PVP:Yes | Distribution:Download | Retail Price:Free | Pay Type:Free | Monthly Fee:Free
Desktop Client | System Req:
Runes of Magic Review: Runes of Magic Review - Edit
7.7
Average
| Pros |
  
|
 Dual Class System Nice UI |
| Cons |
 
|
 Very formulaic |
Free-to-play games have a certain stigma attached to them by most people, at least in the West. They tend to have less content, fairly simplistic gameplay, and are often little more than mindless-grind fests. I've played a number of these types of games in the past, and every time I do, I question why I haven't learned my lesson yet. Runes of Magic has shown me why: because there's always the exception to the rule, and hopefully one that will be a trend-setter. It is far from being a perfect game, but many gamers out there may find that Runes of Magic has enough to it to hold their interest.
While Runes was developed by Taiwanese company Runewalker Entertainment - it was localized for the West by the German company Frogster - it shares a surprising amount in common with Western MMOs. In fact, I would say that Runes of Magic is an excellent example of a formulaic, generic MMORPG. Everything from the classes, the world, the story, the quests, the combat... It is all very generic. Honestly, even the UI looks like it was ripped right out of World of WarCraft or Warhammer Online. Yet, the game does do a few interesting things to it and it does come at the low, low price of $0 a month. That's hard to argue with.
Characters
Before you begin playing you must, shockingly, create a character. Runes provides you with the choice of one race - a number that will likely increase as the game continues on, and more content becomes available on North American and European servers - and six classes. The classes are all rather straight forward: Warriors hit things with pointy objects and cause large amounts of damage, Rogues stab and poison things for more damage, Scouts use bows and arrows to attack at range, Mages use magic to deal damage at range, Priests heal and buff party members, and Knights make great tanks.
The class choices are pretty straight forward, but this is actually one of the areas that Runewalker threw in an extra, very welcome feature: dual classing. If you've ever played Final Fantasy XI, this system will be somewhat familiar to you although Runes has a number of differences. Once you reach level 10, you can pick up any of the other classes in the game as a Secondary Class. You will then be able to use a limited, though decently extensive, amount of the secondary class's powers, along with special Elite powers that are only open to specific combinations of classes. If you want a warrior that can heal a bit, you can become a Warrior/Priest. If you need a Mage that can take a few hits, try a Mage/Warrior or Mage/Knight. This leads to a wide variety of options available, and the different secondary class options actually seem to make a pretty fair impact on how your character plays. As an added bonus, most of the combinations seem pretty viable as well, which is something I did not expect.
Much like in Final Fantasy XI, you do not raise your secondary class as you level up your primary class. Instead, you switch your secondary class to your primary, and your primary to your secondary. So, if you have a Priest/Scout, but you want to level up scout for a while, you will need to switch to Scout/Priest. This is nice in some ways and a pain in others. On the positive side, it is a bit like having an alt that shares the same name as your main, and you don't actually need a second character to check out another class in the game. It does, however, mean that you will need to level up, basically, two characters to hit the max level, so you will be looking to repeat content. Luckily, content is one area that wasn't skimped on.
;)
Quests and Content
When it comes to quests in free to play games, my expectations are pretty low. If I see five quests between levels 1 and 10, I'll be pleased. So, when I say that Runes of Magic would have been pleasantly surprising quest-wise if it were a subscription-based game, you can safely assume that I was impressed.
You won't find much of a shortage of quests here. Each zone is packed with quite a few to run through - in fact, at least during the earlier areas of the game, you'll have no problem leveling up both of your classes without running out of quests to do. To make this even more true, the game is chock full of daily quests right from level one and on.
I should note though, that while there are plenty of quests in the game, you shouldn't expect anything special out of them. The background of the world is pretty thin and quests stories are far from works of art, but rather just serve to get the player moving along. If you're not the type to obsessively read every quest dialog, then you're not missing out on anything. The quests themselves are also rather generic, as per the theme so far, and feature primarily just kill and FedEx quests.
Gameplay and Interface
Combat works in the tried and true method of using abilities attached to a hotbar. Your abilities will use up points from either your mana or endurance bar, depending on the power, and a number of them also have cooldown timers as well. As you start the game, combat can come across as being really bland, but you do gain more abilities as time goes on, which helps things out. Group dynamics work like they do in any other game, although having your tank backed up with healing spells of his own can be quite handy. The dual-class system allows for some interesting and more varied tactics to be used in combat. In the end, I've played games that have much better combat systems, but I've also played games that have much worse systems too.
I'm not much of a crafter, so I always have a hard time really reviewing this aspect of a game, but Runes does feature a crafting system. The actual system itself isn't anything you haven't seen before, but it does work out well enough. You can collect resources, put them together, use some items to add magical properties, and bam, you get an item. One neat thing, though, is that you aren't restricted to any one craft. You can actually go up every crafting line, if you would like to do so and are masochistic enough to put yourself through it. You can, however, only master one line. Still, the fact that you can basically switch to a new craft whenever, with no real penalty, is great.
;)
While the gameplay is fairly bland, the interface is actually rather nice. Many Asian games use a point-and-click method for movement, which is something I never cared for. Runes of Magic is no exception, except that it allows you to use the keyboard to move as well, and also allows you to move forward by holding down both mouse buttons - which is something I've been fond of since Star Wars Galaxies came out. If you find yourself accidentally clicking on the ground next to your target, instead of your target, or for some other reason you just hate having the option to point-and-click for movement, it can be completely disabled in the options menu.
