RuneScape: Dragonwilds Review - Here There Be Dragons | MMORPG.com

RuneScape Dragonwilds is a beautifully rendered dive into a classic MMORPG world set in a different genre. A survival game has never felt so good.

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AION 2 Launches Globally, With 300,000 Users Already NC Celebrates With a Gift and Extended Behind the Scenes Video | MMORPG.com

After a five-day Early Access, AION 2 has officially launched. NC's free to play MMORPG is live globally, and already has 300,000 players.

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RuneScape 4, The Next MMO From Jagex, Announced At RuneFest This Weekend | MMORPG.com

Jagex made a major announcement during this weekend's RuneFest activities, confirming that the fourth RuneScape MMO is now in active development.

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Monsters & Memories Beta Ends, But There's a Stress Test Before Next Week's Early Access Launch | MMORPG.com

Beta has ended for Monsters & Memories, and there's one more stress test before Early Access opens next week.

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Monsters & Memories Prepares For Oct 1 Early Access Launch With a FAQ, Subscription Page Opens | MMORPG.com

Monsters & Memories is headed into Early Access on October 1st. The team has just opened the subscription page and shared lots of info to know about Early Access, from content included, to the team's plans.

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Before we start some quick abbreviations I'll use to save me some keystrokes:

4R = WoW Forever

RT = WoW Retail

Cool? Cool.

Not that it matters too much but I decided to roll a Holy Paladin and level him at holy all the way to max in RT.  There's a few reasons for this:

I've actually in all my years of playing WoW never played a Holy Paladin.  I figured now's the time to give it a go.

My two characters in 4R are a resto druid and holy priest, so I wanted to do something similar

You might ask why not do a Holy Priest in RT.  It's because Holy Paladin is considered the S tier healer in RT right now while Holy Priest is considered S tier in 4R.  That's the like for like.  I didn't want to do B/C tier vs S tier.

4R clearly has better visuals.  When you play them back to back it's shockingly obvious.  I went back in my RT options and made sure I had everything cranked to Ultra settings and still it's immediately obvious switching between the two 4R is superior.  It's the same maps and models, but what's noticeably better is the lighting/shadows, the use of volumetric fog, and the water is vastly superior.  Weather effects are also superior in 4R because of all the lighting/fog/etc.  Seeing it rain in Darkshore at dusk will make you wish you had a flashlight with you.  Even little things like the flames on candles looks better. 4R is a notch above RT.  I don't know if Blizzard plans on applying these updates to RT, but at least with everything cranked to max 4R is the superior visual experience.

Things could not be more different between the games than the combat.

In 4R if you try to "mage" your way through a single mob (that is go full dps and use all spells) as a holy priest or druid you are going to smoke 60% of your mana bar and be in a bit of a bind if you get an add.  You're probably going to look at needing to drink afterwards because getting caught out on low mana is a problem.  Drinking is actually expensive in 4R because money is so tight. In the early levels it really is a question of "do I keep my mana up or do I make sure I have all my spells when I level?".  It's hard to do both.  As such you find other ways to be more mana efficient namely using a wand or melee white damage with just the occasional dot or nuke to keep dps moving.  Druids will shift to bear form for this so they can dps using rage instead of mana even as resto spec. 

Contrast this with RT where you go full pedal to the metal every pull.  There's a couple of reasons for this.  First of all as a paladin you actually have two resource pools: mana and holy power.  Your mana spells give you holy power, holy power spells cost no mana and some actually give mana back. There's actually only 1 spell in my kit that actually uses any sort of significant mana and it's a big heal. By "significant" I mean it uses about 5% of your mana bar to cast.  You can run yourself OOM if you spam it constantly, but it's going to take a while. If you cycle your spells like the class is designed, you start and finish every fight with full mana and health. The heals are HUGE. 2 are insta-cast. The holy paladin in RT is way more powerful of a class than anything in 4R.  If you could somehow drop an RT holy paladin into 4R it would clear the map of mobs and demolish anyone that tried to duel.  For a healing class it has respectable dps.  Obviously it's not DPS level DPS, but it's not so low that combat is boring.  The second reason is that in RT any time you're out of combat you get a pretty massive amount of health and mana regen.  Running from one pull to the next is usually enough to top you off.  This is by design.  In RT they want to keep the action high and the player constantly engaged, not spending half their time sitting on their ass eating/drinking between pulls.

Part of combat but worth calling out, 4R uses the old mob tagging system, where the first person to hit a mob 'tags' it and it's their xp and loot regardless of who helps. In RT this is not a thing.  Everyone that hits a mob gets full credit.  This comes from two very different design philosophies.  In 4R they want to heavily encourage grouping.  In RT they want to heavily encourage organic co-op.  Neither is "bad" or "good" just different and be aware of it.  If you hate to group, this mechanic will present a problem for you especially in crowded areas.

