Private Servers, or, The Lesser Of Two Evils

Last entry, I briefly described the official version of the popular MMORPG Ragnarok Online.

Today, I will begin my four-part description of the Private Server communities strewn all throughout the internet.

An MMORPG Private Server is an illegally-run, illegally-constructed server that caters to a select group of players. A player searching for a Private Server will typically make his or her decision based on a number of factors, which I will go into detail about in a bit. There are Private Servers for many popular MMORPGs, including World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy XI Online, Lineage II, EverQuest, EverQuest II, RF Online and more. If you don't necessarily have any sort of moral inclinations against playing a game for free, I'm fairly sure you can find a server or two that will be to your liking.

On the Ragnarok end of the spectrum, there are a few criteria that will dictate what kind of audiences will play on what servers. The first thing anyone looks at is the Rate Type. Ragnarok Private Servers (and servers for a few other games) will have a general experience and item drop-rate tier from the f0llowing list:

Low Rate - rates are multiplied by modifers from 5 to the low double-digits
Mid Rate - rates are multiplied by modifers between 100-900
High Rate - rates are multiplied by modifiers between 1000 - 10000
Super High Rate - rates have no observable pattern, the lowest observed having been at 150,000x Base and Job Experience and 150,000x item drop rate, and are generally all extremely high

In Ragnarok Online, Base Experience dictates the statistical development of your character, while Job Experience grants you job-related statistical bonuses and more skill points to spend on skills. The faster one can raise or even maximize these aspects, the faster they can participate in some of the more advanced aspects of the game, such as boss hunting (referred to as MVPs), Player Versus Player combat, objective-based or non-objective-based Guild Versus Guild combat (either basic GVG or the War Of Emperium). Drop rates dictate how quickly players can scrounge up currency and equipment, and since many quests within the game require that players go on fetch quests to gather items, the rate also dictates the difficulty of the quests.

Next time, I'll describe the features available in Private Servers.

Until then, have a pleasent day!