I found the UI to be pretty pleasing overall, largely due to things like that. The UI itself looks like WoW and WAR, but that isn't actually a bad thing. It has a number of nice features as well. For example, if a bunch of PCs are crowding around an NPC quest-giver, you normally would end up clicking on one of them instead. Hit shift+click, and you'll be selecting the quest-giver through them. The equipment screen is very nice, allowing you to hover your mouse over any equipment slot, which brings up a list of what you currently have equipped, as well as every item you are carrying that can go into that slot. You never need to hunt through a bag to find the best piece of equipment you have. I also never thought I'd compliment a game on how easy it is to ignore people, but Runes is hit pretty hard by spammers selling gold. In the chat window, just right click their name and then click "Add to blacklist." Just half a second of effort removes the spam from your window.
Graphics, Microtransactions, and The Little Extras
Graphically, the game isn't technically impressive at all. It does, however, have an art style that appealed to me well enough, which helped to make up for it. They went with a somewhat cartoony look that helped make the otherwise unimpressive graphics seem more acceptable. The graphics work well enough, and while they aren't hugely impressive, I can't complain too much about them in a free to play game either.
I do believe some of these areas that Runes of Magic is lacking in are helped by some of the miscellaneous features in the game. For example, player housing is nice to see and not something you find in every MMO. You get a home, a busty French maid to call your own, the ability to buy and place furniture in your house, and extra storage space. Furniture can also give rested XP and TP (used to buy ranks in skills), as well as increasing the XP earned when crafting in your house.
Housing is actually one of the areas that microtransactions start to come into play. You can buy certain upgrades to your house, such as the ability to include more objects, and the ability to name your house something other than the random string of numbers it is assigned. You can also do things like buy additional bag space, add the ability to speak on the World channel, and even purchase items with real money. You also can improve existing items by spending a bit of real world money as well, even boosting low level equipment up with high level stats, meaning that they can still be worn by a low level character. You can also do this, however, with tokens that can be earned in-game.
;)
Microtransactions are a tricky thing to use when targeting a Western audience, as there's a lot of pre-existing baggage that comes with it that turns people off. Simply put, a lot of people aren't willing to try a microtransaction-based game. However, I think Runewalker (and Frogster depending on how much was localized) did a pretty good job of it. If you don't want to spend a dime, you never have to do so, and you aren't actually barred from anything by choosing to keep your money. You still get a house, you still get mounts, you still get tons of equipment drops... You'll be comparable to someone who has spent money. You just won't likely look as stylish, is all. Plus, you won't have the bag space, but you should be able to get along fine without it, too.
Conclusion
Runes of Magic is probably the most middle-ground, average game I have ever played. It seems for everything that they do right in the game, there's some niggling problem that brings it down. Yet, at the same time, for every fault I find, I can find something else that can make up for it. While the graphics might be far from impressive, the UI is quite nice. The combat system isn't very exciting, but the dual-class system can make for some fun combinations. The world isn't very interesting, but there is plenty of content.
Yet, for a free to play game, what it brings to the table is far beyond what you normally see from those types of games. Frogster claims that they've hit one million registered users in North American and Europe, and I can understand why. While there are better (and worse) games that cost $15 a month, Runes of Magic is still pretty impressive for not having a subscription fee. Taking value into mind, it is hard to not recommend it for a spin, given that there is no cost of entry.
A decent review. Seems balanced enough.
One little note to the editors who review this stuff prior to publication - "exceptions" is not a synonym of "expectations."
("When it comes to quests in free to play games, my exceptions are pretty low.")
Hmm, If you do go to this website and play this game a few things you should know. Either you better like dumb quests or like to grind out levels. Good luck trying to get a party together for any early quests as most players have moved on and there are not enough new people coming into the game. Also do not buy anything from this company!
How do I know these things? I just left there last week after getting 2 characters to lvl 25+ and one to lvl 18.
One of the main issues is there are not enough new people coming into the game and most players have moved onto 35+ lvl so when facing any boss( a certain death solo) you will not be able to complete the quest.In fact, all of the bosses are beat by forming a party. Before leaving I spent 3 says trying to get a party together for Forsaken abby runs(think time sink).Nobody was around to get it done. You have to make 30 abby runs to get the elite skills for lvl 25 or spend alot of in-game gold(which you do not really have due to repairs on equipment) for the crystals needed to get the elite skills and you have to do it for each class(remember that cool dual class system).
When you hit lvl 20, you get to a new area called Aslan and the quests seem to slow down here and by lvl 25 they become almost none existant. Kinda hard to lvl 2 classes without quests and hence the grindage begins. By lvl 25 I was forced into deleting characters because I could not find people to do quests with or even enough of them to lvl one character. By lvl 28(think 6 lvls of grinding) I was forced to conclude they did not want people to stay.
Grinding and lack of quests aside, there was also another factor that made me leave and that was Frogster. They lied about their features and would not issue a refund or even a credit. Instead they ran off to change their webpage to make it appear as though they did not mislead people into a belief a certain feature would be there. That feature was supposed to be a shared treasure chest that all your characters could use. Items could be placed into the treasure chest and then used by each of your characters.The treasure chest was located within the house every character you create shares.
So knowing this feature was supposed to be implimented into the game, I purchased a permanent mount($22.00) and was going to place it into the chest for all my characters to use.This feature never came to be and growing frustrated with this fact, I sent feedback to them about it.They replied that they never intended to implement this feature and even went so far as to admit they made a mistake and then ran off to change the page to avoid any possible legal problems. I asked for a refund or at least a credit for the mount, to which they replied they would do NEITHER of those.
Once Frogster has your money, they no longer care about you.
So there you have it, my entire gaming experience with Runes of magic,still think this game ranks as a 7.7 good? Not even close in my book.
Btw, I have a pdf copy of the webpage I spoke of, from before they changed it should anyone think I am making this up. If I could just figure out how to post it....
