Runes of Magic US / AU

rom isnt advertised anywhere.

Any new players who come to the game, get to level cap, then realize how bad shell stat pull/plussing rates are, that their class combo isn't viable and they need to reroll, and how much money they need to spend, just leaves again. I've seen it happen a lot of times. Even if you sugercoat the game they still find out eventually...

ruisen hit the nail on the head.

I seen a message other day from rom GMS concerning advertising, they said starting next nevruary they would be advertising everywhere
Hodor.

Quoted from "ruisen2000"

Any new players who come to the game, get to level cap,

I doubt most new players ever get that far because questing is so slow and it's even more discouraging when you don't see any other players for many zones. Before ROM even thinks of advertising, they need to double or triple the xp for every zone at least below TB (maybe even to sarlo) to get newbies to the levels where they can start doing things with the other few players who are still left.

Oh, this thread again. What exactly should they be advertising? Buggy/broken 6 year old game with a declining population and which becomes totally P2W at end game? Sign me up! lol

In this day and age people search the internet to find a game that meets their needs. They go to review sites. game forums, etc. and see what people are saying about the games. Because of that, the best possible advertising they can do right now is to continue working on fixing the game and improving the gaming experience. IF they can do that then people will start saying really nice things about the game again. IF they do that then we might start to see old players coming back and new players sticking around longer.

So again, advertising now would achieve nothing but waste time and money until the issues are fixed and the population becomes more active.

I Believe that RoM has a lot of potential.... and lately I've been seeing some bug fixes, which is really good, but there are still a lot of issues with the game. If the game is advertise, it might just bring in the income they need to have more support with fixing the bugs. But who knows, they might just take the new income from the new players and just continue not fixing bugs as fast as we want them too. but either way i do believe they should advertise the game.

So, how many of you clamoring for advertising actually pay attention to advertising, much less buy the advertised products *because* they are advertised?

* Adblock plus is first addon I grab on new browser install

Good point Rusty, let me just add to those who can't seem to get their minds wrapped around this:

GF knows how to make money. They are considered a successful business. They have people on staff who understand business practices including marketing. Is there anyone out there that seriously thinks they haven't considered advertising RoM already? That they just forgot or something? If they haven't advertised RoM there is a very, very, very good chance that they simply don't see the value in doing so right now.

That said, there is nothing stopping those players that want to have advertising from doing it themselves. Anyone can go to any number of MMO review sites and post to their hearts content about how awesome RoM is and that people should run as fast as they can to start playing. Have fun!

RoM has the potential to be something greater than it is, but it already is however it's flawed, as it stands there are issues with the game that make it become undesirable to play early, bugs and comparatively speaking newer games that flow better rather than feel chunky salsa that's been left in the ridge to dry out for a night.

The bugs in this game are just god awful, I literally had by luck, the server be set back a day or two because something happened in which people were getting items they shouldn't have been, I was trying to do a 65 (can't remember just remember it was in the desert) level quest (was at the same level at the time trying to do what anyone would do would be to level up and such anyway) and the quest line failed to work properly at all, no matter how many times I reset the quest, logged out, exited zone just to enter it again, still wouldn't work, but somehow a server reset out of no where got me through it (I went back with one of my alts and it worked just fine months down the road. (maybe even 2 years down the road w/e) but then there are still bugs left in the game here, over there, some get fixed over time and thankfully they do, but when they still stick in years afterward it should have been fixed just like the quest bug I encountered.

RoM has class combinations like no other, this can be a pro and con at the same time considering the (how I hate using this word) meta may or may not be in their favor because well, they are new and suddenly they hear that their class combo late game has no use, which it shouldn't be this way at all for anything.

RoM has the ability to allow you to stat your own gear, this is a pro and con in of itself, but it seems to be more of a con as the game is right now, working days on in and to get a bad stat, and it wouldn't even really be a bad stat if endgame had use for having a stat outside of glass cannon, maybe pvp, but more than likely it'll still get tossed because of it not being int/stam and/or int/matk because more than likely if you are pulling shells they know what they are going to want because of the game currently is, even the "tutorial" pieces for newcomers say to build stamina even on mages/rogues yet, endgame has no use for them outside of tanking.

RoM has the ability to enchant your gear, now at first this is great for a newcomer, yay a chance to improve my gear, but here's the problem and I'll separate these 2 problems that I have with this.

