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Lost Pages of Taborea: Roleplaying horizontally
I'm definitely not what you would term a hardcore player. I've been playing for a whole year and have just reached level 54/45 on my main. My gear is OK -- not great -- and that's only because an old guild mate loaned the pieces to me months before he quit playing. I haven't been able to run through any dungeon since Mystic Altar and I don't even try to pick fights with other players my level. So, how can I sit here and tell you that I love Runes of Magic enough to forfeit the majority of my young adult life to it? Two words: role and horizontal. Roleplaying is something that is understandably not for everyone, but I'm not talking about a strict actor or actress role. I'm talking about just crossing the line between viewing an MMO as a video game that owes you everything and accepting a little responsibility to use some imagination to increase how much fun you have. Horizontal gameplay is a term that's been thrown around a lot lately, referring to ever expanding content that doesn't rely entirely on leveling. Jump past the break to see why this is such a sweet combination in RoM.
Lost Pages of Taborea: A look into Chapter Three
It's been a fun week of questing and exploration for me in Runes of Magic. I've been digging deeper into the heart of the Savage Lands and learning more lore while discovering new visual treasures. When I first entered the level 53 and up zone, I thought it was some kind of tropical dinosaur utopia. Most of the areas I ventured into have that visual style, but there's also a mix of Elven villages, mountains guarded by apemen and tiki style huts to give the zone unique variety. Of course, I gave all that a break when the first part of Chapter III: The Elder Kingdoms came out. I was anxious to see the new content with its new systems and pretty graphics. After impatiently waiting for my client to update, I was able to journey to the new lands and see some pretty cool stuff. Now, I think it's about time I gave some of my impressions before all of Chapter 3 is released and I'm too busy playing to write about it.
Lost Pages of Taborea: Banhammer time
For a while now, Frogster has been fiddling with how a player can buy diamonds to later trade and sell in the auction house. Ever so slowly, they had to implement more and more restrictions because of credit fraud and gold sellers. Those restrictions came in the form of what you could no longer use to buy tradable diamonds, until there was almost no other way except to purchase game cards from select retailers. Now it seems the ongoing problem has come to a head with the announcement that Runes of Magic has temporarily turned off the trading of diamonds for gold completely. While it certainly doesn't paint RoM in a good light and may look like it has marred their great track record, gold selling issues are nothing exclusive to the game. Bots and gold spam are something that many MMOs eventually deal with and it's a positive sign that the developers are working on it. Maybe they're taking a queue from Aion's RMT videos or maybe they had it planned for a long time, but RoM has recently gone after the player-side of the problem by laying down the banhammer.
Lost Pages of Taborea: How is crafting holding up?
Runes of Magic's craft system currently lacks a huge fan base. I thinks it's a great system that's very flexible, but the current work vs. rewards as well as limited items doesn't make it terribly appealing. Crafting takes a lot of gathering to yield the most basic of items, which usually don't sell for much -- or at all -- on the auction house. This has raised the incentives for players to seek out better rewards through raiding or bartering highly upgraded drops. Even the crafted items aren't very desirable to upgrade, especially when compared to world and dungeon drops. That's not to say it's worthless. Through the most recent craft improvements, players can take the time to craft quality outfits to aid them on their journey to level cap -- before they start raiding for the better drops. I myself love to gather, raise my profession level, and make some decent gold by selling resources in the auction house. I don't see the system ever needing rebuilt to grow or expand, but just added to. If we take a look at the way it is now, and how it's built to allow for a lot of possibilities, I think you'll agree.
Guilds to face new challenges in Runes of Magic Chapter III
When it comes to learning how to work together as a guild, many MMOs have the same general method: read a strategy site, jump into a dungeon, and beat yourself against it until you figure it out. That's why we're intrigued to hear about the new guild additions coming to Runes of Magic in their upcoming Chapter III expansion. While hailed as mini-games, these new areas will challenge guilds to work together in new and interesting ways. Players who join these three new guild drilling grounds will be asked to choose one of three stances: a sword for melee players; a shield for those who will need defensive boosts and resists; or a staff for those pew-pew crazy casters. From there, you'll be taken through one of the three new drilling ground scenarios. %Gallery-88042%
Lost Pages of Taborea: A year of Runes of Magic
You may be hard pressed to find anyone saying Runes of Magic had a rough year. The Western-style MMORPG with its free-to-play business model garnered a lot of attention from all over the web while it was just in beta. Frogster had a smooth launch that saw a rapid increase in RoM's player base. Servers were popping up all over the world at breakneck speed. And just when some might think that was going to be it, a steady stream of updates grew the game over the year into a more content-rich experience than ever. Grab your Extra Ginger Beer, or whatever your fuel of choice is, and follow along after the break to see how RoM has progressed into the great game it is now.
