Building a Ragnarok Online Server from scratch

Ever wanted to be in charge of one of those games you played years ago?

If you read my previous post you will know I'm on a bit of a mission to make progress towards my side hustle. Part of that mission is to work on a bunch of side projects.

So here's a bit of a post that won't be a guide on developing a server but moreso covering some of the early stages of setting everything up. You can find the link to guide at the end of this post.

Now, if you are unfamiliar with Ragnarok Online by Gravity it was one of the early MMORPG games on the scene initially released in 2002 for Korea and 2003 onwards for everyone else. (About 15 years ago!) Needless to say I played that game religiously early on and have played it on and off for the past 15 years.

After the main game had lost popularity many clone servers started popping up. These servers became F2P and offered faster leveling for most players (less grind) and an opportunity to achieve levels never seen for most players, effectively giving access to some players to new content of the game without having to invest as much time.

Since then there has been a slew of private servers and even a site where you can vote for the most popular ones over at ratemyserver.net and I've always wanted to build a server. Now in a previous attempt I did manage to setup a private server but had no means of actually making it an online server. This time around there is.

A family member of mine is hosting the server and began the installation, my part of the equation will be in databases, coding, networking and the webhost.

Check out the progress of Snake RO here !

If you are interested in hearing more about this project a Facebook page has been set up. I'll post more as I learn some things about this but essentially it's good to know that network and systems skills that I have learned throughout my career will bridge the gap between setting up a local game server, to a fully hosted online experience!

The guide used for this project can be found here. If you are interested in giving a project like this a go or you were a RO player back in the days then give it a shot and tell me how you went!

As always good luck on your side hustle!