First off with enchanting your gear is the fact that you can buy these random items from an NPC that allows you to plus them for the first time, this is great, but at the same time the problem with is the fact that the failure rate is so high just to even get to +1, it has the potential to show newcomers what they are in for when it comes to the real enchantment stages, +5 down to +4, then to +5 again just to get +4 again. Now you could say that itemshop jewels are different but they really aren't once you get to just that last bit of the next tier of enchantments from +6 jewels to +12.... Yea you get the picture.

Secondly, the game doesn't actually enforce you to USE the arcane trasmutor at all, the game doesn't have that in it at all, in fact it literally is one of the things that has to be learned, how to either go for stats or tiering, the game doesn't truly teach the average newcomer how to use this as well in comparison to the forum or what people will tell you in game.

RoM doesn't just need to be able to advertise, it needs to have a reason to not only bring in new players, but it needs to find the right reason to KEEP these newer players in the game and invest more into it.

Quoted from "vfwiffo"

So, how many of you clamoring for advertising actually pay attention to advertising, much less buy the advertised products *because* they are advertised?

* Adblock plus is first addon I grab on new browser install

It blocks those cheap web advertisements that really aren't worth looking, the type that RoM would use, lol.

Look at the 600lb gorilla MMO giant, or any of the many recent hyped MMO's. They got people's hype and attention from advertising. They didn't just get lucky that a few million people found the game by accident before the game is even released.

@aceofsleep: I agree completely. There are multiple points that GF needs to fix in order for any advertising to be effective.

The Cost of Playing (CoP) needs to be reevaluated. Currently it is way too expensive to be competitive in this game. Both in time and money (if you're f2p, then money == gold). By lowering the CoP, you effectively increase the Desire of players to pay due to the game being cheaper. A simple Price Equilibrium chart, if you will. Why do you think most people buy dias when there's a dias sale?

The biggest offender of the CoP being so high is plussing stones. Another offender is the current meta for endgame where you need you weapon, rings, and necklace at the very least at +16 (preferably +20 nowadays). The current meta for endgame is this way because of the latest instances being "burn or die" due to completely unplayable tactics, or unavoidable deaths after X seconds of the boss fight starting. That is an issue that RW needs to address and will end up lowering the CoP.

(The Following Numbers are all assuming decent luck) Now, for the plussing stones, the current price to obtain plussing stones is getting ridiculous. It goes from a respectable 21 dias to obtain 10 +6 jewels (not weapon or wings) which can plus 2 pieces to +4 on average. So, to get your rings and necklace all to +4 on average, you would need to buy 20 +6 jewels, spending 42 dias and netting you 16 rubies total. That's not that much at all. Now, you got stacks of 5 for +12 jewels which cost 55 dias each stack. On average, you will need about 10 +12 jewels to get a single piece of gear to +12. That's 110 dias to get a single piece of gear up to +12 from +6, netting you 26 rubies from a single piece. You need to do that 3 times, putting the cost to 330 dias, which nets you 78 rubies, now giving you enough rubies to buy a single perfect +6 jewel to not waste dias trying to plus regularly to +6! You now need 5 more just for your rings and necklace! That only costed you 372 dias. Now, it's best to buy +16 jewels in the stacks of 10. These cost 299 dias each stack, which nets you 160 rubies! On average, it will take you about 6 +16 jewels to get a piece of gear from +12 to +16. So, in order to get all 3 pieces to +16, you'll need to buy 3 stacks of +16 jewels. That costs 897 dias and nets you 480 rubies. So, buying everything before buying the perfect +6 jewels, you're spending 1269 dias and getting 574 rubies. Perfect +6 Accessory jewels cost 80 rubies each, so, you're spending 480 rubies and 1269 dias to get your 3 accessories up to +16. That's not including the cost for the weapon. Using the same averages, it costs 36 for going to +4, 150 more for going to +12, and 499 more to go to +16, putting you at 685 dias for plussing your weapon to +16, which gives you 306 rubies for buying the perfect +6 weapon jewels which cost 120 each. So, to reach the minimum plussing for endgame, you will be spending 1954 dias. That is 39.98 USD to just PLUS your gear when buying dias on a 120% dias sale! That's an extremely unattractive number to just achieve the bare minimum.

