My review of Regnum

[trunks14]

Hey guys, I just felt like making a short review of this cool game and see if you can relate to the experience I've had with it. First of all, I am not trying to get people to go play another game, I live in latin america and as far as I know this is one of the most successful games made by a Latin American company such as NGD.

Having said that, I will be using Guild Wars for comparisons since I feel like regnum online has taken many things from that game.

Disclaimer: I am not an avid MMORPG player and I have not come to get very good at any of both games, however, I am a player with money and I can see how attracting the attention of people like me is in the interest of any similar business :) It may be worthy to mention that I first played this game back in March 2006 when I was selected as a beta tester. It is bad to see how little this game has evolved since then in terms of how much fun I get every time I play it.

I will only touch 3 points, which I feel if they were improved it would be a great gain for the game and its players.

Grinding nature of the game

We all know this is a RvR game, it is advertised as such, and the idea behind it is very powerful and addictive. Nonetheless, the game relies so much on grinding to get anywhere. Maybe that's why you can purchase an insta LVL 30 scroll, but still the gap between 30 and 50 is an enormous one, and going PvP with a LVL 30 character is asking for torture.

In this regard, Guild Wars does much better. The maximum level is 20 and it is actually pretty easy to get there. In 2 weeks playing 2 hours daily, you can easily get to level 15.

Premium items

Ok, this is a pretty strong point. I read somewhere in the regnum's web site, at some point, that NGD was hesitant to sell premium items that would give paying players an advantage. While this is Noble in some sense, it is also pretty naive. It all comes down to paying for XP bonuses, potions, dyes for clothes, animals to travel faster, etc.

The thing is, and I reinforce that this is just my opinion, that NGD are somehow trying to get their customers to pay to fix the game's weak points:

* XP bonuses: Grinding nature of the game, we should not need these to level quickly (and even so, it is slow) to get to a point where we MAY enjoy the game.
* Animals for *fast* travelling: being a RvR game, the focus should be on exactly that, Realms fighting Realms. It takes so long to go from point B to point A walking, let alone some quests that require you to travel across the whole realm simply to deliver something. In Guild Wars, for example, you can instantly travel to a city just as long as you've been there before.

So, where are the premium weapons that 90% of the GunZ (http://gunz.ijji.com) players seem to buy happily, because their stats are superior to those that cannot be obtained without paying? Of course, I am not saying that that a level 1 player with premium equipment should be able to defeat a level 50 player without premium equipment, but you get the idea.

Performance

As I said a moment ago, the RvR concept is pretty cool and entertaining, but what's the use of it if we can't invade another realm, simply because of performance issues? There is NO reason why this game should be tied to a slow performance as the one it currently has.

I suffer the most when:

I am in *big* cities, and when in the PvP area of the game. And it simply does not make sense, when you are in cities most NPC's are hidden because they are either behind you or behind a wall, so the game engine should not even care to spend precious CPU and GPU time on them. It seems Regnum is in need of some serious optimization. I think this has to do with the fact that they made their own graphics engine.

For a comparison, Guild Wars allows me to play reasonably well (that is, 30+ FPS) with reasonably complex scenes, while there are tens of other players in the same area.

With Regnum, and with high quality settings, the FPS is ~12, in scenes with minimal complexity, let alone in an invasion.

Screenies:

Guild Wars:

Screenshot 1 - 593 KB (http://www.jorgefierro.com/images/gw005.jpg)
Screenshot 2 - 517 KB (http://www.jorgefierro.com/images/gw006.jpg)
Screenshot 3 - 483 KB (http://www.jorgefierro.com/images/gw008.jpg)
Screenshot 4 - 426 KB (http://www.jorgefierro.com/images/gw009.jpg)

Regnum Online:

Screenshot 1 - 244 KB (http://www.jorgefierro.com/images/regnum1.jpg)
Screenshot 2 - 176 KB (http://www.jorgefierro.com/images/regnum2.jpg)

:(

[Seher]

So, where are the premium weapons that 90% of the GunZ (http://gunz.ijji.com) players seem to buy happily, because their stats are superior to those that cannot be obtained without paying

Another game I'd never play ;) (Even our lucky boxes are crap, but this is another dimension of crap)

[-Edge-]

Well, I don't know about Regnum sometimes, but I'm a very experienced player in GW. Looking at both games you really can't compare the two heavily, although I agree with you on some points.


Grinding nature of the game

We all know this is a RvR game, it is advertised as such, and the idea behind it is very powerful and addictive. Nonetheless, the game relies so much on grinding to get anywhere. Maybe that's why you can purchase an insta LVL 30 scroll, but still the gap between 30 and 50 is an enormous one, and going PvP with a LVL 30 character is asking for torture.

