If you want to make money, and I mean REAL money, you just have to charge for everything. In this, turbine learned from DDO (Dungeon and Dragons Online). In DDO, you really didn't need to buy anything but content, whether that be quest areas/races/classes. None of those, however, were essential to playing the game.

So, I finally downloaded LOTR with it's "F2P".

Immediately, at only level 10-12, I get a popup that tells me I have "destiny points" to spend. The only problem is, I can't spend them! The game doesn't let me. Everytime I click on it it sends me to the LOTR store for stuff unrelated to the destiny points. Finally, I googled it. Yes, I have "destiny points", but, those are only for SUBSCRIPTION players. Really turbine?

There are quest givers all over the place, but, I can't click on them because, as a F2P player, I can only have a few quests active at one time. If those quests require you be in a party, tough luck, either you complete them or abandon them so you CAN get more quests, hopefully that you CAN complete.

You get three inventory bags for free with two more you an "buy" to "unlock". Even at low level, you are simply inundated with junk being put into your bags filling them quickly. If you aren't willing to run to the nearest vendor every time you venture you to clear your bags you need to buy those extra spaces. Your choice - pay, ditch stuff, or endless "run-sell".

I don't mind paying for additional classes, races or content. But, turbine seems to have learned from DDO - if you make TOO much free, then people have no NEED to pay for things.

As I have written in other reviews, we know the "f2p business model" is designed to entice players into spending money. In many games, it is "pay for power" in a player-ver-player game. But, turbine's two leaders, DDO and LOTR, aren't player-v-player games. If you want additional content, races or classes, then fine, you pay for those. And, I don't see anyone complaining about that.

Many games have gone to a mount/pet system. You want nice mounts or pets? Pay for them. Ok... if you REALLY want one.

But, come on turbine, you really are telling F2P players they have something (destiny points), but, you won't let them USE them because that is for subscription players only?

If we've seen anything in the gaming world of MMO's, it is companies working to make players spend more and more money for things. That isn't "F2p", btw.

Consider this gamers...

You can buy an XBOX game that has multi-player capability and never spend a dime for a subscription. Or, you can buy a retail box for an MMO, spend the same amount for the game, and you get a 30 "free trial" but after that you must pay every month for a subscription. Which is better?

Dungeon's and Dragon's Online has it's problems, no doubt. The biggest is the level cap of 20 which, if you play the game frequently, you will reach in a short time - especially as a power gamer. Turbine learned from that, as well, opening LOTR up to a much higher level cap. But, while you spend money in DDO to play as more exotic races, classes, or to open up more content not available to F2P players, you can still play the game, reach cap easily, and enjoy.

Sorry turbine, but I can buy an XBOX game that has multiplayer capability and doesn't try to suck me dry. Already there are numerous titles set to come out in 2011 - Mass Effect 3, Kingdom of Amular - among others.

Originally posted by KhinRunite

Originally posted by menasure

...

in conclusion: never forget the human factor in a mmorpg: yourself. the only reason why you would play a game is fun, if you can't find that ... just move on.

Yep. Just move one QUIETLY. Don't make a fuss how you dislike the game and post something for everyone to see as if your taste in gaming should be taken as the standard. Let other people try it too. Chances are, their preference is different from yours.

 

Otherwise you reaaally will look like you're just whining.

I'm sure you also just go buy a car. You don't want to know if, when it breaks, just how expensive it is to fix. You don't want to know if others that have driven it liked it or not. You don't want to know anything about the car. You MIGHT like it. You might not. You want that thrill of not knowing.

Oh wait... I bet you don't.

Originally posted by gracefield

Last poster is right, RoM is a decent enough game with a pricey cash shop, but I get sick of listening to whiners on here crying about cash shop games and the advantage that players who use the shop have over those who don't.  Maybe you expect developers to provide you with games for the good of their health..? The guy next door to me has an Alpha Romeo and that's because he has a better job then me. The guy standing next to you in RoM with the better armour and stronger sword spent money to get them. The lesson here is that life's like that - you get what you pay for - get used to it!

