Much ado has been presented about Ragnarok Online changing to not have monthly subscriptions. Well it is true, and here is a bit of information to help clarify what to expect from the changes.
We will be switching from a Premium/Free server scenario with required monthly subscription for Premium access, to a “VIP” account system with benefits to game play, but where you can access any account and characters freely without any payment requirement. The VIP Account system can be added to an account for 30 days (or 90 and 180 days respectfully) and has the same price as the current subscription model had. We will transfer remaining daily/hourly subscription into the new VIP account status when we make this change.
The VIP account tag will be added via purchase via WP energy onto a specific game account (much like a subscription). Login to the WarpPortal and “Power-Up” the desired account
30 day Premium 700WP
90 day Premium 1900WP
180 day Premium 3350WP
This new method is ideal for returning veteran players as they certainly will be able to play with friends and such without a subscription barring access to their characters, we look forward to how this will change WoE and what not. Of course returning and new players may still need to make a WarpPortal account and bind/register Ragnarok Accounts to it, possibly update passwords on the Veteran Ragnarok Accounts.
All servers will inherit the same refine system that our current Premium servers now enjoy. (Elu = safe to +4, e.Elu = high rate and then HD are protection with normal elu rate). All Kafra shop items will be added to all servers, at the lowest currently available price. This means rental items will be seen on Ymir, cheaper stuff in general will be seen on Valkyrie. Further prices will be updated to all match Ymir, with rental items entering into the shop on all servers.
Please keep in mind the below restrictions are what is planned, and in testing, that does not mean they are 100% set in stone.
| Premium Account | Free Acct | |
| Experience | 150% | 100% |
| Drop Rate | 150% | 100% |
| Storage | 600 | 300 |
| Penalty on Death | 1% | 3% |
| Access to Special NPCs | All + special | Normal |
| Access to Special Areas | All + special | Normal |
There will be one other update regarding Yggdrasil, it will parallel Valkyrie server in how many default characters a non-VIP account create (3), both Valkyrie and Yggdrasil are considered “Open” servers, while Ymir will be a “VIP” server. Below greater detail on the create character details can be found. If you wish to transfer off of Yggdrasil to Ymir, for Free before this change please do so.
On all servers, any character can be played. So if you currently have 7 characters created, all 7 can be accessed, regardless of your VIP status. This will also be true for newly created characters, no matter what all, potential, 9 characters slots can be played if there is a character in them.
However, the ability to CREATE characters is tied to your VIP status, and which server you are logging in on VIP vs Open server.
On Open servers you can create 3 characters by default, the remaining 6 Character slots can have characters created in them if the account is currently a VIP account.
On our VIP server (Ymir) default creation number of characters to create is 0, and a VIP account will allow character creation in all 9 slots.
It is highly likely that in the future we will have promotions and events that will bypass the 0 creation restriction on the Open server.
It is intended to have the F2P change occur by April 6, but all known bugs need to be worked out before such a large change occurs, this will very likely meld into the Brasilis launch as well.
We will certainly have a discussion and answer questions about this when the forums return soon.
Edit 3/23/2011: The above was updated to clarify a few points and use the more proper VIP vs Premium language, hopefully this makes it more clear for everyone. We are still testing and discussing the finer points of the update. There seem to be 2 sticky points in Ymir storage and Valkyrie multi-clienting, we are aware of the points on both sides of the discussion and your civility is appreciated thus far.
Edit 3/31/2011 : Removed the Multi-client restriction. VIP or not multiple clients may be logged in at once from 1 computer. The solution we were testing didn’t fully meet our requirements, since it didn’t meet the requirements and that the community has certain feelings about it, we decided to remove it.
Ymir is intended to have 600 storage by default (non-VIP) and may be 600 with VIP as well. We are working on a better storage expansion beyond 600, but it is not ready and it is better overall to have Ymir keep the 600.
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Questions received from Facebook and this blog, and answers.
- Q. How will upgrades work on all servers?
