Runes of Magic US / AU

I believe they're not leaving, but perhaps migrating. I joined RoM about a month ago coming from Ragnarok game. When I arrived I choose intentionally Artemis because was the less populated server. Today is hard to walk on any map without seeing at least one person (instances excluded). Artemis is in these days perhaps the most populated of all RoM servers, I think players from other servers might have come here, since on other post I saw someone complaining about Govinda is like a ghost town. With me 2 more friends came from the same game to the same server, and it seems we'll be doing a whole BR guild in Artemis in no time.

Well, first of all... Any replies that actually asnwer the question you pose will be edited/deleted. It has been said by both Green and Blue that farewell posts are not allowed and, in particular, details involving other games are not allowed. So, *if* that is the reason, you won't see many posts explaining it.

Secondly, all of the reasons this is happening (including the one above) have been posted over and over in a good chunk of the discussions here for the last 6-8 months. None of this is a mystery. All the folks I have noticed drifting away explained what was sending them in that direction and what would keep them here. I think we can surmise the rest...

Whether people are leaving permanently or just splitting their time, I dont believe its stupid at all. Change is not always a bad thing. Its really no different than investing a lot into a Super Nintendo and then moving on to a Playstation or Nintendo 64, then moving on to a Dreamcast and so on. Sure Chapter 5 is on the way so the game will feel fresher but part of the new content, the dwarves, probably wont appeal to established players considering the time and costs required. So whats left that they havent done already?

Dont get me wrong, newer isnt always better as there are some games much older than rom with features that trump runes of magic and there will be some new games that runes of magic will trump in certain features. But one of these days someone will release a game that truly learns from the past and improves upon it, making a truly worthy game. The only question is are you willing to at least give it a shot?

If you want the actual reasons people are leaving, it comes down to the individual, but here are some reasons i assume people are leaving in record numbers (These are purely MY Opinions and do not intentionally represent the opinions of anyone else);
Siege war is still broken and they have had MORE than enough time to fix it
People got screwed out of hundreds of dollars of diamonds and gear and Frogster/Runewalker neglected to replace most of it
The staff constantly flip flop with what they can and can't do (They can search our characters histories to see if items we say we lost were actually acquired, but when it came to a mass replacement they took the lazy route)
The hacking fiasco that went on the last few months (Which Frogster/Runewalker deny ANY foul play, we can clearly see how big of a lie that is)
There are still quite a few useless classes, while there are 2-3 classes that dominate everything else (I use the word Useless fairly broadly)
The game's old content is still in shambles and they try to release new content
Mods constantly delete forum posts, especially ones that exposes all the BS they pull

These are a couple reasons I can think of off the top of my head, thankfully I've not been hacked, lost items or care too much about most of my classes being garbage in terms of useability to leave.

On the flip side, this also means that RoM won't see another dime out of me and many other players, of that I am sure.

Now if i could compare Runes of Magic to many of the other MMO's out there (In this case, just the free ones) RoM Is reminiscent of a turd covered in a candy shell. It looks great on the outside, but a couple minutes in shows, well the aforementioned metaphor.

Now think about trying to compare RoM to those MMO's that have subscriptions or some mandatory fee (Like the $15 bucks or so to buy Guildwars) These games are well coded, polished and built by a company who isn't comprised of people lacking enough common sense to listen to its player-base.

Good day all...
I would have to say that people have come and gone all along, its nothing new. I have been a constant player for 3 years, but that is just me, my guildies of course say i have the patience of Job and ya i can watch grass grow lol. Really though, all games will have the same thing, its all what you make of it, in the 3 years i have played i have done alot of things, but not being classed as an endgamer, since i dont over indulge in diamond spending, i take alot more time to do things and there are still alot of things in this game i have never done or completed. So alot of what people see with others coming and going is normal, not everyone can keep doing the same thing forever, some its patience, some its age and some its just the need for variety. have a great day all.

Quoted from "Murkalael;528541"

I believe they're not leaving, but perhaps migrating. I joined RoM about a month ago coming from Ragnarok game. When I arrived I choose intentionally Artemis because was the less populated server. Today is hard to walk on any map without seeing at least one person (instances excluded). Artemis is in these days perhaps the most populated of all RoM servers, I think players from other servers might have come here, since on other post I saw someone complaining about Govinda is like a ghost town. With me 2 more friends came from the same game to the same server, and it seems we'll be doing a whole BR guild in Artemis in no time.

Artemis isn't and hasn't ever been the least populated server.. if anything it's been the most populated server.

