Hi All. After reading the feedback for the 'Worst MMO Ever? - Realm of the Mad God' on KZfaq, discord and here, I have re-watched the video and critiqued it as I would any of the games I play. Many people said it seemed low effort compared to my previous work, and pointed out several straight up bits of wrong information, or parts edited with less care than usual, this is correct, I feel this video not only falls below the standards I expect of myself, but doesn't show Realm of the Mad God in a fair light to potential players. If I critique games and expect companies to listen to that critique, I must be willing to listen to critique of my videos. I will play more, update and research more, and release an addendum, calling out my mistakes and giving the game the time it deserves. My focus is the entertainment of the audience combined with the care of the playerbase, and honesty to both, and while the video was entertaining to a non-player, I do not feel this video was fair to the RotMG player base. Thank you for the feedback, it's never easy to improve on your mistakes, but if I can dish it out, I have to be prepared to take it. I do not want you as a viewer to blindly support me, especially if you feel I am not producing content of the quality you have come to expect and deserve. If I am going to call out the MMO industry for their falling standards or complacency, I expect, and indeed actively encourage, you, to do the same to me.

By the way Soulbound doesn't mean that you don't lose the items, it means that you can't trade the items

Once upon a time, there used to be a “fame train” it was literally a huge group of people who run around the high level zone (Godlands) and just build up levels and fame.

I’d hate to be the checker at the supermarket when Josh discovers that hot dogs come in packs of six while buns come by the eight.

I used to play this game constantly back when it was run on flash. Got my knight all the way to max stats. I never felt too pressured to buy micro transactions because most players are perfectly willing to trade endgame items if you have the correct stat pots to trade with(fairly easy to grind). Only true annoyance was the tiny amount of storage chests they gave you. Trying to store all your loot became a nightmare.

Realm of the mad God is pretty much the epitome of "I don't know who I am, I don't know why I'm here, all I know is I must kill"

I used to play SO much of this game, well before it changed hands through multiple companies and slowly added more & more MTX and straight-up p2w stuff. when getting a life pot was a crazy drop and the pyramid-trio (don't remember their names) were the hardest content. sad to see what it's become

Just an update... The person who said don't play it at 16:43 went on to play another 429 hours since March. Or approximately 3.5 hours per day...

"So after I kill the elf princess, I rush up and enter her secret dungeon." There are so many levels of disturbing going on with that single line.

Hey! Just so you know, "Soulbound" just means that the item cannot be traded to other players! Soulbound items are lost on death, just like any other.

There's a story about the soundtrack. It's a bit complicated, but in short words - the composer volunteered to make soundtrack in exchange for in-game stuff, because they just loved the game. But then DECA (the company in charge) wanted to hire them, for a wage that was a fraction of their usual wage. The artist got offended, left the group and said they'd sue DECA for using their OST. Unsure whether they actually wanted to sue DECA, or they just said that because of anger, but DECA decided to remove this artist's OST (so like 70% of the game's soundtrack).

Honestly, considering the sheer number of grindfest MMOs you've included in this series so far AND how many aimless 'do whatever you want, permadeath, crafting' MMOs in this series...this game seems vastly superior with a fast gameplay loop and fast feedback rather than 6 hours to craft a plank of wood.

I think you underplayed just how cool it is that an enemy dropped a portal to a whole new area to explore. Never played the game but that by itself really intrigues me.

i remember playing this for a bit because its one of those brwoser games that worked on my uni library computer. was a lot of fun

I always find myself playing this game for hours and hours on the rare occasion I play it, despite its faults it’s very fun for some reason Edit: it does however seem some stuff has changed for the worse, that huge invasive wall of text on the left wasn’t a thing last time I played, seems like an awful feature

As a player with 3000 hours in ROTMG this video hurt my soul... However not everything you said was wrong and it is quit sad that this is the new player experience.

To be fair oryx 1 is not even close to the final boss. The end game bosses are actually very well designed and take a lot of practice to master.

I remember playing this game years ago, but back then it wasn't being a pretentious "next evolution of MMOs", it was more advertised as a multiplayer bullet-hell roguelike game; which I thought worked really well. The game was clearly designed more to be played in short bursts, without worrying too much about long-term progression; everything in the game was optimized around removing barriers to quick fun, such as letting you instantly find enemies to fight, no real story or rigid quests, quick entrance to dungeons, etc. Honestly it feels like a mistake to compare this game to traditional MMOs, because I don't think it's trying to be one... except apparently in the advertising. Hm.

If the "things" that the game introduced to you doesn't actually matter in the grand scheme of things then what's the point??? This is the beginner experience, this is the info that the game wants to arm us with. Why not actually introduce the players to the things that are important straight away? I personally think josh is correct on this. This is the state of the game for new players, and if you're not willing to open up to new players and teach stuff in game. Then no one is going to view it in the same light as someone who has spent years on it in the end game. This isn't Granblue fantasy.

