65 replies to this topic

[KataiKou]

You guys are crazy amounts of silly. Honestly, I've been playing since before there was a Dodge penalty on taking more than 3 monsters, and I'll tell you the game is way more tolerable than it was in the past.

Appreciate what you guys have:

1) This game updates every week, with major content about once a month. Back then, you were lucky if there was an update within the year. Gravity didn't really give a crap about iRO
2) DDOS attacks are being managed. Back then, when the server went down, you weren't playing RO for the week. Yes, DDOS attacks happened back then, too.
3) You get compensated for mistakes. Back then, if there was a problem, the servers were rolled back 1 day, and no one got any of their stuff back
4) Money wasn't worth anything then, either. Yes, 1 million Z meant something, but the best weapons in the game were... Tsurugi, Swordmace, and Damascus. Even when they added new weapons, the best stuff was... Jur[3], Main Gauche [4], and Katana [4]...

I'm not saying this game is good. I'm just saying this game is better than what it used to be. You can reminisce all you want about what you thought made this game good, but I can honestly tell you I'm glad a lot of that stuff is gone.

[ChrisWintermoon]

Remember the time before juno where we had no SP Reg ?
Thats was fun

[Helios0]

shocked no1 mentioned the Lord of Death AOE parties..

[Tetsamaru]

shocked no1 mentioned the Lord of Death AOE parties..

Sure we did. Sage Hocus Pocus parties. Didn't everyone use their Sages for LoD summoning?

[Helios0]

killing mvp's mostly actually getting LOD was more of a OMG LOD!!!!!

he actually appeared very often now that i remember.. kinda like how every other bb tends to be Beelzebub now @_@

[balong]

I do miss a lot RO way back 2004.lots of fun lvling solo.buying heal slave,quest obb,that time obb was so expensive.hode map,sphinx,gh of course,and TIsland.the most thing i will never forget.the goal to get 1k hugel medal.racing to win 15medal in dual.was the hardship i did.spent hundred of hours.BUT it was really really fun before.we do not depend on kafra items,gears,what else?..hmm kafra points??.but you see now.things have 100%change.i dont play anymore.just doing buy and sell upgrade thing if im free.

[Helios0]

they should really make some new use for kafra reserve points

[stormchell]

Heck, I do miss 1st job quests

[Tetsamaru]

Heck, I do miss 1st job quests

Glad i'm not the only one. Hell I remember when noobie vendors would be in payon selling the trunks for the Archer test.

[Arcturus7]

level 99 parties - and by extension job change parties where all your friends came to watch you change to knight or priest etc because back then these things actually took some effort.

[chadgarand]

when teleporting was free, there wasn't an eden group, and novices just got thrown out into it, no novice training school or anything, just made your character did some stats and BAM spawned in the middle of prontera there were so many people back then, could go to any kafra girl and warp to pvps areas and whatever city you wanted,that and morroc wasn't in ruins lol, but this isn't to terrible though now

I started playing in beta. and I stopped reading at "teleporting was free", thats completely untrue. sorry, you must have been playing on a priv server.

[Ultimate]

When I couldn't pay for RO and had to make multiple trial accounts and drop all my items after 15 days, then quickly logout and in again to pick them up on my new trial account.

[Brandonmaru]

I remember back in the day when every swordy had that dumb default red colored hairstyle- oh wait they still do that.

[ChrisWintermoon]

I remember back in the day when every swordy had that dumb default red colored hairstyle- oh wait they still do that.

I remember back in the day when you and I were in love and you havent chose to love a cat more!

[CatMuto]

I'm actually grateful for the Novice Training Grounds and Eden (except those sucky rewards between 26 - 40) but I agree that parts of RO prior to Renewal and even earlier were nicer. Heck, the economy wasn't as bad as now, players were actually talking in cities and helping each other out a lot.
I do rather miss the 1st Job quests. And I do miss old Morroc (I was shocked the first time I saw destroyed Morroc - but what has changed with Payon? Seems the same to me) but things are improving.

C-A

[lainee]

I remember back in the day when every swordy had that dumb default red colored hairstyle- oh wait they still do that.

Swordies had the blonde doppelganger hair.

[Luckywhiterabbit]

This is the only nostalgia I have.



I played this game before real RO, meaning that when I first joined the game I was very naive and convinced that the things I could do in RBO would carry over. (eg. My first character, I wanted to play a battle acolyte, because the acolyte in RBO is REALLY STRONG and I thought that aco's were able to self-support and DPS while healing themselves like the Aco in RBO. Hoo boy was I wrong.

Edited by Luckywhiterabbit, 05 March 2012 - 04:53 AM.

[Randomititiy]

Don't let nostalgia cloud the present. Work together and make some new memories while you still have time to do so.

Easier said then done half the time. Need proof? Look at most of the complaints about turn ins. Either that or the people you try to befriend are those people who only party with their alts.

This is the only nostalgia I have.

[video]

I played this game before real RO, meaning that when I first joined the game I was very naive and convinced that the things I could do in RBO would carry over. (eg. My first character, I wanted to play a battle acolyte, because the acolyte in RBO is REALLY STRONG and I thought that aco's were able to self-support and DPS while healing themselves like the Aco in RBO. Hoo boy was I wrong.

