Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!

Runes of Magic: 2011 Re-Review

SBFordSBFord Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129

It's been quite awhile since the last time MMORPG.com visited Runes of Magic. There's no question that there is a lot to see with the impressive array of changes that have come to the game since its original launch. MMORPG.com writer Lori May has gone back to Runes of Magic for a re-review of the game. See how it measures up and then leave us your thoughts.

One of the most enjoyable aspects of RoM is the Dual Class system. Each character is composed of two classes, which are selected from a somewhat disappointingly small pool of 8 options, effectively giving you two characters in one. How this works is you select a starting class, which is automatically your “primary” class, and quest or grind up to level 10. Once you hit this first milestone, you can select your “secondary” class. The only limitation is that Priest and Knight are Human-only, whereas Druid and Warden are Elf-only, so never shall the four intertwine. Elves and the Elf-only classes were implemented after the initial RoM release, and I found the Elven starting lands seemed slightly more advanced and polished than the Human ones.

Read more of Lori May's Runes of Magic Re-Review.



¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 


«1

Comments

  • toodlepip123toodlepip123 Member Posts: 125

    Despite what a lot of people say, it's still a pretty solid game for a F2P title.

  • mrcalhoumrcalhou Member UncommonPosts: 1,444

    "Over on the Osha server, the guild “Sexy” was kind enough to allow a newbie to join their numbers and poke around in their level 9 guild castle for the purpose of this review—in addition to asking an embarrassing amount of newbie questions. I found this to be a great example of how the RoM community often displays over-the-top generosity, helpfulness or encouragement towards new players."

    Are you sure they were doing that to be friendly to a newbie or were they doing that to be friendly to a reviewer?

    --------
    "Chemistry: 'We do stuff in lab that would be a felony in your garage.'"

    The most awesomest after school special T-shirt:
    Front: UNO Chemistry Club
    Back: /\OH --> Bad Decisions

  • MyPreciousssMyPreciousss Member Posts: 427

    I would rate it 7/10 when it went out and in 2011, I would rate it 6/10. It's very decent for a F2P but what I disliked are the sometimes coarse graphics, stiff character animations, poor textures and that you've seen this kind of common mmo so many times already. I disliked too the obligation to *rent* (not buy) bags.

    But yeah without paying a cent you have a lot of quests to do, some landscapes are nice, you have crafting, housing, pvp, mounts, it's polished, the music and sounds are ok. I actually wish they would offer a reduced subscription price because it's a fleshed-out mmo altogether and worth trying but the item shop seems really expensive from what I analysed when I played it and afaik you must grind insanely or buy stuff or you won't have a good character for top levels if you don't pay anything.

  • Spiritof55Spiritof55 Member Posts: 405

    F2p games are not budget friendly if you want the same gaming experience as a p2p.

  • HerodesHerodes Member UncommonPosts: 1,494


    Originally posted by Spiritof55
    F2p games are not budget friendly if you want the same gaming experience as a p2p.
    Which gaming experience? Playing for a month, getting bored and unsubscribe?
  • tochicooltochicool Member Posts: 153

    Pleare Re-review Allods online. It has changed but people still bere grudges over Gipat, even though I don't know how bad it was, but now it has been officailly released in the US and EU.

    FEEL THE FULL
    FREE-TO-FLAME
    FANTASY.

  • Gregross111Gregross111 Member Posts: 52

    Screw allods and runes of magic , Everyone should check out Realms Online, its the re release of regnum online in north america , but NGD isnt the ones running the show its a new dev called Game samba they have awsome customer support, good GMs , population is steadily growing on a brand new server called raven, RVR is already kicking off , good PVE sandbox feel until the RVR starts , its a great game and  its 100% free heres the nice part, it has an item shop but the items you can purchase from it give you absolutely no edge over anyone in combat, you cannot buy "I want to be leet" potions , its all just cosmetic and stuff to make the game easier to reach end lvl , mounts etc, nothing like raid gear u can buy with real money or anything like that, if you never want to spend a dime you will have the same gear as the ppl spending money its that simple check it out we could use some more peeps on the new NA server raven! ,

  • OSF8759OSF8759 Member Posts: 284

    I've been enjoying this title myself recently. There were a couple of rough spots where it wasn't immediately obvious what to do next, but it all worked itself out and the density of quests (I'm a quester) is impressive.

    They really should just allow diamond trades on the auction house. It would prevent ragequits by people who get scammed. But perhaps they intentionally cultivate such an untrustworthy atmosphere in diamond trades to discourage them without officially banning them.

    I enjoy Allods overall a bit more, but Allods doesn't have the density of content and is PvP centric. Cash shop items are freely tradeable on the auction house, even.

