Ragnarok Online

Ragnarok Online (abbreviated RO ) is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), which was originally developed by lead designer Kim Hakkyu, working for Gravity Corp. based in South Korea . However, due to disputes between him and the future main financier Samsung, he left Gravity, including most of the development team, and is currently developing the MMOG Granado Espada . Gravity Corp. itself is now largely in the hands of the SoftBank Group after the termination of the contract with Samsung , which is also the parent company for Gung-Ho, the operator of the Japanese RO version. In autumn 2004 there was a second server Loki in addition to the server Chaos. A total of up to 6,000 players played simultaneously. In autumn 2005 there were 500,000 registered players in Europe. In Japan, the game had 500,000 registered players as early as 2004. Ragnarok Online was the most popular game in Taiwan and Thailand, and the first MMORPG game to spread to the Philippines.

style

The background of the game is based on the Manhwa "Ragnarök" by Lee Myung-Jin, which is loosely based on Ragnarök of Norse mythology . In order to do justice to this template, an unusual graphic style was chosen. While the environment is represented in 3D, characters and opponents are represented by two-dimensional sprites .

Gameplay

As with most role-playing games, the main element of Ragnarok Online is the structure and equipment of your own character. This is mainly achieved by fighting monsters (commonly known as PvE ). In special areas the players can compete against each other ( PvP ). Furthermore, players can form groups (parties) to play together. While the groups are usually loose, short-term alliances of convenience, there is also the possibility of joining forces with other players to form fixed guilds. Combined in groups, players can compete against stronger opponents, so-called bosses , or complete quests . If the group so wishes, the experience points are split up.

Twice a week a guild war takes place for two hours, the so-called War of Emperium (WoE for short), in which guilds fight against each other for castles. The goal is to own as many castles as possible, which grants the respective guild certain advantages. In every castle there is a large, golden crystal, the eponymous emperium. For conquest, any existing defense must be broken and this crystal destroyed. The guild that hits the final blow then becomes the new owner of the castle. The guilds that hold one of the castles at the end of the War of Emperium will keep it until the next War of Emperium. Through the castles, the guilds who own them can get treasure chests, which can contain valuable items, and they also have access to one of the four guild dungeons , cards with stronger monsters that give more experience points, but in which the players can also be attacked by rival guild members ( PvP ). Many players, especially those close to the highest level , see success in the War of Emperium as the main goal of the game and optimize their characters for this purpose.

In the first quarter of 2008, the War of Emperium: Second Edition (WoE: SE) was introduced on the European Ragnarok online servers. This brought 5 new, significantly larger and better protected castles per Castlemap. There are no guild dungeons for these castles.

Guilds

As in many MMORPGs , it is possible to found a guild in Ragnarok Online. The Manhwa template of the same name is about rivalry between guilds. Guilds are usually communities of friendly players and are also a prerequisite for participating in the War of Emperium. These guilds can form alliances with up to three other guilds. Allied guilds cannot attack or injure one another in the War of Emperium and in the Guild Dungeon.

Like the game characters, the guilds can also collect experience points in order to reach a higher level. This is done by the players of a guild ceding some of the experience points they have gained to the guild using a so-called tax. The guild leader can set a specific tax rate from 0 to 50 percent for each rank he assigns to the players. If enough experience points have been collected, the guild moves up one level . The guild can thus receive guild skills that give them advantages; most of them for the War of Emperium.

Character system

Each player account can create up to five characters. The Ragnarok Online characters have two independent levels . First, the base level, which influences the basic character values and goes up to level 99, and second, the job level, which represents the experience of the character in his class (called job classes) and is reset to 1 with every class change. While the base level says something about the general fighting strength of the character, the job level represents the range of special abilities that are available to him.

New players start as novices and, after they have reached job level 10, can switch to one of the first 10 professions (1st job):

Swordman (swordsman, alternative English name is Swordsman )
Thief (thief)
Merchant
Mage (magician)
Archer (archer)
Acolyte (acolyte, altar boy)
Taekwon Girl / Boy (Taekwondo fighter)
Ninja
Gunslinger ("gunslinger", uses different types of firearms)

Novices or characters who have already completed their first class specialization can be adopted by a couple who are married in the game to switch to Baby Class. Baby characters are smaller and cannot make any further class changes. The state cannot be canceled again. The child and the parents are given special skills to facilitate the baby's level climb or to protect the parents.

Novices who have reached a base level of 45 can switch to the Super Novice class. This class has no further specialization, but has a free choice among all skills of the first job classes (except skills that require a bow). Super novices can reach job level 99.

