The few-months-old Valkyrie Server is Philippine Ragnarok Online’s bid for game resurrection. It’s free to play so people are attracted. Here’s my article about Valkyrie. But the server was opened without assurance that the bugs will be fixed and an automated control of bot-infestation will be implemented. Hence, the war against bots rages on in Valkyrie (view diwa’s blog), and it’s funny how people log in to play then spend most of their time in-game simply looking for bots and reporting.

Noted, a champion of the honest non-botting players came about. His name is Goenitz, or more popularly known as killprobots, with his name suggesting his job description in the company. But still, LUG simply cannot install a system in Valkyrie that will let people just play and not worry about bot hunting and reporting bots to killprobots (Goenitz’ YM id). My prediction is, if the botting in Valkyrie gets out of hand, LUG will blame the players for letting it happen to their community by not being active enough in reporting. Effin’ what, who’s supposed to be running the business anyway?!?

They failed dismally in keeping their customers happy. When their business was booming back in 2004, they thoughtlessly banned people for the most minor offenses. It went on until player population waned and thinned out. They never learned from that.

And here’s their most stupid blunder to date: Valhalla

Valhalla is a new server they created (again) which adopts the interface of Valkyrie server, and is also free-to-play. The only difference is, with Valhalla, players from the defunct Thor server may log in and retain their old character, levels and items. If they can do that with Thor, why the hell did they not do that with all the other “paid” servers and brought everyone to Valkyrie? The answer is very simple: they need botters’ money, which comes from the other paid servers (Baldur, Tyr and Freya).

LUG is handling Philippine Ragnarok Online in a way that they can please the international community (legalizing bots is frowned on as it compromises the game’s credibility in other markets) by not directly stating that they’re allowing bots in other servers. Their desperation to maintain their business is obvious, and their failures in this aspect, more so.

Ragnarok Online is a very old game in the Philippines (5 years?), the least that LUG can give their loyal players is the perks that they deserve. Clean up the game to make us stay.

[end of part 2 ... end of rant]

And oh, why the hell did LUG choose Toni Gonzaga to sing Perfect World’s song? (but that’s another rant…. click the link to view)

Find friends according to race of preference:
Filipinos - Asians - German - Latino - French - Chinese - India - Italian - Jewish - Korean
Find friends according to hobbies, interests and age:
Seniors (40 yo++) - Fitness Minded - Success Driven - Food and Dining Enthusiasts

For those who don’t know, Level Up Games is handling the more popular MMORPGs in the Philippines; to name some, Ragnarok Online, Perfect World, Khan, FlyFF and Pangya. Ragnarok Online is the first ever MMORPG in the Philippines and pinoys ate it up. Until the problems flowed. The third party program invasion, and more recently, the duplicate bug exploitation, reduced Ragnarok Online’s population from a staggering 12 thousand to a measly less than 2k per server. It was not formally announced, but botting became “somewhat legal” in all servers (read: “you can bot if you want, but we’d rather you don’t”)… their first mistake in trying to keep their business going.

They created Thor, a server that was touted as the only commercial (paid) server that doesn’t allow botting. It is an option for the players who want to play manually. What happened? Thor was doomed at the onset because people are still paying to play the game, but cannot get the most of their paid game time because they couldn’t bot.

The duplication bug was never in their control as it is the game developer’s problem. But LUG’s handling of the exploit was laughable. First, they announce a major duplicated item-wipe across all servers, and players who invested their time, money and electricity (and bandwidth for botting, lol) prior to this announcement lost most of their trade-acquired items. And second, they make players believe that they have installed an anti-duplication script in their system. This was later proven a lie by people who still tried the duplicate bug and succeeded.

[end of part 1]

Find friends according to race of preference:
Filipinos - Asians - German - Latino - French - Chinese - India - Italian - Jewish - Korean
Find friends according to hobbies, interests and age:
Seniors (40 yo++) - Fitness Minded - Success Driven - Food and Dining Enthusiasts

Update May 23, 2008! This article was written with the word mercenary as referring to Bothunters. But now that a real MERCENARY SYSTEM is present in Philippine Ragnarok ONline, here are my thoughts on that.

View My Ragnarok Guide’s Mercenary Basics Post which discusses the Mercenary interface, usage, requirements, Loyalty, Relationship with Owner… etc. There is even a Demo Video of a Mercenary System in action!

Here are some FAQs

• No feeding required
• Has a maximum of 15 cells away from the summoner
• Can be used both in PvP and WoE maps, but couldn?t damage the emperium
• The mercenary?s level is distinguished through headgear.
• Stats may increased based on kill count
• High level mercenaries are loyalty dependent.
• Reputation is specific to each guild of mercenaries
• Each mercenary system contract lasts for 30 minutes
• You can buffs the mercenary but with restrictions. See below post.
• There?s a recovery potion for mercenary
• Attack speed enhancers are available for the mercenary as well
• The mercenary has skills based on their level and guild

First Impressions on the Mercenary System
After the debut of the AI system in Lighthalzen for the Alchemical pet system called Homunculus, comes another AI system Mercenary System.

Sorry but I can?t help but to compare this with the Mercenary System of Diablo Series where you hire different classes to fight with you together in combat. In Ragnarok Online there are three mercenaries available- Fencer, Bowman and Spearman.

Mercenaries are hired and summoned through a series of scrolls. And they are equipped with decent amount of HP and skills to complement their summoner. So imagine a party with one mercenary each party member, it will be a massive array of firepower literally.

But latest discussions have confirmed some conflicts with the Homunculus AI system, which can cause command malfunction. But is already under research for it to be fixed soon.

Being a free-to-play Ragnarok server, botting is a big threat to the stability of Valkyrie server. Harvester accounts may be used to cheat the php-based system. This is the server where players are encouraged to report misguided co-players who want to go around the no-bot policy.

Encouraged? That’s it? I understand that this server’s stability will benefit the players more than the company, but the loyalty of honest players will depend on how well LU! will handle the Valkyrie bot issue.

Personally, if I were playing in Valkyrie, there will come a point when I will not go out of my way to report bots anymore. As humans, we get used to the situations faster than we know. Soon, the bots in Valkyrie will be fixtures that other players can live with, and will just ignore (or emulate LOL).

My prediction:

UNLESS THERE IS A SYSTEM that will give honest players the chance to earn more in-game stuff with each successful bot report, bothunting in Valkyrie will taper off to just a few individuals who are either hired by LUG, or who have devoted their whole game to hunting bots.

How has the police in real life dealt with sneaky culprits? By using informants and assets. This mercenary-type bothunting system will make players who want more zeny or equipments in Valkyrie look around their circle of acquaintances and report those who they know are botting.

This system may even evolve to a “Bothunters’Hall of Fame”, which will pit honest players against each other for ranking based on the number of bots reported.

This is a good suggestion, so…. heads up, LU!