Worst MMO Ever? - Realm of the Mad God

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EDIT:
Hi All.
After reading the feedback for the 'Worst MMO Ever? - Realm of the Mad God' on KZbin, discord and here, I have re-watched the video and critiqued it as I would any of the games I play.
Many people said it seemed low effort compared to my previous work, and pointed out several straight up bits of wrong information, or parts edited with less care than usual, this is correct, I feel this video not only falls below the standards I expect of myself, but doesn't show Realm of the Mad God in a fair light to potential players.
If I critique games and expect companies to listen to that critique, I must be willing to listen to critique of my videos. I will play more, update and research more, and release an addendum, calling out my mistakes and giving the game the time it deserves. My focus is the entertainment of the audience combined with the care of the playerbase, and honesty to both, and while the video was entertaining to a non-player, I do not feel this video was fair to the RotMG player base.
Thank you for the feedback, it's never easy to improve on your mistakes, but if I can dish it out, I have to be prepared to take it.
I do not want you as a viewer to blindly support me, especially if you feel I am not producing content of the quality you have come to expect and deserve. If I am going to call out the MMO industry for their falling standards or complacency, I expect, and indeed actively encourage, you, to do the same to me.
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MMO RPG Rogue-like Bullet hell top down pixel based hack and slash looter.
that's a lot of genres all crammed into one game.
Thanks to the Patreon supporters and twitch subs for keeping the channel alive :)

[@JoshStrifeHayes]

Hi All. After reading the feedback for the 'Worst MMO Ever? - Realm of the Mad God' on KZbin, discord and here, I have re-watched the video and critiqued it as I would any of the games I play. Many people said it seemed low effort compared to my previous work, and pointed out several straight up bits of wrong information, or parts edited with less care than usual, this is correct, I feel this video not only falls below the standards I expect of myself, but doesn't show Realm of the Mad God in a fair light to potential players. If I critique games and expect companies to listen to that critique, I must be willing to listen to critique of my videos. I will play more, update and research more, and release an addendum, calling out my mistakes and giving the game the time it deserves. My focus is the entertainment of the audience combined with the care of the playerbase, and honesty to both, and while the video was entertaining to a non-player, I do not feel this video was fair to the RotMG player base. Thank you for the feedback, it's never easy to improve on your mistakes, but if I can dish it out, I have to be prepared to take it. I do not want you as a viewer to blindly support me, especially if you feel I am not producing content of the quality you have come to expect and deserve. If I am going to call out the MMO industry for their falling standards or complacency, I expect, and indeed actively encourage, you, to do the same to me.

[@SexySquire]

I can only think of two maybe three content creators who have that kind of integrity, good on you Josh

[@RotmgTroller]

Hello

[@SockLove]

Are you gonna do that for every other MMO then? I mean if the bar is to "i'll re-review the game when i have more info" than i think that many games in the past also suffered from you not being right about certain aspects of it, due to how bad the new player experience is. Looks to me like you are just walking back due to veterans of the game being salty

[@RotmgTroller]

BTW rotmg is a pvp game not a pve game

[@JoshStrifeHayes]

@@SockLove No, i'm walking back due to watching my own video and not being proud of it.

[@hernanhuayta3147]

By the way Soulbound doesn't mean that you don't lose the items, it means that you can't trade the items

[@pixerhp]

Thanks for telling him

[@RobotShield]

So you can pay a lot of money for gear and still lose it all in an instant?

[@whatareyoudoingthis4]

@@RobotShield No one pays money for gear. People pay money for vault slots, character slots and pets (that you have forever regardless of character). The option is there to an extent but literally no one does it

[@benrakusin7900]

@@whatareyoudoingthis4 wym bruh mfs buy st bundles like monkeys

[@simontaraba1191]

@@RobotShield Yup, when ppl are dumb enough its easy to die.

[@latio3860]

Once upon a time, there used to be a “fame train” it was literally a huge group of people who run around the high level zone (Godlands) and just build up levels and fame.

[@kubli365]

I remember one time being able to randomly start one. Felt so proud.

[@robertarebelderr]

looooooooooooool i completely forgot about the fame train... good times...

[@nathanb842]

Those were good times back then when you were able to hope in the train and then be lvled up in less then 10 min. I loved every minute

[@CloudWalkBeta]

They might have still been a thing were it not for bots ruining the experience, discord didnt help either :/

[@mellodyzanin5788]

man I miss those, It was so fun being a "Dragger" back in 2016, man do I miss the days before Outlaw/Barcode was the biggest beta to ever touch this game.

[@teejay818]

I’d hate to be the checker at the supermarket when Josh discovers that hot dogs come in packs of six while buns come by the eight.

[@horizonbumpy2828]

Luckily bread has more uses than only being used for hotdogs.

[@TheMightySinjo]

Funnily, I usually have the problem of hotdogs being in packs of 10 and buns in packs of 6 - 8 ... Still, it gets awkward regardless.

[@TheTGOAC]

Clearly this is predatory anti consumer practices do you really expect me to make 24 hotdogs on buns in order to not have any left over?! WALMART IS THE BLIZZARD OF GROCERY STORES HELP IM BEING OPPRESSED COME SEE THE VIOLENCE INHERENT IN THE SYSTEM!!

[@MFnDahk]

​@@TheMightySinjo yea I've never seen this mythical 6 pack of hot dogs, mine are always 10.

[@TheMightySinjo]

@@MFnDahk Actually, there are some at the store which are specialised kinds of sausages which comes in packs of 6 . . . But my problem often remains, with there being 8 buns often. Regardless, things get mismatched unless you buy and freeze in perfect numbers, or something.

[@ironmilutin]

Realm of the mad God is pretty much the epitome of "I don't know who I am, I don't know why I'm here, all I know is I must kill"

[@anonymousguy720]

Facts

[@freecomkcf]

never really understood this gripe of his, to be honest...

[@TorIverWilhelmsen]

@@freecomkcf because he expects a story. Not a multiplayer bullet hell. Steam games calling themselves MMOs dilute the concepts, though it does not say "RPG" afterwards.

[@freecomkcf]

@@TorIverWilhelmsen idk in my opinion it seems like a futile thing to expect in any multiplayer context, there's _always_ gonna be a "gotta go fast" crowd. i don't really care much for the story in any game, i'd rather just read something if i actually get that bored, but i'll at least indulge in an MMO's story if it bothers to have one.

[@paulmahoney7619]

@@freecomkcf It's because it doesn't even give the option to take it slow and enjoy a story and characters. You're just in fighting fast and out. And he strongly believes in the 'CRPG as an offspring of the TTRPG' concept.

[@winxwest2964]

I used to play this game constantly back when it was run on flash. Got my knight all the way to max stats. I never felt too pressured to buy micro transactions because most players are perfectly willing to trade endgame items if you have the correct stat pots to trade with(fairly easy to grind). Only true annoyance was the tiny amount of storage chests they gave you. Trying to store all your loot became a nightmare.

[@Ahmadabdal_]

I had a lvl 30 heal pet on the browser version with 2 chests and 2 character slots but I didn't transfer it to steam and they got wiped ;( rip my kongregate rotmg account

[@occuria909]

They have a lot of events now where you can get character slots and other stuff for free if you’re lucky so micro transactions and stuff like that aren’t too much of a big deal but the pets make the game way easier when you have a high level pet. I’ve been playing this game for 8+ years and just got back into it again since they added so much and reworked a bunch of the dungeons which makes it very fun again

[@stoiccrane4259]

Used to love playing Sorceror and Huntress since those character specials made it so easy to get soul bound in events without getting close ranged enough to take heavy hits. Melee scared me the most in the game. They need so much def pots to be good.

[@realdragon]

Same, I just treated it as any other flash game, go in, have fun for some time and go to another flash game

[@PFCMittens]

I lost my laptop when this game was released and I thought about it for YEARS. I didn't even remember the name. What a surprise to see it in his feed.

[@ryansaber4796]

Hey! Just so you know, "Soulbound" just means that the item cannot be traded to other players! Soulbound items are lost on death, just like any other.

[@Bloomkyaaa]

...Then they're not really soulbound are they? lol

[@teoflandoliokeefe5483]

@@Bloomkyaaa they are, soulbound is strictly defined as untradeable in rotmg, not whatever idea you bring from outside the game

[@AuroraAce.]

@@Bloomkyaaa its bound to the soul of the character that is now dead, when you make a new character that is a new soul ignoring vault shenanigans

[@GimOA]

@@AuroraAce. that's like a step-down from curse of binding lol

[@Bloomkyaaa]

@@AuroraAce. This makes sense. Sucks, but it's part of the game. Used to play this years ago before it was pay 2 win trash. It was so fun.

[@_Banjo_]

i remember playing this for a bit because its one of those brwoser games that worked on my uni library computer. was a lot of fun

[@IamaPERSON]

@think differently you’re disgusting, forcing religion on people.

[@MrJulio632]

Banjo same

[@mcfarvo]

Yes! I beat this game to death on my uni laptop

[@IamaPERSON]

@@MrJulio632 thanks for helping me report the bot

[@tomstokoe5660]

@@IamaPERSON Where's the force? It's called "proselytizing" and members of certain religions (such as Islam) are quite literally required to do it. Try to have a look at things from other people's perspective for a change.

[@EnhantedSaber]

Just an update... The person who said don't play it at 16:43 went on to play another 429 hours since March. Or approximately 3.5 hours per day...

[@ivandagiant]

rotmg in a nutshell

[@DannyKay.]

Cocaine users tell you the same and still use it.

[@Kowzorz]

you ever had a smoker tell you to not smoke cigs? reminds me of this

[@fungusman]

To be fair oryx 1 is not even close to the final boss. The end game bosses are actually very well designed and take a lot of practice to master.

[@RandommBoyo]

And then there's Crystal Entity. Talk about a lot of practice to master against it lol

[@Backlashstaymad]

@@RandommBoyo Crystal Entity isn't even that hard, hell, Shatters is the pain

[@pqr2673]

@@RandommBoyo crystal is easy af

[@dakeyras4146]

@@RandommBoyo love how no one understood this comment was a joke

[@amai-w8f]

@@Backlashstaymad Void is way more pain

[@Woolie]

I used to play SO much of this game, well before it changed hands through multiple companies and slowly added more & more MTX and straight-up p2w stuff. when getting a life pot was a crazy drop and the pyramid-trio (don't remember their names) were the hardest content. sad to see what it's become

[@seratope]

the risk of rain 2 streamer could have been the realm of the mad god streamer. what a world we could have lived in

[@mechdark5567]

woah i was just watching one of your vids before watching this but yeah just like trove the game gets owned by a new company and everything goes downhill and it sucks how many of the games i used to play are in such a bad spot

[@garneet]

cool to see you, but this video didnt even cover much.. never mentions discords and what not. really disappointing

[@brecasey680]

bes nut geb

[@lostgarbage4055]

@@seratope No, Risk of Rain 2 is one of the universally loved 3D roguelites. And this game would have been challenged with others in it's genre - like Isaac, Gungeon, atomicrops, nuclear throne... And they would ultimately be much better... Maybe if it evolved some more - it would've stood it's ground as the only MMO rougelike there is, but it's just too inferior to others games in it's genre.

[@Trelior]

"So after I kill the elf princess, I rush up and enter her secret dungeon." There are so many levels of disturbing going on with that single line.

[@johanrojassoderman5590]

And after a short delay: "grow up" 😂

[@Weltshmerz]

He says grow up, but that addition means he knew exactly what he was doing😂

[@kuba4ful]

There's a story about the soundtrack. It's a bit complicated, but in short words - the composer volunteered to make soundtrack in exchange for in-game stuff, because they just loved the game. But then DECA (the company in charge) wanted to hire them, for a wage that was a fraction of their usual wage. The artist got offended, left the group and said they'd sue DECA for using their OST. Unsure whether they actually wanted to sue DECA, or they just said that because of anger, but DECA decided to remove this artist's OST (so like 70% of the game's soundtrack).

[@Paangu]

@@samthevidg That's just resigning on social media, it's not weird.

[@nuclearmonster8084]

Petty, what it was. It was so childish how the composers handled this

[@silentlore2458]

@@Paangu its literally the biggest sign of a fraud

[@PersonCalledErin]

@@samthevidg That's just not true. It seems you completely misunderstood the entire situation, dont speak on it pls ty

[@jessveness]

Wangle's chill with DECA now, as I understand it. They've allowed them to keep using their music. They never removed their music at all at any point, so I'm not sure where that came from

[@Marconius6]

I remember playing this game years ago, but back then it wasn't being a pretentious "next evolution of MMOs", it was more advertised as a multiplayer bullet-hell roguelike game; which I thought worked really well. The game was clearly designed more to be played in short bursts, without worrying too much about long-term progression; everything in the game was optimized around removing barriers to quick fun, such as letting you instantly find enemies to fight, no real story or rigid quests, quick entrance to dungeons, etc. Honestly it feels like a mistake to compare this game to traditional MMOs, because I don't think it's trying to be one... except apparently in the advertising. Hm.

[@yomatokamari]

I had a max level knight with the best gear and my character was stolen from me. I played in a group of five and we'd clear maps together for days. I tried making a new character but the new update with the cash shop sorta ruined the feel of the game. I'd wish to go back to that time of clearing bosses instead of dungeons.

