Major changes in the geography and history of the world take place as Episodes in the Ragnarok Online timeline. As the development team is located in South Korea, this list will consist of updates made to their particular servers for developmental consistency.
NOTE: Not all Episode updates had update pages made for them so some only appear in patch notes. Therefore, episode information is cross-referenced from the Korean Wikipedia.
| Episode # | Episode Updates | Date Added[1] |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Start of the Adventure | 2002 August 03 |
| 2 | Lutie | 2002 December 17 |
| 3 | Comodo | 2003 February 04 |
| 4 | War of Emperium | 2003 April 12 |
| 5 |
Juno ~ Forgotten Legacy of an Ancient Era |
2003 July 15 |
| 6 | Beyond Rune-Midgarts (The Global Project) | 2003 October 07 |
| 7 | Umbala ~ Village of the Utan Tribe | 2004 January 27 |
| 8 | Niflheim ~ City of the Dead | 2004 February 23 |
| 9 | Rebirth Job System | 2004 April 20 |
| 10 |
The Republic of Schwarzwald |
2005 March 29 |
| 11 |
The Religious Nation, Arunafeltz |
2006 July 11 |
| 12 | Nightmare of Midgard, Destruction of Morocc | 2007 October 17 |
| 13 | 2008 June 25 | |
| 14 | 2010 June 30 | |
| 15 | 2013 July 02 | |
| 16 | 2015 February 25 | |
| Recap Episode | Arunafeltz Edda - Daytime Crescent | 2015 November 11 |
| Recap Episode | Illusion Updates | 2016 December 28 |
| 17 | 2018 July 18 | |
| Recap Episode | EDDA | 2018 September 12 |
| 18 | Direction of Prayer | 2021 February 03 |
| 19 | Issgard, Land of Snow Flowers | 2022 January 19 |
| 20 | Undying | 2023 March 02 |
Renewal[]
At one point in RO's life, the developers felt that the game had reached its limit in trying to compete with newer and more polished MMORPGs. So in 2008, development began on RO's Renewal, which would change the way everything worked in the game. After about 10 months of testing, RO was renewed on 2009 June 17.
The following compares the more major changes to the game.[2]
| Pre-Renewal (2002-2009) | Renewal (2009 - Current) |
|---|---|
| EXP requirements increased exponentially with each level-up. | EXP requirements increase linearly with each level-up. |
| Cards influenced your attack power directly. (Made 4-slotted Level 1 weapons more desirable than Level 4 weapons.) | Cards that influence your damage now only affect your weapon attack power. (Level 4 weapons became more desirable.) |
| Players were able to achieve instant cast with high DEX and cards. | Most skill casting is now composed of both a fixed cast time and a variable cast time. (The fixed component of the cast time cannot be reduced via stats.) |
| Old formulas made magic users very powerful in battle. | Revamped formulas nerfed magic users and buffed melee players. |
| DEF on gears contributed more to decreasing damage received. | DEF on gears are now of little to no significance. |
| Character performance was more stat-dependent. | Character performance became more gear-dependent. |
| Players were limited to 1 hotkey bar when it came to using skills. (Battle Mode alleviated this to some degree, but players could not customize their hotkeys.) | Players can now fully customize all their hotkeys and have the ability to view 4 rows of hotkeys for skill usage. |
| Every monster was unique in terms of stats and difficulty. | Monsters were streamlined to be more homogeneous and difficulty was amped down significantly. |
| No EXP penalty for killing monsters several levels higher or lower. | EXP penalty incurs for killing monsters 15 levels higher or 5 levels lower. |
| No drop penalty for killing monsters several levels higher or lower. | Drop penalty incurs for killing monsters 5 levels higher or 10 levels lower. |
A more detailed list of Renewal changes are as follows:
- Max level limit (change from existing Level 99 to Level 150)
- Reduction of necessary experience level to level up
- Experiment value/Casting time change
- Change of physical and magical attack power
- Change of physical and magic defense
- Change of attack/evasion rate
- Change of attack speed
- Change of critical attack
- Added Quest Alert function
- System improvement
- Skill window shortening improvement
- Shortcut command setting window
- Beginner training improvement
- Addition of tutorial leveling quests
- UI improvement
- Buff duration display added
- Skill reuse delay/post-delay display added
- Party system improvement
- Over-refining system added
- Monster AI reinforcement
- Monster leveling/Layout change
- Quest difficulty and some quest reward adjustment
- Rebalancing existing skills
- Fixed some items armor and options[3][4]
Revo-Classic[]
In June of 2016, Electronics Extreme opened a unique RO server that combines some mechanics from the pre-Renewal and Renewal version of RO.[5] After GRAVITY took over management of Taiwan RO (twRO) and Indonesia RO (idRO), similar Revo-Classic servers were opened as well for those versions of RO. More Revo-Classic servers were opened with the new Philippines RO (pRO) and International USA RO (iRO).
