Ran Online

Ran Online is uniquely themed MMORPG developed by the Koran studio Min Communications. While it was first released back in 2006, it failed to gain an audience outside Asia and the international service was quickly shut down. Fans were still able to access an English language version of the game based in The Philippines, but high ping and rough translations were unavoidable. In September of 2009 the original developers decided to re-launch the game under the title Ran World. Though it is still the only game of its kind on the market, Ran Online has not aged well and suffers from generic graphics and gameplay.

Ran Online doesn’t have a formal tutorial.  Instead, new players find themselves in their university’s courtyard surrounded by hostile hooligans. Nearby NPCs, including one aptly named ‘CLICK ME!’, provide players with basic instructions and quests to perform. Additional text hints appear near the center of the screen explaining the game’s controls. RAN Online has a standard click-to-move interface similar to the system found in many Asian MMORPGs. The graphics are not very impressive, but the game supports almost every resolution, including my monitor’s native 1920 by 1080. The client runs in both full-screen and windowed mode and there are several visual settings which can be set to low, medium, or high. Additional features such as ‘glow effect’ or ‘field shadow’ can be checked on or off but even with everything set as high as possible, the visuals are mediocre at best. Ran Online does a poor job of giving new player a sense of purpose or direction. I quickly found myself simply grinding off the low level enemies in the starting area after giving up on the difficult to understand quest instructions. Luckily, the experience rate is rapid during the first few levels. Players receive three stat points per level to assign among five stats: POV, DEX, INT, VIT, and STM. Veteran gamers shouldn’t have too much difficulty figuring the stats out, but just keep in mind that ‘VIT’ raises HP while ‘STM’ raises MP.Players can buy items via the game publisher's website. Players load up with cards bought at various stores and the credits are used in buying items at the website. These items can be anything from potions, costumes, accessories, weapons, etc. Once bought, these items are sent in their Item Bank wherein the player can remove them any time to be put in his/her inventory. Whilst in the item bank, items with expiry dates will have their timers stopped.

Players start with several skills at their disposal, along with a newbie pack that contains a pet husky, a hoverboard, and some consumables. Eventually, players will have to make their way towards their class trainer located in the ‘Main Area.’ The minimap (m) and red arrows located on the floor can guide players to this area, wherein NPCs have skill scrolls for sale. Each skill has its own prerequisites, which include a certain rank in a previous skill and a minimum value in a certain stat. Players can earn additional skill points both by leveling up and by completing NPC assigned tasks. The quests that reward skill points are generally much longer and involved than those that simply reward experience, but are still well worth doing. The first dozen or so levels in Ran are spent killing nearly identical humanoid foes with slightly varied names. ‘Hooligans’ make way to ‘Thugs’, which in turn make way to ‘Slashers’ and so on. Eventually, players progress to hunting undead monsters (such as zombies). Further down the road, demons and other more powerful, evil beings make up the grind fodder. Interestingly, the best way to progress in level throughout RAN is not by questing but by hunting certain monsters in medium-sized parties. As of now there is only a single lightly populated server for the new Global version of the game, so it may be difficult to find other gamers to play with.