Silkroad Online

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Silkroad Online
Developer(s)	Joymax Co. Ltd.
Publisher(s)	Yahoo! Korea CIMO GameOn UNALIS VDC-Net2E JOYMAX
Platform(s)	Windows 98/ME/2000/XP/Vista
Release date	October 2005
Genre(s)	MMORPG
Mode(s)	MMO
Rating(s)	Teen
System requirements	Intel Pentium III 500 MHz CPU, 128 MB RAM, GeForce 2 graphics card or ATI 9000, DirectX 8.0b compatible sound card, 3400 MB of free hard disk space and an Internet connection
Input methods	Keyboard, Mouse

Silkroad Online (also known as SRO Korean: 실크로드 온라인) is a free massively-multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) created by the South Korean company Joymax, and was released for open beta testing on November 11, 2005. Much of the background of the game is based on the historical Silk Road. Unique from other MMORPGs, the game is centered on a triangular system of trading goods.

Silkroad Online is based on the history of trading in China along the Silk Road, a historical network of trade routes in Asia. The game attempts to reproduce the Silk Road in a much smaller scale, looking realistic and at the same time incorporating fantasy elements such as the use of special magical skills and abilities. One of the game's most noted features is allowing players to choose three different job roles after their character achieves level 20.

The game currently has a level cap of 100 in the Korean version/Chinese version/Japanese versions, 90 in the Vietnamese version/International version.

The Korean, Chinese, and International version of Silkroad Online have released both the Chinese and European races and classes with a large map that includes both Asian and central European locations, such as Constantinople and Hotan. Different races also have access to different character abilities. On July 24, 2007, Joymax released an expansion of the game entitled "Silkroad Online Legends I, Europe." The expanded game includes European architecture, characters, clothing, and whole new abilities for European in game race to use.^[1]

Contents 1 Gameplay 1.1 Item Mall 1.2 Locations 1.2.1 Cities 1.3 Overview of Fortress War 1.4 Unique monsters 1.5 Gaining experience 1.6 Guild System 1.7 Pets 1.8 Stalls 1.9 Alchemy 2 Items 2.1 Chinese equipment 2.2 European equipment 2.3 Special Items 3 Skills 3.1 Chinese masteries and skills 3.1.1 Chinese weapon masteries 3.1.2 Chinese force masteries 3.2 European masteries and skills 3.2.1 European class masteries 4 Game problems and exploits 4.1 Server capacity limits and lag 4.2 Crashes and Disconnects 4.3 Localization Issues 4.4 Frame Rate Issues 4.5 Botting 4.6 Spammers 4.7 Credit card fraud and Phishing 5 References 6 External links

Gameplay

After registering a login name and password on the game Web site, the player logs in to the game through the client, then creates a new character. The player has the choice of starting as a Chinese or European character. Chinese characters begin in the city of Chang'an, Europeans, Constantinople, which are located on opposite ends of the world map. To set up the new character, the player creates a name for their character, a "figure," or a character with a small back story, and their character's height and volume, which will not be relevant to game play and will alter only their character's appearance. Then, two other fields are chosen (which do alter game play): the starting clothing type and starting weapon. Hereafter the newly-made character can enter the world of Silkroad. Monsters are killed and quests are done to gain levels (as with many MMORPG's). Upon reaching level 20 players can participate with the triangular conflict, being either a hunter, trader, or thief.

Item Mall

All purchases go through the in-game Item Mall. In there, the user has the option to buy specialty clothes, pets, potions, experience bonus tickets, alchemy items, and premium, amongst other things for United States dollars.

Locations

There are currently five cities in the International version of Silkroad Online: Jangan, Donwhang, Hotan, Samarkand, and Constantinople. They are separated by seven sections: China, Western China, Oasis Kingdom, Taklamakan, Central Asia, Asia Minor, and Europe. Each different section has a different level range of monsters. Joymax plans to add more areas in the future, such as West Asia (Roc Mountain).

