Saga of Ryzom

[Ethion]

Since Saga of Ryzom is offering a completely free trial (no CC required) I decided to give it a try.

In the first 5 minutes I hated it. The UI is completely foreign to any normal MMORPG setup. The graphics of your character looks pretty bad. The in world graphics are not very realistic however they are colorful and rather rich once you get over the initial unrealness. In some ways starts to remind me of a Sci Fi spin on World of Warcraft...

That aside the UI uses cursor keys to move. Mouselook works. You click on things and it pops up a descripting of what clicking will do. Click again and it does it. Right click brings up a menu. Same for fighting. Melee has autoengage so you click attack and your character runs up and attacks.

I'm stuborn and try to say I need to spend several hours with a game when I start it to understand it and get uses to it before having a final opinion.

So I did find that I could customize the keymapping somewhat and make it work like a rather normal MMORPG. Other than the autorun to engage thing which isn't too big a problem once you get used to it.

Anyway I'm still learning and seeing some things in the game that are interesting like I can make my own custom abilities and stuff and that it has a pretty deep looking crafting system on par with SWG.

So has anyone else checked into this game and maybe played it past the tutorial area? Is it worth looking at further? Seems like when this launched there was hardly a whisper in the press but so far it looks like a very servicable game....

[Friend_Bear]

I tried it for 20 minutes, hated every minute of it. To me, I think its one of the worst mmos i've played. All the bad concepts and problems in mmos are present, basically i'm avoiding like the plague.

[DBS]

No interest in it... so far I am content with going back to WoW someday. I see nothing superior in the ranks....yet. SWG I might check out if only it had a free trial.

[Ethion]

Well I dug in a bit more and found that this isn't a bad game in fact it is pretty darn good. It does have a steep barrier to entry in terms of the UI being different and the game play more complicated than many MMORPGs.

However what I found after playing to lvl 30-50 in most skills and moving to the mainland off the newbie island is a game that has quite a bit of depth to it and far more story and true RP stuff then any game I've played recently.

Crafting/Harvesting is the best in any game I've played. The only thing comparable is SWG. Everything in the game is pretty much crafted.

Magic/Combat is really unique in that you don't just learn a spell or attack but rather you learn an ability that you can use to create a spell or attack. When you level your mage up you get 10 skilll points you can spend at a trainer. This can be used to buy stats (int) or regen (int) or spell abilities like acid or cold or rot, heals or etc, and you can buy cost items, like sap2 (sap = mana), hp, casting time, etc. Some of these come free when you buy a new spell ability.

So if you train in Acid 1 you will get an icon on your hotbar like any other game. When you target an enemy and click acid 1 sure enough you shoot a shot of acid at the mob. However unlike other games and what isn't obvious to start with is you can right click and edit the spell on your hotbar. What pops up is effects and costs. It is like a balancing act. If you want to save on sap usage you can reduce the usage but then you need to add another cost or remove effects. So basically you can build your spells and customize what they do. Like I have a fast casting long range spell that doesn't do much damage and I have a short range heavy hitting spell. As you go up in levels and learn more abilities you can build more complex actions. This applies to everything.

So prospecting I use a prospect command that only prospects fine quality materials, extends the node life time, does 2 nodes at one time, and has an extended range of 1M. These are all abilities that are combined to make my hotkey that I use for prospecting fine materials.

Crafting is made up of combining 4 types of ingredients in varying quantities to make an item. There are maybe 100-200 different types or ingredients each one in 6 subtypes with 250 quality levels. Each one has maybe 10 or so stats and combining them all effect the stats and color of the items you make. Needless to say there are millions of possibilities. Then add in Having the right skills and recipes and you can see that crafting is very intricate.

Mobs are also interesting. There aren't simply mobile blobs you hack to death. They have abilities that make you life more interesting. Some disarm you, some explode when you kill them, some call friends to join in. Preditors are quite happy to agro on you or native wildlife. Preditors tend to more around a lot so being killed by random preditors is a real possiblity if you aren't paying attention.

Lore seems to be totally overrunning in the game. There are lots of quests and lots of story type things. The game is factional in that there are two opposing sides and you have to decide based on your actions which faction you will move to. You start out neutral although with a race bias. There are outposts guilds can create that can be contested over. There are PvP oriented areas. The game is mostly zoneless. Although when you go into a building it does zone.

GMs are helpful and easily accessable. They run regular events in the game. The ingame community is probably the best I've seen in an MMORPG. Probably the same barrier to entry keeps out a lot of the wrong types of elements that tend to jump into MMORPGs to just be L33T.

Thats a bit of info. Basically I think it is a very good game with a lot of unique features and a lot more depth than many games out there.

[Ethion]

oh a couple more things.

Ryzom has weather effects and seasons.

Guilds have outposts that get special resources and things and are also sources of PvP conflicts. outposts also give various items that temporarily boost stats and give you a 2x multiplier enhancing experience.

Guilds have guild housing and guild vaults.

Housing is also available for players.

You can buy a mount and upto two packers (pack mules). These follow you around and carry stuff for you. Unlike most games these animals are real you can't stuff them in a magic box. They can be attacked and killed. Once they die they are dead. You have a few days to collect your belongings before they rot away. You can stable your animals in various towns.

You also can max out all skills since there are no classes you can learn every spell and skill in the game. Although nobody has ever accomplished this.