Dont get Scammed by Dragonica (P-) Server!
i think there were topics like this before but since people still fall for it i want to give some good advice to not get scammed by Dragonica (P-)Server which pop up every now and then.
So here are some tips:
1.
First at all join #trusted dragonica discord server. Thats the best way to get real feedback, experience and answers to the server you are about to join. As a trusted dragonica discord server i would describe server where many dragonica player from different server come together. You wont get an unbiased opinion on the pservers own discord servers since the admins will kick the people who write a negative review or bad comments about their server.
This one here would be my first choice since the discord owner is completely unbiased
This one here would be my second choice.
However, both are good so you might try out each of them.
2.
P-Server that are most likely about to scam/ milk their community are rather easy to detect because it are always the same people who run them. They might use new discord accounts, different names but in the end there arent many new pserver from "new" people or "new" teams.
You have to differentiate between a real new pserver by a new developer and a new team or a new pserver by the same guys who closed their last pserver just a couple of weeks ago. At the end of the day i cant remember that there were any new (european) pserver by a new team. Means all new pserver are currently from people who already had an existing p-server but who had to close it because of corruption/inactivity, inflation or bad management.
My advice is therefor to not join new pserver. Join pserver with a running time of at least 6-12months. Sounds harsh, but as said the most new european server in the last years were opened by people who are known for scamming.
3.
Once you joined a p-server, go check the ingame activity. The activity of the discord server is pretty much irrelevant. Every mmorpg has a main city/ or a main town which is easily accessable for low and high level player. At Dragonica this kind of city is "Port of the Winds".
Check the activity ingame. Do you see more than 20 player in port of the winds? How active is the trade chat. More than 2-3 messages per minute at least at the good hours? Does the market have more than 100 open shops? If the answer to all of this is no, then you might consider to not join the server.
Ofc there are smaller pserver which dont scam their community, but at the end of the day theres a reason why the server isnt populated. And it's not up to you to populate it. Dragonica is an MMORPG, it makes the most fun if you play it together with people. Playing on a server where you cant get find a party to farm isn't worth your time.
4.
Did you receive an e-mail which informed you about a new server? If yes, dont join it. Never follow a server invitation by e-mail or social media advertisement. Some pserver admins collected e-mail addresses of their player and everytime they open a new server they send you a notification or newsletter.
Good p-server will present themselves with a forum thread, a trailer or word-of-mouth recommendation.
5.
"Omg, the server i played years ago did just reopen. We had such a great time on it, i want to join it."
Are you sure about that? Because this is a very common strat of those pserver which re-open every few months. They take popular guild names or names of old pserver which closed, pretending to have anything to do with them. But that's sadly never the case. They might even impersonate your old GMs or Admins but be sure that until now non of the old P-Server like Lavalon Dragonica or Fantasy Dragonica reopened. And they dont plan to do so. And no, Dragon Saga (Warpportal), the official one, doesnt have any small european pserver either.
6.
Check the website. Did you see this website before, does it look similar to an old pserver you saw? then that's because they just took their website. Does it have a big donation button too? Scam.
7.
Check the discord staff. Most fishy Dragonica P-Server have always the same people in lead. Sadly most fishy dragonica server also have the same community.
Some people tend to believe that the same guy who had already 7 servers will now finally create a stable one which lasts multiple years and brings alot of fun, cool features and good balancing. Well you might aswell play the lottery today.
8.
Does the server have donation events every few weeks? If yes that's a sign that they want to generate money as fast as possible, before player detect how bad their server is. Do they run facebook ads? If yes, they also want to generate as many player as possible for fast money. Please know that this is not how you build a stable playerbase. They get a few player everytime they run ads on social media. Those player donate a bit of money to check the server out but they also leave pretty soon again. It's fake hype.
9.
Never use your real e-mail/data if you register for a pserver. Do testing before you donate on a server. Play it for a couple of weeks or a couple of months. If the server is instable, has a lot of patches per week. Has alot of technical issues, problems, then step away from it. That's always a bad sign. Especially if the admins write that they dont have time/ that they cant fix the issue now/ that there will be no event this time (at event season) - if they come up with excuses in general. Drop the server.
_______
Every further tip would be only for people who know the pserver scene already pretty well, like - "did that new pserver steal the content of an other pserver?" - which is a sign for laziness or lack of skill because they can't create their own content.
Obviously if you detect the same content on a new server, you know that it's stolen. Some people still join those servers and make a surprised pika face if they go down after a few months.
Be smart. Join a trusted dragonica community server today to ask your questions about certain Dragonica P-Server if you are new to the scene. Only here you will get unbiased answers. If you ask questions on P-Server discord you will obviously only get positive feedback.
Be smart, not stupid. Dont become one of those pserver zombie player who spend time and money on a new server just to join an other one after a couple of months.
Keep also in mind that the goal of every scummy p-server is to look as serious as possible. So they might use some of those tips to look more professional in the feature now that also outsider have some ideas of how a scummy p-server looks like. The best advice is and will be to talk with trusted dragonica player who know the p-server scene for a while. Dont only talk with one person, talk with different people on a neutral discord server.
