Gaming: Ragnarok Server Downtime
I was sleeping soundly around 6:00AM when my phone rang like a gazillion times. Once I opened my eyes, I already knew that something was wrong with Ragnarok Online. I immediately got up, read through the text messages and took in some calls. My worst fears have come true - SERVERS DOWN (>.<;). When I was a player, I used to hate it when Level-up would just say that there was a technical problem. Since I constantly preach about transparency, let's try to change the way LU communicates to the community. I'll give you guys the blow-by-blow account WHY the servers went down.
To those who don’t know, the billing server is separate from the account/game servers. Basically our Billing Server supplier, Pay Letter Inc., did an update that desynchronized the interaction of the billing, account, and game servers. This happened sometime 5:30AM, and this resulted in a massive DC for all the players in-game. I’ve already talked to Pay Letter (who is also a Korean company) to inform us before doing any updates. It would be better if they did that in coordination with Gravity and Level-up as oppossed to just doing it without us knowing.
Anyway, I apologize for the mess guys. Though technical problems are bound to come up every now and then, we should be more prepared to address them as they come. Most, if not all of the servers are up. You might experience some instability for the next 2-3 hours while Gravity works on stabilizing everything. Thanks for your understanding and support! I’ll try to coordinate everything here at the office so that the servers still affected get fixed at the soonest possible time.
By the way guys, if you haven’t left a comment yet, please join the discussion on the “Power Consumables” that we’re planning to release through the HyperMart. Click HERE to go to that post.
May 16th, 2007 at 2:31 pm
sir wauks ask ko lang magiging F2P ba ragna like ng rose??nbsa ko kc pinagiicipan niyo daw??
May 16th, 2007 at 2:37 pm
@train13
I don’t think pRO can be free-to-play anytime soon because it’s already too late to implement something like that. You have to think of it from a business POV din kasi. Maybe we can make a F2P server similar to China wherein monsters don’t drop cards or slotted equips, but you can buy those items at the mall.
That deserves an entirely different blog post though. You got me thinking so I’ll probably make a post about that later, hehe.
May 16th, 2007 at 2:37 pm
sana nga f2p
May 16th, 2007 at 2:39 pm
@Wauks
bat po nawala ang mga guilds,at bawal gumamit ng mailbox,party
May 16th, 2007 at 2:40 pm
looks like.
as to what is happening in the Hypermart, it sure does lead to one road, F2P.
i’m not telling how long the road is, but it will surely go to tat point.
they should announce when to avoid topping up cards.
May 16th, 2007 at 2:43 pm
isama na po natin friend list
maibabalik pa ba guilds?
May 16th, 2007 at 2:45 pm
Waaait! Wag OT. Antayin nyo post ko on that. Gagawa ako within the day. Very interesting topic kasi.
May 16th, 2007 at 2:48 pm
good job!
i’ll wait for the post!
May 16th, 2007 at 2:57 pm
F2P server in China monsters do drop cards and slotted equips. Peru they change drop rate ng some items in few monster, and replace some drops like elunium, oridecon and rare equips(very few lng) with apple. Tapos ibahin rin monster respawn, onti lng thara frog, zerom and poison spore sa cRO f2p server
May 16th, 2007 at 2:58 pm
Waaa wag maging OT!!
I’ll make a post about that later within the day.
May 16th, 2007 at 3:07 pm
SAna maayos yan within the day wahaha nid ko mag siege sa sakray
May 16th, 2007 at 3:09 pm
mga what time naman kaya maayos po yan di kasi ako maka connect wah
May 16th, 2007 at 3:15 pm
down nanaman po ung server… bakit po ganun???
May 16th, 2007 at 3:15 pm
sir wauks, when po ba mag up ang servers? up to now la parin eh..
