Frogster has announced that the player population of Runes of Magic, their free top play fantasy MMO, has reached 300,000. The game is currently in Open Beta and is scheduled to officially launch in March.

BERLIN and SAN FRANCISCO - January 8, 2009 - Frogster America today announced that in less than a month, the population of its highly anticipated free-to-play MMORPG Runes of Magic, has already surpassed 300,000 players. The steady population growth will enable Frogster to continuously update and polish the game during the run up to its formal launch in March 2009.

"Frogster would like to thank our dedicated community for their constructive feedback since the beginning of the open beta," said Daniel Ullrich, Director of Product Management at Frogster Interactive. "With the development of the launch content almost complete, it's now up to the community to do their part in giving us feedback to make the game great. Runes of Magic is their game and we want to make sure the new content and features we are creating continually add to the excitement and fun in the world."

During the festive break, Runes of Magic convinced critics and won several prestigious awards from the games media. After declaring Runes of Magic as the best free-to-play game of Show at the Games Convention 2008 in August, TenTonHammer.com named Runes of Magic "Surprise Hit 2008". The editors of Mmorpg-planet.com selected Runes of Magic as the "Best Free MMORPG of 2008" and it was the only free-to-play title to be nominated for MMORPG.com's upcoming "Most anticipated Game of 2009" Readers Choice award.

Read more here.

Actually its 299,999 people.  I uninstalled it last night.

The game is in "open beta".  Well I was thinking about this...it's not really in open beta, because open beta is a testing phase in which a game that is not finished, is tested by a lot of people before they buy the game so that the bugs that were not discovered, are found and fixed.  So if it was in OB than the cash shop would not be turned on, because the game isn't finished so payment isn't supose to happen until it is.  The cash shop is on, people are paying, the game isn't done and isn't in an "open beta"  It's a released product without being finished.

Since most game players in the US do not like Cash Shop games, they are prejudiced against any product that is of the model.   The game is obviously fun to play.  Now that the holidays are over, I would bet the weekly fixes will continue in this BETA process.   It came out of Closed Beta in mid December.  The game seems to be the best of Cash Shop games that players have seen for a long time.  They deserve a chance to get the game up and running.  Before it is called a failure.  But then again, the forums of this site are pretty nasty toward any game.

Originally posted by 1-8-7

Actually its 299,999 people.  I uninstalled it last night.

 

The game is in "open beta".  Well I was thinking about this...it's not really in open beta, because open beta is a testing phase in which a game that is not finished, is tested by a lot of people before they buy the game so that the bugs that were not discovered, are found and fixed.  So if it was in OB than the cash shop would not be turned on, because the game isn't finished so payment isn't supose to happen until it is.  The cash shop is on, people are paying, the game isn't done and isn't in an "open beta"  It's a released product without being finished.

Since when has the cash shop been implemented? Last I heard was that the items were there but one is unable to purchase them .

Secondly, at the rate they're releasing bug fixes one can clearly see they're in beta mode and are dedicated to releasing a quality product. Lastly, I'm sure a good few people have signed up since you removed it ;)

the European servers are running the cash shop.  the US servers are not.  they are still getting the bugs out of the cash shop system.

Very good new for the game . . . which of course means, this being mmorpg.com, it is destined to get trolled and flamed.

I wasn't flaming, hateing, being prejudice.  I never said I didn't like the game, or say bad things about it.  I said it claims to be in open beta, yet people are paying for this unfinished product.  So it shouldn't be called open beta.

Other thoughts...

Why do people cry hater, troll or whatever immedietly? 

Well I also uninstalled it too.  Just did not do much for me.  There are better f2p games out there than this one.

Originally posted by 1-8-7 

 I said it claims to be in open beta, yet people are paying for this unfinished product.  So it shouldn't be called open beta.

Out of complete choice. They fully understand that the game is in beta and have no obligation whatsoever to pay a cent.

If they somehow tried to mask the fact that it is in beta and opened the shop it would be another story.

Originally posted by Eunuchmaker

Very good new for the game . . . which of course means, this being mmorpg.com, it is destined to get trolled and flamed.

Yep...I'm 100% agreement with you. I've been playing this game for two weeks now and loving it. I seriously doubt that most of the trolls posting bullcrap about RoM actually even played the game.

So far, this is the best f2p game out there in my opinion. All bugs and cash shop aside, people should at least try it. ^_^

Originally posted by Lydon

Originally posted by 1-8-7

Actually its 299,999 people.  I uninstalled it last night.

 

The game is in "open beta".  Well I was thinking about this...it's not really in open beta, because open beta is a testing phase in which a game that is not finished, is tested by a lot of people before they buy the game so that the bugs that were not discovered, are found and fixed.  So if it was in OB than the cash shop would not be turned on, because the game isn't finished so payment isn't supose to happen until it is.  The cash shop is on, people are paying, the game isn't done and isn't in an "open beta"  It's a released product without being finished.

Since when has the cash shop been implemented? Last I heard was that the items were there but one is unable to purchase them .

Secondly, at the rate they're releasing bug fixes one can clearly see they're in beta mode and are dedicated to releasing a quality product. Lastly, I'm sure a good few people have signed up since you removed it ;)

Yep, that guy is high on crack or something. The cash shop on the US servers aren't even open yet. There are bugs, just like any other game, but they are work on fixing these in patches. LOL, give frogster a break.

Originally posted by 1-8-7

I wasn't flaming, hateing, being prejudice.  I never said I didn't like the game, or say bad things about it.  I said it claims to be in open beta, yet people are paying for this unfinished product.  So it shouldn't be called open beta.

 

Other thoughts...

Why do people cry hater, troll or whatever immedietly? 

Ok, so...If you are not trolling (which I think you are) can you specify in a non-ranting manor exactly what bugs you are talking about?

im actualy quiet happy with this game even with the minor bugs it has,they found a exploit and it was fixed fairly fast. im refering to the 2h axe that was being dual wielded as a 1h axe. the rogue warrors were spanking people fast.

The crafting system is decent,not great but decent.

The world is fairly large with 2 sides.makes it real easy to level your main class on one side and switch over and level your secondary in the other world.(the other world is not near finished nor has it been localised for NA) but most of the quest are easy to figure out.

We just brought in 5 more that were playing shadownbane to join our small guild of 9 and so far everyone is having a blast.

The worst part about this game is the download and install can be a pain in the ass and lots of people are having issues with it. If you do play its advised you go to the north american server and read about installing and getting your account activated.

The cash shop is not open but if it were i would be buying a perm mount. anything bought fromt he cash shop is not dropable while everything else in your pack is including bound items and quest items. this is not a great thing but unless your a red pker you very rarely drop anything while the red guys drop 1-2 items alot of the time. I would like to see them add in non dropable quest items and your set armor be non dropable cause if you do drop a set piece the set is basicly ruined.

As far as FTP games this has got to be the best on the market. I have only played 3 others but they dont hold a candle to this game.

Quite some f2p MMOs have active itemshop in 'open beta' versions. It help to get a bit of extra funding for those who decide to buy some stuff in the shop. You are totaly free to buy or not, totaly free to play or not.

I played it a bit, pretty ok game. But since i have to make choices wich MMO's to play, this was isnt in my list (yet :P).