Axe
Sorry to hear that Axe. I was about to put 50$ into the game 2 months ago, when it hit me just the morning i was going to pay; this game doesn't deserve it.
They're currently milking the game pretty bad, 50%-off dias, Ruby crap-shop, a patch every 4 weeks, ... etc. I think they're getting what they can, and bailing. Who knows!
I suspect that was what they had in mind from the beginning(grab cash and run). Seeing as I asked for a credit and they were not even willing to do that. That speaks volumes of what they had in mind. What harn comes from a credit? You still have my cash!
Glad to hear you did not give them any of your money.They certainly don't deserve it and they would never have gotten mine had I known they were outright liars. Guess I learned a valueable lesson though.:(
Axe
I started playing the 1st week it was out and nobody knew exactly how bad it was then.:( That is why I posted here.To make sure people were fully informed of this game and its business practices.
Cannot believe it was given a review from here of 7.7! Unbelievable!
Axe
I think that the reviewer's usage of the word "subscribers" tends to be rather disingenuous as the word -- at least within the MMO community -- often connotes a paid subscription. A more accurate term would have been "registered accounts," which is precisely what Frogster was describing when they announced those numbers in this article, which is even titled "One Million Registered Users!"
Aside from that, I basically agree with the reviewer's perception of RoM; it's decent for a subscription-free game, although it contains very few innovations and continues to spoon-feed us more of the banal mediocrity that we, as MMO-players, have become accustomed to in recent years.
Whoops, thanks for pointing that out. I didn't intend on being disingenuous with that statment. Rather, I'm just so use to talking about account statistics at "subscribers" that I didn't even notice that I used the word in that context. That is very correct, though: they do not have a million people giving them money on a monthly basis, but rather just have a million people who've signed up at some point or another. Quite a different scenario.
Axe i dont't know what have you done, but i have a 50/50 and i did little grind, there were plenty of quests, if you did all aslan you should have gone to sascillia stepes or dragonfang to lvl your second class. In fact after i was 50/50 they added some more quests to ystra and ravenfell, so now it should be even easier.
As for the review, the person that did it could not understand the basic concept of this game, you can get any equip, but an equip here it's not like a wow equip, here you have to put stats on it or it's worthless, and guesss how you put stats and upgrade the equipments -> Cash shop :(
As for the crafting, im lvl 40 armor smith, it's completely worthless. Other missing aspect here is the huge class imbalance as well as some skills completely wrong, -> a scout can lasso an enemy for ever with a macro for example :S
Overall it's a fun game to lvl, there are about 8-10 quests completely fun to do, the others not xD, when you reach max lvl then it starts the boredom. Instances are not that bad, but after some runs, its always the same thing.
Whoops, thanks for pointing that out. I didn't intend on being disingenuous with that statment. Rather, I'm just so use to talking about account statistics at "subscribers" that I didn't even notice that I used the word in that context. That is very correct, though: they do not have a million people giving them money on a monthly basis, but rather just have a million people who've signed up at some point or another. Quite a different scenario.
Review updated to say registered users =)
Then you obviously either got in before the membership started trickling down to nothing or you joined a guild and became a "guildie" to get your quests done for you..err, I mean to have help in the quests. Either way you can have tons of quests but if they require a party to complete and nobody is around to join your party. then the quest might as well not exist.
When I quit at lvl 28 I had only 3 quests to do.2 of them were epics(requiring parties to complete and one of them was a boss,requiring a party. I was too low in lvl to do NOM and Ystra quests, most I could not even get because I was not high enough lvl. I suppose sitting around for days on end trying to get parties for Fa runs(time sink) together did not help either.
Is it my fault not enough new players were coming in to fill the parties up? I was not aware that I had the power to change that and it seems you are implying I did something wrong.
I suppose it is my fault that Frogster would not issue me a credit also.I notice you did not even broach this subject. I wonder why that is??? Perhaps it is just easier to point a finger at the poster rather than at your beloved game,fanboy.
My position and feelings stand true to the experience I recieved. Therefore, there is NOTHING you can say to change it.The truth is the truth and you can either accept what is or live in denial all you like.I am not the only person who sees this game for what it is.
Axe
Yes i'm in a guild, one of the bigger ones, though i did most of my quest with the help of other people through zone chat, i played near the open beta release date, that's why there was a lot of people i guess, i think you still are not aware that you have a teleport for sascillia another zone that starts with quests from lvl 1 + ideal for your second class development, not to mention daily quests.
As of calling me a fanboy, have you read my post, i just pointed out tons of bugs and fails, i just think through my experience quests are not a problem, there are plenty. I didn't comment the credits thing cause i've never spent a dolar in rom, though i absolutely agree that theres only one interest in frogster, and thats in making money as quickly as possible, before people leave.
To the person that lost money over the housing thing, that really sucks and I'm sorry that happened to you. I haven't played since beta, but I thought horses were bound to the character that bought it? I think I may be really wrong, though.
Also, the game just came out of beta and I didn't expect alot of the things to be the same. For example, there were normal mounts and a bunch of people bough permanant ones. A short while later War Mounts (or whatever they are called) came up and most of the normal mount buyers were mad.
My point is, I can kinda see why Frogster didn't grant your request. I think its terrible from a customer service point of view, but from a business point of view I wouldn't granted it either. If they gave you a refund or credit, they would have had to grant the same request for everyone else who just missed the newest mounts or who acted on a beta feature that was changed or removed, etc. *But*, if you did it after the game offically went live, you may have a better case since the game wasn't in beta any more. But, I don't know.
