Even with its shortcomings, I've played RoM for several months and even engaged in spending real cash to buy diamonds. But they have really hit the dead end now. If you are thinking of playing RoM, you should consider these things from someone who has played the game and knows.

1st) If buying diamonds using credit card or paypal as the payment method, you can no longer use those diamonds to gift items to other players, you can't even sell them in the auction house for in game gold. They used to have a 30day grace period before you could gift items but they have abolished that this week due to what they claim to be Fraud payments. Now anyone who uses paypal knows this is pure bullshit because when a paypal dispute occurs, Frogster only needs to show logs from the server that the account received its diamonds and the money would be given back to Frogster. Same thing applies for credit card companies. But Frogster clearly have some idiot working that area who doesn't know how to do his job.

2nd) Most items you get from the monster drops (at least good sellable items) are bound to your character, which means you cannot sell them in the auction house or to other players. In fact you cannot even give them to other players. The only way to get rid of such items is to sell them to the NPC merchants for crap prices or delete them from your inventory. In addition to this, ALL ITEM MALL ITEMS ARE BOUND! which means, they cannot be sold or traded or gifted. This also includes other characters on the same account. If you spend money to buy a mount on one character, or item mall items on a character, they cannot be transfered to another character on the same account. This means every time you make a new character, you need to rebuy diamonds to use item mall items on the new character, and a new mount etc etc.

3rd) Customer support is appauling. It is slower then anything you have seen in all your lives of MMORPG Gaming. Sure, you'd say what do you expect from a free game? but RoM is in fact ranked #1 at being the worst MMORPG in customer support and item mall systems. I've played MMORPG's for the last 12 years, nearly every single MMO that has been released. I also run a Game Development company that also specializes in MMORPG's and RoM really needs work in many departments.

4) If you think you can give any form of constructive criticsm about the game on the forums, THINK AGAIN! You will be banned immediately for any form of criticism about the game. RoM likes to run a NAZI atmosphere where anyone who says anything bad about the game gets banned.

Aside from those aspects, RoM is an enjoyable game, the concept and the way the game is played is great, it has a lot of good features, unfortunately it is however hindered by the things above and if any of those four areas have any meaning on making your gameplay better, then RoM is not for you. You'd be better off paying for a monthly subscription on WoW (World of Warcraft). Oh and I am a WoW hater so having to actually recommend WoW over this game goes to show you how much this game needs to be sorted.

Why is it that every person that makes a thread like this complaining about a game and/or company, always makes sure to add in, "I should know, I own my own game/company!!!' C'mon now, let's get serious. If that's the case, that would mean that 75% of the people that are active on these forums are game company owners or game developers, which I don't believe for a minute. Does saying this in your post help you to feel like a more credible source? Simply writing your opinion isn't enough, but you have to throw in the one line about owning a gaming company?

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Originally posted by shanakar

 

Even with its shortcomings, I've played RoM for several months and even engaged in spending real cash to buy diamonds. But they have really hit the dead end now. If you are thinking of playing RoM, you should consider these things from someone who has played the game and knows.

1st) If buying diamonds using credit card or paypal as the payment method, you can no longer use those diamonds to gift items to other players, you can't even sell them in the auction house for in game gold. They used to have a 30day grace period before you could gift items but they have abolished that this week due to what they claim to be Fraud payments. Now anyone who uses paypal knows this is pure bullshit because when a paypal dispute occurs, Frogster only needs to show logs from the server that the account received its diamonds and the money would be given back to Frogster. Same thing applies for credit card companies. But Frogster clearly have some idiot working that area who doesn't know how to do his job.

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If they're having problems with fraudulent payments, maybe they can recover the money but it might be more trouble than it's worth to them. I can't see new comers to RoM even the slightest bit concerned about not being able to sell diamonds on the AH or gifting cash shop items. Hardly a reason not to try RoM.

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Originally posted by shanakar

 

2nd) Most items you get from the monster drops (at least good sellable items) are bound to your character, which means you cannot sell them in the auction house or to other players. In fact you cannot even give them to other players. The only way to get rid of such items is to sell them to the NPC merchants for crap prices or delete them from your inventory. In addition to this, ALL ITEM MALL ITEMS ARE BOUND! which means, they cannot be sold or traded or gifted. This also includes other characters on the same account. If you spend money to buy a mount on one character, or item mall items on a character, they cannot be transfered to another character on the same account. This means every time you make a new character, you need to rebuy diamonds to use item mall items on the new character, and a new mount etc etc.

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The majority of the good BoP items come from instances or elite+ mobs, which is typical practice in an MMO (of course with you playing nearly every single MMO that's been released, I'm sure you know that). At least RoM has the option to unbind items if you want to pay for that service. And you're wrong about the only way to get rid of them being selling them to NPC's. You can also use the transmuter to strip the stats off of it if you like, which is a free service. So yeah, nice try.

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Originally posted by shanakar

 

3rd) Customer support is appauling. It is slower then anything you have seen in all your lives of MMORPG Gaming. Sure, you'd say what do you expect from a free game? but RoM is in fact ranked #1 at being the worst MMORPG in customer support and item mall systems. I've played MMORPG's for the last 12 years, nearly every single MMO that has been released. I also run a Game Development company that also specializes in MMORPG's and RoM really needs work in many departments.

