Originally posted by Greater_Force

 I downloaded the new client just in case the patch had problems. When I started the old client updater it did not load correctly and the update process seemed to be taking a long time. So I stopped the update. Uninstalled and installed the new client. It took about 20 minutes to install and patch and I was all set. 

My only problem now is I can't loggin because it says my login info (which I haven't changed) is incorrect. Anyone else seen this?

IIRC that happens when the login server is down.  Not positive though.

The game is far from dying... just ignore the Chicken Little QQ'er.  I would advise staying away from the PvP server though as that seems to be where all the children landed and the nerd rage is legendary.  The PvP servers weren't implemented well and since cash = king, whoever spends the most dominates it.  Fortunately, it's a small minority of the player base.

The community is hit or miss.  Sometimes it's the best around, and other times it's the 2nd coming of WoW's Barrens (if you know what I mean).  The game is free to download and play though, so you've got nothing to lose by trying it.

I would definitely play it if they stuck to the major points that made DAoC a success:  3 realms; PvE that favored groups but was still soloable; large world that wasn't linear; numerous classes to choose from; a persistent battleground (not just a timed mini-game); rock-paper-scissors approach to PvP; Darkness Falls; and of course the superb RvR.  Also, I loved the raiding in DAoC (DF, SI dungeons, world dragons, etc).  It was very much a community effort because it wasn't instanced.  Instancing has it's benefits, but has also killed the community aspect of MMO's.

Originally posted by Tenk575

This guy is clearly trying to endorse his guild by pretending to hate them lol..

 

Yep, I just looked at the posting history on this mmoluva person and it's riddled with praise for HOGG.

Cold busted.

I don't play on the RoM PvP server (for obvious reasons), so I gotta ask... are there no other PvP guilds that hunt these guys down?

Edit: Nevermind.  I just did some checking on the RoM PvP forums and it's obvious to everyone that all the hype about HOGG is coming from them.  They are posting all over every forum they can find trying to make it look like they're ruining the server and whatnot but the reality is they have minimal impact on Grimdal.  One guy even started a thread acting like a victim of theirs and got busted because his name was listed on the HOGG site as a member.  So freaking comical.

Originally posted by mmoluva

HOGG never played Darkfall man if they had it would have been bad.  They made fun of anyone that bought and played Darkfall you should listen to their HOGG Radio about it.  You said you never witnessed them in action and I believe that because its something rediculous to see.  I also played on Tyranny and it was really bad which their fraps shows.  I watched them kill all kinds of great guilds on AOC and now ROM its really bad man.  People always start off saying how they cant kill anyone their levels etc and they kill everyone.

That's funny, I thought you were complaining about Hogg but now you sound more like their poster child.  Something's up with this thread methinks.

Heaven forbid they actually try to make a profit.  The horror!

None of what you mentioned is essential to game play.  If they gave you no bag/bank/storage space unless you paid money, then I could see it being a rip-off, but they do.  You get 2 bags, 2 bank tabs, and a storage chest per character for free.  Now they even allow you to share the house storage space with all your characters (although bound items can't be shared).

I think people take for granted all the stuff they do give you for free which they don't have to.  Like your house, for instance.  They could easily charge you a rental fee for the house, but they don't.  They could charge you to use the snoop teleporter, but they don't.

---

Originally posted by Kyleran

 

A game without a decent Z axis really lacks in immersion and doesn't feel realistic to me. 

---

I'm not sure what you mean by that. FFXI had a Z axis.

---

Originally posted by Kyleran

 

I'm not looking for bunny hopping mechanics, but when I come to a low hillside, I want to be able to jump off of it, (even if it results in falling damage) and I should also be able to climb reasonable hills as a shortcut.

I dislike the concept of "map design" and pathing limitations, and that's just a preference of mine. I can see where other folks might not care, or even enjoy trying to wend their way through a map (a la Guildwars) but its just not for me.

---

Again, if they intend you to fall off that cliff or get up that hill, the landscape will be designed to allow it. There were plenty of ledges and whatnot in FFXI that you could drop down, but only in places SE wanted that to happen. If they did add jumping, you still wouldn't be able to go places they don't want you to go by putting up invisible walls or making the hill just a bit bigger. So you wouldn't gain anything except the ability to exploit flaws in the terrain and get on top of things you're not supposed to.

