I've held off reviewing this game for a long time, but meh. I think it's time.

Runes of Magic. Where do I begin. It's without a doubt my favorite game of all time, and the one I've spent the most time, effort, and money on. I truly love this game, however, I can't in good conscious recommend this game as it is now.

At it's core, the game is flawed. I've fallen through random holes in the map, I've had to restart quests because mobs bug out, I've gotten stuck in minigames causing me to waste both my time and resources, and I've even had a character somehow get a boss skill on them that allowed me to literally solo DPS endgame hardmode bosses as a tank. Heck, for 99% of the game's lifespan it was almost unplayable because of crashes due to absolutely appalling optimization. Mechanically the game sucks, and the developers (Runewaker Entertainment) refuses to do anything, and the publisher literally cannot fix them due to both agreements with Runewaker and horrible development tools.

As for gameplay, it is your standard run of the mill mid-to-late-2000s MMO tab-targeted combat, much akin to WoW. However, a very unique point in the game, and one of the main selling points, is it's dual-class system, that allows you to basically have two active classes at once. As well, the game features a very in-depth gearing system that basically allows you to gear out your character how you see fit. However, there are some flaws here. Since the game is basically like 12~13 years old at this point, you could say it's "solved" to an extent. As well, most people build their characters a specific way, negating nearly all customization in favor of min-maxing their gear. Most raiding parties are built either one or two ways - burst or sustain, with most opting for burst and seeking to kill the boss within ~5 seconds. As well, most parties usually feature around 3 to 5 buffers or debuffers, which most of the time are just alternate characters that have one job - cast their skill and then sit there. Alts are very prevalent, both in dungeon runs due to the lack of people playing the game and in the general game world due to how slow it is for only one character to gather resources. Also, the economy is beyond screwed, and this makes it basically impossible for new players to acquire anything decent without paying real money for diamonds (the premium currency) to trade for whatever they need. When it costs anywhere from 20 million gold to 100 million gold for a single stat, and you need six stats per piece of gear, and you have ~16 gear slots - you can hardly do anything. Now, I must say, I do know someone who played at a competitive endgame level and was completely free to play. However, he had 24 characters he would do daily tasks on. It's messed up.

HOWEVER, all of that is not counting the somewhat recent change they made - Peak Levels. The Peak Leveling system is basically extra levels after the current level cap. I'm indifferent towards the concept, however the implementation is abhorrent. You earn EXP at a massively reduced rate, the current level cap is 100, and the newest endgame dungeon requires Peak Level 15 to be able to do anything (the mobs and bosses in the newest dungeon are level 118). However, when going from Peak Level 0 to Peak Level 1 takes over a month of non-stop mob grinding, it's nearly impossible for new players, or even returning players, to catch up. In addition, I should mention that Peak Level 15 isn't even out yet - the current Peak Level is 10. As such, for nearly two years the newest dungeon has gone uncleared legitimately, (there was a strategy that allowed the dungeon to be cleared several times on the EU servers, however it was still difficult to do and was patched out).

Now, as for the cash shop, it's basically mandatory. As I said, I do know someone who was completely free to play at an endgame level, but that is one person out of the hundreds of players I met at that level. I do believe they have taken steps towards making it easier and cheaper - cash shop wise - but it is still far too expensive. This game is dominated by whales.

Now, as for the reason why I love this game - the people. I've met some great people in RoM, and they're honestly the reason why I kept playing for so long. I am a firm believer that the reason MMOs succeed is their community, and I genuinely think RoM had a really good community. Key word being had. By now, the population is dwindling. Back when I played in 2012 and 2013, the guild I was apart of had around 150 active members, and there were multiple guilds like this on the server. When I started playing again in 2018 and 2019, the guild I was a member of had 10~15 active members, was one of the larger guilds on the server, and for over a year the only guild on the server that pushed endgame content. The population just isn't there, and the only thing keeping the game going is the whales who have played since the very early days of the game.

In conclusion, I love this game despite its faults. However, despite my love for Runes of Magic, I cannot with a good conscious recommend it to someone nowadays due to the reliance on the cash shop, how bad the economy is, and how small the population is.

