So words finally reached my ears that the server I been playing on, Nova Ragnarok has recently been shut down by Gravity because after 20 years, old Korean businessmen who know nothing about games still can't comprehend that licensing to people who know how to handle and clearly cares more about their failing IP better is probably more profitable than simply sinking down the whole ship. Including theirs.

So as the server's forum is gone, I will be dumping a bunch of art that I made for that server or posted exclusively there here so people can find it. This art was made for the "Summer Festival", a custom event of the server. Wallpaper version here

- RANT -

As you can see from my RO gallery, I've been hooked on that server for roughly 4 years, although I've also stopped playing it  about 4 years ago because I just lost interest in the direction the game is going both officially and in that server, so I don't really care about the loss.

However, I'd be lying if I don't say that the years I spent on NovaRO was the best Ragnarok experience I ever had. It was the first server where I was actually able to reach max level and participate in many end-game recent official contents, guilds and the community in general. The custom contents and events were inventive and high production, including the "Summer Festival" depicted here.

Can't say the same about my 6 years in official server, where I never even hit lv 99, contents years behind and I was just always inadequate to participate in anything anyways. So before anyone bring up "you should play official", MANY of us did and spent good money on it, and "you won't lose progress", my official server was literally closed and reopened who knows how many times.

So what did the big corpo did when they see how many people are so passionate and making more successful "mods" of their failing IP? Hire, buy, work with, license, ask for royalties, or just learn from and listen to feedbacks on how to improve theirs? Nah, hit 'em all with lawsuit and shove 7 clearly cash grab mobile games to the fans instead.

It is sad because it's very clear that the game was a major influence during my formative years that shaped every facet of my life from my artistic style, fashion, to music taste. It was the reason I started drawing, and I still even have a game design idea majorly based off it.

The game is now just a p2w grindfest, which I can live with if the gameplay is actually good, but now every class that used to be unique just became the same AoE one shot with some class miles better at it than the others with no intention to balance it. 4th job sprites are horrendous and while it took me a while to warm up to the 3rd job sprites, I can't see me doing the same with the 4th. The fact that in this day and age they can't make a single unified international server with uniform update and feedback channel when some crowdfunded indie project could.

Now every Pserver that has a chance of fixing any of these issues can be closed down at any time, and there is no amount of "Play this 8th mobile game iteration to relive your nostalgia!" will get me back to support Gravity for what an absolute worst business decision they decided to take. Side note, I did tried one of it and it made me sad.

I'd rather be in that moba hell called Pokemon Unite lmao. At least design-wise, every character has a very clear role on what it can or cannot do, the updates are global and the devs actively listen to balance feedback from the community. Ngl it reminds me of the 5v5 PvP tourneys Nova used to hold, as in, fun to watch but misery to participate in haha. Now if only they polish more of the PvE side....