News: Ragnarok Online 2 open beta, and limited edition

June 03, 2007, 06:01 PM

by kilvear, via gravity -
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Ragnarok Online 2 – The Gate Of the World is the sequel to Ragnarok Online, departs from its 2D predecessor, and moves into full 3D. Music is composed by Yoko Kanno (Wolf's Rain, Cowboy Bebop, and Earth Girl Arujina anime, Uncharted Waters) - from that link you can also see that RO2 is sponsoring a concert of her music this month on the 20th in Korea.

The open beta is currently in progress (May 28 2007 – June 10 2007) but I haven't gotten a chance to play it yet. In terms of what's new, from what I gather, you can swim and jump in the game, and emoticons have been replaced with the character doing the actual emotion or action, which leads into some weird stuff like this. Also, of the 3 races announced, only Norman (Human) is available as of the open beta. Dates to the release of other races are unknown.

This game is late to delivery, as it was formally announced last year in January, with Gravity claiming it was in beta testing around June last year, but that didn’t actually happen till December 2006. The game is due for final release soon after the open beta. The details of the first 2 close betas and what happened can be found here.

The only server operating now is Korean, despite announcements made that Japan servers would be opened not too long after. There's no information on the Japan servers as of now, and the Japanese webpage - which is hosted on the same page as the Korean one - has mysteriously disappeared, leading to a lot of speculation. Lastly, the9, the Chinese publisher releasing the game in China, has put up a little character simulator to get you in the mood. Check out some screens of the game in beta right here.

The special edition release of the game is quite extravagant, with an OST and OST booklet, a Pukui figurine, an art book, a jigsaw puzzle, and of course, the manual. It's available for preorder til June 21.