Frogster send out the word that there now is a dedicated server and website for those who speak Dutch.

Runes of Magic Launches in Belgium and The Netherlands

­PvE Server ‘Isiltir’ Hosts the Dutch Community

Frogster today announced that fans of Runes of Magic in Belgium and The Netherlands can play the popular online role-playing game on a dedicated Dutch server now. The server ‘Isiltir’ – the Gaelic word for The Netherlands – is ready to host the Dutch speaking community. The game version is the same as in the rest of Europe and the USA. There are additional servers on hand should Frogster need to add more hardware to handle the community.

The official website and a Dutch language forum are also launching in conjunction with the server. Frogster will make a decision on the localisation of Runes of Magic into Dutch by the end of the year.  The Dutch version of the official website can be found at: www.runesofmagic.com/nl.

Frogster announced today that they have signed an agreement to bring Runes of Magic to the Netherlands and Belgium by partnering with united Games. Runes of Magic was already playable in these countries but they now get their own website in the Dutch language and their own server. They haven't decided yet if they would localize the game, which I hope they don't do as I think its a waste of time.

Frogster and UnitedGames join forces for Runes of Magic in Holland and Belgium

Exclusive marketing partnership for the Dutch-speaking market

Runes of Magic continues its European success – with an exclusive marketing partnership, the massively multiplayer games publisher UnitedGames Nederland BV will offer its customer base and expertise in Belgium and Holland for Runes of Magic. The Amsterdam-based company has a portfolio of 20 games and 17 million players.

In addition to marketing, UnitedGames will also be responsible for localisation, website content and community management for the game. In just ten months since it was first announced, Runes of Magic has already attracted 1.5 million players. A Dutch language website and Dutch community management will soon be online at: www.runesofmagic.com. There will also be a Dutch-Belgian server launching 22 July running in English. Decisions regarding the translation of the game will be made before the end of the year.

”Runes of Magic has already enjoyed overwhelming success in the MMOG market. We are very pleased to be able to take part in this and be able to celebrate with this unusually high quality title, outstanding marketing successes within the Dutch and Belgian market,” announced Camiel Kraan, Chief Commercial Officer of UnitedGames.

“Holland and Belgium represent important milestones in our rollout strategy. With UnitedGames, we have found the right partner to take Runes of Magic right to the top in the Dutch-Flemish language territory as well,” commented a convinced Rolf Klöppel, Head of Marketing & PR at Frogster.  

About UnitedGames

UnitedGames is a leading developer and publisher of massively multiplayer games in Europe. It’s players come from 178 different countries. 12 million players are older and 5 million are younger than 16 years old. The company currently markets its games in 26 countries, while it has local services and offices in 8 European countries. Today UnitedGames owns a portfolio of more than 20 games.

Internet: www.unitedgames.com.

Later this month Runes of Magic will go into open beta in France and Spain.

Announcement of French and Spanish Runes of Magic open beta
Open beta still set to launch in France and Spain this month

Berlin, 03.07.2009: The French and Spanish language closed beta version of Runes of
Magic has now been running from July 1st 2009. Both language versions are running stably and the feedback from the community is very encouraging. In view of this positive
development the publisher Frogster has now set a firm date for the launch of the open betaphase. The starting flag goes up on the launch on 28th July 2009.

At the launch of the open beta version, which will be open to all players, all characters from the closed beta will be deleted and an extensive range of updates implemented. Frogster will not be imposing any further ‘character wipe’ at the switchover to the release version in September, thus enabling players to carry over their open beta characters into the launch version.

The Item Shop will also be available on the French and Spanish servers right from the launch of the open beta.

Frogster have announced that they have hired Eva Widermann to do artwork for Runes of Magic. In case you don't know who she is, here is her biography. Apparently one of the reasons to hire her is to give Runes of Magic a more western look.

Frogster has been able to secure the services of Eva Widermann for the award-winning online role play game Runes of Magic. The internationally successful artist is contributing with immediate effect, chiefly on the shaping of future game elements.

Widermann can already point to numerous projects in the games and RPG sector. With engagements with NC Soft, EA Games and Wizards of the Coast, the Munich-born artist is well known in the market. "For a long while things have looked rather bleak for concept art in Germany and I belong to the majority of illustrators who have seized their opportunities mainly abroad. And so I'm all the more delighted about the cooperation with Frogster and the up-coming projects." Commented Eva Widermann about the collaboration. The first concept art pieces for Runes of Magic have already been done and are now being implemented into Taborea by the developer Runewaker. "We are continuing to work consistently to tailor Runes of Magic to western markets. Eva's superb concepts help us in going a long way to bringing this precept into reality." Said an evidently pleased Andreas Weidenhaupt, Chief Licensing Officer of Frogster Interactive Pictures AG and CEO of Frogster Online Gaming GmbH.

