While my brothers were hogging my DS playing Ragnarok Offline (as they called it), I decided to relive my college days by re-installing Ragnarok Online into my laptop. Yeah, I could’ve played something else (like WoW), but RO was something I always enjoyed so I didn’t really care that it was an ageing MMO.
Wary of the idiots on the local servers, I joined an international server so that I did not have to deal with spam in my chatbox. While I was logged in, I also deliberately set myself up as an anti-social, one-man raid party — ignoring trade, party, and chat invites. I was playing the game for myself, so the loss of the game’s social functions did not bother me too much.
Once I set up my character and starting pounding away at the hapless porings, I realized that: 1) pounding away at the hapless porings was as fun now as it was ten years ago; and 2) I am now crap at this!
Having to start over again from scratch, I had forgotten at lot of the tactics that n00bs were supposed to use for faster levelling without the aid of juiced-up armor, weapons, and abilities. I was dying almost as quickly as I was gaining XP, and eventually I gave in to the temptation of begging for better equipment. This was when I realized that the more things changed, the more they stayed the same.
As a female sprite, higher-ranked players of the male persuasion were more inclined to give me stuff. Some items were dropped on the ground, with an encouraging emoticon or two by the former owners while walking away. Others initiated trade windows that netted me vast amounts of consumables — potions and scrolls, in exchange for a pitiful Lunatic card (don’t ask).
However, it was that one player who offered me a +10 armor set in exchange for a link to my Facebook profile that took the cake. It would’ve been a PVP weapon and shield set in exchange for an approved Friendster request years ago — but apparently inflation and site obsolesence has set in. It’s still the same MO, just a different bait and SNS.
I had declined his offer, stood up, and walked away (or fly-winged away, to be more specific). When I re-materialized I was alone in the upper right corner of the map, which suited me just fine since I has to sift through my haul. In my first day back in the game, I had better equipment than I ever did grinding away for a week on the local servers. Boo-yah~
Looks like I’ll be sticking around for a while — I need a Valkyrie armor set and a pet MVP for shits and giggles.
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