Pros and Cons

Why play JPKO?

• This game works! No bugs, nothing disabled, everything running smooth. If I were to rewrite my issues list based on JPKO, it would be currently empty.
• More balance. Mages and priests get a Haste (sprint) skill, while rogues and warriors get a gate skill. Only at level 60 though.
• Free entry without premium the whole day.
• Many items that are not in USKO and maybe never will be, such as 100% respawn scroll and powerful unique weapons.
• This game doesn't celebrate the release of a new hack or setting a record on the number of cheaters with flags and fireworks.
• Pets available to everyone.
• Other features that work while they don't in USKO: Character Select, Character Delete, Chat rooms, Clan Recruitment and Monster Stones.
• You won't get KSed. You also don't see any hackers.
• If you decide to pay for the game, you'll pay whomever is responsible for the game, not just some random company who keeps saying "we are only a publisher".
• Account hacking is taken seriously. Recently there was a large-scale incident where about 379 accounts were compromised. In response, at least 353 of these have been restored, and extra security features have been added to the game (such as requiring the activation e-mail "in advance", and the in-game security password).

Why NOT play JPKO?

• Unless you convince your friends to come, you probably won't have anyone to play with. Remember that you are the intruder, and the natives might not like that - just like USKO and Turkish. Some players have been banned for being a foreigner.
  According to JPKO's TOS, it's not forbidden to sign up as a foreigner, but you must provide accurate personal information (just like with USKO) and you can be banned for giving false info. Since you can't enter non-Japanese names or choose a non-Japanese location on the registration form, you can't comply with this requirement. However, accounts aren't verified before activation so you must be the one to make the first move in making them verify you. Be careful when joining English-speaking clans or recruiting members for one - if one clan member acts stupid and a Japanese player doesn't like this, the whole clan may be put under investigation.
• Too many players will overload the server, which means MGAME might step up against foreign access. Perhaps if you learn how to use the Japanese PUS and put this knowledge into use frequently, you might lessen the chance of this happening.

Getting Started

Before you can start your new adventure, you must register. The registration is done at the following page: http://www.mgame.jp/regist/step01.html.
In step 1 you must enter a valid e-mail address. You'll get the activation e-mail and you must click on the URL in it to continue registration. Since Japanese e-mails tend to land in the junk folders in non-Japanese e-mail services, make sure you check those as well. The activation e-mail expires in 48 hours, so if you don't get it by that time, try a different e-mail address.

You must view the page in Internet Explorer. You can view it in Firefox with Javascript disabled but you won't be able to complete the registration as it requires Javascript. So you have Javascript enabled. But that also means you can't copy/paste ID's, passwords and e-mail addresses into the fields. You can't even press AltGr+V to insert the "@" symbol into the e-mail address. So you must temporarily switch to English keyboard layout (by pressing Alt+Shift or using the button on the right side of the system tray), which makes it possible to enter "@" by pressing Shift+2. After you enter your e-mail address you can switch back to the default keyboard layout.

You must fill in the registration form which looks like this:

Notes:

• The "Name" field shows "山田太郎" (Japanese equivalent of "John Doe") as an example. However you get an error for many things you try to enter here. Using the same format as your "Nickname" (that also means no spaces) you won't get an error.
• Make sure that the e-mail address you are using is not already used for a JPKO account (if you intend to make multiple accounts, keep notes of the e-mail addresses). This page won't warn you if the address is already in use and you'll face the truth after finishing with step 4.

After completing the first form, click on the continue button. However, you have another task to do...

... of course, it's the CAPTCHA! However, instead of entering letters you have to enter some of the following symbols (copy and paste):

If you only see boxes with weird numbers written in them, you might want to check this out: Multilingual support (East Asian).

(Note: this table is best viewed with fonts like Arial Unicode MS, which look exactly like the one used in the registration page. You can also use the Windows Character Map for help.)

