The Eternal Love's plot is the prequel of original Ragnarok Online's main story.
- The presence of various characters who will become the Biolabs ghosts in the original game points it out, implying that later expansions would have these characters would be Doomed by Canon, that includes the main character's childhood friend Cenia.
Alternatively, Eternal Love starts off as a prequel, but quickly diverges off to be its own thing, creating an Alternate Timeline in process.
Given the differences between the timing of key events in latter Episodes, this seems likely as well. As for the turning point... The Player is supposed to die after defeating Baphomet in Pyramid.
You were already warned that taking a dose of Heart of Ymir will kill you. But you did it anyway, and died until Tear of Life brought you back. You being revived alters subsequent events that should’ve happened before the original game significantly, to the point of becoming an Alternate Timeline entirely. The Katerina who accompanied Laurell Weinder during Episode 1’s story quests and the Katerina from Seyren’s group are two different people.
It was retroactively explained in Ragnarok Online that “Kathryne” is a title bestowed to powerful female Wizards, explaining multiple people with similar-sounding names in that game. Who’s to say that the same thing doesn’t apply in this game too? Made more obvious with how Geffen’s Katerina doesn’t get portrait tab in her Adventurers’ Handbook entry while every other NPC with portrait in that section get theirs.As for this Katerina’s identity, she is going to be Catherine from Wizard Job Change Quest in the original Ragnarok Online. The Fourth Jobs in Eternal Love are intentionally made different from the upcoming Fourth Jobs in Ragnarok Online because Gravity wants them to.
As of May 27th 2020, the Fourth Jobs are revealed to be implemented in Ragnarok Online as well, with different names, designs, and skills from the ones in this game. In the stream that revealed this info, Eternal Love’s developers were also there and they explained that their version is intentionally made different for “reasons” that have yet to be elaborated. What are the “reasons”?- As the Eternal Love version was revealed earlier (January 2020 to be exact), it gives off impressions that Eternal Love is slowly ursurping Ragnarok Online. Since Eternal Love is currently the most recognizable media in the franchise, all of the attentions from the fanbase are directed there. Which gives Gravity a time to fully concentrate on developing their own Fourth Jobs.
- To avoid backlash in regards to the designs. The backlash caused by the Third Jobs’ designs were legendary, and Gravity certainly doesn’t want to lose more players for the same reason nowadays. So, they put the more radically “different” and more Stripperific designs to Eternal Love and see the players’ reactions.
