Ragnarok Online hacked, again

The popular PC MMORPG Ragnarok Online was hacked again recently, allowing hackers to gain game master privileges in the international servers. The incident began on August 3, when a message disguised as that of a game master announced a number of false new implementations in the game on the international servers. On August 4, another message was sent throughout the servers, this time clearly not by an employee of Gravity Corporation. On the same day, a number of rare items were produced with game master privileges and leaked throughout one of the two main game servers. Gravity also suffered from a number of user account losses, but it is unknown if the losses were connected to the hackings.

In response, Gravity has announced that it will not be rolling back the game server's data, but in order to sustain the game balance, a number of rare items on the server will be deleted, regardless of whether they were created with game master privileges or not. The six items scheduled for deletion are as follows: vitata cards, mistress cards, baphomet cards, whisper cards, and crown. In compensation for the deletion of the items, a character status reset will be implemented as an option for a limited time on all the game servers, accessible with a nominal amount of in-game money.

Gravity Corporation currently operates its Ragnarok Online services both directly and through representative companies in Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, and a number of other Asian countries. The international service is operated directly by Gravity's USA branch, but it has been a target of criticism among its consumers due to the lack of security and updates in comparison with the services in other countries. The international service of Ragnarok Online is currently eight months behind the Asian service in terms of updates, but even the non-Korea servers are at least one to three months behind in updates.