A. All servers will be equal, premium status will not change this.
Safe upgrade with normal Ore from 0 -> safe (+4 on armor +7, +6 +5 +4 on weapons respectively)
Enriched Ore gives higher than normal upgrade rates when going from safe and higher, but a risk of breaking is still possible. -
Q. Kafra shop prices?
A. All servers will use the current CHEAPEST price, which should be the Ymir prices on items. Rental items will be available on all servers. - Q. What about if I’m a returning player, what happens?
A. Returning players can login and access the game account and all characters that exist on the account, with no restriction on server, or premium status. This is the big benefit of this for our veteran players, that all old accounts become valid accounts for login. -
Q. Storage on Ymir will shrink from 600 to 300! But what happens then?
A. No items will be deleted or made unavailable, they will be in a “remove only” state so you can take items out but not put them in if you are over the default storage amount. Aside from making the account “Premium” you could login another account and use its storage to extend what you have. -
Q. Is it really wise to have a system for so long and then take it away.
A. Change is touchy, but the intention of the old seperation between Premium/Free SERVERS was the same as what we have with this update, except we remove the tie to server and instead make it unique to accounts.
If you have always preferred to play by ‘subscription” you can continue doing that, but instead of being a “for access subscription” it is a for added benefit Premium package. On ymir if you have an active premium on your account your game play should be precisely the same as now from the exp/drop storage etc. But there will now be more NPCs and maps being added that you get better access too. This should be a win scenario for veterans. -
Q. Multi-client restriction?
A. Current design: Yes, you can have as many premium accounts logged in on one PC as you wish, but only 1 non-Premium account can be logged in from that PC at a time. -
Q. But I have more accounts than that on Valkyrie, how will I play?
A. This is an unfortunate issue that came about due to no way to limit the amount of clients opening on Valkyrie when we opened. Players were used to having tons of accounts with 1-2 characters apeice instead of fewer accounts filled with characters. That was not a design intention, one that is possible to correct now.
With that said, this part of the update is the one that is most likely to be reviewed to be changed (possibly more non-prem logins) in some form or removed all together. -
Q. If multi-client limiter is put in, will it be tied to gateway?
A. As much as we want to see our gateway become more fun and useful and adopted further by our community, at this time we are not planning on directly tying game login to it, by extension of that it will not be a part of any client restrictions.
The limitation of how many Premium vs non-Premium accounts that can be opened, will need to be completely controlled via the client/server architecture, thus be transparent to the players.
There is some other news that we want to share regarding this update.
- All regular servers will launch from one client. No more having to use different launchers to get to your desired server (Sakray is not a regular server).
- Yggdrasil will shift to be like Valkyrie, with 3 character slots open for creation rather than 0 like Ymir.
- We will be offering Free Yggdrasil -> Ymir server transfers, without restrictions, starting 3/21 until we make this system change around April 6th.
As soon as the form is finished being created it will be announced on the patch notices, websites etc to get in your transfer request now. - If you opt to stay on Yggdrasil (which is a fine choice) you will still be able to play on the server, you will likely be the new upper class characters on that server when we begin having new users play there.
I wish iRO never goes F2P. I was actually looking forward to F2P, but restricting multi-clienting will piss a lot of players off. I multi-client my RK and champion so that my champion can get EB. I don’t ask the “community” for it simply because the “coummnity” IS BOTTING! What kind of botter makes their RK EB someone when asked? Also this would mean that I can’t use my warp slaves anymore. By restricting us, iRO is driving me to private servers or encouraging me to break dual-clienting program.
Heim, reducing storage for players who have had 600 storage for years is a horrible idea and will cripple their accounts to a point that they either have to spend hours sorting it (plz no) or be forced to pay.
please reconsider.
How are you going to keep in check how many client a person can open? GateWay? I thought that still in beta… am not fond of going into loops to launch a game to be honest.
Also, please keep kafra restrictions the way they are now between servers. Aka, rental items and mvp boxes restrictions being part of valk server only. The game is already pay2win so please don’t make it worse.
