May Shrink Or Leak While In Use

My inner hipster quirks an approving eyebrow every time I add another obscure mmorpg to my portfolio but there are certain caveats that come with choosing to play the games others ignore. Yesterday brought a couple more yellow flags.

I logged into Noah's Heart to a bittersweet welcome in the mail: five hundred diamonds, compensation for another server merge. I'd heard nothing ahead of time. From my perspective, the server where I play seemed as busy as ever. It came as a complete surprise to me.

It took a bit of searching before I could track down the details.

After this week’s maintenance, we’ll conduct server merge among the following servers:
AM Server: S1-Fairy Spring & S6-Elegy Tomb
EU Server: S1-Avant-Garde & S4-Greepersia
S8-Divine Valley & S14-Canan & S16-Star

The first server in the group is the main server and the rest servers will be merged into the first one.

I found the announcement on the game's Facebook page. Facebook's not a place I generally go for game news. I'm inured to having to check Discord to find out what's going on but I have my limits.

It would seem the game's down to three servers now: one in North America, one in Europe and one... somewhere else. Asia? South America? Mars?

 

I play on Fairy Spring, which probably explains why the game has always seemed well-populated to me. The server has been the host for at least one previous merger so I'm guessing it's always been the busiest, even more so as it keeps picking up refugees from all the others.

 

New content still coming in. That has to be a positive.

I was bullish about the game's prospects last time this happened but that was only a month ago. It's hard not to see this latest contraction as a warning. At the rate things are going, pencilling in a celebratory post for the game's first anniversary next summer probably wouldn't be the wisest plan.

 

I'm not too bothered. It feels as though I might be running out of steam with Noah's Heart, anyway. I'm still logging in every day but only for the time it takes to fulfill my guild obligations and rack up my 200 activity points. I bank my three tokens towards the next stage of the current Season then I log out.

 

I like to try to follow the narratives of these weird, sometimes incomprehensible storylines but the time-gating has increased to the stage where it now takes a full week to build up the points needed to move the story forward. It used to be three days. 

When I do get to open the next chapter, it rarely takes more than fifteen or twenty minutes to finish. Major set piece action segments and crafted cut scenes are things of the past. Now it's always a sequence of talking tableaux and a lot of silent movie style intertitles. The approach certainly has its charm but it doesn't occupy a great deal of time.

After more than twenty years, I get a feeling for when my interest in a game is begining to flag and I suspect that time may be approaching for Noah's Heart. Still, if it ends up being six months, that's a very strong run. I didn't play Chimeraland, a game that very arguably has a lot more going for it, for as long as that.

Of course, Chimeraland is another at-risk title, having suffered similar shrinkage to Noah's Heart. The bizarre, monster-smushing game does have a higher profile, at least with MassivelyOP, where several writers seem amused that it even exists, a sentiment I can readily appreciate, having played it. Whether the attention will help keep the servers up any longer than the already all-but-forgotten Noah's Heart, though, I have to have my doubts.

 

The other odd title I picked up recently, ROSE Online, has, as far as I can tell, just the one server, which at least means merges aren't likely to be an issue. It's also extremely busy as of now, which has to be a good sign.

A lot less re-assuring was the email I received yesterday. I won't quote the whole thing... or shall I? Yes, why not?

A data breach is never good news but props to Rednim for the detailed explanation. It looks concerning at first sight but if I'm reading it correctly, all it really amounts to is a small chance that someone might have been able to see an email address and an even smaller chance they'd also have had a shot at a few characters of the password.

I suppose if you were lucky enough to have a very short email address and lazy enough to have chosen a very short password, a curious prodder might have been able to log into your ROSE Online account but even then, unless you're one of those peculiarly shortsighted people who use the same email address and password for everything, the damage would be limited to loss of your progress and character in a free to play mmorpg still in the first week of early access. It's hardly the Brink' s Mat robbery.

 

I changed my password just to be on the safe side, although I never re-use passwords nor even follow any particular convention or format when creating them. I literally make up something random, stream-of-consciousness style, every time. 

As for email addresses, I'm not quite sure what the logic behind keeping them secret is in the first place. They exist so people can use them to contact each other, don't they? Or maybe that's archaic. 

Anyway, I make up almost as many email addresses as I do passwords, and most of them get used just once, to reply to the email that validates them. After that they just lie there, gathering virtual dust. 