Lost Pages of Taborea: Community guide to Runes of Magic
Welcome to the new Runes of Magic column here at Massively. The Varanas Council has mandated that I bring you word from Taborea, every Monday. Upon failure to do so, I am ordered to take part in endless repeatable quests in the Ystra Highlands. This would be fine, if it were not for me being a charter member of the Society for the Preservation of the Ystra Ferret. You can see how I can't let that happen. So you, dear readers, reap the benefits of me staying timely and bringing you gobs of interesting and useful information, and saving a few cute fuzzy ferrets at the same time. With that, Let's dive right into our first post with a selection of sites and resources to get the would-be Taborean traveler started leveling and exploring.
Runes of Magic will be heading to Facebook with RoM: The Challenge
When it comes to Facebook games, some MMO players look at them as being a scourge; a strange offshoot of a genre they know and love. To others, it seems the next logical step in gaming. And nobody can doubt the revenues involved are sweet for companies who manage to hook casual gamers into their games. But now, we have a heads-up from the team at Frogster Interactive that they plan on trying to cross their successful Runes of Magic IP into the Facebook casual gaming market. Dubbed Runes of Magic: The Challenge, this new social media game (currently under development) will use the lore from Runes of Magic in a whole new casual game. The Facebook game is said to use networked gaming and viral communications and will give players "adventure, exploration, and strategy elements." Through playing the casual game, people will gain cards with key codes that work inside Runes of Magic -- thereby potentially drawing some new players off of Facebook and into the full MMO. Our team at GDC has an interview with the Frogster Interactive and Runewaker Entertainment teams coming up later today, where we're sure we'll hear far more about this interesting new gaming development. We'll bring you all the details as soon as we have them!
Runes of Magic announces integrated voice chat
Runes of Magic's 2.8 million players will soon have something besides their favorite MMORPG to talk about: each other. Runewaker Entertainment just announced a partnership with Vivox to provide in-game voice chat for the hit free-to-play title. High definition voice chat will be available in public and private channels, and is already live on the game's Taiwanese servers. The service will debut on American and European servers very soon according to company representatives. "We have been looking forward to bringing voice chat to Runes of Magic for some time knowing the extraordinary benefits it brings to the community," said Runewaker Entertainment's Tony Tang. "Vivox is the only voice chat provider capable of delivering high definition voice to gamers."
Runes of Magic planning a Masked Ball to welcome spring
While the cold may still be lingering in many places around the globe, in the online lands of Taborea, spring has come. To celebrate, the folks at Runewaker Entertainment and Frogster Interactive are planning a fancy dress Masked Ball for all Runes of Magic players, and you're all invited! The Masked Ball event is set to go live with the next content patch coming up in March. Players will be treated to lots of party-themed cake and fruit -- great for restoring health! There will also be the chance to get some special springtime goodies like ornamental masks and transformation potions through springtime daily quests and other party fun. If you're curious for a sneak peek into the upcoming Masked Ball celebration, be sure to check out the gallery below. Perhaps we'll see you in Runes of Magic for the fun! %Gallery-86514%
Runes of Magic offering diamonds for surveys
Looking for a way to stock up on some Runes of Magic diamonds, but a bit short on cash? Well, the folks at Frogster Interactive have taken a page from things like Facebook games, and are offering a method to trade a bit of your time for some diamonds. Through their new partnership with Sponsorpay, Runes of Magic players are able to take surveys and check out products and score a certain amount of free diamonds per offer. All you have to do is to log in to the RoM site, go to the diamond purchase page, select your server, and then select the free diamonds option. From there, you'll be taken to a page that will offer several different surveys or trial offers you can check out. With that said, as with any 'lead generation for in game cash' scenario you run across on the Internet, always make sure you read the fine print. The last thing players will want is those free diamonds hitting them in the wallet later because they didn't.
Runes of Magic unleashes Demon Lord in new dungeon
When Runes of Magic launched with the subtitle 'Rise of the Demon Lord' somehow we knew there would be a day when we faced off against the big guy. Sure enough, the folks at Frogster Interactive and Runewaker Entertainment have finally unleashed His Terrible Demonicness on the world of Taborea in the form of a shiny new 12-player dungeon. Located in the Naga Plains, Demon Stronghold is a richly textured raid area, offering four mini-bosses before you come up against the Demon Lord Sirloth. Word is that the final fight is a 4-phase battle, which will challenge players to think fast. Those adventurers who succeed in defeating him will be able to carry off the Demon Lord's weapons. We've gathered up some concept art and screenshots from this shiny new raid and piled them into a gallery for you to check out. Considering how cool this area looks, we're curious to see what kinds of goodies players will carry off from this new raid instance. Should be tasty! %Gallery-83632%
Runes of Magic grabs another trophy for their efforts
"Best International PC Game of 2009." That's the title handed to Runes of Magic from the German Game Developer Awards public vote, which was awarded last night to the team in Berlin. German gamers were invited to vote for their favorite game of 2009, and Runes of Magic took the vote and beat out other German games like Risen and Anno 1404 to claim the title. To go along with the news, Frogster has announced that Runes of Magic has claimed 2.5 million players in the US, Europe, and Korea all together. We've always been impressed with Runes of Magic's quality gameplay mixed with their free-to-play subscription structure and this award is well deserved. Congratulations to the Runes of Magic team on their newest accomplishment!