Another person who believes posting an opinion and/or critique is simply a person whining.

Yes, if you have a good job and you can afford to buy that expensive car then good for you. Except, that isn't what has turned off people, well, at least most people. Let's break down the MMO cash shop model into the car analogy you posted.

You buy a car for a very little purchase price (free-to-play MMO). It works ok. It isn't that Alpha Romeo, but, it works. However, the car is designed to fail after driving it for only 5,000 miles (the point where f2p MMO's force you to buy new content or upgrade items). Sure, you could stay with your car as is, as many do. But, you know that this is part of the overall design. It was DESIGNED to fail at some point. 

This is what the free-to-play cash shop and MMO's do to their players. They DESIGN the game to fail under free-to-play conditions and force players to either buy content/items or be left behind. In some games, this is less noticable. For other games, like every player-vs-player MMO, it is THE staple of the game.

Yes, this is a business practice, and, players have the option of simply not playing the game. Which, again, is the purpose of forums like this one where players can post what prospective new players will find inside of a game.

Runes of Magic isn't AS BAD of a cash cow as some other games. But, you hit a point in RoM where you simply must pay for your power in order to compete in various parts of the game. But, it's not just once. Players must pay for their upgrades at level 50, 55, AND 60. Every 5 levels. If players want to do that more power to them. If they don't, they know that going into it due to forums such as this one.

DDO Online makes players pay for content, not power. If you want to run certain areas, you buy the packs or you subscribe. If you want to play certain races or classes you purchase them. Yes, this takes money, but, it is money you spend ONCE, not every 5 levels.

That seems to be a much fairer business practice then making players spend cash to upgrade their power repeatedly. Especially when you look at the overall game where you don't have the bugs in it like you do in Runes of Magic.

Pandora Saga is just the latest MMO I downloaded in my search for a game to play that didn't cost a monthly subscription. As with other MMO's I tried, I'll review what I saw in Pandora Saga.

1) Graphics

The graphics aren't horrible and they aren't spectacular. The cut sequences are fairly well rendered even if the gameplay world isn't state-of-the-art.

2) Game Mechanics

This is a basic "point, click, attack" game and it has problems. Most of the time, you go to attack and you take one hit at the monster then your character stands there forcing you to continually hit the auto-attack button for each monster. At times I did get a "target is blocked" when trying to attack the monster that was right next to my character that was getting pounded upon.

The actual character generation is standard fare, though, they do have different races then just human, dwarf, elf, etc. The stat points you garner from gaining levels seem pretty straight forward but the ability points into skills system leaves a lot to be desired.

The biggest problem I had with the game mechanics was in the quest department. The city map is divided into zones and is clunky at best. You go from one zone to another to find quests which are standard "go kill X monsters". But, where and how do you find the monsters you are supposed to kill? I, and others, spent too much time having to ask in chat where the monsters were actually located. For the most part, it took asking at least 3 times each to get an answer. More on that below. There is an east and west outside zone, so it wasn't like it was easy to figure out, but, once in the correct outside zone the monsters are supposed to be marked with a dot on your map. Even that wasn't the case all the time. I suspect it is a bug in the game, but, it was frustrating nonetheless. It's a poor system and doesn't work well.

Weapons had no way to distingiush attack speed. Sure, a 2-H sword is supposed to be slower then a 1-H sword, but, how much slower? Was the trade off in speed worth it? There was absolutely no way to know. At least in some other MMO's the weapons show their attack speed so a player can judge for themselves if the damage is worth the slower rate of attack. Not so in this game. I finally bought a 1-H sword and a 2-H sword, which was a needless waste of the gold I had gotten to that point, just to see for myself (since nobody would answer my question about weapon speed in chat). I actually saw little difference in the attack speed OR damage dealt between the two. This was at low level, so, it may get more noticable at higher levels, but, by that time you've already put your points into one or the other. Again, just poorly done.

