An amazing game, if not for Gravity's pathetic service.
User Rating: 8.5 | Ragnarok Online PC
Introduction: Well, i would say this is one of the more fun MMORPG's on the market today. RagnarokOnline, made by Gravity Corp ( a Korean company ), is by far EXTREMELY addictive. At first glance, you can see all of the work that has been put into the game, with its full, 360 degree, 3-D landscapes, and the numerous monsters, items and jobs. Although, with all the good parts of the game, there are some downsides. The "North American" version, iRO ( International RagnarokOnline ) is one of several versions of RO ( along with the Japanese, Korean, Chinese, etc, versions of the game ). iRO is behind the other games in terms of updates, but in the last 6 months its updates have been coming more frequently, to the point where its now 6 months - 1 year behind kRO, as opposed to several years. Gameplay: This is an amazingly fun game to play. The controls are 90 % point and click, except for the few times you may need your keyboard ( I.E. For quickkeys and typing to talk ). Its not too hard of a game to play, at the maximum, it took myself about 15 minutes to figure out the majority of the gameplay, and i have rarely been bored with it since. The only downside to the gameplay is when there is some lag on the servers ( although, that’s fairly rare nowadays despite what many players say, unless a major problem has happened. ) One of the downsides to the game however, is the use of bots, scammers, and Gravity Interactives pathetic customer support. Bots run rampant in the game community, to the point where 2/5 characters is a bot. The company could EASILY remedy this, as they have on kRO, but refuse to by giving us inane reasons. Scammers are also rampant in iRO, but this can happen in any game. However, Gravity's poor excuse for customer service has no excuse. If your account has been hacked, it could take several months ( Ive read reports of people waiting up to 6 months before getting there accounts investigated ), and whereas in other games if you need help, you cant summon or contact a GM ingame, you must email them through there website, which could take up to a week to get a reply from, if even. Story: There is no real story to the game, unless you have read the original Ragnarok manga series from Korea. Gravity has just created RO, attempting to base it on the manga. There are some hints of the story strewn along throughout the game though. Graphics and Sound: As i mentioned above, the graphics are awesome. The characters and monsters are essentially 2D images, in an enormous, fully 3D environment. Graphics are usually one of the main features which draw me to a game, and it has with RO. They are not to intensive that they will lag your PC's actions, but you do need to have 3D capabilities to play the game, which the majority of you should have already. The sound can be annoying at times ( mostly due to some annoying monsters in the game ), but in certain places, I.E. inside the cities, the background music is just awesome, you'll find yourself sitting down for no reason other then to listen to it. Replayability: Well, RagnarokOnline is a fairly open-ended game. There is no specific beginning or ending to the game. You can continue to play for years and years and still have new and intriguing things to do, thanks to the slowly updates, that will take years to have implemented. As for replayability, this game has MUCH replayability. One of the main goals of the game is to level your character up to the highest it can go ( Level 99/50 at the moment, but in future updates you will be able to return to level 1/1 and continue as an even stronger character, with new classes ), which will take you some good time to accomplish, possibly well over a year or 2. After you have reached your goal, you must remember, you have only played 1 character ( 2 counting its 2nd job ), and there are several more jobs you can become, and enjoy heavily. Price: Right now, as this is a commercial MMORPG, you do have to pay to play, but the price is fairly cheap. You can subscribe in 1 month, 3 month or 6 month periods, or a 24 hour subscription. Final Recommendation: All in all, if you can ignore the bots, idiotic children, and Gravity's pitiful excuse for customer service, what your left with is an extremely fun MMORPG, who's enviroment can captivate you beyond words can say.
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