One Shots: We don't need no water
When it comes to places to take a nice relaxing ride, we have to admit -- lava pits inhabited with giant angry monsters don't often come to mind for us. For some reason, Remei, who sent in today's Runes of Magic One Shots, thought it would be a good place to mount up and capture a scenic postcard to send in. Brave or crazy -- you decide! Have you been exploring parts of your favorite game that we haven't seen here? All games are welcome, all images too! Send us combat, posed shots, landscapes, you name it, to oneshots AT massively DOT com. Some information like your name, the name of the game, and a description of what's going on in the screenshot is awesome too. We'll post it up here and give you credit. Alternately, you could put yourself in danger and snap a picture of that as well. It's all up to you.%Gallery-9798%
One Shots: Tyger tyger burning bright
While we're not quite sure what to make of this mount with the lion's head, antlers and odd electrical charges seeming to jump off its body, we can say it's a fairly pretty beastie - and it matches her outfit too. Add in a cliff overlooking the water with the purple mountains off in the snowy distance and you've got a nifty Runes of Magic screenshot. This picture postcard comes from Aetheress, who writes:This is my first time sending in a screenshot and I thought this was cool. I started playing Runes of Magic and it is incredibly enjoyable. This is a screenshot of me on a cliff in Ystra Highlands with an awesome costume, mount, and wings. We love to see screens from MMOs both big and small, but we need you to send them in! It's really easy to do - just drop an email to oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name and a quick description. We'll post it out here for everyone to check out, and give you the credit.%Gallery-9798%
Runes of Magic cracks open the Lair of the Demon Dragon
What's more threatening to the world of Taborea than a dragon? A demon dragon, obviously! Duh! The only thing more threatening than that would be a emo teen-vampire dragon, but it's good that the team at Runewaker didn't go that far. (Or did they?)This Thursday, the wrath of the demon dragon will be unleashed upon all high level players in patch 2.1.3. The dungeon contained in Aotulia Volcano is the new hardest 12 man raid in the game -- a worthy challenge to players at the top of their endgame.Even if you're not super high level, the patch will also be introducing a cleaned up crafting system with a new, intuitive UI, and the special "Autumn Harvest" festival. Players will be able to stuff their faces at banquet tables scattered across the land in addition to participating in special holiday themed daily quests. So don't be afraid to jump in and enjoy the new patch this Thursday!
The Zurhidon take revenge on Runes of Magic's European servers
European servers, prepare for war! Runes of Magic is digging deep into MMO playbook history, and they've chosen to pull out a classic move -- the GM controlled event. The mysterious Zurhidon have reappeared in Taborea, and it's up to the players to repel their attacks!Each week, starting tomorrow the 14th and continuing until November 25th, two European servers will feel the wrath of the Zurhidon. Players will be notified what channel the event will be taking place on shortly before the event, and they'll be informed of the event's location at the same time as well. All attacks will take place at 7 PM BST (6 PM GMT.) At least no one can call the Zurhidon unpredictable!Accompanying the waves of spawns will be two Zurhidon generals who will be, of course, controlled by some wrath seeking GMs. Glory awaits those who can hold back the horde, while death will only bring pain (virtual pain) and loss (experience debt!)
Runes of Magic introduces diamond cards at Target
Runes of Magic is expanding their diamond trade to a black market. A black market of diamond and goods trade so black that their red ring logo demands fear and respect. They call this place... Target.Odd movie introductions aside, Runes of Magic is offering their diamonds in new cash card form! For those of us who don't want to run out and throw a credit or debit card at the RoM website, we can now just visit Target and pick up some diamonds (the game's cash shop currency) in our next shopping run at the local strip mall.
Runes of Magic offers players wings, but only until tomorrow
We smell some Aion envy coming from Runewaker Entertainment, but we're not going to complain! We're being offered pretty wings in Runes of Magic!Starting right now and continuing until tomorrow, wings will be available for purchase in the Runes of Magic item shop. While it doesn't look like the wings do anything other than look really cool on your character, this is a very limited time item. Because of the limited window of purchase, these wings will most likely become a coveted item very quickly. (As long as they're not offered again later, of course.)If you're interested in grabbing a pair of these feathery wonders, you'll have to do it from inside the game's cash shop menu, under the "special offers" section of the store.
Runes of Magic goes tower defense
Now here's something you don't see everyday in your MMO -- tower defense. Runes of Magic's newest PvP arena, Visdun Fortress, is a tower defense battle between two teams of three players.For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of tower defense, the objective is simple -- use stationary towers to defend your side of the board to make sure no monsters come in and reach your base. Towers can be usually made in different flavors, such as ice towers to slow down monsters, fire towers to damage monsters and burn them over time, etc. Towers can also be upgraded as the game progresses, as defeating monsters yields points you can spend on more towers or tower upgrades.