Cities

There are five cities in the International version of Silkroad Online (from east to west): Jangan, Donwhang, Hotan, Samarkand, and Constantinople. Each of the cities has non-player characters (NPCs). The NPCs sell items, repair items, and give quests. In every city, there is an "Inn," or storage, which acts as a bank to store items and gold and shows the honor rank for that server; a Defense Trader that sells and repair Protector items (armor, garment, protector); a Blacksmith that can repair and sell weapons; a Potion Store that sells herbs, potions, pills, and special pills; a Grocery Trader where one can buy alchemy items, such as lucky powders, accessories, moving speed potions, and capes (for PVPing purposes); a Hunter Union where one can buy a Hunter Identity card, which is needed to be a hunter; a Trader Association where one can buy a Trader Flag, which is required to trade; a Specialties Shop where one buys and sells trader goods; a Stable where one buys horses (faster means of transport, with their own HP), pets, transport (differ from horses in how they carry a merchant's goods), and various other items for Stable-related purchases; there is a NPC somewhere in Constantinople and Jangan allowing access to the thief area, where you can buy a Thief Suit, which is needed to act as a thief; and finally, each city also has a Guild Manager who allows players to create or leave guilds, access guild storage, or perform other guild-related functions.

Cities are safe zones. This means protection from monsters, which dwell outside the walls, and job conflicts (traders or hunters fighting thieves). Only players who have murdered another player (PK) can receive damage within city walls.

Overview of Fortress War

Fortress War is a guild combat with up to 300 users participating. All of the guilds on the Silkroad fiercely fight each other to occupy the fortresses distributed at various locations (in International Silkroad there is only 1 fortress, located near Jangan).

The fortresses are located in the vicinity of large cities (large fortresses) and trading centers (small fortresses). Guilds succeeding in occupying large fortresses are entitled to fix tax rate and levy taxes in large cities. Guilds succeeding in occupying small fortresses are entitled to fix tax rate and levy taxes at trading centers, ferries, private boats and tunnels. In the fortresses, it is allowed for occupying guilds to produce items relevant to the fortress wars, train different transportation measures, and enjoy comfort rest.

Fortress War takes place on every Thursday, 7PM ~ 9PM (Silkroad Standard Time). A guild winning the fortress war is entitled to occupy the fortress for one week. A guild occupying a fortress is allowed to fix tax rate on every Saturday, and levy taxes. A server succeeded in occupying the fortress is announced on the homepage two hours after completion of the fortress war, and the tax rate is notified on the homepage at 00:01 am on every Sunday morning.

Unique monsters

In the game Silkroad, there are a number of unique monsters that are very powerful and similar to "bosses" in other computer games. They spawn in designated areas every 6-8 hours. When they do spawn there is a server-wide message indicated that the unique has spawned. When fighting a unique, they will spawn their own monsters (champions, giants, and elites) whenever the unique monster's health hits a certain point. When killed, the unique monster will drop a good number of items and gold, depending on the level of the player who killed it, and a server-wide message will appear with the name of the character that killed it.

Currently in the international version, the unique monsters consist of Tiger Girl (Chinese, level 20), Cerberus (European, level 24 quest available), Ivy (European, level 30 quest available), Uruchi (Chinese, level 40), Isyutaru (Chinese, level 60), and Lord Yarkan (Chinese, level 80). Non-iSRO unique monsters (which is predicted by followers to be released eventually to iSRO) are Shaytan (level 90) and Medusa (level 105), along with Roc (level 100), a unique from an event in another version of SRO (tSRO).

Gaining experience

Similar to most MMORPGs, characters increase their skills and levels by gaining experience points through combat and quests. In combat, the amount of points gained is determined by the level and difficulty of monster killed. For points gained through quests, the amount of points is proportional to its difficulty. Characters also gain "Job experience points" by successfully completing objectives for a profession, such as a merchant completing a trade run, a hunter killing a thief, thief killing a trader/hunters, or a hunter completing a trade with a merchant.

Points are divided into four types; Experience Points (XP), Skill Points (SP), Job Experience points, and Stat points. Experience points are used to increase the character's level, Skill Points are used to raise masteries and skills, and Job Experience points allow the character to level up their Job level, which in future updates will provide bonuses. The higher the Job level, the more damage is dealt to both player and NPC enemies of the profession (such as hunter attacking a thief).

