Regnum Online


October 29th, 2008 - By
Dalmarus



“Your soul has been strengthened. Let you body do the same
soon, with guard Hesid's helping hand, in front of those antique
ruins.”




Seeing that phrase uttered to you by a guard within moments of logging
into Regnum Online for the first time is not the best way to instill
confidence that this is a game worth playing. 
It’s
like starting a book with, “ href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_was_a_dark_and_stormy_night"
target="_blank">It
was a dark and stormy
night”. It's so uninspiring and a textbook example
of what
not to do
that it's disturbing. I'd like to be able to tell you the writing gets
better, but again, I'd be lying, so let's just get
to the nitty gritty, shall we?



Regnum
Online

is a Free-to-Play Massive Multiplayer Online Game from
NGD
Studios
,
based in Argentina. The premise is solid, if
not particularly engaging. Players must choose from one of three
realms to explore and compete in a world with both PvE (Player Versus
Environment) and PvP (Player Versus Player) content. Once you choose a
realm, you cannot create a character from a different one unless you
do so on another server, or delete all of your old characters. While on
the surface, this may seem like a harsh choice, it's actually fairly
standard practice in RvR (Realm Versus Realm Games).




href="http://media.tentonhammer.com/vanguard/gallery/albums/album94/Regnum_Online_1.jpg"
target="_blank"> style="border: 0px solid ; width: 200px; height: 170px;"
alt="Regnum Online character"
src="http://media.tentonhammer.com/vanguard/gallery/albums/album94/Regnum_Online_1_thumb.jpg">

style="text-align: center; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Dark
Elves... or Skinny Smurfs?

Initiation Hazing



That’s certainly what the installation felt like.
Trying to find a site I could get an uncorrupted client from
was like searching for an alley in New York that doesn’t reek
of urine. Even when you find one, you’ll still feel like you
need a hot shower afterwards. Eventually I found what I was looking for
at href="http://www.fileplanet.com/search.aspx?searchtype=2&q=regnum+online"
target="_blank">Fileplanet.




After having sorted out the initial file problems, I assumed the rest
of the process would consist of smooth sailing... how wrong I was.
At one point, I discovered there were 14 instances of Regnum Online
running during the fiasco known as patching. It felt like href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zll_jAKvarw"
target="_blank">Leeroy
Jenkins
was grabbing every ounce of processing power my system had like they
were magical tiny dragons.



Once you finally get past the pain of getting things running, character
creation
is a simple process of choosing a realm and then one of three races.
From there, you'll choose one of three classes.
The whole idea of it seems to be a game of href="http://www.worldrps.com/" target="_blank">Rock,
Paper, Scissors gone wrong.



There are no stats to distribute between your attributes and the game
does a satisfactory job of giving you the basic descriptions of each
class. How hard should it be to describe a warrior, mage, or archer, I
don't know, but at this point, I
wasn't necessarily optimistic.





Kill Me, Kill Me Now


If you're anything like your normal gamer, you'll be begging for the
sweet release of death before long. In fact, it's probably the fastest
way to regain your health and mana. Get used to long amounts of
downtime because that's the only thing you have to look forward to with
the combat of Regnum Online. Fighting is a simplistic affair of setting
your character to autoattack and hitting a button on your hotbar every
5 seconds or so.



As a Mage or Archer, you can get one long range attack off before your
target closes with you, but after that, it's the same pattern of hit
hotbar button once, wait for timer, hit again. Whether you're a
Warrior, Archer, or Mage makes little difference in terms of combat.
They all play the same. Save yourself some pain and go href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWc6QQ9JlMc"
target="_blank">watch
Donny
Osmond dance like a maniac for a good laugh instead. Combat
and
recovery is so slow, you can probably finish the video before you'll be
ready to choose your next pixilated victim.


href="http://media.tentonhammer.com/vanguard/gallery/albums/album94/Regnum_Online_2.jpg"
target="_blank"> style="border: 0px solid ; width: 200px; height: 154px;"
alt="Regnum Online combat"
src="http://media.tentonhammer.com/vanguard/gallery/albums/album94/Regnum_Online_2_thumb.jpg">

style="text-align: center; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">It
Doesn't Get Any Better Than This... Really.



There Has To Be Something
Good, Right? *crickets* Right?


Believe it or not, there are some bright spots, though they
are few and far between. Once you adjust the screen
resolution from its default of 600x800, the graphics are
actually rather
charming, and better than I had any hope to expect at this point. While
the basic structure of character models and environment are definitely
dated, they have what I like to refer as, an old-school charm. Think
target="_blank">Darkstone
meets href="http://ac.turbine.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=73:screenshots&catid=53:screenshots-a-video&Itemid=63&NavItemid=62"
target="_blank">Asheron's
Call and you're in the right neighborhood.
The textures are smooth and clean, and the Anti-Aliasing in the game
works great.



The music composition and general sound is on par for what
you would expect once you've logged in and seen what
you’re up aga... I mean, playing. Neither great nor
excruciatingly irritating, it's relatively par for the course. The
music of each area you’re exploring is fitting if not
exciting. The combat music reminded me of the href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtmGaoKKH5A"
target="_blank">Peter Gun
theme, so it
kept me mildly entertained while battling a number of creatures in the
world.



The Regnum Online UI is actually something of a simple masterpiece. No
need for a roll of href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4MjFb6r1BE"
target="_blank">Bounty
Paper Towels to clean up any mess here. The
UI is target="_blank">Spic
and Span clean! So clean in fact, that after having played
for a few hours, I went back to another game I frequent regularly
and was searching for ways to shrink some windows while wanting to
remove
others. The interface gives you so much screen space to enjoy
what little action can be found, it's hard to go back to something else
messier than a Saturday night mud wrestling competition.



Sadly, this was the last really good thing I have to say about Regnum
Online.





Final Overview


If you miss the days of watching your avatar autoattack its target
while you sat watching while periodically pushing a button and watching
a long cooldown timer reset, you may be in luck. If you feel today's
games are lacking in downtime to get to know one another while resting
for three to five minutes after each battle, get your hernia pillow
ready for some long sessions. For those players that long to return to
an
earlier era when combat was slow and
simplistic, I've found the game for you.



If Regnum Online had been made before 1999, it probably would have been
a
big hit. Unfortunately for me, and perhaps you if you decide to give
the game a try, we're right around the corner from 2009. While it
may hold some charm in a nostalgic sort of way, it's too outdated to be
a viable choice for today's gamer. It's a classic case of getting what
you paid for. I don't know about you, but for myself, being able to
play for free just isn't enough. My time is worth more than that.
<link to forum thread>What
about yours?</link>



Disclaimer:
The opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed are those of the author
and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints of
the Ten Ton Hammer network or staff.


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Last Updated: Mar 13, 2016

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