Hey everyone! We’re back from Ragnarok Origin NA‘s official Closed Beta Test! It was a busy couple of days filled with fun, excitement, and new experiences. We thought of writing this post to let you know how it went, as well as the things we’ve learned and experienced during the CBT.
Table of Contents
The Entire Experience
On the first day, we were quite frantic here at bunnhop since we didn’t know if we’d actually get to take part in the CBT. We’d been waiting for hours for some sort of email or notification from Gravity, only to find a few minutes before the servers opened at 16:00 PDT that it was in our Spam folder all along! ლ(¯ロ¯”ლ)
After registering as a tester, we downloaded the game and it took quite a while to patch–most probably due to the large number of people patching the game all at the same time! While patching, we were trying set up our stream (this was my first stream in 4 years and my first ever on YouTube!).
When the patch completed, we streamed for about an hour and a half, which was the total amount of time we spent at the Novice Academy and the Archer Guild. Too long, I know… but I can’t stop myself from talking to all the NPCs and checking if there have been any changes from my time at the Academy in Ragnarok Origin Japan.
After streaming, we went ahead and played through the main story while recording for our brand new lore video series. We also tried to help out on the in-game world chat as much as we could by answering a few questions from ROO beginners. It was good to meet players from around the world: NA, Brazil, South East Asia, and Europe! Unfortunately, we couldn’t play that long on the first day since we had decided to get started on a new video.
The following day, we uploaded our take on the first chapter of Ragnarok Origin‘s main story quests. We played a little in the afternoon, still focusing on the main story. We also did the same stuff on the third day of the CBT–main quest recording, participating in the world chat, taking screenshots, and just taking in the beauty of the game.
As for bugs, we noticed two major ones and a few mistranslated/other text-related issues. We made sure to report them via the Feedback feature in the game.
On the fourth day–or rather, night–we managed to collect enough Emblems to join the Themed Party! It was also a delight to see how everyone was helping one another on the world chat by requesting for and sending Emblems, so we could all join the party!
It was our first Themed Party in ROO and we were really excited about it! It was such an enjoyable event where you can dance to your heart’s content, take it slow, and just mingle with other players. We’re definitely looking forward to joining naROO’s weekly Themed Party event on Sundays at 19:00 PDT when the game comes out!
We played for a few hours on the last day but sadly, we weren’t able to stay long enough to watch the emotional last few hours of the CBT, although we noticed a few heartfelt “Goodbye” and “See you on the OBT” messages from the chat the night before. If ROO NA’s community would be as welcoming, cooperative, and non-toxic as what we had witnessed during the CBT, then it every day would be a great day to play Ragnarok Origin when it gets released officially.
Now, let’s get down to the more interesting stuff!
What’s New in ROO NA?
Here you can find game features and mechanics that we noticed during ROO NA’s CBT but are not available in jROO. Also included are a few changes in terms of translation (i.e. how we translated the words from Japanese to English in our previous videos vs. the official translation used in the game).
1. Social Media Share Button When Receiving Rewards
I first noticed this at the Novice Academy, particularly that time when you receive your first head ornament gift made by Sprakki from Greta, the Gift Manager. A little Share button is present, which is quite handy if you want to show your latest fashion rewards to your friends.
The same button also appeared during the first chapter of the main story quests–that time when you receive a gift from the strange foreign lady from Arunafeltz at the Indigo Parrot bar.
Looking back to our time on a Japanese ROO server, that Share button was not there at all! The only thing you can share across your social media accounts are photos you take using the Camera Mode.
Since the Gacha window was not available during the CBT, I wasn’t able to check if this Share button is also present when you roll any of the gachas. I’d imagine that if you were lucky enough to get one of the top prizes in the weekly fashion gacha (which I did in jROO–I got an Anubis Helm!), some players might want to brag about it on Facebook or Twitter. (I certainly did… because I was so surprised that I got a really good one on my first roll that day!)