Thinking about it, that might explain why the first I hear about things like server merges is when I log into the game. I might be getting dozens of  notifications I never see.

I do maintain ongoing access to the email adress I used for ROSE Online. It's one of several I use when creating accounts for games I don't expect to play for long. Only, as must be self-evident by now, I'm not the greatest predictor of my own behavior when it comes to new mmorpgs. I often end up bedding down for weeks or months in titles I expected to last no more than a session or two.

If there's one thing the whole free-to-play revolution has taught me it's that mmorpgs are like busses. If you miss one, there'll be another along in a minute. Although now I come to think about it, that's the kind of analogy only someone who doesn't use public transport would make.

Maybe what I mean is that mmorpgs are like pets. You love them while they're around but you always know they won't be with you forever. Hmm. No. That's not it. That's really bleak.

Okay, I don't have a neat moral to this tale I can wrap up in a tidy cliche. I guess the takeaway is that mmorpgs can be fragile so it doesn't pay to lean on them too heavily. Seriously, I can keep this up all day...

But I won't. I have games to play. Or I do while they last.

Santa Claus Lives On The Moon

The very same day I suggested I would probably never get to visit Luna, the second of ROSE Online's planets, where do you think I found myself? Yes, Luna! It would be a pretty poor way to open this post if it had been anywhere else, wouldn't it? Also, the picture's a bit of a giveaway...

So, how did it happen? Well, it was all thanks to Santa Claus. It transpires that not only is Santa trans-dimensional, he has multiple centers of operation in all the territories he serves, and since he's very much the traditionalist, he always sets up shop at the local equivalent of the North Pole. In the Auruan planetary system, that just happens to be the frozen planet of Luna.

I found this out entirely by chance. I was jogging through Zant when I spotted someone in a very striking red car. Or was it a sled? Hard to be sure. I'm not quite up to speed on how mounts work in ROSE - I think we only have vehicles but I could be mistaken - but I know a holiday ride when I see one. Especially when it's being driven by someone in a Santa suit.

As luck would have it, the NPC for the event was standing right behind me. You can see her in the picture. Her name is Judy. Up to this point I hadn't even realised there was an event running, although in retrospect I guess the gigantic Christmas trees I'd been taking selfies next in front of all week should have given me the hint.

I spoke to Judy and she spotted I was carrying some snow crystals in my bags. I'd picked these up as drops but so many crafting mats pop out of every creature I kill I hadn't realised there was anything special about them. From context, I now understand these are both the currency and the entrance fee for the event. 

Judy asked me if I'd like to go visit Santa in his space workshop. Okay, she didn't put it quite like that. What she actually said was... wait a moment, I think I took a screenshot... ah yes, here it is!

Obviously I said yes and next thing I knew I was in a cut scene, flying off to space in a wooden airship. I took some screenshots of that, too - three of them, in fact - but unfortunately each time I pressed the button the cut scene changed to a loading screen and that's what I caught on camera.

I figured out eventually that hitting any key terminated the ride. The view was something worth seeing but you're just going to have to take my word for it.

Even when the ship had landed and I was trudging through the snow I didn't realize, until I opened the map to find out where to go next, that what Judy referred to as "Santa's Planetoid" was actually the planet Luna. I think we came down somewhere in the Mana Snowfields but don't quote me on that. One snowy plain looks much like another.

Wherever it was, there were people everywhere. The place was packed. I found my way over to the center of activity and, after a brief comic interlude where I gave the wrong response to a simple question and found myself on the airship back to Junon, I managed to have a word with Santa to find out just what sort of problem he was having this time.

In my experience, whenever Santa's having difficulties, it's always with his elves or his reindeer. They're either trying to unionise or they're drunk again. This time it was the reindeer, collectively known here as "Rudolphs", an act of blatant disindividualisation that tells you plenty about the kind of organization Santa's running.

I wasn't surprised to hear there'd been a dispute over conditions. In his own words, the training methods employed on the Rudolphs had been "rigorous" and the put-upon deer had staged a revolt. Santa wanted me to chase them down and administer a salutory beating, although he was careful to make it clear he didn't want the reindeer killed. They still had a job to do, after all.

