Regnum Online review

Haku2049 · 02-06-2009, 02:08 PM

I'm still early in the game (just a level 21 Elf in fact), but I've found that people with low attention spans like me can't get into the story. Well at least I can't. I'd love to but some things like the quests and the battle music are just way too repetitive. I know backtracking is part of any RPG but its so boring after awhile. The story doesn't pull me into anything. Why drag myself around for NPCs that don't move much short of looking at me! I have yet to see an NPC run for their life from a big creature. I just don't feel important. Here's the article I wrote for the November 2008 issue awhile back for my website [link removed]. I know I'll probably get flamed for it but I'm brutally honest about my reviews, zero stars or not!

Regnum Online®

Intro

For those of you with a decent memory you'll know how terrible my first foray into the world of free MMORPGs went. A total flop graphics and gameplay wise. Sure it started out fun (Kill ze wabbit, kill ze wabbit, kill ze wabbit!), but quickly turned into puzzle hell. So on to something a little more processor intensive, eh?

This time I was forced to use my PC. For the zillionth time I hate Windows® so much that I recently replaced most of its look with free Mac OS X®-like enhancements. I should review those in the future *writes it down* but for now I'll let you in on what I've gotten from almost a month of playing the game. In order to do this review last month I would be going off of only two days of play. I would have started way earlier but there were some registration problems, which were happily solved by tech support once I got the gut to ask.

Installation

No problems

Play

First I discounted this game from serious thought. Later I came upon the site again and found the bandwidth was just "an Internet connection" so I gave it a try, but with Dialup the game's slow (but now I have DSL and ironically haven't played Regnum Online in quite some time).

I signed up for an account, but messed up the email address. This was the part where I emailed tech support asking them to cancel my unactivated account. They did so without any proof of my identity. I reapplied with the correct email address and all was good. I didn't even need to fully load the activation page in IE before it let me in.

After installing 2 updates it had me choose a server (I played XP's Spider Solitaire until it was ready). There was a load, then a crappy intro with a good story but no audio (I did solve the audio problem but not until much later - I needed OpenAL). then it had me choose a location: forest, mountain, or castle. Those were also related to the country of your origin but I'm too lazy to look the names up. Having a little Zelda inspiration I choose to be one with the forest. My species choices were an elf, a human, and a half elf. Sadly PrintScreen doesn't work! There is a screenshot function but it can't take a photo of...you know...action.

Next I got to choose face, hair, chair color, and body size. I went for soft cyan eyes, settled with hair that droops forward (though I really wanted a Super Sayian spiked hair), the default hair color (since the others are crap), and the default size.

Then I got to play with 5 attributes points. I put em all into strength. Going for the Zelda thing I named him Link2049. Well, the name wasn't allowed? Alright, how about RandomElfLink2049? The same?!? Minutes later with more rejections I figured out they hate certain characters. Thus my character was dubbed RandomElfLink! Alright! Time to play!

I swear that every second of playtime will at least b that amount of time downloading! Then I got disconnected! Stupid Juno! While I waited for a reconnect I got to take a good look at the 3D model that was my avatar. I really noticed how terrible it looks. The hands float into the clothing! That's probably something I wouldn't have noticed if I had a faster connection!

I continued and got another load screen. 671 of 671 resources loaded already? Well I started supper, threw out the garbage, and started the timer for my next meal. Thirty minutes until i could eat!

Five minutes later and escape doesn't work at a load screen. Great! I forced the dumb game to quit. Restarting verification took an oddly long amount of time. Well how about restarting my computer?

Restarting worked wonders! *gasp* The game loaded before my food was done. I didn't think that was possible!

After eating it was time to train! With my trusty bow and a lot of free arrows I went out to have fun. My first battle started against a Tiny Green Wasp. It won. Cool! Finally I found out about the in game screenshot option, but not about its severe limitations!

The load area was much larger than I thought. i killed some Wolf Cubs. One killed me, I rezzed and killed another, number four, and leveled up. I found the one that killed me and killed it to complete the first quest.

The healing power of the rest action is not immediately obvious. I only got the drift after seeing someone else doing it.

Spells are what break up the monotony of repetitive attacking. Problem is they don't start out being...how should I put this...vital. These stupid things take time to be cast but once you learn one it doesn't go away unless you reassign your ability points.

Oh, some weirdo non-player character somewhere says that baddies can team up against you. I thought that was a bunch of garbage until much later. Two baddies ganged up on me, then after I was dead one killed the other!