[@scpfilechildrenbarrow2212]

2011-2014 RotMG was when it peaked imo. Even the initial release of pets wasn't all that bad at the beginning, when almost nobody had a good one. Then came three years+ of basically no content but maybe one or two bug fixes a year.

[@Error-ke1tf]

I remember playing it so long ago I'd guess it was a decade or so. This was when the only real 'transactions' in the game were additional character slots. I kind of loved it as a kid, but my love for it went downhill fast with the invasive introduction of additional micro transactions. It honestly made me stop playing the game and forget about it all together... I miss the days when simple games like these provided weeks of entertainment.

[@Corsaka]

@@Error-ke1tf wildshadow! original creators. made a fucking incredible game.

[@kraigisboss]

@@scpfilechildrenbarrow2212 The no content and slow bug fix things are definitely because it's very old. Who knows how many different Devs have come and gone. This is the same problem with Team Fortress 2 it's really old and has had many different Devs each with their own coding style which makes fixing bugs harder when there not around. And attempting to fix said bugs could easily create a new one. Granted the game engines are vastly different but the problem exists.

[@sirbobulous]

Honestly, considering the sheer number of grindfest MMOs you've included in this series so far AND how many aimless 'do whatever you want, permadeath, crafting' MMOs in this series...this game seems vastly superior with a fast gameplay loop and fast feedback rather than 6 hours to craft a plank of wood.

[@Airi_uwu]

honestly. no this game does not but if you ever played a rotmg private server the gameplay experience of most far surpasses that of rotmg, every aspect of the server is made by developers actually self aware of the community that supports them and what they want to play. ive been a huge rotmg fan for the first 2 years until i found private servers for the game and ever since then i couldnt possibly give rotmg a second chance, year after year ive tried to get into it since its community will always be bigger than a pserver but it will NEVER be as fun

[@nebulaaax]

rotmg main right here

[@galoomba5559]

@@Airi_uwu unfortunately there doesn't seem to be an active pserver after nilly died, at least not one that doesn't drastically change the gameplay and try to sell itself as a completely different game

[@Airi_uwu]

@@galoomba5559 only one drastically different is dar za but im pretty sure it's dead while active ones don't stray much from the core game just adding a bunch of new content when you put active and drastically revamped together then no pservers hit the mark. not even close

[@galoomba5559]

@@Airi_uwu ah, i assumed that server was at least somewhat active since i've seen it a few times so is there an active vanilla-ish pserver? i can't find one

[@grayve2122]

I know you nitpicked very hard on the Evolution thing for laughs and giggles, but it was just bad writing on their part. Its not the evolution of the genre, its the evolution of the first version of real of the mad god. Other then that, all on point

[@conit4125]

I'm a rotmg fan but no this is wrong, the exact quote is "Realm is an evolution of traditional MMO gameplay". It does say *an* evolution not *the* evolution so I think it's a little bit unfair, but it's not talking about older versions of rotmg.

[@grayve2122]

@@conit4125 ooh i see, i thought it was that because i played it right in the beggining and it didn’t have the Exalt, so i thought it made sense

[@argios]

"all on point" there were so many things very wrong

[@oldsmelly911]

@@argios what was wrong?

[@halfbl00d55]

@@oldsmelly911 well the soulbound thing and the whole fast late game then die and the endgame boss thing was really wrong

[@nebs6888]

Soulbound items means they just can't be traded. Otherwise they're as usual, lost on death.

[@Meklein]

Was hoping someone would point this out.

[@KenLinx]

Imagine spending $100 just to die in a second and losing everything.

[@Gabe413]

so they arent even worth the money ..

[@mango6940]

that makes it worse

[@de_iure]

@@mango6940 that makes it better. You need to pay attention to not die with cdirk, crown etc.

[@HankGreenburg]

I think you underplayed just how cool it is that an enemy dropped a portal to a whole new area to explore. Never played the game but that by itself really intrigues me.

[@altrivotzck6565]

He more was just expressing that it made no sense from a lore perspecitve. Since when can an enemy drop a forest? Not that that's uninteresting; just very, very confusing.

[@redking36]

@@altrivotzck6565 Is it that odd to get a portal to a dungeon related to the enemy?

[@bbittercoffee]

@@redking36 that's not the point, it is related to the enemy, yes, but in what other game do enemies just "drop a dungeon"? Like, if you're outside of rotmg, that barely makes sense, how can one drop a DUNGEON? Not a key, not a map, not a direction, the whole freaking entrance to the dungeon??? Was it carrying it around in their pocket or something???? Once you've played for like, 2 hours, you start to notice that there is a pattern, elven/florest guys drop the woodland maze, pirates and bandits drop the pirate cave, but even then, there's no explanation as to why they drop them.

[@Aldente-mz8uy]

@@bbittercoffee ROTMG isn’t as interactive as a game like minecraft, where the obvious difference is that it’s 2D. It’s specifically designed to follow a path of progression through the game and although it clashes with reasoning or lore, it’s for a good reason. Not to mention with Oryx 3 and the Shatters rework being heavily lore based, DECA is going for a more logical route.

[@miraqen7801]

@@bbittercoffee it's a 'portal' -- not an entire dungeon. there's like candy forests, glitch enemies and literal sentient cubes. just go play kingdom come deliverance instead if you want autistic-levels of realism as this is such a non-argument.

[@work_smarter7336]

Seems that Josh took "evolution of the MMO genre" a bit personally

[@HankGreenburg]

I think he's mostly using it as a funny bit.

[@voided_sun]

I thought it was meant ironically

[@Mayhemzz]

@@PefectPiePlace2 I mean, it's pretty obvious.. The game hails itself as the "evolution of the MMO genre" but it very clearly is anything but that. It's just more grindy bullshit and MTX.

[@redking36]

@@Mayhemzz I have never seen the game marketed that way. Do they really do that?

[@LordSathar]

@@HankGreenburg honestly it fell flat, like someone bombing with a joke but looks at you like, "get it, get it evolution, right" yeah i get it, it's just not funny

[@wyrmster4886]

My best moment with this game was making a new character, going into a random world and teleporting to a high level player and trying to steal some high level loot they didn't want and then shredding bosses, very fun stuff

[@graham1034]

It's been a long time but that's essentially how I remember the game. Take extreme risks at the start to gain xp and hopefully some really good (to me) left over loot. I don't remember it being bad but I don't think I played it that much either.

[@PathFind13]

(Un)fortunately, good loot is soul bound these days

[@xXWorldgamefunXx]

Realm of the mad god isn't supposed to be this game where you laboriously start all over again after a death. Usually after you maxed out a few stats (first dexterity and speed and then most importantly your defense) the game begins to pick up a lot of pace. You clear dungeons quicker, you get more potions, you trade them for more damage, you find new areas that you are finally strong enough to explore and you find new loot, which accelerates this process even further. Then you die. But you are already hooked, and you already maxed out two other characters, so you don't really start all over again. Also, after a few months you realize that you can complete so many dungeons on autopilot and you know where you can find everything. Btw. so many items in this game that are viewed as "high elo" are actually just worth 1 def pot, which is relatively easily obtainable. You just need 4 def pots to get good starting gear and then leveling is also 10x faster. This game also throws so many "get to lvl. 20 instantly" potions at you after a while of playing, you realize that leveling this isn't even realm of the mad god, it's a test if you are able to even begin to play the game yet. When you find your first white bags it's such an adrenaline thrill. Idk it's like league of legends, 90% of the player base has no clue what to do and you can invest 200 hours into these games, but in order to really "learn what you are supposed to do", you have to follow external ressources or put of time into the game.

[@swordflay7384]

If you played for like 15 minutes you could probably get level 20 and go to GLands yourself lol

[@fosterbennington6405]

I always find myself playing this game for hours and hours on the rare occasion I play it, despite its faults it’s very fun for some reason Edit: it does however seem some stuff has changed for the worse, that huge invasive wall of text on the left wasn’t a thing last time I played, seems like an awful feature

[@burgerburrito1547]

You can easily minimize it by pressing “k” I’m pretty sure

[@fosterbennington6405]

@@burgerburrito1547 Good to know, might give it a go when my computer comes back in today

[@Ekdrink]

Literally just press k. Use your problem solving skills.

[@fosterbennington6405]

@@Ekdrink That would require me to actually have played the game since then

[@stevenstrasz8631]

you can hide it lmfao

[@glenmoody-elias1040]

I actually remember pumping some handful of hours in to this game. It doesn't try to pretend to have a story to be engaged in, it's "Do you want multiplayer bullet hell?" and honestly, a game just showing the cards of "Yeah, that's all this is. It's a niche." is fine to me. Unfortunately, fine/10 is a pretty poor score.

[@SeppelSquirrel]

When I'm too lazy to play Touhou, I whip out RotMG for 15 minutes of bullet hell fun, then go do something else for the rest of the year.

[@glenmoody-elias1040]

@@No-hv6ku I remember trying out Survived By, when that game was still up. I remember having a decent time with that as well, grindy as it was.

[@Raptor-cr1se]

@@glenmoody-elias1040 survived by was probably one of my most enjoyed games of its time but sadly the company sold it and then that company canceled it after a few months :/

[@zephyrgaming8709]

Words can't describe how important going into the settings and changing all of your options are, the game doesn't harp on this but it fixes 90% of the visual annoyances you've had.

[@owenbrasseaux3894]

The community tends to agree on this, a lot of options are non negotiable - player opacity down, music off, camera off center, use camera rotation. (Some music is good now but it’s still hit or miss and pretty annoying as repetitive the majority of the time

[@vixy2079]

As a player with 3000 hours in ROTMG this video hurt my soul... However not everything you said was wrong and it is quit sad that this is the new player experience.

[@Pastel_F84]

12K hours :( stop while you have your life plz my whole teen years were consumed by this game

[@Khorvalar]

@@Pastel_F84 HOW!? XD

[@Pastel_F84]

@@Khorvalar Lots of event soloing, pet maxxing, 8/8 every class, every white and vanity, etc

[@kuba4ful]

Items being soulbound means they cannot be traded. You can still lose them after dying. Also nobody buys ST sets (those lootboxes with soulbound items), or the XP Boosters/luck clovers (you can easily get those for free). Most of the people spend money on keys or vault/character slots. The keys are pretty P2W, however one person can host a dungeon for up to 50 people. That means for one paying player there can be at least 49 players making progress for free. Not to mention that all of those dungeons can be accessed for free in the Realm, the keys only make it more accessible and easier to chain (do few dungeons one after another). (This ultimately leads to Discord raids meta, which is one of the core issues of this game, but let's not tackle this here.) And the endgame dungeon with best items and (almost) hardest boss is the only one you can't buy a key for. This game was more P2W in the past. There were pets with really OP ability called Healing, which on max level healed you so fast you didn't even need to dodge. And grinding them was really tedious. The new company that took over this game significantly nerfed them, introduced a new in-combat mechanic (after getting hit your pet abilities drastically decrease for a few seconds) and made farming fame (currency) much, much faster.

[@kuba4ful]

Also it's not even that hard to collect them. The "grind" for the best items isn't really that grindy (with few exceptions), which is fair, since you can lose them by dying.

[@addemac5353]

Plus, there is the login calendar and events that give away character and vault slots. If you're only interested in the older, easier Wild Shadow content, it is more convenient being F2P than back then, ignoring amulets.

[@Toothbooths]

@@kuba4ful Yeah seems like a pretty unfair review from the outside. But as realm players, we need to understand that this is what any NEW player without friends would see instantly. I agree with most of your points kuba and the large majority of complaints strife had with the game , besides lore and music, are null. The game is not p2w at all, it is 100% skill based , you can spend 10000$ dollars and still die and lose all your stuff. That is what makes the game appealing to me, it is inherently the least p2w game I have played as of recent years.

[@rodrigodiaz2195]

this is a much fairer review

[@Charziken]

As a veteran of the game, I DO want to give some criticisms of the video, as a lot of the game wasn't quite touched upon. Now let me preface this; I currently have no bias towards the game, I'm done. I don't have anything quite against it either, as the style of gameplay was perfect for me and my ADHD riddled brain. You were unable to talk about the pets, which saved you a good headache. Pets are the most broken, cash grabby thing this game has ever had the misfortune of adding. They were added by the games second owners; Kabam. They were a two edged sword. They financially saved the game, but also limited the games potential immensely. Lore. This game was created back in 2009 for a 2 week game jam competition. There were no real intentions of making it a full fledged game, but Wildshadow went through with it anyway. For the twelve years it has been out, lore was only ever first introduced back in 2017, when the second ever player created dungeon; The Lost Halls, was added to the game. I can't blame you for not touching up on this, as unfortunately, just about every single little speck of lore is locked behind end game content, which could take you upwards of 100 hours to even BEGIN to experience. This game is not usually a game meant to be played solo. It's a cooperative, PVE game. It's best played with friends, which I can say with at least some confidence could have helped your initial response to this game. This game has so much history behind it, from the multitude of owners, to scrapped mechanics and dungeons (Which you were also sadly unable to show off the variety of). In the twelve years this game has been around, it has gathered both a passionate (and incredibly toxic unfortunately) playerbase. Part of me wishes you reached out to somebody who had played this game for a long time, or even just an active member, but there was no way you could have known it would have helped or not. All in all, I really do hope that this video serves as a wake up call for the current owners; DECA Games, to get their shit together and fix the early game content, and most of the game in general. But I personally don't think that will ever happen. After ten long years, I've lost faith in the game, but still appreciate what it was going for. Whether it failed or succeeded is up to you.