I find it interesting that, whereas most quests in ROSE Online come with a couple of responses, one to accept and another to refuse, this one assumes you'll be as indignant about the reindeer revolution as Santa. I felt more sympathetic to the Rudolphs but solidarity with the workers wasn't going to get me a new, red suit so I agreed to act the enforcer on his behalf. That left Santa free to stand back and look jolly. Wouldn't do to sully the brand, now, would it? Although I have to say the suit would be good for hiding all that reindeer blood.

Finding the reindeer was no problem. They were running around all over the place, being chased by players hacking away at them with swords, blasting them with fireballs and generally behaving like the hired strikebreakers they were. I joined in, of course.

Bashing the beasts was no problem. They didn't fight back. All they did was run in circles, into trees, into snowdrifts, anywhere to escape the relentless pummelling. As they ran, endless streams of Snow Crystals spewed out of them, punctuated by the occasional Elifedora, the mysterious power source that keeps Santa's sweatshops churning out the toys.

Where I did run into difficulties was in picking the damned things up. Occasionally I was able to pocket one but mostly I got a message saying they didn't belong to me. It was clearly something to do with attribution but I couldn't figure out how it was being calculated. Was it first hit? Most damage? A timer?

About the only real success I had was when I found a rudolph stuck almost entirely inside a wall of ice and mercilessly pounded him with a stick until he died. Santa's bland assurances that they'd know when they'd learned their lesson and return home in shame proved to be over-optimistic in the extreme.

Everything that deer dropped I was able to loot but after that I was stuck getting nothing again. I was about to give up when someone popped a party invite on me. I accepted with alacrity. In a group, all the loot became... erm... lootable. The only issue now was one of etiquette. How long do you have to keep whacking a reindeer before it's acceptable to take a break to pick up the pieces?

I'd collected a decent stash and was just begining to wonder how to extract myself politely from the party, when the server solved my dilemma by disconnecting me. I'm finding ROSE pretty stable for the most part but there have been a few more disconnections than I'm used to in other games.

When I logged back in I was out of the party so I went to Santa to spend my crystals. I'd had a look at the price list before I started and I'd ruled out many of the more exotic items, like the car, on the grounds it would take me days of grinding to get them. 

The basic Santa suit looked very doable, though. I'd seen other players wearing it and I thought it looked pretty smart. When I counted my crystals I found I had enough for the sweater, the hat and the boots. I bought the sweater and the hat. Why I didn't buy the boots I couldn't tell you. I'll get them next time.

When I put the "sweater" on, I was surprised to find it came with a jacket and tie. And a skirt. And socks. And the sweater itself was blue. And V-necked. It's basically a Christmas-themed school uniform, something I had signallly failed to notice when looking at other players wearing it. It looks very smart, if not exactly traditional. Certainly more suited to the season than the bell-bottoms and halter-neck combo I've been sporting until now. And at least the hat meets the Santa Standard.

All in all, I thought it was a pretty solid little holiday event. It's a fun trip to get to there and an easy task to complete, at least once you group up. The rewards are well-judged in that there's decent stuff you can get in a matter of minutes but also things you could spend a good few sessions grinding for, if that's your bag.

I think the full santa suit, including boots and gloves, will probably do me. I'll leave the big ticket items to the real holiday grinders. 

That sled-car does look good, though...

Going To Town In ROSE Online

In a development I'm sure will surprise absolutely nobody, I'm finding ROSE Online to be a lot more enjoyable than I expected. I only started playing the game on a whim, when I happened to read a news report about its unexpected return from mmorpg limbo, thinking to get a single blog post out of the event, if that, but I swiftly found myself drawn in by the simple, uncomplicated gameplay, cute graphics and the general hustle and bustle of what appears to be a very popular and well-attended resurrection.

For the moment, ROSE is the game I find myself keenest to log into each day, closely followed by EverQuest II, where I continue to make good progress in the latest expansion, Renewal of Ro. Third on the list comes Noah's Heart, another game I never expected to stick with but which I've now been playing every day for four-and-a-half months. 

Falling by the wayside for the time being are Lord of the Rings Online, New World and Guild Wars 2, none of which I've given any serious attention for weeks. Of those three, it's LotRO that stands the best chance of an early return, thanks to the recent addition of two new starting zones. As ROSE has reminded me yet again, the aspect of mmorpg gameplay I most enjoy is the early to mid level range, when significant changes to both gameplay and character development come thick and fast.

