Runes of Magic US / AU

The one and only problem I've had with this game is plussing jewels. I remember the last time I bought dias think it was 3yrs ago. I spent $50 on diamonds and I couldn't get one piece to +16 because the jewels kept failing at +11, that was the last day I ever spent real cash on this game. the fail rate is ridiculous on jewels and they keep raising the price whenever they release new ones. I won't even talk about them only putting the +20 jewels on that shit wheel, its like they just want the game to die.

Some really good posts and points here. Also seems that the personal attacks have died down a little so hopefully we'll be able to stay on topic a bit better without folks taking or making things personal.

As I and others have stated the game seems too expensive for the average player. Here is where I dissent. People
can blame GF or RW all they want for things being the way they are now but they would be putting the blame in the wrong place IMO (don't know why I bother with this anymore since most tend to skip past it but meh, maybe it will stick with at least one other person).

Sure, things can always be better but players have continually over the past 5-6 years shown that they WILL spend the money regardless if things are made better or not. Why people continue to think that things will change when the players as a whole (not individual players) are saying one thing but doing another is simply beyond me. It's the very definition of insanity constantly doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. I'll give an example. A guildiee bought $100 of diamonds the other day when they were not on sale. I asked him why he would do that since by doing so he is telling GF the price is acceptable. His response - IDK/IDC. See? We are the ones who are shooting ourselves in the foot here through our own self-interest and apathy.

So yes, things are too expensive. The "gambling" associated with plussing is horrible. Yet every time there is a gem sale or gotcha added to the wheel people start spending 100s to 1000s of diamonds anyway. Ya, that horrible company for charging what people are obviously willing to pay......

I've been trying to explain the same thing tuulikki, thanks for a much clearer communication :)

ROM is not a game. ROM is a business. How many people here have run a business, especially of the much-suggested "we don't make money on things we sell, but we make it up in volume" type?

Quoted from "vfwiffo"

ROM is not a game.

um...yeah... Runes of Magic is a game.

Quoted from "vfwiffo"

ROM is a business.

Gameforge is a business.



that being said, i assume that your point is to explain how RoM's purpose is to make money. yeah, we understand.


simply put, their current model is bleeding whales while the small spenders can go [smurf] themselves.

this model is not so successful, currently, from a user's PoV. it might be very successful by the numbers, but we don't know. that being said, we can somewhat assume it is successful because they haven't changed it. if anything, they have done opposite what the small spenders want.


simply put, we are suggesting that gameforge might want to entertain the idea of changing their pricing model(in at least the US), before there is nobody left. even if you count the whales still around, there are less whales than there were even 2 years ago, and even more of those whales have gone f2p.


yes, there are "better" games out there. yes, there are cheaper games out there. yes, there are newer games out there.

thats why GF has to adapt, or there isn't much hope for RoM's future.



the server merge is a twofold solution. not only does it consolidate the diminished population, making the game *seem* more popular, but it also reduces their server/hosting costs by (by my count) about a factor of 4(~8 servers -> 2). while it may have alligned itself with the community desires, i suspect there were other motives involved.

Quoted from "vfwiffo"

ROM is not a game. ROM is a business. How many people here have run a business, especially of the much-suggested "we don't make money on things we sell, but we make it up in volume" type?

Because RoM is a business, its business model needs to adapt to the market and change if it is not working out.

As Cike mentioned, RoM is a game, GF is a business. Yes it might seem picky, but that is one of the ways confusion starts and we don't need any more of that thanks

I also agree that many of the whales have gone out to deeper waters but there are still apparently enough to maintain the status quo. The question remains, what can we do as a community, if anything, and/or is it maybe already a bit too late to do anything about it even if we wanted to?

Good conversation folks, I really hope this can stay focused and relatively troll free

I am just as ignorant about exact details of ROM business as everyone else here; still, my semi-educated guess would be that operational costs are relatively minimal compared to development costs. At least that has been my experience for nearly 30 years. To be fair, I am a developer, so my perspective might be somewhat skewed toward seeing that part of the business.

From what little I can tell, the size of ROM development department is quite a bit larger than operational department, so while server merge is a good move to contain the operational costs, I don't know if it will substantially alter the overall outlook.




*Staying away from f2p discussion. While it is very much relevant, it tends to be rather self-servingly flammable.