You then have to tier your weapon (t10 to t11 minimum which is as easy as the old t9 and t10 now) and stat your gear (if you provide your own stats but need the puri, that's 19 (non-sale) 6 times for a single piece of gear, which is 114 dias per piece of gear. You have to do that with 14 to 15 pieces of gear, leaving you at spending 1596 to 1710 dias more. You are now spending 3664 dias on making your gear (adding plussing cost to statting cost). That is 64.97 USD to plus and tier your gear to the bare minimum. Tack on the weapon tiering, and you're spending 990 dias to t11 the weapon using the blue 94/95 gear for dirty stats or 333 dias to t10 the weapon using the blue 94/95 gear for dirty stats. So, that puts it at 74.96 USD for going for t10 or 84.96 USD for going for t11. That's on a 120% dias sale.

So, for this point, you are spending 84.96 USD on average for the bare minimum. You will not be performing optimally, and you probably won't gain the same level of satisfaction that you would if you were fully geared. That's an extreme cost, imo.

(GF should also implement a system to allow free to play players to obtain premium currency without buying them from other players.)

RW also needs to make instances not be "burn or die" which will make more class combos viable, removing the need to choose the "perfect" endgame class. GF also needs to advertise. You cannot do one without the other two (three) being done and expect change. All 3 (4) need to be done.

EDIT: I realize that the ending of my post may be a bit choppy. I had needed to get back to writing a paper and didn't want to end up losing my entire post. I'll try to revise later on to make it more cohesive.

TL;DR: It costs about $85 to achieve the bare minimum in gearing for endgame at 120% dias sales. This doesn't set aside the issue of having to choose the perfect combo for endgame, which RW needs to fix. The cost for gearing should be lowered to allow more people to work towards endgame and there should be an option for free to play players to obtain diamonds without purchasing them from other players (albeit it shouldn't be a high enough amount to discourage buying diamonds, but enough to get people by if they save up). GF then needs to advertise the game. All need to be done together to achieve change. And of course, bug fixing is always important.

Well if people would buy diamonds only when they are on sale like today's 130%, it makes items in IS 130% lower costs. If you are smart enough also, buy plussing jewels, puris when they are on special. Gameforge is not twisting anyone's arm to buy stuff right here and right now. Mostly the impatience of people makes it expensive to them, take a look at most endgamers gear on Reni, all they have is mostly Beth hardmode sets,,, with the last POM event everyone could get cheap gear and stats that are endgame.

Don't forget about the Secret Garden minigame where you get FREE plussing jewels, TH free transport, mega's, hammer etc.

Now to make a T10 you need 81 charges and gear/weapon, you need 243 to make T11 and that is cheap comparing from what we used to have to make them. The bags you get from siege gets you free gear to make them too.

Here's a suggestion, get a job and you will be afford to buy items in game, the game can be F2P if you put time and effort, funny after 6 years the same people still complains about the cost of playing. Nothing is free in life, F2P is the way they lure players in, just like in real life. I haven't purchased diamonds with my money since April, why? waiting to see some changes and i like what i see, but i also didn't have to upgrade my gear since i still can tank the instances people needs me in.

So fix the crafted stat drops on gear/weapon etc and i will purchase diamonds as soon as that is done


Cost of playing is relative to how people gets distracted by shinny/new stuff, they should worry themselves about what they can actually run as far as instances go.

Zid, you do realize that if it was at 130%, it wouldn't make a large enough difference to decrease the minimum cost from 84.96 USD when buying at 120% dias, right? I used the non sale prices because items are not bought just on weekend or happy hour sales. You MIGHT be able to get away with only using 75 USD if you buy during weekend sales and happy hours.

Also, I posted the cost of playing for the absolute minimum required for endgame. Even then, you won't be playing your character to the best of its abilities. The point is that plussing gear is extremely costly. I didn't make the post because I want the game to cost less for me. I made the post because if someone looks at a game to try and (not knowing about diamond sales) can calculate that it will cost them about 200 USD to achieve the bare minimum, that price doesn't look attractive. They could just go to a different game and buy more for the same amount of money. Hell, in order to play your character to the best of its abilities, without a dias sale, you're going to spend about 1000 USD, if not more, for endgame. (And yes, new or prospective players can easily find out the bare minimum for endgame just by asking someone.)

Now, I don't care, and I doubt anyone else cares about your spending habits on RoM, Zid, besides GF. Crafting gear not dropping int/matk shouldn't even have entered this thread at all.