As I mentioned in passing the other day, just preparing to set out to explore new content in EQII requires a significant investment in time and effort, as you check all your gear and abilities are fit for purpose and take remedial action to correct those that fail the test. It is, in itself, an enjoyable process, but it requires an entirely different degree of concentration, application and administrative attention, something that can become mentally exhausting after a while.

In contrast, the early levels of any mmorpg feel more open, exciting and fresh. There's the intellectual challenge of learning new systems and mechanics, something I find exhillarating and absorbing, but also the relative freedom from the kind of beauraucratic box-ticking that frequently dominates at-cap gameplay. If nothihng else, it's a pure joy to play a character whose inventory is almost empty.

ROSE Online benefits hugely in this respect from being a game from an earlier, simpler era. It feels both mechanically and graphically uncluttered. The game looks and plays clean. I'm aware that behind the straightforward appearance may lurk a much more complicated interior but that's not something I need to worry about just yet.

For now, all I have to do is go where the questgivers send me and do what they ask. If I keep doing that, I get a drip-feed of information on how the game and the world work, plus I get new weapons and armor. It's a really plaeasant, relaxing, involving way to spend a couple of hours. I can see how it caught on.

One of the things I learned yesterday was the name of the world on which ROSE Online is set. It's called Junon, a name that sounds comfortably familiar yet different enough to stand out among the many imaginary entries in my mmorpg address-book.

I was looking at the map yesterday, after I'd been given the introductory quest to the third zone, Canyon City of Zant, eponymous home of the first significantly-sized town I've yet visited, and it occured to me the whole of the world map looked a tad on the small size for a full game. 

I've since learned that ROSE Online takes place on not one but three separate planets, the other two being Luna and Eldeon. There are four other named planets in the ROSE solar system, all of which were intended to be available for play, but as the wiki somewhat enigmatically explains, the others were only available on "Rose Online Brazil, first and only server with all seven planets."

If I go on playing ROSE, something that seems highly likely, at least in the short term, I'll probably find myself digging into the history of the game a little, as often happens in cases like this. I do enjoy investigating the genre's quirkier corners even if I occasionally find myself wishing someone else had already done the research and turned it into a neat summary I could skim through instead. 

The whole concept of mmorpgs offering different content in different territories is something I'd like to learn more about. I've noticed it happening in a number of games I've played, particularly Dragon Nest, which seems to have had half a dozen significantly varying versions over the years, and it often comes up as a point of contention when titles are ported to the Western market, but I can't recall ever seeing any kind of overview or discussion of the underlying principles of the phenomenon.

For now, I'm going with the three world paradigm for ROSE Online. If it turns out there are more, that'll be a bonus. In any case, even given my current enthusiasm for the low-end game, I think it's unlikely I'll make it far enough to complete the Level 70 quest that takes you to Luna, let alone to Eldeon, which doesn't open up until you hit Level 90.

My Hawker is curently Level 19. Progress has been steady, the bulk of experience coming from quests, the handing-in of which can sometimes jump you a whole level or more. The nature of the quests and their rewards makes it plain I'm still in the tutorial phase so how much longer progress will come in such hefty chunks is uncertain. I'll just enjoy it while it lasts.

Meanwhile, I'm appreciating the changes I see all around me as I travel. Yesterday was the first time I'd seen the gameworld at night and it was spectacular enough to prompt me into taking several screenshots of the vibrant night-time sky. I'm something of an afficionado of skyboxes and I have a particular appreciation of looming planets and nebulae, both of which Junon has in abundance.

I also met my first anthropomorphic animal NPC, a vendor and repairer by the name of Rockwell. I think he's a bear but I wouldn't swear to it. At first I thought he was an otter but on closer examination he looks a bit too gormless to be anything so cool. 

One of the things I didn't mention in my First Impressions piece was character creation. Usually it's something I'd give space to but in this case it was so perfunctory I forgot all about it until after I'd finished the post. I was mildly disappointed there were no options to play anything other than a human but it's something I'm resigned to these days. At least if I can't be an animal in game, now I know there are some I can talk to. That's something, at least.

