Guess I'll start with this phrase : " Runes of Magic is my favorite WoW clone of all " .
Being around the site , I can guess we've all seen coments on new games saying " WoW Clone ..." a dozen times . A bunch is just trolling but some are still WoW clones for real . We've seen alot of them and I thought it didn't get much more obvious that " 4Story " . Maybe I was a lil jaded from all the games I tried at the time of it's beta but it reminded me of an experience with another game .
                                                                                                
              1st Impression : Hate to say it but I quit the game for a lil while after I had my very 1st fight . That was something I never done before . Well , from the begining : I downloaded some HUGE install file . I thought this game was gonna be sold on disk for it's size ! I meen , what was it ?! Like 4Gb for set-up alone ? I got it installed and updated , then I made an archer class character . Those and thief types are my favs ! I skipped quest stuff , ran to the field , and started my 1st fight . I shot 2 arrows and meleed it to death with a knife in what seemed like slo-mo with no excitement at all . That's when it brought back memories of another game that I felt was lack-luster but highly praised : " Perfect World " . I did play Perfect World more than Runes , at the time , but combat felt stiff and boring , skills had no apeal , and quests / leveling wasn't really fun at all or felt rewarding . " Ether Saga " was better but I still didnt feel like much was gained and dropped it after level 16ish . Don't remember exact level but post 15 . Anyways , fast-forward to the end of my 1st fight and I called BS .
                Later on I went to the free trail of WoW and after a lil while I got used to it's play method . It had a natural feel after a bit and got me into something I HATED in console games : STEALTH . I hated stealth in games cause if your spotted , you're dead . WoW said that if I failed , I just have to kill it , and stealth was just for a harder 1st hit or stealing money . I didn't find it worth paying for , but I did gain some nice experience and lessons in MMOs .
                                                                                                
              2nd Impression : I came back to the game later , a little more " Worldly " ! This time I went " guardian " . A melee class with defence as the main focus . I learned it's skills and way of gameplay and it made sence ! Questing made a LOT of difference and the found/quest items were great to collect . I took place in crafting and the market and it was more rewarding than is some other games I played . I had 2 guys I played : a Guardian ( didn't make it to 10 ) , and a Thief-Magician . The change back and forth between thief and mage were a lil weird at the time but it felt better later . Then the beta phases ended and it went Final Release .
                                                                                                     
               3rd Impression : The experience of the last beta phase and WoW were instilled in me and I was ready to rock ! I went further level and quest wise than I ever been before . I made a number of characters to see how mixing classes would be . My mains were a Warrior-Magician and a Priest-Magician . I still had my Thief-Magician as well and a few other combinations ( non-mage , lol ) . Crafting and market were even more intense for me and became fun . I took my guys to about level 15ish ( an average of my characters ) and then a problem struck with the market . Diamonds were the prefered currency ! Diamonds are the " cash " currency in game , so this meens market wise regular game gold was only usefull for repairs , pots , and exchange for diamonds for good gear . This was about the point I quit . About a week ago-ish I got a mail saying the game is dropping cash currency from the market but still let you trade gold for diamonds . This and an update comming soon sounds like a good reason to come back ! I was falling back a bit because I'm kinda Grind-Light , but this game gives me alot that WoW gave others without the cash and the cartoon design .

                 Closing : Runes of Magic is a game that I kinda grew into . Maybe if I go back to Perfect World , I'll get into that more too . RoM is a game I dropped because I was busy and the market became corrupted . Now that the market is fixed , I should be able to find some time for it . I suggest that if you don't want to play WoW , but something like it , RoM might be for you . Later :D