
Well anyways no big deal just enjoy

[Ret-ro]

true banned ids dont have access. But even new ids dont have access
You mean to say even if i input some unregistered id & pass it will still say disconnected/rejected from server??
Well i tried that, username: <anything>, pass: <anything> & I still disconnected/rejected from server, i thought unregistered id would show up.
Well anyways no big deal just enjoy

Botting results in an IP Ban, which you have. So yes, you cannot connect to the server, no matter how many accounts you create. This includes the forums.

[motherflippin]

Stable server, you can get to 80 decently fast. And with just Thara+Poop you can already come a long way.

Even though 2x might sound low, you can start "the scene" from level 80+. No need for farming tonnes of
high end MVPs for gear, Bucklers and Mufflers is all you need.

Economy is ok-ish, WoE is fun with 20-40 inside the castle. The players are decent, there are some trolls
but its nowhere near compared to other bigger MR/HR servers.

GM team is very professional though a bit carebear.

[Brytside]

I don't RO often, but when I do I prefer RetRO

Stability -

It's more stable than Francium...  I'm not sure what else to put here.  I don't experience any lag that I can attribute to RetRO.  With assumed routine maintenance and server local, I am pretty sure that RetRO provides an excellent connection to most all.  Perhaps a goof in scripting or an act of shenanigans may cause brief periods of lag, but I think this is rare and I have yet to experience it.



Class Balance/WoE -

It's got more balance than a tightrope artist.  If the basic fact that thara and possible poo poo hat are about the only redux you need for WoE/PvP, to begin to get competitive, hasn't registered yet from reading other reviews, then this reiteration was warranted.  Due to pretrans, patch period, etc, gear dependencies and selection are minimized (for the best imo) to an extent that I can do well with +4 gears (overupped npc gears was also an option for me on at least swordie classes).  As also stated, a pvp match or woe battle is scaled by said measures and most often results in an obtuse and epic fight.



Economy -

RetRO succeeded where American automakers failed!  With the server's aging nature, a healthy economy is served up to both new and old players alike.  Dedicated RetRO players have a general consensus of base prices for many items, and it does not take long for the new player to become accustomed to popular items' values.  The market values are also, in this writers opinion, quite friendly for the new player looking to buy that piece of slotted gear they can't get to drop.  An avid entrepreneur should have no problem getting established in the market, and the average buyer/seller shouldn't have much problem either.  Values, even with bases associated with them, usually reflect a margin of over or under pricing, but it would seem to be rare that the margin is huge (I don't often see items marked up 2-10x of what they are actually worth).



GMs -

They are around!  I am a personal fan of the non-intrusive nature of the GM team.  I like knowing that bots get busted, and yet on the rare occasion that I am checked for botting, the process is quick, to the point, and it's as if it never happened after it's done.  The team as a whole seems to be highly professional in how they approach the business of operating and moderating the server.  While methodology can be argued at times, those debates, when they are within reason, are most certainly listened to openly by the team, approached logically, and more often than not resolved in a manor that keeps both team and players alike happy.  I can't prove it, but I think the RetRO GM team might have surpassed puberty.



Server -

I got served... an excellent, polished, refined, aged, dedicated, antiquated, professional slice of RO when I first signed up at RetRO, and I haven't looked back.  I was given the keys to a simpler time where, with no warpra, job changer, platinum skill npc, etc, I had reason to walk from town to town, to hunt on obscure maps, to adventure!  WoE became epic, pvp matches lasted more than a second, tactics from the past became daily staple.  It went beyond nostalgia for me;  it was exactly what I'd been looking for.

[Aeroskye]

SERVER:

Stabilty   Very stable. Never had lag despite of being literally on the other part of the globe of the server's location.

Availability   As far as I've played only seen down on a maintenance that apparently occurs like every few months.

COMMUNITY   Average population around 85-90. 100+ during WoE Sieges.