After leveling up their regular character level, the character receives five Stat points, of which one is automatically applied to Strength and one is applied to Intelligence. The other three points are added at the discretion of the player, and can be distributed between Strength and Intelligence. Strength increases hit points, physical defense, and physical attack, while Intelligence increases mana points, magical defense, and magical attack. Players who distribute all of their stat points into either the Strength or Intelligence categories are commonly referred to as: "Pure STR" or "Pure INT". Players may choose to distribute two of their stat points into one category. These players are commonly referred to as either: "Hybrids", "INT Hybrids" or "STR Hybrids". The selection of these points greatly influences the player's gaming experience.

Players also have the option of getting "power-leveled". In which a high level player adds a low level player to a shared experience party fighting high level monsters, allowing the low level player to get more experience and skill points, and way faster, than if they were on their own.

Guild System

For the price of five hundred thousand gold a player (above level 20) may choose to establish a guild. A guild allows you to stay in touch with fellow players and monitoring their advances. You can also join guilds with a union, where there is room for 8 guilds, cooperation or recognition between large groups is possible through this.

Guilds are useful for many things, such as calling your guild mates to help you out, seeing whether someone is online or not, and for the simple social joy.

There's also the Guild war system, this allows one to agree to a hostile war against another guild or union to compete for pleasure, money, or showing strength in pvp.

Pets

The pet system allows characters to summon animals to aid them on certain tasks. Most pets have to be bought with Silk, Silkroad Online's private currency on the Item Mall. The only pet that can be purchased with in-game gold is the Grey Wolf, which is equivalent with the White Wolf (only purchasable by Silk).

Pet Myowon (Monkey), Pet Seowon (Squirrel), Pet Toto (Rabbit), Gold Pig, Pink Pig, Cat, Sylph, Penguin, White Wolf, and Bear are only available in the Item Mall. Excluding the White Wolf, Penguin, and Bear (which aid the player in combat), these pets have their own inventory. The pets can be set to automatically pick up items dropped by monsters, thus saving the player time. However, these pets are only rentals, and may be used for 28 days before expiring. When the time limit runs out, the pet is automatically returned to the players' inventory; there is no chance to remove any items left in the pet's inventory when it has disappeared. However, it is possible to regain usage of these pets, and the items in their storage, via the Silk item "Revival Clock," which extends the rental period by 28 days, or a "1-Day Revival Clock", like the original only it gives one day, not 28. Any items in the pet's inventory will also be regained, as a pet's inventory is saved even after it expires.

White Wolves, Grey Wolves, Three-footed Crow (peacock), Bear, and Penguin are combat-oriented pets, possessing their own statistics and gaining experience from combat. They also have the ability to grow, beginning as a small animal and maturing into a full-grown animal at level 40. All three pets are permanent additions once purchased; White Wolves, peacock and penguin cost Silk in the Item Mall, while Grey Wolves cost 1,000,000 gold at each city's Stable NPC. Unlike the other pets, these can be killed during combat, rendering them unable to be summoned until revived. They can be revived with the "Grass of Life" herb sold at each city's stable NPC for a fee of 50,000 gold. These pets have a yellow bar called the HGP Bar, or the Hunger Points Bar. Whenever one of these pets is summoned, its HGP Bar will decrease. The HGP Bar will slowly decrease, once the HGP Bar reaches down to 30% the attacking pet's status will drop 50%. When this bar reaches 0, the animal will die. Combat pets can be fed with a yellow potion, HGP potions, sold by any stable NPC. These potions replenish 10% or 1000 HGP. You can also heal your attacking pet with a pet healing potion and you can cure your pet of an abnormal state with a special abnormal state potion.

Stalls

To buy an item from a stall, drag and drop it from the stall to your inventory. If you can't do this, either you don't have the required gold or the stall is in "Modifying" status. If the stall is in modifying status you may kindly ask the staller to open it.

There are no fixed prices at the stalls, every player sets his own prices for the items, so you may find something in a stall and if you look in another stall you may find the same item cheaper or more expensive than the previous one.

You can open your own stall and sell there almost everything. The only things that you can't sell are quest items, certain quest rewards and Item Mall items..

You can't open a stall if you are on a transport animal or if you have some specific actions in progress (e.g. alchemy or exchange). You also will be unable to join or create a party during the time you have a stall (but you can form the party, if you are a party master).

A new system, making searching for items easier, is the "Stall network". Whenever a player opens a stall, they can select the option to register their items in the Stall network, at the cost of 1% of the price of each item sold. The stall network runs per city, and thus has a considerable amount of visitors, increasing the chance to sell something and making it much easier to find that item you're looking for.

