Green Bunny Band Upgrading Event

Overview:
Renewal has been implemented in our server and this is the first Upgrading Event offered with renewal touch. Their tagline goes like “Let’s paint the town Green”. The theme for this upgrading challenge is Green and so we have the Green Bunny Band Upgrading Event.  Just like the previous events adventurers could acquire hard to resist items in exchange for an over upgraded Green Bunny Band. The Green Bunny Band has a slight change in stats compared to the other Bunny Bands released previously. Now it has STR +2, INT +1, Dex +1, over refinement bonus and a Card Slot. The details are provided in Unified Forums.

Previous Event:
The Upgrading Event is now a regular event done by the game masters to spice up our Ragnarok Online experience. For each upgrading event there are new set of items added on the exchange list but some prizes remained unchanged. The noticeable change during the event is the extension of over upgraded bunny band to +12. They also have introduced the Renewal Upgrade where in any armor, shoes and muffler can be over upgraded until +12. Added to the boss card prizes are Beelzebub card and Stormy Knight card. For the stories behind the past upgrading events read the journals below.

• Pink Bunny Band Upgrading Event
• Yellow Bunny Band Upgrading Event
• Red Bunny Band Upgrading Event
• Black Bunny Band Upgrading Event

Event Proper:
Last January 22, 2011 the trading day for Valkyrie Server has finally arrived. None of us had an idea of the trading place but we have an idea of the trading time. Valhalla server at this point is already finished with their trading day and the trade happens to be in Lighthalzen City. My friend Invincible Nairian and I gambled our chances by lining up at Lighthalzen. Our mindset during that time is to have an early slot if ever the GM team will choose Lighthalzen. But if they will announce another city for the trade we can still run to that city using Odin’s Warp. When we arrived at the city we are surprised that there are a lot of players already lined up at the city. We went straight to the last number and we got slots number 56 and 57 respectively.

We AFKed immediately after lining up since we are way too early from the trading time. Time passes by and GM Aeon greeted our server as a welcoming remarks for the trading day. He officially announced the trading place an hour before the posted trading time so everyone who heard of the announcement went to Lighthalzen. Lucky for us that our gamble paid off and we don’t have to rush ourselves on another city. We are conveniently lined up but we are not letting our guard down because there are opportunist who takes over your slot once you get disconnected.

Ten minutes before the actual trade begins, the GM team summoned players one by one into the trading room. At the trading room, players are ask to line up again according to the item they have for trade. Players should line up properly and be on a proper behavior. But in reality the line inside the trading room is more chaotic compared to the line in the city.

There are 5 game masters officiating the trade and at first it is not clear on to what line are we going to follow. Eventually they have revealed that the three game masters in the middle are the ones who takes care of prizes that are character bound or account bound. Example of these items are over upgraded Large Baphomet Horns, Siege Headgears, KVM gears and BG badges.

The GMs on the middle line does not accept other trades except from I have mentioned because the two GMs on the side are the ones who takes care of these. The GM on the right most part of the room named • 6th Holder2 ™• is the one who takes care of prizes that are trade-able but these prizes will be awarded within the time frame posted through Torsen in Alberta. GM • 6th Holder2 ™• looks suspicious at first because of its Mechanic appearance with a white text name but the ASCII characters on its name proves to be  that he’s a real thing. Players can never create characters with ASCII codes.

The GM on the left most part of the room has the same name format and she is GM • 9th Holder ™•. She is the GM responsible for the Express Lane mentioned on the official post. Basically you just hand her the complete items and she will automatically provides you with the prize. Most trades here involves over upgraded armors, shoes, mufflers and selected headgears. The express lane is pretty convenient however players tend to overtake each other slots which makes the line chaotic. The line is also the slowest among the 5 GMs because GM • 9th Holder ™• still checks her Kafra if your traded item is still available. Once your item has been out of stock then you will wait your prize to be delivered through Torsen in Alberta within the time frame posted.

Once done with the trade, you are requested to leave the room immediately to lessen people inside the room. You can still roam around a bit and take pictures with the game masters. In order to leave the room you can use warp portal or simply character select. There are no warp portals inside the room.

When I’m done with my own trade, I’m curious on the number of participants for the trade. I checked the lines at different time intervals. I’m surprised that the double line from the Pink Bunny Bund Event has been beaten by the spiral line of Green Bunny Band Event! The last number that I got minutes before the trading time runs out is 413

So the trading line just proves that there is an increasing number of players interested in participating upgrading events. Well you can blame us because the prizes on their list is really worth getting.

The week during the trading day, some selected accounts have experienced log in problems. In effect these accounts could not participate on the trading day so the GM team decided to hold a second trading day last January 29, 2011. Since I’m already through with my own trade during the first trading day, I tried to visit the trading area during the second day. I found out that there are a few players who participated on this day. Maybe most participants were not affected by the log in problem.

In summary, there are more attendees during the first day compared to the second day of trading despite of the login problem experienced by selected accounts. The green bunny band challenge is once again successful in our server amidst the regular rants and stressful attitude of some players during the trading day. The trading time estimate is just enough to accommodate the volume of participants. I’m glad that they made a proper approximation this time. The introduction of an express lane is good idea however they should have dedicated two GMs for this because of the volume of traders wanting to have their given instantly. Lastly the GMs should seriously ban or give silence of doom to those who are annoyingly misbehaving inside the trading room.

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 the Unified Forums. I have replicated the image for archiving purposes only.