What should of happened in a perfect world was the Open Beta was going to start 27th December 2012, due to the massive amount on interest this came with serve server congestion and slowed websites. Asiasoft after much consideration has deiced to reschedule the open beta test to the 3rd of January to make sure that all the problems that happened first time around should be resolved or at the very least highly minimised, this is to reduce any further disappointment.
The bad news, if you did manage to play on the 27th, all player data is going to be wiped when the servers officially re-open on the 3rd January 2012, this decision was not mad lightly and will allow for a more equal and fairer re-launch.
Mr Sherman Tan, Chairman of Asiasoft Online, has expressed his apologies on this issue with a personal message to the players on the official Ragnarok Online 2 Facebook fan page at http://www.facebook.com/notes/ro2/open-beta-extended-to-3rd-jan-2013-a-message-from-our-chairman/144994925652540
From now till OBT, Asiasoft and Gravity Co., Ltd will be working hard to resolve all game server issues and will be performing occasional stress tests on the game. Players are welcome to participate in the testing and the stress test schedule will be released shortly. For the latest updates, please visit the Ragnarok Online 2 the Facebook fan page at http://www.facebook.com/PlayRO2 .
WHO: Ragnarok Online 2 – the world’s first English service.
WHERE: Online
WHEN: 28th December 2012 to 3rd January 2013
In my opinion, I believe this was a smart move, taking a server down during an Open Beta is risky but at least they are willing to work out the issues for a few days then bring the servers back up in hopefully tip top shape, rather than go down the route of other MMOs where the servers are so bad for the first few weeks no one really enjoys playing the game and has to wait for the hype to die down, by then the excitement is gone and players are gone.
If you want to get some play time in before the servers re-open then your best bet is to help with the stress tests, remember this means that there is no need for them to maintain a constant server up time as it is just testing and any progress you make during the stress test will be wiped on the 3rd January.