In this regard, Guild Wars does much better. The maximum level is 20 and it is actually pretty easy to get there. In 2 weeks playing 2 hours daily, you can easily get to level 15.

To me the worst thing in Regnum is the leveling. I didn't make it more clearer anywhere else than here (http://regnumonline.com.ar/forum/showthread.php?t=43612). I understand what you say when this game is supposed to focus on total war, yet somehow the players find themselves spending months of utterly boring grinding to get to that war. Its a joke to me, on the other hand I understand NGD earns most of its profit from this system, but its still a scandal.

If the Leveling System was easier and more enjoyable it would be better for both sides.

You can't compare the leveling with GW though. Its level 20 because the game is focused on skill heavily, everything is balanced, some would even say staged. Its not about level, its about what skill combination's you can draw out from a million. In short, its like that because they want to get you to the experience fast. I think a lot of criticism GW receives however comes from that easy level 20, and a lot of the praise comes on why its there.

Performance

As I said a moment ago, the RvR concept is pretty cool and entertaining, but what's the use of it if we can't invade another realm, simply because of performance issues? There is NO reason why this game should be tied to a slow performance as the one it currently has.

I suffer the most when:

I am in *big* cities, and when in the PvP area of the game. And it simply does not make sense, when you are in cities most NPC's are hidden because they are either behind you or behind a wall, so the game engine should not even care to spend precious CPU and GPU time on them. It seems Regnum is in need of some serious optimization. I think this has to do with the fact that they made their own graphics engine.

For a comparison, Guild Wars allows me to play reasonably well (that is, 30+ FPS) with reasonably complex scenes, while there are tens of other players in the same area.

With Regnum, and with high quality settings, the FPS is ~12, in scenes with minimal complexity, let alone in an invasion.

That's because Regnum runs on 1 server :p In Guild Wars you have thousands of servers, more important is that fact that Regnum is a persistent world, in GW you can go out into a map by yourself and have the whole map customized... just for you.

I would actually say Regnum can handle the FPS quite well, even though I currently cannot play because of it.

I suggested awhile back that the game could have two seperate servers, ingame, similar to GW. One when you enter the Warzone, and another for the Initiation and Inner Realm Zones. Maybe that would stop lag. Either way I'm waiting on the new game engine.

You can't compare the two, GW isn't even a MMO.

[platyna]

You have a point when you say we should be able to move fast from point A to point B. That's why everyone is astonished by nerfing Onslaught because "it wasn't mean for public transport".

About grinding, it is boring to tears, but it would also sucks if everyone had level 50. The exp boosters hm, it works like that:

1. Children has alot of free time but no money.
2. Adults has little free time but has money.

So it is kinda balanced IMHO. ;)

Regards.

[Bardar]

1. Children has alot of free time but no money.
2. Adults has little free time but has money.
3. Children has alot of free time but strict parents.


What about them? ;p

[platyna]

What about them? ;p

Bad luck. :devil:

Regards.

[CuruornOnTheForums]

Performance

As I said a moment ago, the RvR concept is pretty cool and entertaining, but what's the use of it if we can't invade another realm, simply because of performance issues? There is NO reason why this game should be tied to a slow performance as the one it currently has.

I suffer the most when:

I am in *big* cities, and when in the PvP area of the game. And it simply does not make sense, when you are in cities most NPC's are hidden because they are either behind you or behind a wall, so the game engine should not even care to spend precious CPU and GPU time on them. It seems Regnum is in need of some serious optimization. I think this has to do with the fact that they made their own graphics engine.

For a comparison, Guild Wars allows me to play reasonably well (that is, 30+ FPS) with reasonably complex scenes, while there are tens of other players in the same area.

With Regnum, and with high quality settings, the FPS is ~12, in scenes with minimal complexity, let alone in an invasion.

:(


Might wanna buy a decent PC, Regnum runs fine for me all the time.

[Stefan1200]

Performance:
On Windows Regnum need less GPU power, but MUCH CPU power!
Last year I only own a slow single core CPU and my ATI X1650 Pro, which is old now. I only could play with minimum GFX details to get playable FPS.
Now I have a fast dual core CPU and still the same GPU: I can almost play on maximum GFX details with better FPS than last year.
Guild Wars need only a better GPU and is friendly to the CPU, I think that is the difference.

Premium:
It is right, now there are some advantages out there. But still less than in other Free2Play MMORPGs like 4Story or Silkroad.
The heal potions only work after the fight, so they are still balanced.
And you can buy a horse with ingame gold for one day. So no problem here.

[haloboydeath]

Regnum Online is great just the way it is. I enjoy that it has a native Linux client which was a great idea. :beerchug: