Around 12 years ago, a game called "Runes of Magic" launched . . . a solid 5 years after WoW when the WoW Clone era of MMORPGs was in full swing. As far as I can tell from my limited research, the game has always been free-to-play with a cash shop. At launch Frogster reported the game had 300,000 people signed up and ready to play.
I was way too deep in the Wizard101 community at the time to even think about adding another MMO to my repertoire, and I never thought twice about the game . . . until two days ago when MassivelyOP did an article on old games that are not gone, but forgotten. Frogster sold its game to Gameforge back in 2010, and there it is . . . not gone, and not forgotten!
I decided to take MOP's list as an invitation. Before I knew it, I had downloaded Runes of Magic and set my sights on what the world of Taborea was all about.
I did a little reading to see what I could find would be the most "necromancer" like class in Runes of Magic and settled on a Mage/Rogue build. On paper the most interesting aspect of the game is that you can have a secondary class and this creates a unique blend. According to this fan wiki page, a Mage/Rogue combination is called a "Vampire." Being a Vampire gives you a unique set of skills and starting at level 20, I'll have access to a health drain spell . . . perfect. (all the class combos available can be found here.)
As of this blog post I am now Level 16 on my Primary class of Mage and Level 1 on my secondary class of Rogue. I need to level both to 20 to get that health drain spell, and so now I have a new goal in life. This Vampire in the making has needs!
I've mostly been running around doing quests in the area known as The Howling Mountains and took a wander around the needlessly enormous city known as Varanas. It's huge and the class trainers were tucked away all the way back in the south western corner of the city.
So . . . my first impressions of the game are as follows: Imagine you only can only play three races from only the Alliance side of "a less charming" version of World of Warcraft, and the character models looked a bit . . . off and oddly proportioned, and there you go . . . you have Runes of Magic. Also, this version of WoW (heretoforeknownas Runes of Magic) had overblown VFX, a small player-base, and really limited free storage slots.
Speaking of limited free storage slots, I can tell I'm already in trouble. I'm a natural pack rat and there's no way I can handle my current small storage space . . . especially when the game is throwing things like saxophones and pet eggs into my inventory left and right. I think it's their plan so I will purchase some extra storage space, which is probably my next stop to be honest.
After that . . . I'm gonna need a mount, folks. My character is moving so slowly around the world that it's painful.
So there you have it. Thanks to this recent article in MassivelyOP, I'm starting a little journey in this forgotten MMO known as Runes of Magic. As always, thanks for reading along and . . .
Happy dueling!
2 comments:
I've dipped into Runes of Magic a few times. It isn't a bad little game. A bit odd, and I am not in love with the business model where you rent bank slots and such. But the biggest problem has always been that there are always a couple games I'd rather play, so I tend to let it lapse.
@Wilhelm -- I'm with you. I'd rather have something like DCUO where you outright purchase a bank slot, and I also had that nagging feeling that I could be playing something else . . . I'm gonna ride this wave for a bit. The third class created by the blending of two other classes is really intriguing to me.
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