Now that I’ve been playing Runes of Magic for a while, I figured I’d share my thoughts about the game so far. Currently, I am leveling a Mage/Priest (mage 20, priest 15). When the mage is the primary class, I do an amazing amount of damage. The priest side does less damage, but feels more survivable.
At this stage, leveling is pretty easy. Each class has to be leveled individually. There are plenty of quests to level both classes, and the variety is pretty good. Having 10 dailies helps too. If you’re a casual player, you can spend an hour doing dailies and do longer quests on a free rainy day.
There are eight base classes in RoM, but really, there are more like 40+ classes since each dual class combination plays differently and has different elite skills. All of this variety would drive an altoholic crazy. I’m not an altoholic so sadly, I won’t ever experience most of the combinations out there. I’ll probably end up with a healer/dps and a tank/dps and that’s about it. Any more alts will be used for their bag space.
The people in Rom seem more helpful then in WoW. If I happen to be in an area where a group quest is, I almost always get ninja invited. If the fight is strange, then the tank usually explains it before starting. I don’t recall seeing a lot of this behavior in WoW. In EvE, the only reason you get a ninja invite is so that a pirate can kill you.
Much like WoW, if you want to be loved, play a tank or a healer. Pugs are always looking for one or the other. The ideal combination would be a priest/knight, but it looks like they’re hard to level. The developers seem to be coming up with an alternative in the druid/warden but right now not all of the details seem to be worked out on this combination, so it’s a little gimped and unfocused.
One strange difference between WoW and RoM is the chat. The mechanics of chat are similar, but the zone/world chat is usually pretty quiet. I believe world channel can cost money to broadcast on, so there is an explanation.
Overall, I am having a lot of fun. I’m beginning to find out who the good people and guilds are. There is still a lot of world for me to explore and development is very active. Class and world balancing can happen every day. Some folks complain about the lack of stability but I think the rapid change makes things exciting. It also speaks to the developers’ desire to make the game better.