Probably goes without saying but RT has MUCH faster leveling in general but in particular from starting level (I say it that way because many race/class combos start at level 10, not 1) to 80 (with max being 90).  This is an extended tutorial basically.  You'll do lots of content and quests, but on an XP bar that has 10 "bubbles", you will get 2 bubbles per quest turn in on average.  That's 5 quests per level.  Depending on which quest lines  you do which can stack several quests together, a small story arc may net 1 to 2 levels.  This slows down past 80, but it's still faster than 4R.  To put this in perspective I started this Paladin Friday and he's already 80 (Monday morning for context when someone is reading this later).  In the same timeframe I got my druid from 1 to 18 in 4R.

The next obvious difference is in RT you get to pick a "specialization".  For Paladin this is the Retribution/Protection/Holy choice.  Simply by choosing this specialization (which you can change out whenever), key passive and active abilities are enabled for your class that instantly make it feel like playing that specialization. Ret will have high dps, Prot will be instantly tanky, Holy will have massive, efficient heals.

This is not a thing in 4R.  At level 10 you get 1 measly spec point to put in 1 of 3 trees. Applying that 1 point has minimal if any appreciable effect on the performance of your class.  You will be a "generalist".  You will still be a "generalist" at 20 because the firs two tiers of the spec tree are the talents that area useful across most/all specs and you will likely pick them up regardless of your end game build.  You're going to do all things to some degree of proficiency but none of them particularly well.  You will likely need to hit 40+ before your class actually starts to feel like a "spec".

Another dramatic difference is getting abilities.  In RT class trainers aren't a thing.  You just get your new abilities granted to you when you ding.  That means you just pick a new talent and continue on.

In 4R you get new spells every even level.  You have to go back to a trainer to get these spell and they are EXPENSIVE.  You literally have to budget for them because they get more expensive every level.  I'm constantly broke in 4R because of this. Saving up 1g is an accomplishment.

First Siege Mechanics Come To Camelot Unchained, Along With the Scout Archetype and New Class Stat | MMORPG.com

It's time for another Camelot Unchained Early Access weekend and a new patch, along with a development update touching on the recent roadmap and what else is down the line.

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World of Warcraft Forever Previews Ability Changes (and what's the same) Coming For Hunter and Druid | MMORPG.com

The World of Warcraft Forever team is previewing Hunter and Druid classes in new deep dives that include their vision on class identity and changes coming for both classes.

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Last Epoch Game And Season 5 Enraged Legend Pack Sweepstakes! | MMORPG.com

Last Epoch is celebrating the upcoming launch of Season 5: Rage of the Frostborn! They've partnered with us here at MMORPG to give away 10 copies of the game, as well as the Enraged Legend Pack!

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WoW Forever: The Simple Bliss of Existing - Arlee in Azeroth | MMORPG.com

Robin is kicking it in the WoW Forever beta, and is simply having a very good time.

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RuneFest 2026: RuneScape Reignited Kicks Off On December 2nd, Billed As A 'Relaunch' Of The Classic MMO | MMORPG.com

RuneScape 3 is seeing what the developers are calling a 'relaunch' of the classic MMO with RuneScape Reignited, coming on December 2nd.

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Aion 2 Early Access is Now Live For Founder's Pack Owners, With F2P Launch For All Coming Monday | MMORPG.com

Early Access has officially opened for AION 2 on Steam and NC's Purple Platform ahead of its full launch on October 5th. 

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World of Warcraft Forever Shares New Class Overviews, With Changes Coming to Priest and Warrior | MMORPG.com

The World of Warcraft Forever team continues sharing deep dives into the game's classes and changes we'll see. This time, the Warrior and Priest get the spotlight.

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Throne and Liberty Devs Respond to Colossus, Progression, and Combat Feedback, Outlining Changes Coming | MMORPG.com

Throne and Liberty will be making some changes to gear progression, combat stats, and the recently-added Colossus encounter based on feedback. The team outlines what's coming and when.

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Private Servers Are Keeping Lineage II's Community Alive | MMORPG.com

Private servers are nothing new in MMORPGs, and while Lineage II might have official Classic servers, the majority of players are found on the thriving private classic servers, keeping the aged MMO alive.

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Monsters & Memories Early Access is Live, Devs Experiment With Bumping Up Capacity To Relieve Queues | MMORPG.com

Early Access is now live for Monsters & Memories, and the response so far seems to be pretty solid. So much so that the team is experimenting a bit with capacity to ease queues. 

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