3) Player vending

I'm just going to continue giving this its own spot until game designers learn that this system is terrible. It fills a players screen with everyone's shop and simply clogs the screen with needless garbage. It also puts an undue load on the players graphics card causing the game to drag, lag, and you no longer get a smooth game. But, lo and behold, Pandora Saga even takes this bad system and makes it worse by having the players "stall" show you what they are selling above the stall itself. So, you get even more garbage clogging up your screen.

4) Game Community

This is the first time I've added the community to a critique. Frankly, I didn't spend much time playing this game it was that bad. And, for a game that just launched, I am going to hit the community in Pandora Saga, as well. Too many new people were trying to ask questions in chat that were simply ignored by all, even the games GM's. It's a new game and new players are going to have questions, especially when they don't even know where to find the monsters they need to go kill for X quest because of the games poor design. Having these questions totally ignored by even the games GM's just leaves a bad taste in the mouth as you watch the chat scroll by with the usual adolescent babble.

Sure, it's a free game, but, watching paint dry is also free. My recommendation? Go for watching the paint dry instead of downloading this game.

Originally posted by Netspook

The dual class system is one of the best features in RoM.

Which other dual-class games are you referring to? You make it sound like there's a lot of them out there, and that's very far from the truth. If you're going to compare RoM to other games, name them.

If you expected to NOT have to level both classes seperately, then I'd say you know nothing about dual class systems at all. It's how it works in RoM, and other games too, ie like FFXI. This isn't something "people need to realize", just about everyone understands this perfectly, but you sound like that came as a surprise.

Appearently, your main reason not to play RoM (title of  thread + first issue), is the lack of documentation. There are guides all over the internet, and the game provides all the necessary info too. Seriously, this whine alone says more about you than is says about RoM.

RoM is a F2P game. It's far from perfect, but I'd say it's THE best F2P game out there. And in case you wonder: no, I'm not currently playing, but I sometimes do when I need a break from my main games.

Let's start with what MMO's I've played that I am comparing RoM against; D&D Online, Perfect World, Battle of the Immortals, Age of Armor, Deicide Online and Pandora Saga.  All are free-to-play with at most an item shop. That doesn't even take into account the PC games, SEGA games, NES, XBOX, XBOX 360 and Playstation 2 games I've played since I started gaming in the late 70's/early '80's. All of which were rpg based whether in fantasy or sci-fi. I started playing D&D when it came in a box set with just a few dice, 2 small paper booklets for rules, etc, and plastic figurines. While it may be true that many kids today grew up with World of Warcraft or other MMO's, I did not. I went from the table-top D&D to PC games such as the D&D Gold Box Series, Pools of Radiance, Ruins of Myth Drannor, Might and Magic, Heroes of Might and Magic, Wizardry, Ultima, and Arcanum. I have Fallout 1 and 2 on PC and Fallout 3 on XBOX 360. I have, over two decades, watched the rpg genre go from the table-top to online MMO's and played many of the games worth playing along the way. I've watched the good and the bad for quite a long time. And yes, a percentage of these games did have a dual-class system.

So, to get back to my original critique of the game, you take issue with my critique on documentation for the game. A person shouldn't be forced to look around the internet for guides on a game for the most basic of game mechanic questions. That just shows a lack of concern and quality by the games manufacturer. I'm not talking about guides for what is the best build, but, the most basic of game questions about what a class is able to do, what races are able to be what classes, etc. Any game should have that information readily available and in an easy to understand format for the player. When you go to the Runes of Magic homepage, the pages of each class provide rudimentary information at best. 

You take even greater umbrage with my critique of the dual-class system. That is your right, no doubt, but it is also my right to critique that system. Some mechanics work very smoothly while others do not. The dual-class system in D&D Online works very well and the system is easy to learn. In Runes of Magic, it is not smooth and has a huge learning curve that is made worse for the lack of documentation provided. 

But those weren't my only problems with the game.

