Lost Pages of Taborea: Community spotlight

Runes of Magic's second anniversary is not far off now. In the nearly two solid years since the official launch, a thriving gaming community has been cultivated. Within this active community are some talented players who weren't satisfied with just playing RoM. For whatever reasons, these players ventured outside the digital confines of the game to share their talents and their adventures through the land of Taborea.

I wanted to highlight a handful of members of this talented community that has evolved around RoM. Some have made outstanding guides, while others have made useful websites or fun blogs. There's a lot of great talent on the official forum and within the addon community, to be sure, but I tried to focus on examples of great forum guides and others who have stepped further away to do their own thing. Click past the break to see if you made the list.

Active pet skills

Player Ascobol has an impressive and ever-growing list of pets with their active skills on the European RoM forum. Note that the skills are not the passive skills that all pets get but the active skills that are determined by what kind of pet you choose. These active skills are the ones the pets actually use when they assist you in combat. It's a great place to shop for your next pet, whether you are looking for the best match for your class or you just want to see what cool-looking pets are out there. Ascobol is also accepting help to make the list complete.

Runes of Magic Armory

You might remember my highlighting a little site that kept rankings for guilds participating in siege war. One of the players behind that, welshede, is also involved in another ambitious project to create a theory-crafting armory. It provides all the tools you need to outfit your character however you want and see the resulting benefits. Choose any armor that's listed in the RoM Database and add any stats, runes, tier-levels or jewel-upgrades that you want. Created armor sets are also linkable for sharing. The site isn't finished yet, but what is currently available is very impressive. I want to add that what this site is doing would make for a killer phone app.

Videos

There's a large list of stickied threads that have appeared on the official RoM forum over the months, and one contains an impressive list of boss strategy videos by Karolik. I know everyone won't want to use this kind of resource, opting instead for the surprise and discovery he might get from going in blind, but it's a high-quality resource for what it does. This was just one of my personal favorites, but many of the stickied guides are terrific.

There's not much in the way of RoM machinima, which makes me a sad panda, but there was one gem I found a long time ago. Carved Love may be a bit rough around the edges, but it also shows some talented editing and storytelling. Some of the transitions don't seem to fit as well as they could; there are some minor grammatical errors; and pacing seems a bit too fast during dialogue. Aside from my critiques, it's a really good shot at RoM machinima.

Blogs

There have been many blogs that have come and gone since RoM's release, but one of the longer-running ones was Tales From Taborea by Cee. Her blog was always loosely structured and filled with posts about graphics, features, exploration, what she liked, what she disliked, and much more. She stated her blog is closed down as of December 29th, 2010, but there's a year's worth of entertainment still there. If you've already seen all the posts but still crave more, try The Pink Priest written by Flan; it's a series of short, colorful, humorous posts about life in Taborea. I enjoyed the menu-styled Flan's Cafe.

Flo-n-Andy

While it's not exactly by the community, I thought I'd list the RoM online comic Flo-n-Andy. The colorful little comic deserves a nod of its own for being a well-drawn comic centering around the game. Flo and Andy are a real world couple who enjoy playing RoM during their free time. Real-life shenanigans are mixed with in-game shenanigans. It's pretty light-hearted for the most part, but it's a bit heavy on being a game tutorial. Lots of dialogue features Flo explaining to Andy how to get a second class, get armor or kill creatures. There's still some humor and good artwork that complete the mix. It's nice that there is a fun source that doubles as a help-guide, but I'd like to see a comic that delves more into lore. Throw the comic on the official site and label it as an instructional source then get onto developing a comic that can focus solely on storytelling without any trappings.

Community novel

This is an ongoing contest that I've been trying to keep a close eye on. The European RoM site has been advertising and holding a contest for players to write chapters of an ongoing novel. The first two chapters are already done, and the third is well underway. There are some loose guidelines to follow, but it's all about player creativity. I also can't stress this enough: It's open to anyone. Even though it's not plastered on the U.S. site, anyone can enter. Go read the basics, check out the guidelines for the current chapter and write your own entry. GM Zalmah mentioned that the group hopes to have 12 chapters done by next December to put into a PDF document. There was also a teaser that the book might be printed into a handful of copies.

I love checking out game-related sources. One of my favorite pastimes besides actually playing an MMO is seeing and reading what other players have been creating outside of the games. Anything that connects the community with the MMO gets me excited. I've whittled away many hours looking at fan fiction and screenshot sites alone, not to mention paper-doll sites, podcasts, food-related blogs, and... the list goes on and on.

I've only listed a small look at guides on the official forum, but there are many more for other aspects of the game. If you know of any more player-driven blogs, podcasts, websites, fan fiction, or guides you think are worth mentioning, drop it into a comment!

Each Monday, Jeremy Stratton delivers Lost Pages of Taborea, a column filled with guides, news, and opinions for Runes of Magic. Whether it's a community roundup for new players or an in-depth look at the Rogue/Priest combo, you'll find it all here. Send your questions to jeremy@massively.com.