Also @Sandzero2k3 some of the best games are older games, sure some new games aren't bad, but now adays it's all about prettying things up, graphics seem to trump content. I'd like to say they're designed for the ADD generation but that's not entirely true, it's all about putting the same turd in a different box, it's why there are what like 40 CoD games now? If you polish a turd it's still a turd.

Jfyi I'm not talking about RoM in particular but there are games for example on Genesis that can easily trump games released today, it's a lot of the reason why I started playing MMOs instead of going with the console crowd.

Quoted from "Kefkai;528567"

Artemis isn't and hasn't ever been the least populated server.. if anything it's been the most populated server.

Also @Sandzero2k3 some of the best games are older games, sure some new games aren't bad, but now adays it's all about prettying things up, graphics seem to trump content. I'd like to say they're designed for the ADD generation but that's not entirely true, it's all about putting the same turd in a different box, it's why there are what like 40 CoD games now? If you polish a turd it's still a turd.

Jfyi I'm not talking about RoM in particular but there are games for example on Genesis that can easily trump games released today, it's a lot of the reason why I started playing MMOs instead of going with the console crowd.

Once upon a time we folks in our mid to late 30's played games with character sheets and D20s, then I remember getting a computer some where around 13 AKA 23 years ago, and I played "Eye of the beholder" and then Menzoberanzon came out, and I was officially hooked. Graphics had nothing to do with it, content was everything.

RoM has a so so story line but the depth of the game is what keep people, if you are a crafting junkie then this is a cheaper alternative to WoW.

As for being on Topic, I have taken several breaks, though admittedly I don't play alot to begin with, so it's not compulsive behavior. Its the addicts that rage quit and sell everything. My RoM routine is hop on 30-45 mins before siege, dailies, siege, log off right after.

I love watching people write "goodbye" threads, those are the addicts, not all but you can tell the difference. Anyhow they will always be back. So FYI people skip the goodbye thread, just dissapear or just siege like I do. I've tried a few new games, but the dual classes keep me in RoM. But more then anything the community is full of players who are like me, parents, down to earth. WoW IMO is full of spaz's, i felt like i was getting spat on through my headset.

I can't speak for everyone, but the main reason left was due to boredom. It started out that logging on became a chore - I would log on, force myself through all the boring minigames and dailies, then go do the events to get other stats. When I finished that (over 2 hours a day), I would be all excited that I was done my RoM "chores" and it was time to go do something fun. Only, it wasn't long before I realized that there was nothing fun for me to do. I would spend all night hopping around the water fountain in Varanas just waiting for something to happen. When I realized that I was simply wasting time grinding for stats that I never used, the motivation to play was gone. Ever since, every time I try to log on and get myself back into the game, I just can't think of anything to do and log back out within 5 minutes.

Quoted from "regentego;528589"

I've tried a few new games, but the dual classes keep me in RoM. But more then anything the community is full of players who are like me, parents, down to earth.

The dual class is something I really enjoy. I might take a good 3-6 month break, but I always come back. I loved FFXI due to the dual class system. I have been playing since a little after beta.

A lot of my guildies left RoM for greener patches out there. They were most fed up with the cost of endgame, and broken buggy game/siege. There are other, newer games with less lag, better preformance and graphics, and in some cases, a suggestions department that doesn't include 1 guy trying to read a million suggestions like RoM.

People are leaving Rom for other games that are now in Beta. Even with Chapter 5 coming I have doubts that people will come back to stay. I think they will come back check it out and go back to the game that they left for in the first place. Thing is, these new games that are now in Beta are games a lot of people played before and can's wait to get back at them. Runes of magic has not done a whole lot to keep people interested. They do not seem to have any concept of competition and how marketing works. If you want customers you have to make your product/service stand out from the rest and make it feasible so that people will choose your product over the others. This is far from the way ROM has been working. I think the best thing that they can do is try and keep the customers that they still have. To be honest I think the only way to do that is merge servers so that there are enough players to do end game instances, as it is now people are doing nothing because there are not enough people left to run them. They dont seem to even want to consider this option for some reason....Oh well c'est la vie!!!!

I think it really hit me during the X rune sale last weekend.. that they were charging us 7 dollars for a rune. And you need tons of them.

This game is just.. so stupidly expensive. Thats a major reason I'm playing less and less. Also, it's buggy and glitchy and they never fix anything. They just keep coming out with new stuff.