I specifically mention buggy gameplay. There simply is no reason for a game to leave beta testing with bugs as obvious as monsters dying in mid-air making it impossible to loot or the player getting a "target is blocked" message when the monster is right next to your character pounding on it.

I also mention that bosses are way overpowered for the level they are placed. Even parties at level have terrible luck with these bosses, so much so, that you constantly see people asking for help in chat with the bosses. This simply makes the gameplay ridiculous when you finish quests, get to a boss, and have to then find high level players to come kill the boss for you repeatedly. Bosses should be tough, not next to impossible at level even for a party.

That doesn't even get into the whole cash sink that has become the staple of online MMO's today, of which, Runes of Magic is no exception. Granted, Runes of Magic isn't AS BAD of a cash sink as say most of the MMO's put out by Perfect World. But, it IS a cash sink nonetheless. This is part of the whole player-vs-player genre where you simply "pay for power", and, if that is what you are looking for Runes of Magic has it for you. But, when given the choice between spending $10-15 dollars a month for a subscription game or playing a game is "free" with the cavaet that they will suck your wallet dry in other ways, I will steer people towards paying the small monthly subscription for games that are just higher quality products.

The whole rpg genre has been in a decline for many many years.  There simply are few rpg games worth the time or money being made today in any format. What is not in short supply are rpg games that are simply average, or worse, just flat out terrible games. You can look at the games list here at this site and see how many are out there, many of which claim to be free-to-play or have an item shop where players can buy items. But, what is the player actually getting? Is it a game that is polished or riddled with bugs? Is it worth their time or money? The forums here are a chance for people to post their reviews, ie opinions, of the game so everyone can make up their own minds.

The fact you call a game critique a "whine" says more about you then it does about my critique of a game.

If you played Perfect World Intl's self-titled game, "Perfect World," Battle of the Immortals will provide little, if any, new surprises.

There is little change in the classes available in BoI and no change in the game mechanics when it comes to attributes. If you want to hit the monster you still need Dexterity, which means the Slayer class is your best bet.  Since you solo 90% of the game, you may wish to look into the Heretic (healer) class. Either way, with only 5 classes to choose from (3 melee, 1 caster, 1 healer) the replay value of making a new character is almost non-existent.

A good game starts with the basics; good graphics, smooth gameplay, player friendly, engaging storyline. In these categories, Battle of the Immortals comes up short. The games graphics are outdated though not horrible. The player interface is clunky and hard to navigate at times when trying to do things in game. The storyline is an afterthought to the unending xp grind just to keep up with the scenario level requirements. As for being smooth, this is an utter failure on PWI's part. The game 'hiccups' constantly. You'll be moving along and HICCUP - your character stops, the game freezes - then, off you go. This is bad enough when moving, but, when it happens during combat it is unforgivable. Some of the games monsters auto-aggro on your character when it gets too close and tend to clump together. So, you stand to the side and draw the monsters one by one out to you then HICCUP - the character for no apparent reason runs right into the middle of the mob. Congratulations, you now have 5 or 8 monsters to fight! 

It is apparent that PWI rushed the game out and did little actual quality control on it as messages that flash up are misspelled at times or they show up with gobbly-gook indicating coding errors. So it's no surprise that the software or hardware causes the game to hiccup.

In fact, what we see expanded in BoI over Perfect World is the amount of pets, mounts, and gear you can buy, upgrade, and fortify. Unless you want to grind forever, this takes buying 'zen', the in-game currency. This is the business model for MMO's, so no complaint there, if you want nice stuff you're going to pay for it. However, PWI goes overboard in BoI to the point you might say they are scamming the players out of cash. How you ask? It's a matter of failure rates.