[@g.p3659]

Omg is it real Charizard?

[@Charziken]

@@g.p3659 I can’t tell if you’re serious or not. But no, that would be my friend Craykiller. I’m Charziken

[@ihatefridays2715]

I don't like a lot of the new stuff DECA's been putting, really, the changes in artstyle and some of the new bosses just feel generic and completely erase the charm that old RotMG had. I wonder what the game would look like if Wildshadow had worked on it all these years...

[@CloudWalkBeta]

Wish i could upvote your message twice. I would add, kablam might have saved the game but they almost milked it to its 2nd grave. Deca have done wonders reworking all the BS kablam wrecked the game with thats for sure. I like to add an honourable mention to the sheer amount of content that is only accessible through out the seasons, i really like that there is so much content you can only acquire by showing up in certain months of the year, many other mmo’s only do christmas, but rotmg has covered almost every holiday that ever culture celebrates! There might even be a north korean holiday in the mix for all i know XD

[@Charziken]

@@CloudWalkBeta I'm honestly very torn with DECA as a company overall. They've added some neat features sure, and have had some wonderful ideas. However at the same time, almost every idea they have had has had some of the worst execution I've seen. All the holiday events feel more like FOMO events to me. In certain games they're fine like Animal Crossing, cause if you miss them due to real life shit, you can just turn back the clock on your system. Can't do that with RotMG. All in all, DECA has done some good, but they're digging the games grave, they're basically keeping it on life support right now against its will. Realm is in pain, but it's too much of a cash cow to let go.

[@CurtisKJohnston]

ROTMG was such a fantastic game. Even with permadeath the gameplay was addicting enough to make you level your characters up again. The only thing that really got me to stop playing is that server lag would hit randomly in the middle of a fight and your character would die, and you would lose dozens of hours of progress not because of a lack of skill - but because of something totally out of your control. After this painful experience happened enough times, I just couldn't continue spending time on a game that took all my progress from me due to no fault of my own.

[@jukesdtj656]

Not that it makes it any better but it is funny to note that one of the bosses is canonically responsible for the phenomenon of lag, specifically Ruthven the boss of the Manor of Immortals.

[@cameronbarry198]

This one is near and dear to me. Monetization is awful, but the core gameplay is so fun if you don't care about playing at a high level. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

[@niklasnymark7955]

Completely agree, it's a lot of fun to whip out for a few hours when you're in the mood for some high-stakes bullet hell action. If you have friends who play it, that makes it 10x better.

[@cameronbarry198]

@@niklasnymark7955 Definitely a great time with a few friends. Playing solo / seriously seems like a nightmare these days. Sad about the music. I probably wouldn't play the game again as it's been a few years, but a lot of good times were had.

[@bjently]

Realm of the Mad God has a lot of more complex dungeons and things that you didn't gain access to. You're supposed to get to level 20, tp to the harder parts of the realm, drink potions to maximize stats, rinse and repeat until all 8 of your stats are maxed. At this point, you can do harder dungeons that reward you with better, situational gear, which makes it possible to do more difficult dungeons. I've played this game for 7 years on and off, and finally now the 'Lost Halls' are easy to beat for me. There are still multiple harder endgame dungeons that I haven't beaten even once yet.

[@imaswedishplumber]

You also have to either sell your soul or pay a few hundred bucks for a pet that’s good enough for end game dungeons

[@arcanumcoto]

@@imaswedishplumber not really, I do rando realm lhs with maxed rare, so it's noy that bad

[@nguyenthinh2539]

There people beat endgame dungeons with just starting gears as well as 0 pet. Yes they have experience but that doesnt mean it’s required a pet to beat

[@Toothbooths]

@@imaswedishplumber that hasnt been the case for almost 3 years now. Pets are not essential for anything anymore due to the nerfs deca did to them as well as the introduction of the in-combat out-of-combat system, which makes it so that your pets have reduced abilities when you get hit. At this point having a pet is just for QOL.

[@binguslad]

@@imaswedishplumber ive never spend money on my pet and its only a max rare and it works fine idk what you mean

[@kevinsteiner9080]

Dude scratched the surface of the game and said this is all it has to offer🤣

[@hologilion2868]

Gotta say, I kinda respect this more than most MMOs Josh has reviewed. This one is at least absolutely honest about what it is, what it provides, and what it wants.

[@dylangreen192]

Exactly, if you think you would like a rogue-like permadeath bullet hell MMO, then this is the game for you. It was a lot better before they slapped on tons of monetization systems though.

[@rodrigodiaz2195]

yeah, you can actually see from public data that he only played for about 2 hours, not 10

[@cxanide6899]

what it wants is money (p2w)

[@Jepegish]

@@DelPlays It's definitely not "very good" in my opinion, the most i'd give it is an okay, maybe even good.

[@Toastrz]

I'll be honest, I'm very disappointed by this video. I was a dev/designer on realm for a few years, don't think very highly of the game right now, and believe its future is very bleak, so I anticipated there being a LOT of design discussion to be had on the game's problems. But everything here sadly felt very surface level and sarcastic without much thoughtful analysis. You said you played the game for 10 hours, but also never reached level 20 and there's no footage of anything past lowlands content, save for one Oryx/Wine Cellar. Playing 10 hours without reaching level 20 and only having this to say is... very difficult to believe. This video IS a good examination of the very early game problems. The lack of an adequate tutorial, direction for the player, that sort of thing. But there's also a lot of statements that are just plain wrong, or at best they're misunderstandings of things you should be well aware of within a few hours of gameplay. Pretty much all MMOs expect *some* willingness to learn by the player, and I just don't see that here. Don't get me wrong, I'm the last person to defend the game nowadays. It's riddled with issues that are worth exploring so please don't take this as me being biased/defensive of something just because I once worked on it. I'm just disappointed that this video (which will seemingly get a lot of exposure from the size of your channel) doesn't really get into anything meaningful. Even under the pretense of just being a first impressions video, this is just too shallow.

[@theclingyfox7899]

PREACH

[@-Keith-]

Yeah, it shouldn't take much more than an hour of questing to reach 20 as long as you follow the recommended quest mobs, and portal back to the nexus whenever you get teleported to oryx's castle. I imagine Josh's biggest mistake was not remembering to portal back to the nexus when he tried to bite off more than he could chew.

[@legendarytr1bal]

This honestly just felt rushed more than anything. There are good arguments but they fall flat when presented with other wrong assertions.

[@nuclearmonster8084]

Amen, new player experiance sucks big cock

[@friedrice9511]

yeah, video felt hella rushed. no way he played for 10 hrs

[@SataChannelDayo]

If the "things" that the game introduced to you doesn't actually matter in the grand scheme of things then what's the point??? This is the beginner experience, this is the info that the game wants to arm us with. Why not actually introduce the players to the things that are important straight away? I personally think josh is correct on this. This is the state of the game for new players, and if you're not willing to open up to new players and teach stuff in game. Then no one is going to view it in the same light as someone who has spent years on it in the end game. This isn't Granblue fantasy.

[@EmperorOfLols]

"This isn't Granblue fantasy." I dont think people will enjoy 8 bit tits. You wont be able to see em. "Why not actually introduce the players to the things that are important straight away?" You mean the journal that Josh mentioned and showed on the video? "no one is going to view it in the same light as someone who has spent years on it in the end game." I am curious how even people find this game if not BECAUSE of the endgame and the promise of challenge in the first place, which i am sure people have spammed clips or GIFs images about people dying by the dozens.

[@bbittercoffee]

Straight up, him saying the O1 was "the endgame boss" (although he IS the face of the game), knowing EVERYTHING that comes up afterwards almost made me cringe, if I didn't understand why he would think that. Everything is centered around endgame content, which you don't reach for a LONG time if you don't know what you're doing, actually, even if you DO know what you're doing, you might not reach it still, like myself. It was never a beginner friendly game, but nowdays it's just so much worse, SOMEHOW. Back then I had ppl giving me stuff, willing to tell me "hey, don't go into godlands until you're like, level 15, for now", and there were actual people in those early/mid-game areas instead of this huge separation between early stuff and godlands.

[@SataChannelDayo]

@@EmperorOfLols most people come into mmos not because of end game shit but what the game hands to them for their first impression. How does the game describe the gameplay loop? What is it like during the first few hours. Unlike people already in the genre these people don't know what to expect that's why it's important to have that first spark. It's the personal experience of that person that ties them to the game world. If the first twenty levels are unimpactful then tell the players that from the start. What's the goal of the game other than reaching 20? What are we doing here where are we going? If people who have spent time in the game is literally saying that they have issues getting to the endgame itself. Then there is probably a problem with the game itself.

[@SataChannelDayo]

@@bbittercoffee if the actual meat of the game, the fun of the game is closed off from practically most of the playerbase then you can't use the endgame as a reflection of your game as a whole. If you can't even average the fun factor across the game then what's the point. Here, eat a box of nails to get to the good part. How about I go to a game where at least the road is paved well. I aint got issues about it being challenging or hard but like I said. Make the experience palatable. Or else people are just going to quit. And in the end, that's how most mmos get forgotten.

[@bbittercoffee]

@@SataChannelDayo here's the thing, it's not closed off to most of the playerbase because most of the playerbase is already at the endgame content, I'm saying that it's not available to new players, but there are basically no new players, new players are the minority, sadly. I'd say it's less a box of nails and more a box of tasteless jawbreakers, and in the middle of each jawbreaker is a little piece of the "good" stuff

[@Crumbledore]

This was the game I played secretly on the school computers on kongregate when the teachers weren't looking. I really enjoyed it in that capacity. The biggest surprise in this review to me is that it considers itself an mmorpg. The game has been completely spammed with cash shop items for many years now, hacked clients are still really easy to get and practically risk free. I really enjoy the gameplay but the game sucks

[@djockom]

Hat down to you sir. I miss kongregate..

[@nobodybroda3826]

@@djockom The death of Flash really did destroy those games, now whats left?! Mobile?! God to even put up simple, dumb little flash games with mobile hurts my soul.

[@ynnesolace1087]

A rougelike MMORPG that deserves its own video for a long time, I'd love to see him play and review it. Along with seeing how predatory the cash shop/pets/vaults are

[@recitationtohear]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/eKOrapljfryqotE *Ходімо finally* .

[@IamaPERSON]

@@recitationtohear every like you get is another animals you’ve fecked.

[@IamANOTHERperson417]

@@recitationtohear ew

[@metacube9913]

"rouge"' => reported

[@CritSupport]

I really enjoyed rotmg till I saw how much i'd have to spend for vault space.

[@PurrfessorFeline]

As a player from 2012 it was my favorite game growing up but as a kid, I didn't really know what I was doing, this video puts it perfect in my opinion. I started playing again recently and I can clearly see now that the reason I loved it so much is because it sparked my love for mmos, the game is simple and just gives you dopamine hits for grinding away, truly the game starts after level 20 but for many players, its just nice to see your 1dps end up being 500

[@ReccquiemBST]

I was also a player from when RotMG started. It was such a great game back then. It was addicting and I was bad at it, but seeing this definitely brings back memories. Like the time everyone exploited the ghost ship to get free levels and fame or playing as a maxed out assassin with a ridiculous fire rate. Now I have a gaming laptop and I only just revisiting this series. Man, if you know, you know.

[@bldontmatter5319]

"game starts after level 20 durrre"

[@sh1niii]

"game starts after level 20" so... the game starts AFTER you max something out? Fascinating

[@justinhall5102]

​@@sh1niii I know this is an old comment but it takes like 10 minutes to get a level 20. this is a game where you can put 10s or even hundreds of hours into 1 character before it dies. The game just has a really bad tutorial and new player experience. It doesn't really explain how to get to the fun parts of the game it just expects you to figure it out.

[@DrKekter]

Your review is exactly what I would expect from a new player, and there's nothing inherently wrong with it. However, there are so many "check boxes" that need to be filled before you can really understand and get into the gameplay loop: 1: Level 20. Getting to level 20 is the first thing players do, and the real game begins after that. Experience in the game is largely meaningless after the first 30 minutes, although it does convert to "Fame" after reaching 20. 2: A pet with "heal" and "magic heal". Most people would rather not have pets be such an integral part of the game, especially when you can p2w a pet to high level very fast with money. For f2p players, pet is one of the few long-term progression systems in the game, and I myself have gotten a 90/90 heal/mheal pet over the years by just playing. It makes a HUGE difference. 3: Stats and gear. The game does a bad job explaining this, but you can't expect to be able to survive the previous final boss of the game, oryx 2 aka "wine cellar" with low health, speed and defence. Getting better in rotmg is incremental, especially for a new player. You start by getting to 20, then kill enemies in the godlands (the grey/mountaneous area) for some starter (tier 8 weapon/armor, tier 4 ring and ability), then go to the easier dungeons, like sprite world, snake pit and abyss of demons for easy speed, def, dex and vitality potions. There is a clear progression path all experienced players know, although shortcuts can be easily taken with a decent pet and experience. Most of these things are not explained at all, and new players need to learn "the hard way". The game isn't so much about "quick, hectic sessions that end in death", but calculating the risks you take and trying to earn more items on a character than you will lose when you die.

[@Joxerlol]

So you just leave when you get teleported to Oryx if you have low gear since you don't get any drops because of low damage?

