Ragnarok Online - A New Venture

[zeonrules]

Hello there everyone,

I am a veteran eAthena survivor from the olden days (circa 2005 and beyond). I have been away from the game for a long time for a good reason. Renewal & 3rd classes. Not to mention failing servers. I am posting here after posting on Reddit's sub-reddit (/r/RagnarokOnline) and on RMS's forums. I thought it might be a good idea to post here too.. Thanks and hope to hear some positive responses.

Warm Regards,

Pranav

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You can also check out the mirrors of this article to see the comments and opinions on:

Reddit: http://www.reddit.co..._a_new_venture/

RMS Forums Post Link: http://forum.ratemys...e-a-new-venture

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Hello,

My name is Pranav. For a long time now, I have been planning to start a RO server dedicated to players from the old-school era. Now,this server will cater to a targeted set of players and will have a unique approach to keeping players engaged.

I want to do this because several things bother me about the current existing servers. They don't have life - They don't last long. Eventually, they start to suck. I see a very simple reason behind it. It's usually run by someone who's just found out what emulators like eAthena or Aegis are and want to make a quick buck or want the "power" of controlling others' characters.

My vision is something else. I am looking at this server from a player's perspective, something that almost every owner fails to do. Making money should NOT the ultimate goal of a server, rather I believe player satisfaction should be the goal.

I just finished school a few months ago and now have a full time job as a programmer. So I can assure you, I have enough technical expertise to handle the stuff that goes on behind the scenes. As far as the ingame experience is concerned; I have been playing Ragnarok Online from 2005 and I have not found a game that I can play for the rest of my life and give up RO completely. Although I will not have the time to grind, level and farm items, I definitely will have time to do something else; like managing a server.

Over the past few months I have saved up some funds to kick-start a server, but it has been a long time since I ran one by myself. And the last one I did manage to run, I was still quite young, without experience, didn't know how to keep players engaged and most importantly of all - didn't have the funds to keep upgrading as we progressed..

I've had plenty of experience running a server starting as an Admin right down to a simple Support GM. I've been on almost every position possible, ever since I found out about eAthena and the very existence of private RO servers. Here's a link to my old abandoned server I was talking about:

Eternia-RO: http://ratemyserver....Ragnarok Online

I've thought about this long and hard and I figured it's time to take this idea from a drawing board concept to practical nuts and bolts. I've been observing all the successful and not so successful servers for the past few months to trace trends and observe their shortcomings and things that set them apart. Trust me, this is not to get or steal players from already accomplished servers, no, not at all. If that was the case, I wouldn't be here out in the open, I would've preferred a guerilla tactics instead.. All my research is purely unorthodox and completely unheard of. Although I would love to, but I can't, share my results, which believe you me, are in multiple spreadsheets, charts and documents. This private research however, would perform as a key in this project. It will help us avoid the mistakes the other projects encountered over time and adapt to an agile development path that would help the community grow indefinitely.

One thing that keeps an organization alive is - Innovation. Plain and simple. There's no rocket science involved, it's just about keeping your player's attention grasped long enough to be successful. The server also requires a strong marketer's perspective to give it the attention it needs from the mass.. Funds are never going to be an issue in this project, donations will be welcome to keep the server improving itself (better ad placements, higher CPM, etc.). The next most important thing to me is **TRANSPARENCY**. If there's money involved, there's always going to be some sort of corruption tagging along with it. I will NOT tolerate any of that in the lifespan of this project. Game-Masters with an urge of competing in power-struggles with their Admins, staff or even players for instance can cause irreversible damage to the server - even to it's shutting down! Believe me, I've experienced a lot of that nonsense as most of you out there must have..

Transparency requires honesty - To ensure this, I plan to keep all the logs of all the commands that can be used by any player/staff and keep it on the server's website open to all. There should not be even a shred of doubt of what's going on. Same goes for the donations - all the transactions taking place from paypal will be visible (Anonymity will obviously kept in terms of sensitive data - emails, transaction ids, etc.) These two things being open to all, will cause no kinds of issues amongst players and/or staff members.

Moving onto the staff; The people involved in running and maintaining the server will be PAID members. They will NOT be volunteers, rather responsible-for-their-own-actions kind of EMPLOYEES. This will create structure, hierarchy and a culture among the people taking part.

