GamesRelay

Name: Runes of Magic

Runes of Magic is one of the newest games to incorporate the free-to-play philosophy, developed by Taiwanese developers Runewaker Entertainment it has no monthly subscription fee, or time limits, trials, or any other such limitations. You can go sign up over on the official site, download the client, and get playing straight away. So you might be wondering how does this free game stay free? Well, players have the option of buying virtual goods with real world currency. Thankfully these goods aren't a requirement to playing, the game can still be an enjoyable one should you choose not to pay anything and most of the gear sold through the micro-transaction system is purely cosmetic, so you can still compete with the best, if you're willing to put the effort into getting the items the traditional way.

Before you begin your epic journey on the search for such you first need to choose what type of class you wish to play. There are six in total which include; Warrior, Knight, Rogue, Scout, Mage, and Priest, each have their own high's and low's, the Warrior being a tanking class, able to stand with the tallest and take a beating, while the Mage should be at the back, firing offensive spells off in all directions. The Priest is mostly a defensive class, a team player, a healer, and buffer. The Rogue on the other hand is the fast and nimble archer, able to deal damage from a distance. Once you've chosen your class and named your character anything other than Bob, you'll be set to start your adventure in the world of Taborea.

When you reach level 10 you're given the option of choosing a secondary class for your character, this extra class can affect your gameplay quite dramatically, if you chose to go with a melee character then why not take Priest as the secondary, allowing you to heal yourself. Both classes your character has are used and levelled up independently of each other, if you want to level up your secondary class for instance then you'll need to switch it to the primary class. You can of course duel wield both at the same time but because each class has its own exclusive skills, these are not available unless you set which ever classes skills you want to use to the primary class. It can sound a little confusing, but once you reach level 10 and choose the skill it does become much, much simpler.

Taborea is the land where Runes of Magic is set, it's nothing new, or original, but it fills in the background and at least gives some purpose to your existence within the world. The world is populated by a variety of people, monsters, and flora, and the landscapes change from thick forests to mines, castles, and villages, each of which has its own collection of monsters for you to slay and its own separate quests for you to complete. Often you'll find some of these quests overlap the different areas, to move you along, and the pacing is good enough that it doesn't get too repetitive very often. If however you've played one of Runes of Magic's biggest rival, World of Warcraft, then you'll no doubt feel right at home with the questing system, this also brings with it its own drawback, even though the game is free, knowing you have to start at the bottom of the pile and work your way through the quests can seem a little daunting, and let's be honest, questing can only go so far before you get fed up, regardless of how unique or entertaining they are on any game, which sometimes they're not. The majority of the quests are fairly light on story or value, the usual collect this, kill that, make a common appearance, much like most other games unfortunately.

The majority of your time spent in Taborea will be battling it out with enemies that come in all shapes and sizes, and the combat in Runes of Magic is a fairly simple affair, and easy to master. Performing an attack is as simple as double clicking the target, if you want to use any of your classes specialised skills then you can pop them in the hotbar or assign them to your hotkeys. Each of the skills and attacks have their own cooldown timers so you can't spam the best attack you have, some strategy and forward thinking is needed, especially when you come up against the larger bosses. The higher the level you become the more powerful you get and the more abilities and skills you acquire. Having touched on the quests earlier, this is probably the fastest and least boring way of gaining in experience, you can grind your way to the top if you wish, but it's far from ideal and a lot more boring and time consuming. A lot of the time you'll be assigned quests in areas particular to your level, giving you an equal chance at taking on any opponents, some will be a little too difficult, others will be next to impossible, that is, unless you're in a group. Friends can band together into groups to go on the hunt quite simply by right clicking and inviting them to join, or if you prefer you can create or join an existing guild.

Group combat is much the same as when you're fighting alone, however, if you have a high level player in the ground with you, the experience is shared among the party members, so you can just let a friend grind you up in an area you otherwise wouldn't stand a chance in, this is much faster for gaining experience but for a new player you'll be missing out on valued game experience and knowledge (not the experience your character gains). The group and guild hunts are mostly assembled for the bosses and dungeons where the risk is greater and the rewards are larger, but it is highly recommended and encouraged that you party up and join a guild, there's no substitute for having a few friends who can help you out.

What MMORPG would be complete without some player vs player combat? Runes of Magic has its own open PvP server where you can be attacked at any time. Once you reach level 15 you'll be able to become a PK (Player Killer), and killing and being killed by other players all revolves around its reputation system. If you constantly kill other players you'll receive low reputation as your reward, while if you kill players with a bad reputation then you'll be given good reputation. As your reputation changes so does your colour, something which is used to identify players reputation, whether it be good or bad. If you do choose to go down the player killing route then it isn't all downhill from then on, if you don't pick fights or kill anyone for some time then your reputation will return back to neutral or good. The other method of gaining reputation is to kill monsters which are five levels above your characters. So what's the point in the reputation system? Good and Bad has its own advantages and disadvantages, having a low reputation will make your character more powerful and you'll also drop more loot once killed, quite an incentive for any good-sided players. If you chose to purchase any items with real money then you'll be glad to know that you won't lose them upon death, something which would certainly put players off buying if that weren't the case.

The visual style of Runes of Magic is very similar to another prior mentioned game, a game which by today's graphical standards is fairly old-hat, yet that doesn't make them any less pleasing to the eye or enjoyable, they certainly do their job and represent the game quite well. There's a plethora of graphical options for you to haul yourself through, to have everything on maximum doesn't require the world's most expensive gaming computer, but the technical requirements aren't unusually high for the game. Performance is decent, even on a low end computer leaving you to enjoy the sights and sounds of Taborea in all their glory.

Runes of Magic isn't a unique game, it's a concept which has already been done and improved upon over the years, yet that doesn't make Runes of Magic any less enjoyable to play. It has plenty of content to keep you entertained for hours upon end and can be a pleasure to play with a group of friends, or if you get yourself into an active guild. For a free game, Runes of Magic has set a standard which even some pay to play games should aspire to become, and developers Runewaker Entertainment have promised numerous content updates later down the line, something which should keep new and existing players keep playing.