http://www.runesofmagic.com/en/index.htmlA couple of weeks ago I downloaded Runes of Magic (RoM) to try it out. I hadn’t really heard much about this game before, but seeing it’s free I thought I’d give it a shot. Before going any further I have to admit that I’m still a rather low level, as I didn’t had that much time to play due to schoolwork (and also because I restarted on a different server a week ago, after I discovered a friend of mine plays RoM as well). Nevertheless I have a pretty good idea of what the game has to offer.
Stats & gearAs you level up you will notice something: you don’t get any stat points to customize your character, meaning everyone of the same class and level as yourself will have the same stats. Stat customization in this game comes from stat-boosting runes that are placed on your armor and weaponry. Equipment is often given as a quest reward, so you’ll usually have decent gear just from doing quests. Of course there’s some high-end gear to be found (or bought) as well, but you’ll only be able to wear this at about level 50 (the current max. level is 55).
Armor and weapons can be upgraded by using the Arcane Transmutor, you unlock this feature as early as level 10 but it is advised to stay away from it until you have end-game gear. In case you were thinking upgrading gear is always better: you’re right. So why did I just advise you the opposite? The answer to this brings us to my next subject: RMT (Real Money Transactions).
Free only goes so far…
As said above, RoM is free but some things have to be bought from the item store, with diamonds or rubies, that are bought with real-life money. Examples of the things you can buy here are: Arcane Transmutator charges (hence why you shouldn’t upgrade lower level gear), the upgrade items you put on your equipment and permanent mounts (you can hire mounts for in-game money; these last for 15 minutes or 2 hours).
Luckily for those who don’t want to spend real money on the game, you can buy diamonds in the Auction House (they’re about 19k each on the server I’m on, making a permanent mount, other than the standard horse, cost over 5 million gold). But there’s also the possibility to buy some (e.g. no perm. mounts) item store-items with special tokens, which are acquired from doing daily quests (max 100 tokens a day). By the time you'll need end-game gear, you'll probably have a lot of gold (or at least will be able to earn it by doing instances), so getting diamonds won't really be a problem I think.
Now that we’re talking economics I have to say that this game has a lot of Real World Traders, who sell in-game money for real-life money. Don’t look surprised when you’re playing the game and suddenly see a whisper of someone offering to sell gold. Personally I get far too many of these whispers and got rather annoyed by them, but there’s not really anything you can do to stop it.
Combat
Of course combat is the most important of the game, and you pretty much get everything you’d expect. There are 8 classes, you choose one as your primary and at level 10 another one as your secondary. Based on that choice you get unique elite skills when both your classes are level 15, and a new one every 5 levels.
Leveling your secondary class doesn’t happen simultaneously with your primary. You’ll have to set your second class as your primary in order to level it. Gameplay-wise this means you’ll be level 1 again the first time you switch (something I didn’t expect to be honest). Results of this are that you won’t be able to use higher-level gear and that your health and damage will be considerably lower again. So basically you’ll need at least 2 sets of equipment. Besides the normal creatures, there are also bosses and instances. Of course there’s PvP as well (PvP servers).
Crafting
There’s also the ability to craft items and gather resources. Though less important than combat, this does add an extra thing to do in the game whenever you don’t want to do combat. Seems to me gathering resources is a fairly decent way of earning money, but the big gold is to be gained in instances.
ConclusionRunes of Magic pretty much offers everything you’d expect to find in a MMORPG. Though you’ll eventually have to get diamonds somehow to get the most out of your equipment and possibly to get a permanent mount, you’ll be able to play for quite some time without ever spending real-life money on the game. Overall I like the game and I’ll definitely continue playing it.
Got an opinion on Runes of Magic? Do let us know!
