Ragnarok Online

 (Korean: 라그나로크 온라인, alternatively subtitled The Final Destiny of the Gods), often referred to as RO, is a Korean massive multiplayer online role-playing game or MMORPG created by GRAVITY Co., Ltd. based on the manhwa Ragnarök by Lee Myung-jin. It was first released in South Korea on 2002 August 31 for Microsoft Windows and has since been released in many other locales around the world. It runs on an internally-developed engine known as AEGIS. The game has spawned an animated series, Ragnarok the Animation, and a sequel game, Ragnarök Online II.

Features
Player characters exist in a world with a player environment that gradually changes with the passage of time. Player characters interact in a 3D environment but are represented by 2D character sprites for front, back, side and diagonal facings.

The major types of server-supported gameplay are Player vs Environment, Guild vs Guild, Player vs Player. Also supported by the game server are Group vs Group, Arena Combat, Player vs Monster, Player vs All, and various other specific scenarios at designated instance locations in the game world. NPC-run challenges and contests are also available with prizes, awards, and/or listing in a specific hall of fame listing.

Unique to Ragnarok Online is the Cards system that allows players to bind cards with special stats to weapons and armor to further enhance their characters. Almost every monster in the game has a corresponding card with its own set of effects.

"See Unimplemented RO Features"

Story
In a time of strife between God, Normans, and demons...

Scarred during the gruesome war and avoiding total destruction altogether, God, Normans, and demons manage to enter into a truce...

But after 1,000 years of fragile and forged peace in Rune-Midgarts...

The lengthy peace eventually led the Normans to forget their memories of the scars and hardship from the war. As they forgot faults of the past, selfishness, corruption, and arrogance slowly spread throughout the land...

Finally, the balance of peace broke and strange occurrences started happening. There came a strange howl from the boundaries that divided God, Normans, and demons. Peaceful creatures became aggressive and attacked innocent villagers. Violent earthquakes ripped whole continents apart. Great hail storms drove some species to the brink of extinction...

The mysterious legend of demons was rediscovered...

As the fragile peace began to fall apart, stories about the parts of Ymir protecting the peace began to spread among the adventurers. Forgetting the true nature of the ancient relics, people set out to seek the pieces out of selfishness and the promise of wealth that would come with it...

List of Episodes
"See Episode Updates (RO)"

Major changes in the features and history of the world take place as Episodes in the RO timeline.

Opening Cinematic
In the early days of Ragnarok Online, an opening video would start up when a player launches the game. It would appear before the login screen. For some reason, the video was removed from the game later on and it is unknown why, although it could be attributed to players wanting to log in quickly and not have to sit through the opening. That would also mean that there was no option to skip the opening whenever the game launched.

Music of
A few soundtracks were released for RO, but they mostly contain the same tracks.
 * Ragnarok Online Original Soundtrack
 * Ragnarok Online Complete Soundtrack
 * The Memory of Ragnarok

Official Ragnarok Online Servers
In the wake of RO's troubled beginnings, many private (illegal) servers came about. These private servers in no way support the official servers and have caused Gravity developers to lose money from players who financially support private servers over the official servers.

Active Official Servers
To help support the longevity of RO and its developers, here is a list of official servers players should play on:


 * Official Korea (kRO)
 * Official Japan (jRO)
 * Official USA International (iRO)
 * Official Taiwan & Hong Kong (twRO)
 * Official Thailand (thRO)
 * Official Brazil (bRO)
 * Official Indonesia (idRO)
 * Official Spain (hispanoRO/ROh)
 * Official Philippines (pRO)
 * Official Malaysia & Singapore (mRO)
 * Official China (cRO)
 * Official Russia (ruRO)
 * Official Europe (euRO)

Inactive Official Servers
This is a list of official servers that have ceased operation. Only oRO and pRO had their player data merged with the iRO server. Players from other servers had to create new accounts on iRO to keep playing the game.
 * Official Oceania (oRO)
 * These servers shut down in March of 2007. They supported both the New Zealand and Australia regions. Players of oRO were given the option to transfer over to iRO.


