ROM
Latest
Runes of Magic expands with Ravenfell
Good news for those high-level Runes of Magic players out there as Frogster just announced the release of its newest zone Ravenfell. This zone is set in a Caribbean/pirate setting and is available to those players who are levels 45-50. It also introduces several new quests, bringing Runes of Magic's total quest count up to over 1,600.In addition to this new content for veteran players, the newbie tutorial area has also been revamped with this patch. It introduces a more streamlined starter area and optimizes the localization of zones, items and quests text, which basically means the translations make more sense. "This content update meets the wishes of our players by further expanding the high level area." says Runes of Magic PR Manager, Philipp Senkbeil on the new features being built-in so shortly after the game's launch three weeks ago. We also anticipate a new dungeon called "Treasure Trove" which is set to appear in the near future.Check out the five newest screenshots from Ravenfell in our RoM gallery below.%Gallery-24476%
Runes of Magic: Picking the best class combo
One of the big features in Runes of Magic is its dual class system. You choose two classes, swapping either as your primary or secondary class. You level each class independantly (only primary classes gain XP), however, you will have access to some of your secondary class abilities as well. With six class options to choose from, it begs the question: What class combo is the best for me!?"The best" and "the best for your gaming preferences and goals" should be treated as two completely different things because everyone enjoys a unique style of play and recommendations of "the best" will always be subjective. Saylah of Mystic Worlds shows us her own unique thought process that went in to making the decision of primary and secondary class choices.There are several questions you should ask yourself before choosing primary and secondary classes because you can't change your mind once you've picked them. Do you enjoy soloing or grouping? If grouping is your thing, what role do you wish to play in the "holy trinity?" Do you prefer high survivability with low DPS or moderate survivability with moderate DPS? Do you feel the best defense is a good offense? Perhaps the biggest thing you should ask yourself is what will provide the best fun-factor?
Runes of Magic introduces horse racing
Frogster America has announced today the implementation of an all-new horse race minigame in Runes of Magic entitled Windrunner, allowing players to compete against seven others in an obstacle course on horseback. For the price of a few Phirius tokens (obtainable through the completion of daily quests), players will face "treacherous traps full of magic" such as slow-down effects, spider webs or even speed boosters. Winners will receive a pot full of Phirius tokens that can be used both in the game world and in the item shop. To enter, simply talk to the NPC Michelle Lang in Varanas City for complete instructions. Also be sure to check out the promotional video for the race over at the Runes of Magic main site. Best of luck!
GDC09: Runes of Magic has lots more in store
We had the opportunity to sit down with the Runes of Magic team at GDC last week. As one of the strongest free-to-play entrants in the MMO genre in the last little while, we've been very curious as to some of the things they have in store for the future. Luckily the guys from Frogster didn't disappoint as they sat down and gave us some hints of the many things that players can look forward to in upcoming months. Unlike many MMO publishers, the Frogster team is actually maintaining a fairly large live team; 65 people are currently working on Runes of Magic. Normally when an MMO launches, you'll see the teams cut down to about 20 or 30 people. That said they have a fairly ambitious schedule of things they want to release, so maintaining a full live team was something they said they felt was important to do. The Runes of Magic live team are looking to publish new content approximately every four months.%Gallery-24476%
The Ice Dwarf King comes to Runes of Magic
The teams at Frogster Interactive and Runewaker Entertainment are hard at work, continuing to develop more content for Runes of Magic, not content to rest after the hard work that went in up to the recent launch. Players wandering into Taborea for the first time are greeted by a world that will remind them of many of their favorite MMOs. By the mid-teens, Runes of Magic will begin to break away and stand on its own feet as an interesting free-to-play title with its own culture. For those of you who have been playing for a while (or just play a lot) you may well be up into the 30's or 40's, looking for new challenges to overcome. Luckily, there's some good news coming for you.Today, there was an announcement of a new instance being added to Runes of Magic. Called the "Ruins of the Ice Dwarf Kingdom", the new area will offer adventurers all new quest arcs needed to unlock access to explore the ruins atop the Dragonfang Ridge. Meant for players around level 35 to 40, this new dungeon boasts several 'middle-bosses' that you'll have to defeat in order to get to the central part of the labyrinthine complex. Of course, once you've made it there, the fire giant Thynos will be waiting to greet you, set to guard the Font of Power with his life. %Gallery-26824%
The Daily Grind: Single or dual classes?