Alchemy

Alchemy is the system where with you can strengthen every items performance. One can press "Y" ingame and a small window will appear with directions.

• Weapon Elixirs - Increases weapon attack power.
• Accessory Elixirs - Increases accessory absorption rate.
• Shield Elixirs - Increases shield defense.
• Protector Elixirs - Increases headgear, chest, legs, shoulder, wrist and footgear defense.

To upgrade an item, you need the item itself, the corresponding elixir, and (optionally) a lucky powder (which increases the probability of success). Whenever alchemy is successful, the items level goes up by one. By example, if one succeeds upgrading a level 45 shield, and thus make it "+1," it will now have the defense of a level 46 shield. A + followed by the corresponding number will appear next to the items name. Higher "plusses" show a special shine on the weapon. A +3–4 gives a white and silver glow, a +5–6 gives a pink and light purple glow, a +7–8 gives a golden and yellow glow, and a +9 gives an aqua and light green-blue glow. There are no new glows after +9 for International Silkroad Online, however Korean Silkroad Online recently received a new update, completely renewing glows from +5 up to +10 with new effects added. Upgrading protector (armor/garment/protector) or accessory does not give additional shines.

There is a chance the alchemy may fail. Using lucky powder, which can be purchased at an accessory store, can reduce the alchemy's chance of failure. If alchemy fails, it will reset the item's enhancement level to 0. There is also a chance that the weapon may break or receive a reduced durability (how long it takes before an item needs to be repaired).

Certain bonuses on items may also help with alchemy. Lucky increases the chance of a successful alchemy. Steady prevents an item from losing durability if the alchemy fails (this only happens above +5). Astral, which can be purchased in the Item Mall, will prevent an item with enhancement +4 or more from dropping to enchantment level 0 if alchemy fails. Immortal prevents an item from breaking if the alchemy fails (above +5). Also with the Premium ticket, (only available for purchase in the Item Mall) a luck bonus of 5% is added with all alchemy.

There is also a system to increase statistics on equipment. This system works by having the user first gather parts of defeated monsters, which can then be turned into base elements of a specific level (Wind, Water, Fire, Earth) with the aid of Void Rondo potions sold at any accessory store. Additionally, players may process equipment items (protector items and weapon items) with Destroyer Rondo. Note that the process of applying Destroyer Rondo to an equipment item destroys that item but gives a great number of raw elements (and sometimes yields magic stones). These base elements of specific levels can then be joined together with a tablet to create a magical stone that increases specific statistics. Stones also have levels, and may only be used on equipment of the same Degree as the Stones' level. These stones are split between attribute stones and magic stones. Attribute tablets directly change and alter a weapons statistics. Magic tablets on the other hand, add extra options to an item, such as strength increase, these extra options are often referred to as "Blues," due to their blue color on the weapon description window.

Items

Chinese equipment

Chinese equipment is split into four areas; weapons, shields, body protectors, and accessories.

• Weapons: There are five types of weapons:
  • Blade: Physical (strength) based weapon, one-handed weapon.
  • Sword: Magical (intelligence) based weapon, one-handed weapon.
  • Glaive: Physical based weapon, two-handed weapon.
  • Spear: Magical based weapon, two-handed weapon.
  • Bow: Neither specifically magical or physical based, two-handed weapon.
• Shields: Shields can be equipped if the character uses a one-handed weapon. They increase defense and give the character a chance to block attacks, chance to block depends on the block ratio (abbreviated "BR"). Blocking an attack completely ignores the damage it would have done otherwise.
• Protector: There are three classes of "Protector" (name for body protection):
  • Armor: High physical but low magical defense, no bonuses, can be mixed with Protector.
  • Protector: Medium physical and magical defense, 10% higher movement speed, 10% lower mp consumption, can be mixed with Armor.
  • Garment: A high magical but low physical defense, 20% higher movement speed, 20% lower mp consumption, cannot be mixed.
• Accessories: In addition to clothing, characters can also wear accessories such as rings, necklaces, and earrings, these absorb a certain percentage of damage based on the level and statistics of the accessory.

