jeremy-stratton
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Lost Pages of Taborea: Tinkering with standard classes and my Priest/Rogue
Aside from some ancillary problems, one of the things I love so much about Runes of Magic is that it gives me ability to augment weapons and equipment via the arcane transmutor. When that is coupled with a dual-class system, players are given a lot of room to bend traditional classes to their wills. I've been running a Priest/Rogue for a while now and loving it. The selection of offensive spells, the Rogue's skills, and the weapons I can wield have me wanting to push the boundaries of typical class specifications. I'm building a hammer-wielding Priest that's specced much like I'd spec a Mage, but the class can also pump out adequate melee damage. In this week's Lost Pages of Taborea, I want to give you a run-down of the gear, weapons, and stats I'm choosing. It should serve as a good guide to some unique possibilities for classes in RoM.
Lost Pages of Taborea: The poor, lonely looking-for-group tool
Karen's recent article about RIFT's new looking-for-group tool got me thinking about Runes of Magic's own LFG tool. It seems like such a nifty function, but it hardly ever gets used in RoM. It's such an interesting tool that I'm happy to see in the game, but it also seems to be better on paper than in practice. Part of the reason might be that it's slightly clumsy to use for the first time, which I'll get to a little later. LFG tools are one of those things that a lot of players ask for nowadays, but they only ever seem to be used minimally unless the devs attach incentives. Let's turn caps-lock off, stop shouting in world chat, and take a closer look at RoM's LFG tool.
Lost Pages of Taborea: Chapter 4 roundup and speculation
I feel a little bit about RoM like Eliot does about Final Fantasy XI right now. News seems a tad sparse for Runes of Magic this week. We've had a few updates about Chapter 4, which is still on its way; I've recently gotten the RoM event-guild going (in spite of a rocky start); and Frogster gave us a sneak-peek of a major class rebalance. But most everything it still on the horizon. It allows for lots of fun speculation, as new updates always do. Will Dwarves be a playable race? Are Scouts getting nerfed or made even stronger? This week I put together a roundup of Chapter 4 news with a healthy dose of speculation thrown in. As you'll see after the break, we've actually been shown a lot, but no doubt there's even more we haven't seen at all. And that leaves us all with questions.
Lost Pages of Taborea: Where's the fun with world events?
Borrowing a lesson from one of Justin's Road to Mordor articles, I decided to tackle Runes of Magic's world events. I'm talking about those repeatable events sprinkled around the world, events we'll be getting a lot more of when Chapter 4 hits, events anyone can jump into for fun and profit. It's the fun-vs.-profit scenario I want to look at. Recently, the memento rewards on world events were nerfed. This comes after a lot of drama over players who were going AFK in droves to collect large numbers of the shiny coins to buy purple statted gear from the Black Codex vendors. My only concern with the events is that players can go AFK. Large groups of players, whose soul intention is to go AFK, block people who actually want to play and (dare I say) enjoy the events. However, there are still discussions surrounding the loot aspect of events.
Lost Pages of Taborea: Biting the bullet
I want to make a proposal that Runewaker, Frogster and all the powers that be strip away any semblance of forcing players to dig out their wallets while playing Runes of Magic. I haven't played as many free-to-play MMOs as Massively's Beau Hindman, but I have played a good many of them. I'm sure, by now, many players have experienced at least one. If you haven't, then you really should read Beau's columns... or Rubi's or Justin's. Heck, I think everyone here at Massively has experience with F2P MMOs and provides valuable input. Go read up on terms like hybrid, pay-to-play, pay-to-win and the many discussions that have come and gone covering the different F2P business models. I'll wait. Back? Good. Let's get crackin'. RoM uses a traditional cash shop. It's not a hybrid like Lord of the Rings Online or Dungeons and Dragons Online. It's entirely run on a cash shop, like Perfect World International, Allods Online, or Zentia. But one difference I see with RoM's traditional cash shop is that it encourages players to exchange real cash for in-game gold. Other MMOs have allowed this, but usually it's not integrated. Exchanges are often terribly lopsided and see players charging other players ridiculous amounts of in-game currency for a cash-shop item that cost a few bucks. Cold, hard cash has become a seamless part of RoM's in-game economy. Real cash has taken on a balanced pricing-scale for items because money can be injected into the MMO. It can then be changed into gold to buy anything. A player's real money has not only been integrated into the game but become balanced in the same way any game-item is. This is only one unique aspect of RoM that could allow for the removal of any perceived pressure to spend in the cash shop to fully enjoy the entire game. RoM already has a great system in which you can experience everything by sacrificing more time, but I think Runewaker and Frogster could do more. I say blow the doors wide open. Give players every little bit that RoM has to offer. It would be like dropping the monthly fee on a subscription-based MMO. I'll tell you how and why after the break.
