Website: http://rode.netgame.com/

Forum: http://rode.netgame.com/community/forum/

After Waiting just over a week I finally got a chance to try out RODE which I was really looking forward to trying out, especially with the fact that after installing, the game sat at 10GB which I was pretty shocked at for a f2p game coming out of nowhere, for those that don't know, they're doing the beta testing another 3 days total, 6 hours a day, todays beta just ended so there is still sunday up till tuesday left to get a go of it.

Gameplay: Over all, the gameplay pretty much plays like any other normal MMO, click to target a mob or even use the tab targetting and pretty much just try lay waste to the enemy as fast as you can, difference is, from the start pretty much, the mobs are pretty "hard" in terms of how hard they hit, I started off with a cleric, even though in this beta by an error I think, it was listed as a wizzard, eitherway, after about 4 or so mobs, my HP was running dry and this was at level 1, I'm not sure how the clerics difficulty to the gameplay fairs out later, though obviously when they get their heal skills, I'm sure it will be easy, from what I heard for the actual dark mages as they're called, the difficulty playing them eases up once they get their summons, I'm not sure on the warrior (also plays the tank role) as I didn't test them out, I ended up playing a rouge (uses bows and daggers in close range) which I thought was quite easy to use once you get the hang of kiteing.

Kiteing on this game seems to be a bit harder then what it would normally be, i say that as you can't run very far from the mobs original agro point at all, so you have to try run circles around the area, I dare say it will follow you no longer than 40-50 meters out, still though once you get the hang of kiteing the melee mobs, it isn't to hard, the few magic mobs and archer mobs didn't prove to much of a threat, they would of possibly landed 1-2 hits in and then died and since HP/MP regen is a fairly decent rate, it isn't to much to worry about.

The bosses and dungeons on this game are apparantly quite hard even at low levels from what I hear, someone had said that the boss would of killed the tank in about 3 hits of course if it wasn't for the healing, the difficulty of the game does actually encourage group gameplay (perhaps not at the very start, but a bit later on at least).

Graphics: The graphics of RODE are actually quite nice, the character models look really well done and pleasing to look at, I will say that there was some small areas around the land that had quite blury textures, such as some big rock that was around some snowy area, it looked like the rock didn't quite belong there because of the blury textures used for it, in some areas when looking at the floor, the textures looked fairly basic, yet in others, the floor/grass etc looked totally fine, so apart from the few weired textures in little areas, the games graphics over all are very pleasing for a f2p game.

Customization: I was quite happy with the customization again for a f2p game, the only f2p game I know of that has very detailed customization is perfect world, though to be honest, that game was (and still has 1 version) a pay to play game at one point, in which it was made with that in mind, so the character options for the face, hair and what I think I can call makeup as it simply gives the face you chose different types of detail which helps make it look fairly different, there is 3-4 choices for all 3 options, there was also body and hair color of course.

After that, you then go onto the actual face customization, now it isn't a heavy customize tool but it's good enough, you can edit the eye size/openness and something else to do with the outer corner of your eye, the nose height/width/bridge, the mouth width/thickness and the chin size.

You then go onto thee body customization in which it offers quite a number of sliders to play about with, again they arn't super heavy alterations but they are more then suitable, such as head size, neck width/height, shoulder spacing from your body, arm width/height, hand and foot size, your general upper body size for if you want it to be longer or small and the same with the legs if you want your character to have long or small legs, i think there was a few others but I can't remember.

My only real gripe that I had with the game was that for some reason it didn't have any background environment noise, these kind of noises gives the game world life if you can generally hear other stuff apart from footsteps, character/mob noises and skills that happen etc, this kind of thing doesn't effect everyone, just players like me that like to feel more "immersed" in the game it self, I do personally hope they manage to add some noises to the background later on or so, heres just some other screenys I took whilst in game.

To anyone wondering when the next Cbt day starts, it's tommorow again at 2pm server time, they have what time their server time is which is where they're located at the top right of their website, as soon as that hits 2pm, the servers will re-open up for another 6 hours, to people in the EU such as my self, yes the time is quite terrible for the fact it's 6 hours only, it wasn't too bad for me as it was 10pm to 4am, for others it can be much worse so if you don't get chance to play the CBT, you will get a good chance to play the OBT properly as there will be no time restrictions, so head on over and check it out.