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Runes of Magic Review
l-louse
Member Posts: 20
Runes of Magic Review - House - Nearly 6 Months Experienced
Artemis Server
Videos - http://www.xfire.com/profile/dannyb1022/videos/runemagic/
Classes -
Warrior/Knight - So far I really enjoy the class, high dps with high defense bonuses. This is my favorite class setup in the game, however it is not the most sought after class when looking to run instances. I had much better luck finding parties on my knight side. My warrior is set up to spam holy strike, slash, tactical attack, blasting cyclone, and mooncleave, meanwhile using the knight's enhanced armor, and the elite skill blocking stance. This gives me the ability to off tank, main tank, and solo. Its a great class, my favorite class setup in the game as a matter of fact. Its too bad people dont usually ask warriors to run instances with them, because they are a such a useful class to have in any instance, especially when the tank goes down.
Knight/Warrior - This is the most wonderful tank class setup. As a tank, the goal is to dps as much as you can to keep his aggro on you, while simultaneously taking all the hits which is a very difficult task to do. I feel that I have successfully spect my class for the full effect of being a tank. Major concerns with this class include low drop rate on plate armor, expensive repair bills, and massive debt. I have delayed building my tank until these problems are solved and I would actually enjoy tanking again. I spam holy strike on single mobs, and use whirlwind shield and the elite whirlwind skills to keep the aggro on groups. If you ever planned on using this class, be prepared with gear for your knight beforehand, because it is a pain to level.
Scout/Rogue - Awful. After the nerf if I want to play on this character anymore I will have to go rogue/scout because of the major nerf with focus usage. You can attack things all you want, but you have as much use of a scout using it as a secondary rather than a primary. This class is possible to play, but good luck partying up with anyone for any end game instances. You may argue this if you want being a stubborn scout, however I will totally disagree with everything you have to say thats good about this class setup, and I will challenge you to a duel with the same level/hp with any other class and I guarantee I will beat you, even if I have not much experience with the class. They say that scouts are used for crowd control, however mages already can do plenty with crowds.
Priest/* - Every priest has its own benefits. Knights have the extra defense + enhanced grace of life giving a max MP boost, rogues have the snakes curse dot, scouts have the elite that cures a hole area with massive healing plus a dot heal, mages have mana regeneration, warriors have battle stance that allows for strong attacks (battle monk). My favorite would be the priest/scout because its got the highest healing amount out of all priest classes. When choosing a priest, I would suggest choosing whatever you might like to switch to in the future, and not worry about how it affects your priesting ability, because they are all very balanced between each class.
Rogue/Priest - Very soloable, lovable class. Its got everything needed to solo, plus some nice elites that will greatly benefit the class. Chosen frequently for instances, and you have very rare deaths with this class. I am not a fan of the rogue class, so I am not someone who has tried every secondary class for the rogue, but from what I have seen from leveling my own and witnessed from other rogue/priests, it is a very nice class to play. It does not have as much dps as the rogue/scout, however it does quite well for itself.
Mage/Priest - Just recently I have come to love playing the mage/priest. Despite its over amazing ability to solo everything, it is also one of those classes where you will just be invited for instances and bosses without asking. Its also one of those classes you have to know how to play, and unless your someone like me who's somewhat of a natural at playing different classes, your probably going to have to ask around different people so you can learn how to play it. It has great power and can hold its hammers in gear for a long time. I love the mage/priest! The basic fighting techniques are: Fighting 1v1 PVE - Flame, electric bolt, fireball, lightning, and repeat if not dead by now. Fighting 1v1 PVP - Lightning, fireball, silence (if necessary), phoenix, electric bolt, purgatory until dead, if they become unrooted in this time, best to throw in a stun and continue purgatory fires. Fighting 1 vs many PVE (instances) - Depending on your strength, thunderstorm, thunderstorm, stun, purgatory until dead. Also, at all times you should be using energy influx and mana well, it really helps attack harder and save on mana. Another thing to consider is keeping yourself shielded all the time, and using holy aura only when necessary. Also, I rarely use elemental catalyst, unless Im fighting a boss, or need a 5 minute timer for Raichika the Destroyer.
Mage/* - Heck, you dont even need a secondary for this class. If you were to choose one, I suppose mage/priest will do, but you dont need me to tell you that this is the most overused overpowered class in the game. You can do anything with a mage, whether it be solo those nearly impossible to solo instances, or own everyone in PVP. Also, plenty of cloth gear and good weapons drop for this class. If you dont feel like experimenting with other classes, choose this one and your future will be set in stone in the game. Im sure you wondering if I think its so great, why dont I play one? Well I have an alt mage/priest that I level slowly, and some day I may actually use that class. Who knows, maybe I will get bored with my warrior.
