Afternoon everyone! Many moons ago we migrated our wiki content to Github in an effort to alleviate resources on our VM, increase our data's stability and in-general, significantly reduce the number of things that could go wrong. That was the plan. The plan worked well enough on all three counts above, however, Github Wiki's have this wonderful knack of not doing what they're supposed to when you need them to be helpful. For example, users needing special permissions to push new content to it (until very recently this has been "maintainer" access only), which means everyone has to rely on rA Staff to update the Wiki, which we evidently haven't had much time for. Now there's a new kid on the block; User-Guides! Guides from the Wiki will slowly be migrated to our new User Guides site (which you can help with, if you want to), which is a HTML website hosted using Github Pages, automatically generated from Markdown files that are stored in a Github Repository. Neat, huh! View the site at https://rathena.github.io/user-guides/ Because this new guide platform is built on a git repo, it means that anyone can contribute to it by opening a Pull Request. I've written some guidance here: https://github.com/rathena/user-guides/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md "What about all those guides on the forums" I hear you ask. Let's face it, 20% of them don't make any sense, 30% of them are inaccurate, 90% of them are outdated, 100% of them are developed with either bias towards specific software tools or just badly written due to language barriers or laziness. Far too often are links to out-of-date guides re-posted on the forums and in Discord, and we can't keep them updated because they're forum posts so only Mods can edit them (which is not what they're here for). From now on, well-written guides are to be posted to the User Guides repo. Guides posted on these forums will result in a message being sent to the author stating why we're going to hide the thread and then give a link to this post. What can you NOT post to User Guides? rAthena is a software emulation project. As such, guides pertaining to 3rd Party Tools or software will not be approved. This includes "How-To's" regarding the client, which is not actually within the scope of the rAthena project. We don't want to be sued 👍, thanks. We have a new channel in Discord called #user-guides for discussions related to this area of the project. We would be very happy to see you helping our effort to migrate and write good, informative guides for our community to use and keep updated for years to come! Next we'll be working on doing something very similar to our source's /doc/ directory! Akky~

This is going to be a blunt post. For some time now the rAthena staff have been actively working to reduce the number of reseller advertisements that crop up on our forums, our Discord server, Facebook, websites, etc. We strongly advise that rAthena users do not engage with resellers. The code/content isn’t theirs to sell. You receive little to no support. You are at risk of being scammed. You are not supporting the developers of their respective projects or original content creators. You are lining the pockets of thieves and scammers who have no idea what they’re doing. The original project authors begin to feel demotivated - this can cause them to stop working on this and upcoming projects altogether. The number of reports from our users who have been scammed has increased significantly over the last year. If you wish to hire the services of a known and trusted developer, please use https://rathena.org/board/thirdpartyservices/ - this list of members of our forum has been vetted and approved. This is a list of members who are not going to scam you. If you decide to give your money to some random idiot that claims to have “full working premade x, y, z” then that’s on you. We can’t stop you, but you’re certainly adding fuel to the fire and these idiots will continue to take advantage of other members of our community. If you receive a DM from anyone trying to sell content on rAthena’s Discord or forum and the person is not listed on the Third Party Services page, we suggest taking evidence and report the users to a member of staff. So, what should you do instead? Setting up rAthena and a working client is easy. You don’t need someone else to do it for you - that is not how you learn. Using any of the multitude of tutorials and wiki pages will help you get your rAthena server up and running. If you don’t do it yourself, you will not learn where the configurations are. You won’t learn how to modify an item/mob. You won’t know how to enable an NPC. If you’re now thinking “well, I don’t have time, that’s why I pay someone” then maybe running a game server is not for you. Reseller = Bad. Learning and Self-Betterment = Good. I’m hoping this post gets our point across loud and clear.

Evening all! With the recent forum updates comes some new shiny features from IPS. The feature I'm most excited about is the new Achievements and Ranks. The old Badges & Awards plugin has been merged into the new Achievements system on the forums - I'm sure some of you have already begun to receive additional badges for posting content or uploading a file! The ancient Ranks system has been replaced with the new one and updated to use the names of familiar in-game mobs. The order is different to the old one and the number of points for each rank has changed slightly, but I can see that some of you are already quickly climbing the ladder! The following table details how many points gets you to which rank, and how to earn those desirable points. Posting a comment/reply: 5 points Following a content item: 2 points Following a member: 2 points Following a node (forum, album, category, etc): 2 points Posting a content item: 10 points Reacting to a user's post/content item: 1 point for both giver and receiver There are other methods, but to reduce forum spam I'm omitting them from this list. Remember; spamming the forum will result in Warning Points which may result in your account being suspended. Happy posting!

Evening all! You know when you have one of those days and can't wait for it to end? That sums up the entirety of 2020. All of it. It's been tough for people all around the world with the sheer amount of ridiculousness over the last 12 months and eventually there will be a light at the end of the tunnel. It has been 6 years since I last posted a Christmas message, and as is customary at Christmas here in the UK, we get a message from the Queen. This message though, is aimed at 2020 as a whole. If you're lucky enough to be with family this Christmas, treasure them. If you're out celebrating with friends, be kind to everyone you meet. If you're in the hospitality industry serving others with little time to yourself, werk it girl. *snaps fingers* Whatever you're doing, stay safe. And wherever you are in the world, the rAthena team wishes you a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and Season's Greetings.