2 Days to go

So close yet so far....

GRFs - Check
NoDelay - Check
RoMedic - Check
AHK - Check
Client - Nope
Friends - Nope
Guild - Nope

"WE WILL PROVE YOU WRONG! "
Well that was Aurela's reply to my post(Thoughts on ElariaRO) on Elaria forums. Well, that shows how much GMs believe in their server.

Guess who showed up on RaidCall???
Thats right....its vild!

Well, vild aka timon aka virreh was the guild leader and my mentor in  Atherea. Heck, he was the only player I could play with on that server. He had the courage, compassion, dedication, leadership and passion. His skills as  High-Priest were paramount. We never needed a 2nd HP in our parties when we had vild!. He was so caring and would encourage everyone in the guild. He set up our RC server and would provide clear and precise instructions for everyone in the parties. He would be so patient even during wipes. His voice alone would calm me down when we get wiped. If we ever have a zombie apocalypse I would definitely entrust my life to Timon. So if you ever see a char name "vildor", know that you are looking at a legend.

Well after the talk, I found that none of our old members are joining the server. So basically its just me and vild. I was planning on making a SB monk for guild, but guess I will go for a sin or knight. Right now the only players we have for any parties are Thae, vild, me and phoenix(wtf with a tk ranker?). We are definetely lacking a prof (maybe searing). IMO, I will just wait and check the server before calling anyone.

Hopefully the server launch doesn't get postponed. Looking forward to playing during lunch.

-Coco

P.S. Timon, you owe me money.

Guide to Monster Sprite Editing using Actor

This guide is intended to explain grf editing to change monster sprites in RO. This guide is specifically useful for players damaging the mvp i.e creators, champs, snipers and whitesmiths. It will show you how to increase the size of spirtes of some anooying MVPs like Valk, Dark Lord, Mistress etc.

Before we start, we need to get some groundwork done. You will need 2 programs to edit the sprites:
Grf Builder: Official Site or RMS
actOR2: RMS

Setting up 2 directories:

1. test : used to store spr and act files temporarily.
2. final: After creating final directory create direcotry data\sprite\몬스터/\. You may have to copy and paste the name for the last part. Your final directory should look something like this:
   
   
   
   
   
   Now we have the pre-req down lets get down to editing. We first need to extract and act and spr of the MVP we want to edit. I am choosing mistress as an example

Extracting act and spr:

1. Start your Grf Builder.
   
   
   
   
   
2. Open the data.grf from your RO folder. This grf contains most of the pre-renewal monster spirtes. If you do not find some mobs you are looking for, they may be present in rdata.grf or your server specific grf file.
   
   
   
3. Search for mistress.* .  the '*' char is a wildcard which basically searches for everything that starts with mistress. All monster sprites are under "data\sprite\몬스터\".
   
   
   
• In case you cant find the exact spirte use '*' to find all the related mobs. The following shows all mobs starting with orc.
  
  
4.  Extract both the mistress.act and mistress.spr to your test folder.

Editing the Sprite:

1. Fire up actOR2.
2. Open the mistress.act in your test folder.
   
   
   
3. You may get an error, but its ok.
   
   
   
4. Click on Script->LoadandRun->Magnifier.
   
   
   
5. You can see the sprite of mistress has been magnified by 3x.
6. If you want to increase or decrease the magnification, open magnifier.lua with an notepad and edit "mag=" value.
7. Save the act file and overwrite the original file in test folder.

Making new GRF

1. After saving the mistress.act and mistress.spr, copy both the files to final\data\sprite\ 몬스터\.
   
   
   
2. Fire up Grf Builder again.
3. Select new and name your new grf file.
   
   
   
4. Select mergeDir and choose your data folder within final folder.
   
   
   
5. Click on repack and your grf is complete.
   
   
   

Adding your new grf.

1. Copy he new grf to your RO foler and edit the DATA.ini using notepad.
2. Make sure the new grf is sset first before data.grf. This enables the engine to search mistres.grf first for mistress sprite before it check the others.
   
   
3. Do note, adding many new grf to your data.ini may slightly slow your loading since it has to load and search all the grf for the sprite and effects.

Hopefully that was resourceful and not too complicated. Once your are familiar with it, you can start editing  char sprites,effects and basically anything you wish to change.

Sorry for watermarking all the images. I just don't want people to directly copy all the guide.

-Coco

My Thoughts on ElariaRO

After going through their forums and advertisements, here are my thoughts on the server...