*For any classes/class combinations that I missed, feel free to ask what my opinion is on certain class combinations and what they can do. I have played nearly every combination, however I do not feel that I have actually mastered every combination, however I get much feedback on class combinations from my guild mates/friends every day, so I know quite a bit about everything. If you are questioning what to use as a secondary for your class, please mention what you want to be able to do in the game, instead of just flat out asking what it should be with no extra detail, that way its easier for me to respond, considering I see every class combination having its own benefits.
Questing -
The questing system in the game is the most fun you are going to have in the whole game. Even after going through the whole quest line several times, I never get tired of it. It always seems like a new experience as I play different classes. To get to the end, you are not required to spend any money. That is one of the great things about the game, the fact that its free. You can even have great end game gear without spending money, even though it takes a little bit of time. Only problems so far are that the quest line is very hard to follow, especially since there are very few cut scenes, and whenever a quest goes down, it takes them a couple weeks to fix it. Other than that, they did a great job keeping the fun in and the grinding out.
Crafting System -
The crafting system in this game is just an alternate to killing mobs for gear or buying from other players on an AH. There are absolutely NO benefits to crafting in this game, besides alchemy and cooking of course. If you are going to craft, prepare for some expensive, long, and boring adventures of gathering, and sitting in a town or your house making the stuff. If you do plan on crafting, I would suggest at least hitting level 50 first and getting your gear, because gaining crafting levels will take so much time, it leaves very little for group runs and such. I would also suggest leveling gear crafting skills because it gets so expensive, you would have a bit more fun actually finding the item from a mob. In conclusion, dont craft until you have absolutely nothing else to do. Its such a bad system so far, its not really worth it.
Guilds -
The guild system seems to be shaping up. The guilds currently on the server are all very underdeveloped and not very organized. However its best to join a guild as soon as you can, so that you get help every step of the way. This is my first mmorpg game of this kind, so I had a million questions, those of which are best answered by guild mates, not random people in zone. Hopefully the future holds many new guild features and such, and maybe make warring each others guild a bit more interesting. So basically the guild aspect of the game is still under development and hopefully will advance over the next few weeks.
Recently, just like any game, guilds have a good thing going, but the drama that has been going around makes any guild unstable and a pain to stay in. People hop guilds either to get away from the drama or maybe just because they outgrew their guild. I think that there should be some sort of system to help guilds fight through the problems, and come together to succeed in the game. When people can just hop around guilds like they do with no complications or problems other than if they actually put anything into the guild that they were in... it makes changing guilds all the more common.
Transmuting/Runes -
The transmuting in this game is a very long and boring process. It takes forever to learn, it takes forever to explain, and to top it off, no one even likes to explain it. Its such a confusing subject, nobody understands it anyway. The transmutes cost so many daily quest tokens, that people have to make alternate accounts just to get more transmutes. Plus the pure stones used to make gear so amazing costs so much tokens it takes forever to get some. Eventually you will understand it, and hopefully you learn without using your good clean stats. They need a better system on explaining it to people I suppose. And when it comes to runes, ugh! So many transmutes required its unbelievable! I suggest doing it after you finish stating up your gear, because its going to take sooooo long to get the runes that are worth adding to your gear.
Cash Shop -
Everything is a ripoff. Try to stay out of here and only put a few dollars in maybe for a mount or some small merchandise to keep the game free. Also, wait for deals which come often. It could make such a big difference buying pure fusion stones for 37.5 diamonds each rather than 55 diamonds each. Also, when it comes to the upgrade jewels, buy enough to get you to +5 and STOP THERE! The chance of +6 is so low, its not worth spending the money to get it. Hopefully you have rubies and you can get it to +6 after that. Another thing to consider is how long you will really play the game. There is such a high dropout rate right now after people reach 50, you have to ask yourself if it is really worth putting your earned money into the game. Trust me, be wise with your spending diamonds...
Recently they have been improving the cash shop. Giving deals on at least one item every day, and deals on several items weekly and every weekend. They rarely add anything new however, and I cant even remember the last time they added something worth buying to the cash shop. I have a feeling it may get better with the release of the elves and level cap raise, but no one really knows how that is going to turn out. Hopefully it does not turn the game into a major flop.
End Game Content -
The end game content leaves a lot to be desired. After spending all that time leveling your character up and getting geared there is no fun things to do. After running the instances, black codex set (level 50 clean purple set), and the random world bosses over and over again people get bored of the game and just leave. They also need to balance out the drops in the level 50 instances, because leather players get very little, plate wearers get very little, which just leaves cloth and chain which drop at a fairly high rate, however the weapons lack. They will be raising the level cap and adding new content in september, cant wait for that, but until then, Im not really sure what to do with my time in game.
Some guilds have been running certain instances with few players, and posting videos of them accomplishing this. While they do this all day every day they can get there entire guild stacked up with good gear. After this moment, GMs come to the realization that it is way to easy to get gear in that instance, so they nerf the drop rate. What a horrible idea! First of all, these people can beat instances with few players and do it all day because they have the time and the gear! Second, now all of the other guilds cant get the gear out of the instances that the first guild did without running it a million times! Lastly, are people really going to play if they cant get gear? No, so now they are losing players on top of it all. It really frustrates me that people have even been able to solo certain world bosses with a 100% chance of at least a purple drop, because I am afraid they are going to nerf the drops on those too.
