Champions of Regnum

Regnum Online
Developer(s)	NGD Studios
Publisher(s)	NGD Studios
Engine	NG3D
Platform(s)	Windows, Mac, Linux
Release	May 24, 2007
Genre(s)	Fantasy MMORPG
Mode(s)	Multiplayer

Regnum Online is a fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed by NGD Studios, a game development studio located in Argentina. This game is also known as "Realms Online" in America. In addition to the usual character development present in other games of the genre, the game focuses on the conflict of three realms in which players take part, fighting against characters of opposing factions and capturing fortresses and castles aside from the usual player vs monster combats.

The name Regnum means realm in Latin, and is also a tribute to one of the first games ever published in Argentina by some of the team members (which was named Regnum). It is abbreviated as RO or ROL (which in Spanish also means role, as in role-playing games). The game was officially released May 24, 2007.

Although the game has more than 500,000 subscriptions the number of players online is around 200-300 distributed on 5 servers. NGD studios made a contract with gamigo AG, a German gaming company and opened a German Server. Soon after, gamigo added another German server to meet the demand for the game, then at the end of 2009, opened a French server called Nemon. In 2009 UnitedGames gained the exclusive rights for the Netherlands and Belgium and a new server, Tyr, was opened, with Dutch as its official language. However Tyr has since been shutdown by UnitedGames and the players database has been merged with the Horus International server. In 2011, a US-oriented server named Raven was opened through Gamesamba. To encourage player numbers, Raven has active GMs and fairly regular xp boost and other GM-run events.

Overview

Players create characters as their avatars in a fantasy medieval-themed persistent virtual world. The first choice a player must face is selecting one of the three realms or nations: Alsius, icy home of the empire of dwarves, Nordos and Utghars; Ignis the desert homeland of the necromancer dark elves, humans and moloks; or Syrtis, the forested peaceful lands where elves, half-elves and Alturians live. Once a nation is chosen, the player may create a character (up to 3 per account) and customize it by choosing its race, gender, hair style and color, stature, etc. After choosing a realm and race, players go on quests and gain levels in the first two areas. After they have gained sufficient levels, they go to the third area which is called the War Zone, though a specific level is not required. In the War Zone, players can work together in clans or parties to take over enemy forts and castles or to simply hunt down their enemies.

Community

Since the game originated from Argentina, there are a lot of players who speak Spanish -mostly in Ra server- but there are also players from other countries. Depending on the time-zone and server, players may find other players that speak Spanish, English, German, Swedish, French, Polish, and other languages.

Officially reported top 11 countries (in order), are Argentina, the US, Spain, Germany, Brazil, the UK, Chile, Canada, Mexico, Poland and Italy.

Overall Gameplay

The inspiration for Regnum Online is the online game Dark Age of Camelot (DAOC), specifically before DAOC introduced the capability to do crafting. As such, RO is heavily focussed on Realm vs Realm (also known as faction pvp or team pvp) combat. In general, at all times a player can find active wars occurring in the "Warzone" where players of the 3 realms fight for control of forts, gates and castles.

Realms

There are three realms a player can choose from. Each realm has three races (for a total of nine, although three of them are humans).

Alsius

File:Regnum Online Alsius Landscape.jpg

A city in Alsius (screenshot of 2006)

The cold and icy landmark of Alsius, at the northern border of the world. Dwarves have come from afar and settled in the mountains, using their mechanical wisdom to establish a base into the hardened rock. There, they soon discovered inhabitants had already been living in the place. These humans were reticent at first and engaged into a small war with the dwarves to realize that they were pretty similar minded. Nordos, as they called themselves, are now living together with the dwarves.

They both have built the great city Montsognir, which stands still in the everliving mountains, showing off the creator's pride and honor. After the war the dwarves discovered Utghars, goat-like humanoids, and created a peace alliance between the three races.

Ignis

File:Regnumonlineignus.jpg

A player nears a city in Ignis while playing Regnum Online (screenshot of 2007)

After being exiled from Syrtis, the necromantic Elves started a pilgrimage that would change them forever. An obscure ritual darkened their skin and opened their eyes to a vision of a new home. This prophecy led them to the land of Ignis, a barren wasteland full of volcanoes and underground fires. It was here where the Dark Elves and humans were joined, by exchanging the meat of their dead in order to survive famine. Humans in Ignis were renamed to Esquelios, and alongside the dark elves they finally found the promised land and erected the city of Korr-Tabhar. The forces of the brotherhood are strong in magic thanks to their knowledge of necromancy.