After job level 40 has been reached, you can switch to further developed specializations in the job classes (2nd job). You can continue to train up to job level 50 in order to acquire further skills in the first class before the opportunity expires with the change. The classes that cannot specialize further, Ninja and Gunslinger, can reach job level 70; Super novices, as mentioned above, can advance to job level 99.

If the maximum level 99 is reached and the second specialization has been completed, the player can lower his character again via a rebirth to level 1 and make it a so-called high novice. The player can then train again, but has to follow exactly the same class path as the first time and needs about three times the experience points to advance to the highest level. In return, reborn characters receive approx. 30% more health points and spell points and additional skills and can go up to 70 instead of job level 50.

Novice class
Novice
Super novice
	First class
	Swordman		Acolyte		Mage		Thief		Merchant		Archer		Taekwon Kid		Ninja	Gunslinger
	Second class
	Knight	Crusader	Priest	monk	Wizard	legend	Assassin	Rogue	Blacksmith	Alchemist	Hunter	Bard / dancer	Star gladiator (Taekwon Master)	Soul Linker
	Transcendent Novice Class
	High novice
	Transcendent First Class
	High swordman		High Acolyte		High mage		High thief		High merchant		High archer
	Transcendent Second Class
	Lord Knight	paladin	High priest	champion	High Wizard	Professor (scholar)	Assassin Cross	stalker	Whitesmith (Mastersmith)	Creator (biochemist)	Sniper	Clown / Gypsy
	Third class
	Rune Knight	Royal Guard	Arc Bishop	Shura	Warlock	Sorcerer	Guillotine Cross	Shadow Chaser	Mechanic	Genetic	ranger	Minstrel / Wanderer

marketing

In contrast to many other MMOGs, there is no centrally operated and marketed version of the game for the whole world. Instead, there are several, independent, localized versions. Instead, licenses are sold to franchise companies all over the world, each of which markets a version that is independent of the others, with sometimes slight differences in content in a certain region. Of the localized servers, only the Korean version is operated by the developer Gravity himself. The various servers have abbreviations in which one or two lowercase letters in front of the game abbreviation RO (xxRO) indicate which version it is.

The following localized versions of the game are currently available for:

Korea (kRO) (Updates appear here first until they are ported to other game worlds)
Japan (jRO)
Thailand (tRO)
PR China (cRO)
Indonesia (idRO)
India (inRO)
Brazil (bRO)
Russia (rRO)
Malaysia (mRO)
Europe (euRO) - was closed on September 30, 2010 at midnight
Philippines (pRO) - closed, accounts transferred to iRO, beta server back online since June 2017
Taiwan / Hong Kong (twRO)
Vietnam (vRO)
4game - only European players, server opened in September 2019.
United Arab Emirates (aRO) - discontinued January 31, 2013
International (iRO) - for the USA and any other countries with or without their own version / Since May 25, 2018, a connection to the IRO server from Europe is no longer possible. Because of the General Data Protection Regulation ( GDPR ), an IP block was set up.

All of these versions - except inRO, aRO and fRO, which are financed solely by objects that can be bought - offer the access software free of charge and are financed through monthly contributions from the players. Most versions offer a free trial period of between a week and a month, after which you have to pay in order to continue playing. There are flat-rate offers for 1 month to 1 year and for occasional gamers the opportunity to buy 30 hours of net playing time, which are only taken into account if the player is online. Some versions, such as iRO, cRO and twRO, now also offer free servers, but these also have some restrictions. For example, you cannot teleport from one city to another or you lose 10 times the experience points you normally don't lose when you die.

The game's 'mascot' (a monster named Poring ) adorns a range of merchandising products and is also available as a plush toy.

Private servers

Private servers (pServer) are Ragnarok online servers operated by private individuals, which are based either on the official server software AEGIS or a corresponding emulator, such as eAthena in particular. AEGIS has been leaked several times through security holes or employees of the official server operator . Since the software cannot always be obtained completely in this way, parts of the software must also be emulated on private AEGIS servers.

The operators of private servers are usually financed through so-called "donations", since they do not charge any monthly gaming fees like the official servers. These donations are often rewarded with special items, which is why the term “donation” cannot actually be used here. These donations are comparable to the “Item Shops” on the Official Server. Simple items, but also extensive and powerful pieces of equipment can be purchased for a corresponding price. These are then created by an automatic system or the administrators or so-called game masters (GM for short) with appropriate authorizations and given to the player. This is done either directly in the inventory or via a mailing system within the game world.

