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Playing Ragnarok Online on a private server that emulates the game circa like 2005 is a nostalgia trip.
(hexbear.net)
I tried playing on the live server but I was turned off by the cash shop junk and how top heavy the game is, everyone is level 100+ with fab gear and it felt lonely at the bottom. Plus Prontera is a mess and lags my game given how many people are vending there.
So I'm trying out this small private server called Payon Stories. And I made a swordsman. The game feels just like I remembered, well sort of, because I played during the private beta before features like blacksmithing were added in. When I played cards were new so I need to learn a whole bunch of stuff but it's fun! I'm aiming to make this character a hybrid knight and farm mummies in the pyramid dungeon or orcs.
I spent way too much time on this game, but I made at least one life long friend on it.
And it was the first place I ever met a trans person. Her screen name was kirademi and I will always thank her for letting me ask my stupid teenage questions about trans women way before I had an inkling that I might be trans. I owe it to her though because she helped me understand and empathize with trans people from a young age. I haven't spoken to her in well over a decade at this point but I hope she's doing great wherever she is.
I miss playing mid rate and ultra high rates though. I catch myself reminiscing about the stalker class and the professor class, they were probably some of my favorite mmo classes because of their pvp class specific abilities and versatility. When battlegrounds came out on the last midrate I played, I rolled support and control on both jobs because they were nearly unkillable when spec'd correctly.
Thanks for sharing some cool memories.