As a player from 2012 it was my favorite game growing up but as a kid, I didn't really know what I was doing, this video puts it perfect in my opinion. I started playing again recently and I can clearly see now that the reason I loved it so much is because it sparked my love for mmos, the game is simple and just gives you dopamine hits for grinding away, truly the game starts after level 20 but for many players, its just nice to see your 1dps end up being 500

I know you nitpicked very hard on the Evolution thing for laughs and giggles, but it was just bad writing on their part. Its not the evolution of the genre, its the evolution of the first version of real of the mad god. Other then that, all on point

Seems that Josh took "evolution of the MMO genre" a bit personally

ROTMG was such a fantastic game. Even with permadeath the gameplay was addicting enough to make you level your characters up again. The only thing that really got me to stop playing is that server lag would hit randomly in the middle of a fight and your character would die, and you would lose dozens of hours of progress not because of a lack of skill - but because of something totally out of your control. After this painful experience happened enough times, I just couldn't continue spending time on a game that took all my progress from me due to no fault of my own.

Always crazy to me how this game started off part of the Assemblee competition in 2009, and the dev has made bank with these assets created by unrelated artists 16:50 pretty much this. the soundtracks and sprites were submitted for the first part of the competition, and free to use by all the devs participating The game was probably way more interesting in the first year of release (Will anyone ever read my thoughts or are they gone into the void) --- Since this comment is receiving attention, I'll paste my comment from his "old mmorpg" videos here too (Damn my comment with 90 upvotes got removed, I guess they didn't like me trying to share the video.) 16:00 We had a dwarf-only guild is Classic WoW that cleared all but the last raid, while missing three of the eight classes. Imposing restrictions is such a great way to have novel and exciting experiences.

I actually remember pumping some handful of hours in to this game. It doesn't try to pretend to have a story to be engaged in, it's "Do you want multiplayer bullet hell?" and honestly, a game just showing the cards of "Yeah, that's all this is. It's a niche." is fine to me. Unfortunately, fine/10 is a pretty poor score.

Soulbound items means they just can't be traded. Otherwise they're as usual, lost on death.

I probably put around 500 hours into this game as a kid. This was my go-to game for a long period of time and my god was it fun. I haven't played it recently or much since its major overhaul but I loved every second of it and thought the perma-death and stash system was great and unique which is maybe why I love Tarkov now.

I’m noticing that one of the biggest issues highlighted in this video is the lack of storyline or character of any sort. I agree that if you are indeed looking for those things, RotMG does not really supply them (though there is very interesting lore pertaining to one of the most difficult dungeons: The Shatter). However, that’s not the point of this game. You don’t need a story driven directive to go kill some monsters, your “character development is leveling up to l20 and getting better and better gear. I feel that having a specific story would weigh this concept down since a story always has some kind of end, and in this case that’s not a good thing. This is about repetition and keeping your character alive for as long as humanly possible, a pre written story does not fit this.

Words can't describe how important going into the settings and changing all of your options are, the game doesn't harp on this but it fixes 90% of the visual annoyances you've had.

My best moment with this game was making a new character, going into a random world and teleporting to a high level player and trying to steal some high level loot they didn't want and then shredding bosses, very fun stuff

"There is no quest log, it evolved so much it grew legs and walked off". I laughed! You are a comedy genious. /bow

The cash shop is absolutely shit tier, especially considering the roguelike nature of the game. But I get a strong feeling you went into this game thinking it was something other than what it was. Its not an mmorpg its an mmo roguelike, and pretty fun in small doses

As a veteran of the game, I DO want to give some criticisms of the video, as a lot of the game wasn't quite touched upon. Now let me preface this; I currently have no bias towards the game, I'm done. I don't have anything quite against it either, as the style of gameplay was perfect for me and my ADHD riddled brain. You were unable to talk about the pets, which saved you a good headache. Pets are the most broken, cash grabby thing this game has ever had the misfortune of adding. They were added by the games second owners; Kabam. They were a two edged sword. They financially saved the game, but also limited the games potential immensely. Lore. This game was created back in 2009 for a 2 week game jam competition. There were no real intentions of making it a full fledged game, but Wildshadow went through with it anyway. For the twelve years it has been out, lore was only ever first introduced back in 2017, when the second ever player created dungeon; The Lost Halls, was added to the game. I can't blame you for not touching up on this, as unfortunately, just about every single little speck of lore is locked behind end game content, which could take you upwards of 100 hours to even BEGIN to experience. This game is not usually a game meant to be played solo. It's a cooperative, PVE game. It's best played with friends, which I can say with at least some confidence could have helped your initial response to this game. This game has so much history behind it, from the multitude of owners, to scrapped mechanics and dungeons (Which you were also sadly unable to show off the variety of). In the twelve years this game has been around, it has gathered both a passionate (and incredibly toxic unfortunately) playerbase. Part of me wishes you reached out to somebody who had played this game for a long time, or even just an active member, but there was no way you could have known it would have helped or not. All in all, I really do hope that this video serves as a wake up call for the current owners; DECA Games, to get their shit together and fix the early game content, and most of the game in general. But I personally don't think that will ever happen. After ten long years, I've lost faith in the game, but still appreciate what it was going for. Whether it failed or succeeded is up to you.

