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Review from a 3 year player.
Hello, this is my first review of any game so bare with me. 
I started playing Rappelz in 2006, right at the end of Epic 3 and beginning of Epic 4. It was my second 'free to play' MMO. I tried out Hero online but couldn't get into it because of all of the bots and spammers. I was use to normal monthly charged MMO's like City of Heroes, FFXI, WoW, Eve, etc.. so I'm not just starting with MMO's.
My girlfriend and I decided to give Rappelz a try. It was a different type of game than either of us were use to. It had pets that you could tame, really nice graphics for a free game, and was easy to get into. We made it up to about level 50 and joined a pretty popular guild, at the time, and we pretty much partied with the same people from that guild for the next two years.
Over the course of that time many things had changed. The GM's stopped making their presence known, the glitches/bugs in the game that were there in 2006 were still not addressed, the game started crashing, they switched the GameGuard, the servers would crash, and/or server roll-backs started happening pretty frequently.
For someone starting this game it will be very hard. There are no dungeon parties (the only real logical way to level in the game) until you're about level 50-60. There is no flag system to where you can look for a party, you have to shout sometimes for days before you even find a party. With every patch they fix something, they break at least two more things. There are tons of rupee spammers everywhere you go in game, and the GM's, instead of logging in and kicking them tell you to block them. What a great fix that is. It usually takes them about 48-72 hours to get rid of one spammer who just floods the chat.
Lately gpotato has made it pretty clear that they are only out after peoples money from their cash shop (item mall). They don't rarely address players issues. Their forum can pretty much tell you that alone. People are complaining about simple things and the GM's never answer them. If anything they lock the persons thread for "asking for a GM in the title". They tell you to Email customer support which is just a total joke. I had sent an Email to their customer service about an in-game harassment issue to people in my (ex)guild, and myself on Sat 7/25/2009 4:15 PM. You would think a couple days would be sufficient time for them to get back to you. Well, that wasn't the case. I didn't end up getting a reply from them until Wed 9/16/2009 7:19 PM. That is almost TWO MONTHS after things had happened. A lot of people quit because of the problems that was going on. Even at that point they just told me to report it again if it still going on.
Even more recently I have had problems with one of their forum mods. I posted a thread a few weeks back before the game went down for it's weekly maintenance asking about a glitch that had been going on since they released their new epic. The thread went along the lines of "Is the logout/random crash bug going to be fixed with the maintenance tonight or will this be like the bugs that have been floating around since Epic 3?" The moderator closed the thread because it "served no purpose". A GM justified it because "there was already another thread saying the same thing". Actually it was someone I knew who posted that thread, after mine had been locked. They didn't even bother to check the post times. So I posted up a comic about this same moderator because honestly they're an annoying dimwit. They likes to make stupid jokes that nobody laughs at, and when they lock threads they call it 'seals'. So I had someone draw a comic up with me slapping them with a seal. If you care to check it out http://www.krazie.net/sealedc.jpg . Anyway for that I got a permanent ban on the forum. I had no previous warnings on the forum, or in game at all. The mod said I was harassing them non-stop in game and on the forum. I called that mod a 'moron' one time because the seal comment, which is why I had the comic made. In game I've never talked to them, and didn't even know their level/class, but anyway.... the GM's refused to investigate after I gave them all of my account information and basically told me to eff off. I asked to have it escalated to a senior GM and owner of gpotato and they totally ignored me.
So in the end I must say stay away from this game. There are too many bugs in the game, it's horribly coded, there is next to no support, and unless you have friends playing, or have someone give you a pet to solo with it is REALLY hard to find a party in game. The amount of lag in game is just way over the top, but you should expect that with a 'free' game. The graphics are nice, the pet system is nice, but it really doesn't trump all the problems in the game.
That is, of course, if you can even get into the game with all of the client, and gameguard errors you will encounter
Comments
This is an update to the review.
The GM on the game was found to be wrong. The problem with the moderator (EvaCassidy) was from someone who made a character name like mine, but not associated with me, my accounts, or even anyone I know (that I know of). This is an in-game conversation with their forum moderator. -->
Now instead of having the ban removed, the GM "itoki" instead banned my entire account from accessing the game at all. This game is run via an item mall / cash shop. I purchased timed items (Hidden Village pass) which I am now losing 3 days worth. When converted to RL money that's $6.00 USD. They won't issue a refund for items that I paid for, but can not use, and they refuse to look into this.
My advice, stay away from this game. It's going down hill, and nothing but complaints are being thrown on their forums. They have bugs that have not been fixed since 2006 still, they update with stuff players don't want, and the best one is they hold contests for RL prizes. For example they had a razor keyboard contest and over a month later nobody was ever notified about winning. The place is poorly run and it is next to impossible to contact anyone working there. If you do you can expect a reply months later, if at all.
A direct link to a topic on their forum is here --> rappelz-forum.gpotato.com/viewtopic.php
Dude, as I read thru that thread, I was on your side, although you did seem to act a bit high strung.
Then I seen the final post of the thread and noticed it was before you posted this. The GM himself even told you that you were not banned because of things you did in-game.
Which raises the question, why are you posting misleading statements here? Your quote above claims you were banned for something in game, when that was not the case. Besides, in -nearly all- games, forum bans are completely seperate from in-game bans. Which all but confirms the reason you were banned was conduct on forums.
That said, no offense, but I'm just letting you know that from your conduct, you will have trouble convincing people that you are innocent, simply because when someone notices that you are saying something misleading to them, it kinda kills your credibility.