Originally posted by BaneShade

Your comments are just fine. I guess I don't see the difference between f2p properly done and p2p. The means by which f2p gets money are simply different from p2p, but in the end both models need money/subscribers to survive.

As far as the things being given for free. No, of course I don't want them to shut down the servers. On the other hand, my ideas for how a f2p game can be lucrative probably wouldn't work for Runes of Magic, because the game is so limited and ties your hands in what you can do. A f2p game can be profitable in many ways. I think companies have barely scraped the surface on that one.

As for community vs game. I want a good community AND an engaging experience at the same time. It's entirely possible.

I think a game that successfully involves mechanisms for politics, power and consequences - like jail time - would make for a really cool game. Obviously it would need more mechanisms for making the game world tangible too. 

I apologize to RoM fans. This really isn't the best place to discuss ideas for another game, since they'll be interpreted as attacks or whatever on RoM. RoM is good for what it is. No mistake. It's simply not what I'm looking for at this point.

What it really boils down to is starting budget.  You don't have big guns like Blizzard making a F2P game, or you might see the things you're looking for in one.  The P2P model gives the company back a large portion of their development costs in box sales, whereas F2P has to recoup the costs over time... I think that's why the P2P model is more appealing to the big budget games.

I played FFXI on PC but with a dual-analog controller and liked it more than keyboard/mouse.  It just feels more natural to me to move around with an analog stick rather than with mouselook.  Plus being able to control your character independently of the camera is a nice plus.

I wouldn't mind jumping in games if it weren't for the abuse.  Do you really want people standing on top of the mailbox or auction house counter while you're using them?  Seriously?  Do we really need to see a bunch of bunnies jumping around while they fight?  If SE wants you to transverse a particular part of the terrain, then they'll design the landscape to facilitate that.  They don't need to add jumping to accomplish that.

If people need jumping to make it more realistic or add to the immersion factor, then how about they add it strictly as animation and not for gaining any sort of vertical movement?  So you hit spacebar and you see your character jump but they don't actually leave the ground.  In fact, have it only show the jumping animation for the player and no one else... no more bunnies.

Originally posted by martaug

Do not buy diamonds from the US Runes of Magic.

They do not inform you at the point-of-sale that you can not use these in-game at the Auction House for 30 days.

When you complain about it & inquire about a refund via the support system, mentioning that this is something that the Better Business Bureau should be informed about, they ban your account & still do not refund your money.

If any of you have experienced this too, please file a complaint at the BBB of california, as the business information is :

Frogster America, Inc.
548 Market St #22350
San Francisco
California 94104

You're free to use the diamonds the instant you get them on the cash shop, which is where they are meant to be used.  The AH thing (which now only lets you buy game gold, not items) was more to appease the players but they had trouble with fraud until they implemented the 30-day wait.

I seriously doubt they banned you because you "complained".  People complain all the time about Frogster and they aren't banned.  Heck I've posted a number of complaint threads on the forums and never even gotten so much as a warning from Frogster.

Ok don't take my responses are being condescending... that's not the point. I just want to give you food for thought...

---

Originally posted by BaneShade

 

1. The game revolves around crafting and refining. Every item has 6 star slots, that apparently can be filled by expensive refining. This refining apparently takes a lot of trial and error, especially to get the last few stars.

---

The stars represent item rarity, nothing more. As you upgrade it, it becomes less common, that's why the stars increase. Refining (i.e. modding) your gear is actually an exact science, but it is somewhat complex... there's no trail and error. Increasing the "plus" value of the item does have a chance to fail, if that's what you're referring to.

---

Originally posted by BaneShade

 

2. The quests thus far seem run-of-the-mill type stuff. I wasn't expecting an epic story line, but people generally have very few interesting things to say.

---

That's fairly typical of a F2P game where they don't have the capital to hire people for backstory and plot. Perhaps a P2P would be more up your alley?

