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With respect, why is this even still propped up?


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#1 Hyle

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Posted 23 May 2020 - 12:11 AM

Abridged Version - Can we at least get a News update in the patcher that says that development for this game is shut down?

 

With development officially ceased this game is as much of a zombie as is possible for a piece of software. It seems kind of hollow to keep the game open with a perpetual Christmas event, an active cash shop, and the fact that there are no plans for new content being buried. The patcher makes no effort to make it clear that development has been shut down, and even coming to this forum where that information is, it's tucked away into the News subsection of the News & Events subsection where it's titled "Important Notice regarding Ragnarok 2 Development" right next to a different "Important Notice", when it seems like it should at least be titled "Ragnarok 2 development has been shut down." or something equally clear.

 

I'm not demanding that the game be shut down or anything, truthfully I do prefer that it's a zombie instead of being shut down, but shouldn't it at least be a little more clear what the state of things is? At least add one more News bulletin to the patcher so that expectations are properly set. I do think it'd be nice if there were literally one person on development whose job is just to iron out the outstanding quirks the game still has, like all the bad grammar and screwed up item descriptions (the item "Prime Grade Craft Pilanium", in addition to having a strange name, also has the item description of the Noble Peco mount for no clear reason) and any outstanding bugs. No content, no balance, just housekeeping like keeping a museum tidy. Maybe things could change and development could resume after all that's taken care of so that there's nothing that needs to be doubled back onto, but of course that's an extremely naive "maybe". Gotta say though, account storage to shuffle things around would be nice, as it is you're kneecapping yourself if you open Leprechaun's Cubes or play the Phantom Pyramid on more than one character because that splits up your resources in a way that you can't reconcile. But that'll never get attended to because development's shut down.

 

If I'm to take a guess at why things ended up the way they did, well, all I'll say is that aside from the lack of housekeeping (again, translations and the like), Advent of Valkyrie was not a graceful landing. It effectively chopped everything after the Fortress of Sandarman (which, if Ragnarok 1 is anything to go off of, is supposed to be "Saint Darmain") off and said "Oh, that endgame content? That's pointless now, do this instead." and added Master Levels, with even the NPC-bought gear blowing raid gear out of the water, and the power creep being so sharp and so extreme that a class that is capable of healing itself can now solo the once unstoppable Rat Master Kremp (and again, questionable translation, that's almost certainly supposed to be "Cramp") without a whole lot of effort as long as they're rocking Osiris gear or better. Likewise, I think Advent of Valkyrie happened the way it did because of Rat Master Kremp, in a way. Poor coordination would allow Hard Mode Humbaba to brick wall a raid, but Kremp was something else. Back in the day I never found a group that was capable of standing up to even the Normal Rat Master, and I vividly remember when the chat was constantly flooded with people begging to assemble raids to kill the Hard Mode version by abusing Embus of Ruin (Embus? Inverse? More inconsistent translation) to prevent him from being able to even act. That was before bosses were made immune to locking effects, of course. So the Culvert of Abyss (Could probably be "Abyss Culvert") served as the end of most players' experience in Ragnarok 2, with the promise of the Abaddon of Despair and Chaos beyond it being effectively hollow. So why keep the bitter memory? Just forget about it and move forward, that's what Advent of Valkyrie decided. Look back later if you want when you're so strong you can just pound that nasty rat into the concrete with hardly any effort.

 

I think that's most of what I've got to say. I'm not gonna beg or demand that somebody be put on housekeeping duty for this, nor am I going to say "If I were in charge of things everything would be great!" because, let's be real, that's not true because I'm the kind of person who locks onto specific things that nobody else cares about, for example I totally hate the way Honing is implemented because it's impossible to get a "perfect" item, so the first thing I'd do if I had any power would be to overhaul that so that it is possible to get a perfect item while also trying to make sure that perfect items aren't so God-tier overpowered that they just let you solo Hard Mode Wonderland. And that would be a massive distraction from things that need more attention than something that works that I just happen to not like.

 

That's what I had to say. I was already just assuming that the game was effectively dead as far as updates go, but I was thinking it was "there are supposed to be updates, but they're really, really delayed.". I only found out that development is officially shut down a few hours ago, so that kind of set me off a little. Maybe something will change and the wheels will get rolling again. But probably not. Like I said, that's an extremely naive "maybe".


