A short interview with a staff member of Gravity Korea published on an online site. Most of it is related to the new kRO ‘Baphomet’, which is free to play (read about Baphomet here). View the full article to see the interview.

Q: What is your motivation for opening a free server at this time?
A: While its also because of the declining number of users, late this year we have a large scale renewal including 3rd class occupations. We’re hoping new characters will be able to get into range of the new content by the time its added.

Q: Don’t you think the user reactions would be better if players could transfer to the free server?
A: We don’t have any intentions at this time of allowing character migrations to the new server or allow character transfers. We considered both balance and equality between new and established users and decided against it.

Q: What kind of cash items are you planning on selling?
A: At this time, the same items as main servers.

Q: When you compare the free server to the pay servers, doesn’t it seem like there isn’t much merit to it?
A: Well since this is the first free server we’re offering in Korea, we’re approaching the free server cautiously. The important key here is that we don’t want our existing users to feel alienated or ripped off.

Q: When did you first consider running a free to play server?
A: To tell the truth, we’ve been considering it for years now. Free servers have already opened in Taiwan, China and Thailand and have been quite successful so we saw an opportunity to move forward with our own this year.

Q: Speaking of which, what kinds of things did you have planned for later this year?
A: We have a lot of really exciting changes in the works, including a large scale renewal. Some of the changes will continue on into next year. Of course the removal of the existing level cap and addition of 3rd classes and skills are planned, but we have lots of other things planned to have done both before and after.

Q: At what point do you think you would call Ragnarok ‘complete’?
A: I don’t think you can ever really call an online game complete. Even though our initial vision of representing the struggle between the game’s three kingdoms is met, we still plan on continuing to expand on it within the coming years.

Q: About the sequel, are there still no plans to release Ragnarok 2? (Note: Plans to have RO2 go pay to play were temporarially suspended last year and the game has returned to development)
A: I don’t think the graphics and game play of RO2 is bad, but I think that it had an insufficient grasp on the users needs. We’ve been working hard to revamp the game so that it it will be enjoyable when its released.

Categories: kRo News