Great idea, I would of joined in, but been getting some pretty negative info on mmorpg forums about the item mall impact and requirements personally i'd like to play a paid subscription MMO with GB users... would be better (Until my wow guild comes alive again when cataclysm comes out :P):
This was an article posted a couple of months ago, and explains a little about the business model:
I found an interesting thread which tells the problems you will get if you just want to play this as a "free" mmorpg without investing any money into their ingame shop. Yes it is possible to play this game without money and lot of the people around will tell you this, but most dont know how the game looks like if you go this route. I only can advice to think about the class you choose if you dont want to invest any cash, some classes are heavily dependant on good gear. As a beginner you should know how long it would take to gain the same equipment like someone just buy from the cash shop.
I also did add some hints for gameplay to to this thread that beginners get important informations which you often dont read at the beginning.
This article describes some interesting aspects about the current state:
forum.us.runesofmagic.com/showthread.php
* Clean end-game gear costs $266.70US minimum
* Investment equals ~2 years playing a subscription-based game
*
Farming enough daily tokens would take 165 days
* Some suggestions to lower cost without impacting Frogster's bottom line too much.
* 14 items to be upgraded with six desirable stats each.
* 1 weapon to be upgraded to Tier 8 using vendor-available fusion stones*
* 15 items to be refined to +6
* PvE server (no seals required)
* Original gear is "clean" of undesirable stats.
* Stats are obtained from looted items, no buying stats with diamonds.
* The items enchanted are the only ones the player will ever equip, he already has and/or will not upgrade to any epic gear from end-game instances.
* 6 Purified Fusion stones will be required for each item to obtain 6 desirable stats. (purified stones 2$ each)
* 6 stones x 14 slots = 84 purified stones. 55 diamonds per stone = 4620 diamonds.
* 8 arcane transmuter changes per item = 182 charges = 3360 daily tokens = 34 days of dailies OR 546 diamonds.
* Attaining Tier 8 requires 729 Fusion Stones, when buying random stones this equates to 1,093,500 gold.
* Combining all of said fusion stones uses 364 arcane transmuter charges, 10,920 daily tokens, 110 days of dailies or 1092 diamonds.
* With the shady practice of not documenting the effects of upgrade jewels, we are only left to guess as to their effectiveness. Based on purely subjective evidence of forum posts I'm making a conservative estimate of on average 20 jewels to reach +6. I will reduce this to 19 as it is practical to use vendor jewels to +1.
* 19 jewels x 15 slots = 285 jewels = 855 diamonds.
* Purified Fusion Stones: 4620 diamonds
* Arcane transmuter charges: 1638 diamonds**
* Refining jewels: 855 diamonds
* Total: 7113 diamonds
Another point to think about....:
Cost you can expect to pay in "real money": $266.70US, or around 2 years of subscribing to a P2P game.
Note this gears you for one function of one class. As a Knight/Rogue I can imagine wanting 3 sets:
Knight Tanking
Knight DPS/PvP
Rogue DPS
Extra bank/backpack space, permanent mounts, Exp/TP furniture, Transport Runes, Golden Hammers, Skill Books ... all of this must be paid.
Some more tricks n tipps about the game you dont read everywhere
Another personal hint about Diamonds:
Diamonds are the inofficial ingame currency for items not gold anymore i.e. buying items from other players. If you buy diamonds and you want to use it in the auction house for items and not for the ingame shop, you have to wait for 30 days at the moment and there is no notice about that. I heard they want to change this soon probably, but just that you know before you buy them.
If you love PvP and want to join PvP servers:
Be aware that if you get pk´ed that you could loose any hard earned random item you have equipped or in your backpack...it is also possible that higher lvl players with full equipped item shop gear milk other players due to the drop chance - lvl difference doesnt matter. The difference between pimped cash shop gear and normal one is significant. There are additional costs for seals on pvp servers which you dont need on the pve servers. Since there is not much endgame content, ganking/pking will happen of course so be prepared if you choose such a server, quality pvp doesnt exist except duels but you can find duels also on pve servers. PvP servers offer just ganking in comparison to the pve servers, nothing more. If you want to be a successfull pk ´er dont even think running around without full pimped out gear.
If you kill a "bad" player it counts aswell as PK with the common penalties and drop chances !
Best class for PK is probably a combo with one stealth class, since the more pk rep you gain the more people will hunt you of course. It is common that PK players prefer weaker players.
some rules which may sound funny but are unfortuantely reality...
- never do pvp with your main character otherwise you cant quest anymore due to penalties
- If you dont want to loose equipment: pvp nacked...alternative is only full pimped char with item shop gear, same counts for inventory
- If you want to start pvp on a pvp server, just start talking to any npc and maybe seconds later someone will stabb your back. Alternative, you look for an opponent which seems weaker and is not prepared for your attack.
There are no factions, RvR or Battlegrounds on any server.
Guild vs Guild:
There are some options which you should know.
- it is possible that opponents invite players from other guilds
- it is possible to leave the guild to avoid the war
- it is possible to hide in your house to avoid the war
- you can declare war on a guild even if the guild is in war already (which is an exploit currently)
- if you take part in a guild war the opponent can attack you without warnings
- if your guild just make one kill and logout you win the guild war
- when someones declares war on your guild and all your guild members logout, the other guild looses 200k due to 0:0 result.
.....well you see there are some issues here - thats about guild wars in this game currently.
Character- Skill Development:
You get talent points (TP) which you can invest into skills for each of your two classes. On average you can easily max 4 skills up to lvl 50, this seems first quiete nice but you have to know things about that.
- you dont have to plan how you skill your character for the endgame, but of course you should choose important ones first during lvl up.
- there are no individual skill distribution i.e. crowd control vs damage, you can be both depends which is your class combo.
- after you reached lvl 50 some kind of grindfest starts since you still can get talent points, which means the more you grind after you reached max lvl the more skills you can obtain. In other words, they did implement quests so you level up fast but the talent point grind is still a part of the game like known from other f2p/asian games. In other words the grind starts at endgame and not before, dont forget that you have to lvl up 2 classes in one character aswell collecting talent points for their individual skills later on. The arguement that this game is grindfree is not correct.
Stats distribution:
There is one major important stat in this game: Stamina - which benefits every class. You will find magic classes with almost similar hp like tanks, there are magic class combos out there with more than 10k+ hp.
Stats are influenced a lot by items, up to 60-70% later on, so dont expect that you get most stats+ just by leveling up, basic character stats doesnt mean that much.
Notes:
* Making a pure T8 weapon would cost $1,503.36 in Purified Fusion Stones alone.
** Discount this if you are willing to spent 165 days farming dailies...
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