Most servers often offer multiples of the normal experience and drop rate. While the normal rates are defined as 1/1/1 (BaseEXP rate / JobEXP rate / (item) drop rate), for example 10/10/10 denotes that a server awards ten times as much experience and the The chance of receiving an item from a monster is tenfold.

The legality of pServers is an often discussed topic. The fact that running a server with AEGIS software is illegal is rarely disputed, as the original software from the development company is used here. The emulators, on the other hand, are mostly open source projects and were completely programmed by private individuals. However, connecting to each pServer requires changing the Ragnarok online client, which is ultimately punishable. However, this is primarily a legal violation by the player and not the server operator, as long as he does not publicly offer the required changes to the client for download. Nevertheless, the server operator makes use of the development company's intellectual property system, namely the game idea, names of the classes, etc.

Bots

Bots (short for “Robots”) are third-party applications that automatically control characters and B. train the character and search for objects. Variants in this regard can be prohibited on official servers. However, non-profit bots, without any benefit for an individual, can be tolerated by the respective server operators. So used z. B. Snipah, a community project to determine current market prices, a bot that searched the stores of other players in a city and saved the prices.

Client modifications

Due to the simple structure of the game and the clear structure of the client, various changes ( mods ) have been published over time. These range from simply swapping the skill effects (for example, to only show certain skills in PvP or War of Emperium) to direct hacks of the exe file . The sense and purpose is the advantage over other players. Since such mods only change your own ads, but not those of other players, it is difficult to punish them. Even if the end user agreement specifically prohibits changes to the client , only obvious cases such as hacks that enable invisible players to see and thus attack can be punished.

reception

Ragnarok Online has a 79 % rating at Metacritic. Gamestar rated the game at 51% for its graphics.

Ragnarok Online 2

At the Tokyo game fair in September 2005, the successor Ragnarok Online 2 was presented. The biggest innovations will be a more contemporary 3D engine (Unreal 2 Engine), in which the players and opponents are no longer represented as sprites, but as 3D models, and have the choice between 3 different races with very different class systems. These peoples are Normans, Ellrs and Dimagos. The three peoples have differently set strengths.

A new system for character development should also be a further improvement to the system of this online game.

Already known job classes of the so-called Normans:

Novice
Enchanter
Recruit
clown
Swordman (swordsman, correct English name is Swordsman )
Thief (thief)

Ragnarok DS

GungHo announced the implementation of the PC version of the massively multiplayer online role-playing game Ragnarok Online for Nintendo's portable game console Nintendo DS in July 2007.

Ragnarok DS was released in Japan on December 18, 2008 and in North America on February 16, 2010. A date for a release in Europe has not been announced.

Web links

Ragnarok Online - Ragnarok Online Website. Retrieved April 4, 2012

Individual evidence

^ Ragnarok Online: 250,000 Players , PC Games , January 13, 2005

↑ Anthony Fung: Global Game Industries and Cultural Policy, Springer, 2017, p. 164 [1]

↑ Winnie Forster: Computer and Video Game Makers, Gameplan, p. 135 [2]

^ Ragnarok Online: Online world is expanding , pcgames.de, September 16, 2004

↑ Ragnarok Online - More than 500,000 users , Gamestar, October 31, 2015

↑ Kuniko Fujita, Richard Child Hill: Innovative Tokyo, World Bank Publications, 2005, p. 57 [3]

↑ Game publishers hold Ragnarok festival for new, long-time fans of Ragnarok Online , Sun.Star , May 10, 2017

^ ^A ^b A. Jahn-Sudmann, R. Stockmann: Computer Games as a Sociocultural Phenomenon: Games Without Frontiers - War Without Tears, Springer, 2008, p. 191 [4]

↑ Discovering the Charms of Ragnarok Online Creator's New MMORPG , Gamespot , December 5, 2015

↑ ^a ^b ^c Ragnarok Online: Now on Steam , Buffed , November 3, 2013

↑ Ragnarok Online - WoE Second Edition finally ready for download! , Gamona, February 28, 2008

↑ Download: Ragnarok Online - War of Emperium , February 25, 2008

^ Ragnarok Online - More Characters Possible , Gamestar , September 6, 2004

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Ragnarok Online - Review: An Exercise In Futility ( Memento of the original dated November 12, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , rpgamer.com @1@ 2

^ A. Jahn-Sudmann, R. Stockmann: Computer Games as a Sociocultural Phenomenon: Games Without Frontiers - War Without Tears, Springer, 2008, s. 194 [5]