But back on topic, from what I've played I do like the game. Its a good time waster. I was trying to get in to those diamond contests that were held during beta, but I just didn't have time to write an add-on (or learn how to, that is) and I *just* missed the deadline for the interior design contest. I really wanted a second level to my home, too!
I really wish the crafting system was better. Right now its boring as ever, but for some reason I still tried to level my gathering skills.
It's amazing how many of the complaints about this game also apply (to me) to LOTRO.
Of course, to help combat the grinding, they tweaked the XP tables to make it quicker. (Rather than adding more quests to the dead areas)
You still get a house, you still get mounts, you still get tons of equipment drops... You'll be comparable to someone who has spent money. You just won't likely look as stylish, is all. Plus, you won't have the bag space, but you should be able to get along fine without it, too.
Great review but going to have to disagree with you on this point. Being a level 50 in a rather huge guild on Osha, the statement in bold is simply wrong. You will not be comparable to someone who spends cash. Yes you can get equipment without cash. Yes you can upgrade this basic equipment without cash. But there is no way this equipment will compare in stats to someone who spends cash. You can't upgrade to tier8 gear without money or many months of dedicated time and gold per peice of equipment. You cannot upgrade past +4 or even get to +4 without cash. You can get to +4 but you have a better chance of winning your state lottery persay. Simply put, this game at 50, pvp and pve wise, is nothing without money. Most guilds won't even ask you to group with them in instances post 50 unless your paying cash. I know plenty of guilds that only recruit people who pay money because of the fact they balance instances towards people who pay and have incredible gear. There is nothing wrong with this, just thought you should point this out in your review.
Yes, i leveled 3 characters and knew nothing about dailies(sarcasm) LOL! Did you really think this actually occurred? I mean really? OMG! You must really think the worst of everyone even someone who posts clearly and consisely you assume is stupid enough to not know the basics.
I did not know about the bind of purchase factor of purchased items because frankly I had never purchased anything from any online game company and obviously won't make that mistake again.
Yep, tried the steppes but if you start on the steppes at high lvl,you really get almost nothing for the quests and kills.
Not sure giving a credit for a bound item so I can apply toward another bound item effects anyone else other than me.
But,hey apprently,everyone here knows more about my experiences than me and is pretty much telling me to shut up as I do not know what happened to me. So it all musta been someone else's mightmare I was living and I will not discuss it any further.
Laterz!
Axe
Leveling three characters in any game you hate would be a nightmare.
I'm sorry you're too stupid to stop playing a game when you realize it's not for you, and force yourself to continue until you become bitter against the game itself, it's developers, and it's playerbase.
Unfortunately for the rest of the world, we can't do anything but sit here and watch you behave like an idiot. Carry on :/
I got my toon to lvl 45/40 using a Knight / Mage before I layed it down with the rest of the F2P mmos I had lost intrest in. The grind isn't terrible for the most part. The biggest issues I have with the game is the unbalanced classes, the complete inability to tier or add keepable stats to equipment without going to the cash shop and the horrible horrible lag.
Plus I know everyone wants varity in their equipment. But this game just went off the deep end with what armor or weapons gets what stats. ANything could drop with any stat. Heavy armor with pointless intel and wisdom stats. Cloth armor with stamina and strength stats. If it was crappy then dismantle it or sell it to an npc. But sometime you would get rare drops that had 2 rune slots and the like three pointless stats that you had to find some way to get rid of that would take hours and hours or grinding for crap drops to get gold to go to the upgrade NPC and gamble to see if got the fusion stones you needed. Which could cost you from anywhere to 50K-200K easy. Just to much grind for something you will ditch in 10-15 lvls.
But all in all I liked it for what it was and the folks in the guild I was with were top notch. Might even pick it up again some day. They just need to work on some issues first
You never mentioned pvp in this game.
You never even used the word "pvp".
Is pvp in this game?
"Microtransactions are a tricky thing to use when targeting a Western audience, as there's a lot of pre-existing baggage that comes with it that turns people off. Simply put, a lot of people aren't willing to try a microtransaction-based game. However, I think Runewalker (and Frogster depending on how much was localized) did a pretty good job of it. If you don't want to spend a dime, you never have to do so, and you aren't actually barred from anything by choosing to keep your money. You still get a house, you still get mounts, you still get tons of equipment drops... You'll be comparable to someone who has spent money. You just won't likely look as stylish, is all. Plus, you won't have the bag space, but you should be able to get along fine without it, too."
A couple of points I'd like to highlight are that the game has been systematically engineered to make money, this has been done by way of several mechanisms, but the overall impression I got from playing is that up until 35/35 you can enjoy the game very much without the cash shop.
Once you get past that however the lay of the land starts to shift quite a lot & the way the game works starts to not just mean the cash shop is a convenience but it becomes more & more necessary as you continue to level up, sure the cash shop remains optional, in the very loosest sense of the word optional, but the actual praticalities of playing post 35 mean you will find the game starts to work against you in many ways, repair costs ramp up, especially with better gear, more you spend the more you need to spend to maintain what you bought, TP & XP debt escalates very badly, the need for very highly transmuted gear increases exponentially, because you could simply outlevel the content earlier on & you cannot do that later & you have to face dungeons tuned purely around highly transmuted characters, in fact all the dungeons are, meaning the low level dungeoins don't get done at the level they are designed for at all.
So rather than the stated aim of the cash shop providing conveniences, the game is designed to make everyday gameplay unbearably inconvenient as a way to get you buying things to make the gameplay bearable, the end result being that in order to play this game at a similar level of convenience to a subscription game you're going to actually be forking over a hell of a lot more cash to do it, & with this medicore a game it's just not worth it (in my opinion at least), in short they got the cost & convenience equations too heavily biased to making money & to lightly balanced to providing an enjoyable game, the item shop ruins the game ultimately.
