Free MMO: RF Online

[King Flevance]

I been playing this MMO for about 2 months now since the Chaos server opened up and its pretty cool. I was wondring if anyone else played here or figured I would mention it if you are into Free to play MMOs. It does not suffer the common fate of "pay to win". It does have a cash shop but the cash shop offers a slight edge in pvp and mostly stuff to make your life easier in pve/grind. It's pretty good in my opinion for a relaxed MMO to play.

If you are curious, I wont lie it can be a pain in the butt to install the client. Sometimes downloading the full client will work for you, if not you have to download it in 4 parts. Max level is 65 and no one has yet to hit max level on Chaos server yet. There are a few who are nearing 60 in each race. Maybe a half a dozen for each. Most players are 40-55ish. Honestly, if you have a day off to commit to it you can be level 40 in a day. Follow your quests until 30-35 then get on an "ABA" team and leech exp. Aba teams are pretty common so it shouldn't be too hard to find.

Races:

Cora: Here are your elves. Or they look like elves anyways and their specialty is summoning. They use Nuke spells and Summon these little elemental guardians. Classes are Warrior (Tank/Beserker), Ranger (Sniper/Desperado), Specialist (Summoner/not sure), Mage - Don't know the 2 types for sure but assuming nuker is one of them.

Bellato: These guys are kinda like hobbits or something. They look like Cora but are much shorter. They have a more dwarven atmosphere about them though. Their special is MAUs (Mechs) who have a massive amount of HP and defense. Classes are similar. Warrior (Tank/Beserker), Ranger (Sniper/Desperado), Specialist (MAU Driver/Tower Specialist), Mage (Holy Chandra [Healer]/Archmage [DPS])

Accretian: These guys are the android race. Their special is launchers that do severe damage output. I believe they only have 3 classes. Warrior (Tank/Beserker), Ranger (Sniper/Desperado), Specialist of which I know on of them is the launcher class

As you can probably tell I play the Bellato.

Main Site
Client Download

 

[Maniacal]

There is barely any information on that website about the actual game, so I will assume it is yet another generic crappy mmorpg (because that is a pretty safe bet), as it seems to be funded entirely by micro transactions! Yay! People can waste their money on new lousy items in a lousy mmo!

 

[King Flevance]

It used to be pay to play but turned free to play about a year or two ago when it was aquired by another company. As for microtransactions, even WoW is supposedly receiving MOST of its funds not from subscriptions but from microtransactions. All MMOs that offer micrtransactions are beginning to recieve most of its funds through them. That is why facebook now has facebook coins to spend on their games. Because people are willing to spend money to have the best farm on farmville, or best mobster in Mafia Wars, etc.

Microtransactions are not the best way to judge a game from. Hell, even consoles are coming close to using microtransactions.

As for it being generic, it has its issues as any other MMORPG. Including pay to play ones. Of all the free to play MMOs I have played I would only recommend this one and maybe Silkroad Online. Only problem with Silkroad is that it has a pay to play version in Korea only so the western srvers get neglected over the Korean ones. Also it is quickly becoming pay to win in pvp.

RF Online is far from pay to win in pvp. You can gain an edge in pvp through the cash shop but you won't be a pvp God through it. As I said most of the items is to make your pve/grind a little less work. If you don't mind the grind then there isn't much concern for cash shop.

However, since the game is fre to install and free to play and you get to choose when to pay if ever it ain't that bad of a deal really. If cash shops or paying money for online games in general turns you off then I sadly inform you that your scope of valid online games will be severely narrowed over the next year or two. As it is the direction that online games are going to. After all, millions of people obviously don't mind paying a 20 or 2 at their leasure. Instead of a monthly bill to play the game. IMO the only time it can destroy a game is when the game basically makes it so that the person who pays the most wins the most. And why should a company care about the minor vocal outcries of the people who want a free awesome game handed to them for nothing?

 

[Maniacal]

Farmville and other ZYnga "games" and other facebook application "games" are not owned by facebook.

 

[King Flevance]

No but they do have business negotiations and dealings with each other. You can buy facebook "coins" that you can spread out to your various games on facebook rather than paying money on one game specifically. The point still remains though that farmville is generating large amounts of cash on facebook from microtransactions. I forget the number but its pretty amazing for a small application. It is currently bringing in more money in a year than some alot of boxed game releases do in their lifetime.

I am currently waiting for my guildmates to log in and figured I would give some information to anyone planning to check out the game. The main thing that can be frustrating is that the leveling system on here is actually somewhat new of an idea. And if you just power level to 40 without being careful you might gimp yourself. So here is the leveling system in a nutshell. Take a look at the screenshot attached.

Levels, by themself just unlock armors, weapons, and various things to be used or equipped and set who you can team with. You can team with anyone within 10 levels of your own. Past that, a lvl is just a number. The power really comes from "pt" basically "points". You have Skill pt (SPT) and Ability pt (APT). See the screenshot below. Basically as I use a gun or a bow, my ranged APT goes up. I have an "Aba" selected in the screenshot below. They are "5 dots" to me currently and if I level they will be "3-4 dots". These dots let you roughly gauge how much pt you gain from fighting them.
If something has no dots, you cannot gain pt off of them. The more dots, the more pt you get from them but also usually the more experience too. Its a good idea to halt on leveling for a bit to get your APT up.

Shooting an ABA with my gun currently brings me in 0.30% ranged pt. As ranged pt goes up, I do more damage with guns and bows. Same thing with melee. Once you hit 99 pt you are "GM"ed. Specialists are the only ones that level up the race special, for Bellato it is UNIT pt. Non-specialist charactors wont use this. Same with the crafting pt below, it is restricted to specialists. Defense pt gets raised when you are hit by a mob with dots.

It is important to note that it is the dots that decide how much pt you get, not how much damage is done. You CAN however to too little damage to not gain any pt. If I can only do 1-10 damage to an aba I will get no pt for succesful hits. YOu need to be able to do at least 150ish damage to an aba to get pt from it. For some reason you can also do too much damage to get pt. That is harder to do usually and is rarely a problem but is something to watch for.

Skills PT
The skills are basically buffs you cast on yourself and/or attacks to use with specific weapons. They level a bit with each use until level 7 where they are "GM"ed. Magic, known as force, works the same way as skills in PT.

1. Auto attack toggle
2. Walk/Run toggle
3. Weapon shown toggle

Race Politics
On the lower right you can see the Race Leader and the race's archons. At 50 you can apply and vote on Race Leader and archon positions. Receiving a position gives you the race buff aura that will stay on you as long as you are in position. Also anyone of the same race that gets near you will also recieve the race buff. As well, they may talk in race chat to communicate to the entire race. Once you hit level 30 anybody can speak to the entire race as well in /all chat but it costs 1,000 race currency to do so.

Chip Wars
Every 8 hours the central mining area is fought over for control of it. IF you win, your race can mine for ore which provides special items that help the race when processed.