Items being soulbound means they cannot be traded. You can still lose them after dying. Also nobody buys ST sets (those lootboxes with soulbound items), or the XP Boosters/luck clovers (you can easily get those for free). Most of the people spend money on keys or vault/character slots. The keys are pretty P2W, however one person can host a dungeon for up to 50 people. That means for one paying player there can be at least 49 players making progress for free. Not to mention that all of those dungeons can be accessed for free in the Realm, the keys only make it more accessible and easier to chain (do few dungeons one after another). (This ultimately leads to Discord raids meta, which is one of the core issues of this game, but let's not tackle this here.) And the endgame dungeon with best items and (almost) hardest boss is the only one you can't buy a key for. This game was more P2W in the past. There were pets with really OP ability called Healing, which on max level healed you so fast you didn't even need to dodge. And grinding them was really tedious. The new company that took over this game significantly nerfed them, introduced a new in-combat mechanic (after getting hit your pet abilities drastically decrease for a few seconds) and made farming fame (currency) much, much faster.

As a former player, I was so surprised when you played the games audio, as I fully agree with that Steam review. The old soundtrack really fit the the game, really sad to see what they replaced it with.

Talks about abusing pricing. Sees item that costs 3600. Sees a 500, 1200, 2600, and 7k pack and says you either get too much or too little cashbucks to purchase 3600 item. Completely misses that you could purchase the exact amount you needed with multiple transactions (500x2 +2600) or (1200 x3) Come Josh... I expected you to notice that immediately.

I'll be honest, I'm very disappointed by this video. I was a dev/designer on realm for a few years, don't think very highly of the game right now, and believe its future is very bleak, so I anticipated there being a LOT of design discussion to be had on the game's problems. But everything here sadly felt very surface level and sarcastic without much thoughtful analysis. You said you played the game for 10 hours, but also never reached level 20 and there's no footage of anything past lowlands content, save for one Oryx/Wine Cellar. Playing 10 hours without reaching level 20 and only having this to say is... very difficult to believe. This video IS a good examination of the very early game problems. The lack of an adequate tutorial, direction for the player, that sort of thing. But there's also a lot of statements that are just plain wrong, or at best they're misunderstandings of things you should be well aware of within a few hours of gameplay. Pretty much all MMOs expect *some* willingness to learn by the player, and I just don't see that here. Don't get me wrong, I'm the last person to defend the game nowadays. It's riddled with issues that are worth exploring so please don't take this as me being biased/defensive of something just because I once worked on it. I'm just disappointed that this video (which will seemingly get a lot of exposure from the size of your channel) doesn't really get into anything meaningful. Even under the pretense of just being a first impressions video, this is just too shallow.

This one is near and dear to me. Monetization is awful, but the core gameplay is so fun if you don't care about playing at a high level. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

Hey Josh, I would really love to see you review Conquer Online. I played it waaaaay back in the early 2000s and I'd like to see your take on it now as its changed a lot since I last played. Love your content man, keep doing what you're doing.

Man, I was gonna leave an angry comment as someone who's played and enjoyed this game for a long time but I noticed you already have responded to feedback and I do applaud your awareness and ability to take critique. And I can agree that the new player experience probably isn't very inviting.... As a matter of fact I only was able to smoothly enjoy this game at the start since my friend got me to play with him and he gave me the _actual_ tutorial for this game, which was basically: >Pick a class (DEFINITELY Wizard) >Do quests and get to level 20 (minimum level 15) and then teleport to godlands >Farm godland enemies for pots and also dungeon drops >Look out for eggs, particularly human ones. You want to get a pet with heal and magic heal as its first two abilities. Every other pet is basically irrelevant. >Start with learning how to solo sprite worlds and also maxing dex. Then learn how to solo snake pits and max speed. >Do/call out other dungeons like abyss of demons, undead lairs, mad labs, etc. until you slowly start maxing your character into 6/8 (don't worry about 8/8ing yet) >Once you're 6/8, shift your focus onto your pet. If you don't have a heal magic heal pet by now, go to Realmeye and try trading some humanoid eggs for pots. This means grinding for pots to trade. >Once a heal magic heal pet is obtained start feeding it (you may have died already at this point so you might have some fame. If you don't have any keep your equipment and kill your 6/8 for some fame and start the process over again until your pet is maxed. >Start maxing other pets and learning how to fuse them for a stronger pet. >Once your pet is decent and you're comfortable with the gameplay, start looking at the harder dungeons like shatters, tombs, ice caves, etc. Having someone to guide me through those things definitely made the new player experience much more enjoyable, so I can't completely say that the things you said in this video are wrong, since it's from the perspective of a new player without help.

