After two weeks it becomes painfully obvious that you're just plain wasting your time, sadly. (5 Page Review).
Through my free month of the game with it's purchase I managed to get an Accretian Level 30 Defensive Warrior and a Bellato level 33 Specialist Driver on Fire and Earth respectively. Though I do not regret taking the time to get to these levels, which was incredibly easy by just spamming an inventory full of potions against high level Ace Monsters, I do indeed regret ever spending $49.99 for a game barely worth half of the price. The game has potential to be a moderately good MMO, but it still hasn't done the majority of the things it should have during beta phase. It is perhaps years from being a worth-while game, and by that time a title more deserving of a MMOG Vet's attention will arise and attract a large amount of the player base that is currently on the servers.
Rumors have passed by saying that Codemasters plans on adding level caps up to one hundred, but no where in the near estimated future. With the level increase, the rumors say that they intend to add new "CW" type of battles such as a "Time Conveyer" war for levels 50-75, and a galactic war spanning across worlds and or solar systems for levels 75-100. All are merely speculation from what I can tell, as no real proof was ever shown to me by the people spreading the rumors around.
MMOG Review Format:
Economy: The economy in this game is entirely player controlled, and not directed by people who are greedy and just jack up a price at the local auction house. In fact, any transaction at the auction house in the game does nothing but help the race's economy, as only money in existence will be circulating and thus no new money will be created. Players are able to buy gold with their race's currency, which lowers the tax rate for the entire race in general. In short, the more gold each player buys = the better the economy for the race on that servers (I.E. Potions cost less at NPCs, MAUS cost less to summon, etc.). The economy is much, much better than most of the MMOGs that are currently on the market.
PVP: Again, this game is much better at delivering a PVP system that is superior than most that are currently on the market, once you're at a high enough level to participate in them. The Race Leader function along with their private channels that all players of the same race can see allow for hundreds if not thousands of players to listen to orders and execute them in unison without others flooding the channels on different tactics. In addition, the chip wars themselves are usually intense battles with hundreds or thousands of people trying to do one simple goal; destroy the other team's chip. By winning this war that takes place every 8 hours, your race acquires the central mine, allowing you to AFK mine at ten times the normal speed than you would outside of the mine. In between chipwars, however, it is incredibly boring and tedious to play the game, unless you are able to AFK mine, where watching your character mine is more entertaining than actually playing the game.
Music: The music in the game is relatively good when you first start the game, my favorite being the log-in voice music that starts every now and then when you load the game. Overall it is relatively diverse and acceptable enough to support hardcore grinders at any given time.
Game play: Other than the pvp this game is incredibly boring, tedious, and just overall painfully obvious that you're wasting your time, a feeling you do not want to get if you're trying to have some fun. The movement in the game takes a little while to get used to, as the initial key settings are horrendous at best. In addition, having skills set to the "F" keys was the absolute dumbest move the original makers could have done, as I find myself taking my entire hand off the keyboard just to hit a potion button, when I would rather just hit "1" or "2" quickly to heal myself. In addition, in particularly on Bellato, they (Codemasters) changed the names of each areas on the map without changing the quests info on those areas, making it so the quest tells you to go somewhere, and the map shows an entirely different place all together. While you should be used to traveling and adventuring in these types of games, it does not stop people from flooding the main Map Channel with frivolous questions over and over again pertaining to every aspect of the game.
Graphics: The character model graphics are pretty much top notch when it comes to MMOGs, but the environment is completely uninspired with the monster placement being lower than abyssimal, depending on your initial race. Bellato and Cora have monsters scattered about, with higher level monsters even being in newbie areas, but Accretian monsters are relatively well placed each player's levels.
Story: The majority of this game's story isn't actually seen in game, but rather by outside sources such as the info you can read on their main website, some movies you can download from their site, and or the voice music that sometimes comes up when you start the game up. Other wise you are just given quests each level telling you to do something for the sake of your race's government, which is essentially the same as any other race, for Bellato and Accretian at least.
Quests: Nearly every quest in the game is a "Kill # of blank Mobs" type of quests that has no real story behind it other than "Oh, yeah... You need to do this because it will help our research or make a vaccine for a virus that you should have know earlier, but don't until now for some reason." The good thing about the quest system is that it is directly given to you so you don't have to go to a certain NPC to get it, do something in another area, and then return just to get a mediocre reward. You are sent the information of the quest on your intercom or whatever, and once you complete it they upload the credits and experience you've earned straight to you. Also, if you press "J" you will be able to learn more info on the quest, such as where the monster is located. This does not, however, work for the Bellato side, as the places on the map are named differently from the places that the quests give info to the player about.
Grind: Grinding in this game is tedious, uninspired, and potion-spamming.