Syrtis

File:Regnum Online Syrtis Landscape.jpg

A molok warrior inside a Syrtis forest (screenshot of 2006)

The green forest of the Syrtis was never the same after the Great Exile and the division of the elves. Separated from their necromancer brethren, the loneliness struck the hearts of these magical creatures and got them closer to their Alturian neighbors. They adopted them into their society and now treat them as equals. This union made the rich elven culture flourish to new heights, making Syrtis the cultural capital of the world. Eventually, some Ignean Half-Elves sought retribution, and were welcomed back in after a ritual which stripped them of their magic. Even after the long years, devotion for Lemorel the prophet still can be found in the hearts of elves and men alike, who have forgotten some of the magical ways, devoting themselves to archery and swordsmanship.

Character gameplay

Regnum offers three playable classes in each realm, each with two subclasses, one offensive, one defensive, attainable on reaching a certain level in the base class and completed the required quests. However certain races cannot play a certain class. For example the humans race can play as a Mage, Archer, or Warrior, but the Dwarf class from Alsuis can only choose the Warrior or Archer class. Characters from different realms have virtually the same possibilities, although as each realm has different races available. Once a character chooses the selected subclass, they will not be allowed to choose the other one, making the choice permanent. There are 5 Attributes for the character, Attributes are the areas that define your character.

• Strength: Strength is an attribute that reflects your characters physical abilities. It influences attack power for Warriors, and it increases your maximum carry weight.
• Intelligence: Intelligence affects the recovery rate of your characters mana bar and the mage's spell values.
• Dexterity: Dexterity affects the agility and defense of your character. It also affects the attack strength of archery.
• Concentration: Concentration refers to the ability of a character to focus and ensure a direct hit on the target.
• Constitution: Constitution determines how much health your character has, how fast your health regenerates, and your resistance to knockdown, stun, and immobilizing spells.

There are nine races to choose from, but is limited to three races per realm. The three main classes are the Warrior, Mage, and Archer.

Warrior

The warrior is a class that focuses on head to head melee combat. Warriors naturally have more Health than the other classes, and they have the most effective armor. The main attribute of the warrior is the Strength attribute, higher strength means more melee damage.

There are 4 skill branches in the warrior tree, (Note: Slashing, Blunt, and Piercing categories use their respective weapons listed) they are:

• Slashing: the slashing skill tree consists of skills based on weapons that deal slashing (Swords and Axes)
• Blunt: the blunt skill tree is made up of skills focusing on weapons dealing blunt damage (Hammers, Clubs, and Maces)
• Piercing: the piercing skill tree focuses on skills using piercing damage, (Spears and Rapiers)
• Tactics: in the tactics skill tree there are skills focusing on various combat maneuvers and techniques, these skills may be used with any choice of weaponry

The two subclasses for Warriors are Knight (Defensive) and Barbarian (Offensive). Knights focus on the ability to take high amounts of damage, and become the tank class, while Barbarians focus on giving massive amounts of damage.

Knight

• Vanguard: Defensive buffs for the Knight as well as Taunts
• Shields: Block chance increases and shield based area effect buffs for allies

Barbarian

• Warcries: area effect buffs for allies and player defence/damage buffs
• 2H mastery: Skills for use with a two handed weapon

Archer

The archer is a class that focuses on ranged combat using short and long bows. Archers are quicker than other classes and have higher evasion rate. The main attribute of the archer is the Dexterity attribute; higher Dexterity gives higher range damage and higher evasion rate.

There are four skill branches in the archer tree

• Tricks: Allows skills that do low damage but affect opponent's stats
• Evasion: Gives the player special abilities that increase dodge chance and damage absorption
• Short bow: Gives increased abilities with a short bow that may cause damage, affect the target's abilities, or increase the user's stats Short bows are faster, but do less damage then long bows, their moves are also cheaper and easier to cast but once again weaker than the long bow.
• Long bow: Allows abilities with a long bow that have varying effects

Subclasses for Archers are the Marksman (Offensive) and the Hunter (Defensive). Marksmen have the ability to make precise shots that have temporarily increased statistics, while hunters have the ability to track as well as tame monsters for pets.

Marksman

• Aiming Mastery: Gives the marksman increased abilities when fighting
• Arrow Mastery: Focuses on using arrows that have special abilities, such as poison or extra damage

Hunter

• Tracking: Gives the Hunter the ability to detect and track things like enemies from another realm.
• Pets: Allows the Hunter to tame beasts and prevent them from attacking

Mage

The mage is a class specialized in ranged combat, dealing damage and supporting allies. They use magical staffs as weapons, allowing them to attack at a distance without the use of ammo. The main attribute for mages is Intelligence, since it gives them more Mana. (Mana is used for casting spells) The mage, unlike the other classes, gets three more trees when choosing subclass.