  • Gregross111Gregross111 Member Posts: 52

    who wants to grind shit loads of PVE quest only lol? you better off playing a game like dragon age origins if you just like doing mediocre quest over and over again lol.

  • OzmodanOzmodan Member EpicPosts: 9,726

    If you want to play this game's endgame it can get very expensive.  

  • uncletomauncletoma Member UncommonPosts: 159

    Well, seems that for some people F2P means "no community". Well, despite mostly, this isn't right. There are some (i cannot play all games :p) titles with friendly gamers, such as Allods or Global Agenda and P2P titles with crap community (in my experience: EVE and AoC). And remember that famous games such as LOTRO are, now, F2P.

    IMHO dual class system means doing twice the same quests: no, thanks, i really don't like it and it's the reason that i no more play RoM.

  • th30dorth30dor Member UncommonPosts: 15

    Originally posted by uncletoma



    IMHO dual class system means doing twice the same quests: no, thanks, i really don't like it and it's the reason that i no more play RoM.


     

    Yeah, I'm with you on this one.  I don't enjoy grinding. And they make you do it twice. No thank you.

  • mahlermightymahlermighty Member Posts: 2

    Their customer service is atrocious.  I tried to buy diamonds from them once, which failed for some reason.  I opened a ticket to wait before trying again, but my account got banned.  A ticket for *that* kept getting closed without responding to my inquiry of what information they needed from me to prove that I was legitimate and owned that CC.

    Won't say *never* about playing RoM again... but it's fair to say that I'd never trust them with money.  In the meantime, LOTRO is much better when I don't feel like playing WoW.

  • NephaeriusNephaerius Member UncommonPosts: 1,671

    Just my 2 cents:

    At end game if you PvP you are going to need to spend hundreds of dollars at the very least to fully deck out your character.  In PvE this is less of an issue as you can easily outgear any boss currently in game with the way the equipment system works.  However, odds are there's no way you are going to happily play this game in perpetuity without spending a dime.  Also every time they raise the level cap you have to start over and regear, once again requiring to fork out the same amount if not more money. 

    You can totally get by to the cap without spending a dime, but once at endgame you have no choice if you want to do high end content and/or PvP.  This game was awesome at release because there was no mention of level cap increases coming down the pipeline thereby nullifying all your purchases.  However, at this point the cap has been raised 2x (at least depending on how you look at it, ex: they raise the cap from like 60 to 62, then when the full expansion area is out it would bump to 65) and is about to be raised a 3rd.  Pretty sure it was 50 at launch and is now up to 62 (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong)

    Steam: Neph

  • NephaeriusNephaerius Member UncommonPosts: 1,671

    Originally posted by th30dor



    Originally posted by uncletoma





    IMHO dual class system means doing twice the same quests: no, thanks, i really don't like it and it's the reason that i no more play RoM.






     

    Yeah, I'm with you on this one.  I don't enjoy grinding. And they make you do it twice. No thank you.

     At release and first expansion I got both my classes on my character to cap and maxed out with SP all skills.  Never had to repeat the same quests at all.  The only repetition comes from doing the 10 a day dailies and those are really so you can get tokens for the item shop and sell the drops for cash on the AH.  There really isn't 2x the grind.  Hard to explain unless you've played the game.  I left due to the costs of keeping up in PvP when they increased the level cap.  I was fine with what I shelled out in the first place as it was pretty equivilant to subbing, but then they nullified all the money I spent so I was out. 

    Steam: Neph

  • kinikukiniku Member Posts: 53

    After reading this re-review I downloaded and created my first toon.  As soon as it entered the world and I saw it for the first time I exited and uninstalled.

    The WoW like cartoony graphics made this game DOA for me.

     

     

  • zellmerzellmer Member UncommonPosts: 442

    Oh come on..

    Not 1 mention of how all the thousands of accounts where hijacked along with their personal information, the god awful customer support which got said "hijackers" to even plead "Fix it already!"

    The graphics which really don't look that great with the "full client" let alone how freaking ridiculous it is to install the full client with the insanely slow dl speed, and 3 hours of patching it does.  Not to mention the strage stress it puts on some computers considering the requirements and little stress.

    The dual class system which limits to you only a handful of class combonations that aren't completely worthless let alone the many classes that have no viability in the game whatsoever.

     

    It's not all puppies and rainbows, there's a lot of things to hate with Runes of Magic..

  • Gregross111Gregross111 Member Posts: 52

    runes of magic is a pile... some Tawaineese copy of wow that offers players the chance to become powerful then other players by purchasing things with real money, no thanks all stick to realms online, The real free to play RVR game.