---

Originally posted by BaneShade

 

3. The game is limited in many ways.
a) You have limited inventory slots, but you're teased that you can have more by showing you the slots grayed out.

b) Your house, despite being a HUGE room, apparently can't fit more than ten pieces of furniture - unless you "upgrade the house energy" uh, right.

c) A permanent mount (good one) costs 299 Diamonds, let's round it to 300 for sake of calculation. The price at auction house for one diamond is 20.000 Gold. So to afford the nice mount, without buying with real money, you have to spend 300 * 20000 = 6.000.000 gold. 6 Million. I don't know how much gold you start making later in the game, but to me it seems like I'd be spending A LOT of time grinding and running loot back to town (due to the limited inventory) in order to simply afford a mount.

d) Not to mention all the other things that require you spend money. Pretty much artificially, invented solely to make you spend.

---

Well obviously they want you to spend money. Would you rather they gave you those things for free and have to shutdown the servers due to lack of income? You can always rent horses for 3000 gold per 2 hours (I believe). That's fairly cheap. Considering the game costs you nothing to play, I think you're setting the bar a bit high. Again, perhaps a P2P is more up your alley?

---

Originally posted by BaneShade

 

4. The game feels like plastic. Uhm.. or like I'm just a set of statistics running around slowly increasing as I kill stuff and hand in "quests". By that I mean I cannot simply grab something I see in the game world and take off. I'm completely limited. Wanna steal a horse? Nope, can't do. Grab that sword that's leaning on the side of the wall? Nope. My "house" is just an instance that I alone can see. Whatever happened to having lots that actually influence the game world?

---

It seems to me you're looking for a "sandbox" MMO. Again, you're expecting way too much out of a game that costs you nothing. There are some sandbox P2P games though.

---

Originally posted by BaneShade

 

5. The same with the people. They're all incredibly boring to talk to.

---

You mean real people or the NPC's?

---

Originally posted by BaneShade

 

So as I was playing I noticed these things, and more, but I guess for a lot of MMOs they're fairly standard. Then I asked myselv...
Why play this MMO if I'm not into PvP?
If I play something like morrowind, there are meaningful quests, interesting people. There is a lot of freedom in interacting with the world and doing whatever you want. Except it's offline. There are not many other people running around. But why do I need these people if not to fight them or compete with them?
Why grind and try to get the best gear, if it's not to battle other people? If I'm just battling the environment, I don't need all that advanced loot. Plus I can get a MUCH better experience, with better interactivity, better story and more freedom, by playing a single player game. And actually, better loot too - in a natural way.
There may be a few good MMOs out there that have meaningful quests and a properly interactive world that isn't limited in many artificial ways, but I haven't tried such one yet. Eventually I hope to though, and when it happens I'll be there :)

---

I think the main reason to play an MMO is to interact with other people playing the same game... otherwise we'd all just play Morrowind or something like it. I don't find the game itself all that interesting. It's the people I meet and get to play with that make it so.

Keep an eye on Final Fantasy XIV (2010 release). That might be more like what you're wanting in a game.
 

I love playing tanks in MMORPG's.  I like being in high demand and getting a reputation for playing a tank well.  However, I have semi-retired my 40 K/P in RoM until Runewaker does something about the repair costs for plate.  I realize the tanks are the ones standing up there taking all the damage, but it's not fair that (assuming your group doesn't wipe repeatedly) the tank is the only one walking away with enormous repair costs.  M/P's get to stand in the back, out of damage range, and cast spells which has almost zero impact on their staff durability loss, while tanks eat all the damage and wind up with a near broken weapon as "thanks" for tanking.  We don't get to enjoy the same benefit of golden repair hammers as other classes because one run through a tough instance and it's gone on everything but accessories.  Whereas other classes can hammer-and-forget for weeks at a time.

All they need to do is slow down the durability loss on plate (which makes logical sense anyway... tougher material, harder to damage).

Originally posted by wizlmtz

Are mage/priests still the flavor of the month?

