Runes Of Magic

Runes of Magic is a newly-released, free-to-play MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game).

The client is available as a download from the site, and can take a fair while to set up initially. After that though, the game interface is quick to load and you can get into the game quite quickly. Every time you load the game you have to accept the terms and conditions - while this can be annoying, you can also see the necessity. After that, you log in with your account name, and then choose a server. Here's where things start to get more complex.

You can choose from a variety of servers, English or German, and whether to play against monsters or other players. Other players are much more dangerous than AI foes, with the latter being much more predictable. Caution is advised when deciding to enter a PvP (player versus player) server. Either way, once you have decided you reach the character creation screen. Here, you can choose a previously created character or make a new one, up to a maximum of eight. Note that these characters are restricted to the server you create them on, so you can technically have many, many characters all under one account name.

Character creation gives you the chance to decide on a gender for your character, and a class from Warrior, Scout, Mage, Rogue, Priest or Knight. Warriors are strong and proficient with all melee weapons; Scouts are masters of the ranged attack, and are quick; Mages deal with the elements of fire and wind, and obviously attack with magic power; Rogues are sneaky, generally being the ‘necessary evil' in the game, and use concealed weapons like daggers and projectiles; Priests deal with major healing magic, and also water spells; and Knights are masters of defence, and use the holy power of light to their advantage. Each class has its strengths and weaknesses, as well as being able to use different weapons, armour and combat abilities.

You can also customise your looks, from hair colour and style, through to height and various limb sizes (and chesticles, for the females). If you so desire, you could create an intimidating character who is tall and with a well-built frame, or you could make a small and lithe-looking character. Physical appearance has no effect on attributes though. When a new character first gets into the game, they have the option to go through the basic tutorial which teaches you the controls and basics of combat - this is recommended for all characters made, as you can get useful items by doing so. The mainland also has a tutorial, which covers other aspects of the game such as crafting, and important locations.

Crafting comes in two flavours: gathering, and production. Each of these is split into sub-categories as well: gathering consists of herbalism, woodcutting and mining; production covers cooking, tailoring, blacksmithing, armour smithing, alchemy and carpentry. Players who don't wish to engage in combat could pass their time by exclusively gathering and producing useful materials for other players. Only some skills can be taken to higher levels though - you can become apprentice in all skills, novice in six, adept in three, and master in just one. In order to become a master crafter of all skills, multiple characters and servers will be required.

Combat is fairly simple to get a grasp of, yet hard to master. You choose your target and attack it; between the first and last strikes you may deploy a variety of techniques depending on your class, all with different effects. These techniques range from momentary increased attack power, to healing allies, to hurling balls of fire at your foes, as well as lots of other effects. While all these attacks are flying about, you also need to keep an eye on your health, as well as mana if you are a magic user. Warriors build up Rage with all attacks, which disperses while not in battle. Scouts can Focus for their attacks, and Rogues use Energy in their special attacks. Upon enemy defeat, you may be able to loot the corpse. If you are killed, however, then you will incur an experience (EXP) and talent point (TP) debt, which is gradually repaid as 70% of all EXP and TP gained. Dying also weakens your stats for a short while after respawning. Having a Priest with the resurrection spell can bypass all of these negative side effects.

Upon reaching character level 10, you have the option to assign a secondary class to your character, which adds an extra depth to the game. The different combinations enable you to carry out some tasks that may have otherwise proven impossible. For the occasions when even this isn't enough, the game lets you have a party of up to six players. Spreading out the classes is advised, so that all possible strengths may be played on. Some dungeons even allow for 6 full parties to team up for epic fights against the toughest bosses!

There are already over 1000 quests available in the game. It does seem to be the case, though, that there are a lot of quests you can finish simply by running ten yards to the next non-player character (NPC) and clicking on them. Most of the other quests are the typical "go here, kill X amount of these, come back" type, although there are one or two that require you to think a little. Rewards consist of gold and EXP, and some also grant you useful items or armour. All rewards are proportional to the difficulty of the quest - it'd be pointless giving you thousands of gold for your first quest, as it would be giving you a basic dagger for beating a boss with millions of health.

Every account has access to a house on each server. These houses are shared between all characters on that account and server. So, you could store a weapon there with a scout character, and then go back with a knight and pick it up to use. This can be pretty useful when you find a rare item with one character, but cannot use it as that character.

The graphics aren't top notch, but they serve the game well. Published for the European market by German company Frogster, the game has been translated into English well. German is the main language though, so English-speaking players will have to change a few options from the default settings. The music on the other hand is dire - most of the time there is no background music at all. When a burst does come you'll be glad, almost to the point of liking even rubbish. Thankfully, what music there is, is quite good. However, you may as well just turn the background volume to 0, and have your own music on.

That about wraps up the gameplay - now onto the main website. You will first visit here to register your account and download the client, from which there are several different mirrors. Although the site does provide you with information about game features, there is no clear explanation on how to do many things. Also, the lack of a search function doesn't help.

One of the more useful in-game currencies is diamonds. However, the only way I could find to get them was through an option on the website. This is where a ‘premium' side to the game comes in, as you must buy diamonds with real money. On the one hand this is fair, since the game is free-to-play, for the most part; however this can also seem like false advertising, since there are some features that are blocked without these diamonds.

It is understandable that there will still be little errors about; after all, it is only newly released. However, with the amount of testing it has undergone, and with as many Beta testers as there have been, I would've thought little issues like these would have been resolved, although I suspect that these are just little niggles that got through whilst the main launch was in progress.

To be honest, this game could be easily summed up in just a few words - World of Warcraft, but free. Everything is similar, from the combat to the quest system. Obviously there are extra bits added in or removed, but that doesn't really deter from the fact that Runes of Magic is simply a more accessible copy of WoW. Despite that, it's still worth playing: If you're going to copy something, copy it well, and Runes of Magic has certainly managed that to a standard.

I really liked this game, but I couldn't fully test features due to a couple of little niggling factors like the diamonds. I would definitely give it a go if you are looking into MMORPGs, even if you don't stick with it and move on. It is a bit of a shame about the real-money paying; depending on what you buy, it could potentially work out more expensive than a subscription for WoW, but in the end everyone has to make money and I can't fault Frogster for that. Given work, Runes of Magic certainly has potential.