Lost Pages of Taborea: Pros and cons of Chapter 4's new starting zone
The Chapter 4 closed beta is well underway, and I finally got in to hack-n-slash my way through it. Actually, I sauntered through it carelessly on a high-level character. The new zone is terrific and very well-made, but I do have some misgivings about it. I started thinking about the implications of the new zone on the rest of Runes of Magic. How is this new area going to be treated by old and new players alike? How will it shape the game? There's a very different vibe I got that I think will affect players differently than previous zones have done. Whether intended or not, some designs have different psychological effects on different players. Some players love Vanguard: Saga of Heroes for its vast, seamless world, one that provides a realistic sense of adventure and life. World of Warcraft offers a large landmass with well-designed endgame raiding. Both of these styles, as well as others, are viewed and treated differently depending on what we as gamers enjoy. Are you wanting to live in the world? Are you wanting to climb the ladder quickly to enjoy raiding or are you wanting to score big as a leader in PvP? You can see my impressions and slightly uneasy feelings about questing and mob placement after the break. I threw in a snazzy high-definition video of the new zone for you to take a look at and share your thoughts on. How might it or might it not impact RoM? If you're so inclined to watch it until the end, I basically babble, stumble over my words, and elaborate on my main points in this article.
Lost Pages of Taborea: Safer diamond gifting
The crazy, fast-paced leveling done over the second anniversary raised safety concerns over player-to-player diamond trading. There were droves of players reaching either level-cap or close to it when Frogster multiplied experience gain by five for Runes of Magic's second birthday. I'm sure it made a lot of players happy (including me). I gained over 20 levels on my secondary. As a residual effect, it has allowed many new players and diamond swindlers to get multiple new characters to very high levels. Until Runewaker hashes out a way to allow diamond trading back on the auction house or creates an alternative system, players have to enter agreements involving trust. This work-around is the gifting feature that lets players buy and automatically send cash-shop goods to another player. Two players agree on a gold-to-diamonds price, one gifts the item directly to the other player, and the buyer has to mail the gold to the player. There's no security blanket on this approach. The buyer could send his gold and never receive the item, or the sender could gift an item and never receive payment. There are some natural deterrents to being ripped off, and players have taken it upon themselves to reduce the risk factor. A player can very quickly get a bad reputation for dishonesty, and that makes it nigh impossible to get into a guild, siege war, pick-up-group or any content with others. Players liberally share info and keep track of reputations to help ensure they don't lose any diamonds or gold. New players will still come and go and not always fully grasp these unwritten safeguards. Today, I want to take a look at ways to better protect yourself, ways that can reduce frustration and allow you to concentrate on enjoying your time in Taborea.
Lost Pages of Taborea: Elaborating on XP gain and leveling alts
This week I want to elaborate on experience gain, the honor party, and other ways of leveling alts. I received some great feedback from last week's article that suggests to me an interest in a much wider discussion of power-leveling. But before I get to that, let's clear up XP gain in Runes of Magic. Most MMOs that I know of -- including RoM -- dish out XP based on the character's level and the level of the mob being slain. If your character is the same level as the mob, the game will give you an adequate amount of XP as a reward. If the mob is higher, you'll get even more experience, but you'll get less XP as you out-level a mob. If you've played any MMO, you're probably aware of this. In RoM, you'll stop collecting XP from mobs 10 levels lower than you. Naturally, fighting mobs slightly higher than you can be more efficient. You can continue to fight increasingly higher-level mobs, but at some point, there's just no way you'll be able to survive, which is why you may want to get a higher-level player to take you just about anywhere in RoM to power-level you. When a high-level player starts towing you around, though, the XP you gain will be based directly on the amount of XP that player would get from any mob he kills. Read on to see more about this and alternative ways of power-leveling.
