Talon RO x Nova RO x Origins RO x ...

[MDNZ]

Hi there, readers.

Since the pandemic began, I've been spending my time on Ragnarok Online; one of the most nostalgic games of my childhood. I'm new to Ragnarok private server, so for the past seven months or so, I've been on and off, playing different server to see the difference. Here I would like to share my experience so far.

Coming from the official server, I can say that private servers are generally better, even feel more official than the official server with all the niceties, fast response support and active GMs. So far I've been trying six servers, unfortunately three of them I only had a quick visit. I only tried low-rate server though, since I can't separate RO from progression and exploration. Personally I can't decide which are the best one to play, because each has different flavor, strengths and weaknesses. I like to play Talon RO for the community, Nova RO for content and fast paced gameplay, and Origins RO for that authentic RO feeling.

Talon RO
It's the first server I stumbled upon because it was (and still) on the top list of RMS review. I can say it's a lovely server but a bit overrated.

Pros

Spoiler

Best community and probably the least toxic server out there. The server has been there for a very long time and the veterans are generally nice and supportive. They also often keep a watchful eye on rule breakers to keep the environment nice. There are plenty of GMs and in turn, they're are often online from time to time, to mingle with people or hold some events. You might find people who went out of their way just to help another, people who inform you on MVP location, people who apologize for accidentally KS-ing you, people who leech you for free without anything in return, and people who goes around buffing everybody. It's that kind of community. Surely #main channel could turn into drama sometimes, occupied by the same people over and over again, or used by some to attract attention to themselves, but generally it's a chill server for chill people.

The server rewards you for taking it slow. There's "Rest Exp" mechanism where you accumulate Exp by logging off up to a week. Rest Exp will give you 2x Exp until it runs out. On the other hand, the server rewards you if you decide to go through job change quest or skill quest instead of using Job Change NPC or Platinum Skill NPC. They will give you Bronze Coin that you can use to rent items like equipments or mount. There's also no autoloot feature. It's replaced by arealoot instead.

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Cons

Spoiler

Almost everything is being sold on the Cash Shop, including MVP cards. If you want a headgear, a weapon, an armor, or a card, and you find them on the Cash Shop, instead of farming them yourself, it'll be quicker just to farm Zeny and buy Cash Shop currency. It will be instantaneous of course, if you just donate. Gearing up for end game multiplayer contents like Endless Tower or GM challenges will require you to farm Zeny to buy 100+ million worth of equipment. Depending on your class, it might cost you less or more. That translates to 50+ hours of farming on Sleeper map, or less if you can find creative way to farm Zeny. Again, since many stuff are being sold on Cash Shop, there isn't much excitement in looking forward to end game multiplayer contents. You don't do it because you want to farm something or get somewhere. You do it for fun. That's probably why the server has the least toxic community compared to others.

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Nova RO
It's buried in the review list. I wouldn't have noticed if not for YouTube. Probably one of the best and most populous Renewal server out there. It doesn't feel like a low-rate server though, but more of a mid-rate. Progression feels fast paced. You might hit the level cap within a week and gearing up to lower high end set within a month. Everything feels fast and you can skip a lot of contents. You don't have to do entrance quest for some dungeons because Warper NPC will just teleport you directly inside, while newer dungeons and instances might require you to complete certain quests. If you're new to Renewal, this server might confuse you a lot, it's a lot worse if you're new to RO entirely.

Pros

Spoiler

Tons of contents and server exclusive customizations. Renewal has a lot of contents to begin with and the server just adds plenty more of them. Main Office is where all the custom NPC stay, and there are gazillion of them from the basement to the 4th floor. You can reset your stats/skill, decard, exchange in-game currencies, buy class specific ammo/consumable, and customized your headgears. You can turn any of your headgear into a costume really cheap, so you don't have to look mismatched with your functional gear. They even have blank headgear if you just want to look plain.

Customized starting quest. The server creates its own customized starting tutorial. You wake up from a dream on your bed and your mother will tell you about basic stuff. It doesn't cover much about the real game mechanics but it surely a neat way to start.

Monster Hunter. It's Nova RO exclusives as a way to obtain Shadow Gears. You go into entirely new areas, with new quests, new lore, new bosses, even new mechanics.

Events. Events aren't just boring and scripted events. There are scripted events that require low attention span and can be done within minutes with reasonable rewards, so people won't entirely skip them. There are GM held events that require more time and attention span, but generaaly fun and not too tedious. Then there are huge events like Summer Festival with entirely new area with tons of content.