Quoted from "vfwiffo"

my semi-educated guess would be that operational costs are relatively minimal compared to development costs.

semi-educated guesses is the best any of us can do. :/

thanks for the input based on experience though.

Quoted from "vfwiffo"

From what little I can tell, the size of ROM development department is quite a bit larger than operational department, so while server merge is a good move to contain the operational costs, I don't know if it will substantially alter the overall outlook.

while operational costs may be small, they are one of the few things DIRECTLY in GF's control. the development end is (i assume) contracted, and support/bug fixes/content(maybe)/overall maintenance *should* be included in said contract.

simply put, if GF wants to cut costs(no matter how minimal), considering they have very few actual staff working on RoM, the server/hosting costs would be the goto.


edit: another note about dev costs: afaik, software developing was somewhat of a low-paying job in asia, resulting in a large amount of employee turnover in asian-based software companies... just something to think about.


that being said, it would be much better if GF was more transparent with some stuff, as it would offer the community some insight into the inner operations, and would be able to adjust their suggestions/opinions to reflect such. (one can dream, right?)

I really don't think we need to know about how GF is spending its money. That is really their business what we would like to know is what is going on with ROM and what their plans for it are. Is it being wound down with the plan to close it. ( Their lack of advertising, indifference to game problems and shutting down servers could lead to that conclusion), Or they retrenching before releasing a bunch of class fixes, an expansion and new advertising campaign to build up membership.

Until what is up becomes clear anything else is meaningless. If a lot of fixes, updates and new content appear in the near future along with a new advertising campaign you will know this game has a future. If not plan accordingly.

To respond to the "Runes of Magic is a game" "GameForge is a business" sub-topic;

Every business needs a target to continue or "thrive". Seems like this game no longer has a target and is "collect, once we stop collecting stop payin'." At least this is how I feel, due to lack of (almost none) communication between the game producers, and the game makers. This is quite ridiculous to be fully frank.

There's no absolutely no reason GameForge can't call up (or even an e-mail with a format) it's GM's and community managers and ask "Hey guy, what's goin on? What's working and what isn't?" Wherein the gm's and community can give them the scoop.

And there's absolutely no reason GameForge can't call up (or meet these fkin people in person, e-mails would not be acceptable) RuneWaker and say; "Hey guy, this is what's up. We need this and this to happen otherwise you can't expect a paycheck next week, k?"

That is a business. Working with it's parts to make money. Spending some money to make more money. Expanding when it's being successful, instead of pulling absurdities that make 50-80% of the population run away?

Currently GF/RW (whoever is really running the show here, it's not even clear)'s business model is very self destructive, and those who want to see the game continue are doing all they can, which is getting their voice heard.

Well then i would suggest or ask Gameforge to sell me and a few others the rights to the game and US servers to take care of it. Won't be that hard to get the capital for it ( since i know a bit of how much it would cost to get one, then maybe you would see big changes in the game. I would keep the GM's in place, hire RustyX for item shop stuff and even pay them a salary for all the work done or to be done. Give Saito and Aqua full control on dealing with Runewaker, Grimthar on bugs because he is doing an awesome job btw. Also give compensation for all the hard work to the people of Rom-welten ;-). Beren would get compensation too for all the years of helpfulness he gave us, the lobster and Taco well we could make a new recipe in game with them loll ;-)

Backdrop to this, anyone doing anything out of the way the game should be played will be removed permanently from the game and ensure they are never able to come back to it. There would be no 1st, 2nd, 3rd warning ;-) You report an issue and you will be rewarded, you don't, well see ya.

The issue to the game seems the lack on Gameforge part to see it evolve anymore. I know the game is made for up to level 200 and that could be upgraded in time, but come on, give us 3 to 4 level caps per year, make the new zones harder, even the mobs, quests etc.

Anyone who doesn't see this game as part of being part of a business is truly blind.

Quoted from "zidlef"

since i know a bit of how much it would cost to get one

color me curious, but how much?

before it went "free", i know the source code for RoM went for about 1k USD per patch.

Quoted from "zidlef"

I know the game is made for up to level 200

source?

if the engine is anything like most games, it would be to 255.

Quoted from "zidlef"

make the new zones harder, even the mobs, quests etc.

and we already have issues with the difficulty of the newer zones for quest geared players. yes, it might be easy for an endgame geared player like yourself, but making things(aside from HM instances) HARDER would kill the game faster than an IS price increase.



all that being said, if a small US-based ompany bought the rights for RoM-US, i think it would result in an improvement.

