Runes of Magic

Runes of Magic is a MMORPG game highly inspired by World of Warcraft. Similar graphics, interface and animations helps in acclimating in the world of Taborea. Those who don't want to pay a fee to Blizzard anymore will receive a chance of getting similar sensations while playing in RoM. Every player has his or her own house and a chance to join some guild, which is able to build a guild castle. Yet the most interesting is multi-class system - players are choose their alternative class after reaching level 10. With 8th classes and two races (Elf or Human) to choose from, players can create really unique characters.

You can choose from:

Warrior - he is a master in melee combat. Warriors can use every short-distance weapon and almost every type of armor. They can perform deadly special attacks and cuts.

Scout - they likes long ranged weapons. Using a crossbow, or bow to inflict fatal injuries from distance. It is very easy to hurt them in close quarters, however.

Rogue - specializes in fast attacks with a dagger, which can cause extensive bleeding in the enemy or may be covered with a deadly poison. While fighting they depend on dodging but their speed is paid by low HP and weak armor. Rogues can also set traps.

Mage - Mages wield fire and lightning that damages distant objects. They can focus on a specific target or set on fire a bigger area. They are able to use few buffs and defensive spells as well.

Druid (Elves only) - they are bonded with Nature - they can heal allies, cause pain to enemies and even control them. Druids have mighty power of gathering Natural Forces and releasing them at a convenience to use extremely powerful spells.

Warden (Elves only) - they specialties are melee attacks. They can use various weapons, chain armor and summon pets to help themselves during the battle. They can use some assist spells as well.

Priest (Humans only) - while the priests could use water to inflict damage, mainly serve a supporting role. They can heal, buff and even raise allies from the dead. They can use shields to boost their defence but still are fragile.

Knight (Humans only) - Heavily armored warrior - the knights are the only class that can assume the plate armour. Knights wear full armour at battles and are main tanks in this game.

Runes of Magic is without doubt one of the best-promoted MMOs. This makes it also one of the most popular. How it gained popularity? It’s a lot to talk about…

Deja vu

You need just a glance to notice that the game, to put it mildly, is taken after World of Warcraft. Similarities in the MMO market are nothing unusual. All producers copy  something from the world, character development, the interface. It no longer nothing unusual. RoM, however, went a step further. He didn’t copied  one, two or several elements, but actually the whole game is a clone - the main difference lies in the fact that World of Warcraft is not free, and on the RoM you don’t  have to spend a single dime. 

Beginnings

 As it happens in MMORPG games, you start your adventure by creating your character. We have great character customization – will have to spend some more time on his or her face, but we also can actually determine the size of each body part (not the one about which I thought).This makes it difficult to meet two identical characters. It is not about  clones - and good!

The game starts in a small village, in which we’ll receive our first tutorial mission that slowly shows us the possibility of our character and there are lots of them. We cut wood, extract raw materials, collect herbs and  then visit the right shop to make a few arrows, a weapon, potion or another interesting object. More importantly, however, are quests and killing monsters, which we’ll meet on the way. We have a lot of quests and thanks to them  we can become rich, but most are not too exciting. Once we are a messenger, who carries an appropriate item to a place, another time we collect some plants or kill a group of mobs and bring a handful of evidence to show that the job has been done. There are also much more ambitious ones, by which we’ll acquire an appropriate set of armor or a sharper sword.

The whole game is constantly diversified with subsequent updates and additions, which enhance the game world and raise the limit of our hero’s level. Just like in World of Warcraft.

The innovation is that this game has a two-class system. We can choose from eight classes, some of which are reserved for the respective breed. And  from those we can choose only two (man and elf) - at this point WoW is just better. The number of available classes maybe isn’t so impressive, but if we take into account the fact that after reaching a certain level of experience, we can choose any combination of another form, then the fun begins. It can be even more interesting, because after going the levels up the newly elected class moves into a different world.

There's no place like home

 Each player also receives a place for himself, to sit in, wear slippers and  light a fire in a fireplace if one has such. We have a lot of furniture or ornaments to choose from, and the final design depends only on our taste and thickness of a purse of gold or diamonds. Well, diamonds are in Runes of Magic Premium currency, which we can only gain by using our credit card. A few carats will provide us with improved weapons, more space, or a mount. You do not need to spend money. Cash Shop is optional, and although it provides many interesting objects, you can do without it.

Do you wanna fight?

 Runes of Magic uses the classical solution to fighting between players. After reaching the fifteenth level of experience, we can attack other players, but after killing a man who does not have a desire to fight with us we get bad karma points. The more points we collect, the more likely it becomes after death we’ll drop out items. The solution we know from the also good – Lineage II - also there we have to think carefully about who we wnat to attack as we don’t want to be hunted by PK – item hunters.

The game still has many minor errors, but these are still eliminated along with updates. It is obvious that the game is constantly evolving and since the Beta version the game has changed for the better.

It's worth the sin

Runes of Magic not only sets the bar high, but also makes it go higher and higher thanks to successive additions, so the competition seems to be far behind. This production is certainly commendable, especially with the new Chapters that make the gameplay more interesting, as a result, the game is one of the best free games of all times. 

Minimum system requirements:

CPU: Intel Pentium 4 2.0 GHz or equivalent

RAM: 512MB

Required hard disk space: 5.3GB

Graphics card: DirectX 9.0c compatible with 128MB RAM

Broadband Internet connection

Keyboard and mouse