Realm of the Mad God has a lot of more complex dungeons and things that you didn't gain access to. You're supposed to get to level 20, tp to the harder parts of the realm, drink potions to maximize stats, rinse and repeat until all 8 of your stats are maxed. At this point, you can do harder dungeons that reward you with better, situational gear, which makes it possible to do more difficult dungeons. I've played this game for 7 years on and off, and finally now the 'Lost Halls' are easy to beat for me. There are still multiple harder endgame dungeons that I haven't beaten even once yet.

Been playing this game for 8 years from-time-to-time and watching this review made me feel SO bad for how awful the new-player experience is, ow. Also as pointed out by Toastrz, ex-developer of the game who's comment is undeservebly digged below some comments by youtube, this video feels rushed, and in no way you have played 10 hours, not even an hour I would say. The game is if I remember correctly 10 years old at this time, it went though 3 different companies/creators and current owners are, best I can say, the presentation of Chaotic Neutral. From one side, they're remaking and updating to be up-to-date old stuff, adding some quality of life features, add new content and stuff. And from the other side they try to rely on veterans and whale players spending too much money on a video game. Personally from my experience I can say the game is actually fun and kinda addicting when you know how stuff works and what to do, but that does not make the new-player experience forgivable anyway. A lot of stuff is outdated and need updating, like steam-stuff (achievements, cards, the page itself..), or better default options which LET YOU HIDE PLAYERS AND THEIR SHOTS, WHICH SHOULD BE A DEFAULT OPTION Also to correct some stuff in the video, hopefully my shitty long-text writing skills won't ruin it - Oryx's Castle isn't an endgame dungeon, it's something you do pretty often after you clear a Realm out of few, 45 I think, smaller 'Event bosses' that spawn a few times a realm. The real Endgame is something much different and harder. The players that were just standing in one place and waiting for the dungeon - You just happened to be in a realm that people have choosen to do an endgame dungeon 'raid' organized though a discord server that appears after you defeat the real Oryx in his wine cellar, where you died, after activating 3 hard to get runes. Players for some reason have teached themselfs to play on only a few servers, mainly on USW3, and the rest of the servers are either used for 'raids', bots, or other new players, or soloers. The no lore and stuff - It's there, but it isn't a main focus, and does not exist in the beginner areas. The story is mostly told in mid-endgame dungeons and some side stuff in dialogues. Or in an image made in a blog post that was made to expand the lore even deeper but you basically have to know where it is and it barely made a change in the game tbh. The items in the shop aren't impossible to say, as others have pointed out. You just can't trade them. You can't trade endgame UT and all except very old ST items. Stuff like buff items are a mixed bag. The nildrops - they were a crappy attempt at monetizing buffs that are possible to obtain during christmas events that are quite useful but aren't purchasable. Clovers - yeah they're pretty useful and can help quite a bit, but you from my experience I would the rarer stuff is easy to get when you focus on grinding it. You don't really need to spend money on this game, you can play freely and get to the same level as other people without spending a single cent even if it looks like it. The only thing that can be called real pay2win in my opinion are Pets. You can buy eggs to hatch them, food to feed them with gold, but you can not-easily-but-neither-too-rarily get egg drops from midgame-enemies/bosses, and you can feed items that you get for playing too. You can also spend gold to feed your pet (dumb idea), but you can also spend Fame, points that you get when you die on a character, to feed them anyway. No real pay2win here except small boosters. EDIT - and Vault. By default you have 8 vault slots unlocked, which is awful, and you get more of those by either getting lucky and doing an entire daily-login calendar that happens to have vault unlockers/vault slot coupons (5 needed to exchange for an unlocker), from the lootboxes, or by spending 500 gold directly. Atleast now you can actually get some of these for Fame from the shop, but the geniuses though it's great to hide the not-gold-related boxes deep below the ones that do cost money. This game is basically an abusive-relationship after you've played it for a while and felt depressed a lot of times after losing great characters but still being too addicted by it and making more characters, can confir. Sorry to any rotmg player who went though pain of reading this if I made a text wall that sounds like a 10 year old's writing, english ain't my first language and I suck at writing longer senteces.

Oh man, I definitely played a bit of this back in the day, though I haven't touched it in years. Still have an oddly vivid memory of one time when I stuck to playing some sorta warrior class (the kind that, while short ranged, could buff others) and somehow winding up with a pretty large squad of random people following me around as I lead the charge from boss to boss, up to a point where we were all pretty high level. Unfortunately died at some point though, and then was very much disheartened when I just couldn't find the people I was with, cause it felt as if losing track of them was like losing a piece of what made the game fun. Certainly not every day one gets to just go on a whole adventure with randoms though, but yea, it's a shame to see how greed has affected this game in the meantime.