Eva Widermann divides her time living and working between Karlsruhe, Germany and Cork in Ireland. She had already begun drawing in her early childhood and at the age of 20 this led Eva to decide on a professional career as a graphic designer, working for several years in various agencies in Munich, Stuttgart and Karlsruhe. However, she discovered that advertising wasn't offering her the challenges she was looking for and so in 2003 she fulfilled her life-long ambition and launched herself as a freelance illustrator and concept artist. You can find out more about the artist at www.eva-widermann.de.

Here is an example of her artwork and herself:

Frogster announced that Runes of Magic has now over 1 million registered users in Europe and the USA. This is what one of their spokespersons had to say about it:

"We at Frogster have been looking for a real hit title for two years and are happy to have found one this last year with Runes of Magic." Summed up Andreas Weidenhaupt, Chief Licensing Officer of Frogster Interactive Pictures AG and CEO of Frogster Online Gaming GmbH. "We are convinced that with the up-coming offering of additional language versions we will achieve further strong growth in Europe." Weidenhaupt continued. The Berlin based publisher plans to release at least two further localised versions this year. In addition to this, the already announced Korean version is to appear in association with Frogster Asia, as well as a Russian version in a cooperative partnership with Game Factory Interactive.

Very positive review of RoM.

Runes of Magic, the free-2-play fantasy MMORPG from Frogster Interactive launched recently with 700,000 registered accounts and our very own Ryan Plas sat down to review the game.

The first time that you log into Frogster Interactive’s Runes of Magic, you’re probably going to scoff and say “Hey, I’ve seen this before!” You’re probably going to spend the first hour or two telling yourself how it’s just a rip off of the 8,000 pound gorilla.  But do yourself a favor and keep on truckin’, because once you do, you are going to find one of the best Free2Play titles on the market today.  And in my opinion, one of the better titles on the market today, period.  I promise that if you give Runes of Magic a chance, that you will be not only pleasantly surprised, but genuinely hooked.

Judged at Eurogamer to the score of 6/10.

Runes of Magic can seem a little rough round the edges. Some things still aren't fully implemented; the job of localising the game from its Taiwanese origins is inconsistent in places, and even things like the soundtrack can be a bit shaky (while it has nice touches, like the atmospheric background noises of crowd babble and children playing when you visit villages, it also has bad habits, like the orchestral score lurching in and out seemingly at random).

But Runes of Magic is by and large a robust, enjoyable game. As a free-to-play title, it's impressive. Although Western gamers will still have their reservations about amorphous RMT versus those nice straightforward subs, Runes of Magic is something of a landmark: it won't dislodge the subscription-based model in the West by any stretch of the imagination, but it does demonstrate that free-to-play doesn't necessarily mean rudimentary, shallow, cheap or totally brutal in the integration of RMT. Runes of Magic is a reasonable-quality MMO that, despite its derivative aspects, offers proper graphics, proper classes and an involved, involving world.

Runes of Magic has been officially released Thursday. It's a free to play game, so if you want to have a try download the client here.

With the release of Runes of Magic just being one month away, Massively have an interview available with Daniel Ullrich from Frogster (the publisher).

This game has been called a "free World of Warcraft" several times in reviews. What main features set this game apart from being "just another WoW clone"?

As it stands today, any new MMORPG will be compared to World of Warcraft. It is the biggest MMORPG out there - it has reached an incredibly huge player base - and we congratulate Blizzard for that.

We have always said that Runes of Magic has been inspired by many MMORPGs and World of Warcraft is one of those. Indeed not the only one, but one of them. Many of us are MMO veterans and we have seen a lot of the features incorporated into WoW that were out there before. We mustn't forget that there were such great games as Ultima Online, Everquest, Dark Age of Camelot, Lineage II and the like which set standards for our genre. Standards is a good topic in this context. Games like World of Warcraft add a few improved or innovative things. Why should we move back a step instead of improving upon working mechanics that millions of people understand and like? We think that we have taken many of these great ideas and took furthered them.

Some beta impressions of the Free-to-play MMORPG Runes of magic can be found on Cheap Gamer.

