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Wondering about this game
I've played quite a few MMO's in my day, and this one had caught my eye. I'm waiting for the next gen MMO's to come out, but a year is some time away, so I'm on the search for a good MMO. I'm looking for a world that I can find myself engrossed in. I haven't been able to find that since EQ 1. So I have a few questions for you vets that have played the game. I want your honest opinion, thanks for your help in advance.
1. Is the Game seamless or are there zones?
2. How does combat work? Is it like every other MMO where I can put on auto attack and just make a sandwhich?
3. How much content is there in the game and is it quality work? Is the content shoved down your throat saying do this as WoW, or is it more free-form do as you can gameplay?
4. Are the worlds populated and do they feel alive? This is a problem I find with most MMO's as NPC's just stand there doing nothing. How many players are in the game?
5. Are there player owned houses or animals?
6. How large is the world? More importantly, does the world feel like an empty wasteland such as SWG?
7. How is the music? I love a great soundtrack to a game, it really sets the mood.
8. What are possible avenues of gameplay that a player can do? Are there a myriad of options available, or does it fall into the kill monster, get xp routine?
9. Is the community friendly and helpful?
10. Is it fun and worthwhile? How much time can be spent in the world?
Thanks again for helping me by answering these questions 
Comments
1 - Almost seamless. There are portals between lands and to enter certain buildings and areas but otherwise you can run free.
2 - You can autoattack, but there are reactive attacks that exploit openings. To maximise your combat potential you should be present. Plus fights are short usually, no time to make food
3 - I can't answer this until I know what YOU mean by 'content'. It is much more a sandbox game, but I need to know what you mean.
4 - The lands are populated but have hotspots. Oddly the capitals can sometimes seem empty as the levelled players spend more of their time elsewhere, only coming back to apartment and guildhall.
5 - Houses - yes - limited. Animals - Yes - Pack beasts and animals you can ride.
6 - Huge. Much of it is SUPPOSED to be wasteland though
It'll seem more populated once outposts are integrated.
7 - Music is only on death, teleporting and themes for the towns. Personally I prefer that, unintrusive music. The background noises and beast sounds are very rich and helpful, in surround sound too! The game does have a built in MP3 player for your own soundtrack though
8 - If you want to level, you can level, otherwise you can get involved in events and otherwise make a name for yourself. There's no classes, so you can switch careers freely.
9 - Massively so, the biggest strength.
10 - Yes it is, IMO, but you have to get used to a different way of playing. The onus is much more on you, the player, to make of the game what you will. Not to sit back and be spoonfed. The more you put in, the more you get out.
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I'll try to be as honest as I can. I'm not in game anymore both played it for about a month and reading the oficial forums of the game almost everyday
Seamless, the only loading times you have is when you enter a big building or your (guild)appartement and when using a teleport ofcourse. (if this is what you mean with seamless)
Mmmh I never had that feeling but I could be wrong. But if you want to make a good and save fight it's certainly not a 'sandwich' game. Switching between stanzas using hp or stam... using self heal, or just running from the mobs when you're hp gets low
. Lot of the fighting happens in team so when you have nothing to do you can always chat
Certainly not as WoW. Not that much missions (some will probably say very few missions) but the game as a big lore behind it and with some big patches coming on this would certainly approve. Lot's of player made events. Also events from the event-team but less the last time... They are building up at some big war thing for the moment, don't know when it will unfold but it sure looks promissing
Not that many players I think. And NPC's are running around (accept trainers) but not doing very special things for the rest
Appartements can be bought for extra storage, just as mounts and packers. No other pets
Never played SWG but the world is really awesome, big (for me, don't know what it is for other players) and certainly very beautiful (that I'm sure about that this counts for everyone
)
Not that much music, only when entering city's and while teleporting. But there is an mp3 player ingame so you can play any music you would like
. The ingame music is also downloadable on the official site, so if you want to know it, have a look there
If you want high levels, it's killing killing killing. But because there are no classes in Ryzom, you can go from killing to crafting to harvesting to healing to... Whenever you feel like doing that. I personnaly never got tired of the killing (but then I only played for about a month). Pretty much RP events to so you could spend sometime with roleplaying as wel
YES!! Best community I've ever met in a MMORPG
I could. You can meet a lot of nice people, discover the different lands, helping other players, doing some of the rites (missions). With the outposts coming up PvP/GvG will get a new boost to (hopefully)
np
I'll just cover what others have not mentioned
3. How much content is there in the game and is it quality work? Is the content shoved down your throat saying do this as WoW, or is it more free-form do as you can gameplay?
Most diehard fans (and there are many) get ticked off when ppl ask about content, probably because its a sore spot with the game. When most ppl ask about content, they really ask: "What is there to do in the game?" The typical fan's reply is: "the game is what you make of it". Translation: if you are into RP you will have plenty to do, well RPing. But then you can get that in any free MORPG with a strong RP community.
If you are not, here are the tings you can do: You can kill things. You can kill them again. If you are sick of that you can kill them in a group. Level. Buy new spells. Kill more things. You can sell the raw materials you get from them, or craft things from them. You can do the same thing with harvesting. Lets see.... What else? Oh thats about it. Exploring does not work as you will get killed fast. There is not a whole lot to find anyway apart from admiring the scenery and wild life. Players usually travel in groups to survive. Questing? very primitive and with low rewards (bring this there type).
The good qualities are that the world is beautiful, large and feels alive. NPCs all do their own things. Community is the best out there. Modular action system is my favorite (you can build custom actions such as spells from building blocks). Many innovative features are 'to come'. They may make this game more attractive, but since they are not there they are moot point.
This is one of those cases where the good idea is there but execution is not present. Really wish they did it right, but alas.
what railshot said, a very straight answer.
