The story goes something like this...There was a war that took place between the gods, demons, and humans. A truce was called, but not before each side took heavy losses. There's been uneasy peace for a thousand years, and mankind has begun to forget of the war. But now, natural disasters have begun to occur more often, and signs that the time of peace is letting up are popping up all around the world of Midgard. Anyway, that's my translation of it.

Being that this game is being developed by Koreans from Korea (I think), the English isn't exactly perfect. Now this is nothing for me, since I'm used to this kinda stuff, and it hardly gets a giggle out of me. This is probably be one of the first problems you'll notice...but it's easy to forgive as it hardly affects gameplay. You'll be playing on an english server (provided you download the english version), but not everyone you meet will speak english. I've seen people speak Thai, Spanish, and German in the same town square, but you'll still find that most people will understand you. I'd say at least you really know you're playing with people from all around the world.

One thing I especially like about Ragnarok Online is it's anime-ish feel. Graphic-wise, it's nice, and reminds me of Thousand Arms (A PlayStation RPG). The environments are in full 3D, and you're able to rotate the camera if you have a hard time seeing. Characters and monsters are drawn as 2D sprites however. In my opinion, anime-looking characters have always looked cooler as sprites though. You can also customize your character by choosing how they look, and a bit more by buying accessories for them. From what I've seen though, this only applies to headgear. The areas are big, and range from deserts, to forests, to dense maze-like jungles...but suffers a little from repetative textures. Deserts are also somewhat bland. Towns are nice looking and lively, populated with buildings and hundreds of players, making the world big a very convincing one. It'll take a few days for you to explore the current six towns and areas surrounding them.

As with the other online RPGs I've tried, you start with almost nothing...just a knife and some clothes that barely protect you from anything. Until you've gained a few levels, the only thing that you can stand up to are the pink pokemon-like blobs, known as Porings. To get money, you gather the items monsters drop and sell them at any NPC dealer. Something worth mentioning is that when a monster drops an item, only players that did actual work in fighting it can pick them up for the first few seconds. It's a little frustrating though, when 'scavenger' monsters come by and pick up your items, only to run away and get killed by another player. Killing and selling is pretty much all you do in the early game. By the way, you have two experience bars. One is for your base level, to raise your stats. The other is for your current job, so you can add a point to a job skill of your choice. Certain monsters give more experience to one bar than the other.

After you've hit the 'novice' job level of 10, you can then switch to a real class. Among these are Swordsman, Acolyte (cleric), Archer, Theif, Magician, and Merchant, though some require you to undertake a quest beforehand. The most interesting of the classes I think is the Merchant class. While not the most powerful class, they are able to make items and set up their own little shops, and recieve disounts from NPC dealers. There's a good amount of items to be bought, traded, and sold. From swords and helmets, to cards, rings and dolls. If you're walking around town, you can usually find dozens of people willing to deal at better prices than NPC dealers too. Trading is also easy, thanks to a trading window that lets you see the item beforehand.

I currently have a level 20/15 swordsman, and have explored pretty much all of Midgar. I've seen almost a good amount of the monsters the beta has. The ones you fight early on don't look too ferocious...Maybe some bugs, rabbits and frogs...but at higher levels there's skeletons, orcs, and a bunch of other real nasty monsters. Combat is slower, but similar to Diablo, in that you just point and click. Your character runs up to the enemy and whacks them with whatever they're equiped with. Control does seem just a little sluggish though (or maybe it's just my 56K), but it's not bad. Also, you can bind your special skills, spells and items to hotkeys (F1-F9) by pressing F12. Basic gameplay is very simple, and easy to learn.

At the bottom of the screen is a chat box. There's also a status window, which you can drag around, and double click on to reduce it's size. From here you can keep track of health, spirit (spell) points, experience, gold, and bring up other windows, like the party screen, your backpack, job skills, and so on. With all these windows, your screen can be cluttered, so it's best to get rid of them, and keep just your status and items windows minimzed.

The sound is nice, but seems like your typical console RPG fair. The sounds for whacking monsters, and casting spells are done nicely enough, although spells lack a certain punch to them. Ambient sounds are well done and add to the feel of being in the wilderness and what not. I didn't know the game had music until just recently, since the volume is at 0 by default...but what music! The forests have very calm and relaxing themes, with pianos and acoustic guitars. Sometimes it picks up with a little drum beat here and there, but it's very nice. Some themes like the desert's have more exotic sounds to them, and some dungeons have a more dark and moody piano thing going on. Most of them are just more upbeat, happy, and 'cute' though. I like it.

Now, most of the time, the netcode is just fine, even on my 56K, but there are some lag issues, especially when there's a high user count. Gameplay is just fine, but there are a few things I think should really be looked at soon. First, my connection can be real shitty sometimes, and I lag. This is my fault. However, when my connection starts going again, the game sometimes interprets my jerky movement as a speed hack of some sort, and I'm disconnected...which drops me back to my desktop. I guess I'm a special case, since my connection is bad, but still, I'm disconnected for something I would never do.

The second, which I know isn't just me, is an issue with loading new areas. When you exit a map, sometimes you'll be told to wait. If this goes on for more than 2 seconds, you've almost certainly been disconnected...and yup, back to the desktop you go. And one final gripe...since this is an open (and free) beta, there are alot of players. Sometimes areas are so crowded you can barely get monsters to yourself without someone coming in and stealing a full kill from you. Gravity Corp can add new areas and features through patches though...so maybe in time this will be addressed.