Levelling past 35/35 is awkward, it's easy enough to go to 50 on one class once you hit 35/35 but levelling your secondary at that point takes away from levelling your primary due to a lack of a secondary chain of quests that was present earlier in the game, so it looks like you can get to 35/35 just fine then you have to choose which class to be your primary, level that up on quests & then slowly eek out levels on your secondary via xp/tp orbs & daily quests.
So my advice is play to 35/35 then re-roll, past 35 the game is ALL about the cash shop & how much you can bear to put up with an increasingly restricive game or how much cash youinject in order to offset that.
My other complaints others have covered, the unfinished/useless crafting system, class imbalances, upgrade jewel fail rates, the list goes on & on & they slowly become more & more of a grating thorn in your side the more you play.
The game does become increasingly difficult as you level past 35. Therefore without some work on your equipments, you will have a tough time. But non-paying players can still get cash shop items without ever paying cash.
1. Some players will be selling diamonds for gold, therefore non-paying players can actually obtain diamonds!
2. Most cash shop items are actually on sale in the token shop were tokens are free to obtain through daily quests.
Yes, it will take alot of time for non-paying players to get what they want, but the bottum line is that they CAN without paying money!! There are players in game right now that have not spend a cent but yet have diamonds and cash shop items!
Some players will spend money to save time, and other will not~ Its a simple choice but atleast everyone CAN get the same items.
Nicely done on the review Sean. I agree with many of your points.
I've been around a long time and played dozens of MMOs over the past 12 years, so I'm actually a little surprised by all the hate this game is generating. I have a few characters in their 20's and 1 in their 30's, and while I agree that the game has some shortcomings, I feel that the hate is a little melodramatic. If you go on ANY MMO's forums, the majority of the posts you are going to read are complaints. By this logic, take a trip over to WoW's forums and you'll assume the game is going to shut down a week from next Tuesday. This is by far the best F2P game I've ever played (not saying much I know, but still). If you don't want to pay real money you don't have to. Sure, it'll take you much longer to do and get the things you want to, but it's not a race. I would recommend at least purchasing a mount for your character. You can buy them for a week, a month, or perm.
A saw someone mention that they ran out of quests at 29...I'm not sure how that happened. If you are doing dailies, as well as levelling in BOTH level 1-50 maps (Yes, there are 2. You get access to the second map with a spell called Teleport: Reifort when you pick your secondary class at lvl 10), you should be hard pressed to run out of quests. The game's quest and combat systems are VERY simple, but it's the number-crunchy dual-class system that I enjoy playing around with. The class system is very complex for such an otherwise easy to play game.
Maybe the game will be no fun at 50/50. If that's the case, I'll simply move on with nothing but a $20 loss for a couple of permanent mounts for my characters (yay weekend specials!). Maybe it's just because I started with the older MMOs where everything took forever, so I'm not looking for that "go go go hurry up and cap" game design that came about around 5 years ago, but I'm having fun. For me, that's all that matters.
It's early, I'm rambling, so I'll end with this: It costs nothing to sign up and give the game a go. So, if you're looking for something to kill some time, then give RoM a try. You might find it as fun and addictive as I have.
Take care gang.
From my experience with F2P games (Atlantica Online, Perfect World) if you don't plan to spend cash then you better don't start playing it. The thing that Alex described of course sucks. But spending money in F2P game is what they want you there for. They don't care about you going there playing for free and then being all frustrated that you can't have something and market is flooded blah blah. While I was playing Atlantica Online I've probably spent few hundred bucks in that game and I don't really regret. I do hate their gamble system but with all that money spent I was able to get to 98 very easy without any special grind.
In Perfect World things are a bit different. Item mall items cost a bit more but it takes a bit longer to level. I bet that RoM is not much different. If you have few hundred bucks to spend in there - you will enjoy it. Don't think that Asian devs are stupid and will release the game without opportunity to make money on those who likes to waste cash in Item Mall. Thats what these games are about. Its just funny how some of you guys 'review' these games like some sort of counterpart to European and US gaming market. They are NOT. They are being released at least 3-4 a year to attract people with cash. Thats what they live of off. Those who come to play for free, they don't care much about you.
I just looked through this game features. I am gonna try it I think.
Dual Class
Housing
Mannequins
Arcane Transmutors
PvP
These features are well wanted in many games that they don't have them. Looks like this time Asian developers did some research on what people want the most in their MMO and created one. Of course its still F2P with Item Mall game. So either prepare to spend cash or be unsatisfied with a "free" play.
Don't forget about the free French maid you get with the house. How many games give you that for free?
Only gamers,and gamers that never shut up in chat and trade in games,would take the time to bitch about a free game. Does this gold billfold full of hundred dollar bills make my ass look fat?
Any review that fails to mention PvP is not a good review...
Spend "a few houndred bucks" on an MMORPG. Are you insane?
At most I will spend 50 bucks bying the game and 15 bucks per month until I get bored.
What they don't add to this and which is the most important - It will take much longer for you to get all that staff without spending any cash. Thats the biggest reason some people DO PREFER spending cash. Some people just hate grind with their guts. And spending 100$ - 200$ bucks once in a while is not gonna kill anyone who has a normal job. I'd rather spend some money and enjoy the game than spend boring hours to grind that gold and by things from AH. Its easy logic - if you have cash - you can buy. If you don't have cash - you can grind.
