Runes of Magic

Tonight I tried out one of the more well received “Freemium” MMORPGs out there, Runes of Magic. The term freemium derives from the idea that, unlike most MMOs that require a monthly fee, it is actually free to play the game. Instead of a subscription, the game makes its money by offering bonus items or premium content for a small fee. For this run though, I completely ignored that aspect of the game and focused mainly on the core game play.  Here are the thoughts I had while playing the game.

Character Customization

Having a character that you like the look of is important, and RoM’s character customization is fairly robust. While the faces and hairstyles are still fixed like WoW, you have full control over your character’s height, build, and hair color. As a result, you can get a character that you like the look of fairly easily. One thing that I don’t like about WoW is that my character, a warrior, essentially had the same build as a caster. In this game I was able to create an incarnation of my character that was taller and stronger looking than “average,” which helps fit the class. The characters look somewhat similar overall to WoW, except they mostly have an anime-style feel to them. I generally do not mind this, but some people may be put off by this. Currently, you can only play as a human, but they are going to be adding elves in an upcoming patch.

Coupled with the fairly attractive starting zone armor you see in the picture, and I’m very pleased with how the characters in this game look. They look pretty cool, and I have yet to see a character that looks over-the-top absurd (like every other level 80 in WoW does). While I spent most of my time in the noob zone, I did hop into one of the “big cities” at the end of my session, and I didn’t see any completely ridiculous armor sets or impossibly huge glowing paddle-swords.

Characters do not have talent trees, per-say.  Instead, you earn TP along with XP, which you can spend on ranking up your moves. Theoretically, if you keep earning TP, you could max out all the skills. Probably the most interesting thing about the game, however, is that at level ten you are able to acquire a second class, allowing for some very interesting combinations.

Game World and Visual Style

The game looks remarkably similar to WoW, there is no doubt about it. The graphic style has a similar, cartoon-like feel, though to me the animation seemed “smoother.” The starting zone also has quite a lot in common with Elwynn Forest (the human starting zone in WoW), and it seems obvious that RoM is trying to be a copycat in at least some ways. Some of the visuals are pretty nice, but they are not ZOMG Amazing like LOTRO. I can run the game at max settings without much problem here.

There is no backstory presented by the game itself for the world, called Taborea. So far, this seems to be it’s biggest shortcoming, as when I’m plopped down in the game for the first time, I’m not sure who I’m working for or what struggles face this world. WoW and LOTRO both did an excellent job of throwing you right in the thick of things while framing a context for the events. So far, it seems I’m basically doing standard low-level quests in a generic fantasy world. Maybe some of the quests will be of assistance in understanding the place, but right now it’s on par with EQ2′s setting, which is nothing to write home about.

The game is formatted similar to most MMOs these days, which favor questing over straight grinding. There are a lot of quests in the starting area, which are your typical kill or gathering fare, but the quest item drop rates don’t seem as bad as Vanilla WoW (at least with the lowbie quests).  There are also daily quests, even at low levels, which is fairly interesting. They only thing I have a problem with is that up to the point I’m at, the quests are failing to tell a story in the same manner that WoW and LOTRO do. Well, that and the gold farmers… but they seem to show up in every game…

Incidentally, the starting zone on the server I chose was quite populated. In fact, I’d say it was more populated than a WoW starting zone nowadays. I’m sure that many of the people are just trying it out like me (since it’s free and all), but the game seemed reasonably active. It is active enough to have gold farmers, at the very least…

Tradeskills / Crafting

Tradeskills are present in this game, but I have not yet fully figured them out. What I do know is that your character seems to be able to learn all the available crafting skills. What I would have given to be able to do this in WoW! It does seem like the crafting professions (smithing, tailoring, etc.) may be harder to raise up, however. I’m not sure how I feel about having everything available, but being able to gather whatever I need on one character does seem nice.

Nodes seem more plentiful (at least in the starter zone) than in WoW, and yield more gathering attempts on average. To gather is pretty simple. Just right click on either a mine, wood, or herb node and you start gathering. I am not 100% certain on how the skills raise, but it seems to change by a percentage rather than raw “points.”

Combat

Combat, at least using the warrior class, is extremely straightforward. It works very similar to WoW, though there does seem to be a spattering of LOTRO in there as I found that you have to build your way up to more powerful moves in sequence. The moves also don’t seem quite as “instant,” it takes a moment for them to fire off, though the combat does not seen a slow-paced as LOTRO or EQ2. I posted a video of my slaughtering some goblins on Youtube to display the combat system.

The Verdict

So far, so good.  While it is clear that I have only scratched the surface of this game on my journey from one to ten, the game is fun from a game play perspective. I enjoyed it far more than EQ2, for certain. I am not certain yet how not investing in the “premium” content would hamper my game play, but this is a lot better than I expected from a “free” game. My biggest complaint so far is that the game is severely lacking in the lore/story department. The world feels pretty generic, though it at least is funner to play around in than most.

I’m not sure how much more of this I’ll play, but it is a pretty decent game if you want an MMO but don’t necessarily want to pay $15 every month to play WoW. Even if one were to take advantage of the premium content on occasion, it would still be cheaper for most players. You do sacrifice things such as story and voice acting for such a cheap price.