Another in-game staple I ran into for the first time yesterday was the player vendor. Pretty much every mmorpg has some method for players to transfer goods between themselves. Some games have several. There's one basic, fundemental split, though, and that's whether the interface involved is a UI element or a virtual object placed in the gameworld. (Actually, as both EQII and FFXIV would like to tell you, there's a way to bridge that chasm, but I don't want to derail my own post by going into details on how its done.)

ROSE Online appears to stand firmly in the camp that believes in players laying out your their own stalls; literally. Coming into the city of Zant, I ran into several player-vendors on the access ramp, peddling wares that looked interesting enough to make me stop and shop. 

The stalls include a large overhead sign the player can personalise as appropriate. I don't know how or if it's policed but I was impressed by the lack of smut. I saw dozens of the things and they were all reasonably informative, at least after a fashion.

The one that caught my eye was advertising Backpacks for sale. I'm always in the market for more storage. I wasn't immediately able to work out how to buy them, which turned out to be lucky for me, since I later found out the sneaky seller appeared to have purchased some items from an NPC vendor, just a few yards up the ramp in the city itself, giving them a hefty mark-up. 

It's a common practice and well-established in games that allow reselling of vendor-bought gear. I've done it myself on occasion so I don't hold a grudge. Caveat emptor, as they no doubt don't say on Junon.

Zant itself is a very busy place, positively teeming with activity. I found a helpful NPC willing to explain the facilities although I'm still finding the lack of word-wrap challenging. I often have to swivel the camera so the text is visible against some clear background like the sky.

One other thing that struck me, something I rarely mention when giving early impressions of mmorpgs, is the quality of the combat animations. I know it's something some people take very seriously indeed but I can honestly say I rarely even notice what moves my character is making, mostly because I'm too busy looking at the hot-keys. 

In ROSE, at least at these early levels, there's not an awful lot to do in a fight. It's mostly auto-attack plus a special, giving me plenty of time to admire the clean, precise movements my character makes as she stabs and slashes with the bamboo spear she's still using. 

By now I ought to have swapped to a more Hawker-appropriate weapon, like a katar or a bow but I'm so happy with how my character looks using the spear I haven't yet made the change. That's something I have in mind for next time I log in, which will be later today.

And that's how things stand at the moment. I have the basics down but there's still a huge amount to learn and much more to discover. This is the honeymoon phase. As Parker says to Logan in the final episode of Veronica Mars, employing some of the bleakest ironic foreshadowing I've ever heard, "enjoy it while it lasts".

ROSE Online : First Impressions

So, how's that whole ROSE Online thing working out for you, then? A lot better than expected, thanks for asking, at least when I finally managed to log in and play for a couple of hours. 

If Rednim Games were hoping to emulate a real 2005 mmorpg launch they pretty much nailed it. The first few times I tried to log in, either the servers were down for a patch or the login server wasn't responding. When I did eventually get in, there were more people in the starting area than I've seen since the Legacy of Ykesha launch in 2003. 

Definitely one of the better login screens I've seen.

Okay, not that many - LoY remains the all-time busiest I've ever seen a starting area without the server crashing - but it was busy. I was able to get the first quest to kill five jelly beans (Sure beats rats for flavor.) but the little jumping buggers had a life expectancy of less than a nano-second so I didn't make much progress. Or any progress.

I gave things a day or two to calm down and when I tried again this afternoon I had no problems getting in but it was still exceptionally busy. I thought that after three days the bubble would have cleared the newbie grounds but once again the starter village was absolutely heaving. So, it turned out, was every hunting ground and quest hub in the whole of the first zone. There must be plenty of new mmorpgs that would love to have these kinds of numbers for an Early Access launch.

Compared to launch day, this feels virtually deserted.

At least the crowds weren't so dense that I couldn't find enough quest mobs to kill, although frequently I was competing with dozens, scores of other players for the spawns. I guess that's why I kept getting group invites one after another. Either ROSE players are exceptionally sociable or the game has shared quest credit in parties.

I could have accepted one of the invites and found out for sure but I like to have at least a basic idea of what I'm doing before I party up. Call me a traditionalist that way. Not that there's all that much to figure out. After playing so many modern, imported, mobile-oriented games like Chimeraland or Noah's Heart, some of which seem to make a virtue of obscurity, ROSE Online feels thrillingly simple.

A peculiar quirk of the quest system is the way the dialog just trails across the screen. Not sure I've ever seen anything quite like it.