Music

At first I used iTunes in the background and it did the job. Playing a free song from Diablo 3® while playing Regnum Online? How heinous! Some I ripped off from Soulbringer®, but once I did get the audio to work I found it to be way too repetitive so iTunes may actually be a better option! I never want to hear the combat song again! Thanks anyway forum people!

Video

Good, not great. Its not designed to be that taxing on anything as of yet, but then again the game's still in beta!

Problems

*Sometimes enemies fall from the sky or they will jump to your location. Usually they are behind things, though.

*As usual the camera has zoom problems.

*Most quests seem to be just about killing X amount of a creature.

*Sometimes says I'm not in range when I really am. When I shoot something and it moves closer to me I think its still in range! Or says I'm not facing my enemy when that's clearly a lie.

*When the enemy is right up against me I don't have to be facing it to damage it.

*You knew I'd gripe about it here. It just plain sucks that I can't take screenshots of combat! At first I couldn't find the non-combat screenshots, but eventually did by rooting through Regnum Online's subfolders.

*Return of the zoom problem! Its just way too slow!

*Every single message stays on screen too long.

*Did I mention how annoying it is when an opponent runs away, comes back, runs away again, comes back...and so on? Great for brief healing while waiting for the idiot to come back, but this is just too stupid!

*At first it didn't remember not to close the damn spellbook after casting a spell!

*Finding quests while ignoring lame story is hard. But its easy to forget!

*Two crashes so far! Makes me laugh at what I wrote "Like I care about anything besides fighting?" or whatever. Its standard talk to everyone to figure out the plot and grab quests. I don't have that sort of attention span. I like to fight, level up, explore, and fight some more!

*Die feature takes forever. Should be prompt then immediate death.
*I wish I had found out how much emphasis the game put on Player versus Player before I bought premium stuff.

*If you don't prioritize your quests right some won't be worth your time or money. It doesn't help that you can only accept up to five at a time.

Verdict

There are way too many problems to be solved for this game to deserve much recognition in the form of stars. The gameplay was a great distraction from reality for awhile, but just like any other MMORPG its hard to hook a player for the long haul unless they are really hard core, and this is just another free MMORPG in the sea of many. If you love free MMORPGs then maybe give this a try. If you have high standards don't bother.

