I’m seriously thinking about permanently hanging up my sword belt in the massively multiplayer online role-playing game Ragnarok Online. What the hell for? Well, I’ve realized that I’m getting too old for this game.
Not.
Actually, I’m just a little flustered after a few hours of playing my merchant TikaWaylan on Valkyrie, the free-to-play server of Ragnarok Online Philippines. Oh, yeah, she’s now a blacksmith. Damn job change quest!
The source of my frustration is, as you may have already guessed, the Blacksmith job change quest. The Merchant job change quest is a walk in the park compared to that of the Blacksmith.
Nah. …read more

Talk about timing. Just as I was gearing up to put in some serious gaming time in the 2D massively multiplayer online role-playing game hit Ragnarok Online, the local publisher announced a new update, Ash Vacuum.
The update, which was launched on August 5, 2009, on the Philippine server of Ragnarok Online, promises great features, including new maps, monsters, guild dungeons, and a quest to gain one of two godly items, Asprika and Brynhild.
Oooh, where to start. Let’s begin by checking out the description and stats of the new godly items.
Asprika is a garment just like your basic hood and muffler. …read more

Don’t mind the title, folks. It’s not a new promotion of any online game publisher to get new players to patronize Ragnarok Online again. The title actually pertains to a bet I have made with my brother-in-law Jake as to whose character can reach Level 99 in the Philippine server of Ragnarok Online the fastest.
At the moment, my toon, Brighid, is ahead by four levels, 29 to 25, to Jake’s character, `Sugo. I guess mages level at a more decent rate than swordsmen. Or maybe our choice of training spots make the difference. My preferred training ground is mjolnir_09, which …read more

Someone once said that a picture is worth a thousand words. Writing and editing for publications, I find this adage from an old Chinese proverb very true. Newspapers and magazines will never survive without photographs and illustrations, the same way that websites and blogs devoid of colorful images lose readership. Yes, that I know. But I never knew the adage also holds true for online games.
A few months ago, I posted an article on MMOtaku about the hassles of moving about in Ragnarok Online’s capital city, Prontera, because of the hundreds of characters left online by their masters to vend. …read more

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 …read more

I was supposed to write something witty for this screenshot, along the lines of “Even virtual worlds celebrate Christmas” or “Celebrating Christmas in Rohan” (since the screenie was taken from the online game Rohan: Blood Feud. Unfortunately, Christmas Day had forced me into a short hiatus.
There are a number of massively multiplayer online role-playing games that come out with Christmas patches, including, you guessed it, Rohan: Blood Feud, and Ragnarok Online and Fly For Fun. I’m sure there are others, and I’d love to list them down for you, but there’s a beautiful lady wielding a pretty mean candy cane …read more

Okay. So we’ve established the fact that you are a player of one or more massively multiplayer online role-playing games. What we haven’t found out, however, is who you are in-game.
No, I’m not talking about the roles you play, including whether you cross-dress as much as your character. What I’m getting at, as the title of this post implies, is your what you name your avatar and how you arrived at such a name.
Let’s start with an example. I usually name my characters after, well, characters in books I’ve read. Yes, books are rich sources for MMORPG character names. My …read more

About a month ago, I had the privilege of “owning” a shiny new laptop. Yeah, go ahead and click that if you want to see how good it looks and how powerful it is. Anyway, being a gamer at heart, I didn’t use it for mundane tasks, such as writing stories for blogs and gaming magazines. No, the laptop was much too precious to waste for work that can be done on a soulless computer of yesteryear.
So true to form, I did what any other gamer would do—I installed as many games as I can fit in its 250-gigabyte drive. …read more

From several previews scattered all over the worldwide web, Kingdom of Warriors, billed as one of the most anticipated MMORPGs in Asia, seems like a clone of other, already successful online games from China. At first glance, the game screams “Nothing new here, move on!” and presents nothing except gorgeous graphics to reel in gamers from the saturated MMO market.
Consider the game’s most publicized features and judge for yourself if it’s worth the wait: