Runes of Tragic - The Dire State of Runes of Magic [MMOPINION]

[@Nioxxic]

"Create the problem, sell the solution" is the single truest statement regarding F2P games I have ever heard.

[@cg56578]

same for the masks

[@Self-replicating_whatnot]

"Create a problem, don't have a solution for 9 years" is arguably worse

[@littlemoth4956]

@@Self-replicating_whatnot I'd say not.

[@As5Hat]

yes

[@glenndiddy]

Even pay2play games are getting in on this though

[@BrutalJambon]

PR Manager who contacted Strife thinking they would get cool publicity with an influential KZbinr who praised their game before: "I have made a huge mistake"

[@MastaGambit]

They were probably fired

[@johndalquen7668]

There's people in a boardroom doing an atomic facepalm and screaming

[@McHotbody]

even bad publicity is still publicity ... just sayin

[@Neion8]

'Hey, I might've just gotten us some free publicity! ... Wait, why do I hear boss music?'

[@falcontomto]

If the game crashes within minutes because of memory issues, no one could possibly put it in a positive light. I'm honestly impressed by how Josh's video doesn't just end there. This is in no way shippable.

[@Dark74111]

Gameforge....anything under that company turns to shit, the same with Gamigo both of them are just graveyards for mmo's.

[@regalgiant1597]

Gamigo, the kind of company that pulls over when they see roadkill, picks it up and makes dinner with it, nothing not exploited with them.

[@Hecktar1]

@@regalgiant1597 they will even eat the bones

[@RiseInAfterlife]

add NCsoft to that list.

[@MrFogbert]

gameforge..... it been a while i heard that name ..... grave memorys to now again ACE-Online....

[@anthonynd92]

You gotta try Chronicles of Arcadia, private server. No crashes, memory leak fixed, 4k resolution. Devs, GMs always online, weekly class balance, custom instances, all classes and subclases with new combinations which never existed on same char. All what this game ever needed. Regards.

[@TheDrunkardHu]

I've stopped playing MMOs altogether because of this. My reptile brain is too susceptible to the predatory practices. It's really refreshing to hear you articulate the things I felt were going on, but couldn't articulate myself. Keep up the good work, and thanks for bringing others to the light.

[@Farvadude]

OSRS evades all that, but it's not the kind of experience the action-RPG type MMOs offer so it doesn't scratch that itch for a lot of people

[@lusterlessnova3199]

I'll be so bold and recommend Final Fantasy XIV to you in that case. It has mostly cosmetic items and mounts, 2 items that can level up your jobs or your retainers (which no one recommends since it means you will have a weapon with no manual for it so to speak), and you can play all the way to lvl 60 with every job on the free trial. Unless you don't sleep at all, getting through with even one job will take a few weeks. And the people are so fucking friendly! Sure, there is that one odd occurrence every... year? Honestly it's rare. But generally, you will get help and get things explained if you ask for it, have a nice/meme chat in the social hubs, and so on. And you definitely get a very nice and memorable experience without the shop. The game throws dozens of mounts at you anyway (I have 106 personally and only about 5 of those are from the shop). While still on the subject of mounts, they have no difference aside from looks. They all are the same speed, and can be used everywhere aside from cities and dungeons. The only bad thing is that we have no reptile species for your reptile bra- AHA! Got you! We have dragon girls and dragon boys as playable races (which admittedly require the expansion, but there is a lot of time if you want it, before you actually have to buy it). Aside from that we have Humans, Catgirls/boys, Elves, Ogre sized humans, buff kitties, potatoes (you'll get it) and bunny girls. Oh and last one? If you buy the current latest expansion, you get all below that one for free. No need to buy the old ones one by one. Get Endwalker, get them Stormblood and Shadowbringer thrown at you with it. No catch and no hidden surprise. And the best part? Josh has made a video about FFXIV. Go give that man another like.

[@whitemoonwolf13]

i would suggest maybe to take a look at guild wars 2. cash shop is all cosmetic and utility (mail carriers, world v world finisher skins, gathering item skins stuff like that) they've got a great account (proper account) bound system so if you unlock something like a piece of armour or a skin it's unlocked for all the characters you might make which ties in nicely with the massive wardrobe system. mounts that have unique skills and movement abilities, 4 come with the path of fire expansion the other 3 you really need to grind for but no real money is needed, just time. core maps are still populated, loads of guilds to join, the community for the most part is very helpful, hub cities are talkative. it's a buy one and done type thing so you don't even need to worry about a sub fee. the free trial covers core game and the first expack so you really don't have anything to loose giving it a shot. plus the graphics are beautiful, some of the best i've seen

[@alexterzaghi7256]

@@lusterlessnova3199 I will say that in FFXIV, pre-ordering expansions gives a huge exp boosting item (The biggest exp boost in the game). While this isn't the biggest, and is account wide. It's a little iffy

[@AshBuddha]

@@alexterzaghi7256 Literally leveling up your alt job for your character gives you a big exp boost. Preordering for an xp boost item is purely on you. It is not necessary.

[@jacynthagraan8652]

Runes of Magic is the ex JSH broke up with on good terms and then they got back together and he realized why the grew apart

[@Notsram77]

This is exactly how I feel about Warframe. I really like Warframe, and I want it to be successful, but I just can't come back to it. It was a different time.

[@Fox_Olive]

@@Notsram77 tacked on systems, bloated yet ultimately similar open worlds, ideas that are never expanded on and simply forgotten. Thats why you cant come back to warframe. Warframe desperately needs a sequel on a new engine to simply just clean up the game

[@JoshStrifeHayes]

That's brilliant. I hate it.

[@jonathansoko1085]

@@Notsram77 Yes bruh, i had over 5k in mission hours, quit due to the glaring problems then the other day got nostalgic and reinstalled and instantly regretted it. Its a shell of its former self. I saw de on stream today talk about having so much content done from the past few years but they just forgot to release it, and no it wasnt a joke. They were all talking about it not being their fault cuz they handed it to someone else then disappeared. I couldnt believe what i was hearing, if i did that at work while managing id be fired.

[@AraliciaMoran]

@@Fox_Olive The game engine is still good. What the game needs is stopping playing around with new ideas and refocus on the core mechanics, which are being progressively deteriorated by new releases. What's frustrating me the most with warframe currently is that they have a lot of good ideas, but they don't invest into any of them. Even if I talk only about the extra stuff, I'd rather have great operator, great railjack, great liches or great necramech experience; any one of them; rather than meh everything.

