The game that I loved no longer exists in this world.
With the relentless march of time, the game grew, changed, twisted, and morphed into another, different game bearing the aesthetics of Ragnarok. As is the fate of all live service online games, when updates come and changes are made, the previous iterations of the game are lost forever to the ether, becoming playable only in the memories of those who were there to experience it.
There is a loose network of small fan-run servers that attempt to emulate how the game once was. They are imperfect, as all memories are. Still, it is a comfort to me knowing they are there, maintaining those recreations of a bygone virtual world, keeping the doors open in case any previous resident becomes too nostalgia-drunk and stumbles in.
With the relentless march of time, the game grew, changed, twisted, and morphed into another, different game bearing the aesthetics of Ragnarok. As is the fate of all live service online games, when updates come and changes are made, the previous iterations of the game are lost forever to the ether, becoming playable only in the memories of those who were there to experience it.
There is a loose network of small fan-run servers that attempt to emulate how the game once was. They are imperfect, as all memories are. Still, it is a comfort to me knowing they are there, maintaining those recreations of a bygone virtual world, keeping the doors open in case any previous resident becomes too nostalgia-drunk and stumbles in.