The staff and I recently spend some time reviewing the "indie" MMORPG developed by NGD Studios in Argentina. Regnum Online (www.regnumonline.com.ar) is a "free-to-play" MMO with available premium purchases. This same game holds the guild we focused on recently in our Guild Spotlight article, featuring The Dark Legion. In fact, I played on the same server and in the same realm as them, hoping to perhaps spend some RvR time along side their members to experience the late-end game activities. However, we weren't given the ability to have a character join them, as NGD frequently left our requests unanswered for long periods of time. Let me break this game down some, so you know what to expect if you plan on playing this "free-to-play" MMO.

Graphics: 6/10

This aspect of the game has recently undergone a large change, with new PC/NPC race character models being completely redesigned. This enhancement is quite clearly a step up from their previous models, which fell in line with the original Everquest. These models are more up to par with current games, but there is one thing making this a strange fit. While the character models have been advanced, many of not most of the NPC enemies still have a clearly "older" look to them, with less detail and quality. They're not poorly made, but they stand out as inferior in the presence of the new characters.

Sound: 4/10

The sounds in the game are generic, and there are few variations to the music and sound effects. I found the "battle music" played while you're in combat to be rather distracting. I would simply call the music and sound effects in the game "adequate".

Controls/UI: 5/10

The controls were a bit clunky, and sometimes slow to respond. The UI was your standard fantasy MMO fare, so we can't fault them there. The interface is however very lacking on any of the components you see in other MMO's. There is no real social panel, nothing for finding groups, and very little else aside from the very basics needed for playing the game.

Gameplay/Combat: 3/10

I'm afraid this is the part where Regnum Online falls flat on its face. Even the other members of the forums described the PvE as "basically non-existant" and that it was the worst part of the game. First, you have to press CTRL to enter combat (or to leave it for that matter), and it's highly inconvenient. Many of the animations of the different combat skills (of which there are not many) looked the same. Character customization or skill varieties are simply non-existant. In fact, the only way the combat of this game could be worse is if it didn't function.

The quest system is odd, requiring you to read the text window from a given NPC, then assume you've received the quest. You can check this by looking in your journal, but there are no notifications to let you know anything's happened. Some of the quests don't even have an "accept" option, they just sortof happen to you. Then you're sent out to complete the quests, finding the location solely based on the description provided by the NPC (which are sometimes not translated into English very clearly). There are no waypoints, markers, or other ways to track your quest. In fact, there is no quest tracker aside from your journal.

One of the other strange problems I encountered with the game happened when I was riding a mount. I was able to take a level 3 character atop a mount, and ride across the entire region, all the time going completely unharmed by enemies. Apparently, horses are immune to NPC attacks (with the exception of guards). I brought this up on their forums, but received no response after nearly a week. That brings me to another aspect of Regnum Online:

Customer Service/Support: 1/10

Now, I'm not sure how much of this problem is due to a language barrier, or the fact that I entered the game around the time of a very large patch (new character models). But the fact of the matter is that they NEVER responded to my support requests, and even direct PM's and emails to the staff rarely yielded a response. The other players would occasionally offer help, but from NGD Studios, the support was basically non-existant.

Realm vs. Realm / Invasions: 4/10

On this subject we're going to have to go based on what I had seen, as well as what other players had conveyed. The first problem we run into here is that there are not that many concurrent users in Regnum Online. So, RvR battles are rather uncommon and vary according to the timezone you live in. Despite the fact that I was able to enter the conflict zone on my mounted level 3 character, I never saw any ongoing battles. I also have my doubts on the quality of these battles based on the lack of variety in character abilities. Basically, all characters of the same class are the same.

Invasions, which entails enemies breaking through their opponents guarded realm gate also seemed to be a rarity according to other players. So, while this aspect of the game has the potential to be the most rewarding and fun, you must first stomach the uninteresting and slow grind through the PvE side of the game. Then you're going to need to wait around until the right time to experience RvR battles.

Conclusion

...So, is anything good about Regnum?

Well, the one thing that keeps this game from looking like an epic bore in comparison to other MMO's and even free-to-play MMO's is the community. The game is host to some very nice, friendly, and helpful people from all around the world. Regnum caters to a wide variety of languages and localities, so players from Australia can interact with those from England and Brazil. And the level of immaturity was rather low for an MMO. If this is enough to keep you in the game, then there's a small change you might stick around.

As for me, the lack-luster gameplay and abyssmal level of support combine to turn this new user away. It's going to take some real work to make this game able to keep up with the increasing offering of free AAA MMORPG's. But I wish those at NGD and their players good luck for the future!

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