 * Official Middle East-North Africa (aeRO/aRO)
 * Shut down around 2008/2009. It reopened in 2009, but closed for good in February of 2013.


 * Official Vietnam (vRO)
 * These servers closed down in 2007 because not enough restrictions were placed for RMT (real money trade). It reopened in 2008 and then shut down for good in 2011.


 * Official India (inRO)
 * Shut down in August of 2008. iRO services expanded to the India region in response.


 * Official Malaysia & Singapore (eRO & mRO)(old)
 * Originally hosted by Game Flier in 2002, it consists of two servers, eRO (English language) and mRO (Bahasa Melayu, also called Malay language). Their contract with Gravity ended when the server did not make enough profit to renew the contract. Shut down 2013 October 31. Player data cannot be transferred to iRO, but iRO will now be open to the region.


 * Official Philippines (pRO)(old)
 * Shut down 2015 March 31 due to lack of measurements against botting and unbalanced Kafra Shop, which made players quit the server more often than not. Players were given the option of transferring over to iRO.


 * Official Russia (ruRO)(old)
 * Shut down 2015 November 16 for reasons unknown.


 * Official China (cRO)(old)
 * cRO originally began service on 2002 and was hosted by Game Flier. In 2005, Shanda Entertainment took over from Game Flier. It announced on 2011 November 1 that it would be closing down all RO service as of 2011 December 30. At the time of closing, cRO was updated to Episode 13.3 with Brasilis and Byalan 6F. Player data was not going to be preserved for a future Chinese service or transfer to an existing service. On 2012 March 30, GRAVITY signed a contract with Kunlun Games to reopen cRO and began services on 2013 February 28. About 3 years later, they were unable to renew their contract with GRAVITY and shut down 2016 February 19.


 * Official Brazil (bRO)(old)
 * After Level Up lost the right to host pRO, they eventually lost the rights to host bRO as well. Members of bRO staff along with bRO accounts were transferred to Gravity Interactive as part of their new WarpPortal Brazil network. Brazil players can only make RO accounts under WarpPortal Brazil, NOT WarpPortal.


 * Official Europe (euRO)
 * Shut down for reasons unknown. In response, ruRO opened a Revo-Classic server for euRO players. Data was not transferred.


 * Official Thailand (thRO)(old)
 * Asiasoft published the original thRO servers before it was taken over by Electronics Extreme. However, the contract with Electronics Extreme was only temporary as GRAVITY opened up a Thailand office to take control of the thRO servers.


 * Official Taiwan (tRO)(old)
 * Originally hosted by Game Flier.

Controversy
Towards the end of the closed beta testing for the original Korean servers of RO (kRO), it was announced that the game will be released as a subscription-based game, much like many other MMORPGs in 2002. Some of the beta testers were upset and made numerous hacks on the RO servers. The hacks crippled the game so much so that Gravity Co. nearly went into the state of bankruptcy. In an effort to save the company, Samsung Electronics offered to buy them out. To watch over their new investment, Samsung appointed a side-management to oversee development on RO. In amidst of this, Kim Hakkyu retired as the CEO of Gravity Co. His team shortly followed him, causing a myriad of speculation of Samsung Electronics pushing them out for unknown reasons. As such, many of the original concepts for RO were never fully implemented into the game. The game continues to suffer issues from the games troubled development.

These problems continue to exist to this day, even after the implementation of the Renewal update. There are two major factors for this reason. In the aftermath of Kim Hakkyu's sudden resignation, Ragnarok Online was in an unplayable state due to being unfinished. Gravity Co. hired inexperienced employees who band aided the game together to meet the release date. The second factor is that the AEGIS Software the company currently use is an artificial version of the original. It is impossible to alter the source code without breaking the emulator. As such, bugs and exploits in the source material can not be directly fixed. It is also worth noting that the emulator uses a different algorithm that is incompatible with the real AEGIS. The real one uses a variation of the LZ-compression algorithm.