Classic vs modern servers: what is different

A private server stays on the client version it was built for. Classic versions (5017 to 5165) are close to the early years of the game, and versions such as 5517 sit between them and the newer clients. The official game, meanwhile, kept adding classes and power systems for more than twenty years.

So the question is not which is better, but which game you want: the simpler early game, or the official game with every later system.

Dates come from the Conquer Online timeline: from 2003 to today and the class and system pages of this wiki. The later a feature arrived, the less likely a classic server has it.

Our sources call these later additions but give no year. Servers on older client versions may not have them, and some owners add their own versions:

• Battle Power and the Battle Power groups of the Elite PK tournament (Combat, Battle Power and PK jail).
• Chi and Jiang Hu, with the Jiang Hu PK mode.
• Talismans, Refinery and Dragon Souls, Pure Skills and Reincarnation.
• Team tournaments and the arena (Team PK Tournament), and the Oriental Assassin path for the Archer.

• Upgrades through NPCs: without the Forging window, quality, plus levels and sockets are often done by talking to NPCs (Item quality and level, Socketed items).
• Blessed gear mostly comes from the rebirth gift and monster drops, and enchanting may still be random (Blessed and enchanted items).
• Fewer classes on the creation screen, fewer chat channels and simpler windows (Creating a character, Chat).
• Power depends mostly on level, rebirths and gear, without the many layers of later systems.

Use the version number as a first filter, then read the server's own page: many owners mix old and new, for example a classic client with a few later features added. See Game versions: classic and modern servers for what each number range means.