[@caleboleary182]

I'm very nostalgic about ROM but props on calling out all their issues. They're just trying to milk it for as long as they can without investing money in devs to fix the bugs. There are private servers out there where fan developers have fixed the crashes and upgraded everything to 64 bit architecture, so its definitely doable.

[@Self-replicating_whatnot]

Thanks for heads up, i liked the idea of this game so i'll go find one.

[@Darthvegeta8000]

ROFL love this. Fans outdid the devs. My god...

[@TheMusicUser]

@@Darthvegeta8000 Same with Archeage (ArcheRage private servers)

[@AnhNguyen-hn9vj]

many people complain about how this game keep milking money from players. I mean almost every need diamond to play. lol However, it is not a bad game for occasional gamers. It is not so bad if you are not so focus on gears when playing the game.

[@sunnydlite-t8b]

14:05 to be fair they did do something about it at one point. They added a message that told you that bug was because your computer was shite. Not joking, that was their fix back in ch.3 or 4.

[@chektek]

I would LOVE to see this exact game with some texture upgrades and a non-predatory cash shop...

[@chektek]

@@sonfable8809 this game has a way better class and skill system than wow.

[@chektek]

@@sonfable8809 😂 welcome to the internet everyone

[@chektek]

@@sonfable8809 I love all the puppies and kittens

[@IdhrilCoA]

Chronicles of Arcadia check it out.

[@bfunkydunk]

This game as huge potential, but under gameforge it will just die.

[@RockorSomething83]

The algorithm works in mysterious ways. I hardly play the games you cover, but I *love* videos like these. You got yourself a new Subscriber!

[@JoshStrifeHayes]

Its nice to see my alogrithm bribe works :D

[@blackstarxd2031]

@@JoshStrifeHayes a log rythm? 🤔

[@L3M0N4NDCH3RRYZZ]

Frogster at least tried. Gms were in chat, they had podcasts promoting the game and new content that was coming out. They activated the diamond exchange, and they even had those bags you could buy with gold that had a random prize in them. I ended up winning a permanent black pegasus mount from one. Runes of Magic has(had) so much potential and has everything you would want in a good mmo, and it is being ran right into the ground and it has been going on for years.

[@marcindebicki1199]

Yeah but it is still part of the nostalgia. Aside from crashing bug which started to happen in early open beta (actually closed beta events were just fine) game up to chapter 2 had nearly perfect balance between cash shop and free play. But then problems were already there as the most often response by Frogster to any reports of issues was "It's Runewakers fault! We are just a publisher, we just publish what they deliver!" And that was basically argument in every discussion starting with stability ending with item shop content.

[@TimidTortoise1988]

This is the kind of honesty I like to see. You call out their bullshit while at the same time giving praise where you see fit. Just discovered your channel. Lovin your videos man!

[@Izmeiah]

You have turned nailing companies to walls into an art form and I really appreciate it.

[@JK-gm6kk]

Hes like the Gordon Ramsey of mmo's. It's too bad the idiot sandwich isn't in the vid too, to stumble over their words in a feeble attempt to save face.

[@HansPeter-iv9ck]

Honestly ? Everyone playing a GameForge game should know by now what they sign up for. They managed to ruin a game like Tera that should already make all alarm bells ring.

[@awworrell]

Yea I played tera a few months ago and it is a really great game. the problem in that game is the cash shop. It seems like everything revolves around it.

[@kyotheman69]

EME did terrible job as well, they had bad cash shop as well, most guides wanted you to get those mounts, etc just for power boost

[@Zarryon12]

I can still have fun on Tera though. Mostly the thing i hate is the fact that keys are SOOOO expensive.

[@dominicthibeault6556]

@@Zarryon12 what i hate of tera is that they want you to play as a Loli. and half the new releases are genderlocked. that is honestly what made me stop.

[@OpiatesAndTits]

@@dominicthibeault6556 yeah the Loli toons are a huge fucking turn off in any game. Like I assume because it’s a big Korean thing that on their servers and in their culture it’s innocent. On a western server I just wonder if their a pedo.

[@hamerwolf]

This channel is highly underrated

[@assheismyheart]

True!

[@yetikoalaace7780]

I agree

[@heribertoperezbelandria6068]

So true dude

[@MitchellWinning]

Legit, liked and subscribed

[@lucasnikodemus8813]

Word!

[@Scarecr0wn]

RoM is one of those games I remember looking much better then it actually looks. Personally I find it strange it´s still alive.

[@mayaspare5772]

It's no strange since the game is actually good with its concept. There is good pvp and interesting dual-class system so a few hundred people will play this even after all shit that game has. I tried to find similar project but... Yeah :D

[@Josh_2976]

Really sad to see this. ROM was my first MMO after years of wanting to play WoW but being too young to afford it. I'm a GW2 player now but always thought about going back to give Runes a try again. Sad that this is what it has came to.

[@attila0323]

Same! ROM was my first MMO and loved it, sometimes I still want to play it, but my account is deleted long ago. Now I play GW2 and the only thing I miss is to be OP with a high character in a lower level area.

[@Josh_2976]

@@attila0323 I do like GW2s way of balancing gameplay in lower level areas. I've had a lot of fun earning rewards for completing lower level areas and helping friends level up. I'm all hyped for End of Dragons too 😂

[@UltimatTacoman]

The speech at the end felt like I should be seeing Josh yelling at some executives in a court room. Very compelling. Love watching your stuff, even if I have minimal interest in MMOs

[@edwardlecore141]

Watching Josh play mmos is more fun than playing them yourself these days. Mainly because he can make sense of the depressing reality of them, and has fun anyway.

[@assheismyheart]

True!

[@PsyrenXY]

Yeah I don't have a ton of free time to invest into these mmos only to find out they're shit. Better to watch JSH or LazyPeon or MMOByte etc play until they hit the paywall or find out the game is shit for me.

[@oliveryt7168]

@@PsyrenXY even of they are fun, I find that those kind of games really are big time waste machines...

[@silvithril]

07:00 That Runescape Ad chiming in into the video is pretty hilarious.