[@DrKekter]

@@Joxerlol Usually if I'm below level 20 I don't go to oryx castle. In the current loot system damage isn't often the problem, but staying alive. The soulbound loot treshold is very low, but staying alive in the wine cellar when rushing to the boss is the problem. You can get away with staff/wand classes but if you play a melee (sword) class you generally want some defence and better armor before even trying to rush to oryx 2. Even still, oryx 1 and 2 are some of the easier bosses in the game, shatters, lost halls etc. are the real end-game content now.

[@KiluaRotmg]

@@Joxerlol ​ hit the nail on the head. There's something not explained here which is soulbound damage. Every monster or boss has a threshold of damage you have to deal, once you've dealt it, you have a chance of getting certain items that are sometimes guaranteed (like potions most of the time), items and gear, and in rare cases, very rare items that usually drop in an orange or a white bag. Every boss has their own whitebag and in essence, its what every rotmg player tries to get. And back to your question, yes in most cases you would nexus if you're not level 20 in oryx castle. Without enough defence you would be such an easy target even for small minions. Oryx castle in the year 2022 isn't that challenging if at all. If you want to check what the game actually looks like, i made a video about trying to play the game bullet-hell style. Where i do every dungeon trying not to be hit (and if not, then its at least a solo). You can just skip around and see the absolute goliath this game actually is. kzbin.info/www/bejne/b6e0enysjJqZrKs This is still missing 8 bosses that i either skipped, or couldn't do (the two very endgame dungeons). But in essense this is the whole game's content gameplay wise. With endgame gear switching and all. by the way, you can see oryx's castle at 1:36:50 :) and oryx 1 and 2 at 2:32:41. there's an oryx 3 but i didn't manage to get a clip of it before dying (the character is pretty much the work of half a year of elite gaming from the experience of 5 years).

[@KennKuun]

I tried this game quite a while ago and hated it. I had a hard time understanding why anyone enjoyed this game, but this comment really makes me view it in a new light. Knowing beforehand where to find specific kinds of loot and evaluating the risks of getting that loot sounds far more engaging than the way I played the game (i.e. the way Josh and any other new player would play it)

[@Reticulated_Spline]

Devs should have taken a small amount of development time from designing new p2w items and came up with a better tutorial.

[@RandommBoyo]

Been playing this game for 8 years from-time-to-time and watching this review made me feel SO bad for how awful the new-player experience is, ow. Also as pointed out by Toastrz, ex-developer of the game who's comment is undeservebly digged below some comments by youtube, this video feels rushed, and in no way you have played 10 hours, not even an hour I would say. The game is if I remember correctly 10 years old at this time, it went though 3 different companies/creators and current owners are, best I can say, the presentation of Chaotic Neutral. From one side, they're remaking and updating to be up-to-date old stuff, adding some quality of life features, add new content and stuff. And from the other side they try to rely on veterans and whale players spending too much money on a video game. Personally from my experience I can say the game is actually fun and kinda addicting when you know how stuff works and what to do, but that does not make the new-player experience forgivable anyway. A lot of stuff is outdated and need updating, like steam-stuff (achievements, cards, the page itself..), or better default options which LET YOU HIDE PLAYERS AND THEIR SHOTS, WHICH SHOULD BE A DEFAULT OPTION Also to correct some stuff in the video, hopefully my shitty long-text writing skills won't ruin it - Oryx's Castle isn't an endgame dungeon, it's something you do pretty often after you clear a Realm out of few, 45 I think, smaller 'Event bosses' that spawn a few times a realm. The real Endgame is something much different and harder. The players that were just standing in one place and waiting for the dungeon - You just happened to be in a realm that people have choosen to do an endgame dungeon 'raid' organized though a discord server that appears after you defeat the real Oryx in his wine cellar, where you died, after activating 3 hard to get runes. Players for some reason have teached themselfs to play on only a few servers, mainly on USW3, and the rest of the servers are either used for 'raids', bots, or other new players, or soloers. The no lore and stuff - It's there, but it isn't a main focus, and does not exist in the beginner areas. The story is mostly told in mid-endgame dungeons and some side stuff in dialogues. Or in an image made in a blog post that was made to expand the lore even deeper but you basically have to know where it is and it barely made a change in the game tbh. The items in the shop aren't impossible to say, as others have pointed out. You just can't trade them. You can't trade endgame UT and all except very old ST items. Stuff like buff items are a mixed bag. The nildrops - they were a crappy attempt at monetizing buffs that are possible to obtain during christmas events that are quite useful but aren't purchasable. Clovers - yeah they're pretty useful and can help quite a bit, but you from my experience I would the rarer stuff is easy to get when you focus on grinding it. You don't really need to spend money on this game, you can play freely and get to the same level as other people without spending a single cent even if it looks like it. The only thing that can be called real pay2win in my opinion are Pets. You can buy eggs to hatch them, food to feed them with gold, but you can not-easily-but-neither-too-rarily get egg drops from midgame-enemies/bosses, and you can feed items that you get for playing too. You can also spend gold to feed your pet (dumb idea), but you can also spend Fame, points that you get when you die on a character, to feed them anyway. No real pay2win here except small boosters. EDIT - and Vault. By default you have 8 vault slots unlocked, which is awful, and you get more of those by either getting lucky and doing an entire daily-login calendar that happens to have vault unlockers/vault slot coupons (5 needed to exchange for an unlocker), from the lootboxes, or by spending 500 gold directly. Atleast now you can actually get some of these for Fame from the shop, but the geniuses though it's great to hide the not-gold-related boxes deep below the ones that do cost money. This game is basically an abusive-relationship after you've played it for a while and felt depressed a lot of times after losing great characters but still being too addicted by it and making more characters, can confir. Sorry to any rotmg player who went though pain of reading this if I made a text wall that sounds like a 10 year old's writing, english ain't my first language and I suck at writing longer senteces.

[@nathanb842]

I played this for about 9-10 years now and I really enjoyed your text wall 👌👌👌

[@CloudWalkBeta]

I agree with most of your parts, i just want to ask you to try learning to write your thoughts down better XD This is a hard wall of text to read, and i know i made my fair share of poorly written walls of text in my time. Take your time, keep rereading it yourself, consider adding paragraphs and see if you can shorten parts to get the same message across, for example i dont think you needed to write so much just to convey that most items in realm arent locked behind a paywall & there are work arounds. Good luck :P

[@PlanADidntWorkOut]

This is some good context, thanks! "With more time I could write a shorter letter."

[@RandommBoyo]

@@CloudWalkBeta Thanks man, I'll try to remember these for the next time I'll happen to be making a text wall lol

[@slagman2334]

played for almost 600 hours and 6 years and I agree. Realm is a bit crappy for new players that don’t understand the game, but once you get into the swing of things, it gets way better

[@jilaelennio6944]

Talks about abusing pricing. Sees item that costs 3600. Sees a 500, 1200, 2600, and 7k pack and says you either get too much or too little cashbucks to purchase 3600 item. Completely misses that you could purchase the exact amount you needed with multiple transactions (500x2 +2600) or (1200 x3) Come Josh... I expected you to notice that immediately.

[@newone5262]

Yeah ahahaha

[@seraphcreed840]

He addressed this in Diablo but it's more so the psychological tendency to buy the most immediate solution. So you would likely overpurchase (the 1200) rather than exactly what's needed (the 2x500) As a kid I spent hundreds on this games random stuff. I respect that it can be addictive to gamble on ROTMG. I used to spam the coin bundles that gave you slots style drops.

[@jilaelennio6944]

@@seraphcreed840 Math is hard. We get it. He also mentioned that this review was poor in quality. No need to necro a moot point.

[@thecurliest_fry]

I haven't played this game in years, but it always struck me as a really unique and innovative game in a lot of ways. It was taking the mmo formula and applying it to a genre other than RPG. I also found that there's not many MMOs that feel like they have as much of a 'Massive Multiplayer' aspect to them as this game. You would routinely operate with dozens of other players like a giant organism, moving through the map. So, in some ways, I find the criticisms that it's not rpg enough a little odd, because I feel like this game was trying to set itself apart from the dozens of mmorpgs by not being that. And I do think changing up the formula and having niche games that satisfy niche appeals a very good thing That being said, this game does clearly have one of the most in-your-face and arguably abusive cash shops out there, and the game does put them front and center in a very unavoidable fashion. And this game's rogue-like elements make the cash shop that much worse as the rewards are either so temporary, or give such a huge advantage to those that pay. But all in all, compartmentalizing the bad for a moment, I do think the core structure of this game definitely deserves some credit for trying to be something different, and succeeding at that. As always, love the series, and excited to see more!

[@noukan42]

TBH, i feel like permadeath with a solid enought system of meta progression is probably a good solution for the problems that hardcore mmo usually face. I noticed that i don't feel as bad at dieing in a roguelike than i feel about losing equipment in a normal RPG, because in the former case i knew from the start that all my stuff was temporary.

[@honeybadger6275]

@@noukan42 Kinda off topic but I always thought that Runescape did the gear and death system really well.

[@theaeon]

I guess it's very MMO, but just not very RPG. There's more to an rpg than a level and loot system. If the actual "role" you are playing is only mechanical and has no narrative aspects it can't truly be considered roleplay. That's my take on it.

[@thomasm9876]

Most of your complaints "can" be fixed by reading the "official unofficial wiki" or having a friend babysit you and answer questions/concerns, or checking the options menu. But should that "be" the way to fix them? The new player experience plainly sucks. The meta is to make multiple accounts to store your good loot (because extra character slots and bank space are locked behind a paywall or logging in for months), and then when you save up enough stat boosts, use them and then "the real game begins". Until you die of course. Well, as new player at least. Because veterans have pets that heal them back to full in a matter of seconds, so characters easily reach years in terms of lifespan. To give credit to Deca, they did nerf pets (added years ago) multiple times to make them not as oppressive. But the game has run its course and most people are just waiting for release of few rotmeg clones that go back to the roots.

[@LordSadCat]

Sadly that is a big issue with MMORPGS or even some normal games in general. Majority of your time is looking and readying wikis or posts about the game then play a little of the game. I enjoy having complicated mechanics however I feel it's went too far.

[@SkellyHell]

The cash shop is absolutely shit tier, especially considering the roguelike nature of the game. But I get a strong feeling you went into this game thinking it was something other than what it was. Its not an mmorpg its an mmo roguelike, and pretty fun in small doses

[@MartZOZ]

You should make a "Best MMO ever" mini-series or something, I am very interested to see which mmos you particularly enjoy.

[@SirNoddy1]

Whens he playing lost ark?

[@Soapy-chan_old]

He enjoys many of the MMOs covered in the "Worst MMO ever" series. The series isn't about if he enjoys something or not, but if it's bad or not.

[@wetgoatfart88]

it is a good idea but it would be way harder to keep interesting it would be basicly albion, guild wars, final fantasy and the other famous mmos maybe lost ark too idk, the point is that it would run out sooner than this one way sooner

[@asdergold1]

@@SirNoddy1 Lost Ark devolves into typical Korean MMO-ness later on. As in multiple alts being mandatory for F2P at the bare minimum. Don't buy the hype, it won't last that long.

[@neothepenguin1257]

I think his specialty is his pessimism. As much as I would like that, I doubt it’ll get the same views as this

[@nogood8495]

Realm is just a massive time sink. You are spending most of your time doing something boring so that you can get to the fun part. Think maxing and realm clearing. It's not literal "pay to win," since you can't pay to beat difficult content. However, it is extremely pay to win by definition. You can buy keys that instantly open up dungeons (Oryx's Sanctuary is a notable exception however), which saves an unbelievable amount of time. You can buy vaults and character slots, and anyone who's played the game knows how limited your storage is in the beginning. And don't even get me started on pets. The game is nearly unplayable without a decent pet. The community is something worth mentioning as well. Toxic players and cheaters run rampant, despite DECA's claims that the Exalt client would get rid of cheaters. Obviously not everyone is toxic/a cheater, but these two types of players are extremely common here. The elitism and Discord meta is sickening. Because of how the optimal HP scaling is at about 15 players, private Discords are everywhere for only the best or most popular people. If you're a new player, good luck finding someone that can get you in the inner circle (I am still indebted to GOMLrotmg). Mechanically, Realm is not a bad game. You have some well designed yet difficult dungeons, but most players will not get to experience them due to fear caused by permadeath. It takes many attempts and most likely deaths to learn both dungeons. And if you die you have to remax, which can take a while. It doesn't help that the game is badly optimized and laggy, which can easily result in unfair deaths. And losing rare items to lag, an instapop, or both is one awful feeling. There are still plenty more issues that I haven't covered. I say all these things as a legitimate F2P who's been mostly active for the past 2 years. It took me about that much time to get my pet to 100/100 divine. I've soloed both Oryx's Sanctuary and The Shatters (post rework), which are arguably the two hardest dungeons in the game. The game is just not worth getting into. If you don't have an experienced friend or guild, it gets decent after 1000 hours. I'm not even kidding if you are a F2P. Increasing your storage is timegated at the mercy of the login calendar, giving you a new vault/char slot every 2 or 3 months. Getting consistent at maxing will take some time. Getting a decent heal/mheal or mheal/heal pet will take some time. Getting consistent at the hard dungeons will take even more time, and all the previous points are basically required. You will need storage and backup characters to rebuild at a reasonable rate. And you most certainly will need a decent pet and many attempts to beat O3 and Shatters for the first time. Or you could take the cowardly route and use a gamer client. That path isn't worth it either. Don't get me wrong, I actually dislike the permadeath aspect of the game. If you're going to play the game, at least play by the rules. DemomannOB, signing off.

