What Is in Classic
What Gate to Heavens Classic contains today, the original interface and vocabulary it puts back, and which buttons the server does not answer yet.
The Edition
Gate to Heavens Classic is the 2003 game presented the way it shipped, on a server written from scratch in Go. The original interface, the original vocabulary, the original content.
The windows are the originals themselves. Login, server select, character select and character creation, the HUD and hotbar, chat, the menu, the minimap, inventory, the character sheet, skills, quests, shops, the warehouse, party, trade, guild, friends, the world map, the post office and the NPC dialog boxes are all original widgets. Nothing you see is the modern edition’s interface.
Modern controls stayed, on purpose. WASD movement and tab targeting are both here, off by default: press Alt+K to switch keyboard mode on. What we put back is the presentation, and the controls were left alone.
The Original Words
Classic reads its vocabulary out of the original string tables, so the words on screen are the ones that were there.
| Classic | Modern edition |
|---|---|
| Occult Knight, Windy Explorer, Water Spiritor, Vital Spiritor | Warrior, Archer, Mage, Psychic |
| Force, Soul, Agility | Strength, Intelligence, Dexterity |
| Zen | Gen |
| Dan | Guild |
Vitality and Coins read the same in both. Those two were already faithful, so nothing changed.
What Is in It
Four classes, 98 levels and 23 worlds, backed by 998 items, 251 monsters, 128 skills, 90 quests, 300 quest scrolls, 24 stores, 35 binding points and 51 NPC dialog scripts.
The classes do not all start in the same place. Occult Knight and Windy Explorer begin in the first world, Water Spiritor and Vital Spiritor in another, each at level 1 with its own opening spread of Force, Soul, Agility and Vitality. Zen is a second climb running alongside your character level, with its own experience table.
Registering, making a character, levelling, fighting, looting, quests, party play, trade, the warehouse, Dan membership with ranks and its own chat channel, buffs and post office mail all work, and every one of those paths is diffed against the server on each build.
Shops, crafting, item upgrade, personal shops and the friends list are all in and none of them has that automatic check yet, so they are tested by hand for a release. Crafting is the least proven of the five.
Open-world PvP is opt-in from both sides. A hit between two players only resolves when both of them have PvP mode on, and a PvP hit is the only thing that wears armour durability down, so nobody can drag you into a fight by starting one.
Slash commands work the same in both editions, and most of them are open to every player right now. GM Commands has the full list and the ten that need an Administrator grant.
What Does Not Answer Yet
Classic is in development. It runs and it is playable end to end, and the client is the original binary: it presents every button the original game had, while the server is ours and answers a subset of them. These are the buttons that lead nowhere today.
The tournament arena is the biggest one. Its windows are all there and its reward tables load, but the server has no reply for it, and the ruleset has to be designed rather than recovered.
Six more systems get a log line and nothing else:
- helper and pet summon
- gift card redemption
- experience events
- gamble
- item extend
- Dan Battle
There is also no keybind window in this tree, so keys cannot be rebound from inside the game.
What lands and when is in the changelog.
Playing on Our Server
We host Classic at classic.playgth.com. Register there, get the client there, play. Your account also works on the modern edition, because accounts are shared across everything we run, but a character belongs to the server it was made on.
Running Your Own
The self-host release lives at classic.playgth.com beside the client. It carries Windows and Linux server binaries, databases the server creates for itself with nothing to install, and the complete playable client.
A fresh install has no staff at all, deliberately, and the release carries the tool that makes the first administrator. Installing a Server covers the setup, Self-Hosting Classic covers what is particular to this one, and GM Accounts covers making yourself staff on your own box.
Against the Modern Edition
Both editions run the same content today: same worlds, same classes, same items, same climb. That is also the honest gap in the name. Classic’s presentation is the original one, and its balance and its numbers are still the modern tree’s. Original content and balance are queued behind the presentation work.
What differs now is the interface, the words on screen, and what is being built on top. The modern edition is where new systems and new content land first.
What Is Coming in the Modern Edition covers that side, and Where to Play is the short version of choosing between them.