[@NG.4769]

I always thought ROM could have had a chance at even giving WoW a run for its money if they had simply taken the game more seriously, starting with not being free to play but instead charging a cheaper subscription fee than WoW. That would've enabled them to hire more development still skip needing a cash shop altogether. There was a ton of interest towards the game in the early days...even $5 a month would've worked.

[@Neion8]

Honestly, all a WoW clone would've had to do is just not fuck itself up; like keep to your core gameplay and use it to tell interesting stories while holding the option for PvP content. Cosmetic-only cash-shops, no forcing the player to spend dozens of hours grinding for stuff that becomes instantly obsolete the moment the next patch drops (like doing so for expansions still ain't great, but is understandable, but every patch is fucking ridiculous), no mandatory daily's and no artificial progession systems that get ditched. Just stories, some reasonable gameplay to make the people feel involved with said stories and the understanding that endgame =/= all the game - that's all you need and you'll grow a playerbase that will grow with you. It's a shame that gaming companies so rarely understand their own market and drive away their own customers after making their developers work so hard for so little reason. They're like invasive predators that have no respect for the food chain, so they grow fat from feasting on all they prey and then starve when there's no longer anything to eat.

[@lansi2642]

This is so nostalgic but I feel your pain.. I used to love the siege mode they had going on although there was some questionable stuff going on there.. And the golden egg mini game.. the pets.. the leveling felt good. Maybe we'll get something similar one day.

[@Kilmoran]

That memory leak issue is pure amateur hour... Seriously. That is an extremely well known basic thing that most games in general are programmed to resolve.

[@SuperFunHappyLies]

and as someone else pointed out a private server has managed to fix it - why can't they?

[@estupor9081]

@@SuperFunHappyLies That's because people who host private servers actually care about the games. These publishers only care about the cash shop.

[@iHazMuffinz]

@@SuperFunHappyLies its becuase gameforge has no devs, they are a company that buy up old mmorpgs and try to profit on them. they have tera EU as well and it has a memory leak crash bug aswell.

[@basedeltazero714]

@@estupor9081 Charge to clear the memory leak. ... not to fix the bug, heavens no. Make people pay to clear their memory. This may technically qualify as ransomware, but when has that sort of detail ever stopped the greed train.

[@OpiatesAndTits]

@@SuperFunHappyLies because the devs aren’t allowed to work on anything but cash shop items and keeping the servers on I’d imagine. The game can technically function with the memory bug as with the other bugs mentioned. Frankly they might not even take long to fix. (Aka cost a lot) but that’s still time and energy spent on something non profitable. It’s also possible they can’t fix these things because the current employees don’t know how. Like maybe it’s at a point where all the know how to do is load cosmetics etc into a cash shop and tweak the cash shop. Obviously launching new servers to get the whales to buy titles was a genius bit of slight of hand,

[@nb_nic]

I can't help but feel a little bad for the PR rep who contacted you, watching this now and realizing if they didn't know already, just how bad their company is

[@VyperByteX]

So this video is 2 years old. I checked, the memory leak crash is still present and unpatched. That makes it 11 years now the bug has gone unfixed.

[@cub3978]

Guess what, Nov 2024 and still they have that

[@keiyangoshin3650]

I love how this video starts lol. And I must agree. While the game doesn’t ‘attack’ the player with item shop windows every hour it is true that the following must be bought with real money; inventory space, bank space, extra classes slots. If you’ve played TERA (another Gameforge game) you will recognise the item shop. As a new player you don’t necessarily know what to hold on to and what to sell, so inventory management can quickly become an issue. As a Steam user I can confirm that the game doesn’t save our user options. This includes, graphics, keybinds, hotbar actions. It’s ironic but if you want to play this game you’ll have to get used to how it’s setup. The only thing I Haven’t experienced in my short gameplay was the crashes, not even in the city. **dodges stones** This may be because I’m physically closer to the EU servers, but I have no evidence of this. The game is grindy from its very start and if this speed of levelling is increased by 3 thanks to free gift items and daily rewards, I can’t even begin to imagine how slow it is in the original servers. The writing is average and the quests are 90% of time, fetch, kill, collect. The music is great but the graphics are forgettable. If like me you are playing for fun with a group of friends, this game is just good enough. However, by all accounts, if the endgame is where you want to get, you can either spend 1000 hours or 1000 €$£. If you have neither, maybe chose another game. Thank you Josh for the great video. I hope Gameforge listens to the fans, at long last. Stay safe. ❤️

[@wuguxiandi9413]

This game went to shit the moment GameForge took over from Frogster. Suddenly...no in game GMs chilling in cities you could chat to, no more Event GMs in world chat, massive increase in pay to win...

[@skimasksusedcondom5622]

From what I've seen thats the biggest red flag a game is going to shat. If staff never hangout in game anymore when in the past it was so frequent

[@Frostgnaw]

Ironic how Activision Blizzard did the same thing...

[@sleptiq]

It was shit way before that

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

It's sad to see how RoM, Tera, Aion, NosTale and Elsword are sitting with the same company as Metin2.

[@ashurdraco1510]

@@HappyBeezerStudios Well because they deserve it, this wasnt never too good games... now they became just more worse 😆

[@krcefran3318]

you are just a beast of a creator in terms of quality, quantity and entertainment. After binging your videos I must say you changed a lot of my opinions on mmos in general and made it easier to see shady business practices that they implement. I was shocked when I saw only 38k subs since it felt like I was watching a multimillion sub channel def a channel buried in the algorithm that deserves more limelight

[@JoshStrifeHayes]

Thanks Fran, I'm just glad you enjoy the videos :)

[@eagletgriff]

He was at 38k subs only over a year ago?!?!?!? His subs 20x in only a year, deserved

[@dhoelath6648]

Used to play that years ago. Has been in my "never touch it, not worth it" list for a looong time now. There used to be a time where I thought it had potential but when both developers and publisher only care about introducing more cash shop items and never fixing anything, there is no reason for anyone to bother with it really. I am just surprised there are still people paying Gameforge enough that they are willing to keep the servers running... some people just never learn.

[@dantereinhardt6911]

I never played that game. But just from the description, I can see that if they released a new version of the game. With non-pay to win mechanics, subscription, actual focus on gameplay and further development of the game, it could stand on the same level of the big five. But the company doesn't want to, and it doesn't really need to. It would be a risky endeavor that might not pay off, but I still think it is a very big loss of potential.

