Pros and Cons of Private Servers – Things to Consider Before You Play

Pros and Cons of Private Servers – Things to Consider Before You Play

Most of the time when you reach the end game content of the MMORPG that you are playing, grinding becomes the majority of your in-game life aside from the Pking and partying. You would start hearing and thinking about playing on player hosted private servers to experience game contents faster without the work of grinding. This guide will go through some of the pros and cons before you start playing on any private servers. Hopefully this can help you make an informed decision about starting to play on one.

It should be noted that I am not promoting playing on private servers, I am simply stating some of the facts that you need to consider before playing on one.

Pros of Playing on a Private Server:

1. Higher Level Caps/Potentials
Private servers typically alter their game data so that you can achieve higher levels than those of the official servers. With this in mind, you can typically increase your stat points and skill levels to a whole set of levels that it completely changes the game play. You may be able to do things such like tanking multiple bosses or even one-hit KO them.

2. Ease of Playing
Private servers change regen or healing items so that you can level faster and easier. This is typically done by granting higher level of regen time or the power of healing items.

3. Official Server Limitation Removed
Some private servers to extend to let their players experience the game play on different levels. This may include weapon/armor limitations and skill limitations.

4. Experience Contents Not Available on Official Server
Private server owners sometimes offer access to contents not yet available on your version. So you may be able to get a head start in guessing what the future content may be like on your server.

5. Custom Equipments/Mounts/Pets/In-Game Items
The owners and GM’s of the private servers often create their own set of items and offer them to the players. These in-game items may be totally different from what is available on official servers. In some cases these servers offer them like cash-shop items (or so called donations) to keep the servers afloat.

6. Obtain Great Weapons/Armors Easily
Private servers typically offer easy ways for you to obtain great weapons that may typically be very expensive on official servers. This is done by lowering the prices, increasing drop rates, and increasing the upgrade chances if applicable.

7. High EXP rate/Drop Rate
You can achieve high levels with great weapons within a short period of time in comparison to the official servers. This eliminates the amount of time that you spend gathering money and/or grinding for level.

Cons of Playing on a Private Server:

1. Technical Difficulties
Sometimes private servers can be hard to join when the owners did not make it too user-friendly. You might have to tweak around with your network settings and game clients in order to access the private servers. This step might be a hassle especially when you cannot get it to work.

2. Server Population Limitations
Private servers can and will limit the amount of connections if it gets too populated. The amount of people that can connect to the servers at one time is typically a lot less than what is offered on official servers.

3. Unstableness
Because these servers are typically run by enthusiastic players who get tired of the official servers, these servers can disappear in a flash especially when they do not want to pay for the hosting costs any longer. All the work that you put in your character is typically more at risk than the official servers. But then again you can achieve high levels relative fast as well. Some servers are not operational 24/7 when the owners decide to turn them off.

4. Lag
Compared to the official servers, players on private servers generally suffer more lag problems. These servers are hosted by regular players instead of companies that have invested heavily with their server equipments. Relatively higher lag is common among most of the private servers.

5. Less Player Population
If your goal is to experience MMORPG with many different kinds of people, private servers might not be for you because these servers tend to have less people. Due to the ease of leveling up, many players come and go. Most of the time you would only see other live players when you play in PvP arenas.

6. Security Issues
Do not use real logins that you typically use with official servers and use the same one with private servers. Typically the security measures done by these servers are subpar to those of official. Your logins might be used and tried to login into the real official servers, so your hardwork on the official server may be stolen if you are not careful.