For future reference, if you are banned because of something, whether you are really innocent or not, -never- make another account and admit that you are the same person. That's asking for a ban. At the point you did that, it didnt really matter if you were innocent or not - you caught a ban... because when you are banned making another account and posting is clearly against the rules.
Sorry man.
As stated in the first post there was a little bit of drama between myself and a forum mod.. the same one in question. The GM in that thread is saying I was perma-banned for posting a comic (link above). However, the reason it was a perm ban was because "I" was harassing the mod in the game. In this meaning "I" was not me. It was someone who made a character with my name, not associated with my IP/Account/etc which is why the ban was so severe. As you can see in this thread --> rappelz-forum.gpotato.com/viewtopic.php the mod in question even said they asked the GM to lift the ban because it wasn't me, and that they made a mistake.
The thing that is bad is they never investigated anything. Had they, they would have found out it wasn't me. They just went by my name in game, with someone adding #'s to the end of it, and a report from a mod, who was mistaken. Instead of owning up to their mistake they have instead issues a ban on the entire account to where I can not access TIMED items that I paid money for.
On a side note, if you travel at all, and you play a gpotato game, and someone somehow gets access to your account, they will refuse to help you. For example a person on my server had to move to Alaska for a few months. His brother lived in PA and helped him out with his account because he is disabled and had problems with certain things. He moved back to PA a few months ago (August IIRC) and had no problems. In November someone sent him to a scam page, and got his password. He logged on, found all of his items being sold by someone else in the AH. He Emailed the people at gala-net/gpotato and they said they would not help him because his account was accessed in different states and there's no way to prove who was who.
Thanks for reading though
Reading this entire post again, things kinda do make more sense, but still seems that you trying to mislead people a bit. Let me clarify...
In the post on their forums that you linked, you were pasting the same screenshot as you pasted here, pasting the text that informed you of your forum ban, and saying that you were banned because someone else with a similar name.
But when you read your original first post on the forum here, you said, and i quote, "So I posted up a comic about this same moderator because honestly they're an annoying dimwit. They likes to make stupid jokes that nobody laughs at, and when they lock threads they call it 'seals'. So I had someone draw a comic up with me slapping them with a seal. If you care to check it out http://www.krazie.net/sealedc.jpg . Anyway for that I got a permanent ban on the forum."
According to that, you already know why you got the forum ban. It also fits the "flaming a volunteer" reason that you pasted as well, and matches up with what the GM said.
So I really have to ask you.... Why are you implying that you got the forum ban for in game reasons when you know it was because of something else? No offense again, but you even admitted it in your original post lol.
Lol I guess things are a little confusing. Eva and I did have "little" drama on the forum, which is why when I posted the original message I believed I was banned for the comic. I thought it was way too harsh to be banned just for a stupid comic like that. After speaking with Eva I found out what all had happened and why things were so severe. This is how it happened.
Eva and I had a little 'drama' on the forum. Nothing serious, no vulgarity, threats, etc.. just stupid stuff. Basically she kept calling locked threads "seals" so I asked someone to draw that comic for me with me slapping her with a seal. Well in the meantime someone else had made a character in game that resembled my name. That is where the conversation that is pasted comes in. Someone named "Krazie22" was harassing her in game. This person wasn't me. Eva thought it was me, for obvious reasons, told the GM (itoki) about all of the harassment and I got hit with the ban. The original ban was for the forum. He said it was for flaming Eva pretty much. I thought that was pretty extreme for a stupid comic. Now that I have found out that someone was harassing her in game it makes a little more sense.
I attempted to make a new forum account and send a pm to the same GM and try to talk to him about what happened. Instead of him replying to me, he just instantly banned the new forum account without saying a word. After that I spoke to Eva about a week later. That is when the conversation took place. I found out what had happened, and Eva sent a PM to itoki to ask him to lift the ban. He wouldn't. Even though he had evidence proving I hadn't done anything, the same mod who asked for me to be banned, asked for it to be lifted, he still wouldn't do anything. He left it because he didn't do his job in the first place, banned me for something I didn't do, and got caught not doing his job. So instead of making things right, he punished me even more by banning my in-game account. So now a timed item in game that I purchased from their cash shop is unuseable by me, and they will not stop the timer, issue a refund, or reverse the ban even though there is more than enough evidence proving he banned me when I did nothing wrong. I went through every viable means of communication with the staff and they will either ignore your Emails, or answer back with general messages.
On a side note, I had a problem with someone in game with them hunting down low level people in my previous guild and killing them or cause them to lose exp. I Emailed the 'support' team about this problem in June or early July. I got a response in the end of September!
If you have any other questions please feel free to ask. I hope this cleared up any confusion though
Well, I'm not going to defend their support - I've found any GPotato game has been pretty lacking (or most F2P games for that matter). Loads of hacking etc and noone that really cares.
in the end, sucks that you got banned, but I still give the same advice I gave earlier - if your banned, even if your guilty, NEVER admit you are the same person. That's going to end up with more trouble in the end lol.
GM's of all games can do questionable things even if you show you have good intentions - they "stick to the rules" and enforce things. In Guild Wars once I had a name that said "sheet" in it, and I was worried that it might be against rules and get reported, so I told a GM that I'd like to change it if possibile, and they banned me for a week for it and said "we have to enforce the rules no matter how we find out about the violation".
Pretty accurate review I would say
I've played this game off and on since it first came out...I agree with the OP.
It's ok for as a free game...but I wouldn't put any money into it.