That said, while it has many of the trappings of a game of its era, it's surely also had the benefit of a decade of post-launch development. If it had played this smoothly and looked this good in 2005, we'd all have been there, wouldn't we?

And I do have to say that, even after all these years, that basic mid-noughties mmorpg gameplay loop still works. It really does. All that happens in the first ten levels of ROSE Online is a brief introduction to the head of the local village, leading to a string of simple tasks for the guards, farmers and villagers. To call them quests would be a call-back to that Monty Python sketch. You know the one. You'd think after a couple of decades I'd have developed some kind of immunity but apparently not. 

Sitting down to get your health and power back is another throwback mechanic, although you can also eat and drink for a similar effect.

It helps a lot that mobs drop clothing that goes into your appearance slots, meaning you get to change your look early on, although since one of the items that dropped was a pair of pants for which there seems to be no leg slot, it's possible I may be overselling the lack of mystery in the game. I took a while trying to figure out how to put them on but I got there in the end, although I couldn't explain how I did it.

For such an elderly mmorpg, the visuals are surprisingly appealing. The style is described elsewhere as "anime" but it feels more generically cartoonish to me. There's not a huge amount of detail but the set design isn't bad and the color palette is cheery. There's a huge amount of on-screen clutter, not least the heaping piles of uncollected loot that cover every inch of the killing fields but you can toggle a lot of it off in the options.

Okay, now it's your turn to hit me.

Combat at this extremely low level is about as basic as it could possibly be. Until you start to specialize at Level 10 you get auto-attack plus one skill. You can also throw a stone for ranged pulls. For a weapon, everyone gets a wooden sword before an early quest upgrades that to a bamboo spear. That's it. 

It works. Mobs die quickly enough that it doesn't matter too much when the Kill Fives become Kill Eights and even Kill Sixteens. There's no shortage of targets, either. The ecosystem seems to operate on the same principles as the average battery farm.

Is it Halloween already?

At Level 10 you're sent to the training camp just outside the village, where a bunch of trainers stand around waiting to explain your options. You can revoke your "Visitor" status in favor becoming a Soldier, Muse, Hawker or Dealer. I didn't find it an easy choice.

I'm well aware that a pure melee character woud be the most straightforward and therefore probably the most appropriate in a game it's highly unlikely I'll still be playing by New Year. On the other hand, fighters are so bland at low levels. Magic-users are always more interesting although that interest tends to come at the expense of efficiency. And then there's the insiduous pull of the unfamiliar, that curious hybrid trader/crafter that also commands mercenaries and uses guns. 

The official Hawker uniform.

In the end I plumped for the Hawker and I'm already doubting my decision. It's an error I've made many times and one I fell into particularly often around the time ROSE Online was new. Somehow, the idea of picking off my targets with a bow from a hundred yards away always seems like it's going to be both easy and fun and yet it so rarely is, unless you also get a pet to tank for you.

I'm pretty sure the Hawker doesn't get a pet. I guess I'll find out for sure next time I play. I logged out at the start of the second zone, where my Hawker trainer sent me to get some hands-on experience with the bow. He also told me not to forget to buy some arrows from him, advice which I now realize I completely ignored, so the first thing I'll have to do when I log in next time is go back to the training camp and pick some up. That's going to be embarassing.

I think this might be more my style.

Such is the life of a neophyte Hawker. I'd better get used to it. I have another ninety levels to go before I can call myself a Scout, which is what experienced archers are known as in this game. Somehow I don't think I'm going to make it but stranger things have happened. After all, I'm still playing Noah's Heart...

The Return Of Rose Online - or - Always Pack A Spare Pair Of Shoes

If there's one thing that must be obvious to everyone who's been reading this blog of late, it's that what I really need right now is another mmorpg. I mean, I'm juggling the ones I'm already playing so gosh-darned amazingly, it'd be a snap to slot in another and do it full justice, right?

Okay, maybe not. But I'm doing it anyway. Or I will be, as soon as the servers come up.

Rose Online, the game in question, is far from new. In fact it's seventeen years old, with a checkered history of cancellations and changes of ownership. I remember it fairly well from the distant past but only as a name. 