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Cons

Spoiler

If you're new to Renewal and worse, new to RO, this server will confuse you a lot. You don't know where to begin, what to do, and how to do it in the midst of gazillion contents. Warper makes it worse since you can go practically anywhere instead of progressing through areas and quests. You have to rely on Wikis, Discord and Forum to figure out yourself.

Poor community. In game, people avoid talking in general, let alone willing to teach you stuff. They expect you to already know the game. Most of the time you'll join a party, do your job, then say TY afterwards; not so much talking in between. If you perform under expectation, you might get kicked out of the party without notice. It's not that rare also, to join a party, things don't go well, then people just leave without a word. People behave like bots, especially in farming areas. Because this game is very competitive, requires a lot of farming and dealing with RNG, people don't want to waste their time behaving like human. Which is ironic since playing game is practically wasting time, and you waste it even further by not enjoying the moment and focus on getting somewhere. People are generally nicer on Discord and forum, so in case you have questions and want them to get somewhere, those are better choices to go.

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Origins RO
The closest you can get into that feeling of classic RO nostalgia. It puts you back to the mid 2000s when RO was simple, well balanced and doesn't require you to deal with too much RNG and bottomless pit of refining.

Pros

Spoiler

Ol' good RO feeling. There are no game breaker NPCs. No warper, no job changer, no platinum skill NPC, not even stats/skills resetter. The closest you can feel to the official RO, with the execption of autoloot.

The server takes balacing very seriously. They don't introduce new stuff if it might screw the game balance. It's the game where you look forward to have a +7 Immune Muffler and having a hard time to reach even 10K damage.

No donation, no cash shop. No ridiculously overpowered items, nor ridiculously long list of staple consumable like stats food and cash shop scrolls.

The server puts attention to details. They fix misspellings even rename things according to their original myth and folklore.

Easy login system. You don't have to reenter your password nor have different password for each sub account.

Superb control panel. Control panel on their website lets you do many things, from managing your account, your character, style them with preview feature, look at vending/buying shop list, map, item and monster database, also server statistics.

You can change your skin tone.

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Cons

Spoiler

It just stuck there. New contents are slow to implement, but it's fair since it's a classic. I personally prefer the server to focus on balance rather than following the official update progress.

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Notable servers that I've visited for a really short time, hoping they would get better in the future.

Spoiler

Lotus RO. The server has potential to be Origins RO for Renewal, but it just doesn't have much of a population. Also it feels too much like a copy paste of default server at the moment.

Ragnarok Project Zero. It's Origins RO for Ragnarok Zero variant. No breaking game NPC, nor even stats/skill resetter, but you weirdly get all the platinum skills once you changed your class, and there isn't job change quest for the 1st class. I don't know if that's what it is or a bug. Generally, it feels too buggy at the moment.

Shining Moon RO. Straight competitor to Nova RO in terms of rates and fast paced gameplay. It has the latest update compared to Nova RO, also easier on refine system and many cash shop items. Might mean much for hardcore players who care about end game stuff, but not that much of a bargain for casual players compared to Nova RO.

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[Phanneh]

Hi there, readers.

Since the pandemic began, I've been spending my time on Ragnarok Online; one of the most nostalgic games of my childhood. I'm new to Ragnarok private server, so for the past seven months or so, I've been on and off, playing different server to see the difference. Here I would like to share my experience so far.

Coming from the official server, I can say that private servers are generally better, even feel more official than the official server with all the niceties, fast response support and active GMs. So far I've been trying six servers, unfortunately three of them I only had a quick visit. I only tried low-rate server though, since I can't separate RO from progression and exploration. Personally I can't decide which are the best one to play, because each has different flavor, strengths and weaknesses. I like to play Talon RO for the community, Nova RO for content and fast paced gameplay, and Origins RO for that authentic RO feeling.

Talon RO
It's the first server I stumbled upon because it was (and still) on the top list of RMS review. I can say it's a lovely server but a bit overrated.

Pros

Spoiler

Best community and probably the least toxic server out there. The server has been there for a very long time and the veterans are generally nice and supportive. They also often keep a watchful eye on rule breakers to keep the environment nice. There are plenty of GMs and in turn, they're are often online from time to time, to mingle with people or hold some events. You might find people who went out of their way just to help another, people who inform you on MVP location, people who apologize for accidentally KS-ing you, people who leech you for free without anything in return, and people who goes around buffing everybody. It's that kind of community. Surely #main channel could turn into drama sometimes, occupied by the same people over and over again, or used by some to attract attention to themselves, but generally it's a chill server for chill people.

The server rewards you for taking it slow. There's "Rest Exp" mechanism where you accumulate Exp by logging off up to a week. Rest Exp will give you 2x Exp until it runs out. On the other hand, the server rewards you if you decide to go through job change quest or skill quest instead of using Job Change NPC or Platinum Skill NPC. They will give you Bronze Coin that you can use to rent items like equipments or mount. There's also no autoloot feature. It's replaced by arealoot instead.

