Free to Play MMORPG Face Off

With so many free to play MMOs and MMORPGs to chose from, its not always
easy sifting through and finding one to play. Rather than look at the
hundreds of free online games available, I’ll take this opportunity to
compare two of the better ones face to face.

First up is Fiesta, also known as Fiesta Online. It’s a
three dimensional, anime inspired fantasy MMORPG
with a cell shaded graphics. It enjoys a large playerbase and receives
continuous content updates. A company called Outspark publishes the
game in North America and does a great job hosting events and
supporting it. What makes Fiesta an enduring MMORPG experience is its
simplicity. Players start by choosing from one of four classes;
Fighter, Cleric, Archer, or Mage. Combat is simple, and the bright
colors give the game a cheerful mood. Fiesta is perfect for casual
gamers, those new to gaming, and younger gamers. But that doesn’t mean
veterans can’t have fun. There’s no better way to get your non gaming
friends into MMORPGs than starting a new character in Fiesta Online
with them. Novelty features like the wedding system make the game
appealing to female gamers as well.

The downside is that the simple gameplay eventually leads to
stagnation. Players only receive one stat point per level, and there
are no sub class choices to make as characters level. There is a class
advancement at levels 20 and 60, but there’s only one choice so
character customization is very limited.

So what about Runes of Magic? Well
if Fiesta is the casual, first-timer’s MMORPG than RoM is the game of
choice for more experienced gamers. Runes of Magic was designed to
resemble Blizzard’s World of Warcraft,
and like WoW it offers a huge game world, dozens of instanced
dungeons, and features galore. Developed by a Taiwanese studio and
published in the West by Frogster, Runes of Magic comes with a whole
host of its own unique features as well. The ability to duel-class
makes for over a dozen class combinations, and instanced private
housing allows players to have a place of their own. Increase crafting
and resource gathering skills to fashion powerful items, and complete
daily quests to earn special coins that can be used in the cash shop.
Runes of Magic has seven base classes and two unique races (humans and
elves.) What this means for you is a game with enough content to play
for months straight.

Players already familiar with World of Warcraft may feel a sense of
deja vu, gamers who weren’t fans of WoW’s graphic style won’t have much
of a taste for RoM’s either. Another downside is the host of other
free to play WoW clones competing with Runes of Magic. There’s Gates of Andaron
and the more steampunk oriented Allods Online.

While Runes of Magic and Fiesta are both great free to play MMORPGs,
they offer gamers different options. Both were developed by Asian
studios, but Fiesta feels more ‘Asian’ in gameplay style. The heavily
quest driven Runes of Magic is much more similar to Western MMORPGs. If
you still can’t make up your mind, read a full review of each at
MMOHut. There you will find screenshots, and videos for both games.