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So you've played more than 250 MMO's that have been released? Can't see how you'd have time to even run a game development company with all that play time under your belt... yeah sorry, not buying it.

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Originally posted by shanakar

 

4) If you think you can give any form of constructive criticsm about the game on the forums, THINK AGAIN! You will be banned immediately for any form of criticism about the game. RoM likes to run a NAZI atmosphere where anyone who says anything bad about the game gets banned.

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A total lie. There's plenty of "constructive criticism" on the forums. Heck there's plenty of non-constructive criticism as well. The people who get banned are those that go off on a rant against RoM/Frogster. You wouldn't be one of them would you? Nah probably not.
 

Sixpax, you are the best fanboy rom has ever had. They should be paying you(actually i think you do work for them). Trying to deny that rom's customer support is the worst ever is like trying to say that water isn't wet.

As far as the forums go, they will delete a thread & ban your @ss in a second for "criticizing" any thing about rom.

Lets see:

1) 2 week ban for asking achoore (IN A PM!) why he wasn't letting us get any info about the thefts on the spanish server,

2) 2 week ban when we called out kerensky about linking to a former thread that did NOT say what he stated it did.

3) 2 week ban(notice a pattern here) for letting those on the eu forum know about the complaints filed with the BBB in america

4) 2 week ban for explaining to a newbie how many fusion stones you will need to make a tier 8 equipment(this time i was warned that i was "threatening frogster")

5) 2 week ban for raising hell about a guildmate's loss of a t8 2h sword.

Look at the fact that botters/goldscammers are reported for WEEKS at a time & yet they are still in the same spot doing the same thing.

Hmmm, . . . . . . . . . . actually sixpax you need to transfer to customer support, that way we will have 1 real person there, instead of the automated non-response response.

Originally posted by shanakar

Even with its shortcomings, I've played RoM for several months and even engaged in spending real cash to buy diamonds. But they have really hit the dead end now. If you are thinking of playing RoM, you should consider these things from someone who has played the game and knows.

1st) no diamond trading

Yea, it kinda sucks. Nobody ever accused Frogster of being the most forward-thinking company around. They are always 2 steps behind would-be frauds, hacks, and exploiters. They will always be suspending this feature or holding on that feature, or just canceling a feature because it was such a hair-brained idea to begin with. Just learn to expect it out of them.

 

2nd) All good items are untradeable

Wrong. Just plain wrong. There are plenty of good items that are tradeable and plenty of uses for bound gear.

Now, I've not played many F2P MMOs, but I don't remember ever having played one that allowed you to use the items you purchased from a cash shop on any character you created. I'm not saying such a game doesn't exist, just saying it certainly wouldn't be a very sensible business model in my opinion.

 

3rd) Customer support is appauling.

 No argument here. I've worked with customer support for 13 days after a billing error to finally get my diamonds. That's just unacceptable to me and never have I experienced such a terrible customer support system in any purchase EVER for ANYTHING, online or off.

 

4) Frogster bans forum users for any critique

Wrong. I've used sarcasm, humor, and straight-up aggression to bring light to some of RoM's short-comings. I've never so much as had a warning on the forums. I have had a couple of threads locked. Hey, I can't complain since I was trying to stir the pot anyway. My guess is you were trying to stir the pot a little too much and they took offense instead of taking notice. Most times it's not about what you say, but how you say it.

 

Aside from those aspects, RoM is an enjoyable game, the concept and the way the game is played is great, it has a lot of good features, unfortunately it is however hindered by the things above and if any of those four areas have any meaning on making your gameplay better, then RoM is not for you. You'd be better off paying for a monthly subscription on WoW (World of Warcraft). Oh and I am a WoW hater so having to actually recommend WoW over this game goes to show you how much this game needs to be sorted.

I pretty much agree with this. Most people would find a better gaming value out of a P2P. RoM still has many problems. However, it is moving in the right direction and has gotten much better since launch. I came back several weeks ago and have been rather impressed with what's been added.

Originally posted by martaug

Sixpax, you are the best fanboy rom has ever had. They should be paying you(actually i think you do work for them). Trying to deny that rom's customer support is the worst ever is like trying to say that water isn't wet.

As far as the forums go, they will delete a thread & ban your @ss in a second for "criticizing" any thing about rom.

Lets see:

1) 2 week ban for asking achoore (IN A PM!) why he wasn't letting us get any info about the thefts on the spanish server,

2) 2 week ban when we called out kerensky about linking to a former thread that did NOT say what he stated it did.

3) 2 week ban(notice a pattern here) for letting those on the eu forum know about the complaints filed with the BBB in america

4) 2 week ban for explaining to a newbie how many fusion stones you will need to make a tier 8 equipment(this time i was warned that i was "threatening frogster")

5) 2 week ban for raising hell about a guildmate's loss of a t8 2h sword.

Look at the fact that botters/goldscammers are reported for WEEKS at a time & yet they are still in the same spot doing the same thing.

Hmmm, . . . . . . . . . . actually sixpax you need to transfer to customer support, that way we will have 1 real person there, instead of the automated non-response response.

Please show me where I defended their customer support.  Also I noticed you're referring to the EU Frogster, which I have zero experience with.  If EU is that bad, I feel sorry for you guys... maybe switch to the US servers?