''Ran Online'' (stylized as ''RAN Online'', zh, 亂Online) was a

massively multiplayer online role-playing game A massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) is a video game that combines aspects of a role-playing video game and a massively multiplayer online game. As in role-playing games (RPGs), the player assumes the role of a Player charac ...

developed by Min Communications, Inc., the company that had also developed ''Remnant Knights''. After starting the first official service in Korea in July 2004, ''RAN Online'' continued to expand globally. Servers were opened in

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

and

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

in May 2005,

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

in September 2005,

Malaysia Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. Featuring the Tanjung Piai, southernmost point of continental Eurasia, it is a federation, federal constitutional monarchy consisting of States and federal territories of Malaysia, 13 states and thre ...

in October 2005,

Thailand Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand and historically known as Siam (the official name until 1939), is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. With a population of almost 66 million, it spa ...

in November 2005, the

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

in January 2006, Europe in September 2013, and

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

in November 2013. Because it was free-to-play and had low system requirements, RAN Online remained popular in the Philippines in 2011, and was listed among the most popular MMO games in the Philippines in a 2009 study. On August 12, 2019, its official Facebook page announced the game's closure. Meanwhile, in 2018, Wavegame published ''RAN'' with the name "New RAN Online" in the Southeast Asia region. However, it shut down on June 30, 2021. In 2023, a few private server developers reopened the game, but it is still unstable to play due to a lack of old data. In the same year, Min Communications CEO Kim Byung-min issued a serious warning against illegal private servers and noted that the company has no plans to sell service rights or release a mobile version in the future.

Schools

You could choose schools for your characters. There were three main schools in the game: Sacred Gate, Mystic Peak and Phoenix.

Classes

The game's classes originally consisted of male Brawler (alternatively called Fighter), male Swordsman (alt. Knight), female Archer, and female Shaman (alt. QiGong). The ''Rebirth'' update turns classes no longer gender specific and introduced the Extreme class, which can be only unlocked on accounts with an existing character in specific level. Later updates added Gunner (alt. Scientist), Assassin, Magician and Shaper classes.

PvP

School Wars (Tyranny)

At most fifty members of each school can participate in School Wars (formerly called Tyranny) set every three hours. The goal of the game is to capture three towers positioned in different locations in the modified Saint Power Plant map within 30 minutes. A school automatically wins if it captures all the towers or if it captures two towers after the game's duration; otherwise, no winner is declared.

Capture the Flag

Two teams of five players are selected to compete against each other during the registration of the game. The players can be composed of different classes from different schools.

Item Shop and Payment

Players can buy many different costumes such as wedding dresses or movie themed outfits, different kinds of pets (Siberian Husky, Turtle, White Tiger, Ranny Bear) and the recently added pets (Monkey, Panther, Pixie, Saurus), their pet skills (Automatic

potion A potion is a liquid "that contains medicine, poison, or something that is supposed to have magic powers." It derives from the Latin word ''potio'' which refers to a drink or the act of drinking. The term philtre is also used, often specifica ...

, Auto Looting, Auto recovery, Attack and Defense increase, Item non-drop), nail arts, hairstyles, accessories, destiny boxes, bikes that can increase the movement speed of the player, game points and other items through the Ran Item Shop. Players can also change different stats of their armors and weapons using different reform cards (Reform Card, Basic Stat Reform Card, Additional Stat Reform Card). Moreover, seal cards (Seal Card, Dual Seal Card, Triple Seal Card) can also be used to retain certain stat points while reforming.

References

{{mmorpg-videogame-stub 2004 video games Free online games Free-to-play video games Inactive massively multiplayer online games Massively multiplayer online role-playing games Products and services discontinued in 2019 Video games developed in South Korea Windows games Windows-only games