[@diablo.the.cheater]

Yes this game was nuts, the leveling was amazing, it was hard as bannanas to level, and to end each area you baasically would need to run proper hard dungeons to get equipment for the next area, if you where too idiotic and get youself killed too much, it would slow your leveling, allowing you to become more familar with the game at that point as to not overwelm you. It was very good... except for the cashshop

[@tken118]

If RoM releases a new server, with the exp/tp/item boosts, removes the cash shop p2w and leaves in only the cosmetics that dont give stats, fixes all the bugs.. It owuld be a great game.

[@blavviax9438]

Mr. Hayes... I love the "MMOPINION" Format! keep it up

[@arbonkrasniqi1491]

Please just look into chronicles of Arcadia ! It’s runes of magic but without all the bugs! It’s for the people free to play!!

[@jaquenhgar4251]

Can i set high graphic without crashes?

[@ivanbaumann1237]

@@jaquenhgar4251 to my knowledge yes, they fixed that bug though i find that the beginning is pretty hard, as they sell almost everything for diamonds in the auction house and i found it really hard to get my hands on some (they have an exchange npc with an exchange rate of 200k per diamond)

[@BabyCal]

Game looks fun. Memory issue alone would drive me up the wall though lol. Between this and Otherland, you shown us some *interesting* games recently

[@Hogscraper]

I'm surprised 'microtransactions bound to a single character' didn't make an appearance in your deadly sins video series. That's sounds about as scummy a thing as you can possibly get. Especially considering the cost involved.

[@markup6394]

Its not scammy if they state it clearly on the product: in FF14 they always write in red script if the service is account- or character bound. As long as you know which it is there is no fault in it. But in this case, the product stated clearly "account bound" which is false as it turned out.

[@zacheryeckard3051]

@@markup6394 No, it's scummy either way.

[@adrian.2478]

@@zacheryeckard3051 if it tells you all the details and you go on with purchase and then complain about something, you deserve everything you get sadly.

[@zacheryeckard3051]

@@adrian.2478 That doesn't make it not scummy. "Selling single-use microtransactions" is scummy all by itself, even if they don't hide that's what it is.

[@adrian.2478]

@@zacheryeckard3051 that you think something is not right doesn't mean that it's actually wrong. Instead of complaining don't buy stuff then XD

[@dundorg261]

I have played RoM (before gameforge) for a long time, spend too much money. I totally agree about your point on the potential and the good feature that has in it. Also terribly on your side about the cash shop, that's a shame. Some month ago I discover chronycles of arcadia, same feature, same gameplay, just better. My only wish was not to be alone rebegin it

[@tylerbuck2776]

I just watched your Runes of Magic video the other day. I was excited to try it, and now I don't know that I will. Thank you for your videos and your hard work.

[@Frankenllama]

"bite sized" >27 min long That's a whole meal my dude

[@BloodDripss]

not as long as most of his "worst mmo ever" vids actually so bite sized for him lmao

[@supersolenoid]

Wow, that was harsh! XD Thank you, Josh: we need many more eye-opening reviews like this, severe but truthful and honest. Hopefully some publishers will learn their lesson, even if in the hardest way...

[@shoyu6]

Better the honest jerk than the lying nice guy.

[@artemisjr1237]

@@shoyu6 That's how I am in RL. I believe that being honest is kind. Most people like being lied to though that's why honesty is seen as a bad thing.

[@slevinchannel7589]

Gameforge? Didnt they create one of the BEST games ever? 'Teamtanks'?!?

[@glenmoody-elias1040]

Thank you for your integrity. Josh, continue to be you. Thank you.

[@DR4C44N]

Runes of Magic...now there is a title I have forgotten long time ago. Some good memories. But yeah...crappy decisions back a few years drove me and my friends away.

[@awworrell]

Wow it's incredible to see this game again. I used to play it a really really really long time ago. I think it is the first game I ever played where I was introduced to a cash shop. It's pretty crazy it's still around. I remember it being really fun and an overall great time. I'm glad i haven't gone back to it as it seems like it's become way worse than when I played it back in the day.

[@rosaecrux]

Oh. Another game I used to play. Yes, many years ago, I cannot remember the cards, if it was not from the start in the game, I was before that time or did not care. I played a tank and healer combination and was thus a slow leveler. Good to know that my memory served me right, now that I see the UI of the game, I was never quite sure if it was that game I played and remembered.

[@deansmith6593]

Played it for a few years when it was newer, it became too pay to win. They made gathering materials available with mementoes if I remember correctly and I made most of my gold gathering(was hard enough competing with the botters as it was). Could not keep up with the gear grind unless I wanted to dump tons of money into the game so I quit. Was a very good game, had lots of fun and met some cool people. Nothing lasts forever.

[@ehcko.]

100%! my friend and I use to pvp in this game, and all I remember is the mage/priest combo was OP, and getting competitive gear was very pay2win. oh and griefing guilds like H.O.G.G. use to run around in this game ganking everyone. It was both a fun and frustrating experience I kinda miss.

[@PhenomRom]

The dual class system was so fucking good bro. 😭

[@wuguxiandi9413]

@@ehcko. I found mage/archer was very op with the fire arrow spam. Was almost a requirement in guild wars and higher end instances. My favourite class was Warden/Warrior as the pet could tank the guards at the towers whilst you capped it. After they fixed it, I became a Warden/Archer for Chiron.

[@jual-rakid]

It was heavy p2w with cash shop, I played W/K class which is underwhelming because class balance is non-existent, pre 55 its mage, post 55 its scout I manage to keep playing but most player quit because the game require to spend a lot of money

[@nuhyu4711]

Saw the boosted servers and was tempted to come back for a while... but seeing they still haven’t fixed the memory leak or the steam issues... I better not. I know I am susceptible to the shop purchases. I wish I weren’t but I like the momentary feeling of progress from it. It’s what they count and prey on and I hate it. Thanks for this video, consider yourself a like and a subscription richer!

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

Makes me wonder how p servers are doing. oh, some got slightly higher rates than the official "boosted" servers, and others go all the way to 15x rates with a fixed memory leak, new content and true f2p.

