Sunday, October 31, 2021

Runes of Magic -- Cool people and uh, Ding 49?

So . . . team . . . it seems like there's actually a good number of people that play Runes of Magic. There were quite a few people talking in world chat, and the whole game seemed a bit more bumping with activity. It might have been that it was the weekend and the stars aligned but I had the most amazing thing happen to me, an actual interaction with a super nice person, who recruited me to their guild, gave me a million gold, and helped me quickly level my mage from 20 to 49 with what felt like a beautiful "unintended feature" of the game.

Lemme break it down for you. I'm sitting there in Silverspring doing all kinds of questing. I'm hunting bandits, mutant wolves, giant beetles, and a flock of ostriches, when all of a sudden I see a cry go out on the world channel of a friendly guild that's recruiting older players. So I message her and ask how I can start the application process.

She invites me to the guild and instructs me to do a couple of things:

  1. Collect my free daily login rewards.
  2. Head to the guild castle asap and grab the buffs there.

I had actually already discovered the free daily login rewards, so I didn't need to do that, but I can see why she wanted me to do that. Inside the free daily login rewards was a certificate to expand my backpack for free for a limited time.  Typically backpack expansion is done on a weekly or monthly basis with premium currency. this also showered me with a cool mount and a bunch of other items that were like, yes please, including a "port to guild castle" stone.

Magical Skurfboards are the best!

The guild castle was impressive. They had a bunch of amenities strewn about and it was large and spacious. The guild had seven buff towers that you click on to activate 2-hour-long buffs and a stable where you can purchase a speed buff to make your mount travel faster. In other words . . . heaven on Taborea.

Buff towers in the guild castle

After this we chatted it up for a bit. She was super cool: also plays Perfect World. WoW, and FFIV. We talked shop for a bit and then she realized I was very low level and super new to the game, so she said . . . I don't usually do this, but check your inbox since you're going to need some cash to buy those speed buffs and stuff. I didn't think twice. Inside my mailbox was a million gold pieces, which seems like a lot, but she assured me, it's not. 

After this I was doing amazing now that I had some buffs to make my attacks more powerful, and the levels started flying by on my Rogue. By the end of my first play session for the day, I was sitting as a 20 mage and 20 rogue, which was perfect for obtaining my true goal, that of learning my necromancer (um, vampire) elite skills!

I logged back on later in the day to grab those elite skills and discovered that there are item requirements and you have to purchase them. So I take my million gold to the auction house looking for zinc nuggets, weird lumber planks, etc, and I can't find them. I shout out to the guild that I have no idea how to obtain these items and my new friend is like, "Don't do that, do the bags quest. Have you been to Heffner?" I'm completely confused and new, and I'm like, "as in Hugh?"

My new friend then tells me to hang on, she'll help me, but as long as we're out and about, do I want to advance one of my classes to 49 instantly? I'm like, "Of course, I'd have to be dumb to not want that." So she tells me to meet her underneath the bridge to Veranas. I'm like . . . what is this seedy under the bridge interaction I've got goin on here alongside a mention of Hugh Hefner?

Next thing I know, I'm clicking on a portal underneath the bridge and told to not move an inch. I'm then told to click on a trap over and over until I find some ostrich meat. I do this, and then she whips out a magic carpet and flies me over to a town where a guy is standing and tells me to hand him the meat. The NPC is like . . . have fun with that, and then my new friend opens another portal to the town of Hefner, where I'm instructed to kill anything. I do that and Bam. I'm level 49, like magic. 

We used to have a few side quests like this in Wizard101 where they didn't have any other quest requirements. People used to be able to make huge jumps in exp by completing random side quests and basically break the game. I don't feel as bad about it since, I'm going to have to play through all the content again as a rogue. It's not like I'm going to miss any content. It's just that I don't have to play through it twice now.

Anyway, then my new friend takes me inside the town and introduces me to a guy who will teach me all my elite skills in exchange for bags from completing a quest, and folks, this quest to collect bags is super simple. You basically click on targets and use a special buff. After doing this, you open the bag and inside is a scroll that allows this NPC to teach you your elite skill.

Next thing you know, I've learned Cursed Fangs and Kiss of the Vampire . . . You're a necromancer, Harry! (Now, the fact that I can only use Kiss of the Vampire once every 60 seconds while playing as a mage is a topic for another blogpost)

Time to Kiss like a Vampire

So, definitely color me impressed with this interaction. I mean, this is what it should be like in an older MMO like Runes of Magic: Friendly folks that just love their game and want to help the newbies. I feel like I hit the jackpot in Runes of Magic and had a lot of fun talking with my newfound friend.

Now I just need to catch my Rogue up 29 more levels, and hopefully ride this wave of happiness all the way into end game. 

Happy Dueling

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