[@prawngravy18]

There is no fun part.

[@nogood8495]

Correction: the thing you want to do.

[@Toothbooths]

You raise good points , but as someone who has played realm for thousands of hours just like you, soloed o3 and post rework shatts aswell, how can you "dislike" the permadeath aspect. That is one of the big reasons to play the game. Realm would be incredibly boring without permadeath.

[@Kay-ie6xf]

i think 1000 hours is a bit of an exaggeration, i think i have 1000 hours at this point in time and i've been playing on and off since september 2020, and really the game started to get really fun for me during like summer of 2021, i think a big thing people underestimate in this game from an outsider perspective is events, which is a whole other topic that should be discussed

[@scotch4890]

6:10 I’m getting tired of people not realizing this distinction so even though it may be construed as pretentious, RPG is not an acronym it is an initialism. SCUBA is an acronym as all the initials of the words in it spell out a spoken word, and if you didn’t know scuba was an acronym, the more you know. 🌈

[@GeeroROTMG]

I found this game from Google play games over a decade ago and was absolutely enamored by it! I've tried to quit this game multiple times and always end up coming back. Such a vile trap to fall into.

[@omegahaxors9-11]

Soulbound is even worse. It dosen't mean you keep them on death: it means you can't trade them. So yes, if you die with your inventory full of soulbound, you still lose it. r/rotmg sent me

[@joseneo_]

Yah, the concept of soul here means account

[@xBINARYGODx]

not tradeable items is nothing new to RPG's/mmo's - and who really cares. I guess they want drops not balances around trading at all. that is not necessarily a bad thing, what IS bad is for Josh to get it wrong and spread false information.

[@Gabe413]

@@xBINARYGODx what IS bad is spending a fuck ton of money on shit itens that go away when you die just like the stuff you get for free

[@godlyvex5543]

@@Gabe413 So what, you'd rather have the stuff be OP and pay to win rather than having it be not worth the money?

[@de_iure]

@@Gabe413 you're talking about ST boxes, which are absolutely out of meta, and useless? Only losers pay for that.

[@Pomodorosan]

Always crazy to me how this game started off part of the Assemblee competition in 2009, and the dev has made bank with these assets created by unrelated artists 16:50 pretty much this. the soundtracks and sprites were submitted for the first part of the competition, and free to use by all the devs participating The game was probably way more interesting in the first year of release (Will anyone ever read my thoughts or are they gone into the void) --- Since this comment is receiving attention, I'll paste my comment from his "old mmorpg" videos here too (Damn my comment with 90 upvotes got removed, I guess they didn't like me trying to share the video.) 16:00 We had a dwarf-only guild is Classic WoW that cleared all but the last raid, while missing three of the eight classes. Imposing restrictions is such a great way to have novel and exciting experiences.

[@Misha4em]

I read

[@SpaceLight202]

I read them

[@hongmeiling6065]

I read it, and I remember it too. I found out about this game on Tigsource (Spelunky dev's website + indie dev forum)

[@prestonyup]

10:00 . Soulbound isn't a mechanic where you keep the items on death. It just means you aren't able to trade them.

[@lkmdude8094]

Rotmg was and still is one of my favorite mmo's. There's so little to do, but the permadeath makes what's there so much more impactful. I still remember the first time I lost a 1/8 character. Someone was rushing a mad lab in front of me and I got blindsided by one of those guys that get bigger over time. Quit the game for a few months after that but I always keep coming back eventually.

[@_Lumiere_]

Aw man the mad labs, what a throw back. I think I still have a 5/8 wizard that is many years old at this point lmao though I haven't played in years

[@Chicxulubs]

I think I lost my first 1/8 character in a mad lab too, it might've been a rogue with full max dex and died quickly after maxing the dex since I tried rushing I think. Then I lost my first 5/8(wizard) in shatters, lost my first 6/8 (paladin) to the eye of the dragon. I remember how I used to get so upset after dying but now I kind of purposefully suicide to see if I can get a better ppe/upe going than the last with faster results.

[@ryanmc2175]

@@BNIODPGeneralBanking wanna team up? I have a guild

[@emem2076]

@@BNIODPGeneralBanking haha lost my second 8/8 knight on this potion and i didn t understood what killed ;e

[@GoharioFTW]

Man, I was gonna leave an angry comment as someone who's played and enjoyed this game for a long time but I noticed you already have responded to feedback and I do applaud your awareness and ability to take critique. And I can agree that the new player experience probably isn't very inviting.... As a matter of fact I only was able to smoothly enjoy this game at the start since my friend got me to play with him and he gave me the _actual_ tutorial for this game, which was basically: >Pick a class (DEFINITELY Wizard) >Do quests and get to level 20 (minimum level 15) and then teleport to godlands >Farm godland enemies for pots and also dungeon drops >Look out for eggs, particularly human ones. You want to get a pet with heal and magic heal as its first two abilities. Every other pet is basically irrelevant. >Start with learning how to solo sprite worlds and also maxing dex. Then learn how to solo snake pits and max speed. >Do/call out other dungeons like abyss of demons, undead lairs, mad labs, etc. until you slowly start maxing your character into 6/8 (don't worry about 8/8ing yet) >Once you're 6/8, shift your focus onto your pet. If you don't have a heal magic heal pet by now, go to Realmeye and try trading some humanoid eggs for pots. This means grinding for pots to trade. >Once a heal magic heal pet is obtained start feeding it (you may have died already at this point so you might have some fame. If you don't have any keep your equipment and kill your 6/8 for some fame and start the process over again until your pet is maxed. >Start maxing other pets and learning how to fuse them for a stronger pet. >Once your pet is decent and you're comfortable with the gameplay, start looking at the harder dungeons like shatters, tombs, ice caves, etc. Having someone to guide me through those things definitely made the new player experience much more enjoyable, so I can't completely say that the things you said in this video are wrong, since it's from the perspective of a new player without help.

[@bigbananabill]

wizard is so good

[@twelfthknight]

I remember playing this during lunch periods in school back when it was a pretty quick-loading browser game. It was pretty fun for those daily 20-30 minute stints. Unlocking the other classes was enough of a tangible reward to give any kind of meaning and direction to actually playing it even if the classes change nothing of the fundamental gameplay loop. I got much the same feeling much later when playing Enter the Gungeon, though it's just a better iteration on the Rogue-like bullet-hell with RPG flavour concept RotMG was going for.

[@picucub7741]

I gotta say, the game looks like it still has alot of the problems from its kabam days and before that. But I think over all the game's mechenics are pretty solid and the gameplay loop is honestly very engaging. The game also has very unique dungeon designs which didnt really get touched on in the video. In my opionion this video really isnt the best I've seen from josh since it seems like zero to no actual research and consideration of the game play mechenics went into the review. I'm saying this not because of some miss guided nastolgia for this game because those days are lonnnnngggg gone. I think that the video seemed very rushed and had very little thought put behind it with the main schtik being the "evolution" joke whikst alot of the good points of the game gets over looked. It is sad to see that the music got replaced though. It was very very good. I think there are just so many mistakes about this game in this video which is pretty unusual for this channel. Considering the reviews for other mmos which I have played being pretty much exactly the truth. But this time it felt malicious at times. I hope this wont be a recurring thing in thw future but yea. I hope this game get better someday, maybe thwn Ill try it out again.

[@hoyien1]

I agree completely. First time i think he really didnt play the game as much as he did others, but he did say he really didn't enjoy it.

[@hoyien1]

@@DelPlays Yeah he seemed really irritated/mad for some reason instead of critical.

[@KezJUNGLIST]

@@hoyien1 he should have spoke to someone who actually plays the game, for example the evolution of an mmo thing was just referring to when they updated the game from flash to unity... sure the cash shop is in your face from the start but no one these days ever needs to buy anything from the shop, pets are nerfed, pet feed is much more accessible in game and the shop sells no end game loot or anything near it. players buy keys from the shop because they want to support a game that they enjoy. only bad thing about the game is the cheaters but at the end of the day its not a pvp game either so who really cares. the amount of content deca has added to the game since taking it over was such a breath of life for the game only people who played during the kabam drought would really understand what it used to be like.

[@Absurdistcomedy]

The guy has incredibly personal criteria and uses that framework to judge a game based off 2-3 hours of playtime. I feel his videos are like this a lot but he's fun to listen to. If he's playing anything that is outside of his taste regarding game structure, you're bound to get videos like this.

[@CloudWalkBeta]

I think when we take kablams ‘legacy’ into account, we have to realise they approached the game with a ‘milk this gravy train as hard as possible’ mentality and they MESSED it all up. When deca took over they have virtually reworked EVERYTHING kablam did. The changes to the wildshadow days were minimal, though it looks a bit power creeped, but a bit of updating might help. Maybe deca’s goals moving forward should be to make the game more intuitive & friendlier for newer players over time. While potentially ultra nerfing the discord raids should also be on the table, 3 man to 12 man groups are fine, but those 50 man trains trying to brain-dead face-tank a marble colossus just to ‘obtain the best loot in the game’ without ever experiencing how to play the game got out of hand. Perhaps end game dungeon keys should be guild only, or sell guild only keys for half the price.

[@dapplederpgaming8432]

I’m noticing that one of the biggest issues highlighted in this video is the lack of storyline or character of any sort. I agree that if you are indeed looking for those things, RotMG does not really supply them (though there is very interesting lore pertaining to one of the most difficult dungeons: The Shatter). However, that’s not the point of this game. You don’t need a story driven directive to go kill some monsters, your “character development is leveling up to l20 and getting better and better gear. I feel that having a specific story would weigh this concept down since a story always has some kind of end, and in this case that’s not a good thing. This is about repetition and keeping your character alive for as long as humanly possible, a pre written story does not fit this.

[@anormalguy8407]

It's a really good game that gets ruined by bots, cheaters and random disconnects that will result in your death (making you lose your progress for that character) I have like 1000+ hours in the game and almost every time I end up Dying after building up my characters due to a random disconnect, that's why I quit

[@anormalguy8407]

@@XxXQuickScoperXxXJoinTheParty Thanks, I finally know how to spell dying

[@boldCactuslad]

Same here friend. You'd do everything right and lose all your progress to lag. Wouldn't even know what killed me

[@lucykaede3663]

It was a good game as long a good company and devs who did care about the game was in charge, aka Wild Shadow Studios. The game started to become worse and worse after Kabam buyed it and after they squeezed out evry single cent from it they sold it to DECA(they not much better than Kabam was), so right now the game have potato servers and devs who don't give a shit (this 2 company together did add less content to the game during the years then the original owner did in half year)

[@mcfarvo]

I quit because I had 8/8 toons of all 14 classes (at the time) and I hadn't died on most of them since 2011

[@-Keith-]

@@mcfarvo I quit because I had a loaded 8/8 archer, took a break from the game for a few months, and within 30 minutes of coming back to the game I blew up my archer 🤣

[@rammekerotmg7162]

I love this game and I think it is kind of sad and embarrassing you were blasted immediatly with the shop. This game is deeper than you think, it has some lore and you can actually feel connected to a character if you get good at the game, it also has some nice boss fights and interesting mechanics, but it just has so many barriers for new players and too many issues.

[@Opelucid]

hi

[@rammekerotmg7162]

@@Opelucid Oh god

[@marcel9895]

thats the problem man, he enters the game he sees shop, thats the pov of a new player who doesnt even know where to go after the tutorial. i played this game a lot and i like it, but his rewiev is on point, withouth any friends help u just dont know what to do in this game, game doesnt tell u that

[@anormalguy8407]

@@marcel9895 that was their way of making money though, and it was a simple way for the devs back then to do it that way, the shop doesn't even have anything worth buying other than food for your pet's or a few of the exceptions for keys, which you don't need in the first place because you can just go and find the dungeons easily yourself

[@runandjumpers]

@@anormalguy8407 how does a new player know that? It just gives a bad impression

[@nootkpr]

Btw confuse doesn't randomise controls, it offsetsmovement keys clockwise by one. W=Right, D=Down, S=Left, A=Up. In this way it's not too bad to get used to, and you can get used to it with practice. The maze in the mad lab is a good practice ground. fully randomising your movement would be completely broken

[@galoomba5559]

no, it swaps up/right and down/left.

[@SirScythe]

Sad to see them selling out so hard these days, I don't even remember there being a cash shop back when I played... Although I don't think you should judge the game as an MMO*RPG* when the steam page only says "an evolution of traditional MMO gameplay" and doesn't even contain the word RPG anywhere

[@Skylark0000]

you must've played back in prealpha then since the game has had monetization since kabam days.