  • MadimorgaMadimorga Member UncommonPosts: 1,920

    You can enjoy the game cheaply or even free if and only if you don't roll on a pvp server.  (I'm assuming those still exist, they did last year).  Cash shop happy fools have spent way too much money on pay to win items for anyone without a magic credit card to venture into pvp.

     

    image

    I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.

    ~Albert Einstein

  • McGamerMcGamer Member UncommonPosts: 1,073

    This review is completely botched. Two main factors were sevrely misrepresented. The game is NOT completely free, nothing in life is free so it should never be listed as a pro factor, expecially when there have been numerous articles done on how much of a rip-off the game is in forcing players to have to use RL cash in order to attain end-game gear and items. 

    If anything, this game is the most expensive f2p IP on the market. 

    Secondly, the community in that game is anything but friendly. Unless of course you are a regular player there of course. Otherwise, the game could easily not only match WoW in similar design, but a similar immature and vulgar community as well.

    Overall, a really disapointing article.

  • kjempffkjempff Member RarePosts: 1,759

    Friends tells me it is the best WoW clone yet, and it is free.. err very very expensive to play for real.

    That is all the reasons I need sorry :)

  • HerodesHerodes Member UncommonPosts: 1,494


    Originally posted by Gregross111
    runes of magic is a pile... some Tawaineese copy of wow that offers players the chance to become powerful then other players by purchasing things with real money, no thanks all stick to realms online, The real free to play RVR game.
    RoM is a german copy of WoW, much more grindy, and RL-money dependant at the end.
    And there are better options for PvP than Realm online.
  • kzaskekzaske Member UncommonPosts: 518

    The best I would rate this game is 5/10.  Yes there is a dual class system in place.  You level up your primary then change to your secondary and level up all over again. 

    To say that RoM is a grind fest is an understatement.  Everything is leveled up seperatly. Your primary skills, your secondary skills, even every class of crafting like mining are leveled seperatly.  Yeah it's free to play, if you want to walk everywhere at one of the slowest paces in any game. 

    Now that I have come off as hating the game I will say that I actually enjoyed playing it with my wife.  As for the "friendly people" I didn't see people being any less or more friendly than any other game.

    My biggest complaint about the game is the complexity in grinding out everything you need for high end armor.  Not that I have tried but watching my wife spend days trying various things and in the end she just hired someone to make armor for her.  She was so frustrated by the armor system she quit playing the game.

  • Adhesive33Adhesive33 Member UncommonPosts: 227

    Originally posted by kzaske

    The best I would rate this game is 5/10.  Yes there is a dual class system in place.  You level up your primary then change to your secondary and level up all over again. 

    To say that RoM is a grind fest is an understatement.  Everything is leveled up seperatly. Your primary skills, your secondary skills, even every class of crafting like mining are leveled seperatly.  Yeah it's free to play, if you want to walk everywhere at one of the slowest paces in any game. 

    Now that I have come off as hating the game I will say that I actually enjoyed playing it with my wife.  As for the "friendly people" I didn't see people being any less or more friendly than any other game.

    My biggest complaint about the game is the complexity in grinding out everything you need for high end armor.  Not that I have tried but watching my wife spend days trying various things and in the end she just hired someone to make armor for her.  She was so frustrated by the armor system she quit playing the game.

    The dual class system is one of the best things about RoM. Leveling two classes is not like leveling one class twice; there are plenty of quests for both sides, plus you can quests on your first class and then turn them in on your second class (within 10 lvls), giving you huge XP and leveling your second class much more quickly than your first.

    You can also rent mounts for in-game gold. They are cheap, and faster than many mounts in other games. Combined with the teleportation system and small map sizes, I can't really understand why anyone would complain about this. Oh, and if you want to buy a perm mount, they used to often go on sale for 199 diamonds...isn't that like two bucks if bought during a double diamond sale?

    Also, the armor system, although complex, is very enjoyable once you take the time to learn it. I understand it's not for everybody, but I certainly wouldn't consider it a general downside of the game.

    Unfortunately, all the other criticisms are pretty much spot on: bad customer service, expensive to stay competitive in PvP, horrible class balance, bugs left unfixed, etc.

  • zhandaozhandao Member Posts: 46

    So... What about the actual important parts, like the quality of the content?  The main thing that turns me away from these F2Ps (and even a lot of P2Ps) is that the content is shit.  Shitty writing, shitty encounter design, shitty monster AI, etc.  I don't care about mediocre graphics, or anything else technical that obviously will suffer because of a smaller budget.  But well written quests (a la LOTRO), good encounter design, etc. those will hook me and keep me around.

Sign In or Register to comment.