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#2 IANVARIVS

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Posted 23 May 2020 - 07:45 PM

When Gravity Korea announced they'll shutdown the parent Korean iteration of the game, I've began to suspect that this version will go next. Then they announced that Warpportal has taken the helm of developing for this game. I was quite happy as they started to fix things. I remember that Trello list, bugs upon bugs waiting to be fixed. I was excited with Niflheim, especially when they showed the concept art and the mobs. But in all of a sudden, the development plug was pulled. We still got players but without plans to expand, the remaining player population is expected to dwindle as you cannot expect them to do and explore things as mundane as humans. They mentioned that development might be back in the future, but a shot in the dark, unless Warpportal miraculously gets blessed by an angel investor, we're stuck with Christmas and Valentines. Shame on Gravity for focusing on mobiles, another shot in the dark, perhaps they focused on the upcoming Ragnarok Origin.


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#3 Hyle

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Posted 26 May 2020 - 05:41 PM

Yeah, it would take an angel investor. Without that it's a catch-22. To resume development, the game needs to become more popular and profitable. For the game to become more popular and profitable, development must resume.

 

I think if development ever resumed, then aside from bug fixes or anything to do with honing, I'd like to see consolidation. Make zeny, diamonds, the Phantom Pyramid (including Mystical/Bright Phantom Stones), mounts, monster DNA, and card albums account based instead of character based (increase the zeny cap in advance so that doesn't cause a problem), and remove all the redundant item clones that exist.


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#4 Varitas

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Posted 03 June 2020 - 04:49 PM

Hello, 

 

We thank you for  your continued interest in the game. As stated by Idune, all development has ended however there was a skeleton crew for a little while, who simply maintained the game.  Unfortunately, it is now down to two people and the last few attempts to run holiday events has caused more issues than entertainment.  There are plans to try to get the holiday events and happy hour boxes back on track, but as far as any updates or changes, unfortunately all that has ceased at this time.  There is a producer in charge, but their position at this moment is mostly as a grounds keeper.  He is learning the ins and outs of Ragnarok Online 2, and should he get some time he may be able to do more and more as far as small edits, but we shall see.  We are sorry that the game has not been able to progress as much as we would have liked.  As stated before, the investors involved pulled out suddenly and we couldn't do anything further. 


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#5 Hyle

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Posted 06 June 2020 - 10:21 AM

It's just my stance, but I feel that perhaps some of those small edits should come before trying to get events back on if it's feasible. It'd be a pleasant show that things are still capable of happening, plus it could be the start of finding some momentum. Rolling snowballs usually start small, after all.


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#6 Varitas

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Posted 08 June 2020 - 09:13 AM

It's just my stance, but I feel that perhaps some of those small edits should come before trying to get events back on if it's feasible. It'd be a pleasant show that things are still capable of happening, plus it could be the start of finding some momentum. Rolling snowballs usually start small, after all.

 

We completely understand how you feel, however the reason the events are important is they are already programmed into the game. When I say events this includes Holiday Events, Happy Hour Boxes, EXP Bonus Weekends, Kafra Shop Sales, etc.  These are actually easier to reintroduce than effecting actual elements of the game at this stage.   Any changes would require balance reviews as well as the edit of several tables, all of which are in a different language so they take a bit longer than locally developed games. 

Once we get the basics sorted out, it is only then can we look into any changes.  The boards that were left by the previous Producers and staff are still there with the notes and suggestions of many of our player-base.  So if anyone has made any recommendations in the past we still have quite a few, with notes, and discussions about those changes.  While we cannot produce anything new, maintaining the game as is, is the priority, with the possibility of very slight improvements in the future.  


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#7 Hyle

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Posted 08 June 2020 - 02:03 PM

While I won't argue with that about the tables, there are small issues that wouldn't need balance reviews at all, like the various cases of wrong text (Prime Grade Craft Pilanium using the description of the Noble Peco mount, in addition to having an awkward name and the inconsistent spelling of Pilanium/Pillarnium in the first place) or the Kafra in Morroc using the wrong voice clips (Jakiya and Anellie use an "Opening storage!" clip as a greeting and when saving a respawn point and nothing when actually opening storage, while Warda uses Flying Kafra voice clips that Flying Kafra don't tend to actually use).