Some people who decides to come and play the game, that have a job, that have some life experience will know that FREE stuff doesn't exist. They will expect to spend money to enjoy themselves, some do it for cigarettes, alcohol etc. How much have you spent in real money on the game Zeri? are you endgame? you heard what it cost to be endgame by F2P players?, selling T12 weapons for 600M?? T12 prices dropped dramatically with new T6, T8 statted gear?? that too should have dropped in prices but people are making the game inflated and not Gameforge. When people learn how to stat, where to get stats and gear, the game is cheaper than anyone says.

But if you do show interest in staying in game, enjoying it and play it, they can find people that will help them obtain gear/stats/weapon etc to enjoy the game.

BTW Gameforge is a company, intent in making money, do you think you will indulge them in the business decision they must make? LMAO They could decide to close down the servers tomorrow and NO ONE would have a say in it. Like any other games out there.


Edited by Iso

@Zid's P.S: I concede. I did make an assumption that you were only complaining again about the int/matk stat not dropping on the new 95 crafted gear. However, specific bug fixes should not be brought to this thread either as bug fixes are expected to happen all the time. Not just once or twice to keep players spending.

@ The Rest of Zid's Post: There is a difference between pay to play and pay to win, ziddy. In pay to play, it actually costs you money to just play the game, to not even pay to get the most possible enjoyment. Just to play. In pay to win, the game is completely free to play, however, in order to et the maximum enjoyment out of the game, you have to either spend irl money or time. Nothing is truly 100% free. I completely agree with that, but things are able to be free monetarily in exchange for time. As for how much have I spent on the game? Does it really invalidate my post? I posted facts when talking about the cost of playing RoM, not opinions. But, if you must absolutely know, I haven't spent any money on the game because it's too expensive. I DO have a job, I just choose not to waste money on RoM when the amount I'd be spending would be better used paying for college (in which I am a business student), instead.

In regards for the players making RoM inflated and not Gameforge, you do realize that the cost I calculated out was for t6 gear (only using 6 puris per piece of gear), a +16 weapon, +16 rings, and a +16 necklace, right? I didn't calculate the cost when tiering gear to 7 or 8. That would have changed the cost too drastically. I calculated out how much the game would cost when buying dias on a 120% dias special. Without that special, you would end up spending about 190 to 200 (84.96 * 2.2 [120% + 100%] == 186.91) USD. My entire post was that the cost is too high. Why would prospective players choose to play RoM and spend money to achieve a minimum level of satisfaction when they could play another f2p/p2w game and then spend that much money for 2 or 3 times the amount of satisfaction? You're right, Gameforge is a business. Businesses are created to make money. However, RoM is not the only f2p MMORPG on the market. And it's definitely not the newest one out there. When you have competition, you have to either drop your prices to compete, or risk losing customers to the competition. Businesses need to think in the long-term, not the short-term.

Am I saying that Gameforge must make these changes? No. But I'm saying that it's smarter in the long-term.

lets keep this civil.

There is no other game like ROM out there that is better, a lot have tried so many of those others F2P and all came back to ROM, yes we could get more players with advertisement, i have been saying that for 5 years, have they listened? taken advice from players on this? no they didn't. Could be the lack of them seeing any future in ROM, could be they got bigger games in the company they value more and could be they just don't care about ROM as a whole or the community.

You can start the same discussion about what they should do a thousand times and it won't change their ways of doing business. Europeans company are very efficient and good at making money. You can post your spreadsheet, % etc, you do not have the numbers or yearly reports they have for each of their games, you have no clue of how many players spend money in game. You can study business in school but in real life many more things can happen that will mess up all you've learned in school, it can't equal life experience, best school to learn Murphy's law.

You might say it's smarter in the long run, maybe for you and not for them.

BTW Zeri, how many geared to the bone endgamers are on Reni? do you know? i know a few that are geared better than the elite on Reni, they do it to have fun, only run their minigames, GG, planting, petcrafting to help their guild etc one of them is all T9 and T10 geared/stated, all +18 and currently working on his T15 weapon. He has been doing it for years but doesn't want to run instances. For some people ROM is therapeutic for them and really don't mind spending the money and time to enjoy themselves.


Never assume too much, it never ends well, especially in any business. Murphy's law

Isopod we are just having a conversation

Quoted from "zidlef"

There is no other game like ROM out there that is better, a lot have tried so many of those others F2P and all came back to ROM

"all" is quite the overstatement. if "everybody" came back to RoM, then we wouldn't be having population issues....