All the fluff and fancy pancy stuff always was focused on people with cash. Asian F2P games have grind on purpose. They show you how much easier it is to get things with cash, which a lot of people prefer to do and thats how developer makes money to support the game. So all you people who play F2P games for free should log in today and say - Thank You! to those people who spend their hard earned dollars in Item Malls. Instead of complaining and projecting your hatred. People who spend cash on Item Mall allow prices on AH to go down by selling their excesses on the AH and they also indirectly support YOUR play in that particular F2P game. because if they didn't spend that cash there wouldn't be money to support the game and you wouldn't be playing anything.
You spent 65 bucks that way. For 65 bucks you can get enough stuff to have fun for 1-2 months in F2P games. And as I said if you don't want to spend cash and are against the Item Malls - you shouldn't be playing F2P games.
The review fails to mention that you cannot pvp in this game unless you spend goodly sums in the cash shop. That is a huge ommission to my point of view. And I am not talking spending subscription amounts monthly, you have to fork out a lot more than that to be competitive.
Yes the game is fun to play, long as you don't intend to pvp. Pvp on the other hand is heavily dependent on how good your equipment is and yes the classes are not balanced very well in a pvp environment.
So pretty unfinished review to my way of thinking when you omit such a major flaw such as this.
Most of the "registered" accounts are people having multiple accounts...I had 6 when I was playing.
I've been playing Runes of Magic for a while. Got me some diamonds. So far I like the game. I am not a big fan of PvP in 1v1 mode, I like PvP more like in Atlantica Online, but I play on PvE server. So far its been fun. Even though game almost 100% resembles WoW with graphics, but something keeps me interested and I've been having fun. I think that RoM has encompassed everything fun that other games have. Dual Class, Housing, Furniture has bonuses to training and studying, books that you can study crafting and adventuring skills from while being AFK or sleeping, harvesting in EQ2 style, both skill and level based game mechanics, Very well balanced Item Mall (no gambling like in Atlantica and very good prices if you know what you're doing) and so on.
You don't really need anything much from Item Mall until the later levels. Yes XP potions and TP potions help to level up a bit. But quests yield pretty good amount of XP and if you can pace the potions when to use them in between of other activities (leveling harvesting, crafting) you're fine with just 65 bucks. Same as you'd spend for a regular game copy and 1 month of playing. I know I'll spend there a little more than 65, but I don't mind because its fun that way. Like Cartman said in "South Park" - "Everything that is fun cost at least 8 bucks", so there you have it. If you don't want to spend money, you can have some fun for free. But I already see that without XP food and TP pots it would take longer to level.
There is enough content now to level up fine even after 25. So its my new F2P game now. I am enjoying it. Same I wish to any of you who decides to try. But be ready to spend a little money, then you'll have it all right.
I've played RoM since day 1 of open beta, and the game kept going downhill from there even if frogster say they have 1 mil accounts. 50-60% of those I can guarantee you that they are inactive.
Some of the us servers are almost deserted, you can't really buy and trade mods that good. The german servers have the most population but even there, alot of people have started to quit.
There are bugs in the game since open beta and they did nothing on it.
on PvP servers, players can wear item shop costumes and add stats on them so they can use more then 8 items (you can only seal 8 items that you are sure they are not going to drop on pk).
They advertise SvS battles on their features page, and one does not exist. They promised battlegrounds since closed beta in last december, they are not here yet.
Anyone that makes a m/p and spends alot of time and/or cash on it can make it way OP...like way way way OP.
PvP is not balanced AT ALL, its 90% gear...even if your the lamest noob in the game...spend 500$ to make yourself some godly equips, and you can beat 90% of the population in the server.
There are some set pieces where you have to do like 300-500 (~20 mins each if you have a good team) instance runs to complete the set, but your not sure even as that.
Crafting is uselles, you don't really get anything that good from it.
Im not trying to tell to don;t try the game...go, try it, reach 50/50 and then see if theres anything to do besides farming instances ALL THE TIME.
I can keep listing you alot of things that are bad in this game and they were not included in the review.
And no im not a troll or some sht..i have a 50/30 scout/rogue on Siochian server, nick: Ping...on forum Dakyr.
I was/am in one of the top guilds of my server, almost all of us have more then average equips but theres nothing to do once you get those equips..nothing.
Maybe its because you missed the "journey" and your whole goal was to get to 50/50 asap and the best gear... Asian games are always like this. They are either for PvP for grinders or PvE for those who buys CS items. There is nothing else to do. I don't know what I'll do when I get to 50/50, I may not even get there, but I am enjoying myself on the way there... Hopefully there will be more of good down the road. And by that time maybe either JGE or BP betas will be out.
hi, i've read the review and also seen the video of this game and frankly speaking, it looks really awesome compared to other Free to play games where you wont find stuffs like quest, mounts, etc. and may contain a really wickedly dumb story and a lot of grinding. I am looking forward to play this game but i have a query.
i live in india and being a MMO player in india is like living in the seventh layer of hell, as most of the MMO dont work in in india i would like to know weather the game is workable in india and if yes, i would be really glad if someone could supply me the CD of this game because, though my net speed is truly divine, i have a limited download of 1GB per month. So downloading the game for me would just be like subscribing for a more than year
. Please reply me as soon as possible.
yours gamingly
muntazax
I want to throw my 2 runes in on this as well. 1: This is a pretty damn good F2P game, BUT, You better wait till its actually finished, or the devs know what it is they are actually doing! So many changes since CB it scares anyone form plunking down monies to buy anything that can be changed on the drop of a hat!
I sorta ridiculed RuneWaker there, but the fact is this is all Frogsters fault! This game had a vision that RuneWaker wanted to see through before opening the "Cash Cow Shop"! Frogster wanted to make the monies as fast as possible by having RuneWaker change the design of the game midstream so that Frogster could score huge monies by destroying the core gameplay that was in CB! Frogster is underhanded, and "allegedly" with a CEO who is known for "bribing" reviewers in the past to sell copies, doesnt surprise me in the least! The GM crew is horrid on the USA side! Actually the whole damn company on the US side is the worst Ive seen in a long time for a F2P!
