Year Of The F2P: Runes Of Magic Roundup

January has come to an end, which means my first month of my Free To Play MMO experience has also come to an end. As I mentioned previously, my choice for January was Runes of Magic, perhaps the most popular F2P title released in the last year.

Basics

The game follows along well with the standard fantasy MMORPG tropes. Elves and humans, mages and knights, trolls and rats, grinds and quests and levels… if you've played any major MMO, you understand how RoM works. Many have compared the game to World of Warcraft, and while I feel that's a valid comparison, I have to also say that the game has a bit more in common with Final Fantasy XI than WoW. Dual classes, player housing and farming (the plant growing kind, not the endless mob killing kind) all remind me of FFXI, which is not a bad thing. Those were all features of FFXI that I liked.

Combat flows like most other fantasy MMOs you've played: select mob, select ability from hot bar, rinse and repeat until the bad guy is dead, then collect loot. Frankly, the only thing about combat that stood out to me was the sound effects and that's because I thought they were absolutely terrible. Aside from that, the combat worked as expected, which is a good thing.

Questing was pretty standard as well. You talked to your quest person then went off to kill the baddies or collect the item for them. A few really nice things popped up here though that I have to mention. RoM incorporated a solid quest tracker into the game, but even better was that the game tracks mobs of interest right on the mini-map, which simplified the hunt even more. Another great touch was that RoM embeds auto-directions into the quest text as well. Can't remember where the quest NPC is once you get back in town? No problem, just open the quest and click the person's name and your character will auto-navigate her way there. It was a very nice touch and one that I think more games should add to their questing systems.

Crafting was pretty basic. Resources are out and plentiful and tracked on your mini-map, so finding the ore and other things needed to make items was quick and easy. Like Lord of the Rings Online and Everquest 2, you need to be in front of the specific crafting table to make items, but like WoW all you need to do is click the recipe and hit create. There appeared to be a way to make critical items, but I was not able to figure out how to do so. At the start of the game, you can take all of the crafting skills, but as you go up tiers you can move less and less skill up until you are finally left with only one crafting skill that you can cap. It works nicely in that sense you can get a taste of all the skill out there but ultimately you can only max one out, whether that be manufacturing or gathering, so the economy stays moving.

General Thoughts

Having dual classes for every character in the game is just a great addition in my mind. This opens up the possibilities of more than just a tank or just a healer and broadens the concept of hybrid classes. Any two classes can be combined in in way so you can hyper focus your skills or add some supporting elements to you class and there are even specific skills you learn in the higher levels that are unique to your class combination. Although I'm sure there are those who would say that there are specific class combos that are preferable, I don't think the game really tries to push you into any specific combo, which is a very neat twist on the FFXI method.

In general, the game felt fast-paced. I'm not sure if that is due to the nature of the F2P market or if it was due to the design of RoM specifically, but it seemed like they did not want you to grind endlessly for each level. I could be wrong about this though as there were a ton of daily quests, which makes me think that they are needed later on to grind experience. Even outside of leveling, travelling seemed quick and each fight was a flurry of bad sound effects and quickly defeated monsters.

The community seemed like an odd mix of social/friendly and angsty. At times they were very helpful and at other times I felt like I was playing a Halo 3 deathmatch. Outside of chat, people seemed focused on their own agenda and not too interested in what other people were doing. This does seem similar to WoW these days, but it doesn't seem necessarily inviting for new players.

The cash shop, or diamond store, did not seem over priced to me. Even though some people threw a hissy fit about paying $10 for a permanent mount a few months ago, I still don't see how paying $10 for something you want versus $15 for a whole bunch of this you don't want is a bad thing. That aside, there were approximately a metric crap ton of items you could buy in their store. Leveling speed potions, damage buffs, crafting help… just about anything you could think of to buy was available, and almost all were available in different flavors. Want a quick boost to your defensive rating for an hour? No problem. But maybe you want to increase that to a week, or even a month?

The only real issue I had with the cash shop was with getting diamonds. At some point in the last month, Frogster started allowing players to take surveys to earn diamonds instead of paying cash. I tried a few of the surveys and was either not qualified right off the bat or dis-qualified somewhere along the way. I can understand that I shouldn't get free diamonds for surveys I'm not qualified for (it just so happens I'm not a 40-something stay at home mom that watches day time television), but if I get half way through a survey before I'm disqualified (oh, you mean you don't plan on buying a $40,000+ car in the next month?) then I should get at least something for my time.

Keep It Or Uninstall?

I left Runes of Magic fairly pleased. It is an extremely solid and polished title that I think will do very well for itself for quite some time. You can go far in the game without ever buying a thing from the store, which is a great achievement, and the developers were able to capture the magic of the western MMO without forcing us to pay $50 up front for it. Sure, the graphics aren't that hard hitting, but they work flawlessly, which is more than I can say for most AAA titles these days.

Ultimately though, I have to say that it did not bring a lot of new ideas to the table. For sure there were some, but nothing that I felt I needed to have in my gamin schedule, which gets more and more crowded every day. I think it is a game I could come back to some time though, but for now I've uninstalled the title. Not that it's a bad game by any means, but it's not the type of game I need in my line up right now.

What's Next?

So with Runes of Magic down, I'm ready to give Battle Forge a shot. Several readers seem to think I will enjoy this title and I'm hoping I will too. Keep posted to this here blog to get some initial thoughts and impressions over the next week or so!

-Dickie