It’s a kind of magic
Runes of Magic would not be true to its name without some mechanics involving this kind of magic. From enchanter NPCs you can acquire power stones, and mobs will drop different runestones. One of the game feature, the arcane transmutor, will help you make the most out of them. You can convert power stones in mana stones and, once you are satisfied with them, you can merge them with your items. You can also combine runes to create different kinds or more powerful ones: many items have one or more slot where you can place the runes, bestowing them even more powers. Much like the Horadrim cube of good old Diablo 2, this is a feature left to the player to peruse and investigate. The only problem is that the transmutor has limited charges, and you will need to replenish them with diamonds or tokens (see below).

Combined with a sound crafting system, this gives you plenty of opportunities to customise all of your gear, armour, weapons and trinkets alike.

Another interesting magic system is the transporter: you will use ink to ‘write down’ a location in your book to teleport there with a recall rune at a later time. Since there are 49 available slots, this gives plenty of possibilities for quick traveling.

Diamonds are a player’s best friends
We mentioned that RoM is a Free to Play MMORPG and you can play it with no restrictions whatsoever. On the other hand, of course, many optional features will require ‘diamonds’, a currency you can buy on the Runes of Magic official website for real money.

For instance, the inventory space is quite limited, but you can rent additional slots with diamonds. In game terms this means you will be able to carry more items and loot when you are out adventuring, and you won’t need to go back to town so frequently to empty your pack. But this is just an example: the item shop is full of objects that will help you level up, advance your crafting skills, recharge your transmutor, move faster (mounts)… even look better, since you will need to spend a small amount of diamonds to change the colour of your outfit.

The item shop accepts also another form of currency called Bierdine tokens: this money can be acquired through daily quests (maximum 10 per day for a total of 100 tokens). Only some of the items in the item shop can be bought with Bierdine tokens, but they involve some of the key elements of the game like arcane transmutor charges or the marking ink and runes to use the transporter.

So it’s important to notice that the game is entirely playable without any real money. If and how much to spend it will be completely up to you.

Conclusions
Runes of Magic Gold is going to provide a fun game with the usual features of most MMORPGs plus some nice innovative additions. It will be a Free to Play game, and you can choose whether to spend or not any money to take advantage of the various additional features. Since it is now in Open Beta and the characters created during this phase will Runes of Magic Gold after the official launch, this is a perfect time to try it out and even get a head start.

Pros
- Dual class system allows a great deal of customisation and replayability
- Crafting and runes will help you create your own special equipment
- Useful map with auto-movement and trackers

Cons
- Once chosen, none of your two classes can be changed
- Graphics noticeably made with polygons and a bit childish
- Some of the delivery quests are really menial