However, one of the promising things about Runes of Magic is a pledge from Runewalker and Frogster (the German company handling the release of extensively reworked German and English versions of the game) is for new content - classes, races, quests and zones - every three or four months. And, thus far, there are only six fairly basic classes. Thus far in closed beta, the only playable race is the humans, but the old fave elves are being readied for the launch early next year. (I've yet to meet one, but I've met plenty of Kobolds, who, as in WOW, are rat-like and have a thing for candles.) ![]() The look and feel of Runes of Magic are so closely comparable with Blizzard's game that Tauren somehow seem to have escaped Azeroth and made it to Runes of Magic's gameworld of Taborea. John and Tony Tang, the key players in Runewaker Entertainment Ltd, the Taiwanese company behind Runes of Magic and its Asian forebear Radiant Arcana, make no bones about being fans of Ultima Online, EverQuest and WOW. Indeed, it's so familiar that it's appreciably comfortable to pick up and play, if you've any experience with recent big MMORPGs. Runes of Magic certainly features all these aspects. It's no surprise it's influential, but conversely it's got no great claim on gameworlds defined by cod-medievalism and pick-and-mix mythology ( John Ronald Reuel plays a key role in such things), interfaces featuring text boxes, hotbars, mini-maps and health bars, and questing based on killing, collecting, delivering. WOW was a success because of how well it built on MMO conventions, how it refined them. One ostensible slur that's been doing the rounds about Runes of Magic is that it's basically a World of Warcraft clone, but this misses the point. However, games are generic, by and large, and to be considered thus isn't that much of a slur. ![]() And indeed, once you're past the character creation screen of this free-to-play MMORPG - where female avatars appear, primed to go into battle in metal panties and armoured stockings - the game itself doesn't refute this impression. There's no getting around the fact that the very name Runes of Magic sounds generic.
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