After filling in the correct characters, click on Complete then pray. If you don't get an error message but you aren't taken to the 4th step page (your browser says "Ready" and doesn't show signs of loading anything even after several seconds) you probably have chosen an e-mail address that is already in use, or just the system is making fun of you... unfortunately I don't know what exactly causes this (other than bad e-mail). You must start over the process from the beginning since the "Complete" button will be locked after the first click and it will keep telling you "registration in progress, please wait". Try again later and/or with different info.

If you do get to the 4th step, you can relax since the worst is over (unless you are making accounts in bulk, that is). You can look in your mail for the welcome e-mail which contains your password and all data entered in the registration form, but you don't have to click on any activation links.

Downloading a client

You can download the client from the following location: http://downftp.mgame.co.jp/pub/knightonline/full/KnightOnlineSetup.exe.

Alternatively, if you already have USKO installed, you can avoid downloading a 700 MB file and instead use the Cross patch, which must be extracted into an USKO directory with version 1744 (higher may work but lower versions might miss important files) and turns it into JPKO version 1787. If you want to keep your USKO installation as well, you must make a copy of your installation. Since JPKO installs into X:\MgameJP\KnightOnline (replace X with whatever drives you have), you should copy the folder to this name and then extract the Cross patch into it, overwriting all files. This is only recommended if you have decent knowledge about computers and Windows. If you don't, downloading the JPKO installer and letting it install on its own is probably more time-saving than messing around with the Cross patch and asking people around for help.

Starting the game

To start the game, go to the JPKO member page, enter enter your ID and password, click on the login button, then when you are back on the member page with your member info displayed next to a "Logout" button, click on the big red button above that (labeled "ゲームスタート", Game Start). Accept any extensions or plugins it wants you to install. This may not work if you didn't install JPKO with the installer or it's not at its default installation directory. You might try installing a registry update to fix it, but make sure you edit the file first and put in the correct installation directory. Another thing to try is save this file: KnightOnline.ini into the directory C:\MgameJP\Common (this MUST be on the C: drive), remembering to edit it afterward to reflect your installation directory.

Note: when you click the "Login" button on the website, you might be asked a question. This asks you if you want to change your password. Simply say no, unless you want to go through the long and boring process involving receiving a confirmation e-mail. This was introduced after the hacking incident; people are encouraged in every way to keep their passwords updated.

There is an alternative method. After launching the game the said way, when the Launcher is on-screen, run Process Explorer, look for Launcher.exe, look at its properties and copy the parameters from the "Command Line" field, then run Microsoft AppLocale, tell it to run the Launcher and give it the command-line parameters you copied. Next, allow it to make a shortcut. This way you can use the shortcut to launch the game without logging in to the website. More info on AppLocale can be found below.

First steps in the game

• Even before your character starts out in Moradon, you'll notice the differences from USKO... the King's Greetings for the servers are working, the servers are merged from 6 former servers. However these aren't so much important for gameplay. The 3 servers (listed in the same order as in the game) are Sukei, Enion and Artemis. There's not much difference between the 3 servers, even the event schedules are the same. The servers at the top generally have more players than those at the bottom.
• The security password works in a different way. When you create your first character, you'll get a window with 2 text fields. Enter whatever security password you want to use into the BOTTOM field then press OK. Once this is done, you must enter your security password every time you log in. See below for more information and pictures.
• Event schedule is different from USKO. You can check the event schedule by selecting a Japanese server on the Event Times page.
• I don't know how to use the PUS and I probably won't find out how, but you might want to check this site: http://www.mgame.jp/myinfo/mint/info/. You need to log in with your MGAME ID and password.

English conversion?

English Patch is available from the JPKO Patches page. Note that the patch doesn't include scheduler.tbl - see the next paragraph. It is released in 2 versions: a "final" version and a "work in progress" version. The final version is marked with the current JPKO version number. Old versions are not kept because when you download the new game patch it will overwrite some files from the English patch. Once a new patch is released for JPKO, I'll check if any texts are changed in it, and if so, the changes are done to the work in progress version which will become the new final version at that time. The work in progress version can change rapidly and some features may be untested/bugged in it - that's what the "use at your own risk" notice is for.