One of the warmest communities I've played in. Guilds are ready to take newbies in. Any questions, any doubts, the main-chat's your 24x7 life-line. Now that server population is rising up the economy is picking as well. One can easily get levelling parties with @main, especially at server's peak times.

WoE is a healthy craze among the majority of the community. 2 major guilds fight out against each other with 3 smaller ones nagging relentlessly on the emp.

The server brings in just too much nostalgia. No crazy stuff needed, you WoE with limited gears, gears which really define the "value for money" phrase. Every map has its use and is not deserted.


GAME-MASTERS

When I am mentioning game-masters, I should really first mention their activeness. Extremely active and your problems tend to be answered withing 6-8 hrs at forums. You'll often see them, checking for bots and cheaters. Their activeness really does ensure us a beautiful bot-free server. Yes, I am talking about the bots that literally crashed the RO economy all over the world. 

Not to mention, GMs are always watching over WoE, each week to ensure that there's no cheating involved.


FINAL NOTE

On the final note, I would like to add that this is the server you'd like to settle in. It's been tiring and pissing for a lot of us hopping servers for over half a decade looking for the server where we can spend our time and love the game the way we did back in the old days.

Looking forward to see you ingame!~

[rhes]

RetRo is a LowRate classic server, which means it has 2x rates with logarithmic droprates. It's also a pre-trans server, so there are no classes beyond 2-1 and 2-2 available (also no SuperNovices) and all towns and maps up to Amatsu are included. The same goes for Equipment and other Items, everything up to episode 6 is included and there are no real customs. Though some items have been slightly modified for balancing reasons and there are a few donation-items, though these are purely cosmetical. So if you aren't willing or able to donate you are at no disadvantage at all.
The idea behind this server is to create a truly old-school ro-feeling, therefore there are also no custom NPCs with the exception of a stylist with tastefully done clothing-dyes (which is one thing that kept me away from a lot of p-servers, the poorly done sprite-recoloring). But this also means that leveling and gearing up takes a while, so if you're not used to such low rates, this is probably not a server for you. On the other hand this also means that you'll be busy with these things and wont get bored quickly because there is nothing left to do anymore.

Which leads me to the next point: WoE and PvP
This servers population has peaked around 130 players during WoE in the time I've been playing (about 4 months). During the 2 WoE-times each week there is 1 castle opened with 2 major guilds (and 1 Filipino guild during the Fridays time-slot which is aimed at asian timezones and is in the morning for US and afternoon for EU) competing. The fact that hardly any smaller guilds are competing might seem like a turn-off for new players but it shouldn't be, because all of these guilds are willing to recruit new players even at very low levels and help them level and gear up. Since the asian population is considerably lower than the US/EU-population, fridays WoE is a little less serious, which leads to an hour of mostly open field battles, which is a nice change to the much more tactical and planned out Saturdays WoE.
Obviously with our somewhat small population the PvP arena isn't always packed, but if you ask people to pvp in main-chat, there are usually some people up for it. Apart from that, there has been a King of the Hill PvP mode in planning, which should hopefully be introduced some time soon, since it has gone through some open-beta testing already. Another thing about the PvP arena is that you can't use items in there, which means you actually have to rely on your skills, as opposed to relying on your pot-spamming abilities. Though it also means you can't use SP-items and Green Pots/Panacea/etc., which cripples Monks and low-Vit classes without support. Though skills that would use resources such as Blue/Red-Gems don't do so in the PvP arena so you don't have to hold back there.

Concerning stability of the server:
In the time I've been playing, there hasn't been any downtime and even though I'm in Europe and the server is in the US I don't get any lag at all.

Obviously as with any f2p-server there are bots once in a while, but if you see one and report them, a gm will check it out and IP-ban them, so the economy is not affected by them as far as i can tell. Despite of that, most standard items on the market are somewhat cheap and will quickly be affordable by standard loot only.
You will have to grind on this server, but people will be willing to help you get ready for WoE and also thanks to the economy, it shouldn't take that long.

tl;dr: If you want to satisfy your nostalgic cravings but also want a serious WoE-scene, this is the place to be.