[close]

Cons

Spoiler

Almost everything is being sold on the Cash Shop, including MVP cards. If you want a headgear, a weapon, an armor, or a card, and you find them on the Cash Shop, instead of farming them yourself, it'll be quicker just to farm Zeny and buy Cash Shop currency. It will be instantaneous of course, if you just donate. Gearing up for end game multiplayer contents like Endless Tower or GM challenges will require you to farm Zeny to buy 100+ million worth of equipment. Depending on your class, it might cost you less or more. That translates to 50+ hours of farming on Sleeper map, or less if you can find creative way to farm Zeny. Again, since many stuff are being sold on Cash Shop, there isn't much excitement in looking forward to end game multiplayer contents. You don't do it because you want to farm something or get somewhere. You do it for fun. That's probably why the server has the least toxic community compared to others.

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The one con you listed for Talon I'd personally list as a pro, and I agree with your observation that it probably contributed to a listed pro in your post.

The cons, I think, are probably transparency/communication from server administration, and a gaping "gameplay blind-spot", or a lack of an instinctive understanding of the game from a gamer's/player's perspective, epitomised most recently by the unfathomably poor gameplaywise preparation for the transfer to rAthena (which is to be contrasted against, and put into sharper relief by, the excellent technological preparation therefor).


Tentatively speaking, I'd say the cons I've listed have a positive outlook towards their improvement in the future.

I say there's a positive outlook in respect of the transparency and communication area, because I'm seeing efforts to perform better, which is always re-assuring - though there are still unfortunate failures.

Spoiler

As a concrete though trivial example, there was advance warning that a recent event would cancel War of Emperium - good communication - but there was not advance warning that it would cancel another ongoing event which might have overlapped it by 5 minutes or so - an unfortunate failure.

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I say there's a positive outlook in respect of the gameplay blind-spot, because I (tentatively) believe that a cure has been applied.

Spoiler

Pending the results of the SQI restoration, which might overturn this tentatively held belief, I have a few concrete reasons to believe that the larger over-arching problem of a systemic blind-spot towards gameplay has had a cure applied to it, in the form of additional staff hopefully more competent in that area.

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15 Feb 2021 Edit:

Spoiler

(The SQI Revamp, so far as it is currently shown, appears to be mostly pretty legit. 
The methodology used in testing also seems to be pretty legit, at least insofar as it was discussed in the news post.
This confirms some of my positive outlook in that particular respect.
They sadly didn't manage to keep their grubby f*** nerf-paws off of ABSOLUTELY everything, but all base SQIs were buffed, most were improved all-round in their bonus'd forms as well, and the nerfs appear to be both very few and relatively minor/tolerable.
I'm mostly displeased about the loss of a 10% bonus to damage in bowling bash from Nibel (LK), and the loss of what looks like no more than 5% overall Double-strafe damage from Artemis (Sniper).)

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I say there's a positive outlook in respect of the SPECIFIC problem most lately caused by that blindspot, because the gameplay continues to gradually recover, losses suffered in the transfer continue to be slowly recouped (not all might be), and there are new quality-of-life features which might actually contribute to the server being BETTER OFF gameplaywise than it was a year or so ago, once the server's healing process is closer to complete.

Spoiler

As some concrete examples, the loss of the ability of Assassin class to equip arrows and gain status-effect benefits with Grimtooth has been remedied.  The loss of the item Database has been remedied.  The loss of the Monster Database will presumably be remedied.  The loss of availability to newer players of the ability to create Top-of-the-line endgame equipment (Called "SQI"s and assosciated with an "SQI Bonus" system) seems likely soon to be remedied has been remedied!.  A quality-of-life feature permitting players to link items in the chatlog so others can click on them and see their stats and information has been added.  A "navigation" function which also provides some convenient extras has been added.

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Regarding the "Gameplay blind spot" theory, it originates from the fact that other things are done too well for the server to simply be a cashgrab by complete morons or incompetents.  A "blind spot" seems to be the only explanation for the gameplaywise preparation for the transfer to rAthena (and other cataclysmically bad gameplay-related decisions from the past), if one rules out desires to harm the server, or pathological lack of all intelligence.

Those seem to be ruled out quite conclusively by the server staff's demonstrable
(i) general long-standing dedication to and service towards the server,
(ii) general technical/technological competence, and
(iii)general pro-consumer/pro-player financial decisionmaking,
Which have kept the server up for 10+ years, generally stable without rollbacks, and very far away from a pay-to-win-only donation farm, respectively.