TalonRO - First Impression Series

[Serenity]

Server Name: TalonRO
Rates: 5x/5x/3x
Owner: BlackTalon

Summary –
An innovative approach to low rate Ragnarok Online servers. Highly customized, however, multiple facets of gameplay have been rebalanced to ensure no one class dominates. Exceptional job with custom content. Extremely original content and ideas circulating the server.

Ease of Use –  Took me five minutes to find the Warp Agent in Prontera upon first starting. Thankfully, someone was kind enough to direct me to it. GM-Seiren even addressed that it's somewhat hard for new players to find on the forum, within an hour of my initial post.

Economy Glance – Exceptionally easy to get top-tier gears if you're willing to put forth the effort. While you can simply donate if you have the money to buy nearly anything in-game, you can very easily rise to the top through means of taking part of the in-game economy.

Balance – I forsaw no impending issues in all honesty. I played AnimaRO before TalonRO came to be, and I must say, TalonRO has taken the foundation to a whole new level. I was expecting things to be as broken as they were on AnimaRO, and to put it simply, they weren't. I didn't see TOO many level 99 characters, which was definitely nice to know that a new person can come up in the world and actually compete given they put forth effort.

GM Responsiveness – Super fast response times and via IRC at least one member of staff is reachable. It's also safe to say that if you can't get ahold of a GM for whatever reason, the community is knowledgeable enough to handle most, if not all inquiries.

Forum Environment – Very friendly and intimate setting. Everyone knows everyone and new members are welcomed warmly. Also, very active, with over 20 people browsing at each interval I checked.

In-game Community – Very friendly as well. There were players in Prontera helping out newbies and weren't being sarcastic jerks like you see more often than not on servers, regardless of what game you're playing.

Negatives – Honestly.. I didn't find anything. Perhaps move the Warp Agent to a more "well known" location. The street corner made it blend in with vends thus my initial confusion.

Conclusion - Very, very well done. They're making use of nearly every "new" feature as it's made available to them. Extremely easy to use interface and content in-game is accessible to anyone with an IQ above 3rd grade level. From the extensive detailed information on the website, to the aesthetically pleasing design of both the game client and in-game environment, everything flows and it's apparent that meticulous attention to detail is abound. The custom quests are very well written, my personal favorite that I found being the "Shy Guy" quest.

Overall Rating - 10/10

Despite the fact that I own a server myself, I can without a doubt say that TalonRO is by far one of, if not the most innovative approaches to a low rate server that I've seen in my 3.5+ years playing/administrating Ragnarok Online.

My hat's off to the development team and community for making your server as thoroughly enjoyable as it is.

Highly recommended if you're looking for something "different".