Lost Pages of Taborea: Power-leveling alts in an honor party
Over the course of two years, Runes of Magic has had many patches. It has also had many changes and additions that never made it into the patch notes. They're usually nothing major -- maybe a minor graphical tweak or some other incidental improvements. Then there are items, quests, and features that seem to change, but I can never be sure based on my imperfect memory alone. Something seems to be new or different, but because it never made a lasting impression, I can't be sure whether I'm remembering it correctly. That's how I felt about the honor party. The newbie tutor system seemed to quietly crawl under a rug, but over time it has proven to be operational. Even though the NPC in Varanas does a fair job of informing you what the honor party is and does, I'll give you a quick run-down of how it operates. One of the advantages of knowing about and using the honor party is having a very quick way of leveling alts through the first 20 levels. I wouldn't recommend it for first-time players, but let's take a look at using the honor party to give your alt a huge jump in levels on day one.
Lost Pages of Taborea: Guild activities
What does a guild mean to you? Guilds are the unified packs of like-minded players we gather around to create a little home for ourselves in our favorite MMOs. Guilds are a way to offer camaraderie, a band of tightly knit players who can help each other for mutual gain. Whether it's a family playing together online, close real-life friends who want to create a personal space to hang out, or single players who could use a helping hand to get through harder content, guilds can provide all of them On one hand, having a function to create a guild isn't much more than a label, but that can go a long way. Players run with those kind of tools and create mini-societies and alliances, and they parcel out the playerbase into feudal territories. Even if a guild can be boiled down to just a special name tag, guilds can provide a powerful mechanism for players. Nowadays MMOs are giving guilds more to do, and Runes of Magic has more than its share of guild activities. Let's take a look at what guilds have access to.
Lost Pages of Taborea: What just happened?
There are always plenty of memories to make and share with others, as MMOs tend to be never-ending playgrounds for us to romp around in. And after recalling major events for Runes of Magic's second birthday, I've been stuck in fond-memory mode. Two years of playing RoM is a lot of time to build up memories, too. I've gone through many a server, guild and character since I started, and I've both made memories with friends and remembered events the game itself created. Sometimes a developer forgets to turn off a light switch, a new bug appears, or a new patch brings unintended changes. I remember a handful of times some pretty interesting things have happened. Mysterious statues popping up, bosses appearing in houses, and other anomalies await after the break.
Runes of Magic celebrates its second birthday
Happy birthday, Runes of Magic! Two years have gone by, and you're growing up so fast. Anniversary celebrations are already underway in RoM. If your account has been lying dormant, you may want to wake it up, join the festivities, and get some free goodies while you're at it. For me, these two years flew by. It doesn't seem all that long ago that I wrote a look back at the first year of RoM. In two years, RoM has seen three major updates, and a fourth is just around the corner. The first two chapters made it into the first year, and although Chapter 4 didn't quite make it into this article, chapter 3 brought a whopping amount of content and features. If your extra ginger beer isn't cutting it anymore and you're feeling brave, move on up by grabbing a bottle of Blenhiem's old #5 and join me for a look back at the last year of RoM.
Lost Pages of Taborea: Introduction to Ystra Labyrinth
For anyone who doesn't know yet, I've been livestreaming Runes of Magic as part of the MassivelyTV lineup. You can watch me die a lot and repeatedly forget where I'm going on Friday nights at 8:00 p.m. EDT. I just got done streaming some Battlefield playtime in RoM, but this coming Friday, the plan is to explore Ystra Labyrinth in Ystra Highlands. Ystra Highlands is that frigid, snowy zone that covers levels 30 to 40 and come after you make your way through Aslan. The labyrinth is a section of ancient ruins recently discovered deep below Sea of Snow and is being explored by Ailic's Fellowship, a faction of researchers. It's an interesting area that resembles Mystic Altar graphically, but it's not an instance in the truest sense of the term. It's a world instance where you can freely bump shoulders with other parties, complete daily quests, and still run into some bosses. In this article, I dig deep below the snow to see what there is to do in Ystra Labyrinth.
