I have been hearing today that the latest free-to-play MMO, Runes of Magic, had some great success since launching their open beta phases. Within the first day over 100,000 characters were born resulting in the need for Frogster Interactive to add a new gaming world for its users; now having risen to seven active beta servers. With an official release date expected for the first quarter of 2009, and no download or monthly fees, it does appear to be one of the more deeper free-to-play MMOs to potentially hitthe market. But will it reign supreme or fall into the ever increasing list of “just another” imitation?

After looking a little further into the details, it does appear that the Taiwanese creators of RoM have taken many elements of their much loved World of Warcraft (yep, they are fans..shock!) and implemented it into their own developments. But that said, there are a few key differences that do separate. For one, character advancement allow you to switch between two classes (of which there are 6 primary and secondary classes from which you can pick), the first being chosen at creation and the second at level 10. It does somewhat boggle my mind to think that you can create a mage class that has the ability to backstab and stealth. Although this would be rather an amazing ability for the Arena in WoW I must say!

One rather handy function of RoM though has to be the Rune System. We have all had those moments where we win a new item and equip it, only to find that we suddenly changed from looking like Pimpmaster deluxe to someone that frequently rides the failboat. But in RoM this is no longer an issue. You are able to strip powers from an item, place said power in a rune and attach the rune to the new item. Voilà. Still look sexy but with the added oomph of the more powerful item. For the vanity lovers this has to be an attraction point, and a similar mentality has also been added to the in-game player housing, which grows in size and stature as you yourself improve.

With the dynamic dungeon randomisation (no dungeon layout will remain the same the next time you enter, guild and server wars, one does have to say that they are at least trying to provide something for everyone. Would I play it? Probably not…but for those not wanting to fork out subscription fees and spend cash on expansions, this could be just your thing. MMOBox will continue to bring you updates as the beta progresses.