Is this MMORPG worth your time?
If you play the game for the first time, you will have to make an account on the website of Codemasters. Here you will type your serial code, after which you choose the payment method. The first moth is free, after that it will be €13 (about $15?) a month. When all that is done, and confirmed, you can create your own character on a server. At this moment there are six servers which all have room for three characterslots.
You can choose from three factions: Holy Alliance Cora, Bellato Union or Accretian Empire. If the choice is made, the other two slots will be from the same faction. The Cora are specialized in magic, the elf-like Bellato are good traders and use technological weapons, and the accretian are all about technology: they are cyborgs and battlemechs.
The options to visualise your character are very limited, but that can't stop the fun. Later in the game you get so many different items, that you will always look unique. After creating and visualising, you give the character a name and you will see a short FMV of the enviroment your race lives in. Then you get a tutorial which is quite convenient.
In RF Online you will get your first missions very soon to get your level up. After a while you are asked to slay monsters that will get stronger each new mission. The most missions start in your huge headquarter. There you will find other characters that need help and shops to buy and sell stuff. The communication with NPC's is easy and trading between two players is very safe because of an approval system.
The surroundings where you have to venture out to are very wide and stretched. You can walk trough hills and fields for hours, but caves, bridges and deserts are represented aswell. Everything looks nice, but it's all very plain and that can make long trips very borng. lucklily you can transport!
In the first few missions all you have to do is some hack n slash, but when you are around level 20 you will have to do team missions and defeat monsters that require more than the regular beating. and of course you can do some PvP or Race vs Race
To keep the game exciting there is a fight for the control of the mines every eight hours. In those mines you can dig out some special orbs to improve your weapons & gear, however, only one faction can be the boss!
Later in the game you are able to specialise your character. You can learn some special abilities by practicing a lot and if the levels and skills are high enough, you will get extra abilities that other people will never get. Unfortunately, this takes a very long time.
You can also make a clan, or a guild. and only people from the same race, of course.
The soundeffects and music are okay, the loginscreen tune is quite nice. But they never impress, it's very casual. The graphic quility is easily adjustable, so for PC's with an older videocard this game is playable. The worlds that RF Online offers are pretty, but they look like paintings sometimes, nothing ever happens.
RF Online is a pretty game that has lots to offer. However, it takes really long before something really intersting happens and that makes the price/quality ratio very unbalanced in the beginning. for €13 a month you wants some good content instead of the regular hack and slash. This MMORPG offers too little gameplay for it's price. For beginners and experienced RPG players this is a fine game, but be prepared for a long way to get an appropriate level so you can do some interesting quests.