What... what is this? I don't even know.

Well, I guess I do.

It's a music video for Runes of Magic, composed and created by the German a capella metal band Van Canto. If you think that sounds like an odd mix, you're probably right, but the video in itself has very high production value, in addition to being quite an entertaining listen. The track is called "Magic Taborea," and apparently the album that it's been released on, called "Tribe of Force," has made it to the German album charts after its release.

Either way, give it a listen after the jump and... well... be happy in knowing that a capella metal music is on the rise in MMORPG music videos.

Update 3.0.4, or "The Mystery of the Temple" if you prefer, is now live in Runes of Magic! This major patch opens the doors to the new Raksha Temple dungeon, and for the first time six player groups will be given the opportunity to choose from three levels of difficulty. Easy and normal modes are now available in-game, but you're going to have to wait until update 3.0.5 comes out to give hard mode a try.

The patch also includes the Juice Festival event and new guild quests, as well as a new level for guild castles. Oh, and did I mention the update introduces a world boss named Sesphiroth? It looks like Cloud, Barret and the rest of the gang are going to need some extra help to take this huge bad guy down.

Sometimes I wonder if these free to play games can get even more expensive than pay to play games, just because there's so much to buy in the cash shop! Well, it seems as though the Runes of Magic team is also thinking that exact same thing, so for the past few days they've been offering the top fan favorite items for a massive 30% off discount! So for those of you who have been spending your cash on the following list, this is your last day to get them for cheaper!

The items currently on sale are:

• 10 Arcane Transmutor Charges

• Superior Experience & Talent Charm

• Big Angel's Sigh

• Thunder Wartiger Mount (Permanent)/ Night Lion King Mount (Permanent)

• Daily Quest Ticket

• God's Redemption Ticket

• Golden Repair Hammer

• Purified Fusion Stone

But hurry, today's your last day!

Tuesday, May 18th, Frogster's Runes of Magic officially launched the 2nd expansion to thier popular F2P MMORPG, Runes of Magic. With over 2 million worldwide players chomping at the bit Frogster took the servers down all day on Monday for this launch and, with the servers coming back online on-time, the sound of 2 million players logging in simultaneously could be clearly heard.

See Chapter III: The Elder Kingdoms for all the coverage, guides, quest walkthroughs and other goodies in our wiki!

Frogster announced today that they "will be bringing down the servers, the website and the forums for 24 hours on Monday, May 17." This is the final installation in the gradual launch of the second expansion, Chapter III: The Elder Kingdoms, for this year-old F2P MMORPG.

In addition, "During this downtime, we will be having an All Day Item Give Away on Facebook! So head on over to our Facebook fan page and "like" it a lot right now. We may start the give aways early!"

A new instance is coming to Runes of Magic, and it looks like it will be a very unique addition to this popular MMORPG. Called the "Dungeon of Dalanis," players will need to band together into six-person groups to take on the Corrupt Prince Maxim Erekat III, the king of the criminals. For years, this dungeon of aristocratic criminals has lain beneath the city of Dalanis and, just recently, the King has become aware of this dungeon and has sent his warriors (that's you!) in to clean it out.

Thus, with this new dungeon, players above level 57 will find themselves facing a brand new challenge with the release of Chapter III - The Elder Kingdoms. Either way, be sure to check it all out this month!

Thursday Morning's reset will return AH and COD services that were recently deactivated. Additionally there are a few bug fixes and the following:

Our latest patch (The King’s Call) has adjusted many skills of all character classes.
As we have announced before we will reset all spent talent points on Thurssday, April 29th 2010. They will be added to your pool of talent points and can be spent again.

In our continued effort to increase the ingame quality of Runes of Magic, we have banned over 1800 goldseller accounts last week and removed their harvested gold.

Some have mentioned fear the reset would not include TP from combat but Frogster has said it will be a full reset of all TP earned and spent. If you want to see how much TP you will have to work with, press K for Skills Window then hover your mouse over the current TP display.

When the servers come back up today, April 22, 2010 aprox. 6:30 PST, Patch 3.0.0 (aka Phase One of Chapter III: The Elder Kingdoms) will be live. See the Main Page of our Runes of Magic Wiki for Features and details as we fill in the content for the expansion.

Runes of Magic publisher Frogster recently announced that it will support same-sex marriages in its upcoming expansion, Chapter III: The Elder Kingdoms. [via VideoGamer.com] The news might seem surprising to many video game fans, considering the MMO industry's awkward past with the LGBT community and previous issues regarding same-sex relationships in-game. As VideoGamer.com mentions in its article, Runes of Magic is developed by Runewalker, a Taiwanese studio. Taiwan's governing body is the Republic of China, which doesn't recognize same-sex marriages...nor does the People's Republic of China, in which case a mainland Chinese development studio probably wouldn't have been able or willing to incorporate similar gameplay mechanics. The Beijing-based Perfect World Entertainment, for example, has received criticism of sexism and discrimination for related reasons (to read PWE's response to this issue, see our Rising Tide Q&A from last year).

The in-game marriage system is a new feature that will be introduced in Runes of Magic's upcoming expansion, which will also provide character bonuses, according to the VideoGamer.com article. "Of course you can only be married with one person at the same time," Frogster's Philipp Senkbeil told the Web site. "It's even possible to have gay couples, so no need to just have a male and female character. Two male characters and two female characters can marry each other." The upcoming MMO feature has drawn the attention of many LGBT video game communities, such as GayGamer.net, which praised Runewalker for "taking a step that many Western developers have been to scared to tackle." Considering that some of the most-successful and seemingly-liberal U.S.-based publishers have "looked the other way" in previous circumstances, many MMO fans might be inclined to agree.

For the multi-staged release of "Chapter III - The Elder Kingdoms," Frogster is planning for their first stage of updates to focus on Guilds and new challenges for Guilds. Specifically, there will be six new guild quests to be implemented in this update and players will receive these new missions through the "Guild Quest Bulletin Board" in their guild castle. For completing these quests, guilds will be able to get rubies, crystals and even special guild quest packages. In addition to these new guild quests, Frogster has also implemented a new upgrade for Guild Castles, where players will be able to enhance the wooden palisades of their strongholds to stone walls. Of course, with this material upgrade also comes more powerful attributes and they give castles a much more impressive look.

In addition to these additions, guilds will also be able to access three new mini-games. The first game, dubbed "Trial of the Spirit Warrior," will give players the opportunity to defeat all the monsters they possibly can within a 15 minute time limit. Any player who manages to survive two waves of these monster attacks, however, will face several strong boss opponents. As well, players will be able to select a physical damage buff, a magical damage buff or a physical and magical defence buff to help them battle the baddies.

The next mini-game, called "Needle Drill," will basically have players trying to get across fields where steel spikes are randomly popping up. Players who can successfully avoid the most spikes will earn the most honor. Highly skilled players will also be able to grab the bonus sigils that appear and give special advantages.

Finally, the third mini-game, "Call of the Horns," will have players joining either the "Whitefurs" or the powerful, evil "Blackhorns," in a battle to destroy the opposing army's flag. What an odd objective! Either way, guilds should be happy with stage one of Frogster's Chapter III update, and fans should expect new lands and new content soon enough!