What do you think about this additional feature in naROO? Would you share your new fashion items to your social media friends?
2. Storyline Glossary
As discussed in our previous blog post and video, the Notebooks–now called Guide–window has 7 guidebooks : Adventure, Equipment, Boss Strategy, Monster, Poring Observation, Card, and Customize. This is your one-stop shop for checking your adventure milestones; codex entries; strategizing your boss hunt, monster grinding, and equipment crafting; collectibles; and for customizing little tidbits of info about your character.
What ROO NA has that jROO doesn’t is a significant addition to these guidebooks: the Storyline Glossary. This is basically your lore codex that’s divided into three segments:
- Storyline Memories – If you absolutely love to read stories like I do, this one’s for you! Here, you can read each of the chapters of the game’s main story arc written in prose form. Each chapter tells your adventure in a more in-depth way with hidden dialogues and your player-character’s thoughts added to how you experienced that chapter in-game, further amplifying your immersion into ROO’s profound story.
According to this segment, the main story arc has 16 chapters. In jROO, I’ve only gotten to Chapter 13 due to the level requirements, but am definitely looking forward to focusing on the main story in my playthrough! - Image Collection – The first tab, also called Image Collection, shows the collection of images from the cinematic cutscenes available in the entire game. Most of them are accessible through Story quests, but a couple can only be found through Adventure quests.
The second tab, Animation Display, lets you replay the cinematic cutscenes you’ve collected. - Journey Along – Tapping on this shows you the World Map. When you tap on each available location on the map, mostly cities and towns, a window pops up. This first tab, Journey of the Wind, shows the significant buildings that can be found in that city or town, accompanied by short descriptions for each.
On the other hand, the second tab Intel Note gives you a rundown on the Factions that operate in that location, Events that you’ve experienced, as well as Key Items you’ve found. Every time you meet a Faction, experience and Event, and discovered a Key Item, you unlock that particularly entry and you can read more about it in its description column.
3. Translations
In our first few videos, my Japanese-to-English translation skills were put to the test. I did have prior experience in part-time jobs and an internship, but it had been 4 years since I did all that! Anyway, I tried to translate in-game texts and names for features to the best of my ability, and was surprised that I mostly came pretty close to the official translation Gravity chose for ROO NA.
Below is a list of in-game features that I had translated differently from the official translation during the CBT, which will be helpful and may serve as a reference to those who have watched our guide videos. So you won’t be confused, bunnhop translation is/are now official translation.
- Quests:
- Challenge Quests are now Misc. (Miscellaneous Quests).
- Special Quests are now Journey Quests.
- Currencies:
- Catnips are now Nyan Berries.
- Copper Coins are now Eden Coins.
- Mercenary Names:
- Raijin is now Raygene.
- Lilira is now Lililah
- Jono is now Juno.
- Jessie is now Sanji.
- Feature/Window Names:
- Trading is now Trade.
- Shop is now RO Shop.
- Notebook is now Guide.
- Progression Rewards is now Growth Gift.
- Closet is now Wardrobe
- Adventure Notebook is now Adventure Diary.
- Equipment Picture Book is now Book of Gears.
- Boss Strategy Book is now Boss Tips.
- Monster Picture Book is now Monster Glossary.
- Poring Observation Notebook is now Poring Journal.
- Card Picture Book is now Card Glossary.
- Customize Picture Book is now Customization Glossary.
The above are the ones we’ve noticed so far, and we’ll definitely update this when the servers reopen for either OBT or the official release.
4. Voiced Player Character during Cutscenes
As you may have seen in our JP-to-EN videos in our Let’s Explore Ragnarok Origin! Tutorial series, during animated cutscenes NPCs are voiced but your player-character isn’t. However, in ROO NA your player-character is also voiced! The voice depends on your chosen character sex during character creation. Obviously, you’ll get a female voice if your character is female and a male voice if you created a male character.
