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Curious...
The recent article Worth a Second Look brought a number of folks into/back to Ryzom, myself included. I'm curious to know how many of you stayed and how many left. Mostly I'm interested in the whys concerning the staying or not.
I suppose I could create a poll and make it easy but, given that I think this is one of the best MMOs ever released, I'm curious why more people aren't trying (and sticking with) it given that it's free (to a point).
The reasons I haven't stuck with it over the years can mostly be pinpointed at population, or lack thereof. Well, I originally quit back in early 2005 due to the poor, imo, choices made by the original company in some of the early patches. I've come back a number of times but just haven't been able to stay for long.
I'm planning on sticking it out for a while this time around but I've definitely noticed a drop in folks online vs right after the aforementioned article released hence this thread. So yep, reply away!
Comments
I have to say that that article prompted me to download the game (I had the original disks for quite a while) and now I'm trying to get my old account back.
For me it could be like Vanguard as that it's a casual game that I can just wander and enjoy the world.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
As dangerous as Vanguard's environments can be... I can honestly say, Atys is not a great place for "casually wandering the world". You'll be sent running for your life quite often
Now whether that's a good or bad thing is up to you...
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
I am currently taking a tour of F2P games including Ryzom(good game , will stay on my HD) Forsaken and perfect world (did not like super easy mode so deleted) , Atlantica online (fun turned base combat, will stay on HD) Isitar-used to be Horizons( not bad but very bad graphics and not as good as its closest competition Ryzom), I dont know how many people are on the mainland but would like to find out
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
I haven't played Ryzom in quite some time but what made me leave and keeps me from going back is that it becomes very very grindy. That may have changed but I remember grinding xp with guildies for many hours on end.
Oh, that hasn't changed. It is rather "grindy" due to the lack of hold your hand questing available. I kinda like that though. I mean, it IS an MMorpg thusly requiring you to group with other folks. What surprises me most is that many of the features of Ryzom have not been adopted by other MMOs. The other MMO that stands out to me as one of the best is EVE mostly due to their skill system. MMorpg's should require interaction imo. I like, and actually prefer, soloabilty - but that is what single player games are for.
I've also only ever been Zorai in this game which seems to be the least populated race, afaik. And as someone stated above, I also own the original box/manual/2 discs purchased at a Gamestop back in September 2004.
Thank you for the replies thus far - look forward to more.
@WSIMike: Unfortunately I did not discover Ryzom until 2 days after the Open Beta stopped. I bought it based on what I read on the original forums and the research I did elsewhere. I do definitely recall dying to said Yubos more than once while trying to level my melee as a noob though.
Ahh...okay. The patch I'm referring to came in the first week of its retail launch. Making the yubos and such super hard was only one of the insane things they did... As I recall, a large number of its players said "screw this" and walked away.. never to return.
It never recovered from that and, well, the rest is well-documented history.
A genuinely unique MMO offering with some brilliant gameplay mechanics and excellent lore... that was fumbled horribly when it was barely out of the gate.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
That's my issue. Ryzom has so many unique aspects that I don't understand why they haven't been stolen.
I downloaded:) Fun game, going to keep playing as well
It wasn't the lack of quests that got to me. For me it was the mindless killing just for the sake of getting xp. I really didn't feel there was much of a reason or purpose behind my never ending carnage. I didn't see a reason why I would even need to learn the skills that I was trying to learn except to go kill more things in this never ending cycle of meaningless destruction.
To the best of my memory (and thats not saying much) there wasn't any kind of raid or dungeon that I was building my toon for. There just wasn't reason for me to keep playing. The game did not have a purpose.
In SWG I had some reason to go out in to the wilderness and kill everything that I saw. There was a reason to level up your skills. There was something to do after that was all said and done. In Ryzom I just felt like it was all pointless. This was back around 2005 I would say. To me it felt like a chatroom with a game of meaningless grinding added on.
On a plus side I thought it looked pretty and had the most vibrant and alive feeling world that has yet to be matched. To bad there just wasnt a reason for me to be there.
It's good!!!!
I have to say the "good" problem with games like these is that they are very engrossing. I logged in at around 7:30 pm and beforeI knew it the time was after 11pm.
I think in addressing the player who had a problem with the lack of quests i would say the game isn't about quests but more about what it is you want to do.