As more and more of the Massively staff jump in and check out Runes of Magic, we're having a ball playing around with different dual class combinations. Shawn Schuster, our Managing Editor, is running a Warrior/Mage combination he says is a lot of fun. Kyle Horner has a shiny new Mage he's thinking about what he wants to add to the mix. I've opted for a Rogue/Priest combination since I'll run the Rogue solo, and will be keeping the Priest to run with friends who are several levels lower. That way, I figure so long as I keep the Rogue's level well above the Priest, I can level the second class along with my friends who don't play as often. Of course, this system really isn't anything new - it falls in line with Final Fantasy XI's job system, offering players the chance to combine a couple of different things on the same character without requiring you to keep an alt to see a second class. This morning, though, we thought we'd ask what you thought. Do you think that more games should introduce a dual class system, allowing you to play two completely different classes (or a hybrid of them) at the same time? Or do you prefer to focus on one class at a time so you're not split in terms of trying to gear it up, or having to spend too much time to level two classes at the same time?
One Shots: There's a naked person in my house
I admit, I couldn't resist holding on to this One Shots for posting with today's launch of Runes of Magic. That said, this is undoubtedly one of the funnier stories we've heard from a player to date, and this time we're even kind of involved in it. Curious? Here's the story to go with today's One Shots, courtesy of Saylah, who runs the Mystic Worlds blog. She writes: This is a shot from Runes of Magic. I'd shared my house number on my blog and in game chat for people to visit my crafting workshop which you also featured on Massively. A couple of days later I went inside to put away some items and found a player naked and chillin' in the living room. We had a good laugh about it and he hung around for a while to chat. I left while he decided to say and "house-sit". Several other players visited while I was out and he acted as the naked host. The experience was very funny.If you're playing Runes of Magic and would like to show off your own personal space or adventures, we'd love to see some screens! Just email them to us here at oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name, the name of the game, and your story. We'll post it here and give you the credit for sending it in.%Gallery-9798%
First Impressions: Runes of Magic
Welcome to First Impressions, where I play through the first few hours of an MMO, report back to you on some of the things you can expect as a new player - and whether or not I enjoyed the experience of the game. This week, we have Runes of Magic, a game currently launching early tomorrow morning (or late tonight, if you prefer) at 2:00 AM Pacific. Developed by Runewaker Entertainment and distributed by Frogster, this free-to-play MMO may well be the one that gets even the most staunchly anti-f2p player interested enough to give it a whirl. Also, keep in mind these impressions are on the open beta of the game, so some things may change slightly at launch.I'll start off by saying that I've heard some truly positive things about this game from several MMO fiends I know. That said, a few of them bagged on it for being a World of Warcraft clone - but I'd have to argue that point now that I've played it. There's definitely enough in Runes of Magic to feel eerily familiar to anyone who has played World of Warcraft for any length of time. However, I feel that there's enough different in the two games - aside from the obvious free-to-play versus subscription - to say that each game will ultimately stand (or fall) on it's own merits. I'd also be remiss in noting that as a First Impressions posting, there was no possible way to reach everything there is to get to in this game - PvP arenas, player-killing, pissing off NPC factions, guild castles, high-end crafting, raids and a bunch more - there's a depth and complexity that I am glad to find in a free title. That said, today's overview should give you enough of a taste of the various parts of this easy to pick up but hard to master MMO for you to decide for yourself if it's worth trying.Now, on with the gallery, and my First Impressions of Runes of Magic!%Gallery-48065%
Runes of Magic unleashes guild castles
Here we are nine days before Runes of Magic is set to officially launch, and the new features just keep popping up. Case in point: today's announcement from Frogster concerning the activation of guild castles in the game. Starting today, your guild can have their very own guild castle to furnish to their likings. This gets us one step closer to the long-awaited guild battles where guilds can fight over thrones. Plus, guild castle just sounds so much cooler than guild hall or guild house, amirite?How can you get your very own guild castle? All members of the guild must be level seven and the guild's community coffers must be stocked with enough wood, ore and gold to accommodate. The instanced castles will contain a guild bank, full furniture availability plus teleporters and gates to make travel times quicker. Once guilds obtain their own thrones, they can battle it out with other throne-holding castles for domination and loot. The complete guild battle functionality will be introduced to the game at a later date. Follow along after the cut below for the complete press release and more images of the guild castle.