The mage spell library is somewhat similar to that of Dungeons and Dragons, including spells like: timestop, area-of-effect ice storms, an equivalent of stoneskin and so forth. But all of a much shorter duration.

There are four skill branches in the mage tree.

• Mental: Damage dealing magic and crowd control spells
• Mana Control: Spells that improve the spellcasting for the mage, as well as protective shields
• Staff Mastery: Gives the mage additional uses for his staff (damage bonuses and similar)
• Enchantments: Allows the mage to strengthen his allies and weakening his enemies

Subclasses for Mages are the Warlock (Offensive) and the Conjurer (Defensive). Warlocks are specialized in damage dealing magic and debuffing the enemies, and conjurers specialize in protection magic, summoning and healing.

Warlock

• Arcania: Damage dealing magic using the material forces of the world
• Necromancy: Magic used to weaken the enemy, and drain his health and mana
• Elements: Damage dealing and crowd control effects, using elemental forces, such as fire or ice

Conjurer

• Healing: Healing magic, also used to resurrect dead allies
• Sorcery: Protection magic, allowing the conjurer to shield himself and his allies
• Summoning: Allows the conjurer to summon various creatures to fight for him for a limited amount of time

Quests

There are over two hundred quests you can do in each realm. Along with many side quests, there are storyline quests that reveal things about each realms past and the war between them. Quests reward players with experience, gold, and some items that they could not obtain otherwise. There are also player versus player quests which require the player to accomplish a certain task such as killing x number of players from another realm or holding x bridge for a certain amount of time.

Clans

To make a clan the player must have 2,000,000 gold and have eight people over level 15 in their party. They must then go to the main city of their realm, and search for a clan NPC which will have an option to make a clan.

Servers

Regnum Online offers the following servers:

International Servers

by NGD Studios

• Horus (English Int'l)
• Ra (Spanish)

by Gamesamba

• Raven (North America)

gamigo Servers

by gamigo

• Muspell (German)
• Niflheim (German)
• Nemon (France)

Test Server

by NGD Studios

• Amun (Experimental)

Commercial model

Although initially the game was planned to require a subscription fee to play, NGD Studios decided to change the commercial model to what is known as Free-to-play with Premium content. This means that the player can play for free, as long as they want, with no restrictions whatsoever, but for those who desire an enhanced experience, they can purchase premium content with real-life money.

NGD Studios attempts to separate its premium content from player vs player combat so as not to give premium players an advantage in war. Although premium players can travel faster via mounts, reach the level cap in less time with boosters, or use box's for a chance to get a good item or gem, either for personal use or to be traded with other players.

Premium content

The following Premium items in game as of now are:

• Mounts: Permanent Horses
• Health regeneration potions (cannot be used while in combat)
• Mana regeneration potions (cannot be used while in combat)
• Experience bonus scrolls: with 50%, 100% 200% or 500% bonus
• Teleport scrolls: Teleports to a specified town
• Repair hammers: Personal method to repair armour and weapons
• Tintures: Color available as an add-on to armour
• Scroll of Mastery: Instant level 30
• Expand number of characters from three to six permanently
• Name Change
• Change Hair type
• Lucky boxes: Several levels of box each offering the chance for a better item
• Surprise Magic Gems: three levels of 'pot' each offering the chance of better Magic Gems
• War Banner: Posts a message and location for all the realm to see, Places a physical banner on the map for duration
• Fireworks: Can be purchased in a single color or an entire multi shot 'show'
• Items Fusion: Transfer the attributes of one weapon/armor item to another like item

System Requirements

Regnum Online provides clients in Windows and Linux (native client). The client is distributed via the web, and receives periodic updates of content and bug fixes while online. Both DirectX and OpenGL 3D graphics are supported. An experimental native MacOSX version was announced on Feb 4 2011.

Minimum

• AMD Athlon (or superior) or Intel Pentium 4 (or superior) processor.
• At least 128kbps Internet access.
• 1024 Megabytes of RAM
• ATI Radeon 7500 or nVidia GeForce Series

Recommended

• ATI Radeon Series 9500 or nVidia GeForce Series 6x00, 7x00, 8x00

External links

• Regnum Online (English)
• Regnum Online (German)
• NGD Studios Official Website (English)
• IGN Interview, Part 1
• Regnum Online Wiki - Regnum Online character classes, realms, races and more