• The server will probably start with 40-60 people max.
• There will just be 2-3 pvm guilds.
• There may be at-most 1 woe guild which would probably quit after 2-3 woes.
• No parties unless you are in a good pvm guild.
• Since there are no woe guild and no woe mats, BG will be non-existent.
• Server will last till July or August.
• Easy to know everyone on the server, since there are very few players.
• If I make a whitesmith or champ, all yo mvps belongs to me.
• Aurela seems like a real good caring person. Somehow reminds me of Mesmerize from uv-ro.

Anyways, I will still play on this server casually and hope to make great new friends. I hope they have a raidcall server(trollface). Wonder if they made all this just to make us fools on April 1st :P.

My plan was to make a guide to edit grfs but its too late and I feel sleepy. I will definetely post a nice guild to edit monsters grf tomorrow. Until then...

Ciao...
-Coco

Choosing Server and Class

Well hello again.

Today I spent quite a while to decide on a server to play. I usually play low rate, non-renewal servers.  Why? Cause I just like-old school and renewal is kinda boring. To be honest I rather play a new game than renewal-255lvl high rate server. Its just not my type.

After checking out all the threads on RMS i.e http://forum.ratemyserver.net/low-rates/, I have decided to play on ElariaRO. Its is opening on 1st April so it gives me some time to wait. I actually know few players on the server: Thae and Phoenix. On the note of finding the right server, I want to share few of my tips:

• Choose a fresh server: Well it gives you the old school feel. Leveling from scrath with just no equips and no place to buy them is quite fun. Also, if you play carefully, you can control the whole economy of the server. If you like to join your friends and just let them farm gears for you, ignore the first tip.

• Check the website: This is self explanatory. Make sure the standards are good and check all the info. You don't want the whole server to fail cause they didn't have DDOS or nodelay protection.

•  Check the forums: This is the most important factor in choosing the server. It gives the detailed information on the server and the owners. It also tell you how many players are expected during the launch and participating guilds. It also gives you info on woe:pvm players. If you are playing some tough classes like sage or crusader, try making a thread for a party on server launch. Try to act friendly, you may get free undershirts just cause you mentioned Naruto in Anime section :P.

•  Check Rankings: if your server is recently opened check how many people have transed or where the major people are stuck at. This may help you when you choose a support char. Most servers aloow access to their rankings without registration, so it should be fairly simple. The rankings also provide info on Zeny and Guilds. Some servers also provide info on who's online and map locations.

•  Get to know the GMs: Check around the forums and find out their behavior. Some of them don't listen to any suggestions while others implement every idea suggested. Figure out how they stand out. It may be essential to the server in a long run.

 That should be sufficient enough for a quick review of the server.

Now for the classes...
I generally tend to play Whitesmith as my main class. However, it requires a lot of dedication and I just wanna play casually. People say starting a blacksmith is way too tough and expensive but when I do it, I end up at lvl 99 on the second day with around 12-16m zeny and laugh at those priests in Sphinx. After changing to whitesmith, I usually earn ~100m in the first week and that's without vending. I might actually post a guide to it later.

I have tried thinking of other classes i.e LK, Assasin and Wizard.

Lk is pretty much mob and BB to death. It is fun to lure large mobs of mobs to party but it gets obsolete in DG and New World.

Sin in pretty decent. With hide and grim, I could go to many places and probably reach 99 on day2-3. But sin is pretty much solo play, so I would probably be forever-alone.

Wizard seems pretty fun. I would be needed in all the parties. Moreover, I do have good experience with Bios, so I could help out good guilds. I could actually try solo mobbing with my wizard. Maybe try new techniques like frost nova and LOV or just HD everything to death. Fun fact: Wear a ulles and opera masque and nobody will doubt your gears as wizard.

Currently, I am might make a wizard. So expect a lot of wizzy screenies. I may make a SB monk if I find a good enough guild to do SM and Orleans farm.

Wow I never realized that I wrote such a long post. I will probably post some guide tomorrow.
Cya tomorrow.

-Coco

My First Post

Hello Guys!

Woot my first post!!

Well, I have just decided to start my own blog while I play RO. Its basically like an online journal where I can keep my memories and share my experience while I play the game. Hopefully, some of the posts can help enhance your gameplay.

Please do note, I do not consider myself as the best in this game. I just play the game casually and try making new friends.

Hmm thats it for now I guess. I will make a post later regarding the server which I chose to play.

Until then...

-Coco