I am trying to continue trying out some of the Free MMORPGs that are available; giving them all some time so I can have a better idea of what sort of games are out there. This week I finally got around to trying out Runes of Magic. More on it a bit further down the post, but first…

I need to admit I have played as much of Perfect World international as I initially wanted to. I had ever intention of giving this game several hours and enough to get a good understanding of what the game outside the “newbie” area is like. Alas though the lissues I have with the controls make it really hard for me to play the game. For the record the main issues are:

• Lack of inverted mouse look
• no way to turn off click-to-move
• Inability to change key binding.

I will try and force myself to play more at some point, but right with Runes of Magic about to leave beta I suspect it will be some time before I give PW more time.

Second I have played a bit more of Wizards101, and I think its a pretty fun game but again a few small issues frustrate me to the point of wanting to spend time in a different game.  Here the issue is again lack of inverted mouselook (please game devs if your game is 3d give players the option to invert your camera), lack of keybinds, no strafe movement, and the inability to get a more top down look at the world.  Though unlike PW when I force myself to move around with just the keyboard, I don’t get as disoriented and can thus still play a bit.

I do plan to make a few more foreays into the game since the world sort of drew me in, or I should say drew out the little kid in me.   Also I really like the RPG+CCG mechanic and the primary school + secondary skills mechanic, but I think they really should build in a way to swap primary schools with out re-rolling a new character.   I would definetly recommend this game for any one with kiddos that are into the “wizards” / “harry potter” sort of thing.

And finally, I installed the Runes of Magic Beta. Yes I know the beta closes in a couple of days (I am hoping I can reuse the client I have installed), but I really wanted a to take peek.   What I found is, thus far a pretty fanstic free game.

I am only level 6 but here is a quick list of things I like:

• Player housing
• Early access to the above housing
• Housing that can impact normal day to day game play via the bonus house can give
• decent about of starting bag space, with the ability to get more
• XP and TP system: XP gets you levels which unlock new abilities and allow you to meet some preqs, while TP is used to upgrade abilities you already have.
• While you can not master all the trade skills it appears you can pick all of them up.
• Option to invert mouse, custom key binds, disable click to move all available. Yay.
• Its free. Yes there are RMTs but thus far I have not felt as though I was really lacking by not buying something.
• Auction house with item sell history.
• Renting of mounts and the ability to do so early in the game.

I suspect the Dual Class system will be added to the list, but I have not had a chance to try that out yet.

I should note that while the game is not ugly, it is not the prettiest of the free games I have played and overall of I am very impressed with the game. Out of all the free MMORPGs I have tried (including several I have not mentioned on the site) this one shines above the reast; at the least at early levels.  Hopefully after the launch this week, I will have time to play it a bit more since I really want to check out the dual classing system.  I will post more if I do.