By 2005 I was playing EverQuest II and past the stage of trying every single mmorpg I could get my hands on (Well, pretty much.) and I definitely never played Rose Online, although I do have a vague memory of thinking about it. At the time, though, it wasn't anything like as easy to register accounts with Korean publishers. I imagine it looked like more hoop-jumping than my mild interest merited.

Things have changed, I'm very pleased to say. This afternoon it took me no more than five minutes to go from reading about Rose Online's imminent Early Access launch, happening today, to having the client downloaded and an account registered. 

Of course, when I went to log in at the appointed time of 6 PM, the current owners, Rednim Games, had announced a thirty-minute delay for a last-second patch. The server is up now, but I'm still waiting to get in as I type this, three hours later.

Fortunately, for the purposes of this post, I already had something planned that doesn't require that I actually play the game at all. I was going to make some observations on a few things I read on the website as I was looking to find out what the game is all about.

First, the classes. There are four, which is very normal for these kinds of games. Usually you can predict  what they're going to be without even looking. If, when you do look, the names seem a little unusual, you can easily break it down to the inevitable Fighter, Mage, Cleric and Rogue.

Not here, you can't. Guess what these four do: Soldier, Muse, Hawker, Dealer. It was seeing those class names that got me intrigued. Soldier is obvious but the others?

Muse turns out to be the magic-user but also the healer, depending on which specialism you eventually choose. All base classes split into two separate paths, although not for a long time. As far as I understand it, you don't even get to choose a base class until Level 10 and specialization doesn't come until Level 100! If levelling is at 2005 speed, that could take a year.

Soldier splits into Knight and Champion, which looks like Warrior and Paladin to me. That leaves Hawker and Dealer. Any guesses?

Well, this is a 2005 mmorpg so the basic MMO Trinity is likely to be in full effect. We have our Tank and the Mage is doing double service as Healer and Magic DPS so we're probably going to need a melee DPS and some kind of bow-user. Say hi to the Raider and the Scout. They have those  disciplines covered.

 

So far, so straightforward, discounting the eliptical naming conventions. What's left for the Dealer? Crowd control, maybe? General support?

Yeah, not really. Dealers are crafters and traders. Apparently trading is a whole, separate career option in this game, which "features its own in-game economy which is directly controlled by players. Things become even odder when the time comes for a Dealer to specialize. At Level 100 you have the option of becoming an Artisan, which is fairly self-explanatory, or a ...

Come on. Guess!

Bourgeois! 

Okay, who had that? Brings a whole new meaning to the term "Class", doesn't it? For any number of verry good reasons, no developer would think of calling an mmorpg class "Bourgeois". Except of course, back in 2005, someone did.

To make it even weirder still, the Bourgeois appears to be a pet class. They can hire mercenaries to fight for them. They also turn out to be good for crowd control and support after all, only not in any way you could possibly have imagined: "Bourgeois characters use their financial abilities to gain control and influence over their opponents and to make sure their allies are well supplied."

Seriously? I can play a character who has so much money they can bribe monsters to leave them alone? Awesome! Also, I get to bankroll my party, which sounds a lot less appealling. 

Anything else worth mentioning about the classes? Oh, I don't know... how about their dress sense? 

Rose Online has to be the only mmorpg I can remember that finds it appropriate to include fashion tips in the class descriptions. There isn't exactly a dress code, other than the usual restrictions on armor types, but how about these subtle hints?

"As religious devotees, Clerics prefer wearing neat, clean clothing, and light colored armors."

"Usually, Mages wear armor that makes them look gloomy, evil or eccentric. Sometimes they put on long and pointed hats, making them look like witches..."

"Raiders are sharp dressers and can wear stylish feathered hats."

"Scouts... always carry a quiver, and seem to like wearing animal furs."

"Bourgeois... wear lightweight, yet luxurious clothing that emphasizes their wealth. They can carry an extra pair of shoes for long trips."

"Artisans prefer dark clothing, as well as a broad brimmed hat to block the glare of the sun when they travel."

Doesn't some of that seem weirdly specific?  An extra pair of shoes? Neat, clean clothing? All those hats?

It all sounds jolly interesting, anyway. If the server ever settles down, I think I'll check in and find out for myself if the game lives up to the promise of the website. If I find anything worth reporting on, maybe there'll be a First Impressions post sometime.

Just not tonight. This launch is getting a little too convincingly 2005 for me right now. I think I'll go play something that works.