May 16th, 2007 at 3:17 pm
wauks after the merge whats going to happen to thor
will our exp mod be just 3x?
will you work on banning the bots?
what about the antibot system?
midgard police?
after this you guys would finaly have time for thor your baby server or are you just going to prove to us that level up doesnt care and we are doomed to the bots
May 16th, 2007 at 3:18 pm
Back to topic. Up to now marami pa ring maps na down. Some players have lost their Guild and their list of friends. I for one can’t log in sa Thor.
May 16th, 2007 at 3:20 pm
i can log sa sakray kanina ewan ko lng ngyon kasi off kuna malalaman ntin mmaya kung maaayos pa yn
May 16th, 2007 at 3:20 pm
Yup servers are still unstable. We’re coming out with an announcement in a bit. Hopefully this gets fixed soon ~_~
May 16th, 2007 at 3:21 pm
Sorry to contradict sir wauks pero how can you say that the servers are up kung nasa 200+ lang out of the normal 1700 players ang naka online sa iris?!?
Ill bet my money 80% out of those 200 online are not even manual players.
May 16th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
@ Wauks
kala ko maglalabas ka na ng solution… anouncement lang pala.
May 16th, 2007 at 3:29 pm
@Chardy
Like what I said man - most of the servers are still unstable. Some servers already can hold all the players but some can’t. We’re coming out with an official update in a bit.
May 16th, 2007 at 3:31 pm
All we need is a time, so we can plan our day, pls
May 16th, 2007 at 3:38 pm
excuse me kung OT tapos na ba maintenance?
May 16th, 2007 at 3:39 pm
pano yan ..
dpat may pa konswelo sa mga player ..
bks na merge ..
dapat x5 na exp ..kc nag down p ngaun ung server ..
haha
May 16th, 2007 at 3:42 pm
Yung ibang servers up, yung iba down.
As soon as everything stabilizes, we will post another update.
May 16th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
waitt din!!! anung OT?
May 16th, 2007 at 3:51 pm
Off Topic ata eh
Ngaun ba merge kc d pa nagbabago ung RO dito un pa rin nakalagay Iris-Fenrir-Lydia Loki-Sarah Odin-Chaos
May 16th, 2007 at 4:02 pm
@Wauks
tanong lang po. andami pa hindi nakakapagayos ng gamit sa iris. i mean di pa nailalagay items nila sa kafra for save storage.
what assurance do we have na makaka login kami at maiaayos ang gamit namin for the merge before the merge maintenance actually starts?
May 16th, 2007 at 4:09 pm
Sir Wauks
SOrry OT po itong question ko… Ano na po b balita dun s letter nyo s gravity about s GTB partially disabled? Hindi p po ba nasasagot ung letter nyo?any Update nmn po sir.. dami rin nmin ngaantay kung totally disabled or Partially like what you’ve said. Thanks po s reply.
May 16th, 2007 at 4:11 pm
Q>bakit po parang iris lng po ang cra parin?? ang ibang servers parang naachive na nila ang max players pero iris 200-300 parin
gusto ko na po maglaro at aayusin ko pa kafra ko. kala ko pa namn maeexperience ko ang mga laro ng RO BUONG WEDNSDAY MORNING yun pala hinde 
May 16th, 2007 at 4:19 pm
I was thinking of a “the calm before the storm” scenario since Server Merge is already rimming. Pero biglang nabasa ko itong post mo Chief, sakit nga sa ulo yung ganyan and nakakagulat since mukhang di inaasahan yung update nung billing server (my honest opinion ito, I can be wrong din)
Since iba pala yung company ng Billing System/Server dapat mayron sila first hand notice about their upgrade. Pero weird na hindi sila nag iinform pero it does happen in the IT world.
Kahit nga sa iisang company lang lahat eh tapos iba iba teams ang nag hahandle minsan may nasisira pa kapag nag update.