Nice video! This series helps me understand why I stopped playing some MMO's that I liked back then. By any chance, can you review Wakfu?

Gotta say, I kinda respect this more than most MMOs Josh has reviewed. This one is at least absolutely honest about what it is, what it provides, and what it wants.

This was the game I played secretly on the school computers on kongregate when the teachers weren't looking. I really enjoyed it in that capacity. The biggest surprise in this review to me is that it considers itself an mmorpg. The game has been completely spammed with cash shop items for many years now, hacked clients are still really easy to get and practically risk free. I really enjoy the gameplay but the game sucks

Man im glad this video exists, a bigger youtuber from outside the immediate community might help the changes we want actually come to fruition

I recently found (and subbed to) the channel and I'd love to see videos on the Phantasy Star series. Whether it's just the latest expansion of the latest game or also previous games like Phantasy Star Online Blue Burst or Phantasy Star Universe fan servers.

Your review is exactly what I would expect from a new player, and there's nothing inherently wrong with it. However, there are so many "check boxes" that need to be filled before you can really understand and get into the gameplay loop: 1: Level 20. Getting to level 20 is the first thing players do, and the real game begins after that. Experience in the game is largely meaningless after the first 30 minutes, although it does convert to "Fame" after reaching 20. 2: A pet with "heal" and "magic heal". Most people would rather not have pets be such an integral part of the game, especially when you can p2w a pet to high level very fast with money. For f2p players, pet is one of the few long-term progression systems in the game, and I myself have gotten a 90/90 heal/mheal pet over the years by just playing. It makes a HUGE difference. 3: Stats and gear. The game does a bad job explaining this, but you can't expect to be able to survive the previous final boss of the game, oryx 2 aka "wine cellar" with low health, speed and defence. Getting better in rotmg is incremental, especially for a new player. You start by getting to 20, then kill enemies in the godlands (the grey/mountaneous area) for some starter (tier 8 weapon/armor, tier 4 ring and ability), then go to the easier dungeons, like sprite world, snake pit and abyss of demons for easy speed, def, dex and vitality potions. There is a clear progression path all experienced players know, although shortcuts can be easily taken with a decent pet and experience. Most of these things are not explained at all, and new players need to learn "the hard way". The game isn't so much about "quick, hectic sessions that end in death", but calculating the risks you take and trying to earn more items on a character than you will lose when you die.

A rougelike MMORPG that deserves its own video for a long time, I'd love to see him play and review it. Along with seeing how predatory the cash shop/pets/vaults are

Btw confuse doesn't randomise controls, it offsetsmovement keys clockwise by one. W=Right, D=Down, S=Left, A=Up. In this way it's not too bad to get used to, and you can get used to it with practice. The maze in the mad lab is a good practice ground. fully randomising your movement would be completely broken

【Sunglasses Finnish Pirates】"Jannetski" at 19:17 has my name, my first name is Janne

Realm is just a massive time sink. You are spending most of your time doing something boring so that you can get to the fun part. Think maxing and realm clearing. It's not literal "pay to win," since you can't pay to beat difficult content. However, it is extremely pay to win by definition. You can buy keys that instantly open up dungeons (Oryx's Sanctuary is a notable exception however), which saves an unbelievable amount of time. You can buy vaults and character slots, and anyone who's played the game knows how limited your storage is in the beginning. And don't even get me started on pets. The game is nearly unplayable without a decent pet. The community is something worth mentioning as well. Toxic players and cheaters run rampant, despite DECA's claims that the Exalt client would get rid of cheaters. Obviously not everyone is toxic/a cheater, but these two types of players are extremely common here. The elitism and Discord meta is sickening. Because of how the optimal HP scaling is at about 15 players, private Discords are everywhere for only the best or most popular people. If you're a new player, good luck finding someone that can get you in the inner circle (I am still indebted to GOMLrotmg). Mechanically, Realm is not a bad game. You have some well designed yet difficult dungeons, but most players will not get to experience them due to fear caused by permadeath. It takes many attempts and most likely deaths to learn both dungeons. And if you die you have to remax, which can take a while. It doesn't help that the game is badly optimized and laggy, which can easily result in unfair deaths. And losing rare items to lag, an instapop, or both is one awful feeling. There are still plenty more issues that I haven't covered. I say all these things as a legitimate F2P who's been mostly active for the past 2 years. It took me about that much time to get my pet to 100/100 divine. I've soloed both Oryx's Sanctuary and The Shatters (post rework), which are arguably the two hardest dungeons in the game. The game is just not worth getting into. If you don't have an experienced friend or guild, it gets decent after 1000 hours. I'm not even kidding if you are a F2P. Increasing your storage is timegated at the mercy of the login calendar, giving you a new vault/char slot every 2 or 3 months. Getting consistent at maxing will take some time. Getting a decent heal/mheal or mheal/heal pet will take some time. Getting consistent at the hard dungeons will take even more time, and all the previous points are basically required. You will need storage and backup characters to rebuild at a reasonable rate. And you most certainly will need a decent pet and many attempts to beat O3 and Shatters for the first time. Or you could take the cowardly route and use a gamer client. That path isn't worth it either. Don't get me wrong, I actually dislike the permadeath aspect of the game. If you're going to play the game, at least play by the rules. DemomannOB, signing off.