European equipment

European equipment is also split into four areas: weapons, shields, body protectors, and accessories. Interracial armor is exchangeable, but a European character cannot use Chinese equipment and vice versa. European body protection is very similar to that of Chinese body protection. It consists of Light armor, Heavy Armor, and Robes. Also, European characters can not just equip any armor their level (like Chinese). In order to wear Heavy Armor they need a Warrior class, to wear Light Armor they need a Warrior, Cleric or Rogue class, and to wear Robes they need a Warlock, Cleric, Wizard or Bard class.

• Weapons: There are nine types of weapons:
  • One-hand sword: Physical (strength) based weapon, one-handed weapon.
  • Two-hand sword: Physical based weapon, two-handed weapon.
  • Crossbow: Physical based weapon, two-handed weapon, ranged.
  • Daggers: Physical based weapon, dual wield weapon.
  • Dual Axe: Physical based weapon, dual wield weapon.
  • Cleric Rod: Magical (intelligence) based weapon, one-hand weapon.
  • Warlock Rod: Magical based weapon, one-hand weapon.
  • Harp: Magical based weapon, two-hand weapon.
  • Staff: Magical based weapon, two-hand weapon.
• Shields: Shields can be equipped if the character uses a one-handed weapon. They increase defense and give the character a chance to block attacks, chance to block depends on the block ratio (abbreviated "BR"). Blocking an attack completely ignores the damage it would have done otherwise. The European Warrior class can attack with a shield, but it's primary function remains defense.
• Protector: There are three classes of "Protector" (name for body protection), defense compared to Chinese Protector equipment is identical:
  • Heavy Armor: High physical but low magical defense, no bonuses, can be mixed with Light Armor.
  • Light Armor: Medium physical and magical defense, 10% higher movement speed, 10% lower mp consumption, can be mixed with Armor.
  • Robes: A high magical but low physical defense, 20% higher movement speed, 20% lower mp consumption, cannot be mixed.
• Accessories: In addition to clothing, characters can also wear accessories such as rings, necklaces, and earrings, these absorb a certain percentage of damage based on the level and statistics of the accessory.

Special Items

There are several types of items on Silkroad. Most items are normal in the sense that they possess only regular properties. These items can also be called "clean" or "white" items, due to their lack of special bonuses. Other items can have special properties that boost a specific characteristic, including "blue" items, as the item's name is shown in blue.

There are three special ranks that equipment, accessory, and weapons can have: Seal of Star (SOS), Seal of Moon (SOM), and Seal of Sun (SUN/SOSUN). Each increases the item's statistics so it is similar to an item of higher level. Normal Seal equipment cannot be made, and can only be obtained as a drop from mobs. Furthermore, Seal items are only the first level of each set. Each set has 3 "Tiers." By example, the 8th degree set has three swords, the levels being 64, 68, and 72. Seal of x is only possible at the first of these tiers, or 64 in the example. A further benefit of possessing a Seal item is when a player attempts to increase the weapons "+" (plus) enchantment through the use of alchemy by elixirs. An item that is "plused" a certain amount of times and fails does not affect the Seal item's original + enchantment level. This trait makes a Seal item all the more desirable to players, since its even more easy to make even more powerful. Obtaining a Seal item through the use of purchasing through a player stall or trading from a player is expensive. This is because normally players of the game set the Seal items at a price of 1000 to a 10000 times of a similar item in level of NPC quality. Despite this, many players still purchase these Seal items, simply because of their increased power.

Another type of Seals, which are somewhat easier to obtain yet do not differ in power, only in level, are "Honor Seal of Star/Moon/Sun (x)", these come at different levels around the first tier of a set, again they come in 3 types. Honor Seal of Star (HSOS), Honor Seal of Moon (HSOM), and Honor Seal of Sun (HSUN/HSOSUN). The only way to obtain these weapons is via the academy system, lower level players can register at a higher level players academy, and upon reaching, the higher level player receives honor points for these graduates. The number of honor points received depends on when the lower player joined and how he rates the higher levels help in the game (like answering questions concerning anything in-game related). The maximum number of honor points one graduate can give is 29 (any low level player joining after 30 will not give honor points). Even a "simple" Honor Seal of Star however, requires tens to hundreds graduates (depending on its level), making it still quite a challenge to obtain such an item, however trying to gain a Seal weapon this way makes sure you'll eventually get one, not alike grinding and hoping for a Seal of x drop.