 

That said, I do get it. Gotta get into the gist of things before you can start doing anything. If there'd be any way to do progress reports on that, it'd definitely be appreciated, I'm sure, but if there's nothing to say other than an assertion of "Someone's working on it", then that's understandable as well.


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#8 faku1810

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Posted 08 June 2020 - 02:44 PM

While I won't argue with that about the tables, there are small issues that wouldn't need balance reviews at all, like the various cases of wrong text (Prime Grade Craft Pilanium using the description of the Noble Peco mount, in addition to having an awkward name and the inconsistent spelling of Pilanium/Pillarnium in the first place) or the Kafra in Morroc using the wrong voice clips (Jakiya and Anellie use an "Opening storage!" clip as a greeting and when saving a respawn point and nothing when actually opening storage, while Warda uses Flying Kafra voice clips that Flying Kafra don't tend to actually use).

 

That said, I do get it. Gotta get into the gist of things before you can start doing anything. If there'd be any way to do progress reports on that, it'd definitely be appreciated, I'm sure, but if there's nothing to say other than an assertion of "Someone's working on it", then that's understandable as well.

 

I feel the reason they want to get events and such working first is because the game is stale. It was already stale around the time development stopped, but when even events aren't working then it's harder to keep players around long enough for typos or wrong voice clips to matter. Most players can live with a funny typo in an item's name, as long as there's actually enough content for you to bother launching the game.

 

So while I agree that fixing typos is easy (at least from a technical point of view), there's just so many issues of "engrish" and misplaced text (I think I recall there was a npc in the desert whose dialogue was the same as the Daily Boards), that I can easily see why they would rather spend work hours on stuff that affects the player's experience more directly. Specially when their team is so much smaller now and they apparently have to learn how their backend works since it's not the same people they used to have.

 

PS: Thanks for pointing out the issue with Sandarman being Saint Darmain, I'll have to include it the next time I update my translation. It actually makes a lot of sense for it to be the same location when looking at the Ragnarok 1 maps.


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#9 Hyle

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Posted 08 June 2020 - 03:38 PM

Yeah, that's pretty inarguable. I guess mostly my line of thinking was to have somebody who's not doing anything else anyway (maybe if someone wants to volunteer let them come on) take care of the text and wrong voices just so that there is an update to push. The way I'm seeing it is that there is presently no expectation among the players that there will be new content because there are no updates at all, so it'd maybe be a good show of "It is not impossible that something else will come later." to just fix some very easy things.

 

All the same, I guess the only thing that can be done on the player side is to just hang out and wait 'til those that are left get settled.


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#10 Darkressxx1

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Posted 10 June 2020 - 12:56 PM

Just as a reminder, the offices of the company are located in the United States. Which is one of the most affected countries due to the outbreak of the pandemic in that country so it's normal that it's difficult to move forward with anything related to the game developing, remember that in the end the developers are humans who have a family, and mostly like a live, so they have to take their measures to overcome the contingency. Also sadly Ragnarok 2 isn't anymore the priority and all the events we had during the last months (since the game developing was terminated / paused) was thanks to they care about the community. Remember that fixing even a ''small'' bug can be a pain in the ass, and finally probably, any fix should go through the game producer for approbation aslong any kind of change.

I can understand why they doesn't want 'Volunteers', being honest it nevers end well, mostly of the time because of source leaks.


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#11 Hyle

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Posted 10 June 2020 - 09:07 PM

This is kind of out of nowhere, but a few questions for Varitas and faku, plus anyone else who'd care to chime in. Do you like the honing system, do you think it accomplishes what it sets out to do, and what do you think it sets out to do?


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#12 ilvan062

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Posted 16 June 2020 - 10:46 PM

Just a suggestion to our hard-working developers, please keep the players updated on the recent developments. Announce any progress if possible and let the players know that this game is not yet dead. As I've noticed recently, players are returning and new players keep on pouring. Don't let it get in to waste and act as fast as possible. Make sure to let us know that the developers of this game did not desert the world of Ragnarok Online 2. Thank you!


Edited by ilvan062, 16 June 2020 - 10:47 PM.

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#13 Hyle

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Posted 17 June 2020 - 11:53 AM

"Developers" is a generous word.

 

But it would be nice to know how far along the producer is.


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