They are.  I don't think they're overpowered anymore, but I think people still see them as being that way.  I switched from my main (K/P) to level up my Scout since everyone was in tears over how underpowered Scouts were (supposedly) and I wanted to see it first hand.  Funny things is, I'm 44 now and I have yet to find an M/P in my level range that can keep up with my DPS.  Sure they have some big crits here and there but overall I'm not all that impressed with M/P's.  Granted for AoE, they are the best... not because they're super-powerful, but rather because no other class has any decent AoE attacks.

Originally posted by Gameslave

Aside from all the points already mentioned in the way of cash overriding gameplay, and buyable items override game design, the reason I personally can't stand micro-transactions is because it's too easy to get carried away. If not for me, then the next guy, who takes gaming too seriously. There is a message when logging into Final Fantasy XI that reads something to the effect of "we do not wish to see your family, work, or school suffer". P2P regulates the amount a person spends on that game by being all-inclusive. F2P with buyable game components doesn't seem to share that concern even by limiting the amount of money a person spends.

I could easily dump $500 into one of those F2P games in a day, conquer it in a week, and save myself the "time sink" of P2P MMO's. But on the other hand, $500 invested in Final Fantasy XI at $15/mo is TWO YEARS worth of more enjoyable and rewarding gameplay. And nobody questions where that money came from if it's spent over the course of two years, but if you even have the option to drop $500 into a "F2P" game - how the HELL is that free to play? It ends up costing you MORE in the long run, and you only feel like a shitbag afterwards because you know that money could have gone to something better.

If a person becomes so enamoured with a video game that they're spending their rent money, their grocery money, their education money, etc. not only does that person have a problem but the game company doesn't have a problem allowing it either. It's bad enough people already let these games consume them. Adults have pummeled kids, parents have left babies unattended to pass away. That shit actually happens, and whether or not those people should be allowed to exist isn't the question. They fact is that they do. The question is "what does a F2P game companies provide for its gamers?" F2P companies can push out a plethora of craptacular games. They make oodles of money on those microtransactions. I doubt they care about gamers in the slightest. The quality of games has only improved to stay in the market to compete. The ones that are truly F2P WITHOUT micro-fees are fine. The P2P games are generally fine too until RMT is allowed or ignored (same principles).

You bought the computer that meets the minimum requirements. You bought the game. You're paying for monthly internet. You're paying for the monthly subscription fee. Group your internet and subscription and it's hardly a noticeable bill. I seriously don't understand why people gripe about fees. If you're truly that broke you shouldn't worry about games at all, let alone MMO's. No game is more than ~$15 to play, and for reliable high-speed internet you're looking at something like $50. In all likelihood unless you live by yourself that bill is either fully payed for or divided. I'm one of those people who lives by myself (for now) and I don't really notice $50 from $65. My internet and FFXI subscription go hand & hand.

Who doesn't spend $100/mo on lesser important stuff? I SAVE more money by playing P2P MMO's, not because I have no life, but because I have something to do rather than being idle. I could blow $100 a night at a strip club, but for how long? I know that the game is at home waiting for me, a game I WANT to play, that I enjoy playing, with people I enjoy playing with. That $15/mo for a game subscription saves people money. That "time sink" saves people money. It also helps them relax. If they don't know how to take things in stride, as I've said before, these games aren't for everyone...

You make some good points.  However, I have a feeling if you were in a situation, like myself, where your whole household (me+wife+kids) enjoys MMORPG's and all love playing together, then it's the P2P model that's outrageously expensive.  With FFXIV coming, I'm looking at a possible $200 to $250 cost up front before we even get to play 1 minute of the game, and then it's $75 per month after the first 30 days.  Whereas a F2P game would be $0 for us to try and then spend whatever we feel like spending thereafter.  Don't judge the cost of F2P games based on people who have issues resisting the temptation to spend money... that's not the fault of the game.  The vast majority of F2P players spend very little on the game.

Originally posted by HavenAE2035

Cant say that I expected SE to do anything other than a monthly billing cycle.. Anniversary or what they have in FFXI doesnt really matter.  Simple fact is microbilling is done by companies who make shit for game with no content no challenge and simple systems.  Anygame company that is worth their weight doesn't do Microbilling.  So I'm at a bit of a loss as to how this is some surprising turn of events by the subject..