Soulbound is even worse. It dosen't mean you keep them on death: it means you can't trade them. So yes, if you die with your inventory full of soulbound, you still lose it. r/rotmg sent me

The game is bad because they limit your inventory and also your stash to a point that is unpleasant to manage. So you either create dozens of mule characters or you need to buy space.

“There’s even a little tutorial challenge to rotate your screen to see things that are far away!” “It would be nice if I could see the enemy without this wall of text in the way “

I haven't played this game in years, but it always struck me as a really unique and innovative game in a lot of ways. It was taking the mmo formula and applying it to a genre other than RPG. I also found that there's not many MMOs that feel like they have as much of a 'Massive Multiplayer' aspect to them as this game. You would routinely operate with dozens of other players like a giant organism, moving through the map. So, in some ways, I find the criticisms that it's not rpg enough a little odd, because I feel like this game was trying to set itself apart from the dozens of mmorpgs by not being that. And I do think changing up the formula and having niche games that satisfy niche appeals a very good thing That being said, this game does clearly have one of the most in-your-face and arguably abusive cash shops out there, and the game does put them front and center in a very unavoidable fashion. And this game's rogue-like elements make the cash shop that much worse as the rewards are either so temporary, or give such a huge advantage to those that pay. But all in all, compartmentalizing the bad for a moment, I do think the core structure of this game definitely deserves some credit for trying to be something different, and succeeding at that. As always, love the series, and excited to see more!

Most of your complaints "can" be fixed by reading the "official unofficial wiki" or having a friend babysit you and answer questions/concerns, or checking the options menu. But should that "be" the way to fix them? The new player experience plainly sucks. The meta is to make multiple accounts to store your good loot (because extra character slots and bank space are locked behind a paywall or logging in for months), and then when you save up enough stat boosts, use them and then "the real game begins". Until you die of course. Well, as new player at least. Because veterans have pets that heal them back to full in a matter of seconds, so characters easily reach years in terms of lifespan. To give credit to Deca, they did nerf pets (added years ago) multiple times to make them not as oppressive. But the game has run its course and most people are just waiting for release of few rotmeg clones that go back to the roots.

I enjoy your content quite a lot and really wish it came out more often but goddamn I know that cannot happen because thats what makes them quality!

Game where I put a random username as a placeholder for something cooler, but that became my username. Game where I typed Hi to a rando and they typed Hi! back, and it blew my mind.

You should make a "Best MMO ever" mini-series or something, I am very interested to see which mmos you particularly enjoy.

I found this game from Google play games over a decade ago and was absolutely enamored by it! I've tried to quit this game multiple times and always end up coming back. Such a vile trap to fall into.

how many hours do you have in osrs?

I put about 28 hours into this game a fair few years back. I enjoyed my experience when the game was so heavily populated you'd see bands of 50+ players running around the highest level zones killing everything to farm exp and fame. The game doesn't pretend to have some overarching narrative or story. You go in, kill until you die, and then repeat. That's it.

I gotta say, the game looks like it still has alot of the problems from its kabam days and before that. But I think over all the game's mechenics are pretty solid and the gameplay loop is honestly very engaging. The game also has very unique dungeon designs which didnt really get touched on in the video. In my opionion this video really isnt the best I've seen from josh since it seems like zero to no actual research and consideration of the game play mechenics went into the review. I'm saying this not because of some miss guided nastolgia for this game because those days are lonnnnngggg gone. I think that the video seemed very rushed and had very little thought put behind it with the main schtik being the "evolution" joke whikst alot of the good points of the game gets over looked. It is sad to see that the music got replaced though. It was very very good. I think there are just so many mistakes about this game in this video which is pretty unusual for this channel. Considering the reviews for other mmos which I have played being pretty much exactly the truth. But this time it felt malicious at times. I hope this wont be a recurring thing in thw future but yea. I hope this game get better someday, maybe thwn Ill try it out again.

I love this game and I think it is kind of sad and embarrassing you were blasted immediatly with the shop. This game is deeper than you think, it has some lore and you can actually feel connected to a character if you get good at the game, it also has some nice boss fights and interesting mechanics, but it just has so many barriers for new players and too many issues.

What happened to the plan for discussion videos you said you were planning at the end of last year

I had the best possible introduction to RotMG. One night, 3am, the boys and I on discord, drunk out of our trees. We stumble across Realm of the Mad God. Stayed up til 8am, crying, laughing and wondering wtf we'd stumbled across. I retried it at a later date, and it wasn't the best. But I'd HIGHLY recommend playing it with some friends and a few drinks for a laugh one night. It's certainly a fond memory.

