Catch22: The average subscription MMO can get to be a bit expensive these days. I mean you have to consider the costs of the boxed game itself, the expansions as well as all the inevitable small things like character transfers and name changes. Also you’ve already forked out the cash for a decent PC to run it all on and the monthly net costs are all part if whats needed to play.
Now if you’re like me you would have been a little MMO-curious occasionally and trialed some other games on the market just on the off-chance you could save some cash for other things.. like food. A ten day trial here – a referred friend there. Perhaps even a short fling with one of the cheaper, nastier free-to-play MMO’s in the shady corners of the net. You know they aren’t a good idea, your friends have all warned you about them… full of advertisements, spy-ware, gold farmers and god knows what else. But you take the chance regardless and find yourself walking away from the experience with the computer equivalent of crabs and a good deal of guilt.
Well I’m glad to say that there’s now an alternative for all you thrifty, money-conscious, casual gamers – Runes of Magic. This game has only just been released from beta so for the time being I’m doing a ‘first impressions’ rather than a full review. I’ll give it a few weeks to sort out any teething problems and then get stuck into it.
Many games on the market borrow a clever idea or two off a successful predecessor. Then there’s Runes of Magic which has gone a step further and unashamedly cloned Wow. Ok, that’s probably a bit harsh but there’s no denying its many striking similarities (even through to the website itself). But really, who can blame them. Wow has dominated the MMORPG playing field for at least a good four years successfully working out how to attract and keep players.
Runes of Magic is going for a different money-making approach though. Instead of the standard subscription model, they’ve opted for a second purchasable in-game currency – diamonds. Diamonds can be purchased for a range of uses such as premium weapons, item modifications, upgrades, quest helpers and mounts. Most of these things you can actually work for by playing the game and doing repeatable quests but the developers are counting on the lazy and power-hungry players to fill their coffers. The important thing to note is you can play this game in its current state without paying any fees. Also to add to your peace of mind, you can sign up to play without even needing to give them any personal information.
The in-game models are very similar to wow with the exception of some great character customization options which I’ll talk about shortly. The overall game graphics are average but bearable on the highest resolution. It has the usual graphics options so you can tweak elements like terrain view distance, texture sliders and bloom options to cater for a range of PC’s. The spell casting effects and character animations are also not too bad. Basically there’s nothing that really detracts from the gaming experience apart from the music stopping occasionally which I’m sure will be sorted out in subsequent patches.
Although there’s only one playable race at the moment, you can select from a wide range of preset faces and hairstyles along with another bunch of sliders to modify your body shape. You can change the size of your hands, feet, head, height and even your head size. I really like how it allows you to create such a unique character as it does enhance your gaming experience and social interactions.
The game release seems quite stable and the interface is familiar to anyone who’s played wow. There are some small features which add to the game play such as quest givers appearing on your world map and an auto-move function which saves you having to trek your toon across the zone manually (plenty of time now for bio breaks and grabbing food). There are a few class balance issue with Scouts, warriors and possibly a oversight with the healing calculations that are being talked about on the forums. Of course you get the usual “where does my class fit into a raid’ moaning that’s plagued MMO’s since time began..
Runes of Magic appears to be pretty ‘casual gamer’ friendly with the inclusion of some small dungeons but I haven’t had a chance to check these out yet. All in all the developers have got a good hook with the free-to-play model and a solid release with lots of content to back it up. Now it’s just a matter of time to see if they are able to iron out the class bugs overlooked in the beta and keep their current community happy.
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