Don't use public crafting stations, learn to craft from home
Last time we checked in with Saylah from Mystic Worlds, she was off enjoying the free to play MMO Runes of Magic. Her goal was to perfect her home crafting station, allowing her to turn her house into a small store to sell items to the people she met in her travels.Well, it looks like her home crafting shop has been completed and is now ready for public consumption. As an added bonus, she's posted on her blog some good tips for how to put together your own workshop for just a couple bucks a month. Plus, if you want a closer look, you can check out her home inside of Runes of Magic and get some ideas from the things she's already put together.Her full post is available over at her blog, Mystic Worlds, and it's a pretty good read for anyone who's interested in crafting in RoM.
Leak sauce: new AT&T Fuze firmware brings bugfixes aplenty
The plain vanilla Touch Pro's been getting loved lately, so why not those branded versions, too? AT&T's Fuze is about to get blessed with a firmware update, it seems, but there's no reason to wait for official word straight from the horse's mouth -- the good folks at xda-developers have already made good things happen. There's a frigging crap-ton of fixes all piled into the build, so it seems like a must-have for anyone pocketing a Fuze these days; it'll be at least a few more months yet before you have a chance to pull out the plastic for that Touch Pro2, right?[Via Fuze Mobility]
Modder hooks NES controller into Nintendo DS
This... this is dedication. While most softcore gamers are totally kosher with using the standard DS button layout to hit up retro titles like Super Mario Bros., Parked Bowab is definitely not. In order to bring back a sense of dignity to the heralded titles of the past (and to show off his fantastic modding skills), he hard wired an original NES controller to a Nintendo DS. The result? Authentic NES controls for games made famous on the iconic console. Bravo Parker, bravo. [Via Hack-A-Day]
An in-depth look at the dual class system in Runes of Magic
One of the trademark features of free-to-play Runes of Magic is the dual class system. There are six primary classes in RoM, including the warrior, rogue, priest, mage, knight, and ranger. Once you reach level 10 you can choose a secondary class option, which means there are up to 30 possible class combinations. For a full description of how the system works, visit the RoM website.Obviously a system like this leaves you wondering what primary and secondary classes work best together. Well fear not, MMORPG.com just did a bunch of dual-speccing on your behalf and wrote a guide on which combinations work and which don't work. The guide is a two-parter, and this week's takes a look at the priest, mage, and knight as secondaries. According to the article, each primary class will benefit from a priest secondary, which makes perfect sense. Mage secondaries are suggested for priests and scouts, but not so much for knights due to issues with aggro, mana management, and gear stats. Apparently rogue-knights are amazing too.Next week they will discuss the remaining three secondary class options. You can experiment for yourself in the RoM open beta currently underway. The game is set to officially launch March 19.
Android Dev Phone 1 gets in on the Cupcake action early, deemed to be a little undercooked
Admit it, you want some Cupcake, but you're afraid of ditching the physical keyboard altogether. Good news for those of you who've snagged an Android Dev Phone 1, because your wish may be our command. The guys at Make have the lowdown on how to flash Cupcake to the device and experience that on-screen keyboard in all its glory. The hacked OS certainly wasn't ready for primetime, and that hotly-anticipated soft keyboard was still a little buggy -- but there is some hope for using the phone with one hand. We'll bet Google / T-Mobile keep this one in the oven a bit longer until it's ready to take on the masses, but at least we're seeing some fresh baked goodness on something other than the Magic. There's video of the Macguyver'd OS in action after the break. [Via Geek.com]
Windows Mobile 6.5 "beta 2" ROM shoveled onto XPERIA X1, up for download
Yeah, you saw the jankitude running on a Touch HD, but while we wait for real, official devices to run this new OS with what we suspect will be quite a bit more "smooth," you can actually grab this so-called beta 2 ROM yourself and finagle it into your own Windows Mobile device... if you've got the chops. This is the same 5.2.21159.5.0.0 build we saw before, ported to the XPERIA X1, and free to download while it lasts -- flash at your own risk![Thanks, Steve]
Runes of Magic adds in the armored warhorse mount
Let's face it, you want to ride in style when you're jaunting around Taborea and that old horse just isn't cutting it anymore. So what do you do when you need a new ride? Grab one of the new armored warhorses, of course!The armored warhorse is a new addition to the Runes of Magic item shop, giving players a new, slightly faster alternative over the current mounts. The horse comes in three different variations, including a 1 day, 30 day, and permanent purchase version.The 1 day and 30 day versions are economically friendly, only costing 40 diamonds and 100 diamonds respectively. That's around 2 US dollars for the 1 day, and 5 US dollars for 30 days. If you really want to be a sport, though, you can pick up the permanent version for 395 diamonds -- about 20 dollars in US currency. It's a bit expensive, but it's almost to be expected from a horse covered in shiny sheets of metal.