[@robysmeets]

i loved this game so much back in the day. i remember gathering resources with my friends to upgrade our guild

[@CilantroGamer]

All the ways you feel about Runes of Magic are exactly how I feel about my experience with ArcheAge. ArcheAge's Alpha was simply the most mind blowingly amazing gameplay I'd ever experienced in an MMO, hands down. It captured all of the things that can and should make an MMO great - an open world with fun exploration, a player driven economy, open world PVP that was relevant, almost all player conflict was handled and handleable through game mechanics, an incredible player housing system, just ... *everything* was absolutely amazing. As the game matured, they added features that made the game even better - but every single one came at a cost. The pay to win kept creeping in. They rounded off the corners and took gameplay elements away because they were complained about, and in general it just felt like there were two teams that were at odds with the design. There was the team that made the core game play, which was the most competent design I'd ever seen, and the one responsible for community engagement, monetization and marketing, which was so laughably incompetent that it hurt. Watching ArcheAge go from such a rich, player driven experience with some of the most free and innovative mechanics I'd ever seen, to a soulless husk where the only deciding factor in any engagement was the wallet size of the persons involved - from a world where you could literally go out of bounds on the world map and suffer no consequence, where if you could do something and did do something that it was accepted, to a stolid and rigid and heavily curated experience just crushed my spirits. And honestly, even ArcheAge Unchained would have been so much better than it actually was, were it not for a few design decisions they had made. Even the dumbed down version of the game was in many ways still the best MMO I'd ever played, but incompetence ruined it once again.

[@AGrumpyPanda]

Here's to ArcheAge, and the glory of the past.

[@Kringe7]

I've been binging your content, mostly because I think you make good content and have a fun sense of humor I can relate to. But there's a little something extra I couldn't figure out until 10 videos in: your voice and presentation remind me of Totalbiscuit a lot, who is someone who got me through a lot of hard times with his videos. I know you didn't do all this with the intention of helping one random dude on the internet, but I still appreciate you helping me heal the spot he left empty when he died. Thank you.

[@SNE4KZ]

chronicles of Arcadia from what i understand is a private server of ROM it has none of the crashing issues u can play 4k ultra wide. i'm not sure how monetization is but its at least playable.

[@Geronmy]

Thanks for this info. I'll surely try it.

[@PhenomRom]

Nightly Guild vs guild is something that was very underrated too

[@reisen9235]

Nightly siege wars were the highlight of my days for a long time lol

[@blisssenseripzyzz4evermiri176]

it was good but there was always a cheater, ever since that "romeo hack" or something came out, many people installed it, specially rogues and since you can't see people teleporting while invisible they would just exploit that to no end, that's without mentioning the buggs and crashes their perpetual "beta" always had.

[@PhenomRom]

@@blisssenseripzyzz4evermiri176 I never really ran into a cheater problem but maybe I just happened to play in a guild that didn't know about it. At the time I was young and unaware of such things. Plus he's the game crashes were frequent and the amount of lag in siege wars was nuts sometimes

[@derektafoya1152]

If only your words hit home and SOMEONE decided to do something about it .

[@Xiatter]

This is one of the most thorough and valid "I like you, but screw you" takes I've heard.

[@iliblabla]

I played the game for an hour or two for nostalgia reasons while being on sick leave a couple months ago - the memory leak is still not fixed lmao

[@Agumon5]

great video man, I actually played the game after watching your previous video, and was wondering why the hell you would recommend it LOL. It wasn't the very fun experience. on a side note, it would be awesome to see you make a video on final fantasy XI.

[@lisamaitland157]

I remember that memory leak on Winxp = Blue screen for a nice reboot. Xp used memory managers, and once the game filled up Ram. It did not care if other programs were in the background running. This games crash, was very similar to what happen to old Up right arcade games. The old games had a limited 256k ram, and if you reached that limit. The game would not remove prior levels being stored. It would in fact write over files already in stored memory. This would cause a corruption... When Windows receives this error it crashes the game, or reboots "winxp" when the arcade game did this, it would glitch out the game, and corrupt the screen. " called truncating" I think, and this is very sad. That the new game called Cyberpunk also has this problem.. The devs give you a fix for this. They say don't play to long, just finish the game faster lol..

[@Renemu]

Meh , after watching this vid , Rift doesn't seem that bad xD

[@Cyromantik]

Geeeez I know, right?

[@ilkemert6100]

Runes of Magic is much much better than Rift

[@vobic13]

@@ilkemert6100 RoM not able to play the game cause of basic issues. Rift, able to play the game and leave it logged on over night with no issues...yea think ill play rift the BETTER game

[@vobic13]

Rift is still a great game

[@blisssenseripzyzz4evermiri176]

many people left rom for rift back in the day.

[@NeoGee]

The memory issue is so bad, I'd forgotten that it was why I didn't continue playing until you mentioned it!

[@jaquenhgar4251]

Can we play on Private servers without crashes?

[@guyincognito5663]

“Let our words speak for us”? Wtf

[@ChimonesLFS]

You said that you will eventually review Aion and Forsaken World a while back. I hope you don't forget because I'm so excited to hear your opinion. These two games were amazingly good many years ago. You can imagine how they were ruined...

[@chadwickmccarty4944]

Sounds like those 2 or 3 persistent issues with the game regarding Steam Gameforge just doesn't care about those players otherwise it wouldn't take years to correct. Definitely pay to win. Gameforge's "deeds" seem devoid of integrity from a customer's/player's perspective, but then again the lemmings have been trained, "just lower the graphic settings to low".

[@Choralone422]