Lost Pages of Taborea: GDC 2011 chapter 4 sneak-peek
The big news is chapter 4 is on its way. Runes of Magic is getting a triple-class system -- that should help players find groups -- and more content to explore as players make their way to the new level-70 cap. Besides that and the exciting news that RoM will soon be playable in all its glory on Facebook without any need to download a client, we now know what players will encounter when they first venture into the Land of Malevolence, thanks to the Frogster folks at GDC 2011 who last week gave us a sneak-peek into the coming update! As most veterans of RoM know, chapters have always been delivered to us in chunks, and so shall it be with chapter 4. This first chunk will introduce us to a new instance, the new area (spanning levels 62 to 64), and some interesting story -- which always makes me happy. Read on to see what new things there are to look forward to in RoM and why Mages may be smiling a bit more when this new content is released.%Gallery-116190%
Lost Pages of Taborea: Balancing vs. viable vs. fun
Thoughts of class-balancing, class-viability and triple-class combinations have been swimming in my head lately. In the wake of RIFT's open beta, Frogster announced that Runes of Magic will be moving to a triple-class system in early April. Along with a lot of speculation on how this will change RoM, there's talk of how badly three-class combos will upset class-balancing where some already feel classes are skewed. Viable and balanced are pretty subjective terms in the MMO genre that make it hard for any two players to be on the same page. I find it even more confusing when some make it sound like there's a mass exodus to RIFT because of -- in part -- the idea that RoM's classes are more out of tune than yours truly trying to sing Zombie. These ideas are highly speculative. I'd like to throw my own opinions in about what makes a class in RoM viable, what not to look for when trying to find balance, and why we may not want to squeeze every possible class combination into the holy trinity of healer, DPS and tank.
Lost Pages of Taborea: An interview with Dynamedion
A lot of people like music in video games, and for good reason. Today there are some amazing tracks being recorded by professionals and artists for us to listen to as we own noobs, take down mighty dragons, and explore serene vistas. The world of video game composing even has its own fanbase filled with players who pay close attention to who is making the musical score to tomorrow's buzz-worthy game. I have personally clawed around in the dark for months looking for scraps of information on Runes of Magic's soundtrack. Some fragments have been unearthed here and there, but I was finally able to get in touch with the source. Dynamedion is the music production company behind many of the tracks in RoM. It has a number of games listed on its resume, including Halo Legends, Alan Wake, Call of Duty 4 and many more. I nabbed an interview with some of the lead composers to try to get some more information about the music in RoM. Where did the inspiration for these tracks come from? Who worked on them? Did they steal all the music from Bardy Woods? Set your metronome to epic fantasy and click to read on.
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.
Lost Pages of Taborea: One crafter's obsession
Let me start this week off by telling you a little story of one crafter's obsession, of how he feels about crafting in MMOs, and what he hopes and dreams for. I love crafting. I want more of it. Whenever I loaded up Runes of Magic, it was the first thing I got my grubby virtual hands on. Now, I know there are a lot of people who will say they like crafting, but I'm here to separate us even further by telling you what I really think about when I want more crafting. I see lots of threads on the forums about how many people want crafting in RoM. There's a lot of conversation over how much work it should require and how much it should pay off. I feel disconnected from a lot of those players. I feel that we aren't truly like-minded. My brain doesn't run in the same direction. What the heck am I babbling about? Read on to find out.
Lost Pages of Taborea: Finding time to play Runes of Magic
Ever since my semester started up, I've had to learn new ways to budget my time. My schedule cuts right through the middle of every day, which is both good and bad. I don't have to get up at an obscene hour for class, and I'm not in school through the night. It still makes it hard to play Runes of Magic and other MMOs, though, as it chops my free-time up into short, interspersed chunks. I initially found some ways to satiate my gaming addiction by -- gasp -- playing Perpetuum. Games like Perpetuum -- and I suspect EVE Online -- have some nice pacing that allows me to go semi-AFK while I work on homework, articles or whatever. I can find safe places with large ore deposits, lay down a large container, and mine for 30 minutes at a time or longer. I'm still visiting the world of Taborea on weekends, and I make quick pit-stops during the week to check up on my fellow guild members, but I realized during my last visit that there are some nice ways for the returning college student to get in some game time and get his or her school-work done. If you find your having trouble balancing work, school and life with RoM, you might find some satisfaction in the long term pet, guild, crafting, and skill-building goals.
Lost Pages of Taborea: Improvements on MMO standards
After having a couple of conversations on the topic over the last month, I decided to make a list of more reasons I am so attracted to Runes of Magic. Runewaker may not have created the next evolutionary step in MMOs, but it did do some new and innovative things. It created what I consider to be the first hybrid traditional free-to-play MMO. RoM predominantly uses western game mechanics and a quest-driven leveling system with a cash shop. As far as actual gameplay is concerned, RoM features many standards -- very nice improvements on those standards. In this article, I list six refinements that I think add to the increasing uniqueness of an MMO that constantly shows it's more than a generic clone. Jump past the break to see if you agree with me or share your favorite MMO standards that you think RoM improves upon.