Let's say you want to get a nice zodiac pet. You buy the zen with cash then use the zen to get the stuff you need from the in-game market. Then, you TRY to get the pet. I say try because the chance of actually getting the pet seems to be very very slim. So, you spend $20 USD to get 2000 zen. The materials cost 750 zen for 10 tries at the pet. And, for all that, you get around a 5 to 10 percent chance you actually get the pet. Chances are you just flushed $7.50 out of that $20 down the drain. When you add in the fortification failures in trying to upgrade your armor, weapon, pets, mounts, etc, it isn't hard to see why some players claim PWI is just scamming them out of all the cash they can before the player gets fed up. Of course, this is all optional and many will be quick to point that out. While true, it doesn't make the company look any better for the practice.

Does PWI listen to the customer? We'll see. They have kept the same character generated vending stall capability in BoI that annoyed so many in Perfect World. In fact, they have a poll on their website asking if they should do away with it. 78% said yes. No word at the moment on IF they will listen or not.

So, why play the game? Frankly, the pure lack of MMO's that are even up to this standard that are f2p with an in-game item shop. Just go into it knowing that if you wish to have the bells and whistles your pocket book is going to take a major major hit.

I'm looking for a new MMO to play as I've max'd out my character in DDO's Dungeon & Dragons Online. Let me tell you what I'm looking for, not looking for and what I've tried so far.

DDO is basically my standard. Pretty graphics, character creation with various classes, a multi-class system that actually keeps to the old D&D rules (by design). If only they didn't have a level cap of 20 that forced players to redo the same dungeons with a new character or "true resurrect" your old character to level 1, and, redo the same dungeons over again.

What I'm NOT looking for is a game like WoW, Runes of Magic, or Perfect World. I'm not into the grind for grinding sake. I'm not into PvP. I'm not into character shops that litter the screen with hundreds of cluttered dots. I've tried Allods, PW, RoM, and after spending days of downloading, generating new accounts, and uninstalling, I'm just going to ask for help.

While it seems that LOTR may be the only alternative that is pretty much free-to-play (with or without an item cash shop), I can't believe that it is the ONLY alternative. Basically because I already downloaded it and it has it's own problems. First, it's run by Turbine, the same people that run DDO. It took DDO several updates before MOST of the bugs were fixed, there were more options for races and classes, and it became a decent game. LOTR is going to have the same growing pains as the character selection is limited at the moment.

I don't mind a good dungeon crawl. In fact, most of the computer rpg/console rpg games I've played were dungeon crawlers. Fantasy or sci-fi is preferable. It must have rpg elements as far as different classes, skills, leveling. I prefer a game with decent graphics but not into the anime, cartoonish, kiddish style games that are prevelent. I've played Runes of Magic, Perfect World, Allods, War of Angels, and found all of them annoying, lacking polish, buggish, and not worth the time or money to play.

As far as games I DID find worth playing? Fallout (the original), Fallout 3 (XBOX), Mass Effect (XBOX), all of the old D&D Gold Box computer games from the 286 era, Arcanum, D&D Online, M.A.X. (old 286 era), X-COM (old 286 era), Heroes of Might and Magic (PC). I like 3rd person, not FPS. Something that has a storyline and isn't just a grind for grinding sake.

So, any ideas?

For a game that just launched out of Beta, War of Angels seems like a blast from the past more than a game of the future.

1) Graphics

When you have a games with graphics like D&D Online and LOTR, many will look at the graphics in War of Angels and simply be appalled. Now, this has its pro's and con's. Sure, those with more marginal computers can run it without too much load, but, you also aren't going to want to play it if you are used to, and are equiped to play, better.

2) Combat

Slow. And did I mention - SLOW. It's not JUST point, click, attack. It's just SLOW. In fact, the only way combat could GET slower is to be turn-based.

3) Documentation

Sure, it's a brand new game and, as such, there aren't very many, if any, guides to help new players. For quests this is understandable. For things like flying, when you have to ask HOW to get your character to fly, it's way beyond being 'just new'. Hopefully, the documentation of gameplay will get much better, but, at the moment, it is seriously lacking.

4) Crafting

After playing the game for several hours I can say that the crafting system is going to drive many players insane. The crafting system goes like this; you buy a pickaxe, you find a resource to 'mine', you try to mine that resource, there is 30-50% failure, the resource disappears and you must wait for it respawn. But wait, it gets worse.