I know its beating a dead horse a bit, but I do find it kinda odd that Josh didn’t know what Soulbound meant, seems like something other MMOs have in spades in my experience.

There's really no sense of danger or satisfaction in Realm until you find a rare item and become paranoid about losing it from death. So in a way the game do become better the more you understand the game and the consequences of dying.

On my way through a re-watch of your Worst MMO series and I debated on watching this since it's something your not proud of. But I also figured it's essential to the second part where you take a deeper dive. I just see this as a weird 2 part episode. Love the content!

*_Sounds like Josh didn’t even need to play the game to decide he hated it._*

Actually good mmo, I have a lot of fun playing it

It's a really good game that gets ruined by bots, cheaters and random disconnects that will result in your death (making you lose your progress for that character) I have like 1000+ hours in the game and almost every time I end up Dying after building up my characters due to a random disconnect, that's why I quit

"That feature evolved so hard, it grew legs and walked off." Has to be one of the funniest things he's ever said.

Good vid! I never played the game much but what you just described was my experience years ago. It just was so chaotic and directionless. I hate tutorials (probably because my bad experience with most so I skip them all this was one of the few good tutorials tho) but it just dropped me off in the nexus confused.

I played the hell out of this from its first launch on Kongregate until... I'd say 2015. Seeing this appear here, first MMO on your list I've played, brings a genuine tear to my eye. I was a dumb young teen who was in for the thrill, the action packed raids, the easy sit down and pick up like gameplay (you can play for 10 minutes or 10 hours), and of course, the Mad God's dungeon. I also never spent a single cent on the game. I knew people that had maxxed out many characters. Happy for them. Never understood the appeal, but I'm glad for them all the same. They said the pay to win got worse and worse. Since I never managed to snag those special dungeon drop bows or swords, I was left with nearly the best gear. I consider it, in hindsight, a fun challenge. I'd try my best to contribute, even if I'd end up failing quicker than others. I think I stopped playing when the ninja released. There's no feeling like watching 60 people randomly coming together in the center of the map to clear the demigods. They come together and split apart at willy nilly, alliances that can last 5 seconds or many many games. That thrill of meeting some badass who draws the mob's attention while we all kite around, or the one fellow who'll charge through hell to support others... no feeling like that in any other MMO I ever tried. I stopped playing because I lost the appeal. Don't know how it is now, never had an interest. Rest in peace player convoys that formed while fighting gnomes and elves and ended at the Mad God. Either you remember them or you don't. Also I must've been gifted/somehow acquired enough gold to found a guild. The Knights of David, I think it was called, some parody of the Roundtable with a Jewish aesthetic. Melee guys only, fight together, swear oaths to defeat certain villains (bosses, say, the ent boss or lich king), randomly stop mid battle to sing Hava Nagila and Maoz Tzur, and all that. Good times. Good times. 10/10 game, would willingly toss me and my entire guild into the front lines to protect a few rangers and then die again.

10:00 . Soulbound isn't a mechanic where you keep the items on death. It just means you aren't able to trade them.

"only a mechanic for poor people" killed me

Clickin on a blue cube and seeing a white bag pop out of his ass was the most exciting gaming experience I’ve ever had as a kid, not even joking 😭

Sad to see them selling out so hard these days, I don't even remember there being a cash shop back when I played... Although I don't think you should judge the game as an MMO*RPG* when the steam page only says "an evolution of traditional MMO gameplay" and doesn't even contain the word RPG anywhere

Rotmg was and still is one of my favorite mmo's. There's so little to do, but the permadeath makes what's there so much more impactful. I still remember the first time I lost a 1/8 character. Someone was rushing a mad lab in front of me and I got blindsided by one of those guys that get bigger over time. Quit the game for a few months after that but I always keep coming back eventually.

The amount of lore in this game IS massive. You just have to look for it.

TLDR: the pay to win is pretty bad I wanted to mention some things about the pay to win features of the game. First off almost all the items you see in the shop are stupidly overpriced and you can get most of the items by just playing the game. I know it’s dumb since it’s the first thing seen as a new player but atleast it’s not money locked. Secondly there is a mechanic called “pets”. They help your character by healing you, damaging enemies and so on. The monetization of pets is insane, yes you could get a max level pet on your own but it requires fame and feedpower. Fame is a currency gained after your character dies. Feedpower is a stat given to items that gets better the rarer it is. Essentially to get a good pet that heals you constantly and is arguably necessary to tackle endgame dungeons you need to make tons of good characters and have them die, sacrifice hundreds of rare drops that take forever to obtain and then eventually you’ll get to that good pet. Another way you could go about this is giving in to the pay to win carrot on a stick. Everything in the pet leveling process can be bought with realm gold including foods with crazy good feedpower and replacing the fame requirement to feed them with gold. Even still if you choose to pay for this it will cost a mighty $300 usd. This game has been like this for years and everyone hates it.