[@falcon9213]

@@Skylark0000 wildshadow had monetization too while much less impactful. OG pets (only cosmetic) and HP Elixirs and shit

[@blackxcrowdy]

@@falcon9213 you couldnt get char slots for free so it's actually more impactful

[@colmoe]

I played the hell out of this from its first launch on Kongregate until... I'd say 2015. Seeing this appear here, first MMO on your list I've played, brings a genuine tear to my eye. I was a dumb young teen who was in for the thrill, the action packed raids, the easy sit down and pick up like gameplay (you can play for 10 minutes or 10 hours), and of course, the Mad God's dungeon. I also never spent a single cent on the game. I knew people that had maxxed out many characters. Happy for them. Never understood the appeal, but I'm glad for them all the same. They said the pay to win got worse and worse. Since I never managed to snag those special dungeon drop bows or swords, I was left with nearly the best gear. I consider it, in hindsight, a fun challenge. I'd try my best to contribute, even if I'd end up failing quicker than others. I think I stopped playing when the ninja released. There's no feeling like watching 60 people randomly coming together in the center of the map to clear the demigods. They come together and split apart at willy nilly, alliances that can last 5 seconds or many many games. That thrill of meeting some badass who draws the mob's attention while we all kite around, or the one fellow who'll charge through hell to support others... no feeling like that in any other MMO I ever tried. I stopped playing because I lost the appeal. Don't know how it is now, never had an interest. Rest in peace player convoys that formed while fighting gnomes and elves and ended at the Mad God. Either you remember them or you don't. Also I must've been gifted/somehow acquired enough gold to found a guild. The Knights of David, I think it was called, some parody of the Roundtable with a Jewish aesthetic. Melee guys only, fight together, swear oaths to defeat certain villains (bosses, say, the ent boss or lich king), randomly stop mid battle to sing Hava Nagila and Maoz Tzur, and all that. Good times. Good times. 10/10 game, would willingly toss me and my entire guild into the front lines to protect a few rangers and then die again.

[@colmoe]

One suggestion, if you play this game: HOTKEY THE NEXUS TO SOME BUTTON I did it to Q. Saved me hundreds of lives.

[@IamaPERSON]

@@colmoe what was your username? Mine was HeroAustin

[@elijah4168]

Maoz Tzur >>>>

[@Dragon-Believer]

It was such a great game when it was working as intended. One of the best ever. That was a long time ago. It's been broken by both the players and the owners. Exploits that were never fixed by the players and the owners adding pay to win. It's probably still fun at least for a while but it's too painful to see what has become of it. I'm not hating on anyone who still plays but it's not what it used to be.

[@samvimes9510]

The idea of a bunch of hardened adventurers stopping in the middle of battle to sing Jewish folk songs is absolutely hilarious, I love it

[@kevindie]

*_Sounds like Josh didn’t even need to play the game to decide he hated it._*

[@anarchist.1200]

Because it deserves to be hated 😂

[@PrimePalYT]

how?@@anarchist.1200

[@Voldycssm19]

This is the problem with reviewing games without having played enough of it. It's fundamentally inaccurate

[@mcfarvo]

In 2010-2011, the loot chests were public and your items upon death (your gravestone) were also publicly lootable, so originally this game was about getting extremely good at soloing world bosses and dungeons yourself to get rich and escape permadeath by getting so good at soloing and amassing wealth in your bank vaults (and mule accounts/character slots)...but they eventually made it all personal loot, soul bound items, and pets (added later) as your heal/mana bots, so then it became zerg rushing and heavy investment into pets.

[@scpfilechildrenbarrow2212]

What a game it was back in 2011-12! One of the best experiences I've had with mmos. Even in the early Kabam era it was pretty good before... uh... before "that"

[@liviousgameplay1755]

Recommended (9,792.8 hrs on record) "Don't play it." Yeah that tracks.

[@no64256]

I really dislike how much of this video was digging into the advertising, it took over 5 minutes to get to the good stuff. I was good afterwards, but I almost clicked off the video because of that. It just got old *way* to quickly

[@jerberverc5959]

I know its beating a dead horse a bit, but I do find it kinda odd that Josh didn’t know what Soulbound meant, seems like something other MMOs have in spades in my experience.

[@aki-senkinn]

In many years of playing games, I've never seen '"Soulbound" to be used like this either before; it has meant in every game it stays in your inventory on death; sometimes additionally also untradeable/undroppable. It's bound to your "soul", the one thing persistent across death; makes way more sense.

[@Thanatos2k]

If I saw Soulbound in a roguelike I would assume it meant that it remains on death.

[@AuroraAce.]

@@aki-senkinn the thing is you start a new character every time you die, their soul is different each time unlike games where you respawn as the same character

[@Thanatos2k]

@@Unusual_Expertise Do you know the difference between a Roguelike and a Roguelite? THINGS THAT PERSIST ON DEATH.

[@PrimePalYT]

in my time of playing hypixel, item not soulbound: free to sell. soulbound: its only yours. co-op soulbound:its whoever is on your island@@aki-senkinn

[@comicsans2516]

Alright bois heres how you progress in realm of the mad god(ROTMG for short) 1. Figure out how to become comfortable with movement options and making use of camera rotate and camera offset 2. Figure out what the heck is going on in an area/dungeon 3. Start knowing enough to not die super often and build up a character with some decent progress 4. Master multiple dungeons and areas to the point where it is nearly impossible for you to die in them 5. Start learning new content(theres ALWAYS difficulty unless you are really good at touhou or something) 6. Find a group of player who you enjoy playing with and learn the game together 7. Quit for a loooooong time, its nearly impossible to find a player who has never gone at least a month without even logging into the game 8. Mastery, most people never truly master the game and I think its the best part of it, you are never immune to dying or making mistakes, are you ready to face the challenge? And remember, you can always get those items back or something similar to them, now get out there and take some risks! also, here are some good things about the game: 1. Doesnt take a ton of processing power to run, no need for a thousand dollar graphics card, just dont be surprised if you get some lag when streaming video while also running the game. Also doesnt take up much storage space(well below 1-2 GB last time I checked, for the full game install not just an update, the updates are something like 50MB each) 2. ACTUAL GAMEPLAY, there is essentially 0 way to make progress in this game while not pressing anything, and there is ALWAYS something to do 3. Very good community, ask a question and it is very likely someone will be able to help you, just dont ask for free items and expect anything valuable. also, you can join a guild and easily send a message to everyone that is in the guild 4. No anticheat that requires admin privileges to run, have fun without giving the game special privileges that dont even stop hackers! 5. Non-invasive chat filter, say what ever the flying **** you want and toggle on/off chat filter whenever you want to in settings 6. This game has one of the most fun grinds Ive ever seen in a game, I can log in for an hour and make meaningful progress, it might hurt if you die, but you can learn from mistakes and get your progress back with time and skill (The gameplay I like is rushing dungeons and chatting with other players along the way) 7. Gain progress for learning and being skilled, not just time or gear. You EARNED where you are in the game, and others can relate to the journey you took. You have the determination and skill ^w^

[@comicsans2516]

also if anyone wants to help me find a game that I might like, here is what I look for in a game: 1. no anticheat that requires admin privileges, hacks can get past anticheat anyways and arent that much of an issue besides in pvp games, just dont make me deal with the anticheat its annoying 2. no pvp, Im just not a fan, the best pvp game Ive played is brawlhalla and even thats not the best 3. the ability to chat with other players is always a nice feature 4. pleeeeeeeaaaaaase have actual gameplay if I wanted to look at things happening I would be playing antimatter dimension or bit heroes 5. not take a ton of processing power, I dont want to need a $1k graphics card to play a game, and I also enjoy listening to videos/music without it making a game lag

[@cuddlecakes7153]

I have to disagree with this video a bit. I know you love story and such, but not everyone does, nor do they need it to have fun. A game is not worse for not having a story. Realms cash shop is asinine though, and the game being confusing is completely valid. I always liked Realm because of the mystery of what to do. Do I think it's the best game? No. But it's still fun.

[@tikiwiki7428]

Risk of rain and doom supposedly have stories but idc about them and love the gameplay anywayd

[@Gabe413]

josh was expecting an mmorpg. realm clearly doesnt care about the rpg part and i think that upset josh

[@jtowensbyiii6018]

No story? Then it's not an rpg, that's flat out lies

[@AuroraAce.]

@@Gabe413 it never said it was an mmorpg though just an mmo josh incorrectly called it that

[@SolzKiwi]

Before I saw this review I was stuck in RotMG, no GF, no Life, and no way out. After watching this None of these things have changed but my pronunciation of evolution to “EVO-lotion” Thoroughly enjoyed and would love a series of this game ❤️ 10/10 would see more Evo-lotionary content like this again.

[@donnertron7714]

Awww ;_;

[@birdmustard7098]

Get back to your npe solz

[@bakedbean2221]

my favourite part of this video was this-comment

[@100Pwnz]

I always get super excited to see Realm content from popular creators, even critiques, since like a lot of people it was one of the pivotal games from my adolescence (played a ton from 2010 to 2014.) There are many, many valid criticisms you can level against the game (most of them stemming from the incompetent ownership and pay to win systems driving up the power creep of the game and forcing out many free-to-play players), but almost everything in this video seems like a bad faith argument from someone who played 10 minutes, died twice, and left. It honestly looked like you spent more time gawking in disgust at the cosmetic microtransactions than actually trying to play the game. The thing that really stuck out to me was that you took a piece of obviously outdated, tone-deaf and inaccurate marketing and beat the shit out of it until it was dead, and then spent another TWENTY MINUTES verbally abusing that 8 word snippet from the steam page without any other tangible points of critique. Like, we get it, the game isn't some paragon of innovation in 2022, but in 2010 when it came out you'd have been hard-pressed to find many other flash mmos with such refined bullet hell gameplay and polish while also having such a low barrier for entry. It truly did seem like a one of a kind experience back in the early 2010s. As someone who has in fact actually played the game before, the only fully realized point I can agree with is that the music is indeed very jarring and does not fit the pace or tone of the game at all. I'm sure others have recommended that you do so, but I would really push you to check out the original RotMG Theme. While it was very basic, and looped ad infinitum, I still believe it perfectly encapsulates the feeling and experience that Realm is meant to embody. Another point that you touched on briefly that I agree with is the cluttered UI that overloads you with a wall of text instead of allowing you to organically experience the gameplay. Definitely not a big fan of that. Slamming the game so hard for not having heavy RPG elements is one of the strangest things I've ever heard. I honestly thought the first half of the video was going to end up being some weird satire piece before going into some actual criticisms because of it. After giving it a cursory glance, the only thing I can see that is indicative of that kind of experience at all is that "RPG" is the FINAL LISTED GENRE TAG ON STEAM. Nowhere in the steam store page, website, or game launcher does it even HINT at attempting to provide a true RPG experience, and it has obviously never been a focus of the game's development. Just to play devil's advocate for a moment, the biggest criticism that I would level against the game is the addition of the pet system and how it has impacted the game's design philosophy. Pets come with a variety of abilities, some beneficial to you like health and mana regen and some effecting enemies like short ranged stun or mid range projectile effects. Essentially, you are required to dish out some level of real money to max out a pet with ideal abilities like heal and shock, but once you do you are basically impervious to the threats of the basic enemies in the game. This leads to end game dungeons and events being balanced around being able to at least threaten those top characters with insane paid pets that will pump them full of meds more potently than an injury-prone NFL player. This leads to dungeon and encounter designs that are grossly overtuned to a player who may have a decently geared and statted character, but lack the long term immortality offered by a legendary healing pet, leading to the inevitable purchase of more pets and pet materials, and perpetuating the design choices that initiated the situation. Now, I did of course read the pinned comment immediately after watching the video, so I can see that you've acknowledged some of the shortcomings of this critique, but it is still mind-boggling to me how little effort went into the talking points put forth in this video. Realm of the Mad God has many glaring flaws, and lord knows it isn't one of the greatest games of all time, but it sure as hell deserves better than this...

[@bloodsausage6635]

Tldr; bad game but nowhere near as bad as the video implies lol

[@masongindlesperger]

Actually good mmo, I have a lot of fun playing it

[@nuclearmonster8084]

Getting to O3 with 80 people and finishing with 5 or 8 is the best feeling I've ever gotten in an MMO.

[@Jepegish]

Compared to other mmo's? Not really. It's alright when you need a quick pick me up game.

[@limerumpus3589]

TLDR: the pay to win is pretty bad I wanted to mention some things about the pay to win features of the game. First off almost all the items you see in the shop are stupidly overpriced and you can get most of the items by just playing the game. I know it’s dumb since it’s the first thing seen as a new player but atleast it’s not money locked. Secondly there is a mechanic called “pets”. They help your character by healing you, damaging enemies and so on. The monetization of pets is insane, yes you could get a max level pet on your own but it requires fame and feedpower. Fame is a currency gained after your character dies. Feedpower is a stat given to items that gets better the rarer it is. Essentially to get a good pet that heals you constantly and is arguably necessary to tackle endgame dungeons you need to make tons of good characters and have them die, sacrifice hundreds of rare drops that take forever to obtain and then eventually you’ll get to that good pet. Another way you could go about this is giving in to the pay to win carrot on a stick. Everything in the pet leveling process can be bought with realm gold including foods with crazy good feedpower and replacing the fame requirement to feed them with gold. Even still if you choose to pay for this it will cost a mighty $300 usd. This game has been like this for years and everyone hates it.

[@Shovelchicken]

I actually had a ton of fun playing this years ago, it’s a fantastic game. Or it was years ago, excited to see how it’s gone downhill

[@TDOTCRFH4]

a lot of the stuff in this game seems pretty clearly meant as a joke, up to and including the "next evolution" line, so much of this video strikes me as josh taking on the sysiphian task of making fun a clown

[@Jepegish]

a clown indeed. the game's a mess.