“There shouldn’t be a need to have many accounts played at one time by one person as it detracts from their playing with the community (although the vending reason does make sense).”
I kind of disagree with that, though I definitely see the point that is being made. The community, more specifically the partying aspect of it, is based on equal exchange, no matter what we might like to think.
If there were a certain turn-in experience event, there is no way a party with extremely limited space would keep dead-weight. A party needs to have several people to do various jobs, and what happens if there just isn’t anyone to heal, say, and someone volunteers to multi-client as long as the other character gets to stay? It’s not detracting from the interaction between players. In fact, frankly, I think that the end of community interaction was when turn-in events ended.
I’m not just QQing about this, nor requesting for the turn-in events to be brought back, but since Renewal, the game has simply become a grind-fest with no need for interaction. I highly doubt that banning multi-clienting is really going to make much, if any, difference.
“Character restrictions: Whatever characters you have, you can ALWAYS access them that is in essence what makes this F2P. However, there is a limit on what a non-Premium account is allowed to create. Valkyrie you can create 3, Ymir/Ygg you can create 0 if you don’t have premium. This will only effect new accounts created and is a direct attempt to keep abuse limited on our current Premium servers.”
so,because i have an already existing account, i can use all 9 slots?
I don’t quite understand that character slot restriction. I currently play in the Valkyrie server. And my main char is in the 7th slot of my various characters. Does this mean that when F2P is implemented, I would have to upgrade to a Premium account to play my main?? Or will all the slots be avaliable (as JediKitteh has mentioned above)?
I think that Renewal has made the game easier for players to solo monsters. The real difficulty of the game now lies exclusively in levels where the monsters mob quickly and have enough health to survive the 1-2 shot AoEing ability of virtually all classes. So right now, using the standard defensive, high damage AoE builds, everything is easy. This means that Rogue bots, and a host of other bots are easy to level.
By reducing the number of characters one can make and clients that can be open, you are reducing the efficiency of these hackers and spammers. They are going to level quickly, anyway. But if they can only play one character at a time, and only operate a single account at a time, they are forced to choose between logging in and using hi012345 or hi012346 or playing Fendgbr the generic rogue in order to farm. It means that instead of 5 different people, each running two or more clients with bots spamming Prontera, and 20 more spread throughout the world, we’ll be seeing those same 5 people stuck with a single choice of bot in Prontera assuming they choose to use that particular type of bot (spam). They are now faced with the choice of farming or spamming.
Also, quality versus quantity is an issue. 30 different characters or 3? 3 characters means we’ll see more people we actually recognize, more often. There will be more cohesion and better interaction between players because everyone is’t playing one of 9 different alts. It means that people might start playing the game and identifying with their characters instead of just casually throwing together another cookie cutter build to try for purposes of slaving a secondary or tertiary character who is a backup in their reserve guild…I favor quality.
its lame ….again u r doing it for money…1st make ingame changes it is wht the centre of attraction is..
“By reducing the number of characters one can make and clients that can be open, you are reducing the efficiency of these hackers and spammers. ”
This is the most hilarious comment I’ve heard so far. Bots/spammers do not use normal client. Hackers always hack the client (therefore you call them hackers). Restricting multi clienting only affects normal/legit players. It does nothing to spammer/botter/hacker.
MCing doesn’t kill partying…
People don’t want to party with brewers and the like. People don’t want to main a soul linker to just link all day, etc. RO is one of those games where there are classes and builds that are sometimes necessary, but people just don’t want to party with and serve only as slaves on the side. Then there’s people who like to vend and play, or just want to trade items and zeny between characters.
People will bypass it, use multiple computers, and some will use prem subs to MC anyway, so the ‘abuse’ thing just sounds like a convenient excuse. All this’ll do is scare people away to pservers and other games.
At the very least, free accounts should be able to multiclient with at least one other free account, that isn’t abusive at all.
I’m concerned about the storage size strinking to 300 from 600….