• Seal equipment: Summarized, there are six types of Seal items:
  • Normal Seal of x Items
    • Seal of Star: Increases item statistics by 5 levels, only comes at the first tier of any set. (SOS)
    • Seal of Moon: Increases item statistics by 10 levels, only comes at the first tier of any set. (SOM/SOMOON)
    • Seal of Sun: The strongest and rarest of the normal Seals, gives an item statistic bonus in of 15 levels. Only comes at the first tier of any set. (SUN/SOSUN)
  • Honor Seal of x Items
    • Honor Seal of Star: Increases item statistics by 5 levels, comes at 2 levels below the first tier of any set. (HSOS)
    • Honor Seal of Moon: Gives an item statistic bonus in between (Honor) Seal of Star and (Honor) Seal of Sun., comes at 2 levels above the first tier of any set. (HSOM/HSOMOON)
    • Honor Seal of Sun: Gives an immense item statistic bonus in of 15 levels. Comes at 8 levels above the first tier of any set. (HSUN/HSOSUN)

Skills

Chinese masteries and skills

In Silkroad Online, skills are divided between weapon and elemental masteries. Within each mastery, there are many series of skills that can be learned. In addition, each mastery level can only be reached up to the current level of the character.

Chinese weapon masteries

• Bicheon (Blade/Sword): Gives special skills including chains that causes negative effects to the target, slashes, throwing ones blade/sword, knockdown, downattack, physical defense increase, and permanently increase blocking ratio.
• Heuksal (Glaive/Spear): Gives specials skills such as pierce attacks, spins that have a push back probability, huge blows that causes stun, sweeps the spear/glavie hitting 3 targets in front, throwing ones spear/glaive, and permanent increase of health.
• Pacheon (Bow) Gives special skills such as rapid attacks that have push back, summoning birds to aid in battle, attack that increase a possibility of a critical hit, attack that explodes, strong and powerful attacks that can render the opponents HP to half, and permanently increase in hit ratio.

Chinese force masteries

• Fire (Hwaryeongsingong): Highest imbue, burn effect, automatic status reduce, higher magical defense, fire wall, fire traits (ranged powerful intelligence based attacks), and an increase in physical attack power
• Lightning (Pungroibigong): Second highest imbue, lightning effect, speed increase, teleport, parry increase, fast lightning attacks, lightning traits (ranged intelligence based attacks attacking multiple targets at once, traits can be performed with any weapon), and an increase in magical damage.
• Cold (Hanbingmyeongong): Lowest imbue, freeze and frostbite effect, physical defense increase, frostbite attacks, freeze attacks, ice wall, snowshield, and ice traits (ranged intelligence based attacks possibly frostbiting or freezing the target(s)).
• Force (Gihyeoldaebeop): Self heal, target heal, cure bad status effects, resurrect dead players, prevent monsters from auto-attacking oneself, debuff (lower attack/defense) targets, passive mana increase.

European masteries and skills

As with the Chinese Masteries, European masteries are split into classes. For the European masteries: Melee, Caster, and Buffer, and their subclasses Warrior, Rogue, Wizard, Warlock, Bard, and Cleric. Also, the current mastery level of a subclass cannot exceed the current level of the character, and you can only have a total mastery (the sum of your mastery levels) less than or equal to two times your level. In addition, unlike Chinese, armor for European characters is based on their mastery level, making them considerably weaker when not "Fully farmed" (where skill level equals mastery level).