I use to play that on plane trips going back and forth from Thailand and the US or Vietnam and the US. Wish I still had that game

[Akin]

Easier said then done half the time. Need proof? Look at most of the complaints about turn ins. Either that or the people you try to befriend are those people who only party with their alts.

Yup, some of my most fond experiences on RO are of me joking around and getting to know people in parties. I know TIs were created to help get people to party, but they've really only helped to ruin my impression of what I thought was a pretty courteous community (even considering the anonymity of an online game). G-wings and 3rd class AoE skills seem to have made people a-holes.

Some of the places I used to love to party:

• Pront Culverts.
• Pyramids and Sphinx.
• Geffen Dungeon.
• Thanatos Tower.
• Nameless Island.
• And most of all, Bio 3.

[Tetsamaru]

but what has changed with Payon? Seems the same to me) but things are improving.

I take it you started playing after Payon got re-modeled. You never talked to the Old Timer NPC in Eden? He'll warp you to Old Payon. Old Payon was ALOT smaller.

[iiNote]

I miss the old days on Loki, back when it people were a lot friendlier and happier to be online. And I miss this:

We still do stuff like that in Valkyrie south prontera... all the time. Breaking DB's... It's actually pretty fun.

[Kadelia]

I miss back when elven ears and boys' cap were status symbols.

[Niji]

I miss back when elven ears and boys' cap were status symbols.

omg my boys cap....wow i forgot i even had that.

[Dreimdal]

I'm not saying this game is good. I'm just saying this game is better than what it used to be. You can reminisce all you want about what you thought made this game good, but I can honestly tell you I'm glad a lot of that stuff is gone.

Yeah. Pre-Renewal had its good points, but I think Renewal has a lot of good points too. Actually, what I liked most back then was that the population was so much larger. I think today's lower active population is the biggest factor in making Renewal less fun than Pre-Renewal. The game's age and decline over time is part of what makes this difference. I think that if the game in its current form were released back then, in "2003" or "2004", and therefore, making it "fresh" and new, the number of players would be very high (just like back then), and the game would be a lot more enjoyable because there would be more people around with which to do things in the game.

Kind of a tangent, but: Back in prerenewal, it was even more difficult than it is now for the "wrong" classes to find parties. So class balance is a perennial issue.

Some folks pining for the old days lament how reaching max level is "not an accomplishment anymore". Well, to all those people who say that 99/50 was an "accomplishment" back then: Congratulations, your accomplishment was that you sat for hundreds of hours in front of a computer in order to manipulate some code on a distant server. A telesurgeon can do the same thing, but the difference is that, unlike you, the telesurgeon has actually truly accomplished something beneficial and tangible.


Also, I think people forget that there were ways of shortening the trip to 99/50 back then too, such as LoD farming prior to Hocus Pocus nerf, Bio Labs parties, Heat TKM leeching, etc. Last year, I saw an old video on YouTube of someone in prerenewal getting to 99/50 in a day. That's right, 400 million prerenewal exp in a single day, and it was without manuals or hugel medals. How does that even compare to now, where people use manuals and medals to cheat their way to 150? I tell you: If it weren't for battle manuals or hugel medals or mercenaries, then people wouldn't be spouting so much garbage about it being "easy" to 150/50 a character.

because back then these things actually took some effort.

And yet no one has yet answered the question: Why should it be an accomplishment? Why must one dedicate unusually large amounts of one's free time to it? The answer of course, is because the goal is not just "enjoying playing the game" but the goal is maximum personal power level. The same is true even now, so nothing has changed really. The goal is just a little bit easier to reach for a larger number of people. Back then, people with connections or knowledge could also exploit their way to the top.

I think what people are complaining about is that max level is more accessible to a larger percentage of players, rather than the well-connected or the veterans. The veterans who pine for the old days are resentful that they can't remain the absolute most powerful in some virtual world, and the upstarts have a good chance to catch up to them. It's all about selfishness and wanting to maintain their position at the top of the virtual heap. I have to confess that I feel a little schadenfreude about seeing them lose their monopoly. They want to make the game harder for everyone but themselves.

And yes, I remember those parties. I did it with three different people who played assassins in prerenewal. One of them took 8 or 9 months to get there. Another about the same, and the last one took maybe 6 months. I'm only just now about to get my first 150/50, 6 months after making the character. Of course, I play it casually and don't devote outsized amounts of time to leveling it. And that's a good and healthy thing. A good game shouldn't encourage people to sit 5+ hours a day to "accomplish" (lol) something after 6-7 months. 1-2, maybe 3, hours a day is a lot more reasonable of a proposition, and doesn't have to suck up all of one's free time.

To people who say that reaching max level faster has caused people to quit iRO: Well, WoW has millions of subscribers, but reaching max level in that game takes just about as long as it does to reach max lvl in current iRO Renewal (from what I understand base on 2nd-hand information, having never played it, so WoW players: correct me if I'm wrong here). So I think the speed that one reaches max level is not the decisive factor in deciding how long people play and stick around in an MMO. There are numerous other factors at work too. Such as fun and camaraderie, and number of other people playing.