The in-game Scheduler doesn't recognize time zones. For Japan and Korea this is no trouble as these countries use one constant time zone. However, since the times in the scheduler's table are expressed in Japanese time, it will alarm you at the wrong times (unless you are in the Japanese time zone yourself). To combat this problem, different versions of the scheduler table have been released for different time zones. You can access these from the JPKO patches page. Don't forget to rename the file to scheduler.tbl or the game will not recognize it.

Mojibake

Normally when you run JPKO on a system that is not Japanese by default, you won't see the Japanese text the way you should. This also means you might miss vital information such as the names of the servers (for comparing them with this site, for example). To fix it, yo have 2 choices: either switch your whole system to Japanese (in Control Panel -> Locale and Language Settings 4th page, click on the top button to change), or install Microsoft AppLocale and use it to launch the game. (To install AppLocale in Windows Vista or 7, you have to edit its properties to run in compatibility mode.) In the Language field, choose Japanese, which is currently the bottom item. I recommend you to also check the checkbox to create a shortcut for running it with AppLocale. The shortcut will go to the Microsoft AppLocale folder in your start menu. In Vista you might have to change the shortcut to run as administrator to properly run the game.

Even when you run the game in AppLocale you may find yourself unable to type in Japanese characters. The only solution I have found so far is to run another program with AppLocale that can accept Unicode text anyway (such as Notepad), enter your text there and copy-paste into your client. This might work with character creation and clan names, but it's too cumbersome to use in chatting. To see what Shift-JIS (the character set used in Japan) is capable of, see this page.

Entering your Personal Code

The windows where you can enter and change your Personal Code are found under the H-menu:

	"Enter Personal Code" window:
	"Change Personal Code" window:

When you first log in to the account, you will get the Change Personal Code window. Since the initial personal code is blank, you must enter a new one into the bottom field and press OK. On every subsequent login, you get the Enter Personal Code window. If you don't enter your code correctly or accidentally close this window, you must re-open it from the H-menu.

The personal code is required for the following actions:

• Selling items to NPC
• Destroying items
• Trading with another player (note: to trade, both characters must have their personal codes entered)
• Buying items from a merchant
• Setting up a buying or selling merchant
• Sending letters with items
• Sealing and unsealing items
• Sealing and unsealing characters
• Deleting characters (the delete button will ask for your personal code)
• Quitting clan (even the starter clan!)

The personal code is NOT required for the following actions:

• Buying items from NPC
• Upgrading items

This means it's possible to destroy items by burning them on the anvil.

Maintenance

The servers are brought down for maintenance once a week. The time of maintenance is on Thursday 9:00 in Japanese time and it's posted on the official site.

Troubleshooting

• When I run the launcher, it can't connect to the login server.
  
  Make sure it is not maintenance time (which is on Thursday). If it's not, it's possible that your country is IP banned.
  
  
• When I launch the game, I get a yes/no prompt. Yes opens the website and no does nothing, but both options close the game.
  
  You must launch the game from the website. See above.
  
  
• I have logged in to the website and clicked on the red button, but then it asks me to download the client or it will simply not launch the game.
  
  Make sure you accept any extensions or plugins that the site wants to install. If your IE blocks the plugins, change your security settings to allow their installation.
  
  Installing the Cross patch alone is not enough to make the website think that the game is installed. The same thing also happens if you reinstall Windows but leaving the game intact. See the 'Starting the Game' section for solutions.
  
  Alternatively, you can download the full installer. Some people have suggested installing on the C drive, but I don't see the point as I have installed it on the D drive and it still works.
  
  
• The website tells me to install Internet Explorer even though I'm already using it.
  
  Make sure you don't have any unusual plugins or other programs that can interfere with web browsing (some anti-virus does that). Also make sure you aren't using a proxy.
  
  
• If nothing else works...
  
  You can always decide to reinstall Windows. That's the only way to make sure you have a clean environment. Install KO and any required things (DirectX, drivers) first after the reinstall. If you can't get it to work that way, then chances are you won't ever be able to play from that PC or location.