MMORPG: Revisiting Ragnarok Online
May 26, 2009 by Joel Tan
Filed under Asian MMO, Level Up! Games, Ragnarok Online
Most players of the current generation of massively multiplayer online role-playing games might view a return to Ragnarok Online as old school. Yes, Ragnarok Online may be that, really old in terms of online games, but it still manages to draw hundreds of players into its fold, especially in Asia, where the game was born.
What piqued my renewed interest in the game was Ragnarok Online Philippines’ Ultimate Game Guide, which features everything a player needs to know about the game, from characters to stat and skill builds to handy charts that clue you in on what monsters to hunt.
So with book in hand, I set off into the virtual world of Rune Midgard in search of more adventures for my swordie, TikaWaylan. In past incarnations, Tika, a name my wife and I borrowed from the popular fantasy adventure novel series Dragonlance by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, was always a merchant or blacksmith. That was way back in 2003, when Chaos had been the Philippines’ only server for Ragnarok Online, and in the following year, when publisher and operator Level Up! Games opened additional servers to accommodate the game’s growing population.
In Philippine Ragnarok Online’s free-to-play server Valkyrie, TikaWaylan is both merchant/blacksmith and swordie/knight. So with two TikaWaylans roaming the virtual world, a lot of players often mistake us as bots.
My first day back in Ragnarok Online was great. Tika had a relatively easy time transitioning from swordie to knight, thanks in part to the Ragnarok Online Ultimate Game Guide. It’s like cheating, just lifting answers from the book for quests, but in today’s fast-paced world, the faster you level up means fewer chances of getting bored.
Come to think of it, that’s what threw me off the path to greatness in Ragnarok Online. Leveling was—and still is—a chore. In this old school game, grinding is the name of the game, and offers little to players who have a limited amount of time to grind their way to the top. So unlike today’s generation of MMORPGs that allow leveling characters even when the player is away from the keyboard. No, I’m not talking about bots! I’ll tackle this topic in a later posting.
So TikaWaylan the Knight is now in her second job and I plan to play Ragnarok Online in the days and months to come, or until boredom sets in again. There are a few agenda on my Ragnarok Online plate, among these is changing Tika`Waylan the Merchant’s job to Blacksmith and setting both characters on the Path to Heritage.
Many thanks to Mon Macutay, GM Tristan of Philippine Ragnarok Online, for the image of the Ultimate Game Guide.