So you don't kill to get xp. You kill to get materials in order to sell and get money so that you can then be succssful in what it is you want to do.
For me it's just exploring and killing monsters. For some it's about crafting for some it's about gathering mats to sell.
Essentially you are given a virtual world and "what do you want to do"?
It's really all about you. As opposed to a theme park game that gives the player a variety of diversions to indulge in. Though I wonder what the difference is between SWG and Ryzom as far as reasons to do things? I thought they were similiar?
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
I left due to population. I really could only play beyond the starting race areas if grouped. Though I even found a good guild, people could only be helpful when they were on, and the world is big enough, and travel is slow enough that it would be like
"Sure! I'll help you. Give me 20 minutes."
"Never met a pack of humans that were any different. Look at the idiots that get elected every couple of years. You really consider those guys more mature than us? The only difference between us and them is, when they gank some noobs and take their stuff, the noobs actually die." - Madimorga
I did enjoy Ryzom for the brief time I played end of last year / beginning of this year. I stopped for a couple of reasons:
1. New job
2. Ryzom mechanics are the bare bones of the game
I love Atys - the look and feel of the different environments - in terms of a living planet (gigantic roots everywhere) with a real Eco-system i.e. Predator-prey creature AI, deadly creatures in roaming packs; crafting mats determined by both environment and seasons; hauntingly beautiful weather effects; and a vast array of different landscapes teaming with life.
Peel back the skin and the complexity and depth are cosmetic. There didn't appear to be as wide variety of clothing, armour patterns and weapons as I first though. The stanza system to allow you to create your own skills and spells is innovative but like a lot of mechanics in game, not fully fleshed out.
Players cannot create permanent structures beyond outposts. So the feeling of being able to try and tame the wilderness by staking a claim starts to dwindle.
Potentially cool features like NPC tribes have little meaning other than to generate dull collect x kill y quests. It is also a shame that the Kami and Karavan were never really fleshed out more beyond fast travel [teleportation].
Yet Atys does hold an allure because it is a really beautiful world, filled with delights both subtle and gross. Trekking with a group of players - including mounts - across dangerous and inhospitable terrain, is something that few games manage to reach, let alone excel. Whilst GM events and RPing both on the in-game forums and in-game can change the direction of the game, Atys still feels as though players have only been provided with rudimentary tools to carve out their own content.
Ryzom remains at heart a wildly ambitious title and deserves more time than I initially gave, even if it only provides but a glimpse of its unrealised potential. I think I owe it to Ryzom to give it another try.
"If you think I'm plucky and scrappy and all I need is love, you're in way over your head. I don't have a heart of gold or get nice. There are a lot nicer people coming up. We call them losers."
I dowloaded Ryzom recently and have been playing on and off for a month or so.
the game feels unique in some ways, and conventional in others.
the world design is great, as are the models and basically all the aestethic stuff. I loved the shifting seasons and roaming mobs, and any game that steps away from the usual fantasy lore clichés is worth a second look.
however, despite all this I found myself being bored quite fast.
the whole thing comes down to the standard, tedious, tab-targeted combat, waiting for hotbar skills cooling down, grinding easy mobs close to noob town, so that you can grind harder mobs further away, etc...
the fact that you can modify skills and don't have to restrict yourself to premade classes, doesn't change the fact that Ryzom's skill system boils down to the same logic as most MMOs: you either dps, tank, or heal - plus do some cratfing and gathering in between.
the fact that there are no quests beyond noob town does not mean that you're "free", it only means that you will be grinding mobs without a story telling you why you're doing it.
I haven't left the starter island yet though, I guess I'll try the mainland before I give up on the game completely.
I understand your arguments, but i think you are falling in the usual mistake people fall when they start playing.
If you play Ryzom the same as the other MMO around, you'll never really enjoy it. You should consider Ryzom more a virtual world than a game.
Role playing is important and, despite in the starter island you have little approach to the story, the background is very deep and the game evolves based on a deep history. Also, given the hard job of the event team, the game evolves based on what the players do during these key events.
As you said, combat is not different from other MMOs (and implicitly this means that every MMO have the same behaviour, with little differences), apart of the skill system and freedom, but what makes the difference is the approach you need to have to the world around you.