So, instead of paying, whats to say I just make a couple more accts with 1 char on it just for the extra 300 storage space and spread my stuff out?
That would just clutter up everyones acct lists… add a few more accts to each WP acct.
Please don’t force long time players (who has already paid for this game every month for several years) to pay a fee just to be able to keep all our stuff in storage and not be over cluttered or forced to abandon items.
Will we ever see a Valk > Ymir transfer again in the future?
Thinking that those who multi-client is just off on their own island is ridiculous. Multi-clienting is fine. The problem is that there aren’t enough reasons to party with others. Ex. when turn in events were going on, hardly anyone multi-cliented in the parties. Add more of those in, and we would all be unified instead of off on our own island.
Some forms of solo levelling will need supports, and let’s face it, to ask someone else to personally be a buff slave for you for one specific buff is silly. Ex. a rune knight who finds it necessary to have gloomy shyness on should not have to bug a friend to buff them every 90 seconds. Multi-clienting in this sense was about not having to be a burden to others to the point that you would be so dependent on their availability.
In terms of WoE competition, alts are pretty essential to making it competitive. Warp alts to get back into the action faster, buff alts so one could fight at their competitive potential, etc.
It was a downside to Ymir that they could not multi-client as much as Valkyrie could. Now there is a chance to give Ymir an equal benefit. I’m sure all servers would much prefer no limit on multi-clienting.
I am personally happy about the restriction on how many accounts you can play at once. I play on Valk server and am very tired of seeing people use priests as bot slaves while leveling. Or for that matter marry their own linker slave to buff themselves. I hope this change will make it easier to deal with leveling bots as well as farming/spam bots too as less characters will be online at a time. However I don’t quite understand if I get to keep all the accounts I have created on my WP account or if there’s a limit to 1? Also I did get it right that I can make my accounts premium and stay on Valk?
“On all servers, all characters that exist will be available to play with or without Premium.” /no1
I really am worried about there being more problems from these proposed changes.
Should things not go well with character creation and selection, is there any back up plans? Anything at all to protect the community interest?
You know, so that we all don’t find out one morning that everything blew up. <_ People use multi-clienting for many reasons. And it’s not just to vend.
Multi-Clienting gets used for:
1) Warps to leveling areas, Warps to WoE zones, Warps to MvPing.
2) Brewing sessions, which require a large assortment of characters at certain times. (Including but not limited to) Super Novice, Soul Linker, Priest, Marionette Control – Minstrel/Gypsy, And thats if your not using Magic Strings – Bard, Battle Enchant – Palidan, or SP from a Scholar.
3) Endowing, we all have at least one endow account. Which is used to enhance our own damage when were leveling solo or in another party.
4) Soul Linkers, many people are married to Soul Linkers for the buffs they can obtain and the SP. Palidan/RG & Scholar/Sorc make particular use of this while leveling. Other links even serve their own importance outside the leveling box. Rogue Link, is a perfect example.
5) Losing the ability to trade yourself your own items. In situations where some individuals have their own storage methods for access to others for shared items. Another scenario would be, where a “guild storage” is utilized for the sake of the guild and handing out supplies.
And I’m sure that there are many more reasons other then what I’ve listed. Though, more importantly, we’ve had multi-clienting even before Valkyrie Server even existed.
Which, as I remember vaguely, caused Premium players to pay for more then one account subscription. Just so that they could endow or buff themselves.
Ever since it’s introduction, people have been able to get simple task done much easier. Alot of which was mentioned above.
The point I’m getting at, is that it’s much bigger then just vending while leveling. Making a change like this would have a large or even huge negative influence on those who set up their accounts based on the freedoms they had with character creation.
That aside, I have a additional question unrelated to this topic.
The server economy has through a ton of difficulties lately. It’s been so bad that it’s effected not just certain individuals. But groups of people, guilds, and even servers.
Will there be any plans in the future to help stabilize this problem? At the moment there seems to be no relief from the situation.
Thanks.