Ragnabot… errr, I mean Ragnarok

One of the few blogs I regularly monitor is Waukster.com by the famous Wauks or Waukeen of pRO. I don’t know him personally but I’ve read his name mentioned many times in various gaming and even non-gaming forums because of some issues that happened to his character back in the early days of Ragnarok Online Philippines.

Back then, the game was plagued with all kinds of issues like cheating by the GMs, GMs favoring certain players, internal hacking and deleting of characters and guilds, etc. but the one issue that made me quit Ragnarok Online forever was the failure of the publisher to put an end to botting or the use of third party programs by other players. That was four years ago! Today, the game is still infested with bots. I wouldn’t be surprise if its the only thing that’s keeping the game alive.

You know what’s worst about Ragnarok and botting? The publisher admitted that they’re helpless against it. They openly admitted defeat in public. I guess they’re just being honest about it but saying something like that is almost like welcoming them with open arms, if you know what I mean. O_o

Level Up! acknowledges that “botting” cannot be fully prevented. However, in respect to keeping the game fair and having a healthy virtual economy, Level Up! still continues in its efforts to control the negative impact of bots.

This was originally posted at Ragnarok Philippines and Level-Up Games websites but apparently it’s gone now!

That statement really makes me laugh! How can you have a healthy virtual economy when, again, they admitted that they “cannot curb PHP (in-game item trading for real money)”. Come on! Botters use bots to farm items and gold which they sell in PHP. How can you have a healty virtual economy when you have that kind of practice in your game. Is that so hard to grasp?

Anyway, botting in Ragnarok Online Philippines is really an old issue and besides, the publisher indirectly allows it so why bother with it.  The only reason I got interested with it is because of Wauks latest post which is about Ragnarok Online’s RWC 2008 Billboard. The post made me remember my days playing Ragnarok Online and how the publisher pissed off a lot of players with the way they handled the game back then which is still quite true to this day.

Me? I don’t care that much about the publishers anymore because they don’t really care about their players. They may look like they care but in reality they’re not. So, why care about them. Now, I focus more on the game itself instead of the publisher. If the game is good then I’ll play it and if it’s not then I won’t.

GMs, CMs, FMs and whatever they’re called are just pawns controlled by the big guys. They’re the ones who relays the BS from the big guys to the community because that’s their job. You can say that they’re paid to care which is really what they are. Seriously, do you think they would care if it wasn’t their job? Hardly!

Just play the game, have fun and don’t spend too much money on it specially if it’s FREE to play. If something pissed you off in-game then stop for a few hours and do something else like maybe blog about your in-game experiences. If there are issues within the game then file a report but don’t expect too much from it so that you won’t be disappointed if nothing happens. Remember, if you are not having fun then it’s not worth playing.

Ooooh! I just realized that I was already off my original topic. He he he! Anyway, I will end this post with a quote from Evil Woobie which practically sums up this ongoing issue on Ragnarok and botting, “they need botters’ money”! LOL!