[@rosaecrux]

This game is like whelming. It is volution, but has not decided if it is an actual evolution or devolution, up or down; it claims to be an evolution, but that is a direction the game is devoid of.

[@pixxlated_]

I remember so many years ago I played this game, I was a little kid and I was just getting into it. I decided to look up how to buy items, because well, being a little kid and not understanding the game's mechanics very well, I was doing pretty terribly. It brought me to an RMT (real money trade) website, something I was super inexperienced with and never done before. I asked my mom if I could buy 3 end-game items for a measly $10. I didn't really understand at the time that even items of such a caliber would also be lost, as it's a rogue-like. There's no getting your items back after you die. I remember using 2 of them, getting pretty dang far, but I ended up dying and being so incredibly saddened by it. I still have 1 of those items in my bank in-game to this very day. Good times.

[@Presearing]

As much as I love your videos this one is extremely annoying to watch, the "evolved" thing was ran to the ground within first minutes.

[@notmyidea8134]

true

[@RobotMaria]

Actually, from what I see in this video, I think the game looks fun. The cash shop is a HUUUUUGE turn-off, though. I went from "ooh, I might try this one out" to "hell no I won't touch that with a ten foot pole", in the span of a few minutes of this video. Seriously, I loath games that put in microtransactions and loot boxes for everything.

[@samcarson420]

Haven’t spent a dime and I’m in the endgame with stacked characters and loot, there were a lot of misconceptions in this video that Josh just straight up didn’t look into at all. Game is fun

[@mynickisnick8270]

I remember trying several times to get into this game but just couldn't. There were so many things to do and I got lost immediately after the tutorial.

[@Drubnubjagr]

Same! I tried it 3 times I think but couldnt figure out if I liked it or not... And thats not a great sign :)

[@simonw.1223]

@@Drubnubjagr well I got in it until I reached the leveling end abd not to grind somethings else... I don't know what it was called.

[@feironprospera113]

Same story here.

[@Dragon-Believer]

Don't bother it sucks now. But it used to be fantastic. There used to be tons of portals open that were all full. Then it was sold and a whole bunch of bad things happened. But what you would do is go into portals. Level to max (20) in 5 to 20 minutes. Then you go to the first endgame area in the game and start farming stat potions. Once you got nearly maxed on the first 3 stats then you could start doing mini bosses and optional dungeons. Most of them are extremely dangerous. There was one that was underwater and you had to fight in air bubbles. One was lava. Once all the mini bosses were killed the final boss of the game comes out and it teleports everyone to him. It was originally that everyone would fight their way to him and kill him together. But people started rushing him and that ruined it. But you wouldn't want to fight the end boss until you had all your stats up. Otherwise you're just gonna die for nothing. If your stats aren't up and you don't have decent gear you should just leave and join another portal. You can leave at any time. That is how you avoid death. So that is basically the game loop. Once you have your stats up you can try optional bosses and get better gear and max all your stats. But it was very easy to die and you'd start over. You had a little bank so you could keep some extra gear etc. So you weren't starting from nothing but you lose the character and all the gear you were carrying. I mean back in the day. God only knows what happens now. But it's got 1/10th of the player population. Or less. I can tell you that. I think I played in 2013? Oh, the final boss of the realm isn't the hardest thing. He was kind of middle endgame. Some of the mini dungeons that dropped inside the realm were harder. It was a game where you really had to decide what you were going to do. If you went through the wrong portal you would die. But you could get max level in 5 minutes. So if you were a fresh 20 death wasn't a big deal. It sounds intimidating but if you go into a portal and the first trash mob kills you then don't go there next time.

[@telmobrito519]

@@Dragon-Believer The fck are you smoking, there was literally less player in the time of kabam, a literal content draugh for years, server issues and a whole lot of other problems. Deca made rotmg great again.

[@kilikx1x]

First off I want to say that everything in this review is 100% fair. You experienced things in the order you reviewed them in with the information you had available to you at the time and played for a limited but fair amount of time to get a review. But there were a few things you said that were inaccurate or have been changed since the original release of the game (which is unfortunate since I believe it hinders the new player experience quite a bit), some of which make the experience worse and some that make it better (in my opinion). ) "Soul Bound" items are not saved upon death. When an item has a soul bound tag all that means is that, that particular item can not be traded to other players and is locked to your account. The only items you do not lose on death are cosmetics and pets (pets are their own side system that evidently the tutorial doesn't tell you about. That's a shame since they are pretty important. ) Long ago before Deca acquired the game the tutorial was actually a lot better at giving the player direction. While the tutorial itself was a bit less fleshed out one that it did do, which I am honestly surprised to see is gone, whenever you completed the tutorial it would send you to a 'tutorial' hub. This hub didn't have the cash shop, was much smaller than the actual hub, and had arrows pointing upwards towards the area with the differently named worlds (this is where you go and kill stuff). ) Power leveling by teleporting to high level players is absolutely a thing, the problem is that its something that the community decided a long time ago would be done on a specific server and that is not common knowledge to new players, which is a shame. ) That quest log on the left side of the screen used to just.. not be there. Or at least it wasn't nearly as invasive. ) If everyone were to just afk at the start of a world you would never reach that final zone. The mad god doesn't spawn until a specific set of mobs have been killed and those mobs done spawn until a specific set of other mobs have been killed and so on and so forth. That system was initially designed explicitly to avoid players just standing around until the big boss spawned. You can see how well that went. ) You can actually purchase the exact amount needed for the item you showed by purchasing multiple pack. Its still predatory but not as bad as you showed. Unfortunately, while the game does have quite of content a lot of how you get to that content is never going to be discovered by new players, and if it is its going to be discovered way to early on since there is nothing preventing you from going into an extremely late game area on a level 1 character (that is usually a good thing, but for a perma death character at least a warning about the zone your about to enter would be better than nothing). There are bosses that spawn once per world that drop exclusive high tier loot, there are potions that "permanently" increase your characters stats... until it dies. There is the aforementioned pet system that helps you in battle in a variety of different ways depending on how you leveled it. There are organized raids. A trading server to help you get rid of high tier loot you can use in favor of loot you can (this includes the potions I mentioned before). Honestly a lot to experience that does make the game quite enjoyable for players that enjoy this type of gameplay. Unfortunately there is nothing in-game that really explains any of this to the player. Infact the VAST majority of what I learned about the game came from a player run wiki that was actually really well documented. I had sunk multiple thousands of hours into RotMG back when it was but a little known flash game. I know look back on it with fond memories but its just a shadow of what it used to be.

[@wandsofpage]

Good wall, helped give some important context

[@kilikx1x]

@@xanrotmg1477 I disagree. He played for an appropriate amount of time for him to realize the game wasn't for him, and then reviewed it based on the information he had at the time. Its not realistic for anyone to assume that a reviewer will play a game for 100+ hours before they have an opinion of a game.

[@falcon9213]

@@xanrotmg1477 He mentions this in the video, but there is 0 direction by the game to do anything. Sure he might have missed what the game has to offer, but the game hasn't offered anything yet but microtransactions and the realm. As he says, coming into the game you basically wander the realm unguided and when you go to oryx you just follow the leader with no idea whats happening. Even then its not like there was much more to the game except just different dungeons with harder more complex stuff. It's easy to do discord raids all day and forget that no new player is ever told that's what you have to do in order to make actual progress, the experience of running around like a headless chicken is what the actual game is offering and is more or less what was shown in the video.

[@TMGSeanVODs]

I recently found (and subbed to) the channel and I'd love to see videos on the Phantasy Star series. Whether it's just the latest expansion of the latest game or also previous games like Phantasy Star Online Blue Burst or Phantasy Star Universe fan servers.

[@bamby5555]

I played this game years back and loved it. I loved the community aswell, people would make other versions of this game (Private Servers, though they are not to popular anymore) with different bosses and items. They were mad enjoyable. I never really like the main version as the pets put me off alot because it felt a bit p2w. Will still forever love this game with all my heart.

[@youngkob3408]

the actual game sucks private servers are the only form of this game ive been playing for the past 3 years lol. This games hella dope though people should give it a try, I got over 4500+ hours if you count private servers, but 3000 on the base game. You could easily play this shit for years, similar to runescape

[@santinogirado5487]

Hey! There are two main "private servers" right now! Beneath the nexus and Darza's dominion. Both are in progress but they are REALLY high quality, same structure of rotmg, but with new bosses, enemies, loot and mechanics.

[@bamby5555]

@@santinogirado5487 beneath the nexus is rotf right?

[@bamby5555]

@@youngkob3408 yes i used to play rotf for about a year ish but then it got dmca from deca ;-;

[@santinogirado5487]

@@bamby5555 i forgot the name, yeah it is rotf

[@lucky7dxl490]

Ok so I've got 11k hours in this game and have recently stopped playing alot (about 6 months ago) and I'm just gonna leave a point for list of comments on this video TLDR: Not enough research was done and a lot of the points made in this video were either wrong, partial truths or just irrelevant btw I do actively think the game is just bad and addicting, but think deca has been taking it in the right direction - Apparently it says its the future of MMOs but this is the first time I've ever heard that stated by RotMG, idk if it's old text that just hasn't been removed but I've never seen Deca Games directly say that - Soulbound means it can't be traded, not keep after death (like seriously just asking literally anyone would let you know that do a bit of research) - There's literally an arrow that lets you close the thing obstructing your screen and that information is actually very useful - Losing your cursor is a problem but you can change it and yeah it does get lost a lot - Confusing is not random, it sets all you controls one clockwise and now two things you REALLY should have touched on but I just didn't talk to anyone in the community so didn't know - Pets were added by the games previous owners and they are the worst aspect of this game. they're fully p2w and to get a maxed you either spend like a thousand dollars or play for 10 fucking thousand hours, they can heal your hp and mp sooooo much fast than anything else and can paralyze the enemies they sit on (as well as other generally useless abilities). Deca has tried to make them less op by adding a "in combat" system that adds 2 seconds to time between actions (which at max level is usually 1 second) but that didnt do much to fix how busted they are. i'm at a point where even know my pet is maxed I choose to play without it because the game is too easy with it - The games balance is awful and taken way to seriously. The game is all single target DPS, which means that classes that buff dps such as paladin and warrior are great, and ESPECIALLY classes that do a shit tone of damage are great, such as the wizard. I personally main the worst class in the game assassin, it's whole gimmick is decent dps, fast, crowd control which I really like. I've fully exalted this class and because of that I've have genuinely been harassed by meta slaves that don't understand the concept of having fun. All and all I really wish you did waaaaaaaay more research because although I agree with your stance on this game being incredibly harsh to beginners (I only got into it because I had an experienced friend) most of your points just don't make sense to someone who has kept up with the game a lot and knows way to much about the game.

[@JoshStrifeHayes]

I have 10 hours to play a game and take notes, if the game can't explain itself in those 10 hours i can't add it in. You can watch the entire season 1 of game of thrones in 10 hours, a game can show you its systems.

[@lucky7dxl490]

@@JoshStrifeHayes it's still hard to deny the fact you didn't even get what soulbound is right, and yeah I see your point there but I think you're comparing apples to oranges, I've never played a complex game I could reasonably make an assessment on in 10 hours, but you could do that with almost any show.

[@JoshStrifeHayes]

@@lucky7dxl490 if soulbound is just 'non-tradable' then the phrase 'nontradable' would be simple and explain it instantly with no ambiguity, that's the simple direct design I'd recommend. But ill make a 'was i wrong' video and list the mistakes i made

[@lucky7dxl490]

@@JoshStrifeHayes yeah thats fine and sorry if I come off as a tad aggressive just not good at articulating myself without coming off aggressive. I do think you make a very valid point that not enough people talk about in the community about accessibility it's just hard to see the only exposer this games got from someone above like 60k subs since like 2016 be something I feel as someone in the community is very underwhelming and could've been a great video.

[@hemangchauhan2864]

Game where I put a random username as a placeholder for something cooler, but that became my username. Game where I typed Hi to a rando and they typed Hi! back, and it blew my mind.