When people leave a multiplayer game, it feeds on itself in a cycle, causing more people to leave. This happens not just in MMORPGs, but other ones, like FPS, which I used to play many many years ago. I remember playing TFC online back between 2000-2003 and the population & number of servers both gradually declined over time. People didn't whine about it and pine for the old days. People were simply moving on with their lives to other things. I think that's what happening with RO. This game isn't going to suddenly go back to how it was, so you can forget about that happening.

The game is in decline because of this mostly: "Well, my buds left so I guess I'll quit too". And that can happen in any genre of online game.


Bottomline: The heydays of high RO population are permanently gone and won't come back. Pining for them is pointless.

No one has really pointed fingers at a cause (at least not in this thread), but I know a lot of people feel that it's bad decisions that killed the game. And, to a certain extent that's true. The differences between classes and the niches they filled has been destroyed (now that almost everyone has an overpowerd AoE of some sort) allowing people to solo level very easily, or even solo MVPs, meaning that no longer do people have to work together. The cash shop makes it so that one need not actually play the game to become overpowered in it. These things drive people away because they discourage partying, rather than encourage it. Also, manuals, medals, mercenaries, all help make it so that one need not ever talk to a single other player to get to 150/50. Max level does not not require cooperation if you're the right class with the right over-powered equips. But at the same time really, only a small part of the decline is due to bone-headed developer decisions and perhaps mismanagement. I think the single biggest reason is simply because people moved on to different things. Don't forget that there have been many new games released since RO was released. There are many new online ways of socializing too, and they don't involve some pointless grind to some imaginary maximum level.

I used to play Ultima Online way back over a decade ago, back when there was still an RP in MMORPG (to those who don't know: that's an abbreviation for "Role-Playing"). All the MMORPGs of today are really just MMOGs. There's no roleplaying. No adventure to go on. No partying with others just to explore, or raid a dungeon, or go on an adventure. Almost ALL of today's MMORPGs are geared toward one goal: Obtaining maximum power or maximum level. It's a non-stop grindfest to the top without stopping to smell the roses and enjoy the journey along the way. Like I said, this isn't just RO, this is an endemic problem within nearly every other modern MMORPG today.

Sure, every once in a while there are in-game quests, but no one does them because it's all about the reward or "how will this quest make me over-powered faster?"

Exploring isn't worth it, because there's nothing new and fun to discover. Adventuring to find new loot is pointless because you can just go to ET if you want some OP gear. There's no novelty and excitement in today's MMOGs. Don't get me wrong. It's still fun to party with other people and destroy monsters. I enjoy that a lot, and it's the reason I still even bother playing RO. But it's not the same as back in Ultima Online, when one could go on a journey. And this wasn't do to the ease or speed of getting places either. Ultima online had moongates (Vas Rel Por) and teleporting (Kal Ort Por), just like RO has its teleportation magic. But there was more incentive to just get out into the virtual and try new things with companions. There's no need for ingenuity or trying new things in todays MMOGs, unless it's for the sake of finding some exploit to get to maximum personal power even faster. This is part of why I stopped playing games altogether between 2008-2011.

Today's RO is: How much virtual stuff can I collect, how can I get to max level faster, how can I collect the most overpowered gear, and all of that is for the sole purpose of reaching maximum power level. Why? Perhaps to better compete with others. Perhaps to easily squash any monster. But okay, you've gotten there and you are maximum and an in-game diety. So what? You can beat players faster in PVP WoE, destroy MVPs like they're putty, and normal monsters are ants beneath your feet. None of these require actual, so-called "skill". Your only accomplishment has been to make the game easy for yourself. And now that you've done so, you want the game to be made harder to match your over-poweredness? The only problem with this, of course, is that not everyone is as powerful as you, so if the mosnters are suddenly made difficult enough to match you, they'll just as suddenly be impossible for anyone else.

I laid out this example because this is my impression of how I see a lot of veterans who have played a long time. They played so long and grown so powerful, that they want the game broken so that it hurts everyone else. The real solution would be to nerf overpowered gears and skills, while leaving monsters and such alone, but no one wants to have their godly or overpowerd items or skills nerfed.


And holy crap, I just started typing and went off on a tangent there. Sorry for the wall of text(>_<). But yeah, congrats to those of you who read through all that and reached the end. I've been thinking about this stuff for awhile now just had to let it all out I guess.

Edited by Dreimdal, 05 March 2012 - 07:17 AM.

[Luckywhiterabbit]

^^^ this. Hit the nail on the head. However I still disagree about the whole "every class is good" thing being bad. There's still a lot of variation between the classes. The only reason everyone has a powerful AOe is because with renewal, mobbing his the only real way to level. It has to become the new standard, and some classes are still way better at it than others (ranger vs mech, etc etc.)

Actually, one modern MMO I plan to play is Tera online. I hear they are actually going to launch with a 'role playing' server. I wonder if something like that would fly for RO.

Edited by Luckywhiterabbit, 05 March 2012 - 08:03 AM.