In order to compete with the big boys, a new mmorpg has to be innovative in the extreme, or do the genres classic features better than the rest. Runes of Magic is shaping up to be a good game, just not in the same league as the conventional mmorpg's. For a free-to-play mmorpg still in beta testing, it is impressive. My in game time was mostly enjoyable and crash free. The player community is helpful, which bodes well for the games future. A lot of the criticisms presented here are pretty much normal symptoms of an ongoing beta test. The developers definitely have their work cut out in preparation of the mid March release date. The grind still sucks, but at least now I don't have to pay for it.

The release date of Runes of Magic has been set to March 19 according to a news story at Allakhazam.

The open beta for Runes of Magic has started today. You can register on their website and play in this free2play and free to download game.

Dear friends,

a deep sigh of relief runs through the community. The time of waiting is over, the Open Beta will start soon.

The Runes of Magic Open Beta servers go online at noon GMT / 13:00 CET. First we will invite our Closed Beta Testers to join us. Two hours later, at 2pm CET / 15:00 CET, the servers are available for all our registered users.

As announced last week, we have set-up six servers ready - three for each language:

English (EU)

• EN (PvE) Siochain
• EN (PvE) Macantacht
• EN (PvP) Smacht

German

• DE (PvE) Laoch
• DE (PvE) Aontacht
• DE (PvP) Cogadh

More servers can be added to the list when the need arises within app. 48 hours.

With all the changes that have been made to the game, we strongly suggest that you download the updated and most recent client from one of our partner-sites.

To use the Ingame Item Store, you need to charge your Diamond / Runecoin-Account at http://diamonds.runesofmagic.com.

For starters, we suggest:

• Experience Potion: +50 % Exp for 1 hour
• Grouping Experience Potion: + 30% Exp - stacks with individual Exp.Potion
• Skill Potion: +50% Talent Points for 1 hour
• Mounts: 7 days / 30 days / Permanent

Please note: we are restructuring the Forums to give you better opportunities to leave your feedback.

Thank you for joining us and have lots of fun, exploring the world of Taborea!

Your
Runes of Magic Team

The open beta for Runes of Magic will start at the 15th of December. The details are below. You can also find six new screens from the closed beta in our gallery.

Open Beta for Runes of Magic in sight

Big event to celebrate the end of the closed beta

 

Frogster Interactive will open the Runes of Magic servers for all players on Monday, December 15th. With the start of the open beta, MMO interested players can explore the complete content that has been integrated so far into the fantasy-online-roleplay-game. Additionally, Frogster thanks all participants of the closed beta with a big farewell-event.

 

This version is open to all players after a short registration on the official website www.runesofmagic.com. All players that have registered so far, without being invited to the closed beta, will receive automatic access to the open beta. All players that are already active in the closed beta will keep their account. Right from the beta start the needed client software can be downloaded already on various websites and on www.runesofmagic.com.                                                               

 

Frogster thanks all closed beta participants for their help in optimizing the game with a special ingame event lasting several days, at the end of the three month long first test phase. Beginning December 7^th, darkness will befall Taborea and evil demons will start terrorizing the game world. Accompanying the event, the official website will continuously report about the communities efforts to repel the evil forces. After the final of the event on December 10^th, the servers will go offline for last tests.

 

Daniel Ullrich, Director of Product Management at Frogster is extremely pleased with the closed beta: “More than 170,000 registrations from players worldwide shortly before the start of the open beta show us, that we are on the right track with Runes of Magic.” This final test phase is likely to end in the first quarter of 2009 with the release of the title, but all characters that have been played until then will be available to the players after the game has been launched.

 

Runes of Magic is currently in closed beta. Interested players can still apply for access to the beta test on www.runesofmagic.com. The ambitious MMORPG project is scheduled to go into open beta with further polishing and completely localized in the course of December.

Hands on preview from Daniel Etherington concluding:

Even at this early stage, Runes of Magic is a notable new MMO on its own merit, but as a freebie, it's remarkable. It may not be WOW, but this could be the first free MMO to lure considerable numbers of gamers away from their subscriptions.

A total of seven new screenshots showing some of the equipment available in Runes of Magic can be found in our gallery.

You can win one of the 25 available beta keys for the closed beta of Runes of Magic, by visiting MMOSite, registering on their forums and answering a simple question.

Eight new screenshots from Runes of Magic featuring some combat can be found in the gallery.

In our gallery you will find 5 fresh screenshots from Runes of Magic showing something of the dungeons.

In Runes of Magic there are regular dungeons and randomized dungeons where the  monsters and treasures are different every time you visit (Tile-Based Dungeons).

The dungeon related video can be downloaded (amongst others) here.

Yesterday the closed beta for Runes of Magic started. You can sign up on their website and have the opportunity to be chosen to play in this beta.