The following lists the major features of Revo-Classic servers (although each RO server may modify these to some degree):
- No EXP penalty
- No fixed cast time
- Cast delay rebalanced for 1st and 2nd Class skills
- Renewal formulas for attack and defense
- Renewal formulas for skills
- EXP requirements are less than pre-Renewal, but more than Renewal
- Pre-Renewal monster spawns
- Prontera, Izlude, Alberta, and Morocc in pre-Episode 12 state
- Quest: Level 4 weapon rewards from The God Item Quest replaced by upg armor
On other officials, Revo-Classic servers are known by different names even though they generally follow the same intent:
- RE:START servers (iRO)[6]
Ragnarok Online: Zero[]
The logo of GRAVITY's RO: Zero project.
In October of 2017, GRAVITY announced the development of a new version of RO known as the Ragnarok: Zero project.[7] Initially thought of as the kRO version of Revo-Classic, the Ragnarok: Zero project is eventually revealed to be a modernization of RO based on feedback acquired during focus group discussions and tests conducted in March and April of 2017. About seven months later, testing of Ragnarok: Zero commenced in November and the newest version of RO was launched on 2017 December 27. GRAVITY plans to release this fourth iteration of RO in other regions in 2018.[8]
The following lists the more significant changes to the game:
- Experience table is similar to pre-Renewal
- No EXP penalty between players and monsters
- 10% EXP penalty upon death
- Players can no longer see monsters when dead, only other players
- Modernized character selection window
- Modernized character creation process
- More detailed Navigation System
- Client will not allow multi-clienting
- Modernized quest log
- Episode updates will be formulated differently from Renewal
- Skills will work differently
- Some card effects are changed
- Max level aura is changed
- Rare drops like cards will be highlighted when dropped
- Equipment previews
- Vends are taxed and timed autovending will be available
- Shadow gear equipment slots removed from Equipment window
- Monsters will drop weapons more regularly with randomized enchants
- Rebirthing process allows you to change to a completely different job branch
- 1st and 2nd Class characters are still capped at Level 99, but Rebirth Classes can reach the new max level
- Expanded 1st Classes are still capped at Level 99 while Expanded 2nd Classes can reach the new max level
- Special boss monster will spawn on maps if a certain number of monsters are killed
- Dynamic field system for world maps
- Improved EXP share for parties
On other officials, RO: Zero servers are known by different names:
- Ragnarok Transcendence servers (iRO)[9]
See Also[]
References[]
- ↑ Release date pertains to live server release, not test server release.
- ↑ kRO Website 2017 May 22
- ↑ kRO Website 2017 Aug. 12
- ↑ kRO Website 2017 Aug. 12
- ↑ thRO Website 2016 Jun. 13
- ↑ WarpPortal Forums 2017 Jun. 27
- ↑ Inven 2017 Oct. 31
- ↑ SEC Report 2018 Feb. 24
- ↑ WarpPortal Forums 2019 Nov. 13