He also clarified "things to do" are only rp'ing things. This is indeed very accurate.
When the non-rp'ers asked about content, I am guessing that they usually mean, can I go and trigger game scripts, meet special npcs, expereince events that is tied directly to the game mechanics, go exploring to some place and find something special, besides just "being there", etc.
And the answer to that is, pretty much, no.
I played this game in beta, tried the free trial 2 months ago and the biggest beef i have with this game - grindfest. There are very few quests, and most of them are not fun, standard kill x gather y etc etc... Game looked beautifull but as Railshot said, it wasnt implemented well enough to keep my attention.
Since there is a trial, you should definitely try it, you never know, maybe you will like it.
I am the type of player where I like to do everything and anything from time to time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor - pre-WW2 genocide.
Exploration is definitely possible even soloing with level 1 character. It just requires player skills. If you try to explore like in most other games, you will die quickly. On the other hand, even if your character is level 250 in fighting skills it is still easy to die while exploring if player does not have good skills. There is challange and it requires training player's skills but it will be rewarding in the end
Basic survival skills are pretty easy to learn but there is lots of room for advanced development. Every animal species have different behaviour and those will vary based on things like season, time of day, weather etc.
Apart from sense of achievement, exploration rewards for me are finding new things like animal bosses, bandit camps, frienldy npc camps, teleports, spectacular landmarks, raw material deposits.
I am not that much RPer but I seem to find lots of things to do, even if my main character is nowhere near max lvl in main skill but he hasn't got a single level in that skill for 2 or 3 months. Maybe I like to do a little bit of everything
Ah, there's the thing.
Some like the fact that knowledge and reward gained from explorations, although not validate by any game mechanics, are actually more important because the knowledge and experience gained are actually internalized unto the actual player, behind the keyboard, e.g. knowledge of location, mobs, real experience, which can pass on via RL medium like websites and regular conversation,
while others want actual concrete rewards for exploration, such as real skill trees, experience points, an item at the end, a title gained, a special NPC giving special quest, etc.
Ryzom is defintely the former rather than the latter, and the knowledge and experience gained are actually very important and helpful, and I am not just saying that. Although, which is better and be considered "content"? that's entirely up to you.
Content (as defined in www.m-w.com)
1 a : something contained -- usually used in plural <the jar's contents> <the drawer's contents> b : the topics or matter treated in a written work <table of contents>
2 a : SUBSTANCE, GIST b : MEANING, SIGNIFICANCE c : the events, physical detail, and information in a work of art -- compare FORM 10b
3 a : the matter dealt with in a field of study b : a part, element, or complex of parts
4 : the amount of specified material contained : PROPORTION
In my personal opinion, the definition of content best described byt #2c and #4. Basicaly the amount of things you can do and the freedom to do it. To me, SOR did have some content in one area, but did not have enough content in others.
The perfect game, imho, would be the one that allows me to do anything I want without affecting pace of game - whether im grinding, questing, practicing trade skills, laying siege to a fortress or exploring. My gameplay should not drasticaly change, meaninig I should suddenly hit the exp wall if i change from questing to grinding. So far all the games in the market reward one field or the other. EQ was heavy on group grinding, WoW is heavy on questing and solo grinding, I havent figure out SoR quick enough because i got bored with its constant grinding and lack of other ways to play it.
But there is hope on the horizon, as WoW showed us companies actualy are paying attention to customers and are producing games more and more to our liking. They are still far from being perfect but they are slowly moving forward.
I am the type of player where I like to do everything and anything from time to time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor - pre-WW2 genocide.
I bought the game when it first came out and then EQ2 came out and matrix online became beta and then WOW came out and Guild wars. I tried them all not to mentions all the ones out before Ryzom. I reactivated my Ryzom account and am stickin here. The game is not the same old grind. It has had a lot more thought put into it and more realistic. Everyone did a better job explaining the game than I can. All I can tell you is its a real nice change from all the rest and a Quality game with very nice people playing it. If you try it you will not have wasted your money thats for sure. have fun and good luck.
This post is intentionally written as to not make any sense what so ever. Thank You Very Much.
--- Bambul's Signature ---
2)The combat is much like any mmorpg I guess. However, the skill system is different. Once you learn some decent fighting skills you can combine them into more powerful/accurate attacks. Magic is basically the same. So you can customize your spells and attacks to fit your play style or whatever combat situation you are facing. The whole level/skill system is a little complicated, but actually well done IMO.
3) All the content is original. You won't find any orcs or dragons here. It has a fantasy/sci-fi sort of theme to it, but its mostly about swordplay and magic. The graphics are very detailed and most of the environments are pretty amazing to look at and each different area has its own subtle differences in landscape.
4)There are not as many players as WoW for instance, but also not as many a--holes. The world seems very much alive to me. The seasons change about every week and mobs will actually migrate to different places in summer or winter, etc. There are other things that change with the season as well, so its not a purely visual change in the world... things are constantly changing around you.
There are live game events where players join together for some mission, usually 'find this guy' or 'kill these guys.' This is how most of the game story unfolds. The kitin invasion events are pretty awesome though, and often turn into large scale battles lasting for hours! This video will show you what I mean...
http://www.ancor.ch/atysghosts/albums/album09/tryker_invasion.avi
8)It is pretty much just killing for exp most of the time though, dont misunderstand. Some people may not like the quests because they arent good for much, and the weird names of NPCs makes them rather tedious at times. One thing I really like about the game is the lack of character classes. You dont have to be just a caster or just a fighter. You can play any way you want to without making 6 different characters.
9)The community may be small but most people will help you out. If you die and there is someone around they will usually ressurect you if they can...Generally really nice people...
10)It is very time-consuming compared to WoW and Guild Wars. That is, you wont max out your character in a few months... or probably even a year.