Events -
The events that they implement are superb. They have the absolute best ideas for events. The only problem is, you can spend hours doing the event, and the prizes that they give make the events not worth doing. For instance, I spent hours doing the music festival event which required collecting notes and scores and turning them in for prizes. The best prize that I got for spending the hours and hours on it was a blank piece of aggregatable gear that would not even look good without the rest of the set, and are non tradable so I cant do anything with it. I guess hard work doesnt pay off. The easter event gave some potions and some funny looking aggregatable gear that was not worth spending the time on to attempt to get. The valentines day event was cool, but you had to spend hours and hours doing it for some dumb title that doesnt help your character at all, and if you didnt spend the hours, you spent real money on the seeds for the roses. In conclusion, the events are exciting to do, but the prize is definitely not worth the time doing them.
Most recently they have been doing events created by designated Event Masters (EM) such as going places at a really low level, figuring out riddles, trying to get into houses by figuring out the house password, killing monsters in the frogster castle, and more! The prizes are quite worth doing the event, and they schedule them every tuesday and friday. I hope they make them a bit more interesting in the future though, because as of right now all they ever do is find the GM/EM and only 1 person can ever win.
Graphics -
The graphics in this game are in my opinion better than World of Warcraft. Considering this is free and World of Warcraft isnt, that aspect alone makes the game worth playing. Of course I have a $200 graphics card and a new computer so I can have all of the graphics on high without lag from my end. So I get as best as an experience they have to offer, and I am quite satisfied. The animations are a bit too basic, however there is plenty of room to improve and make them a bit more intense.
A bit more recently, they have added a patch that makes upload errors extremely frequent. Without turning down your graphics and destroying the ability of your graphics card, you basically cannot play it. Hopefully this is fixed with the possibility of a new client when they release elves and raise the level cap.
Balanced Game play? -
The classes are far from balanced in this game. The monster to character interaction clearly shows the unbalanced classes, and unless you spend a hundred dollars, you are not getting your epic gear any time soon considering to the drops specific to each class unless you are in a guild that will get it for you. I have hopes that they are working on balancing the game on a daily basis and I am waiting for the day that they implement a patch that fixes as much as they could possibly fix, but hopes are getting lower as the days drag on. People are getting frustrated and leaving from the lack of balancing and the repetitive end game content. Its getting harder and harder to find anyone who wants to do anything but sit on their butt all day and just wait... Not sure what for... But they are indeed waiting. Some people even bring it upon themselves to run in circles while talking on ventrilo, because there is not much else to spend their time on.
Enforced Rules -
They have never really enforced any rules until just recently when they did a massive game-wide ban which has left many players without anything to do for a full seven days while they pend investigations. Either from real world trading, or acquiring too much gold, it has left everyone questioning what the point of this was, and how this is going to affect the game. Apparently, people better read the EULA at least once and follow it, because there is a high chance you may just get banned. The GMs also hate when players do things such as enter restricted areas in game, say anything that offends them in world chat, and attack things while away from the keyboard or by botting. They will kick you out, suspend you, or ban you when necessary, so just make sure you want what you do an say.
Please respond with your comments, hopefully you enjoyed my review 
Comments
Good job on this review. You have been quite objective in your assessments. The game can be some fun for a relatively short time if the nerfed classes are avoided. It is critical people understand they should not spend ANY money on this "free" game until they have leveled up and find out if they want to invest in this long-term. This thing is cleverly designed to look great as you move up and suck you in to spending cash only to leave you hanging wondering what to do in the end. I'll give them credit. It is a well designed scam, if one can give "credit" for them being manipulative.
unfortunately your right about it being a scam, considering the only updates they make nowadays are all about the cash shop and diamonds blah blah... but it is a fun scam
As of August 22, 2009 I have made the review more up to date. I have added new categories and updated a few of my old ones.
mm rom did state in june at least they were getting ready for book 2 on top of they they plan to upgrade game before book2 prob end of august .player will begin season only when book 2 arrive anyway and now that we know cataclysm isnt gona be on for at least another year .ill prob play rom till cataclysm is out
great review.
it's a fun game which challenges you in many aspects, it has a lot of potential ... until you start to notice the asian money trap too much. don't get me wrong: you don't HAVE to spend anything but basically everything is designed to lead you to cash spending unless you want to make your life in game very difficult or more important than your real life ... unless you don't care to much about being competitive and find your own purpose in game.
nobody knows what chapter 2 looks like. a lot of players have high expectations but the remaining players of the first hour are holding their breath because so far the 'updates' from the developers have mainly brought more grind and chased a lot of gamers away and the clumsy approach of the publishers is doing the rest.
in my opinion they did a great job with the second ice dwarf, and do not know why they cant do that with any other instances just to at least give us something to do