I couldn't agree more. The times are different. Hell, people can order and start watching a movie faster than it took me to rewind a VHS as a kid. Being a "keychain kid", I could find simple ways to occupy my mind for hours on end. Now, everyone is in a rush, and they need everything NOW. Idk. Me personally, even in these times, I'd prefer to level with friends than to ultra-power level to max level, then sit in South Pront wondering what's left to do besides WoE a couple times per week. But those people are gone. Maybe I should join them. *sigh*
That's right! Personally I feel that Gravity is tried to switch to its aging demographic not understanding that we are creatures of habit and we eventually revert back to old ways when things as nostalgic as Ragnarok is in the picture. Yes we're decades older now and we have jobs and cash to burn but it ended up morphing from one of the first mmo's you played in your childhood to something you wanna throw money into because you never had that feeling of being string when you first played it.
I think this is the trend they caught on and when jRO implemented the gacha system instead of the subscription, Gravity realized they can make a killing will milking players nostalgia and dangling gear for them to look cool and be stronger, stronger than they ever were in 2002. For some, if not most, that feeling of power is addicting. Back then the thought of facing the Baphomet haunts your dreams, now it pisses you off in CLab coz you'd prefer a stronger MVP with a more expensive card.
Maybe we're also to blame for buying into Gravity's gacha system. If majority of players would've fought to bring back the sub system rather than the gacha, maybe Gravity would've realized that "yeah they wont buy anything from the cash shop so lets go back to subs." It was only a good idea in Japan since the whole gacha thing is embedded in their pop culture. But yeah too late for that now, and their design and marketing team really find ways on making things desireable for players so yeah we eat all that up just to get a tad bit of power.
Im not saying RO shouldve stoped to develop further, but renewal turned RO into a -_-show, 99% of the new changes were bad, I cant really recall a good one. The best I can think of was cutting the dumbest ideas like linking dropchance to your level, but there was nothing good in it, they butchered classes, they butchered stats, they butchered skills, made every class the same braindead press AoE to wipe screen class, and all was centered around implementing a cashshop that gives out the most broken items that are btter than the content that comes out for the next 5 years (if it comes out eventually). Renewal was created to shove a cashshop down our throat and it made RO so bad that noone wants to p2p for it anymore, the only ones keeping it afloat are people with low self control that burn thousands and thousands of dollars of this game that got them addicted, its similar to diablo immortal, a potentially good game is destroyed by greed and incompetence of the officials.
Don't get me started on Diablo. Yes its definitely similar to RO with what they're doing. They just sort of sped up the process and just went from greed altogether.
I also feel that server settings take a bit of perspective and each player has different experiences with them. Having played Ragnarok for many years, quitting, coming back, quitting again then coming back. Having outlived several official servers i've played in probably has made me realize that renewal is definitely better than revo classic or pre-renewal. And this is my personal opinion and I'm not gonna shove my ideas down anybody's throat.
The thing is, with revo classic and pre-renewal servers, theres not much to do after you've sort of done everything in the game. If the server doesnt go renewal it eventually dies. And I get that its not the renewal settings that most people are complaining about. A lot of players would probably say that renewal was when Gravity killed the game. While this has some sense in it, the discussion goes deeper. This was when Gravity gave in to their greed. And who knows what the catalyst was, probably an increase in cost, maybe they had to compete with other games that were coming out. You see, when they launched in 2002, only a few years later newer mmo's came out with better graphics and a complex but F2P friendly entry. Its funny how we're still talking about a 20-year old 2D game from the early 2000's.
Ragnarok was so nostalgic and profitable that private servers started turning up. And tbh, if Gravity were doing a good job in managing their servers or doing quality control with the franchises that do, there would still be more players wanting to play official than there are with playing private.
beyond saving now.
as much as i don't like the idea of starting over the only way to solve the zeny issue is with a new server (i for one wont play there, too much time/effort spent on chaos by now). you still will have to pay a fair amount to be competitive if a woe scene emerges, something doable now in chaos actually.
problem is, population is so low that WP is unwilling to ban cheaters for a while now (hard to blame really, some of cheaters spend lots of money, cheating and spending have aligned incentives).
this is the main reason why all new servers WP tries have and will fail. As new servers don't have the amount of players commited due to effort
spent like in chaos, they just quit after a while and thats it.
This is true. So many people have already invested in Chaos, even Thor, that the new server may only be popular for those who are struggling with the economy in Chaos. Whales will definitely stay in their servers but the I guess the new server gives new or unestablished players the chance to progress in their own terms. Although I my theory is that they're making this clone server to eventually merge Chaos and Thor into. A new server doesn't make sense unless there's a bigger plan in the grandest of scales.