Neat start, disastrous PVE, ...
Or full review with images http://vkael.wordpress.com/2011/01/11/mmo-review-runes-of-magic/
Runes of Magic has been talked about a lot lately, a lot of people stating that the game is one of the best free MMOs out there and of course I don't blame anyone for liking a game. However, in my opinion, all the hype is just fiction:
First off, the developers have created a nice starting area for both races, with some nice dialogues and a few appealing quests. However, when you finally leave your starting area, the boredom begins: You receive the same type of quests over and over again, 'go kill 30 wolves' or 'Gather 55 flowers'. Other MMOs are also like that, but they do have some nice quests with some different gameplay mechanics. The difficulty is also a bit out of place, you think you're progressing well, you've done 10 quests, you move on to the next area, you actually have a higher level than the creatures, yet they still beat you to death.
Next up, the visuals: Of course, you can't expect much from an MMO, because it has to run smoothly for everyone, however the animations are just disgusting, they're not smooth at all, the movement animations are awkward, ...
There are some spells with nice eye-candy, however for the rest of the game, don't expect any high resolution textures or something like that.
PvP can be fun if it were to be available earlier in the game. Because well finding a guild shouldn't be hard and siege games are fun apparently, however, I'm level 27 and I've still not found out how to access PvP arenas.
The secondary class system can also be fun, but lets be honest, who would want to level his secondary class separately after having reached level 30. They're trying to help you with the secondary class leveling by giving you a skill that will allow you to teleport to another zone, with multiple low level quests. However, again, the boring quests come back. And after horrendous leveling, you've reached level 15 and you want to get your first elite skill, but then comes the next: You need to craft materials, items,... in order to get the skill and for that you need to talk to a blacksmith trainer and so on and then finally keep right clicking wood and stones all over the world and wait for the character to finish picking it up. I mean, why would someone want to watch the character just stand there and watch him play the same animation over and over again for almost 20 seconds, then you move on and find more wood.
Overall, I must say this MMO is not anything special at all, the PVE gets boring right after the starting areas, the PvP is somehow hidden and the fact that you have to level up your secondary class separately is just too much time consuming and unnecessary, because you're just going to do the same old quests again and again.
5.0/10