I've held off reviewing this game for a long time, but meh. I think it's time. Runes of Magic. Where do I begin. It's without a doubt my favorite game of all time, and the one I've spent the most time, effort, and money on. I truly love this game, however, I can't in good conscious recommend this game as it is now. At it's core, the game is flawed. I've fallen through random holes in the map, I've had to restart quests because mobs bug out, I've gotten stuck in minigames causing me to waste both my time and resources, and I've even had a character somehow get a boss skill on them that allowed me to literally [url=https://youtu.be/yZaPH28sM4Q?t=1315]solo DPS endgame hardmode bosses as a tank[/url]. Heck, for 99% of the game's lifespan it was almost unplayable because of crashes due to absolutely appalling optimization. Mechanically the game sucks, and the developers (Runewaker Entertainment) refuses to do anything, and the publisher literally cannot fix them due to both agreements with Runewaker and horrible development tools. As for gameplay, it is your standard run of the mill mid-to-late-2000s MMO tab-targeted combat, much akin to WoW. However, a very unique point in the game, and one of the main selling points, is it's dual-class system, that allows you to basically have two active classes at once. As well, the game features a very in-depth gearing system that basically allows you to gear out your character how you see fit. However, there are some flaws here. Since the game is basically like 12~13 years old at this point, you could say it's "solved" to an extent. As well, most people build their characters a specific way, negating nearly all customization in favor of min-maxing their gear. Most raiding parties are built either one or two ways - burst or sustain, with most opting for burst and seeking to kill the boss within ~5 seconds. As well, most parties usually feature around 3 to 5 buffers or debuffers, which most of the time are just alternate characters that have one job - cast their skill and then sit there. Alts are very prevalent, both in dungeon runs due to the lack of people playing the game and in the general game world due to how slow it is for only one character to gather resources. Also, the economy is beyond screwed, and this makes it basically impossible for new players to acquire anything decent without paying real money for diamonds (the premium currency) to trade for whatever they need. When it costs anywhere from 20 million gold to 100 million gold for a single stat, and you need six stats per piece of gear, and you have ~16 gear slots - you can hardly do anything. Now, I must say, I do know someone who played at a competitive endgame level and was completely free to play. However, he had 24 characters he would do daily tasks on. It's messed up. HOWEVER, all of that is not counting the somewhat recent change they made - Peak Levels. The Peak Leveling system is basically extra levels after the current level cap. I'm indifferent towards the concept, however the implementation is abhorrent. You earn EXP at a massively reduced rate, the current level cap is 100, and the newest endgame dungeon requires Peak Level 15 to be able to do anything (the mobs and bosses in the newest dungeon are level 118). However, when going from Peak Level 0 to Peak Level 1 takes over a month of non-stop mob grinding, it's nearly impossible for new players, or even returning players, to catch up. In addition, I should mention that Peak Level 15 isn't even out yet - the current Peak Level is 10. As such, for nearly two years the newest dungeon has gone uncleared legitimately, (there was a strategy that allowed the dungeon to be cleared several times on the EU servers, however it was still difficult to do and was patched out). Now, as for the cash shop, it's basically mandatory. As I said, I do know someone who was completely free to play at an endgame level, but that is one person out of the hundreds of players I met at that level. I do believe they have taken steps towards making it easier and cheaper - cash shop wise - but it is still far too expensive. This game is dominated by whales. Now, as for the reason why I love this game - the people. I've met some great people in RoM, and they're honestly the reason why I kept playing for so long. I am a firm believer that the reason MMOs succeed is their community, and I genuinely think RoM had a really good community. Key word being had. By now, the population is dwindling. Back when I played in 2012 and 2013, the guild I was apart of had around 150 active members, and there were multiple guilds like this on the server. When I started playing again in 2018 and 2019, the guild I was a member of had 10~15 active members, was one of the larger guilds on the server, and for over a year the only guild on the server that pushed endgame content. The population just isn't there, and the only thing keeping the game going is the whales who have played since the very early days of the game. In conclusion, I love this game despite its faults. However, despite my love for Runes of Magic, I cannot with a good conscious recommend it to someone nowadays due to the reliance on the cash shop, how bad the economy is, and how small the population is.