 

What did you think they would do?

 

 

In the past I would have agreed with you, but there are F2P games that are starting to emerge with P2P quality.  RoM has been compared numerous times to some of the top P2P games.  I personally like it better than many of the well known ones (such as Warhammer and Guild Wars).  We're even starting to see F2P games rated above a lot of the P2P games on this site (for whatever that's worth).  That's not to say they are the best or anything, but it does show us a trend toward higher quality F2P games.

Originally posted by Wizardry

What i noticed in a lot of threads is that they must have a bazillion rules that fabriacte every possible reason to close a thread.If it the temperature outside is above 70degrees we /close thread sort of mentality.

I also noticed frogster is a german company ,yet ALL the moderators and GM's are Asians,so this game has been sub contracted out for sure.To make it even worse,Frogster is just a go between,they have no two legs to stand on,they make ZERO decisons for this game ,it is 100% Runewalker run.Frogster merely handles the publishing rights and like i said they do not even take part in the forums,it is run by clueless moderators.

I have read some very good concerns for th game that have never been responded to yet,all the threads that have responses are .....read off cue cards "we are looking into it" or the other /close thread because it is too hot out lol.

One of the best ones i have ever seen is the NO Pyramid posting ..RFLMAO,basically means no threads can have more than 4 quotes or it gets /locked.

Offer ANY suggestion to the way the game or forum could be better= /locked /closed  /deleted,when they said feedback,they did not really mean it.Any feedback is considered finger pointing/negative/detrimental to the community you name it they got a rule for it lmao.

Like i said don't be too critical of just frogster,Runewalker is doing nothing to monitor the game over here,the people actually moderating the forums and sending feedback to Runewalker appear clueless,like they are those telemarketers you hear on the phone reading off cue cards.It really seems like a typical botchy run F2P game.

Of course i had to check and yes ,this game is ASIAN run by a Taiwan developer,so Runewalker probably contracted out the GM's and mods,not Frogster.The whole operation sure feels like a F2P asian game.

Frogster-America is the publisher for RoM and Runewaker is the developer, just like EA is the publisher for Warhammer and Mythic is the developer, for example.  The only difference is Mythic has direct lines of communication with the players... but did it help Mythic or Warhammer?   Nope, fail.  And for what it's worth, I have seen Runewaker devs post on the EQ forums before, albeit rarely.

Most of the closed threads I've seen were warranted.  Not because the person criticized the game, but because they went on a rant, or the thread was a duplicate of one already discussing the issue.  There's a "bazillion" threads on the RoM forums with criticisms about the game and they aren't closed.

Servers are offline for patching.

Originally posted by BigBadWolfe

Originally posted by Sixpax

I'm really confused about how combat works.  So do you select various combinations of "action commands" and then hit a button and watch as your character executes some attack?  The way he's describing it almost seems like your attacks aren't done as you hit the buttons.

 

well to me it sounds like instead of choosing actual abilites you choose the attributes that make up the ability.

Like if you wanted to do a melee strike, instead of hitting melee strike you would input something like instant, enemytarget, damage combinations, and it would produce a close ranged attack

or if you chose Charge, Area of Effect, debuff you might do some spinning blade attack that causes bleed debuffs to the mobs around you.  What this does is gives players more flexibility of how they want to fight limited only to the number of attribute slots open to them.  Also without set attacks devs won't have to balance around set class abilities, a dev can simply add and remove attribute combinations at will to create new abilities.

Also from what I gathered from the interview, the new is associated directly to the weapon itself.  If you picked up a shield you will get all the tanking abilities, and if you picked up a sword you would get all the melee abilities.  So if you used a sword and a shield then you become a melee tank, but if you say used a wand and shield you become more like a Paladin tank.

And yes there doesn't seem to be any auto-attacking in this game unlike FFXI, or most MMOs.

 

Well I'm going to keep an open mind and I'm really hoping I can macro those actions so that when I hit the macro, he does the attack.  Nothing worse (to me) than feeling disconnected from your "toon" because he doesn't react as you hit the buttons.