European class masteries

• Melee Class: Warrior & Rogue
  • Warrior: Can increase ones HP, defense, detect stealth, can taunt mobs, and can give others defensive buffs.
    • One hand sword: The unique ability to attack with a shield, knockback, reasonably fast attacks and medium damage.
    • Two hand sword: Can knockdown, has the strongest warrior attack, swing attacks, attacks rather slow but deals high damage.
    • Dual Axe: Can stun, the fastest attacker with the lowest damage, has mostly spins and chains.
  • Rogue: Can stealth, poison ones weapons, detect stealth, manipulate their appearance and look like monsters or other characters.
    • Daggers: Has increased damage when attacking out of stealth, can increase their damage at the cost of defense, has several chains and powerful blows.
    • Crossbow: Comes with great range, can increase their damage at the cost of physical defense and hp, has the biggest range ingame and can knockback, knockdown and deliver huge blows.
• Caster Class: Wizard & Warlock
  • Wizard: Can increase damage at the cost of HP.
    • Earth: Has great area attacks, can lock a target in place, and has the ability to absorb physical damage.
    • Cold: Can freeze or frostbite the enemy with huge area attacks, has the option to mana drain, and can make himself and the party invisible.
    • Fire: Has the highest damage, can do a flamethrower, meteor and can set traps.
    • Lightning: Has an area knockback attack, can cause fear to the enemy and can teleport.
  • Warlock: Warlock is the debuffer class, they can lower just about anything on their enemy and completely disable him and still deal good damage.
• Buff Class: Bard & Cleric
  • Bard: They can restore mana, speed the entire party, increase either physical or magical absorption, lock targets in place, confuse monsters, deal reasonable damage, and when 2 or more Bards are present they can give the highest increase ingame in physical damage, magical damage, healing received or mana consumed.
  • Cleric: The healer class, they have the strongest magical attack ingame and can deal absolute damage (ignores targets defense), they can heal the party, make their defense and statistics better and resurrect fallen allies.

Game problems and exploits

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The frequency of these problems vary for each individual user; some users claim that they have never or rarely experienced these problems, while others claim to experience them very often.

Server capacity limits and lag

Each server has a limit of players that can be logged in simultaneously. When a specific server has reached the limit, it stops allowing logins until space is cleared. During peak hours, this can lead to numerous attempts at logging in (which involve restarting the client), due to the lack of a login queuing system or other login control features. Customers that purchase a Premium Ticket (PT) for US$20 or US$15 can login regardless of server traffic. When a player with a Premium Ticket attempts a login, and the server has reached its limit, an additional spot will be granted for that player, and the server limit will be increased by 1, until someone leaves that server. However, sometimes users may be disconnected from the server due to the login of the premium ticker user, but the recent updates have NOT stopped this from happening. All of the original servers (those opened when SilkRoad Online was in its infancy including Xian and Troy among others) almost require a Premium Ticket due to the large volume of players attempting to connect simultaneously.

Though Joymax continues to open new servers to accommodate the increasing volume of players, and despite Joymax's previous attempts at creating events and experience bonuses on the new servers^{[citation needed]}, new players continue to join already overcrowded servers. As of February 26th 2008, Joymax has 30 Servers. Although Joymax has made attempts to help lag (like in towns when lagging, try hitting the V button) ^[2][3] many players still complain about instances of lag.

Crashes and Disconnects

Quite often, the game will crash without warning or explanation, possibly endangering the validity of player accounts. The actual cause of the random crashes may be due to faulty coding and overlooked bugs in the system, which cause memory leaks, errors and stability issues. The game has also been known to commonly give a "Disconnected from the server" error that many players have dislike. The "Disconnected from the server" error may occur at any time in any place. The causes of server disconnecting issues are by internet connection errors, or server capacity problems. If servers are full, during game play a player may get disconnected due to the space that is needed that 's accumulated by a user who happens to have a Gold or Silver Premium Ticket Service which allows them to log in and bypass the server traffic despite the capacity limit. Users who do not have the Premium service are typically chosen to be disconnected during the peak hours of traffic. Crashing is much more common during teleportation, crowded locations, alchemy, or use of the stall network (F button by default, in towns and/or in safe zones).

Localization Issues

There are many basic grammar, spelling (e.g. "glavie" for "glaive"), and punctuation mistakes. Mostly longer, complex sentences are worded in an awkward manner although players have not yet complained about not understanding sentences (however, there have been a few complaints about bad word choice and grammar.) Similarly, many items are translated differently: a player seeking a tiger's molar in some versions will have to seek a tiger grinding tooth in others, which is confusing for some players. When the Europe update was introduced in the international version of Silkroad, Joymax intended that these small yet embarrassingly numerous mistakes would be corrected. However, there are still numerous grammatical and spelling errors throughout the game. In addition, the official International version of the game is written in a combination of British English and American English (for example, both "defense" and "defence" are used).