I didn't plan to write such a long post when I started, but as things kept coming to me, I kept writing them down. The project has no specific start date YET. The sole reason of that is I need to know if this is a good idea. I myself know that this a good idea, but for a second person, that would just be an opinion. Once I get enough replies and/or comments (+ve) I will put the plan into motion.

The first step would be releasing my survey and getting everyone's opinion. The survey will be CRITICAL in terms of getting vital information about the player's interest, opinions and ideas. Please keep this post flame-free, I know I might sound obnoxious or over-ambitious, but I'm not. I'm just a simple old-school RO player who wants to give something substantial and useful back to the community. I appreciate any concerns and suggestions at this point. Thank you for your time.

Warm Regards,

Pranav

[crowmaster]

*scrolling this page "oh fk yeah too long dem lazy to read"*

....

*hits back button*

[Arcenciel]

I love the bit you said about transparency. I've never seen a server do that.

Best of luck!

[zeonrules]

I love the bit you said about transparency. I've never seen a server do that.

Best of luck!

Appreciate the interest Arcenciel.. I will try and keep this thread updated with every move I make.. I was hoping to get the survey up and running and available to the public by today (weekend) but I still need a little more time to see what people say and have in mind.. Thanks much!

Warm Regards,

Pranav

[Ancyker]

Reads like a get rich quick scheme. Just needs the "Normally this all would cost $199, but today only you can have it for the reduced price of $99..." at the end. "Trust me!" "I have tons of data in the form of spreadsheets!" "Of course, I can't show you any of it."

No, but seriously, it sounds nice. But I've been in RO since late 2003 and I've seen many a project come and go. Staff selection is one of the hardest things to do as a server owner. You think some of these ideas are original but they aren't. There are several servers that pay their staff and still end up with terrible staff. While there is no shortage of people lining up to be GM, there is a shortage of quality people. Most quality GM's get sick of the same thing and go on to be server owners and run into that very same problem themselves.

What most of us would call a "good server" rarely takes off. A lot of people get confused by this. They do everything right, they get in balanced custom items, some don't take donations of any sort. You name it, it's been tried. But they never take off. Why? If you paid any attention at all you'd realize most RO players are drama queens. They like the drama. Sure, they say they don't and they might even think they don't -- but they do. Look at the largest record holding RO servers around today. Most, if not all, of them either have had massive drama or still do. Drama makes the world go 'round.

But to be fair, making commands public won't do anything but cause drama. GM A needs to reimburse Player 1, who happens to be a guild leader, for his item that was lost due to a bug and does so. The logs show that it happened but not why it happened. Player 2, of a rival guild, sees this and immediately starts a conspiracy theory that GM A is favoring Player 1 and his guild. His guild will think this no matter what you say from that point on. Even if you put why, people won't believe it if they don't want to. As I said, people like drama and where there isn't drama they will make it.

You could blank out names from commands, sure, but then the information is useless and you might as well not do it to begin with. You'd be better off limiting in game powers completely. Binding GMs to their own "world" (map) and limiting their influence to this area. Do support over the web site most of the time, only interacting in game when required. In fact, some of the things I've been working on will nearly remove the need for GMs to have in game powers to start with.

When have you ever seen a GM in any other game you've played? I've never seen a GM in another game. I've talked to them over the support system, sure... but never seen them. I've never had a problem where they needed to actually be there in front of me. If GMs can show off in front of other players and you keep it all work and no play, there's less of a reason for people to want to be GM for the wrong reasons. When we instituted this on a server I worked for most of the staff quit -- all of them later found to be corrupt. The current staff has no known or suspected corruption. Some food for thought.

P.S. I've said this before.

[zeonrules]

Reads like a get rich quick scheme. Just needs the "Normally this all would cost $199, but today only you can have it for the reduced price of $99..." at the end. "Trust me!" "I have tons of data in the form of spreadsheets!" "Of course, I can't show you any of it."

No, but seriously, it sounds nice. But I've been in RO since late 2003 and I've seen many a project come and go. Staff selection is one of the hardest things to do as a server owner. You think some of these ideas are original but they aren't. There are several servers that pay their staff and still end up with terrible staff. While there is no shortage of people lining up to be GM, there is a shortage of quality people. Most quality GM's get sick of the same thing and go on to be server owners and run into that very same problem themselves.