[@TheEpicPancake]

I have 700 or so hours in the game, so I guess I'll list what I agree with and anything you were mistaken or were wrong about. Ordered for importance, at least somewhat loosely. Your conclusions about speedrunning to end game are only accurate to an extent here, as level 20 is borderline the beginning of the game. It seems really hard to get to lvl 20 consistently at the beginning, but it truly is an absolutely negligible part of the experience. The main part of the game becomes maxing your character's stats by running dungeons that drop in that grey zone in the center. Then the endgame is getting the rarest loot by grinding the hardest dungeons, which get absolutely insanely difficult. The game's overall "run in a group and shoot down bosses" thing is a constant, but the tone shifts dramatically as you get better and your goals become more defined. It's definitely not a typical RPG though, let alone the ascension of MMOs or whatever they market it as. Soulbound means non-tradeable. You very much lose absolutely everything when you die, sans skins since they're account locked once consumed. You can zoom out actually! I thought this was mentioned in the tutorial, but apparently it isn't. In the keybinds there's a way to zoom out farther from your character, which is very nice. The original view is a bit cramped, especially with the text wall you complained about. Most visibility issues can be solved there, actually. My cursor isn't nearly that small, and you can change player/projectile/particle opacity as needed for visibility. The game suffers from poor default settings that don't take advantage of the quality of life features the move to Exalt added. Smaller things and thoughts. There used to be a nexus tutorial to show where to go, but after a tutorial rehaul it must have gotten removed. The most egregious uses of gold is character slots, vault chests, and potion storage. That stuff is account locked and makes it so that you can have a burner character to farm, and one to beef up. It's significantly easier to play with 2 characters than 1, trust me. The buffs found in the nexus are mostly negligible, and are largely easily gained from the earlier tiers of the login calendar, especially the loot drop and tier potions. You also get them plentifully from the event dungeons. Keys are basically a way to get guaranteed private dungeons, mostly for guild use. They're obtainable via dungeon modifiers and daily login stuff, but I doubt many go that route for getting them. They're probably up there for gross microtransactions, but they aren't strictly necessary at least. Overall, I think the store was more game breaking during the Kabam era (the owners before Deca but after the original creators), but it still could be better for sure. The lootboxes are especially gross, and I've never been a fan of them. Confuse doesn't randomize control, it actually is consistent. It's a straight up single clockwise rotation of your controlls. Since you can see players' levels when TPing to them, and (you learn this as you level higher) the center of the map is more dangerous, you get a feel of who to TP to and who not to over time. The shaking and being teleported to Oryx's castle is a common thing. It happens once the realm bosses are cleared, which are your lvl 20 quests.

[@kuba4ful]

About the particles and other players covering everything - you can turn off ally projectiles and turn down the opacity of other players in the options. The game should've explained it better, true, but the option still exists. And that sentence sums up 90% of the new player experience.

[@nephene00]

"There is no quest log, it evolved so much it grew legs and walked off". I laughed! You are a comedy genious. /bow

[@IhungryROTMG]

The video is pretty disingenuous for the game as a whole. It is pretty focused on some very above-surface level things that really don't show the depth that kind of exists. I don't even like the game and this video kind of brought up all the wrong reasons to not like it. Many issues faced could've been immediately resolved by reading through the journal, that it shows you at the end of the tutorial which was skipped. The tutorial being reduced to a journal is bad, but the concepts that were completely misjudged due to that aren't really as bad as they come off. The video i believe would've come out much differently if the tutorial and journal was read.

[@notmyidea8134]

Josh did you play ROTMG for 8 hours? Cuz it seems that you played max 1 or 2 hours.

[@buzz6428]

The amount of lore in this game IS massive. You just have to look for it.

[@drammaman]

As someone that has played this game throughout most eras and was there when they released the unity port, I do agree on some points you make and disagree on others. I will skip the things that we both agree on like monetization, but obviously, no one is right or wrong and we can agree to disagree if so needed. Let's go. First of all, you can literally minimize the "Massive invasive wall of text" you talk about. It's not hard. open your eye and you will see the arrow for it. Secondly, people who stay "afk" on the "spawning zone" are most likely waiting for teleport refresh since you can't tp instantly after switching servers. Waiting for oryx castle is also not the most effective way to gain XP like, since you have to clear an entire map to do go there. But if deca hasn't changed the game since the last time I played it, the dark truth is that you stay afk in nexus until someone pops a key. So your argument has some validity Thirdly, you point out that there is no personal connection to your character, which can't be further from the truth. Players literally take breaks from the game because their loved character died. Once you get better at the game and learn some mechanics like "confusion controls", boss patterns, and nexus discipline, you don't die that often. This leads to characters that live longer, accumulate more fame, better gear, and overall more playtime with that specific character. The point is, you do develop a lot of emotions in characters. There are other things I disagree on, but that's more personal taste.

[@Toothbooths]

yeah seems like a very unfair review with 0 research committed and barely an hour played. Not to mention him getting a bunch of things incorrect and spreading misinformation. I love rotmg so much due to the fact that it is NOT p2w, in fact, it is ONLY skill based. Strife obviously missed the "perma-death" and "lose everything on death" aspects of the game. I don't understand how you can call this game p2w.

[@scpfilechildrenbarrow2212]

"first of all, you can literally minimize the "Massive invasive wall of text" you talk about. It's not hard. open your eye and you will see the arrow for it" I'd actually argue that the arrow is less obvious than you are making it out to be, to a new player. I didn't even notice the arrow when I came back, I was just told by a friend to press k.

[@wiktorhenselmann6840]

This review is slightly annoying when you haven't even scraped any of the content past the start... ST Items (which you can find in dungeons, or gamble for as you said) don't mean they stay after death, it just means you can't trade them...

[@Kingdomh100]

That's arguably worse and still predatory game design

[@mechanomics2649]

Which is worse lmao

[@wiktorhenselmann6840]

​@@Kingdomh100 for sure. I don't know a single person that has spent a dime on those, but the fact that they exist in the first place is awful. This game does have flaws for sure.

[@Fauxglove]

As a former player, I was so surprised when you played the games audio, as I fully agree with that Steam review. The old soundtrack really fit the the game, really sad to see what they replaced it with.

[@gwest3644]

Before watching this, I’ve gotta say that “Realm of the Mad God” sounds like the name of an awesome D&D module.

[@delfinenteddyson9865]

I have to say, "Realm of the Mad God" is a very apt description for the game

[@telmobrito519]

I'm a bit disappointed josh, you rushed that a lot. Some corrections: -Souldbound items do disappear when you die, you just can't trade them. -Almost all shop items can be looted with the exception of some skins. -You can change the opacity and disable ally shoots and abilities in the options which let you see exactly where you are. -Leveling up to 20 is like 1% of the progression and take a skilled player less than 5 minutes, after that, you can "max" your character stats by drinking potions looted on dungeon boss and event boss (lvl 20 quests) it takes more than a 100 potions to "max", then there's exalts which are end game progression where completing the hardest dungeons in the game with a character will grant permanent extra stats to the class of this character. -The only real pay to win element is pets, which take a long time to raise normally and are really powerful ( can heal and regenerate your mana, taunt or paralyze mobs). The best gear isn't even in the cash shop. It's a really good game, the best of its genre by far, and the current owners are making a lot of content and improving the game a lot while listening to the community most times.

[@scpfilechildrenbarrow2212]

" improving the game" also changing some of the things that made it charming to begin with but yes overall it is a better experience, but it lost some things as well

[@Til_What]

"That feature evolved so hard, it grew legs and walked off." Has to be one of the funniest things he's ever said.

[@TSPage]

I really think you would really enjoy late game content even if you don’t want to put the full grind into getting there. It’s also a game that thrives off the community. Without interaction it’s almost impossible to enjoy long term.

[@arlague2098]

For once I didn't like your analysis on this MMO. You should have started the video using your conclusion, mentioning that "the game wasn't aimed at you" 20:50 and that "it's not a bad game" 20:00. Being hyperfocused on gameplay rather than lore isn't a flaw in itself. But you end up criticizing the game with an important bias and lots of sarcastic comments. Taking a step back from your own opinion at the beginning would have justified the analysis. The other way around made the game seem to be a truly horrible and painful experience. Which is not the case as there seems to be a lot of players still on this game multiple years after release compared to other "Worst MMO ever" you checked.

[@UltimaKeyMaster]

Josh seemingly couldn't get over "it says it's a pretentious evolution of the genre on the store page" so he had to make a joke about it every 30 seconds and that's a surprisingly low quality technique from him.

[@arlague2098]

@@UltimaKeyMaster The jokes was indeed overused and didn't have enough introduction context. I failed to understand it was sarcasm up until the third one. And while this is an issue in form, I feel like there is some poor writing in substance as well. I have this example: at 7:53 he proceeds to talk about "abusive pricing structure", but as he is walking over multiple skins at 2600 (the exact bundle amount), he selects the only one with a bigger price to pinpoint his argument. In substance, it doesn't really show anything. I'm pretty sure there could have been a better way to show this as the game is probably indeed abusing it as well.

[@Pe6De]

Just because someone doesn't like a game doesn't mean it's not aimed at them. You can absolutely gear your game towards the audience and fail, which ROTMG does. And it is both a horrible and painful experience, sadly.

[@Amecareth33]

​@@Pe6DeIndeed and its even worse when it's not aimed at you. I don't expect heavy lore involved player to enjoy ROTMG, because its not what the game has to offer. It has been two years since the video and even tho I haven't played in years I wonder how much the recent updates would be compared to this video. He ended up apologizing for the quality of this one. What I find really nice is that people weren't complaining that he was making a critic of their game but rather that he missed all the key problem of the game.

[@dylandelgross6758]

I’ve played this game for 10 years obviously on and off. This is a first impressions series so I’m just gonna give some points that might help you if u decide to actually get into this game The absolute worse part about this game is it has become really only playable by using discord servers. I was a raid leader in the biggest discord server for lost halls. Leading 50 players through a fullskip void is pretty awesome but isn’t how the game should be played. I don’t really know how devs can fix the discord heavy play style tbh. There exaltations where you complete dungeons to improve your stats permanently even if you die you keep those boost. For example if you complete 75 Oryx 3 dungeons on a trickster you will gain +25 hp on that character permanently. Then there’s defense for lost halls. Attack for shatters. Speed from cults…. When u fully exalt that character you get a badass skin. If you exalt every character u get a sick pet skin. Not many players have done that. All classes in this game are really unique and diverse when it come to play style. This MMO does kinda have the holy trinity where u have tank healer and dps. But there’s no such thing as a tank at all in the endgame. But u do have high dps classes like wizard, summoner, and warrior, then you have very important buffing classes like pally gives a damaged buff and warrior gives a berserk buff increasing dexterity. Priests using a fungal tome are the main healers and make a huge difference. Then u have classes like mystic and trickster that u absolutely need in fullskip voids. Trickster is my favorite class because it has a very high skill gap. And in my opinion it is the most important class to have in a run for end game dungeons. Tricksters send out decoys that u can put behind the boss so it doesn’t shoot at group also very good for rushing lost halls and cultist hideout. White bags….. oh man getting a white bag in this game is one of the best feelings you will have playing an mmo. There are crazy extremely rare items in this game. Realm events drop the rarest items like ogmur, helm of the juggernaut, cdirk, orb of conflict and so much more items from end game dungeons. If you see a knight walking around with divinity, ogmur, glad guard, and horn or Omni your like holy shit this guys a gigachad. Pets….. ye pets are for sure p2w not gonna talk about that much but they need to make the pet system better. A good part about this mmo is being part of the top guilds in the game. Guilds are always battling for the top spot by having the most fame. Doing guild runs in a chat on discord is always really fun. Players that are where I’m at in the game will understand this. They really need to make private realms. It is a real pain in the ass trying to find a realm for your guild or discord server for a o3 run. I’ve completed everything in the game. Beating o3 500 plus times. Fully exalting 5 characters. The 3 end game dungeons are o3, lost halls, and shatters. I think it wouldn’t be a bad idea to actually do multiple videos or a series on this game. Cmon josh you didn’t even get a WHITE BAG. Long story short there’s a lot more in this game that was shown or you think.

[@dylandelgross6758]

@@number1fen yup I’ve watched plenty of the series. Just giving my insight on the game from a experienced player that’s all (:

[@vaxienation6872]

Realm of the mad god is so much fun. Also, it markets itself as an MMO, so calling it and comparing it to an mmoRPG is a little disingenuous.

[@bobbelastigend1417]

I have been playing this game on and off for 11 or 12 years now. I started at 10 or 11 and I'm now 22. So I guess if you want to talk to someone with over 4000 hours I'm here. This is borderline the perfect "MMO" for me. I don't care about the story in any MMO I've played. They always feel forced in a way to be a gateway to gameplay, and if I wanted a story I would just go read a book. So if you hate MMOs gating you away from gameplay behind a storyline, and you like rogue likes, and bullet hells, this is a good game to try. For me this game is everything I wanted from an rpg, that is, just the improvement of your characters, and nothing else. An endless slog to constantly become numerically better in stats and equipment, and skillfully better. Being able to duo oryx 3 with a friend is the highlight of this game for me. I love this game, but I only realized it was even considered an MMO last year. It was a mind blowing experience, it has all the standard MMO junk, guilds, dungeons, rare loot that you have to spend hours to grind for, yearly events. Just never clicked for me, because it doesn't feel like an MMO at all. The game is probably in the best state it's been since wild shadow owned the game, people may complain about DECA and the cash shop, but they made it easier to fuse your pets, streamlined your ability to reach max level by making base stat pots easier to obtain, added exaltations for extreme late game weirdos like myself, and then streamlined the dying process by releasing the most sadistic bullet hell dungeons ever. While there is a lot of stuff to buy, the only things that are really necessary late game is the purchase of vault space and character slots.

[@warlockd]

Yea I have to agree here. I havn't sunk that many hours but been playing since it was flash. You really don't even need the cash shop, just go up and play. But I agree the new player tutorial needs a bit of work.

[@bloodwolf2609]

I agree that it could be my favourite MMO of all time too, it just has all the cool elements of open world, bullet hell, cool classes, roguelike, perm death, cool loot, good progression, lots of grinding, MMO, trading. HOWEVER, the p2w has been a problem in RotMG forever, with how little value gold gives compared to how much you could spend it's just disgustingly shameless, exasserbated by the 3rd party bots that are there purely to scam lol. I've never sunk money on the game but for the amount of items and stuff you CAN sink money into it just removes a lot of respect, but this is also coming from someone with 2k f2p hours as well so... the grind is just so so long, and the p2w is very real.