Runes of Magic US / AU

Quoted from "Reziark"

1. How is the population of the game? Should I expect empty lowbie cities, and cap players afk'ing at the end-game zones?

yes, for the most part. however, alot of endgamers will also afk at the lower lvl cities, as they are the more central hubs as well.

Quoted from "Reziark"

2. How is the community attitude/maturity? I'd prefer not to run into the "I'm better than you in every way" type of person.

fairly decent i have found. get some good people to show u the ropes or just have fun with you, and you should be fine. the vast majority of the population, while they like to bicker amongst themselves, is usually very friendly/helpful. heck, even when they don't seem it, they prolly still will end up helping you out of boredom at the very least(don't worry about being bored though, most of us have been around for years, so we are kinda at the "been there, done that, waiting for new content or some noob to help" stage :P )

Quoted from "Reziark"

3. How is the balance between free/paying users? I don't expect complete balance, paying users certainly deserve a boost.

hehe...hot topic here. f2p takes a HUGE amount of time to compete with p2p. that being said, the entire game can be accessed by being f2p(no exclusive content, etc, unless i am forgetting 1-2 minor details).

however, since you stated you don't want to rush to endgame and enjoy ALL the content, f2p is very much viable, as most of the p2p stuff is for higher levels/endgame, except maybe a mount(which can be purchased ingame as well, not perm like IS mounts though, but ingame rentals are a good price). the rest can be obtained by either buying from other players(gifting) or from phirius tokens(daily quest rewards).

until you are trying for endgame quickly(or quicker than f2p would take), there really isn't a burning need to spend any money imo.

Quoted from "Reziark"

4. Does this game receive a lot of content updates/bug fixes? Does the game have good management?

errm... -no comment-

Depends on what you consider "bad" really. You have some forum regulars with whom the current management can do no right and others to whom the management can seem to do no wrong. Personally I find it to be a matter of perspective. RoM is a fairly old mmorpg when you think of it - it's been around for five years now. As such, you won't find a continual presence by devs or game managers like you would with a newer release or a sub based game.

All that said, it is difficult for any game to really be everything to everyone so the best suggestion I can give is to try it to see if you like it with the understanding that end-game, though far off, is a completely different animal that is very much p2w (though we have a quite a few of the newer free to win players but that's an entirely different subject).

So long and short of it, give it a shot and if you decide you like it make the decision then if it's worth it to you to invest heavily at end game or not.