Developer: ©2007 NGD Studios

Publisher: ©2007 NGD Studios

Platform: Windows

3 Non-Combat Screenshots out of 10

02-06-2009, 02:08 PM	#1
Haku2049 Pledge Join Date: Aug 2008 Posts: 4	I'm still early in the game (just a level 21 Elf in fact), but I've found that people with low attention spans like me can't get into the story. Well at least I can't. I'd love to but some things like the quests and the battle music are just way too repetitive. I know backtracking is part of any RPG but its so boring after awhile. The story doesn't pull me into anything. Why drag myself around for NPCs that don't move much short of looking at me! I have yet to see an NPC run for their life from a big creature. I just don't feel important. Here's the article I wrote for the November 2008 issue awhile back for my website [link removed]. I know I'll probably get flamed for it but I'm brutally honest about my reviews, zero stars or not! Regnum Online® Intro For those of you with a decent memory you'll know how terrible my first foray into the world of free MMORPGs went. A total flop graphics and gameplay wise. Sure it started out fun (Kill ze wabbit, kill ze wabbit, kill ze wabbit!), but quickly turned into puzzle hell. So on to something a little more processor intensive, eh? This time I was forced to use my PC. For the zillionth time I hate Windows® so much that I recently replaced most of its look with free Mac OS X®-like enhancements. I should review those in the future writes it down but for now I'll let you in on what I've gotten from almost a month of playing the game. In order to do this review last month I would be going off of only two days of play. I would have started way earlier but there were some registration problems, which were happily solved by tech support once I got the gut to ask. Installation No problems Play First I discounted this game from serious thought. Later I came upon the site again and found the bandwidth was just "an Internet connection" so I gave it a try, but with Dialup the game's slow (but now I have DSL and ironically haven't played Regnum Online in quite some time). I signed up for an account, but messed up the email address. This was the part where I emailed tech support asking them to cancel my unactivated account. They did so without any proof of my identity. I reapplied with the correct email address and all was good. I didn't even need to fully load the activation page in IE before it let me in. After installing 2 updates it had me choose a server (I played XP's Spider Solitaire until it was ready). There was a load, then a crappy intro with a good story but no audio (I did solve the audio problem but not until much later - I needed OpenAL). then it had me choose a location: forest, mountain, or castle. Those were also related to the country of your origin but I'm too lazy to look the names up. Having a little Zelda inspiration I choose to be one with the forest. My species choices were an elf, a human, and a half elf. Sadly PrintScreen doesn't work! There is a screenshot function but it can't take a photo of...you know...action. Next I got to choose face, hair, chair color, and body size. I went for soft cyan eyes, settled with hair that droops forward (though I really wanted a Super Sayian spiked hair), the default hair color (since the others are crap), and the default size. Then I got to play with 5 attributes points. I put em all into strength. Going for the Zelda thing I named him Link2049. Well, the name wasn't allowed? Alright, how about RandomElfLink2049? The same?!? Minutes later with more rejections I figured out they hate certain characters. Thus my character was dubbed RandomElfLink! Alright! Time to play! I swear that every second of playtime will at least b that amount of time downloading! Then I got disconnected! Stupid Juno! While I waited for a reconnect I got to take a good look at the 3D model that was my avatar. I really noticed how terrible it looks. The hands float into the clothing! That's probably something I wouldn't have noticed if I had a faster connection! I continued and got another load screen. 671 of 671 resources loaded already? Well I started supper, threw out the garbage, and started the timer for my next meal. Thirty minutes until i could eat! Five minutes later and escape doesn't work at a load screen. Great! I forced the dumb game to quit. Restarting verification took an oddly long amount of time. Well how about restarting my computer? Restarting worked wonders! gasp The game loaded before my food was done. I didn't think that was possible! After eating it was time to train! With my trusty bow and a lot of free arrows I went out to have fun. My first battle started against a Tiny Green Wasp. It won. Cool! Finally I found out about the in game screenshot option, but not about its severe limitations! The load area was much larger than I thought. i killed some Wolf Cubs. One killed me, I rezzed and killed another, number four, and leveled up. I found the one that killed me and killed it to complete the first quest. The healing power of the rest action is not immediately obvious. I only got the drift after seeing someone else doing it. Spells are what break up the monotony of repetitive attacking. Problem is they don't start out being...how should I put this...vital. These stupid things take time to be cast but once you learn one it doesn't go away unless you reassign your ability points. Oh, some weirdo non-player character somewhere says that baddies can team up against you. I thought that was a bunch of garbage until much later. Two baddies ganged up on me, then after I was dead one killed the other! Music At first I used iTunes in the background and it did the job. Playing a free song from Diablo 3® while playing Regnum Online? How heinous! Some I ripped off from Soulbringer®, but once I did get the audio to work I found it to be way too repetitive so iTunes may actually be a better option! I never want to hear the combat song again! Thanks anyway forum people! Video Good, not great. Its not designed to be that taxing on anything as of yet, but then again the game's still in beta! Problems Sometimes enemies fall from the sky or they will jump to your location. Usually they are behind things, though. As usual the camera has zoom problems. Most quests seem to be just about killing X amount of a creature. Sometimes says I'm not in range when I really am. When I shoot something and it moves closer to me I think its still in range! Or says I'm not facing my enemy when that's clearly a lie. When the enemy is right up against me I don't have to be facing it to damage it. You knew I'd gripe about it here. It just plain sucks that I can't take screenshots of combat! At first I couldn't find the non-combat screenshots, but eventually did by rooting through Regnum Online's subfolders. Return of the zoom problem! Its just way too slow! Every single message stays on screen too long. Did I mention how annoying it is when an opponent runs away, comes back, runs away again, comes back...and so on? Great for brief healing while waiting for the idiot to come back, but this is just too stupid! At first it didn't remember not to close the damn spellbook after casting a spell! Finding quests while ignoring lame story is hard. But its easy to forget! Two crashes so far! Makes me laugh at what I wrote "Like I care about anything besides fighting?" or whatever. Its standard talk to everyone to figure out the plot and grab quests. I don't have that sort of attention span. I like to fight, level up, explore, and fight some more! Die feature takes forever. Should be prompt then immediate death. I wish I had found out how much emphasis the game put on Player versus Player before I bought premium stuff. If you don't prioritize your quests right some won't be worth your time or money. It doesn't help that you can only accept up to five at a time. Verdict There are way too many problems to be solved for this game to deserve much recognition in the form of stars. The gameplay was a great distraction from reality for awhile, but just like any other MMORPG its hard to hook a player for the long haul unless they are really hard core, and this is just another free MMORPG in the sea of many. If you love free MMORPGs then maybe give this a try. If you have high standards don't bother. Developer: ©2007 NGD Studios Publisher: ©2007 NGD Studios Platform: Windows 3 Non-Combat Screenshots out of 10 __________________ Quit eating my pants! Last edited by gamemod; 02-06-2009 at 03:17 PM. Reason: link removed*