On September 30th, Gravity Interactive launched a new server for players of International Ragnarok Online who can’t quite afford a monthly subscription. Welcome to the Valkyrie server! The Valkyrie server is the first Free to Play server in Ragnarok Online, which is also available for Ragnarok Online players in The Philippines (pRO).

The new server is the forth playable realm for the iRO service in addition to the existing Chaos, Loki and Iris server. In contrast, the remaining realms are designated as “Premium” servers. That said, there are differences between the free and Pay-to-Play realms. On the official iRO website, the limitations are explained.

For example: on Valkyrie, the EXP loss on deaths are 3%, while on the Premium server the rate is 1%. The EXP rates on Valkyrie are 100% and 125% on subscription servers. Kafra warps are limited; this means priests would have a hard time playing, being asked for teleports–in which the SP cost of the skill is 100 SP compared to 9/10 SP on premium servers. Not to mention that there are major price differences in items between the servers.

The free server is not just limited to veteran players, new players can join too! I’m considering trying out the new server myself (a iRO vet, but getting a new account is a good idea) as a way to kill time until I’m ready to play WoW again for the new expansion pack next month.

For those who have yet to play Ragnarok Online, check out my review on VGPro.

[Source: iRO Website]