I’ve been receiving a lot of questions and requests about when Philippine Ragnarok Online will finally join almost all the MMORPGs here and go Free to Play.

Players have been asking, our sales people have been bugging me and even people here at the office have pointed this to me a lot of times.

And yes, there ARE rumors out there about pRO going F2P. This post is both a “yes and a no” and hopefully, clarify everything at the end of the day.

Let me give you an inside scoop about the top secret “Valkyrie Project”.

This post will explode in 10 seconds, agent, if you don’t click below… tick…tick…tick…

GOING FREE?

Some may have heard about the “Valkyrie Project”. Here’s what’s real;

3 months ago, our CEO tasked our department to look into the idea of RO going free to play. Upon much deliberation, late nights at the office and trying to pull out our hairs; Wauks then started research on the how the other countries with Ragnarok were doing.  I already heard about “something strange and peculiar” in RO China. True enough, Waukeen came back to me and found out the China had all F2P servers – with a twist.

The drop rates were different, the Item Mall setup was also slightly different. Although it was STILL the same RO gameplay and feel, the mechanics of the China servers was what excited us all.

We then burned the midnight oil trying to glean more information on the subject. With the help of our friends from Gravity and the Game Gurus (the GMs from our Product Developement dept), and yes… after a million meetings – Project Valkyrie was born.

Valkyrie will be a FREE-TO-PLAY server. We will launch this commercial server on October 10! Yey! The other commercial worlds (Baldur, Tyr and the rest) will still retain their old business model (subscription + item mall). I’ll have to see first how the Valkyrie server does.

At any rate, the pRO team will be announcing the teasers and put up the marketing materials about Valkyrie (you may have seen the loading screen inside the game na) this week.

Here are some more teasers and bullets about Valkyrie:

• Boss and MVP monsters DO NOT drop boss cards
• Slotted items, weapons and gear are also NOT dropped
• Some maps are PVP enabled
• Ori and Elu are almost NOT dropped, quested or found
• You can buy these and other items at the ITEM MALL
• We will release a CD for this patch (3 CDs)
• Valkyire already has Rachel (whatever the commercial worlds have, Valkyrie has)
• If you already have RO installed, you just need to download a 5MB fix.
• Characters CANNOT be migrated

Before the violent reactions, let me inform you that we have tested this thoroughly and gathered feedback from key players – both current players and those who already quit Ragnarok.

The item prices are fairly reasonable. For example, slotted mufflers cost P10 and various slotted weapons cost from P10 to P50. Even PVP cards such as Tharas, Raydric, and Hydras are anywhere from P20 to P100. And don’t worry about the boss cards, we’ll REGULATE it and will sell a limited supply only. And no, they won’t be released all in one blow – we have an item and card release schedule: think “Magic: The Gathering” boxed sets and you’ll know what I mean.

I also want this server to be dupe and bot-free. So constant testing and confirmation is being done now. We want those items to have value so duping, cheats will be absolutely be unacceptable.

More on Valkyrie in the days to come.

Enjoy!