Red Bunny Band Upgrading Event

Overview:
The upgrading craze is ON again. Philippine Ragnarok Online has once again release another upgrading event called the Red Bunny Band Upgrading event. Instead of the usual Black Bunny headgear being used as the main trading headgear the event now uses a Red Bunny Band. Both items has the same item description, the only difference was the color. For the full mechanics and prizes could be found on the pRO site.

The recent upgrading event gives me an impression that the event is well thought of unlike the previous one that could be found here. The list of prizes on this event has been handed to players with clear instructions and FAQs. The Game Masters (GM) were also active in answering questions and clarifications from players at the official forums of pRO the ragnaboards.

Event Proper:
Last February 27, 2010 at around 5pm in the afternoon (an hour earlier than the announced trading time), the GMs greeted the Valkyrians with a pleasant afternoon. They made a global announcement that the trading for the Red Bunny Band will now commence in an hour and players can now start lining up at the city of Veins.

My friends and I informed each other about the announcement then we all meet up at our Tambayan in Alberta Hagdan. All of us had used our Acolyte class characters for this event with different memos of towns around midgard. The GMs didn’t announce the town/city of the trading event until the trading day itself so we made a preparation to memo every possible town to be used for trading. Since Angel had the Veins City memo, she warped us on that town and we hurriedly locate the coordinates given by the GMs.

The start of the line was at the upper right part of the map. We only had increase agility as our advantage in racing towards the line. Some players were using Guyak Pudding an in-game item that has a speed compared to a Peco Rider with increase agility. Now we ended up lining up at numbers 31, 32 and 33. There were active GMs who were facilitating during the line up namely GM Anael and GM Freile. Too bad I only got their back view since I cannot afford to leave my line just to get a better screenshot.

From what I understand, GM Anael is just a spectator GM during the event. Most of the time she is hidden and tries to see who’s not abiding by the trading event rules. GM Freile on the other hand was the main GM host where in she summons players to the trading room. During the event proper, some of the GMs like GM Anael, GM Aeon and GM Freile interacts with the rest of the Valkyrians. They alternately promotes promos, give tips and express their greetings to everyone. The Valkyrians in return shouts their responses to the GM using the hypermart item Megaphone. The GMs were very cool and interactive during the trading day. Here are some of the GM responses that I got during the event.

When it was my time to be warped at the trading area, I noticed that were 3 lines with 1 GM facilitating the trade on each line. I am surprised to see a better system that they have implemented compared the last time with only 1 GM for trade. The item exchange was faster and has accommodated more players because of the new system. When I was summoned at the trading room, I lined up with GM Rhamiel because there were fewer players piled up on his line. For the other lines, GM Fenris was the in charge of the lower line while GM Jophiel was in charge of the upper line. The architecture and ambiance of the trading room has the feel Prontera City. It’s a big room but with no exit portal.

The trading with the GM is also different. The player must wait for the GM to initiate the trade and not the player initiating the trade. The GM will talk to you thru pm and all conversations will be thru pm but the player can answer thru public chat. When the GM has initiated the trade the player will now place all the required items. The GM will deal the player until all required items has been submitted. As for my case, I have taken screenshots during the trade so that I would have my evidence incase the GMs forgot to insert my prize.

As I have said earlier, the trading room doesn’t have any exit portals and the only way out was to enter the warp of GM Freile. Before I leave the place, I made a quick shot with GM Freile. The warp portal of GM Freile was directed to Prontera.

Because I was curious on how many players attended this event, I went back to Veins and check out the last person on the line. The last number that I got was number 153 but that excludes the last minute traders plus the shot that I made were around 7pm and the trading ends at 9pm. That’s quite a big number for a trading event.

I’m also surprise to see that Veins is not that an ideal place to make a long straight line. When the line approaches a corner the traders made a nice curved line. Anyways the trading ended earlier than expected. If I’m not mistaken it’s around 8:30pm. All players who lined up were accommodated and even last minute traders were given a chance. GM Freile also announced last minute calls for traders before they end the event.

At the end of the trading event, GM Freile gladly accepted the request of most players in Veins to have a quick shot with her. I also made my own shot again because taking picture with a GM is a very rare chance. I made a great shot together with other Valkyrians who also wants to have a shot with GM Freile. Don’t mind the statement of Atlantis my loyal Bongun pet. He’s very talkative during the event so I turned him into an egg at some point of the event. n_nU

Cheers! Til next Upgrading Event.

Notes:
The image below shows the table for exchanged items for this event. The image has been taken from the official announcement of GM Aeon at Ragnaboards. I have replicated the image for archiving purposes only.