I know this video is several months old at this point but... I was a fairly hardcore RoM player from Chapter 2 of the game until late Chapter 5 after Gameforge came into the picture. In the early days of the game the memory crashing issue was fairly uncommon but after the game was expanded with Chapter 3 that all changed. It became pretty clear once the 2nd continent of Zandorya was introduced that the game engine was never really meant to handle all the new areas that were being added, not without forcing you to close and re-open the game client quite frequently to prevent crashes. Also, the more different gear & races (like the dwarfs) that were introduced only added to the issue since the game tries to load all of the assets for every player currently in the zone or city when you enter it. So the big cities like Varanas and especially Dalanis became very frequent crash zones. The power creep also got pretty insane starting with late Ch3 or Ch 4 of the game. In early Ch 3 it was noticeable but still manageable. Prior to Ch 3 you could complete pretty much all of the game content with gear that was moderately upgraded but not top shelf. Starting with late Ch3 in order to clear the lvl 60 instance on hard mode it was basically required that every single player in a party to have top of the line gear that could only be created/upgraded by spending the in-game currency in order to clear the instance. So long as it was easy to buy diamonds from other players or via the auction house with gold that wasn't too bad. Also, from late Ch3 onward you were basically required to replace most if not all of your weapons and armor every 5 levels or so in order to complete the next +5 level instance. So the best & fully upgraded lvl 60 gear would usually get you through the base lvl 65 instance but nothing higher and so on. That became quite tedious to say the least as new content was added! I did spend a fair amount of time and money on the game. I had a couple of extremely powerful characters on 2 accounts without having to pay a lot of money since I had been playing for so long and was a member of one of the top guilds on the (long since shutdown) US Reni server. However, once Gameforge decided to completely remove being able to purchase diamonds via the auction house and basically forced your to only get them via real $$$ I quickly quit for good and NEVER came back. After RoM I moved on to Path of Exile for a short time and then Warframe for over 6 years now. I've probably spent less than 1/2 the amount of money on 7 years of PoE & Warframe combined than I did on the first 1-2 years of playing RoM! I'm also a whole lot happier, especially with Warframe, than I probably ever was playing RoM. :)

[@mksrth]

ROM had the base design to be an awesome MMORPG. Instead GREED GREED and more GREED from both Frogster and Gameforge. This game was pay to win and unplayable w/out store convenient since day 1 (diamonds, transmutor charges, purified fusion stones, death penalty removal, BP space and many more). Things became even worst after charpter 2 when they removed diamonds trading from ingame AH. After that we had corrupted GMs, game files hacking, account hacking and ofc gold selling. It is a pity for a such fun to play game. Also the community in majority back then was almost pretty good. P.S. Josh I am happy that your channel is growing, keep up the good work, your content is becoming better and better, Mirio.

[@darcraven2496]

Hi, was trying game and new to it, its seems fine, having a decent time in it, and my rebinds are staying, but I am not on new servers. EU has lots of servers with 2 new ones but on NA side there are only 2 choices and they do not say new. Having no lag problems at all, memory message recieved early when in game, but have not crashed, and have played over 2 hrs at a time. I enjoy your videos.

[@Sombraszurhidon]

Want the old runes? go to chronicles of arcadia, im playing it now and is really nice at my point of view.

[@jamaneee]

Oh my God this is it, this is the MMO I played as a kid but for the life of me couldn't remember! Thank you being unable to remember this game was starting to bug me

[@edvinkovac3238]

Try Chronicles of arcadia if you like the game. I also start there because of the pay2win style. There is much better with the shop. Maybe you make a video of that server. Would like to see what you think of that.

[@ragalthor]

Have you considered a revisit after 2 years for the progress or decay of the MMOs you have already covered?

[@TheMadAfrican1]

That Gameforge tweet is the most soulless corporate BS I've seen in ages. It's almost a parody. Corporations really just get worse and worse and worse.

[@rorakk6329]

Man. Thank you for this video. I played too after leaving RuneScape, loved everything about it but quitted. So I qas wondering if it was worth going back now. I am sad it ain’t.

[@elaxel1469]

I went to Chronicles of Arcadia end never looked back

[@clairebennet121]

Me too :p

[@PhinixRoM]

Can´t believe a game a RoM vid can have some many views :D I played this game years ago(since beta), quite successful and several Server-first and had one of the best Equipped Characters worldwide. Met some really nice people in there, to some i still have contact. I would say the game was good until the level 55-60 patches. They had good dungeons and raids where you needed an actual strats to beat the bosses. Hall of Survivors was a really good experience and could compete with wow raids back then i´d say. But most after that where just pure DPS race. Back when the Level 60 patch hit (i guess), things where that bad, that they had to release a harder version of the instance "Temple of Raksha". One official told me they made it so hard (insane statboosts for bosses) they thought we can´t beat it. Our strategy tho was one rouge (to tank boss for a few sec with doge and immunity abilitys) 4 Scouts (most DPS) and one Healer to cheese it down -> and it worked. The only way to clear this instance on the highest difficultly was to have 4 really good scouts. The funny part is that the endboss dropt an x-bow which was laughably strong, so the best dps-class got even stronger. Socuts already did 2-3times (iam NOT joking) more than any other DPS no matter how good eqiupd he was and with this x-bow it just got worse. I want to state the x-bow was so strong, we did not sell him -> got offerd 300€ back than. For the most part you did not see any balancing patches, if you picked the wrong class (or combo) you were fucked and needed to make a new character. Back then there were no items to reset stuff. As far i am aware they have no stuff like wow to keep up with older characters. Like Guild-siege gives you INSANE strong title, where you get an extra skill basically a 2nd ult 25% more dmg for 15sec . So you swap title activate it and swap back to some with better stats (like the one mention). For those titles you have to grind idk 1 year maybe longer and you may think on a guild-siege everyone earns the same, boy are you wrong. You could only achieve the title this fast if you were the top-killer. If you are a Support it would take you 3-4times longer if i remember correct. System got so worse a lot of Guilds did not play the Sieg-wars, just split up made more smaller low ranked guilds and killed some noobs (to get the title faster). If you had somewhat decent PvP-gear you could easily take down a whole 10-20man guild normally equiped (again no joke) First-clears usually took place in the first evening, my guild was a bunch of kids (including me) so we could not compete for Region first since other guilds were more adults and took days off or did not work anyway. You just know a first is not worth anymore when a other guild has clear´d it when you just came home from school. :D

[@zarpadoenflaco]

I never played runes, but I feel tremendous empathy for someone who clearly loves a doomed game

[@ashurdraco1510]

Nahj it isnt worthy to play in this crap, yea month in this scammy shit... just like in tera, another big crap... ehhh, mmo are almost dead for me, ther is only few titles which i can count on the fingers of one hand... to which i time to time coming back.

[@ashurdraco1510]

Trully ? RoM was shitty from the begining, it is just nostalgy which blinds that guy 😆

[@HenriquePhilippi]

I have been watching all your videos in last weeks and agree with you at about everything. You are the hero we needed. I pray for every other MMO developer to hear your words

[@bigmclargehuge8219]

Oof, that whole "once per account" actually being "once per character" thing is INCREDIBLY scummy. Like, that's some next level garbage.

