Melaisis's Runes of Magic review

I don't agree with the angle you take here. It seems to me the biggest knock on this game is that it essentially offers nothing new from LotR and WoW. But you also point out there are no monthly fees.

What if someone who doesn't want to pay those monthly tries this game instead? If a person has never played LotR and WoW, would this game have the same weaknesses?

I don't like how you assume everyone who plays MMO plays every MMO. I've only played Maple Story for the simple reason that it's completely free. Same with games on BYOND. Those are free. I've never played WoW or LotR.

The way I see it - and take it as you will because I'm not much of an MMO player - the monthly fee ones are one category and the no monthly fee ones are another. In the same way that I'd expect less of a $20 budget title than of a full priced game, I'd also sooner compare a "free" MMO (I assume there is an initial purchase involved though?) to others of its kind - be it Maple Story or CABAL Online, the one I've played most recently, than to WoW.

That said, the point that in terms of content it does precisely the same thing that all the others have already done repeatedly is well taken. Even your comments on quest chains just screamed "ah, exactly like CABAL then" to me, and even as somebody who knows WoW only from word of mouth I can see how raiding is not considered anything special anymore these days.

Didn't mean to come down so hard on the review in my initial statement. I think it's well written and flows well; I just don't like the approach taken.

On the other hand, I understand MMOs obviously have a completley different dynamic than typical video games. Perhaps I just don't understand all the little nuances and the terminology.

With that said, I still think this review alienates people like me who don't play a lot of MMOs.

Aye. In the initial draft I knocked the whole 'been there, done that' aspect hard. As you say, the review does alienate those of you who haven't played many MMOs, but this is 2009 and they've been around for almost a decade. Even if you've just played MapleStory or even RuneScape, you'll find that most of the features are simply copy and pasted here.

Thank you for the other compliments, though. ^^