Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
RE: Ryzom (Mods - don't move as I want views from all players not just Ryzom ones. Thanks)
Majestico
Member UncommonPosts: 481
I've been a played of MMO's for several years now. I love the genre, and it is still my favourite. I can see a future when we will play in photo-realistic maps, using 3d technology, allowing us to partake in the greatest imaginable playing experience. This may be a couple of decades away, but no other current genre has a chance to emulate this success.
However, that is a debate for another time.
Now onto the present state-of-affairs. Whilst many of us bicker and moan about the stagnation of this genre. They fail to see that this is just the process it has to go through before it evolves to the next level.
As such, whereas I am still enjoying the likes of Lotro, EQ2, WoW. I am always on the look out for other titles. MMORPG.com is a great site as is my resource in finding less well known games. Face of Mankind being one of them, and whilst I was only able to log-in once, I saw much potential.
Eve is another title I wish I could spend more time in., and no doubt once I have played Mines of Moria and Wrath of the Lich King, I shall.
The other day, I asked for a recommendation of something different whilst I awaited the arrivel of my 'big two expansions'.
Other than Requiem (which I could not get to work), the other title was Ryzom. A game that I have yet to hear a bad word against.
I downloaded the client and it does have a different 'feel' to it.
Now, what I want to know is this: What makes this game so special (other than just being able to merge classes)? How does it work? Is there a storyline? Does the planet actually evolve? Anything that you can think of, I would like to hear.
I noticed that the creatures seemed to form herds, and appeared to have a life of their own. Was this just my imagination?
Anything you can tell me would be appreciated. Go into as much detail as you can. Does pvp exist, and how? Are there role-playing oppertunities? Crafting? As much info as poss. And why is it different from other games? What is its size? I'm hoping that by your answers that I may add this game to my list of favourites!
Comments
Yes the AI in Ryzom is very realistic and intelligent, for a MMO. Animals will herd together, come up and smell you etc.
Ryzom does have PVP, it is not FFA and mainly consists of guilds or factions, and also fighting over Outposts.
Crafting is huge in Ryzom, almost everything is made by players, and you will notice that almost all loot is just crafting materials which is a very good thing.
In ryzom you can make hybrid classes, and can literally level any of the skill trees, from harvesting to fighting.
Those are all good things, now the bad.
The game once you come off newbie island is ridiculously hard. You can be fighting a monster and owning it, and a monster nearby who looks the same, has the same color name, but just a slight difference in its name and it will two shot kill you.(Super Orc of Power being easy, but then Super Ork of Power being the other)
Since you cannot see monster levels, this makes the game stupid frustrating and hard. Why is there in generic terms a lvl 20 monster and lvl 5 monster in the same exact area, and why do they look exactly alike? I do not know, but its bad development if you ask me. Also post newbie Island you really are not given any direction.
Now it is a sandbox, which I love and I understand that direction is not required in a Sandbox, but you are literally just dumped, and due to the previous statement of strange monster grouping and other annoying aspects it really can ruin your experience in the game.
Ryzom has a ton of promise much like eve, but due to prior poor management I think its ship has already sunk. Where in EvE due to good management it is growing in popularity.
Ryzom has better harvesting and crafting than EvE. Only downside is that the economy portion isn't as vibrant, though others would call it spreadsheety instead. I mean seriously Ryzom mostly uses barter for play to player transactions.
As for classing in Ryzom yes you can learn every skill in the game, but inside one combat instance you'll likely fall under a traditional archtype(Mage, priest, tank, palidin, crowd control) because of gear effectiviness(you litteraly trade stats around and just become ineffective at some stuff and excel at others) and since you're going to be waiting 2-3 seconds to swap a single piece of gear you don't see tranformations in battle very often(though you do see people using abilities outside of their 'class' setup pretty often).
Really you might as well get in now it's completely free till the end of October and maybe longer. Afterwards we'll see how they end up setting up the billing system.
I find it amazing that by 2020 first world countries will be competing to get immigrants.
The worst thing about Ryzom back in the day was it's low population numbers and I assign the blame for that on poor marketing. It's a good game and there is so much crap in the market currently with healthy subscriber numbers, that I believe Ryzom could easily attract a base similar to EvE's numbers, if the new management advertises the game correctly. A fresh server start though is crucial for Ryzom's growth.
Things that I really liked about Ryzom were the character designs, definitely different. Also intelligent mob AI. NPC carnivours would attack other NPC herbivores which is realistic AI. It has a complicated and difficult to master crafting system which I like. But the most creative thing was the way you could combine spell and skill attacks to build your own special personal attacks. It's a really cool concept.
i dunno.. i tried ryzom and it seemed way too cutesy cartoony for my taste. didn't seem like it had much content. the gameplay was relatively boring, imho. esp once you get off the newbie island it seems to be all downhill from there. the only thing good about ryzom is the community, but that also wasn't good enough to keep me playing. i dunno.. if you like feeling like a chicken running around with your head cut off you might enjoy ryzom, but personally, it just wasn't the game for me.
war is peace
freedom is slavery
ignorance is strength
big brother is watching you
Well you can't play a better sandbox than Eve atm while Ryzom is a sandbox also it has limitations that I hope the new developers will fix.
Ryzom is one of those MMOs that have an "art style" similar to games like WoW its not trying to be realistic.
While I enjoyed Ryzoms Combat (I liked being able to que my next spell) other than that it seemed like the same old combat we have been experiencing since UO/EQ1.
Crafting is rather good all the really good armor is crafted so thats a plus and all the mob drops are crating materials, this can be seen as a plus or negative depending if you enjoy loot drops.
While the game is a sandbox pvp isnt FFA like you would expect you basically get killed and work off a Xp debt and you lose durability on armor/weps till they break (cant repair them).
Ryzoms game world is really vibrant and the Mob AI is absolutley amazing the best in any MMO to date.
Just keep in mind that this game has virtually no optional storyline /lore missions like other sandbox games leaving you basically grinding skills with no optional path to do quests for skill points.
The new developers did recently say they are adding more missions to the game so thats a plus.
Anyway the game is free right now so give it a try, it isnt for everyone (much like other sandboxes) but it is a good all around game.
Playing: Nothing
Looking forward to: Nothing
Haven't played in awhile, but really enjoyed this game. The world is pretty immersive, and beautiful to look at, while the critter AI is top notch. The ability to learn everything and max all skill trees is really cool, but can also be a huge drawback since leveling even one requires major grinding so you can imagine the time you'd have to invest. Also its pretty much expected for everyone to level up healing since anyone who can heal can also rez.
Joining a guild is essential because as previously mentioned the economy is very lacking. Most of your gear you will get by knowing someone who knows someone who sells something. Also most PvP is guild or faction related so if you have any interest in that you'll need to pick a side.
The community is really top notch. I never met a Ryzom player who was rude, even in PvP. Not saying there aren't any, just that I never saw them. In-game support was also the best I'd ever seen, but since I haven't played since before the new team took over I don't know if it still is, I hope so.
The biggest drawback for me was that it was a constant grindfest so that you could get to a more useful level and go into harder areas. On the mainland there really isn't much quest opportunity. When you want to build up points with a faction you have to run the same quests over and over to get points. Also if you're not big on crafting then you're gonna feel left out when your whole team drops what they are doing to start harvesting nodes in the desert.
Even so I'm actually downloading it now so I can play for free for the next month and see what changes have been made.