It’s also great to know that both animated and cinematic cutscenes are voiced in English. Some NPCs also have random (as in unrelated to the dialogue text) English voice dialogues during conversations. This is entirely different from our experience playing Ragnarok Mobile: Eternal Love on the SEA server when we were still living in Japan. The only available languages for voice dialogues were Chinese, Japanese, and Korean as far as we can recall.
Having a voiced PC is definitely a matter of contention among gamers. Some like it, some don’t. How about you? Do you like this NA ROO feature or prefer not to hear your character’s voice in cutscene? I personally don’t mind since the PC rarely talks during cutscenes anyway.
5. Feedback/Bug Report Button
When I noticed a bug that I wanted to report, I asked a fellow CBT tester what the appropriate avenue is. They told me that there’s actually a Feedback feature that can be found by tapping on the Rewards button. It’s the bell thingy right next to the Redeem bell.
I wonder if they’ll keep this Feedback feature in the official release. I think they should since it would be great if players could report bugs and make suggestions as easy as tapping this button, instead of having to minimize the game to reach them via their social media or a support forum.
During the CBT, we got rewards each time we reported a bug and that was really cool! If they implemented the same in the game’s official release version, I fear that some people might exploit this so I’m pretty certain they’ll make changes as to these bug report rewards.
Beginners’ Game Mechanics
During the course of the CBT, we noticed that many testers came purely from a Ragnarok Online background and didn’t have the experience playing ROO on either the Korean or Japanese servers or a private server. So we figured it’d also be helpful if we included a basic explanation of the following mechanics. Here are a couple of things that are present in both ROO NA and jROO but we didn’t discuss in detail in our previous Ragnarok Origin guide videos.
1. Skill Differences between RO and ROO Jobs: New and Lost Skills
You may have seen from our Trying Out All Job Classes! video that there clearly are some significant differences between RO and ROO’s skills. We’ll do a more detailed presentation of these “new” and (what we like to call) “lost” skills in future videos, but we can give you a quick rundown for now.
So far, we’ve tried playing as a Swordsman, an Archer, a Mage, and a Thief and we can confirm that these four classes have some “new” and “lost” skills. Our Thief, for instance, has Trick Control and Shield Dodge which are not available in RO. When you advance into an Assassin, you’ll have an offensive skill called “Red Cut” which definitely doesn’t sound familiar to long-time RO fans like us.
Interestingly as a Thief, instead of Hiding where you simply go invisible without the ability to walk, you get Stealth which is similar to an Assassin’s Cloaking skill that allows you to walk while hiding.
Another example is our Hunter. Looking at the Skill window, we can find the offensive skill Wind Dance which is not something RO Hunters have. Conversely, some RO Hunter skills such as Ankle Snare and Shockwave Trap are not available in Ragnarok Origin.
2. Skill Differences between RO and ROO Jobs: Platinum/Quest Skills
If you’ve played Ragnarok Online, you may remember that some skills for your chosen Job class won’t be available until you finish a corresponding required quest. An example of this is Charge Arrow/Arrow Repel for Archers.
In ROO, some of these “Quest Skills”—also known as Platinum Skills–will either automatically be made available to you on your Skill window when you change Jobs, or be given to you by the head instructor of your Job Guild. In my case, Cecilius (or Cerceiliz) gave me the Charge Arrow skill as a gift! However, the Quest Skill Arrow Craft is not available in ROO and is therefore a “lost” skill.
Back Slide is a Thief Platinum Skill in RO, but you’ll automatically get it when you officially become a member of the Thief Guild. One noteworthy thing is that Detoxify, which is just a regular support skill for Thieves in RO, is gifted to you by Queste, the head of the Thief Guild.
How was your CBT experience? Did you enjoy it as much as we did? What features that are exclusive to naROO did you find most interesting? We hope to see you all the next time the NA server becomes available! Until then, stay tuned for more Ragnarok Origin blog posts and videos!