May 16th, 2007 at 4:36 pm
@wauks
wag po muna mag EXP mod sa thor pls…sana pag meron na 9 char slot tsaka pag wala na po bot para fair…tapos may bug pa daw thor…
“on 16 May 2007 at 1:35 pm106
DeSquallie
Thor is suffering another bug, nawala ang mga guilds, friends, at party. Di rin makagawa ng party, maps sira, and above all… parang naging Test Server kami…………
“
May 16th, 2007 at 5:01 pm
[...] apparently, the 3rd part provider went on an update mode on the pRO servers without notifying LU! people, that was why they were literally caught with their ‘pants down’ when this happened… they immediately talked to the provider, and by 4pm, about 11 hours after, all servers are now back up, and players, both real and AI-driven, are all now inside the game… for the complete story, go to Waukeen’s post… [...]
May 16th, 2007 at 7:01 pm
AI-Driven.. ui alam q un a.. bwal yan sa Thor
kelan kaya sa ibng servers
May 16th, 2007 at 8:09 pm
Excuse me po Sir Wauks,
Meron po kasi akong novice account na nilagay ko dun lahat ng headgears ko, yes my whole headgear collection pati headgears ng chars ko na hindi kasama sa collection. All in all napuno yung kafra ng account na yun, almost 250+. Now sabi ng client wala na raw po akong load, so load ako P50. Sinasabi po ng client kanina “Sever recognizes your last login” tapos “Sorry but your prepaid account is expired…” etc. Pano yun? Eh kakaload ko lang po. Wala pa kong screenies ng headgears ko dun. Safe po ba sila?
Yan po ang buong ticket description na sinubmit ko sa Cust. Support. This is connected to the downtime kaya sana di ako OT. Yung ticket number hindi pa po ini-email sa kin kaya di ko malagay dito. Forgot it kasi. >.
May 16th, 2007 at 8:32 pm
(as always, from a bRO point of view)
Transparency… I wish I could tell in a simple comment how much we insisted with our management in this exact word. Many times we were not listened and LU made the same mistakes again and again.
Recently I’ve created a ticket on pRO customer support with a simple question: “What is Level Up! Games’ mission statement?” Answer: “We regret to inform you that we do not devulge such information.” Where is the transparency?
We players asked the same kind of question one year ago. Basically, what was LU doing in Brazil? The marketing manager had quite a bit of trouble answering that, but said that although being a foreign company, LU would care about the differences that Brazil would have.
That turned to be false, as we had never had a protest so big as the one against hypermart. Check how many players now. u_u
Transparency is a good word and I’m glad I’ve read it on your posts Mr. Wauks. Make this word reach our management here.
May 16th, 2007 at 11:54 pm
@bRO Player
I think it’s part of the growth pains seeing as Level-up is a pioneer in this industry. I still think that it’s not too late to change and that given the right leadership, we can still be transparent and more customer centric. We have a mission and vision and I’ll gladly share it with everyone in a blog post maybe sometime this weekend.
May 17th, 2007 at 12:22 am
@wauks
sir me suggestion ako..bat d n lng kau maglagay ng zenny mart..kc dami rin nmn nagpphp d b..e d pra kumita kau lgay kau ng zenny mart..xenxa n po ha sa sugestion kc nangangailangan din ako zeny eh haha.. blak magphp weeeee….
May 17th, 2007 at 12:45 am
Sir Wauks,
Even before the server maintenance started, my characters (champion and Wizard) are stuck in field maps outside Geffen (east field) and Prontera (west field). Is this also an effect of the billing server issue? If so, will the maps be up and running again when server maintenance has ended? I was hunting a few items needed for The Sign Quest, then my characters were stuck. Please help me out.
May 17th, 2007 at 12:46 am
Arf… I forgot to mention, I’m from Fenrir… errr… I mean Tyr server.
May 17th, 2007 at 7:16 am
“What is Level Up! Games’ mission statement?†Answer: “We regret to inform you that we do not devulge such information.â€
O_O wtf… That information should be in public since its only a mission statement and has no damaging scenario even if it is leaked. It opens up to the public the true heart and goal of a said company.