Athena.NET

Athena.NET

A modern Ragnarok Online server written in C#/.NET for the official, unmodified International Ragnarok Online client.

Get started »   ·   Project status   ·   Roadmap   ·   Documentation

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Table of Contents

1. About
2. Why Athena.NET?
3. Project status
4. Getting started
5. Roadmap
6. Architecture direction
7. Documentation
8. Reference projects
9. Project scope

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About

Athena.NET is a new Ragnarok Online server implementation built from the ground up in modern C#/.NET.

The project focuses exclusively on compatibility with the official International Ragnarok Online (iRO) client. The goal is simple: run the stock, unmodified client against a modern, maintainable and cross-platform server stack without requiring a custom Ragexe build or modified game client.

Athena.NET is not a port of rAthena. Mature projects such as rAthena and OpenKore are used as research and behavioral references, while Athena.NET implements its own protocol handling, gameplay systems, persistence, world model and infrastructure.

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Why Athena.NET?

Ragnarok Online has decades of emulator history. Athena.NET explores what a fresh implementation can look like when modern software-engineering practices are applied from the beginning.

🎯 Official iRO first Compatibility work is driven by the current official International Ragnarok Online client rather than generic kRO compatibility.	⚙️ Modern .NET Built around current C#, .NET, async I/O, dependency injection, strongly typed domain code and automated testing.
🔬 Evidence-driven protocol support Verified client captures and proven runtime behavior take precedence over assumptions or blindly copying legacy packet tables.	🧱 Clean architecture boundaries Protocol, gameplay, persistence, world data and infrastructure are intentionally separated so they can evolve independently.
🧪 Testable by design Packet framing, gameplay rules, persistence and world-data conversion are covered by a growing automated test suite.	🌍 Cross-platform Designed for modern development and hosting workflows across Windows, macOS and Linux.

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Project status

Athena.NET has progressed beyond login/bootstrap experiments and now has a playable early-game vertical slice using the official stock iRO client.

✅ Working today

Area	Status
LoginServer	Stock iRO login flow
CharServer	Character create, load, persist and select
Map handoff	CharServer → MapServer
World entry	Stock iRO MapServer authentication and entry
NPCs & scripts	Initial interactive NPC/script flow
Quests	Quest state and progression in the current slice
Monsters	Spawn, visibility, death and respawn foundations
Combat	Initial Renewal basic combat
Drops & inventory	Item pickup and inventory flow
Equipment	Equip/unequip and persistence foundations
Item use	Initial usable-item flows
Progression	EXP and Job EXP foundations
Warps	Initial same-server map/world transitions

Athena.NET is already able to behave like a real server to the stock client, but the implemented gameplay currently represents a focused development vertical slice rather than the complete Ragnarok Online world.

Athena.NET is under active development and is not yet ready for production use or public-server hosting.

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Getting started

Recommended entry points

• Installation
• Configuration
• Run locally
• Run with .NET Aspire
• Run with Docker Compose

Database

• Database migrations
• SQL Server development database

Local development can be run through .NET Aspire, which starts Athena.NET services and supporting infrastructure together.

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Roadmap

• iRO LoginServer connectivity
• iRO CharServer connectivity
• Character loading and creation
• Character persistence and selection
• Handoff from CharServer to MapServer
• Stock-iRO MapServer authentication and world entry
• Player spawn, status and inventory foundations
• NPC and script interaction vertical slice
• Items, equipment and item-use foundations
• Mobs, basic Renewal combat and drops
• Quest state, EXP and Job EXP progression
• Initial same-server warps and map transitions
• Reliable movement, collision and pathfinding
• Basic in-game chat
• Broader map, world and gameplay-content coverage
• Broader skills, parties, guilds and storage
• Stable network timing, reconnect and persistence behavior
• Administration and operational tooling
• Production hardening and deployment documentation

Athena.NET deliberately completes the stock-iRO baseline before introducing the later proxy, QUIC, Identity and Orleans architecture.

Read the full architecture roadmap »

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Architecture direction

Athena.NET intentionally starts simple and grows from measured evidence.

Today

Official iRO client
        ↓
   LoginServer
        ↓
    CharServer
        ↓
    MapServer
        ↓
    SQL Server

The current direction is to begin with one MapServer, keep supported maps normally loaded and collect real per-map usage and runtime telemetry before introducing lifecycle optimizations.

Later, based on evidence

Telemetry can guide decisions such as:

• keeping important maps permanently warm;
• lazy-loading genuinely cold maps;
• independently versioning and deploying game content;
• assigning proven high-cost maps to dedicated MapServers.

A normal logical world map is intended to have one authoritative runtime. Future scaling should move complete maps to other MapServers rather than silently duplicating the same normal map into separate channels where players cannot see each other.

Static game content is also intended to become independently deployable without placing a remote Content Service in the gameplay hot path.

Read the game content and map lifecycle architecture »

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Documentation

🚀 Getting started Installation Configuration Run locally .NET Aspire Docker Compose Migrations

🏗 Architecture Architecture roadmap Game content & map lifecycle Client / Gateway architecture Orleans game engine

🛠 Development World-data importer Development checklists Helper scripts

Developer-facing protocol evidence and implementation notes live under ai/. Those files are intentionally more detailed and evidence-oriented than this public project overview.

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Reference projects

Athena.NET keeps two mature Ragnarok Online projects under legacy/ as development references:

• legacy/rathena/ — reference for gameplay mechanics, world data, server behavior, scripts, items, monsters and tooling.
• legacy/openkore/ — reference for client/server behavior and protocol research.

These are reference projects only.

Athena.NET does not aim to be a generic kRO/rAthena-compatible server. The supported client target is the official International Ragnarok Online client.

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Project scope

Athena.NET is an unofficial server implementation and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Gravity Co., Ltd. or WarpPortal.

Ragnarok Online and related names and assets are the property of their respective owners.

Athena.NET is distributed under the terms described in LICENSE.

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**Athena.NET** Modern .NET architecture. Official iRO compatibility. No modified client required.

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