[@SchwachsinnProduzent]

I remember playing Runes Of Magic a decade or so ago, when my best friend decided to switch from 4Story to it. Was quite a nice F2P back then, that ran fine for the duration I was allowed to play each day. The downloads on our internet connection were horribly slow though and we would sometimes wait hours after big updates to join the game. It was very Pay To Win, but as kids we couldn't buy much anyways and with how little time I had to play, I never reached anywhere near end game content anyways. Sometimes I think, I should revisit it, but let's be honest, there were reasons I quit playing MMOs after it (I just prefer feeling like my actions actually changed the world like in a single player game. In ROM everything just got reset as soon as you accomplished anything.) Not to mention, that occasionally meeting up with my best friend for some quests and dungeons was one of the main reasons to play it. Nowadays I would be pretty much alone there, as I don't know anyone anymore, who still plays it.

[@indeffpino123]

8:00 lmfaooo the UwU got me good

[@maxicez7]

Lad, you got guts, love this vid, I hope that, they will watch it, and maaaaybe, do something about all of this, as I would love to take some break from WoW and return to game of childhood.

[@p33p_show]

I would probably play this game or at LEAST try it out if they fixed some of the bugs and came out with P2P servers for like 10$ a month with no cash shop or P2W. It actually looked fun and interesting, despite all the BS.

[@yonkobuster112]

that would be great if they did that.

[@redliz61]

as an old EX player of ROM I applauded your honesty and totally agree every thing you said and more are the reasons my husband and I quit playing and moved to GW2 ...but I still miss the guilds and community of ROM it was awesome ^___^

[@mikecurry6847]

Wow... you've perfectly explained the memory leak. As a software engineer, it's infuriating that such a simple issue isn't fixed. That legitimately sounds like a easy thing to patch. Have assets deleted from memory that haven't been in line of sight for 120 seconds, or some other period of time. All they need is some kind of simple timeout that refreshes when the player sees an asset or is in an area 🤦‍♂️

[@climatechangedoesntbargain9140]

it might not be simple though - if you have a game written in C or C++

[@ferinzz]

@@climatechangedoesntbargain9140 on the other side of the coin. You shouldn't write in C or C++ without understanding garbage collection.

[@climatechangedoesntbargain9140]

@@ferinzz why not?

[@OzixiThrill]

@@climatechangedoesntbargain9140 Exactly because of the reasons why this discussion was sparked in the first place. Your code will eventually start gobbling memory.

[@Thor-Orion]

It’s so funny going back and seeing how the patreon list has grown so much. You can read the names at this point!

[@stalkersas]

this is not a P2W game, it's a P2A2PTG pay-to-be-able-to-play-the-game. Every high lvl person I ran into laughed or mocked me when I sad I wana play without spending a dime and that's I'll compensate with skill time and patience. 2 weeks later I have 21 bot accounts, farming pure stat stones and after doing the mat, months later, I realize even with that, it's still gona take forever to get decent end game gear (not proper endgame stuff!). Did a ballpark calculation, based on what other said, and to have good enough gear to do the highest tier raid dungeon, I'd have to run 400 bots for 2 years and spend about 2k$... well fak! every person that I know that was max lvl or could run endgame content spent atleast 10k$ on the game, and fells like they are the only ppl left around as everyone else that has some sense left earlye on, as I did eventually. This is a great game with the worse financial implementation ever from the player point of view. And all that greed and not a penny spent on improving the game (the software) at all... It feels like that abuse ex that strang u along for 2 decades, that mastered the art of being a parasite.

[@adamfrazer5150]

A wholehearted thanks for covering this - the cynicism of its operators and the unfortunate acceptance of steep compromise by many of its player-base.

[@craigh5236]

They really need to start passing laws about this kind of predatory practices in video games.

[@treudefreude]

Hi Josh, I am a Runes of Magic endlevel player on a German server (not one of the best players, but I think I can speak for the endgame community of this game). I overall enjoyed your video and I want to say that the general points from you in this video are correct: The new titles on the servers are absolutely ridiculous. If you play this game and you watch how far some people will actually go in order to achieve the best possible gear or use the most efficient gold farming via alts, these titles are a big deal. I would like to clarify on some of the points that you made, as you can not know all of these as a newer player: 1) Targeting your point at 9:00 - you even underestimate the issue that is currently on the servers: Gameforge is yet to release new content for this game for over 1 year as of this point. The latest instance ("New Pantheon") can be, as almost any high-level instance, run in 3 different modes: Easy, Normal and Hard. In easy mode, there are less bosses and simply every enemy in the dungeon doesn't hit very hard. The enemies (if I remember correctly) are about level 102-103. In theory, you can go up to level 110 (100 + 10 peak levels). I do not want to explain what peak levels are, as this would get too long and you could make a 15 minute video only ranting about this immensly flawed system, trust me. All you need to know is: It is unbelievably grindy to farm, there were some events to help out with your progression, but you can in theory speed up the whole process via Item Shop items (which should be obvious as this is the trend in this game). If you wanted to clear "New Pantheon" on Hard Mode, you currently can not! The instance is not clearable, as the rate that you miss the enemies is simply too high: Even if you are level 100 and are peak level 10, as the enemies are aroun level 115ish. Either enemies will dodge, or they will resist your spell. This means: Once GF actually increases the Peak Level and the instance will be clearable by these players, the whales will spend tons of money on IS items in order to be the first to reach the highest peak level, be able to run the instance and earn the title. After that they will swap to their old server. In addition to that: We don't even know how much the server swap will cost - this is absolutely ridiculous. 2) Regarding your point at 12:50 - this is not entirely correct: You are most likely only facing this specific issue since you are having multiple characters with the exact same name on multiple servers. This way, there is only one folder with the name of your character which might interfere with this issue. I only have one character and I changed with one name, the keybindings on Steam are changable (but I agree that this is annoying if you are playing on multiple servers). 3) Regarding your point at 19:00 - yes, the Scout pack is not the worst offer, I agree. But I disagree with your statement that the Stalwart Adventurer title is "overpowered" for new players. Having a bonus of 75 on all attributes is nice, but not a big deal (especially in the late game). 20% drop is very good, to be honest, but it won't "break" the game for new players, you might get some more cards here and there. 10% Movement speed is very good, yes - there is a title that does the exact same in an instance at level 55. Don't get me wrong: 10% MS is really comfy, but again not "game-breakingly-good". 4) Regarding your point at 19:22 - Oh boy, I have to explain this in a bit more detail: Yes, "normally" you won't get any back slot items in the game, other than from the item shop. This statement excludes any events (in the Winter event, for example, you could obtain wings). As you mentioned correctly: Yes, the back slot item normally doesn't have anything on it. You need to stat it in order to give it use. Also, if you use jewels on it, you will receive a bonus for droprate, XP & TP. This is ONLY for XP / TP from monsters, though, not for quests! If you are a "casual" player of this game, the amount of XP / TP gained from killing enemies is very very small, I would say this is not as big of a "game-changer" as you might say. Coming back to the stats: Yes, you can upgrade the wings to be one additional part of clothing that you can put stats on, this is correct. You can also use any other item to put stats on, though. If an advanced player wants to start a new character, most of the time people just stat a low-level cloak (since the cloak doesn't give you any defense stat) to overpower their low level character. If you would do this with wings as the "Swordsoul", you would have to unbind it at first & send it to you new account - most players will therefore not do that. (For any other endgame players: Yes, you will use wings in order to kite your new alts in ToS, I am aware of that, but this is not the normal "use case" for newer / casual players). Thanks for spending your time to address some issues on one of the MMORPGs that is almost forgotten, but still has a small community who loves the core ideas of the game but is mostly just disappointed by the updates.