::poke poke::

we have drifted from the topic. if the stream of frustrations about the cost of plussing gear has dried up, let me know and I'll close it out.

Yeah! People are posting off topic in the offtopic forum! Why, the nerve!

I don't see it as being derailed. Cost is too high or too low depending on what you get for your money. If you get a product that took significantly less to produce than you paid, then you overpaid. If you get a product that is priced fairly in comparison to what it took to make it, then you have not overpaid.

Thus, discussion of the cost of producing the product seems fairly directly relevant. There are a whole lot of things where the cost fluctuates. Groceries, gas, housing, electronics, etc, can go up or down by very significant amounts, yet be priced fairly at all points in the curve.

ERM level 200...? Preety confident its only to level 100 as far as zones/instances are designed currently.

Totally agree with RustyX last post and Cike, i was asking for regular mobs in the new zones, i always tought that if you enter a new zone with higher level the mobs should reflect that. Mainly all classes except knights and healers can one shot any mob without any fear of dying, it needs to be more of a challenge.

The plussing of gear has always been a subject of frustration since i started playing 6 years ago, there should never have been the issue of stuff losing levels or failing, does ABL's, RAE's daily reset ticket fail at any point? does an aggregator destroy the gear you are trying to agg from time to time? Does transport runes of any type drop you in the void and gets you killed? no, same should be for plussing jewels especially for the cost of them.

Heron we are just having a discussion here and a good one btw ;-)

Quoted from "zidlef"

Totally agree with RustyX last post and Cike, i was asking for regular mobs in the new zones, i always tought that if you enter a new zone with higher level the mobs should reflect that. Mainly all classes except knights and healers can one shot any mob without any fear of dying, it needs to be more of a challenge.

The plussing of gear has always been a subject of frustration since i started playing 6 years ago, there should never have been the issue of stuff losing levels or failing, does ABL's, RAE's daily reset ticket fail at any point? does an aggregator destroy the gear you are trying to agg from time to time? Does transport runes of any type drop you in the void and gets you killed? no, same should be for plussing jewels especially for the cost of them.

Heron we are just having a discussion here and a good one btw ;-)

Sorry but you are wrong about the mobs in the new areas. I have pretty well stated gear and the mobs in the new area take many shots to kill. They also have the ability to kill you. I have no plus 16 or better gear other than my weapons. Try playing the levels again with bag armor like the vast majority of players have to do; with the problem of plus being you can rarely get there without spending huge amounts of real world money.

I have plus 16 weapons on my characters the best that I can do with a mage is 4 shots to kill a mob and most of my skills are at max. The Scout, Warden and warrior take far more. The Rogue is a wild card often 1 or 2 but sometimes 8. The priest doesn' t make it at all. Most of my gear as that of other people is 10 or more levels below the character because that is all we can afford and gearing up to a new area takes months.

There are spots for max gear players where they don't single shot kill. They are called instances.

Most players still do tens of thousands damage against level 90 mobs, some do hundreds of thousands but only the very well equipped and there are a rare few who one shot everything they do millions of damage. The players of each group usually stick together with others of their own damage levels. If you are one shot killing everything in the new area you are one of an elite few and you are likely to hang with people of the same ability and not realize the problems the rest of us have in the new areas.

There is one game for the end game players it is in instances and siege. There is another for the rest of the world it is in the environment.

While I have no problems killing mobs on our main characters in the new zones, some of our less geared alts have some issues when questing, but not many. Now we had a few new players in our guild for a while who were leveling up. I showed them how to stat cheaper and plus cheaper. They did pretty well at getting medium level geared. The new zone still was very hard for them to continue to quest and level and they eventually quit.

We also had two other guildmates come back to see how the game was doing and the last two zones were enough for them to not want to quest any more and promptly quit again. They were the weekend warrior casuals for sure.

It is certainly at the point that if they try to make questing harder, they will isolate and intimidate a large population of the game. The cost of the game drives away a good number that I used to run stuff with...

The cost of the game will only get worse if all players are required to gear up just to quest, Especially if all the gear is then discarded for gear for instances.

Quoted

The cost of the game will only get worse if all players are required to gear up just to quest, Especially if all the gear is then discarded for gear for instances.

Unless you pick a difficult class combo, you can quest in mostly quest gear. And many guilds would have a bunch of leveling gear to loan, anyway.