What most of us would call a "good server" rarely takes off. A lot of people get confused by this. They do everything right, they get in balanced custom items, some don't take donations of any sort. You name it, it's been tried. But they never take off. Why? If you paid any attention at all you'd realize most RO players are drama queens. They like the drama. Sure, they say they don't and they might even think they don't -- but they do. Look at the largest record holding RO servers around today. Most, if not all, of them either have had massive drama or still do. Drama makes the world go 'round.

But to be fair, making commands public won't do anything but cause drama. GM A needs to reimburse Player 1, who happens to be a guild leader, for his item that was lost due to a bug and does so. The logs show that it happened but not why it happened. Player 2, of a rival guild, sees this and immediately starts a conspiracy theory that GM A is favoring Player 1 and his guild. His guild will think this no matter what you say from that point on. Even if you put why, people won't believe it if they don't want to. As I said, people like drama and where there isn't drama they will make it.

You could blank out names from commands, sure, but then the information is useless and you might as well not do it to begin with. You'd be better off limiting in game powers completely. Binding GMs to their own "world" (map) and limiting their influence to this area. Do support over the web site most of the time, only interacting in game when required. In fact, some of the things I've been working on will nearly remove the need for GMs to have in game powers to start with.

When have you ever seen a GM in any other game you've played? I've never seen a GM in another game. I've talked to them over the support system, sure... but never seen them. I've never had a problem where they needed to actually be there in front of me. If GMs can show off in front of other players and you keep it all work and no play, there's less of a reason for people to want to be GM for the wrong reasons. When we instituted this on a server I worked for most of the staff quit -- all of them later found to be corrupt. The current staff has no known or suspected corruption. Some food for thought.

P.S. I've said this before.

I have to say, I can't disagree with you on any of the things you said. Especially at the point where you said "Most quality GM's get sick of the same thing and go on to be server owners and run into that very same problem themselves.". I am one of those GMs (well, not recently - a few years ago) who attempted to run a server (Eternia-RO) but running into those same issues.

But this isn't going to be something out of the blue or completely unplanned for. What you say about the drama is spot on, that's because human emotions are meant to be that way. As far as the items go, I had a pretty simple plan for that - Obviously not letting the GMs use any abusive commands, but using an NPC Script that I wrote some time back that gives an item to the GM but requires the GM to log certain things such as:

- Reason for need of using the @item / #item command

- Player involved

- Reason of giving the item to the player (lost item / bugged / etc.)

and a couple of other fields.

The NPC adds the necessary timestamps and other relevant info and THEN gets posted to the website. Again, all of these ideas are not CONCRETE. They are still IDEAS. That is why I am here, posting on the forums to see what people think.

As far as the "get rich quick scheme" goes, I am not concerned with money. I make enough from my full-time job. I needn't have to beg and/or run after players for their donation money. The whole point of this server is to get people who really love the game involved and create a community. Which is why I was interested in your new venture - Ragnarok.cc as well..

And the reason I cannot show any of my research is quite obvious - isn't it? Why would I give up all my hard work that I put in out in the open for anyone to come up and use?

I hope I don't come off sounding obnoxious or annoying and if I did - I sincerely apologize. I just wanted people to understand what my perspective of building this server is and not think something completely opposite of that.. Thanks for the GM advice though, that was absolutely golden.

Warm Regards,

Pranav

Edited January 29, 2013 by zeonrules

[Ancyker]

I have to say, I can't disagree with you on any of the things you said. Especially at the point where you said "Most quality GM's get sick of the same thing and go on to be server owners and run into that very same problem themselves.". I am one of those GMs (well, not recently - a few years ago) who attempted to run a server (Eternia-RO) but running into those same issues.

But this isn't going to be something out of the blue or completely unplanned for. What you say about the drama is spot on, that's because human emotions are meant to be that way. As far as the items go, I had a pretty simple plan for that - Obviously not letting the GMs use any abusive commands, but using an NPC Script that I wrote some time back that gives an item to the GM but requires the GM to log certain things such as:

- Reason for need of using the @item / #item command

- Player involved

- Reason of giving the item to the player (lost item / bugged / etc.)

and a couple of other fields.

The NPC adds the necessary timestamps and other relevant info and THEN gets posted to the website. Again, all of these ideas are not CONCRETE. They are still IDEAS. That is why I am here, posting on the forums to see what people think.

If I want to give a player an item I can put a fake reason down. Trusting that system still requires trusting the staff, something which most players no longer do.