[@nathanhargenrader645]

Found this channel through an Asmond reaction and now I am binging tons of these videos. Amazing Channel!

[@JoshStrifeHayes]

Welcome, glad you're enjoying the stuff :)

[@slevinchannel7589]

@@JoshStrifeHayes Gameforge? Didnt they create one of the BEST games ever? 'Teamtanks'?!?

[@Xazamas]

(Before even starting the video) I just want to let you know that I tried this game out because it was cautiously recommended in a physical gaming magazine I read at the library (IIRC) and I liked it enough after exiting the newbie area to spend 15 euros to buy a horse, then quit immediately for some reason. This was 2008 or somewhere around it.

[@TheAwesomeCouch]

I haven't even heard of this game before

[@xyr3s]

depends on how old you are :D games like wow and runescape everyone has heard of because they are super popular. games like RoM are quite underrated and mostly people who were into mmorpgs when it came out only have heard of it. or people who just google and google for a mmorpg to sink time into

[@TheAwesomeCouch]

@@xyr3s I'm 31 years old and played everquest, runescape, then wow and just about everything In between. And never heard of it. And after this review, I'm glad I didn't till now. A complete waste cause they do not care about crashes. Just money.

[@kalacs32]

I didn't get super far into this game, but I remember the Priest class was so fun. Different enough from other cleric classes in other games at the time, and I could solo level just fine, either with Priest skills or with the support of the dual-class system.

[@wolframsteindl2712]

I played it for a bit back in 2010 I think, after I had gotten bored of WoW and was looking for an alternative. I was put off by the even more comical artstyle and especially how dumb my character looked, and also the levelling process seemed boring. I don't think I made it past level 20. Now that my standards have gotten a lot lower, I am thinking about giving it another try.

[@BrutusAlbion]

oof you got even lower standards now? Who hurt you?

[@wolframsteindl2712]

@@BrutusAlbion the MMORPG genre

[@Tobberobbe97]

I remember playing this game probably 10 years ago. Brings back memories but even I stopped eventually when I realised how badly the game was being handled.

[@lairely6208]

Me too. It was the First MMORPG i've played and spend Money for. Actually, I had a Lot of fun for a few months. But as a Teen, I was stupid enough to spend a Lot of Money for this game, before I realised how stupid I am. Today I can't really understand why I was so fascinsted from this game. Maybe because it was my first MMORPG?

[@TheHorreK2]

how can anyone be okay with spending 10k on a MMO... srsly people who do this have issues

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

And not only that. They claim it's a positive. If someone spends tens of thousands in money and hundreds of thousands in hours in a game without finishing maxed out gear, they lost track.

[@TheHorreK2]

@@HappyBeezerStudios its so sad really, i love gaming etc but considering in how many ways you can better your life with 10k... its boggeljng my mind

[@TempleMadeSimple]

Media advisor: " I really shouldn't have tweeted that..."

[@johnnymartinjohansen]

I loved this game many years ago. I quit because of two issues - the expensive inventory unlocks, and the insane amount it took to refine crafting materials. Maybe time to check it out again.

[@brianbyrne4520]

gameforge and gamigo the 2 companies that take dying MMO's and kills them as quickly as possible with lousy content

[@santiuna7619]

Runes of magic was the second mmo I played and I did for many years. I liked it and I still like it even though it has all those problems, probably because of nostalgia. If instead of Gameforge another company had the game to fix its problems, this game has the potential to be one of the best in the genre above many of those who are now, at the time it almost succeeded ... but that is not going to happen. Regarding the memory bug, strangely, it hardly happened to me even with top graphics and full screen, both on this computer and the one I had in 2009. I think that if they don't fix it, it's because it must be in the core of the game. and to fix it they would have to redo the entire game.

[@heraditestreamingarchive1100]

"We not only say what we think, we also let our words and deeds speak for us." This might be the dumbest thing ever. First of all, saying what you think always means you lack a filter and a key part of communicating is filtering what you're saying. Second, yeah no duh your words speak for you. That's the whole point of words. I am communicating right now by stringing together letters that form words to get my point across.

[@sintheemptyone8108]

Surprise, they're hypocrites.

[@JaimeEstrada89030]

Don't forget you can get extra backpack space (albeit temporary and random) with Ancient Treasure Hunt minigame in Sascillia Steppes. I've played the game mostly as f2p, there are a lot of workarounds to get cashshop items without paying real cash, of course it is also the long, slow route.

[@R0MULUS97]

Imagine being given a piece of gold like RoM and turning it into coal with your corporate greed and indifferent incompetence. Gameforge is the joke and EA is the punchline for sure.

[@Krashwire]

Thank you for making this. After watching your previous video on the game I was ready to give it a shot. I am usually very wary of p2w MMOs, and this one sure does it wrong.

[@HombreGato]

I have a bittersweet memory of this game. It gave me many, many hours of joy. But also was the game that made me realize I was playing to not face my problems and that I should change my life.