Pre-renewal Ragnarok Online is something for those people who are tired of MMORPGs basically telling you what to do via quests. Basically the only reason to do quests in pre-renewal Ragnarok Online is because you want some good looking headgear or are interesting in the lore and to unlock some new dungeons. They are not mandatory to level up at all. You might think "But just grinding is boring!", but I say that it isn't bad by default. Grinding has many advantages, for example that you have a wide array of maps available to go to at one time. You don't have to keep killing the same monster again and again, you can just go and explore the world. It also has another advantage: Finding parties is much easier if you aren't limited to quests. Never been in the situation where you couldn't party up with someone because he had to do a different quests than you? Well this won't happen in RO.
Summarized: If you want to be free and explore the world without any NPCs telling you what to do, go for pre-renewal. If you need NPCs giving you some quests and tell you where to go next, and give you exp and gear as reward, you probably will like renewal more.
The next point is partying. As already mentioned above, pre-renewal is more party-friendly. But it's not just because of the lack of quests. In pre-renewal, you can basically kill any monster as long as you are strong enough to kill it. There won't be any penalties for killing monster much stronger or weaker than you. Instead, stronger monsters in pre-renewal have a much better Exp:HP ratio. That means killing harder monsters is always more rewarding. It's worth to party up just because that means you are able to now kill much stronger monsters. Renewal on the other hand is more designed around soloing. You are limited to monsters that are close to your level as there are penalties for killing monsters much weaker than you. Killing stronger monster isn't worth it either as they hardly give more exp. That means in renewal you are best off killing the easiest monster available that still gives you 100% exp. This monster is so easy, that you can easily solo kill it and even mob several of them alone. The 3rd classes in renewal are also designed around soloing as well. They don't depend on other classes. In pre-renewal there are several classes that depend on a party but are also very very helpful in parties.
Summarized: If you enjoy partying from early on until endgame, you should choose pre-renewal. If you prefer to solo most of the time and just want to party up occasionally for an instance, you might like renewal more. But you can even solo on pre-renewal if you take the a suitable class and build.
The next point is difficulty. I pretty much mentioned this above already. Pre-renewal is much MUCH harder than renewal. In pre-renewal, especially towards the end, most monsters can easily kill you with 2-3 hits. You need to be incredibly careful if you don't want your whole party to be wiped out. A single misclick of the Priest can be the end of the group. It needs quite some skill to survive and the more you play the game the more you feel how you get better. In pre-renewal you have to grow alongside your character stats. In renewal, everything is easy. Most monsters in your level range (which you have to fight as stronger monsters won't give you much exp) deal so little damage. You can basically stand around for 2 minutes with a monster next to you without doing anything and it still didn't manage to kill you. There are few instances that are at least a bit challenging, but most of the time you play in renewal, it will be super easy.
Summarized: If you want a challenge and an MMORPG that requires skill to survive, go for pre-renewal. If you are more the casual gamer that thinks most MMORPGs are too hard for him, go for renewal.
One thing renewal has that pre-renewal doesn't is the content that was added after the renewal update. The developer won't support the pre-renewal system any longer so any updates done on pre-renewal have to be done by the publisher. As they only have access to the database stuff and not the core, they can only change a few things like spawns but not things in the core like skills. New maps, monsters and instances can't be added to pre-renewal. In short, that means in pre-renewal you have only around 700 maps to explore wheras in renewal you have around 800 (estimated values). It won't matter too much for you as you will probably need a year or longer to even explore the whole pre-renewal world (it's really huge), but later on you might want new content for a change.
Summarized: Renewal has slightly more content.
Another thing renewal has that is lacking on pre-renewal are a few client improvements done with and after the renewal update. These include a safer way to use skill points (with confirmation window), a world map, NPC markers (like if they have a quest), monster HP bars and a few more improvements. You simply won't have these conveniences on pre-renewal.
Summarized: Renewal offers a few client improvements.
My final point will be the PVP. Honestly I'm not much into PVP myself so someone else can probably describe it better, but this is what I heard from others. This is actually quite similar to the party aspect. In pre-renewal, PVP is more about group play. That means your guild has to work together, you have to work out strategies, train together and learn exactly what you need to do in your role as part of your guild in what situation. In renewal, while you can still work together of course, PVP is more based on you trying to be as strong as possible and one-hit killing everything in your way... alone. Also some of the 3rd classes that came with renewal are simply too strong and much superior compared to other classes. It isn't too well balanced.
Summarized: If you like working together with your guild in PVP, pre-renewal seems to be the better choice. If you like to do solo PVP, renewal might be more appealing to you.
Conclusion:
Pre-renewal: Grind-driven progression, wide array of places to level on, strong party focus, challenging difficulty, slighty less content, missing client improvements, PVP focused on group play.
Renewal: Mix of quest & grind driven progression, limited to maps with monsters around your current level, focused on soloing, easy to play, more content, all client improvements, PVP focused on soloing.
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