As far as the "get rich quick scheme" goes, I am not concerned with money. I make enough from my full-time job. I needn't have to beg and/or run after players for their donation money. The whole point of this server is to get people who really love the game involved and create a community. Which is why I was interested in your new venture - Ragnarok.cc as well..

And the reason I cannot show any of my research is quite obvious - isn't it? Why would I give up all my hard work that I put in out in the open for anyone to come up and use?

I hope I don't come off sounding obnoxious or annoying and if I did - I sincerely apologize. I just wanted people to understand what my perspective of building this server is and not think something completely opposite of that.. Thanks for the GM advice though, that was absolutely golden.

Warm Regards,

Pranav

RCC will be open for all servers to use. There is no issues there. It's up to the servers how far they want to integrate, the site will offer varying levels of control.

I didn't mean you were trying to start a get rich quick scheme but that you were wording your post like one would word a get rich quick scheme. Here's the latest one that found it's way to my inbox:

The 21st century industrial revolution has already begun. All because of an incredible invention that's made in America.

Business Insider calls it "the next trillion dollar industry." The Economist compares its impact to the steam engine and the printing press. And technology experts -- like the guys who brought you the BMW 3-series, the F-35 fighter jet, and Amazon.com -- think it could be "bigger than the internet".

A new investment video reveals the impossible (but real) technology that could make you impossibly rich. Watch it now, before the skeptics on Wall Street wise up and start looking for their piece of the action.

Your post has lots of buzz words and unverifiable original research. Just like get rich quick schemes. It's understandable that you want to keep your information secret, but until it's verified by a third party it could just be all made up for all anyone else knows.

[Wolfeh]

I would love to see how your project progresses, I've been wanting to do the same thing but honestly I can't see doing it while also keeping RO the way it is now, it needs to be torn apart and revamped just like every other MMO in this failing industry, but my ranting aside, this has always been the biggest problem for MMO's, keeping players engaged for a long time, if not "forever" (or what seems like forever).

For example, console games, are really just short bursts of entertainment, as long as the game is not completed you are entertained, once it is completed, the entertainment stops; MMO's are similar in that the game never ends but the entertainment does. Console games have tried to make the entertainment go a bit longer with things like accomplishments, collect these items, defeat these special monsters, but you don't have to, it's just interesting/fun to do. Skyrim they just tried to pack more content into it which was kind of successful, but not really in my opinion. MMO's have recently started getting into this too. I think a degree in human psychology would really help in developing MMO's/games, learn how the human brain works, how it ticks, then EXPLOIT ITTTTT.

Another comparison is that console games, in my opinion, are vastly different. It is hard for me to explain why console games are so different from MMO's, I think one of the reasons is that console games are evolving and becoming more realistic whereas MMO's are still stuck in NPC mode. Interactive NPCs which talk to you and look unique are nice, as are cinematic cut-scenes involving them. I love gigantic non-linear (meaning no barriers or limits like "sorry you can't jump off this cliff, 'cause we said so") worlds as well which are hard to come by. Complex but easy ways to become more powerful and simple but powerful combo attacks are fun too. I really like live-action events too (such as in TERA, you'll be walking along and a bridge collapses or a monster busts out of a wall). Pets could also be improved so much more but it is hard to say how, maybe a Final Fantasy style where you raise your own pet into adulthood, it ages, etc? But right now they are just cute accessories which do nothing but tag along. Speaking of cute accessories, customization could be vastly improved as well.

But yeah anyway you are right, innovation is the key, just how to innovate? And then there are right and wrong ways to do it. For instance, wrong ways: Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories (gameplay = epic fail), Final Fantasy: Dirge of Cerberus (a FPS in an RPG series?), Shadow of Destiny (perma death), Perfect World International (great customization/graphics and some other nice features but lacks content in that it is all questing). There are articles on it too, fail games, win games.

TLDR: MMO's in general, not just RO, have soooo much room for improvement.

Edited January 30, 2013 by Wolfeh

[Ancyker]

Stuff.

Ok. First of all, renewal was the tearing apart and revamping of RO.

Second of all I'm not sure why you think "console game" and "MMO" are different things. MMO is a genre and a console is a platform. There are MMOs for consoles. You even mention FF, FFXI is available for PC, PS2 and Xbox 360. FFXIV will be on PC and PS3.

[Note]

OP, it is not as easy as you believe it is. Specially when you are working alone, it can be hard and quite devastating.

By all means, do what your gut tells you to do.

Cheers.