I remember playing this during lunch periods in school back when it was a pretty quick-loading browser game. It was pretty fun for those daily 20-30 minute stints. Unlocking the other classes was enough of a tangible reward to give any kind of meaning and direction to actually playing it even if the classes change nothing of the fundamental gameplay loop. I got much the same feeling much later when playing Enter the Gungeon, though it's just a better iteration on the Rogue-like bullet-hell with RPG flavour concept RotMG was going for.

a lot of the stuff in this game seems pretty clearly meant as a joke, up to and including the "next evolution" line, so much of this video strikes me as josh taking on the sysiphian task of making fun a clown

Recommended (9,792.8 hrs on record) "Don't play it." Yeah that tracks.

Soulbound means that you can’t trade it. You still lose it if you die

They didn't even use the abusive pricing structure right... You can just buy 3x1200 for 24,30 and since there is no mass discount, it wouldn't make any sense to buy any bigger packs. What a fail.

Josh did you play ROTMG for 8 hours? Cuz it seems that you played max 1 or 2 hours.

When the list of patrons is so long, that you can't read any of them even in 1080p

I didn't even have to google it. Gators will eat a gazelle. Quite easily, actually. Someone once told me something interesting. "A gold-seller can be a sign of the game's health. They won't waste their time selling currency for games no one's playing."

Before I saw this review I was stuck in RotMG, no GF, no Life, and no way out. After watching this None of these things have changed but my pronunciation of evolution to “EVO-lotion” Thoroughly enjoyed and would love a series of this game ❤️ 10/10 would see more Evo-lotionary content like this again.

I actually had a ton of fun playing this years ago, it’s a fantastic game. Or it was years ago, excited to see how it’s gone downhill

Actually, from what I see in this video, I think the game looks fun. The cash shop is a HUUUUUGE turn-off, though. I went from "ooh, I might try this one out" to "hell no I won't touch that with a ten foot pole", in the span of a few minutes of this video. Seriously, I loath games that put in microtransactions and loot boxes for everything.

Alright bois heres how you progress in realm of the mad god(ROTMG for short) 1. Figure out how to become comfortable with movement options and making use of camera rotate and camera offset 2. Figure out what the heck is going on in an area/dungeon 3. Start knowing enough to not die super often and build up a character with some decent progress 4. Master multiple dungeons and areas to the point where it is nearly impossible for you to die in them 5. Start learning new content(theres ALWAYS difficulty unless you are really good at touhou or something) 6. Find a group of player who you enjoy playing with and learn the game together 7. Quit for a loooooong time, its nearly impossible to find a player who has never gone at least a month without even logging into the game 8. Mastery, most people never truly master the game and I think its the best part of it, you are never immune to dying or making mistakes, are you ready to face the challenge? And remember, you can always get those items back or something similar to them, now get out there and take some risks! also, here are some good things about the game: 1. Doesnt take a ton of processing power to run, no need for a thousand dollar graphics card, just dont be surprised if you get some lag when streaming video while also running the game. Also doesnt take up much storage space(well below 1-2 GB last time I checked, for the full game install not just an update, the updates are something like 50MB each) 2. ACTUAL GAMEPLAY, there is essentially 0 way to make progress in this game while not pressing anything, and there is ALWAYS something to do 3. Very good community, ask a question and it is very likely someone will be able to help you, just dont ask for free items and expect anything valuable. also, you can join a guild and easily send a message to everyone that is in the guild 4. No anticheat that requires admin privileges to run, have fun without giving the game special privileges that dont even stop hackers! 5. Non-invasive chat filter, say what ever the flying **** you want and toggle on/off chat filter whenever you want to in settings 6. This game has one of the most fun grinds Ive ever seen in a game, I can log in for an hour and make meaningful progress, it might hurt if you die, but you can learn from mistakes and get your progress back with time and skill (The gameplay I like is rushing dungeons and chatting with other players along the way) 7. Gain progress for learning and being skilled, not just time or gear. You EARNED where you are in the game, and others can relate to the journey you took. You have the determination and skill ^w^

I really dislike how much of this video was digging into the advertising, it took over 5 minutes to get to the good stuff. I was good afterwards, but I almost clicked off the video because of that. It just got old *way* to quickly

Very accurate representation of the new player experience, very poor review of the game. If I were to put it in Runescape terms, it is pretty much like you have gotten off tutorial island, gone towards the cow pen, started killing cows and concluded “ oh this game is just killing cows” and called it a day.

Actually having a "Soulbound" word next to a real money items on a permadeath game is probably making new players buy them because they think Soulbound means soulbound as said in this video xd

I played this back when it came out (or in beta, can't remember) for a couple weeks, I enjoyed it, haven't touched it since.