If you say it isn't any worse than Diablo 2, which had relatively fun grinding, then you are dead wrong. In RF Online you use up some 99 potions in under 145 seconds in every fight you are in while soloing at higher levels. In Diablo II you had Life Leech to take care of most of your worries, with an occasional potion here and there, unless you were a magic class type.
Grinding is what this game is all about, along with PVP that happens every 8 hours if you are an appropriate level not to get "One Shotted" by a higher level enemy. Sadly, level grinding is also followed by tedious skill grinding that cause more grief than entertainment, as a game should.
Interface: An incredibly bad interface awaits players of this game, and hotkeys are equally as bad being in the "F" key section where you have to take your hand off the key board just to reach and use a potion. There really isn't much more to say about the Interface other than it is incredibly bad, free online games provide much better interfaces that this premium priced MMOG does.
Concept: The overall concept of the game has great potential with the three races of differing technologies and beliefs. Too bad it was poorly executed with tedious game play and potion spamming PVP combat. The Chip Wars turned out to be a moderately entertaining event that happened every eight hours, but in between that it was just not worth it just to participate in it without AFK mining if you have the mine or turning your computer off, thus gimping you in future wars due to the lack of your level.
Role Play Capacity: Many MMOG gamers like to role play in the genre for various reasons including but not limited to adding more depth to the game and more diversity in your own experiences with the game's world. Though, this is the type of person that would, typically, enjoy and go through a game such as "Unlimited Saga" which possessed a nice story, but horrendous game play and graphics overall as a text based Ps2 game.
End Content: The estimated "end game content" will probably just be the same as the rest of the game, only with no level grinding due to being a max level. Being a part of the chip war as a max level character every eight hours, and then waiting until the next one happens in-between.
Battle System: The battle system is relatively boring, especially levels 1-30 where you have no real skills to speak off other than the ones you can buy as a specialist, which are basic until you can level up your PTs (Skill points) and obtain level 30 to get more specific spells and abilities.
Communication: The chat interface is perhaps one of the worst I have ever seen in a MMOG or a online game in general. If you have a long name your chat space is limited to just a few words before it goes to the next line, and you cannot scroll up if people are putting up messages, as it will simply go back down to the first message despite your efforts. Words don't fall to the next line if they are too big, instead they are separated like War (Next line) iorr. The whisper mode is just as bad, but at least shows up in a different color than the rest of the text so you know it was sent, if the chat section does fly by too fast if you have map chat open. Thankfully you can turn off certain channels, but you will effectively be gimping yourself of sometimes valuable information that could be use in the near future.
Customization: Every five or six levels after level 19 you get access to different looking armors depending on your PTs. But overall there isn't much customization in terms of armor, colors, weapons, etc. Weapons gradually become more menacing and powerful, but you are still able to tell what level they are quite easily since all of the weapons and armor are the same for each level on the race with no diversity. Codemasters said that they were trying to add a way to color your weapons and or armor if possible so we'll just have to wait and see about the future in customization in the game.
Item Acquisition: Items fall on the ground when you beat a monster, being reserved to you for about 9-12 seconds before other players can pick them up even though you killed the monster. If you are being attacked by multiple monsters you must disengage quickly to pick up the items you want and just waste potions by spamming them when being beaten when targeting the weapons. Items can also be acquired by NPCs from levels 1-30 and auction houses for all levels.
Housing: None
Character "Power": If you're into getting ultra strong characters when at high levels then this is a game for you if you can stand the grinding. Your powers escalate to very high amounts at end-game levels, and you will be dishing out damage in thousands, and taking such damage as well.
Max Level: 50
Money Acquisition: Getting money is incredibly easy in this game. AFK mining is one main source of getting money if your race owns the mines, and grinding monsters it sell their items is another way of making money.
Later in the game, if you're a specialist with a high level craft, you can make a decent amount of money by crafting high level armors that aren’t sold by the race's npcs anymore if you have the materials to do so.
Leveling Swiftness: The Initial 1-30 levels seem incredibly slow your first time through, but if you buy an entire bag full of 500 potions at level 13-14 and solo ACES you will be able to get to level 20 in a few short hours at most. Still, after level 23 or so the leveling dims down and you need to party to get any acceptable amount of EXP each time you hit a monster or source of experience.
Value: The value of this game is relatively "Fair" if you're not one who tires of a thousand or so hours of grinding just to get to a decent high level. But that in itself just about sums up the value of the game for most people in general, in my opinion.
There were many things, mainly flaws, that I left out about the game. But that is because I believe that they will most certainly be fixed in the near future. That is not to say that some of the ones that were told here won't be, but they are some things that people need to know about how the game is at the moment.