Champions of Regnum (PC) Review

Regnum Online or Champions of Regnum, how it is called now, is a Realm vs Realm focused MMORPG by the Argentinian developer NGD Studios. The Focus of the game is very clearly on the PVP.

The PVE on the other hand is unfortunately seriously lacking. The whole concept of the three realms is actually done pretty well. Syrthis, Ignis und Alsius have relatable motives why they fight each other and the environments of the three realms are quite distinguishable. In Syrthis you will experience some beautiful flora and fauna, Ignis mostly consists of Deserts and rocks and Alsius is the snowy place. Every Realm has a starting/initiation zone, where new players can learn the basics of the game. Then there is the inner realms which are the safe zones for the slightly more experienced players, but they can theoretically also be raided by one of the other realms. The last areas are the warzones, where open PVP takes place. Every realm has two smaller castles and one big stronghold. If one of the factions captures all the castles of one of the others, than they can attack their wall and try to invade the inner realms of the attacked faction. Every realm also got an individual dragon which can assist them during an invasion. The invasions and sieges of the realms are truly the highlight of the game and something you can only experience in a few other games.

The concept of the three realms was implemented well, but the quests are usually extremely basic and by the text-book. The presentation in general is quite lacking. There are no cutscenes at the beginning or during the game whatsoever, no dialogue in the game is actually spoken and most quests are simple fetch-quests. I have heard from some people that after around level 30 you must mostly grind and do daily quests if you want to keep leveling up to the maximum level of 60. (Some people even described it as a "Grind-Hell") You can of course also participate in the realm vs realm battles, but you are probably going to have a tough time before you get at least to level 50. Potentially players could also use Boosters to level up faster, but that's like saying doping is required to improve in a halfway acceptable time. 

The Graphics of the game are also rather simple in comparison to the competition. Nonetheless, I have to praise the game here for improving in this area. Since I first played the game in around 2007/2008 the graphics have become noticeably better. The Developer implemented a new graphic engine in 2009 and PC Graphic Cards have of course also improved significantly since back then. However Regnum is still one of the "uglier" MMO's. Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons and Dragons Online are the closest games if comparing the graphic style. Gameplay wise Regnum resembles more something like Dark Age of Camelot or Warhammer Online.

The Soundtrack for the most part is alright and occasionally even quite atmospheric, but there are unfortunately also a few glitches in this area. After I finished combat and put my weapon away I could often hear the fighting soundtrack playing on further 20-30 Seconds and in some areas there was no music or sound effects at all.

These are not the only glitches in the game. I experienced multiple enemies and quests targets being in wrong places and so on.

The world map itself is smaller than in other games, but the world is at least mostly filled with useful things and the warzones are at least some kind of compensation for the rather small map. The environments and the buildings within the game fit the mood of the game and are mostly even quite decent looking.   

Another complaint of mine would be the combat. It is not entirely awful, but it can feel clunky and awkward sometimes. It is pretty slow and unexciting tab target combat system and it just isn't anything to write home about. Since combat is an important aspect of any RPG I felt a bit disappointed.

Two quite unique things about this game are for one, that you can at all time reset the entirety of your skill points, which is quite nice if you may have miss-skilled a little and the other thing is, that practically no mob in this game acts hostile towards the player. I traveled through the starting area, the inner realms and the warzones and enemies only attacked me if I took the Offensive before. Whether you like the last characteristic of course varies from player to player.

What I really didn't like was that there is no ability to swim in this game. When you enter the higher waters you just immediately die without a real drowning animation. Generally you can say, that the game unfortunately doesn't really get the support from the developers it deserves. A lot of the bugs should have been fixed and the PVE been improved, but since a couple of years nothing seems to be happening. There is still a pretty small, but loyal community for this game. For new players I would recommend playing on the Server Ra, since its by far the most populated and active of the three servers. I played characters on each of them and nearly never met anybody on Valhalla or Haven.

On the other hand if you got a couple of friends and you are ready to grind yourself to the high levels, than you could potentially have a lot of fun on that two servers, since you would probably immediately become a powerful group in the warzone.

One cardinal sin I still want to mention is, that you can only buy a mount with real money. For many people that might not be a big issue, but I find it inacceptable.  I can not honestly comment on the issue whether this game is P2W or just pay to convenience in the higher levels after my shorter playtime, but it certainly looks to promote items from the ingame shop.

Pro:

-Realm vs Realm concept is well done

-Lore behind the Realms is interesting

-The Environments are designed quite well

-Soundtrack is decent

Con:

-Seriously lacking PVE/ "Grinding Hell"

-Simple presentation

-Graphics still not impressive

-Combat can feel clunky and weird

- Possible P2W aspects

-Still too many Glitches

(-Relatively small world in comparison to other games)

Result:

There are certain things, that I really like about this game (Realm vs Realm concept, Lore and environments), but the idea of playing through relatively uninteresting PVE on hours upon hours of nonsensical grinding is destroying any kind of motivation to get to the late game for me. And that is a shame, since I can see the potential the game had. At the end of the day I still don't give a lower rating since I can see determined people with friends having a great time in the late game and the battles in the warzones.

5/10