In the free-to-play market, the competition is fierce. It seems like we hear about a new game being ported and launching just about every week, and have for the last while. That said,
Runes of Magic, the recent entry into the market by
Runewaker Entertainment in partnership with
Frogster Interactive has definitely
caught our attention in playing through the game recently. That's why we were glad to hear that they've announced 700,000 players are checking out this interesting new world. According to their press release, response has been so good that they've been required to add another European server to their line-up for a total of nine launch servers altogether. They've also had to lock down character creation on the Laoch and Aotacht servers due to population, and state that if any other servers reach max, they've got the infrastructure in place to open more servers should the demand become greater.
With mechanics cribbed from everything from
World of Warcraft to
EverQuest II and even a bit of
Warhammer Online and
Final Fantasy XI for good measure, this is definitely one of the strongest new titles to hit the F2P market in the last while. Just how large the game will continue to grow, considering it reintroduces some less popular mechanics like death penalties and a fairly involved tradeskill system remains to be seen. Still, it's a good sign for
Runes of Magic, and we wish them all the best luck on the future of their game!
