ROSE Correspondent - Going F2P
MMORPG.com ROSE correspondent Brian Rodgers pens this article about ROSE Online and the recent switch over to a free to play format.
I started ROSE Online a few days ago as it interested me quite a long while back; the trailer is what caught my eye then. Now, with it going Free-to-play, it really attracted my attention, as I knew it was Pay-to-play before hand. So, I decided to try it out. I jumped right in and, after reading on the classes a bit, decided to make a Soldier Build, more on the offensive side.
Now, for those of you whom haven't heard of or played this game, it functions like Ragnarok, Maple Story and a few other games for its class selection; you pick your class in game at X level; for this game, 10. The other part also familiar in it is the fact that you pick your stats rather than having them added to this and that automatically. I found that you pick up a Ton of extra items for crafting in this game, and they can (Most of the time) Be sold for lots of extra cash; glue, for instance, a lowbie level drop, which can be found off of even the most low level bad guys, sells for up to around 50,000 Zulie (In-game currency). Now, why is this you may ask? Well, I went into a long interview with a player (AbsentVoid) and got quite a bit of Information.
It seems that ROSE went through a major developer change, and in doing so changed many features of the game around. The move was taken by the community in a positive way, as with new updates now being implemented and Balance issues being fixed. I would suppose that its going Free-to-Play has a great deal to do with this developer change, but from what I can tell, it seems to be for the better. Hopefully they'll fix the drop rates on things like glue so they don't quite sell for so much, but we‘ll see.
I went into the game and ran about for a bit; clans seemed to be rare, as they usually only accept players of a higher level, and with this game having a max level of over 100+, it takes a lot of Dedication to get in a guild, let alone to reach the top. Clans do have ranks, as I found out, and the higher level it is, the more people you can have, and other such features. With the new development team, they created an event for higher level guilds, and seem to be adding content for players of most levels at a steady pace.
The Graphics are what stood out among the games features for me; Fly-for-Fun has quite similar graphics, but it just didn't have the same feel as ROSE. I played Fly-for-Fun in the past, and they seem to be both unique, but Fly-for-Fun seems to have a much larger fan base. But, with ROSE going Free-to-Play, it will probably gain a much more diverse community, both of Fly-for-Fun players who previously didn't want to pay for ROSE, and those from other games that are seeking a much more visually unique game.
Now, a couple of years ago, ROSE Online did have a Free-to-Play service, cutting out features like storage access, trading, personal shops, and accessing your friends list. And in recent times, they seem to be finding their place in the MMO Market, with where you could play being changed quite often. For instance, ROSE Online was going to be accessible in Europe as well as Taiwan at some point, but Taiwan was cancelled in its later Beta stages and Europe's version was cancelled just a few months after release.
It seems that the game went through a major content change just a couple of years back, which changed the interface, changed the skill system, added a few new maps and really started up the rolling content updates on the game. ROSE really saw its major plans come to light recently, as the development team does (from what I hear from players) listen to its population and give feedback for changes and fixed fairly soon after it's mentioned. So, with it going through such a cut up past, the games community still seems to be surprisingly intact; plenty of higher level players can be found buffing lower levels and assisting with questions they may have, helping regardless of going around and not being thanked for what they do for the community.
But, the game still has a few steps to go through before it's completely Free-to-Play, and hopefully the developers will keep everything intact along with the community, maybe we'll see a turnaround for this game in the future. But, regardless, I found that during the time I spent in game, it kept me going back again. The quick levelling system lets you look around the next corner and see something great, and I've only been on a single one of the seven planets you can explore (four being still in development). Of course, it might help if I were high enough to get to the next planet, but that‘s not important.
You can have your own cart in ROSE, and (not quite implemented yet though) a personal siege engine, called a castle gear. This castle gear as a much higher attack power than a cart, but can't quite move as fast. Overall, with all these features, not just the ones that are already here, I feel rather dizzy from how long it would take me to reach even half of the content. Now, as for what the future will hold for ROSE Online? Well, we'll all see in the future, I suppose, as it's hard to tell from how many changes are being made. Plenty of new players seem to be coming in at a good pace, so we should see ROSE going through more changes besides the big revamp back when the developers changed.
So, overall, the game seems to be getting good updates, and looks bright for its future. So, in the end, I found myself having fun with the questing, killing and equipment grabbing; I found it a perfect way to burn some time during anytime, with it being easy to log in and out and move around in the game world. Now if I can just make it to 50 to grab that cart…
