Another game I've been keeping an eye on for a while is RF Online, distributed in Europe by Codemasters. I don't know much about the game itself yet, but the game looks beautiful and the choice of races may be unique (we'll see how they are implemented) with it's blend of traditional fantasy and futuristic sci-fi genres.
For starters we have Accretians. They are a race of cyborgs that have mechanical bodies (think mechs). The Corites, also known as the race of the ancients, don't acknowledge technology and focus more on magic and nature (I guess they are akin to the elves that we would normally associate with fantasy mmorpgs). Finally we have the Bellato who are a mix of both, not mechanical as such, but can use mechs later in life.
Classes are less unique and fall into 4 archetypes of Warrior, Ranger, Spiritualist and Specialist. The specialist, I believe, is the crafting class of each race.
All 3 races are at war, naturally, with the winner of the daily RvRvR battles able to mine special resources for a period (He who controls the Spice, controls the universe! ). I'm not yet certain whether these battles are won or lost in rounds or more on-going like the RvR of DAoC.
Beta phase 1 has just started, with those that have preordered likely to join within a few weeks which suggests the full release will be shortly afterward. Although it's called beta phase 1, this is already a very popular game in Asia, so I expect the beta testing to be more about testing localisation and server/network performance than anything else.
It looks like RFO may offer something a little different to the mmorpg player, but not necessarily anything innovative in the gameplay department - at least until I've found more info Of course, I've preordered so will let you know what I find/think in beta and/or retail
For the Official website and a lot more info than I have on the game, head to http://www.codemasters.co.uk/rfonline/news.php
RF Online
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