ROM Operation Upgrade Updates

Finally I have completed the upgrade of my armor. Basically I use the lvl 53 overdura white armors. Only the cape is lvl 49 but that does not matter, as long as it is overdura. Below is the screen shot of the resulting armor set. Each armor (not accessories) have the same stats as shown :

I also managed to refine all armor equipment to +6, thanks to the jewels sales in the item mall. All the diamonds used to buy item from the mall are obtained from auction house, using the money earned from selling the Meat of Earth Shell Crab .

The next in line for upgrading are the accessories, but before that, I think I want to get a Tier 7 Staff of Admiration +6. Extra firepower is good.

Runes Of Magic (US) : Cash Shoppe

One feature of the so- called "Free-to-Play" games is their Cash Shoppe aka Item Mall. Here you can buy game item that can enhance your experience of gaming. Runes of Magic is not excluded from such feature. To buy items in the Cash Shoppe (CS), you'll need to buy some sort of point that can be used to do the purchase of items. The purchase of the item mall point is usually done via game card or credit card payment.

There is a way in Runes of Magic that enable you to play the game without spending a single cents of your hard earned money. However this will involve extensive farming of in game gold. The virtual point used by Runes of Magic in their CS is called diamonds. These diamonds are tradable via the in game Auction House. at the time of this writing, each diamond cost around 10k-12k gold. So by farming gold in the game, one should be able to then purchase the diamond via the auction house and then use it to buy the CS items.

Currently, the most effective way of farming gold in Runes of Magic is by farming daily quest items and then selling them via the auction house. I'm currently farming the Earth Shell Crab Meat . They sell for around 2.4k each. So for a stack of 100pcs, I can get around 224k gold (after deducting the Auction House admin fees, duh !) . I hope I can do this most of the time so that I can get as much diamond as I can .

Runes Of Magic (US) : Operation "Upgrade"

My main character on RoM (US) has now reach level 47/42 mage/priest. So to move on, I need to upgrade my armor to the ones that give me high defense and high HP. So I have started buying the Stats X and IX armor in the Auction House (AH) , and then transmuted it with purified fusion stones to make the clean Stats X (or IX) mana stones. The mana stones are then used on the armor I bought from AH to make a better armor.

The purified fusion stones are only available from the cash shop. Luckily I can use the phirius tokens obtained from doing daily quests to buy them. So, to make use of the game system, i created a couple of alternate characters to feed the main characters with the mana stones. So far I have created only 2. Later in the future I may need to create more to speed up the purified fusion stones supply.

In fact, i have a few option on how to get the Stat X mana stones. I could make them using the method above OR i could farm daily quests items and then sell them on the auction house to get the gold that i can use to buy the mana stones from the auction house itself. Of course, mana stones from the AH can be very costly....

Runes Of Magic (US)

I have found a new addiction. The Runes Of Magic. It's a new experience for me since the game concentrate on questing for you to gain experience and level up, unlike most MMORPG where you will normally grind killing monsters.

The game also urges people to party to achieve the common goal, especially towards the end of a series of quests. This is due to the Raid Boss having really insane health point (HP). There are raidable instances, where you can form a group of max 36 player to finish a series of quests.

The game looks and play like World Of Warcraft, except that it is a F2P game, though one must not be fooled by the word free since nothing is actually free. It is free to play, but to have a really nice experience of playing it, some purchase from the cash shop (CS) is required. I only bought the mount so far... lol .

I have now ditched the RoM MY-SG Server and move to US Artemis Server. Playing in the US server is really nice indeed. The community is very nice. That's one of the most important feature for a succesful MMORPG. The in-game event organised by the GMs are also enlightening the players.

Uninstallation of Games

In the recent weeks, I have uninstalled a few games, i.e. Last Chaos and Lineage2 SEA. There are few reasons :

1. The Last Chaos publisher here is closing down their servers, so no point of playing the game anymore.

2. A lot of people in the Lineage 2 SEA have moved on to playing Aion USA, and the game has turned to a ghost town, again no point of playing the game anymore.

A friend of mine has even resort to a greater extend; formatting his PC since his interest in MYLC has gone, lol.

Nowadays, I'm concentrating on playing Runes of Magic (USA) . I've even invited a friend to have a try at the game, and copied the installer DVDs for him.

MMORPG : USA/EU vs Localised Server

After playing various MMORPG for more than 2 years already, I can now make a few comparison between the servers located in the USA/EU and those located in SEA. Few games that I played in the SEA servers are dying, and one has already declared server shutdown .

Player Base :
1. Servers in the USA/EU are fairly populated and the population numbers last long.
2. Servers in the SEA are only populated at the beginning , but slowly dissipated in numbers.

GM Support/Event :
1. GM in the USA/EU servers very heavily involve themselves in the game and frequently conduct events that cheer up players every now and then.
2. GM in the SEA servers is almost non-existent. It seems like they throw servers at us, and leave it to ourselves how to make fun with the game.

Game Patch :
1. Servers in the USA/EU are always updated to the latest patch from the developer of the game. This make the game interesting as there are new things to do in the game.
2. Servers in the SEA are usually not up to date, lagging behind about 2/3 patches, and this makes the players become bored after a while. The reason could be on licensing etc, we don't know, but as a game publisher they should have expected that every game patch may/will require license payment to the original producer.

Community :
1. Players in the USA/EU servers are very helpful to the newbie, no matter where you are from. They just want to have fun playing the game with friends. They like to party when leveling up or doing quests. Botting players exist but not very serious, as the botters are usually killed by legit players.
2. Players in the SEA servers are not very kind, arrogant, and selfish. They don't like to help newbie . Bots are infesting the game. It seems like they are leveling a character with a view to sell them in the future.

RMT ( Real Money Trading)
1. RMT is definitely banned in the USA/EU servers. RMT shouters exist but immediately removed from the game by the active GMs . RMT is destroying a game as it will make price of items in game go sky high and uncontrolable .
2. RMT is having a field day in the SEA servers. With the help of botting software, the RMTer can stand in the crowded area and spam the RMT adverts for days without being removed by GMs.