The game is worth playing for free imo. But only if you didnt get pigeonholed into playing on the US side after spending money on diamonds that cannot be switched to the EU servers! Frogster has a lot of us gamers in their hands basically as a lot fo us have spent tons of money, and then watched how they underhandedly renamed CS items, or descriptions so vague that once you bought em, your stuck with them! To the worst customer service, that do not tolerate even the slightest negativity in the forums or face a 2 month ban! When I say slight negativity, I had been banned there for over 2.5 months cause some of the GM team responsible for naming specific items would NOT rename them after I had told them it was a deceptive! Thats all it took, and I was toast! Didnt matter if I had spent $200 in over the course of 5 months playing! I was gone! It was only then a larger group finally came forward and complained and then, and only then when faced with the threat of lawsuit form hundreds of players, they change them, to be less "ambiguous".
Rumor has it RuneWaker is just itching to get out this hell contract with Frogster USA, as they want to see a more responsible, less corruptive, intelligent, fair, and non-abusive to paying customers!! The US side of Frogster is the worse! They had a chance to partner with a reputable publisher to share the costs to bring this game to NA, but instead got greedy, and used unprofessional, unskilled players from the EU side ( who are currently based in the US) to GM the game, and put one of the best spin doctors in the gaming industry at the helm( CEO ) of a already sinking ship!! The EU side isnt much better, but at least they have a qualified GM team, customer service, and have more sales on CS items than us NA players care to admit!!
Best thing is to stay the hell away from the NA version, and play the EU Global one, till Frogster US dies (which shouldnt be long, unless they change their underhanded tactics), and RuneWaker is more selective about who publishes this game for the NA side next time around!!!
Gamer beware!
sorry for bad grammar, and such, in a hurry so bare with it!
QFT ! Go Bushy Go ! Stick it to the MAN.
:P Hey Spoons! You up this early? Come on man, I made a new toon in Aion and enjoying the crap out of it! Lets go play!! lol!
crap, forgot... my new toon is named "Kaiju" Im a ass-asin! Fun stuff! PM me, Im heading in game now!!!
This. I've playing for a few months now, and I've got a 37/36 Rogue Priest and 26/25 Knight/Warrior.
I've been enjoying the journey. Perhaps like people say, once I get to 50 there won't be anything to do, but there sure is alot to do on the way.
Some folks say you need to spend godly sums to pvp. Maybe so, Pureevil on our server spent 4K on his gear.
Yet the player who kills the most is named Drayden, a level 39 Mage Priest who routinely kills 20-30 players a session.
He's not wearing godly gear, nor does he always win, yet manages to pvp quite a bit.
Maybe level 50 pvp is a giant gear contest, but there's a heck of lot of pvp to be had long before then.
Just weighing in here as the previewer... I have to agree with Sean's rating of "good" though I probably would have been a tad more pessemistic. After some extended play, Rune's of Magic is pretty bland, reaching for Warcraft and more but falling way short in every area I care to think of while attempting to float success on the extras and dual classing.
Runes is a decent time waster, but nothing to be taken seriously at this stage and certainly not what I was hoping would come out of closed beta. It's certainly playable for a free to play- even surprising in several ways -but still rough draft quality in a number of areas when placed side by side with a comparably finished project.
I think RoM is a pretty good game keeping in mind its 'age' and genre. And i think its doing pretty well, here and there, I see people everywhere, not as many here as there maybe, but while playing on the weekend I see quite a few people running around. Weekdays are a bit quieter. I mean comparing to some other games just release RoM is actually REALLY good.. lol. Also don't compare 5+ year old game with buncha expansion packs and everything released with a game that is a barely few months old. *wink* I like the way RoM is organized. Even though most of the Items on Item Mall are pointless to buy, its still quite well organized game for F2P. Devs did a good job for an F2P game. Housing, double classing, crafting, furniture, crafting facilities for your housing, Elite skills etc. Of course there is grind, which F2P doesn't have it. But its an ok game if you don't start to take it apart under a microscope. *rolleyes*
Taking it apart with a microscope... But... But that's our job! ;)
And don't take the comment the wrong way... Compared to other free to play MMOs, Runes is heading in the right direction. In terms of implimentation, it doesn't bend players over or overtly rape them like most cash shop games do. We'd still be remiss if we didn't put its flaws under the microscope however. That said, I was comparing it to a pre-expac warcraft... back in the days when soul link was a 30sec buff and death coil didn't horrify :p
...And a free to play vs up front money argument doesn't gain any sympathy here either. These people are playing for money. If they expect that money, they had better push a polished product up front, not yank gamers around on the promise that maybe someday it will fix the rough edges that should have never made it out of beta.
Just my POV, not nessisarily those of my sponcer ;)
Yeah I know. Its not like I am RoM fanboy. I have my own concerns about the game. Like most of items on Item mall are actually worthless, and really expensive... Take for example Advanced XP Charm. It allows you to store 100K XP and then use it on any character you want. Problem is that it costs 15$ a piece and after level 30 you need more and more of the charms per level up to 20 charms at 45. Since at 45 its 2mil xp to level.
It only makes sense actually to buy that charm ONCE, when you're around 20. It will fill up around the time you hit 25-27. So you can use it after that on the secondary profession and save some time. Before 20 its too little exp to fill it up. After 27 it becomes way to expensive to use charms to help leveling. Multiple charms per level, well I'd say you devs can shove that charm you know where.
