Due to some decent reviews of the beta, (and another one here) I’ve decided to try Runes of Magic. It looks pretty, and while there tend to be things associated with Korean MMOs that I personally don’t like (movement issues, etc.), I do like the fact that it’s free to play, that you can build a dual spec similar to Guild Wars, player housing, and the fact that you don’t seem to need to specialise in crafting professions. So we will see. :D
It was difficult to find a good mirror to download the gamefiles from, as my original choice lacked the exe file. After you do finally manage to download the files, the patching and installing section will take quite a while to finish. There are some good “Survival Guide” tips on the forums.
Ouch, WordPress just ate the rest of this post as I went to publish. Quick recap, and then I’m clean it up later. :(
Overall, it’s much prettier than I thought it would be. You get the use of a horse right off the bat, which is nice (although it only lasts for 24 hours). There are the same kill-ten-rats quests that we’re all familiar with, as you would expect. There’s a trippy mushroom land instance, like a kid’s game on psychedelics. And there are some nice touches, like the gift bags that you get for every level.
All in all, quite nice for a free to play MMO – I’m impressed. It’s not something that I would play as a main game, but for casual play it’s worth the download.