Once you get all the materials to make something, you buy your crafting materials, ie, armor production, cooking utensils, etc. You then TRY to make your item, potion, whatever, with (you guessed it) another 30-50% failure rate - AND - with that failure, you LOSE all the materials you spent HOURS trying to get.

Sure, it's a system setup to increase in ability, but, with such a high failure rate early, you simply aren't going to waste the time as a player.

5) Character Marketing

Like Perfect World, you have the ability to make your own shop. Like Perfect World, all this does is flood the screen with everyone's shop packed into one tiny area.

6) Character Progression/Skills

The INITIAL area is used to level your character to level 20, which is done much faster than even I expected. This wouldn't be bad except it makes you wonder how long you can play the game if you can level a character to level 20 in a matter of days. As for character skills, there is a skills merchant in town where, upon reaching the appropriate level, you purchase the skill or next skill rank. The problem is that merchant doesn't even have all the skills that open for the character and there is no documentation on where you find the next merchant to find those missing skills.

There is nothing new in War of Angels and most of what they recycled was done as poorly as others did it before them, or, they managed to do it even worse. I'm far from thrilled with the game.

DDO, or Dungeons & Dragons Online, is probably THE single best MMORPG out there right now. It's not perfect, but, what is? So, here is my review of DDO with the good, the bad, and what DDO needs to change in order to continue.

The Good:

1) Graphics

Face it, the graphics are stunning, no doubt.

2) Quests

As more and more quests become available, you aren't locked into repeating the same quests over and over when you generate a new character.

3) The two-class system

It has to be one of the best implementations of a two-class system in any MMORPG I've seen or played to date.

The Bad:

1) Graphics

In order to get those graphics you need to run a respectable, if not high-end, machine. If you are running a marginal machine, you not only have to lower the quality of graphics, you get lag so bad you are hindered in combat.

2) Level Cap

This is the purest problem of DDO. With a level cap of 20, you are forced to either make a new character or "resurrect" your character as a level 1.  There just isn't meaningful content at level 20 to justify another decision. This brings the problem that you are then forced to do all those quests you did before all over again with an experience penalty if you resurrected your character.

But, since DDO already did a level cap raise from level 10 (which was ludicrous to begin with) to level 20 (which didn't go high enough) they already paved the way for player animosity because they already nerfed classes once in order to raise the level cap. In order to raise the cap again, they would have to nerf the classes once again. So, what should DDO do?

Game Suggestion:

There is no doubt that the level cap needs to be raised, but, this time, it needs to be raised to a level that explores the longterm. In addition, the classes shouldn't be nerfed, but, expanded with new abilities/spells. The fact of the matter is that while there is new content, new races, new classes, you simply cannot play to level 20 but so many times before you are bored with the game.

1) Raise the level cap to 50

This gives players a full 30 more levels of character advancement.

2) Increase every classes skills, spells, etc

Simply nerfing classes so that existing skills/spells fit into a level 50 system isn't the answer. DDO would simply lose 50-75% of their current players. You need to give players something new to shoot for, new skills and spells to use.

3) Add a pvp component that isn't relegated to tournament/arena

While I am not a fan of pvp, many others are. In my personal opinion, DDO was right to keep pvp mainly out of the game. But, there are ways to implement a pvp system that gives players the choice of whether they wish to participate or not. All that needs to happen, and other games have used this system, is the character is given the choice of whether to be pvp or not. This would give those who wish for more pvp their wish without imposing it on those who don't.

4) Expand the difficulty levels

Epic difficulty for level 20 is either too easy or too hard depending on the quest. In addition, not all dungeons have the option for an epic difficulty. This needs to be revamped so that it is challenging without being a cake-walk (mass hold in some dungeons) or almost impossible for most players. Epic level difficulty could be used for level 20-30, then other difficulty levels for level 30-40 and 40-50.

