Schedule is April 6 to implement, Brasilis will launch then as well.
Ymir will be a VIP server, which means it will require VIP to CREATE characters, but for all other things like access already made characters will be open without restriction.
Yggdrasil and Valkyrie will be OPEN servers, you can make 3 characters normally, and the other 6 with VIP.
All servers can get VIP to get bonuses on EXP/Drops/storage/ death penalty and access to special buff NPCs and maps.
All servers will use the same kafra shop items (whatever server had the cheapest will be the price for all)
All servers will use the current premium server upgrade system (Safe with normal -> unsafe with Enhanced E.Ore)
This topic has been vigorously discussed on irowiki, the facebooks, the blog and my personal MSN. I greatly appreciate the feedback, as it has given us an idea of where the community has strong feelings about. I also appreciate those that could disagree strongly but still be civil, it made it much better for everyone to understand each other.
We are still in testing, there is a couple of "oopses" in the current setup that need ironed out, if things go as planned April 6 or 7 is a valid goal for this update, it is possible a delay may occur though if things take longer to fix than planned. We will also be posting any server differences (like items available) soon.
This is a great chance to come back to RO and pick up on your old characters, without any subscription requirement, that has been a goal we have had for over a year, in fact the merger last year was the first public step for this.
See the Blog post to see the full writeup
See the Yggdrasil -> Ymir Free transfer announcement, if you are a Ygg player and want to move to Ymir for free now.
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is a reply I made later.
Don't be concerned about the Storage on Ymir yet please. This one is in testing and if it goes appropriately this will be a non-issue.
Yggdrasil : Will be exactly like Valk will be IE Open server with 3 character creates by Default, and 300 storage by default. This shouldn't be an issue due to the youth of the server not packing up and filling storage quite yet.
Valkyrie: Item limits will be relaxed somewhat, like common stuff will drop from monsters like Blue gems, flywings etc. Card limitations are still in discussion.
Bot situation: We will have to keep expanding the bot kill squad to include Yggdrasil.
Multi-client : We understand why the Valkyrie population wants it to stay the same as now, with it unlimited. But with it unlimited there is 0 reason for you to not make 20 accounts with 1 character each instead of fewer accts with more characters per account. Multi-clienting increases the load on our DB, lowers actual partying and game interaction and really is more costly for the game to deal with. multi-clienting has never been a bot prevention, but when we check IP and see 20 accounts on one IP we have a pretty good indicator of what is going on. Many valkyrie players look like bots with their play behavior because of how many accounts they use "because they can for free". That was never an intention of the F2P server but it was abused to great extent by otherwise perfectly acceptable players.
As we have stated, we will try to crack it ourselves, for client swapping, exe modding, sandboxing and any other tricks we come up with. If we can crack it, then it is not useful to implement, because then it will be a point of contention between the fair / limited and the cheating / multi-cliented. Discussion on how many to allow, I would love if we could do multi-client for non-VIP to be 2. But everytime I bring it up to any programmer at HQ or here for ROSE I get a look of "Are you nuts" that makes things about 200 x more complicated and fail prone.. Someone brought up the idea of 3 years of development to make a feature that is cracked in a week or delays other projects.. I think that limiting to more than 1 but less than x non-VIP is one of those too much work to implement scenarios.
Here is more information as of 3/31/2011. I need to make this post now because no one will take it seriously tomorrow.
Multi-client restriction is being removed across the board. It didn't meet our preset requirements for implementation, so it will not be implemented at this time. It is doubtful it will be implemented in the future, but we do reserve the option if necessary.
Ymir Storage will have 600 as a default. Right now it may not be possible to have it go higher, if not the backup plan is to have 600 be both the default and VIP setting for Ymir until something is updated.
Testing has gone well, at launch we will simply be patching, (it isn't a ton of patches that have been delivered since October honestly), we will have a new full client installer likely in a week or 2 after all the kinks are worked out of the installer process we want to use.
We hope that this latest news helps ease concerns over this update, really it should all feel "golden" now as far as what is happening.
April 5th...
So we received our newest "final" build, and there are some problems with it. We are still going to do all possible to get them fixed for tomorrows maintenance.
Here are the issues that may come up.
Storage on Ymir may be 300/600 for now. It is fully intended to soon be set to 600 for normal at least. Whether more than 600 can happen with VIP on Ymir is not 100% certain at this time due to DB limitations.
Ymir sell back rates for etc items will remain at its current 100%
Valk and Yggdrasil will both be 75% normal price (this lessens the amount of zeny entering the market)
Ymir will remain at 50 seal roll requirement.
Yggdrasil/Valkyrie will be 100 seal roll requirement.
WoE on Yggdrasil will remain as it is for about a month while the population increases and levels up. Once it is sufficiently increased we will open up normal WoE.
3rd Classes on Valkyrie and Yggdrasil will require either VIP or a Reset Stone to perform.
Ymir will have open change to 3rd class for now. That may change this summer to require VIp or Reset Stone
Alchemist list will get reset next week, so start saving up those Starsands.
We will have maintenance on 4/6 from 3pm - 8pm.
We will likely also have a maintenance on Thursday at the normal time to clean up any NPC issues that may crop up during the implementation.
- Will there be a sorting option/function for storage soon?
---Kafra is organized by type, or search if you want. Further sorting options may come but not now.
- Will there be more items added to the kafra shop that would be worth while in buying (At lease for WoE)?
---Please give some examples of what yo uwant to see, it is something we are constantly sending requests for new items in.
- Is there going to be a way to have Kafra Points be used to "gain VIP status" or will only WP Points be used?
---This is a possibility for future development. having an item you can buy in-game to get the VIP status would be quite useful.
- Will there be free perks to having a VIP status, kinda like how you get extra coupons or discounts from CVS?
---Yes the Buff NPCs and access to certain areas are perks.
- Delete character will I need to have VIP to recreate?
---If that character is on Ymir then yes. If on Open server if it is on the first 3 char slots then no; as those first 3 are available for non-VIP character creation.
- 75% value or 100% value of sell back.
---This is specifically something on Open servers, it is to lessen the amount of zeny in the game, player prices automatically adjust for zeny amounts. NPC sell prices are only an effect for consumables, which many of those consumable costs are going to come DOWN on valkyrie to be like Yggdrasil is. Making this a VIP thing doesn't work as you could just give all the stuff to 1 dude who sells it and gives you the z back. While that could be amusing, it is scam territory and ultimately would defeat the point of trying to stem the flow of zney into the game. It is highly likely that quests will begin giving zeny and items as well for VIP accounts.
- Will there be a whole new client download necessary?
--- No. There will be a patch gotten through the patcher (under 30mb) that will fully update you to be able to use this. The Valkyrie and "renewal" exes will be deprecated and not work anymore. All will launch through the Ragnarok.exe and the ragexe.exe. New client installs will just download the ~ 30mb of patches and be up and running.