I don't have good opinion about graphics either, it just WAY similar to WoW. I was enjoying it for a while, but now when I see all the flaws and grind quests start to fill up my quest journal, I awant to get back on less and less. I think I am gonna give a try to Aion together with my wife.
This is prolly one of the greatest posts I've ever read. The one thing that he forgot to put in here though is that it's FREE to PLAY. if you choose to spend outside cash on it, that's a choice you make......No one is going to make you pull your credit card out and pay for something, you have to make that choice. And the simple fact that you are not paying a monthly may just make that much easier. How many of us that have played WoW or EQ2 or any other MMO in recent years pays there monthly and then on top of that buys gold or platinum online as well. I just started playing this game. It seems pretty good so far. I think it will survive lone enough for SWTOR to come out.......Hopefully. I dont know that I'll put any money into it, but it seems to me when you have a free top download/play game, the company has to make money somehow.
AxisStorm
Ah. but the game is NOT free to play. You cannot PVP in this game without spending far beyond normal subscription rates to outfit your character, despite claims to the contrary above. The deeper you get in this game, the more you get excluded for not spending money on it. If you enjoy that type of playstyle, fine, but most of us do not.
PVP.....................nuff said. LOL
I played RoM since its release, had 2 char hit 50. I will givei t ist due it was fun for the most part, till later levels. the problem is the game turns into a gear farming nightmare, Mst of the gear has stats (int,dex, stam etc) tha can be removed from one and added to another, in later lvls the bosses and instances are so ridiculusly overpowered its essential to start farming stats to upgrad your gear, while in concept this is a cool idea in practice it means several trip DAILY to the instances to grind for the "right drops" in hopes u can find the stats u need. even then your lucky to survive these later bosses. the othe rproblem is they have "elite" skills you can unlock every 5th lvl 15/15 20/20 25/25 etc but a couple of these skills require "crystals" that drop in certain instances, and as of yet both my char at lvl50 (along with 100's of others) are still working on our sets for 35. which means you log in do the dalies which are a major importance in this game, then go do some stat farming and maybe a few runs to do some crystal farming, then wander around with not much else to do becuase your either not stong enough to finish what u do have in your log or run around farming drops waiting for the new content to open. It was alot of fun till 45 or so after that its a cash shop and grindfest bonanza. where only the absolutly most decked out char hav any chance at all.
Very good review. I gotta say. I'm really having a great time with this MMO. One of the Best F2P systems so far.
I must say that i love the colours and effects, and magic is always a fun thing to play in my main in wow is Marcell the Mage an dhe kicks horde bu*t all the way bk to Kalimdor lol, But this is where i see a problem. To me the buildings, the people, the movements, are to similer to WOW, i know theres differences but visably theres not enough to make me stop playing WOW to play this.
In fact on a few of the pictures of this game i had to zoom in to make sure i wasnt looking at a wow picture , they have races like taurens and pretty much everything is similer to Warcraft.
I think a few major updates of this game and changes in texturing and shadowing and a few things off wow looking objects might help it do well. But until that time i wouldnt really like to play a wow copy cat when im already in wow my self with 500 people in my guild.
I've been playing this game for almost 4 months now and i absolutely love it. Now I'm not going to be blind to the problems this game has, for example: The servers crashing recently, end game stuff being more cash shop related, population problems in some of the servers, cover up tweaks instead of actual fixes, making choices with money in mind,and the list goes on. Every game is going to have it's up's and downs so that has to be put into conisderation.
I have a 35/31 priest/knight and a 32/25 warrior/rouge and i have had no problem leveling up both my characters. They give MORE than enough quests to get through your levels and if you don't feel like questing it up, which i can understand, they make grinding in that game pretty easy. As it goes for the boss's, I personally, have had no problems getting help from either my guild or pugs at any time what so ever. There's a lot of players(at least in my server) that are higher level and go back to help the lower levels all the time. The ammount of help you can get from the community is actually the best I've seen in a long time.(and i have been playing MMO's for a long time so i have a lot to compare too) A lot of people tend to compare this game to WoW but i think they are very different games.(yes it may have a lot of things in common but they are very different games) Depending on how good the market is on your server you can make a killing from the auction house. I personally have made and spent over 15m in this game so far and i didn't have to do much to get it. All it takes is a little bit of brains and some patience.
When it comes to the instance runs there PLENTY of groups doing every instance all day everyday. I was able to get a run for FA, WM, TToW, and NoM when ever i wanted to. As said earlier the community in this game(once again, this is experience from my server) has been more than helpful. I have had high levels come in and show me the ropes of each instance and what i have to do to get by, There are also many ways to get your gear modded enough to make getting to high level a lot easier. You just have to pay attention and look around. After a while the instances do get boring but what doesn't get boring after doing it but so many times. It happens with every game not just this game.
This game for a F2P game is very refresing and if you give it the light of day is an awesome game to play. Compared to a lot of the other F2P games this game is in the top 10 imo. For those who had a bad experience, I'm sorry to hear that, but not everyone is meant to enjoy the game. Take the game for what it is and look past the problems(which every game has) and take a look at what it really has.
-Fakie
This game is just like free version of WoW. It is quality game, but it lacks of originality. It's for ppl who like wow, but don't want to pay money any money(but the cash shop is treacherous and make ppl spend so much money :p)
...Honestly.
I was bored in the first 10 minutes.
i think the dual class system isnt pros it suck
For those who complain about paying money in a free game, why dont YOU make a game the way you think it should be, pay the costs for the server(s) and bandwith, and get no money for it.
....Well?
....anyone making that game yet?
Don't you want show everyone the right way to make and maintain a free-to-play game?
Great game honestly it never gets old and always has new content its one of the best downloadable free to play mmorpgs out there.