5) Add new content for higher levels

With the expansion of character level, you just need new areas specifically designed for those levels. This is relatively easy since new areas are opened up with periodic updates anyway.

In conclusion, DDO is probably the single best MMORPG out there to date, but, with the current level cap, you become bored with the game way too fast for the money you'll likely spend on it.

Originally posted by rhinok

Dual-classing in RoM is one of it's best features and works well.  Yes, not every build is ideal, but--as a whole--the system works great and is a lot of fun.

~Ripper

In every game I have played with a dual-class system, there has been one constant; the stats apply to both classes. In most of these games, when you gain a level you can choose to level one of your two classes. Sure, to use rogue skills you may not be able to wear plate armor, but, those hit points from being a warrior class are added to your overall health regardless. In RoM, even this is not the case. When you have knight as your primary class your hp goes up, when you have rogue as your primary the hit points go down. Other then having the access to general skills and the elite skills open to that combination, you are playing two separate classes. In other games, the dual-class system have limitations such as spell failure for wearing armor, or penalties to skills to balance the system, but you don't have the almost total separation of classes as you find in RoM's dual-class system.

As to whether it is "fun" to play that style of mechanics is personal opinion. What is NOT opinion is that unless you pick two classes that use the same armor and weapon type, you will almost be forced to spend cash on BOTH classes to upgrade your equipment as you swap back and forth between them during the leveling process. Again, people need to realize that you play your primary class and THAT class levels. In order to level your other class, you have to make that class the primary class and then level THAT class separately. That isn't very "fun" in my opinion.

With the huge selection of MMORPG's out there, it may be difficult to determine which one you want to play. Let me tell you what you will find with Runes of Magic.

1) Lacking documentation for the game

Do you want to know what your chosen class can do? What classes are even available to the two races? Good luck. The RoM website gives only basic descriptions and the RoM wiki is only slightly better. It's frustrating to start a character and, after spending hours leveling, you find limitations that kill the gameplay entirely.

2) The dual-class system

In many RPG's, a dual-class system works very well. Not so in RoM. You basically get two separate classes that you must cycle between for leveling purposes. Each class has general skills available when the class is put as secondary and primary skills for when it's your primary class. In addition, you get "elite" skills that are unique to each class combination and is dependent on which class is primary/secondary. Confused yet? Here is the basic breakdown:

A knight is the only class that can use plate armor, so, as a Knight/Rogue, you'll outfit your Knight with plate and Rogue with leather armors. In addition, the normal hp gain you get from being a Knight does NOT transfer when you make the Rogue your primary class. So much for that tanky thief. You are either a knight or a rogue for stats and equipment. There is little synergy in the two-class system, period.

3) Buggy gameplay

This is one my pet peeves in a game. It's infuriating when you kill a monster just to watch it die in mid-air, thus, making the looting impossible. When it's a boss that does this, it's worse because you are now unable to complete the quest if it drops a quest item. In addition, wait until you are battling a monster just to get the message "cannot see target" while you get pounded upon by it. That happens far too often in RoM.

4) Uneven level monster bosses

Anyone that has played a fantasy RPG knows that a boss battle should be challenging for a party. In RoM, it is frankly impossible. Let's say you are a lvl 20 player and have a boss to fight. You need a player that is lvl 40 to kill it for you. A party of level 20's may be able to kill it, but, not without serious casualties if at all. Two to three hits by the boss and one party member is already dead. Do the math on how fast it's a party wipe. So, you spend almost 25% of the game begging for some high level player to come kill your bosses.

4) The total cash sink of the game

This is the killer for the game in my opinion. You spend loads of cash to upgrade your equipment so you can compete with other players that spent loads of cash to upgrade their equipment in pvp and siege battles (massive pvp). But, it's not just once, you do it repeatedly. Hit lvl 50? Spend loads of cash on equipment. Hit lvl 55? Rinse and repeat.

Given the problems with something as simple as the gameplay, it simply isn't worth the grind, time, or money.