In Atys what makes the difference are not your skills, but your knowledge of the wildlife and the landscape because I assure you, a people with many masters but with weak knowledge of the world, will die pretty fast and very often. This is one reason to avoid powerleveling in Ryzom: the worst choice a people can do in Ryzom, because the fast master gained will not give you any real power without the knowledge. On the other side, people with little combat skills, because they prefer harvesting/crafting (harvesting is very deep, not just a click to gather materials), but with a good knowledge can survive and be "key" people in Atys.
In the starter island you don't see the real weather and season system, and how they affect the entire world, in every aspect: landscape, resources, animals and npc migrations, indirectly affecting how you will move, dig or hunt around.
Try the mainland enough days to join a trek between continents and to meet with other people, but if you only focus in the combat and don't consider the story, the other players and the world around you, as something to learn and understand, you'll not like the game.
Of course, this is just my opinion.
Nickname registered on www.mynickname.org
thanks for the input and information.
however, I tried Ryzom because people said it was a sandbox - I basically never play standard themepark games, so I did approach it with the "virtual world" mindset, not the "grind for gear" mindset.
I'm sure things get more open on the mainland, but to someone coming from games like Mortal, Darkfall, UO, Linkrealms, etc, the starter area in Ryzom does feel like a very standard themepark MMO, not matter which mindset you have.
there are the basic quests of "kill 10 X" or "talk to X person", the mobs get harder the further you go from the noob spawn, there are no player structures, or any signs of player impact on the world whatsoever, no real death penalties (= no risk), etc.
this, plus the non-skillbased tab-target combat, bores me fast.
but as I said, I'll head for the mainland and check out how things change. do I need to get my combat skills up to a certain level before that is recommended?
Originally at release, the starter island was totally sandbox (there were one starting area for each race), but it was changed because most new players were generally going lost on the way pretty fast. Sandbox lovers as us are a minority, and most consider ffa-pvp a needed feature of a sandbox.
Actually Silan (the starter island) is only a tutorial. The mainland is fully sandbox, and all the mission around are there only to gain reputation (some initial quest-line was added later, to help people too used of themeparks, but you don't need to do any quest if you don't wanna do). Only exceptions are the "enciclopedia rites" that will recover ancient lost knowledge and give perks to players. But you can do anytime you want.
You mentioned some good sandbox, but Ryzom pvp is consensual. The game is mainly pve oriented, despite Guild Outposts have some meaning in the pvp, that is mainly FvF (but the system support simple pvp, duels, GvG, tagged-ffa and an arena ffa).
All these activities are generally managed thru politics in-game. Also, the Guilds can participate in each race local government, thru special events and meetings. Government decisions can affect the game.
Said that, Ryzom for sure miss some good sandbox feature, such as ability to build your own house (but you can circumvent this limitation using the ring editor), on the other side it offers some uniqueness, such as wildlife AI and deep ecosystems.
It's all about if you get involved and interested in the ingame life. But I suppose this is true for every game you start play.
About when you can leaave Silan, well, originally people were forced to leave at level 21 (in one or all the 4 main skills), actually i think 25-30 can be a good moment to jump to mainland.
Nickname registered on www.mynickname.org
I understand, but I think the whole concept of a starter zone is counter-productive if it works in this way: themepark players are led to believe the game will be about questing and mob grinding, making them disapointed when getting to the "real" areas, and sandbox fans will get bored by the convential style of gameplay, and quit before they get to experience what the game is all about.
anyway, I'll just level up some skills and go check out the mainland.
to me a PvE sandbox is fine, I'm not a FFA zealot (even though I find it sometimes adds a lot of risk and thus interesting aspects to otherwise mundane game aspects).
I agree with you, Silan should have some more love from the devs. You have to consider the game moved between 3 companies, last one having some original developer involved. All these passages slowed down the original plans and there was, as often happens, some bad decision.
Anyway, if it's the risk and the thrill you are searching, you don't need pvp for that: in this case, ryzom pve is very hard and you'll discover it as soon as you jump in the mainland.
And if you want some pvp thrill you can just travel thru the pvp regions (despite ganking is not an usual task in ryzom, it can still happens) or stay tagged all the time.
Hope you can get some fun in Atys.
Nickname registered on www.mynickname.org