Yeah i was pretty upset about the x-runes myself. I bought zeevex in hopes they would actually do a Double Diamond sale when it's worth actually buying diamonds. And they let me down. So I let them down. NO MONEY any more for ROM. I'll use in-game funds to buy diamonds from now on. Instead of getting $200 Bux from me, Some other game is gettin it. Your lose Frogster. I don't mind not having any x runes. I would rather live without them or pay ridiculous amounts for 1. And since I couldn't buy the x runes... I'm pretty much in a "I don't give a *scatalogical reference redacted* about ROM" mood. And prolly gonna stay that way. Plenty of other games for me to throw my money at. Won't be this one anymore.

Quoted from "Jada28;529656"

To be honest I think the only way to do that is merge servers so that there are enough players to do end game instances, as it is now people are doing nothing because there are not enough people left to run them. They dont seem to even want to consider this option for some reason....Oh well c'est la vie!!!!

Server merges are easier said then done. How do you handle toons and guilds that have the same name on multiple servers? Yes it can be done. But honestly it's too much work for FEU to want to do it, especially if they don't know anything about databases which they more then likely don't know anything about.

Expensive and far too often not worth it - cash shop.

There is a point at the game end where things slow down - a lot, unless you start dumping money in it - a lot. At that time you realize that $100 - $200 investment got you so-so toon, but you are still way under-geared compared to people running gch and tosh daily. There is no cheap or free way to t10 stat your weapon or to have 4 vii or x runes in all of your gear. At this time I just need about $400 more to be really end game toon - and that will not happen. I simply do not want to spend that money on this game - because it is just a game, and because couple months ago I promised to support person that he managed to turn paid player to f2p and I keep my promises.

Some will say that we should not be impatient, that it took them a while to get their toon where it is, that they spend thousands of dollars on it through years and not months, but that does not make it any better. When they were doing that, there was was no tosh and no gch. At any time they were running or trying to run highest instance that was available to them in game. Their investment was gradual and through the time and the total cost was not as obvious as it is to newcommers (like in the story with frog and hot water). To new player, end game cost is rather clear = $500 - $1000 depending on sales and if you luck out and hit "giving gasha" event (which really pushed me forward).

While I don't have much of anything new to add there are several reasons why I only log on to say hi and siege then log off again.

1) Performance - I have to run the game on the lowest settings to get a decent framerate. While I'm playing on a fairly old laptop, other brand new mmo games run better on higher settings than this one, so I personally prefer something that both looks nice and plays smoothly without needing to upgrade.

2) Cost - In Chapter II, the +'ing went up to 6, weapons could be Tiered to 7 or 8, and armor didn't need to be tiered. Now, plussing goes up much higher but the cost per level remains consistent, tiering to t10/11 and armor tiering to t8 is incredibly pricey (and this isnt including the rampant inflation and lack of diamond trading in the AH). So the endgame prices have skyrocketed, for me at least, over the past few years. As I don't play constantly and run enough to make the game pay for itself, it's difficult for me as a less-than-hardcore player to compete without spending inordinate amounts of money (and of course gashas which are nothing more than lottery tickets, though they proably have lower odds than the lottery). I'm glad I didn't log on to see the $7 runes, I probably would've passed out.

3) Class Nerfing - As a mage in Chapters I and II, once Chapter III was rolled out, I found that my class was effectively worthless for endgame runs. After all the time I put into a toon, it was now excluded from runs because I wasn't a scout. Even money couldn't buy me an endgame mage at this point. Similarly, in Chapter IV rogues have emerged as the strongest class. I just don't like the fact that after pouring money into a toon it can be rendered worthless by something out of my control.

4) Monotony - Dailies and mini games take time, and honestly, after work I don't wanna do the same little quests that I've done every day for the past year.

Your right ddpmacho, it is easier said then done. However, no matter what business your into you have to be able to adapt to current situations. I mean all businesses change and do what it takes to continue to be profitable. I am no expert on databases, but I do know that records have to be "unique" in order to merge them into any documents. How hard is that, I mean if they Merged Palenque with another server, then just add a "P" to the end of all the fields or any character that would them unique. This would eliminate the duplicate issue. I am sure there is much more to it than just this but I know it can be done.

I think that any new players coming to ROM, and lets say go to palenque, they won't stay. They will see how little activity there is and how boring it will be with no one to help you or answer your questions. They will leave, I know I would. However, if the servers merged, new players would see a whole lot more activity and therefore be more inclined to stay. Common Sense I think!

Seriously, if they do not soon do something to keep this game alive, it will be to late! I really do not want to see that happen, I like the game and really want to continue playing but I may be forced out . I buy diamonds often but to be honest it would have to be a super duper spectacular sale for me to buy anymore, until I see some effort on Rom's part that they are at least trying to re-vive this game!