Runes of Magic hits 2 million mark
by Rubi Bayer 
Oct 6th 2009 at 12:00PM
Filed under: Fantasy, MMO industry, News items, Free-to-play, Runes of Magic
Frogster-Interactive announced an exciting milestone for their free-to-play MMO Runes of Magic today: they have recorded over 2 million registrations.
The first chapter, Rise of the Demon Lord, was released only six months ago in English and German language versions. Runes of Magic increased in popularity with every month leading up to the recent September release of Chapter 2, The Elven Prophecy. The second chapter expanded RoM to include Spanish and French language versions, further increasing the game's reach and popularity. A Russian language version is well underway, and plans for further versions are being made to bring RoM to a wider audience.
Additionally, RoM has been consistent about treating players to smaller content updates to keep things interesting.
Rolf Klöppel, Director of Marketing & PR for Frogster, says "Runes of Magic has become a mega-seller in the few months since we launched. The 2 million registrations milestone we have now hit is yet further proof of the quality of our game and our communication strategy." Congratulations to the Runes of Magic team!
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
JP said on 12:25PM 10-06-2009
Probably the best, most fair F2P item mall game I've played. Taking PvP out of the equation (b/c how can any PVP be fair w/ an item mall? Anyone demanding different is delusional) it's fun and doesn't require spending a dime.
buying diamonds makes things easier, but I've had yet to purchase one.
Polished, deep and fun. For free, I love it. Yea, it's a WoW clone, but it cost me the 2 hours to DL and that was it.
Now, I still say bullocks to the 2 mil people. At least they admit it's only registered accounts, b/c while the game world is alive, it's no 2 mil constant players.
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Disataste said on 1:26PM 10-06-2009
If they offer PvP/PvP servers then you need to account for PvP as well and that leaves the game terribly imbalanced. Some classes are an absolute joke in PvP and the combat mechanics are the worst I've seen.
The item mall provides unattainable advantages vs people who don't pay which isn't how item malls should work. Item malls should allow people to pay for time advantages, IE buying mats for crafting, the profession leveling books, XP boosts, TP boosts, etc. It should not sell things that aren't attainable through putting in a lot of time in the actual game. The perfect stones are a good example of things they should not sell. Without paying the best you can ever plan/hope for is using the random stones with 2 stats. So essentially the people who pay will always be 33% better. Not to mention that once you do have your gear all stat-ed up they will release another dungeon/zone in 3-6 months that you will have to pay to stat up new gear. A decent character is like $60 to get some decent stuff and a good one is $200+. Then you can have crazy good at like $1000+ but hey its F2P right?
All I'm saying is that for people who don't pay to compete in the game it takes a ridiculous amount of time(farming money, charges, fusion stones) AND you will always be at least 33% worse.
As for the 2 million registered, did they count the people that make multiple accounts to make Tier 6/7 manastones? I know a few people that have 5 accounts each so they can run 5 characters at once while another buddy PL's them to 10.
They might have 2 million registered but there sure ain't that many people playing and more leaving everyday.
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Flolah said on 2:05PM 10-06-2009
Did CCP count him in their subscription and login numbers? Probably. Does Blizzard count multi-box accounts in their statistics? Yep. Next people will complain that goldfarmer accounts aren't excluded. People multi-box in P2P games, too, so the issue of Frogster counting those subscriptions is not unfair.
Hell, half my corp in EVE Online had at least one additional account (one had 5. 5!) back before you could pay for game time cards with in-game money. All to get some additional skills trained up simultaneously, or run his own mining ops.
monkeystick said on 2:57PM 10-06-2009
I only made it through 33% of your rant.
Blythe said on 3:24PM 10-06-2009
The comments that Disataste made are pretty much right on. Its the best F2p game out there atm I think. But what he says about the item shop and modding your gear is dead on. I spent about $200 modding my gear that was pretty decent at lvl 50 only to find I had to start all over after the patch for Eleven Prophecy. Really don't think he is ranty. Just telling it like it is.
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Lethe said on 3:42PM 10-06-2009
Numbers are a bit misleading. Considering the game is free, there's nothing to lose to try it. Counting registrations also includes people who registered, tried it, and then decided not to continue playing it. Measuring active accounts would be a bit more reliable, but even then, as was mentioned before, because it's free players may be much more likely to make additional counts versus multiboxing when you have to pay for the software and subscription fees.
It's not a big deal, and I don't hold it against them for counting in this manner. From their standpoint it's a good way to go. The more popular a game appears, they more money they stand to make.
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Graill said on 3:48PM 10-06-2009
Two million registered users since it started, how many do they actually have now since you cannot unregister. I would wager less than 100k active accounts.
The numbers game continues.
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Dan said on 5:44PM 10-06-2009
What I would like to see is this game's monthly income. My girlfriend started playing this a few months ago while we waited for Aion, and started experiencing some of the end game content. In the end you have to pay real money to keep up. Her guild leaders ended up leaving after they realized they were paying over $100 a month on this game. The addiction level is high, and if you are a serious gamer so is the price!
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Phineas said on 6:20PM 10-06-2009
It would be interesting indeed if multiboxing/client has been included in those numbers, as at least on US servers it has been banned in changes to the TOS which they initially did not even announce officially to the player base. However I guess the numbers from it's activity previously are quite convenient to utilize.
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ConcernedConsumer101 said on 11:54AM 10-27-2009
- introduced way overpriced ruby wings.
- took away our ability to get rubies from sale items
- reduced the drop rate of daily items
- finally fixed the arena in the expansion patch, but now it's been bugged for over a week without so much as an acknowledgement that it is bugged and being looked into
- TT is still laggy as all hell
- added 3 new instances with the expansion that are so difficult, as far as I can tell, only 5-8 guilds on all of the US servers can complete the easiest of the 3.
- d rop rates of mods have been a joke for a long time now, but they seem even worse now than they were before.
- made the regular areas require so much gear that they are tedious and boring.
- ignore our threads with valid complaints/suggestions or just outright delete them
- change the TOS without warning and without alerting players
- fail to deliver on promises you have said "Will come in time" for months and months (class balance anyone?)
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