Preview of first two dungeons in Runes of Magic
Runes of Magic is a free-to-play fantasy MMORPG. It is currently in open beta and will release March 19, 2009. According to a recent player review, ROM will feature a rich blend of PvP and PvE action. A big part of PvE in most fantasy MMOs is dungeon content and we just learned from MMORPG.com that ROM will feature many types of dungeons, including normal instanced raids, camp, gated, and even PvP.This MMORPG.com feature goes into some detail about the first two dungeons you'll encounter in ROM called Moongorge and Barren Cave. They explain some of the quests that will send you off to explore these dungeons and even offer directions on how to get to them. The author gives insight on of the history and lore behind these dungeons, what kinds of monsters and monster-types you can expect to find inside, and strategies that will help you conquer the interior bosses. If you're a fan of WoW dungeons, ROM dungeons will probably feel a little familiar, however, the author still found them challenging and entertaining.
Runes of Magic officially launches March 19, 2009
The feature rich free-to-play (and free to download) Runes of Magic has received an official launch date of March 19, 2009. This MMORPG has been in open beta since December 2008 and has seen over 450,000 testers explore the rich world of Taborea. Key features Massively has covered in the past include a dual class system that allows for up to 30 primary and secondary class combinations and one of the most open crafting systems you will find on the market.Just yesterday we discovered and shared an objective player review of ROM open beta that was mostly positive. The reviewer seems to have pretty good credentials considering their experience with other A-list MMORPGs. After extensively weighing the pros and cons of ROM's various systems, they vowed to stick with it for the foreseeable future. We also hear that open beta characters will carry over to release (i.e., no wipes), so now is as good a time as any to get your feet wet in this fantasy-based MMORPG. Be forewarned though, the game is still in beta and will probably undgero major changes as the looming official release date approaches.[Full press release at Allakhazam]
Player review of Runes of Magic open beta looks promising
You may not have heard, but Runewalker's Runes of Magic is a free-to-play/free-to-download fantasy MMORPG that features a large world, avatar appearance customization, dual-class specialization, interesting combat mechanics, player housing, crafting, high-end PvE raiding, and even PvP. If that seems like a little bit of everything from some of the more popular fantasy MMO titles like World of Warcraft, Everquest 2, Lord of the Rings Online, and Age of Conan, that's because it is.According to a player's review of open beta, RoM has taken some of the best elements from these aforementioned games and tried to blend them into a fun and cohesive experience. It also seems to have taken not-so-good elements like daily quests, no career respecialization, and gear dependency. Many people think free-to-play games must be shallow, but it took the reviewer three days to pick a class combination that would suit their play style. That seems pretty deep to me. Perhaps the best consideration a gamer can make is that free-to-play in this case also means free-to-try. How many times have gamers been burned by paying for a product that ultimately didn't live up to their expectations or tastes? What do you have to lose by giving Runes of Magic a shot?
Why you should be playing Runes of Magic: Open Crafting
"Why you should be playing ..." is a freeform column from Massively.com intended to inform you about our favorite parts of our favorite games. We want you to know why we're playing them, so you can know what to play.Runes of Magic is enjoying some well-deserved attention lately as it's wrapping up its open beta and preparing for a launch in March. To offer some more incentive for interested gamers to check out the game, we figured we'd let you in on a little secret: this game is awesome! How awesome? Although this would be a 10,000-word essay if that question were to be answered entirely, we're going to give you some information on just one of our favorite features of the game: open crafting professions.What exactly is open crafting? It's a crafting system with no restrictions and no limits. The crafting profession system in Runes of Magic is the gathering and manufacturing of materials to create in-game items. It's the process of creating these items with special recipes and selling them on the Auction Hall. This is something we're accustomed to in most of our favorite big-name MMOs, but in RoM, you can take all crafting and gathering professions right from the start.