Frame Rate Issues

Frame rate issues may arise in the game due to the sheer amount of players in town, especially in cities like Hotan, where player stalls are high in number. Because of this Joymax added a function which makes player characters invisible. It is toggled on/off by pressing the "V" key. This option can also be used outside cities, but it will hide not only players, but also monsters, which can cause potentially ill-effects by hiding monsters which the player won't see attacking them.

Botting

Silkroad has a considerable amount of botters. In attempts to combat this issue, "Client Altering Preventing Function" and other functions have been added.^[4]

This problem had been somewhat alleviated as Joymax has in the past been blocking gold collecting bots in large amounts; 1,500 were blocked during the first exertion,^[5] 1,400 in the second,^[6] 1,700 in the third,^[7] and 4,000 in the fourth.^[8]
Yet there are still many bots spotted. It is highly common on the forums to spot topics on the official Silkroad Online forums complaining about botters. Users claim that bots hinder quest completion and overall enjoyment of the game.

The missing frequent actions against botting, gold selling and other ways of altering the regular game play by Joymax causes a lot of frustration among the players. Many players rumor that Joymax allows the botters due to lack of more frequent action against them. The often announced "WAR AGAINST BOTS" never exceeded the block of gold bots without implementing a solution to avoid them to come back, since blocks are account-based, not IP-based.^{[citation needed]} By March 3, 2008, Joymax has announced a massive bot punishment. Despite the section that referred to the use of third party programs being removed from the terms of service (ToS), action is still taken on certain bots. This bot ban has banned over twenty-three thousand botters, most of them "clientless". Soon after these bot bans, every server was seen with the new bots repopulating and eventually causing an instance of server traffic issues.

Spammers

The five cities in Silkroad have a primary communication channel, which is enabled by default. In all five cities, this main channel has substantial amounts of spam. The spammers are, in most cases, agents of dotcom enterprises such as gold sellers (who charge real money for in-game currency), silk sellers (who charge real money for in-game silk), and power levelers (who charge money to log into the account and play for the buyer, or partying with that character to give them experience, although this is very rare). They usually stand in the town center and broadcast nonstop messages to advertise their "services". These spam broadcasts in the primary channel have made normal player interactions such as buying, selling, or trading extremely difficult because the messages are rapidly scrolled off-screen.

Joymax has declared the activities and enterprises of these spammers as "illegal."

Joymax has implemented a new block feature which will allow users to block a player from whispering him or her (whisper block list stored on Joymax servers, limit of 20 names) or block the player from in game chat (chat block list stored on local computer). Blocked users will be unable to send whispers to the player if they are on the whisper block list, and the player will not see public messages sent by the blocked user if they are on the chat block list. While this may not fully solve the spamming problem, it is considered to be a great help for many players who frequent in game towns. (The blocking feature does not seem to work to block indistinguishable or foreign characters, such as vertical lines. Capital letter i and l are also the same, making it hard to get their name.) On the 20th of march 2008 they banned over 23,000 gold bot accounts.

Credit card fraud and Phishing

Another issue is with the amount of credit card fraud, also known as "CCF," occurring on the servers nearly daily. People who engage in this type of fraud are able to purchase Item Mall items by using PayPal and charging back by reporting the payment as being unauthorized. This is a considerable bane of silkroad and it has expanded into the gold buying issues as well. "CCF" is now common on gold buying as well and vast majorities of gold are accumulated in this manner.

Many believe "CCF" is causing an unfair balance between people who are able to buy an unlimited amount of purchasable items and those who play legitimately. However, as this violates the Terms of Service agreement, Joymax will permanently ban anyone found to be engaging in credit card fraud. In addition, Silkroad has also attempted to curb this issue by adding level restrictions to the purchase of certain items.^{[citation needed]}

Many users have also received phishing emails which can easily mean that an unfair advantaged player can easily hack another person's account which gives a hostile situation security. There have been complaints but no response has yet been formulated

References

External links

• Silkroad Online - Korean Edition (Closed beta 09/2003)
• Silkroad Online - Chinese Edition (Closed beta 03/2005)
• Silkroad Online - Taiwanese Edition (Closed beta 06/2005)
• Silkroad Online - Japanese Edition (Closed beta 10/2005)
• Silkroad Online - Vietnamese Edition (Closed beta 06/2006)
• Silkroad Online - International Edition (Closed beta 12/2005)