A beautiful game, well-loved in the Korean and Japanese markets, not only by those who live there, but the players who were eagerly awaiting its international release by YNKinteractive.
I, among many, was granted the honor of being in the game’s second closed beta, that only lasted about a week or so, and also fell in love with it. Since I usually always play in the on free games I can find on a quick, bored search (Google, how we love thee), I found the graphics to be amazing. How many games can you play, just watching your character’s skills in awe, or in fascination each time you can see an archer actually pull back the string of their bow? Not very common… in my world.
The outfits were great, too!
So, I waited, and waited, and waited for the open beta release, as did many other people. It game, and we all fled into the servers (which ended up being full… so the game went down, put up more servers… and those filled… needless to say, the typical buggy first days).
We played and played, grinded our minds numb.
It wasn’t until a week or so in, we noticed the problems.
Bots, bots, everywhere, and not a mob to spare, despite the handcuff system (soon to be abused by players everywhere!) in place. Of course, this also lead to an influx of hackers.
Though the game master team seemed to work hard at first, the problems only started to get worse, more obvious… and pissed off the player base, on top of experience rates that had been nerfed compared to the game’s Japanese counterpart (many players say it’s around 170% difference), along with drop rates and armor/weapon forge rates. I experienced the same, but continued to stick around. After all, with each level you had to work hard for, you feel like you accomplished something.
And then came the Item Mall. Like most international games, the prices were far higher
than the Asian versions of the game. Items that were once fifty cents in the Japanese mall were a couple dollars, and limited in the time limit they were sold, in this new market.
Another blow: Exchange Market. Players with the ability to sell items, characters, and in-game money for the game’s cash shop currency… however, you could only buy items off of it, as well as sell items on it, if you paid a membership fee of real cash for it. The players, including myself, got even angrier. We had been promised this would be a way for people who couldn’t afford to buy cash shop to get their hands on the cash shop currency! I, however, still bought the membership, and clung to my hopes of the game recovering.
Bots still ran rampant, though, both leveling for the lazy players (or those just fed up with the crazy grind), gathering gold for companies to illegally sell on their websites (which sadly led to players buying off these sites and posting the currency for sale on the Exchange Market), and advertising such sites.
The bot problem wasn’t apparent until the massive “guild battles,” or Town Wars in this case, were introduced. Guilds full of characters who had used bots to gain many, many levels over the average player, even addicted players who grind almost full days, were able to destroy others in these wars (I won’t even mentioned the hackers who ran rampant in many of these battles), and take over the various towns in the game. If you don’t play Rohan Online, you probably don’t realize this means the winning guild can then set taxes (both on goods being bought and sold at the non-playable characters in these towns), from 4% to 20% and above. Economic thinking leads you to think, well, guilds will want people to buy in their town, so that’ll keep taxes low! Well, not if one massive guild, in members and levels, rules the majority of the towns, or their allies as well.
This was the point in which I left the game. Or, more accurately, took a break and continue to log in every now and then to admire the skills of my Dragon Knight or my Half-Elf Scout, sigh over the graphics I fell in love with the first time I logged in, and check up with friends who still remain, or the forums, in hopes things are starting to get better. Each time, I’m disappointed.
At least I’m not there to witness the installation of the game parlor, another gambling system in a game that is nothing but a gamble: a gamble to make your armor, a gamble to make your weapons, a gamble to remove stats you don’t need on your equips (strength for an intelligence based healer? Please!), a gamble to de-level the equips to keep you on top of your game and to survive better… you get the idea, right?
However, I’m a dreamer. I will keep checking up on Rohan Online, the international version, in hopes it will recover and become something I can happily return to.
When that happens, expect a new review telling you to JOIN! Or something similar. Until then… I don’t recommend spending time on this game unless you want to be “ahead of the pack” when it does fix itself, or you like being disappointed.
Sorry YNKinteractive, it had to be said.
