For any interested, I thought I would briefly share my impressions after two days of playing Irving on Windermeer.
As a quick background, I have been a full-time MMORPGer since 1999, having played every major (and many minor, obscure) releases, some for years at a time. I am an engineer by trade and in my 30s with a full-time life, turning me into more of a casual MMORPGer these days. After playing EQ2 for two months and deciding I did not like the crafting or combat design (though I loved the harvesting design), and further understanding that the best games for me are skill-based games rather than level-based games, I turned to Ryzom in an effort to find a more satisfying gameplay experience.
I found Ryzom by-way-of Percival Vault, a server board for DAoC, on the IGN Network. Following a link on Gamespot for the free trial, I was able to establish my free trial account and download and setup the game with minimal hassle (other than the long download time). I spent my first day just looking around and trying to wrap my arms around the most basic principles of gameplay in Ryzom. I posted here on the forum for help on two issues, eliciting a friendly and helpful response thread which was much appreciated!
I spent yesterday (day two) playing for about 6-8 hours.
I got to level 20 fighting / level 5 harvesting on the newbie isle. Because no one was crafting any q20+ gear anymore, and there was only one jeweler who was selling for extremely high prices, and finally because I didn't see anything else to do, I decided to jet on over to Yrkanis. Being an experienced gamer, I knew I should probably just stay on the newbie isle and level up harvesting and magic and crafting to 20ish, too, but since I was new to the game and I love exploration, I figured I would come over to the mainland and see new sights, even though I knew I was probably much too weak to venture more than 10 feet out in the new lands
I teleported to Yrkanis and my cat heard me exclaim, "wow!"
What a city! It's huuuuuuge! I don't know about the rest of you North Americans, but I spent my first half hour walking around the city exploring (and doing my newbie-welcome-to-Yrkanis quest) all-the-while making audible remarks in faux Italian to my cat. I haven't seen that many Italian names in one place since my last trip to Arthur Ave in the Bronx!
The next thing I did was enjoy looking through the plentiful wares on the armor and weapon merchants. I bought myself some snazzy purple heavy/medium armors (I don't even like purple, but it looks pretty good on Irving) and identifying a helm I liked that I needed to save 9k to buy.
I then played around Yrkanis, dying many, many times to the aggro 3x dogs who liked to feast on my purply-outfitted self. I took a field trip to the Arena in Majestic Garden, but was unable to figure out how to get in. I did die a spectacular death near the Green Seed encampment, however, when I failed to dodge a pack of rabid dogs who were undeterred by the scarce pickings I presented to them.
I spent the rest of the evening getting harvesting to 10 so I could start magic. I'm going to work on getting magic up so I can have sufficient melee / healing skills to concentrate more fully on harvesting and, in turn, crafting.
Throughout the day I found the in-game community to be friendly. I was a little surprised at how few people there were in-game (Yrkanis had maybe 20 players in it most of the night, as best I could determine), but I understand this is more of a niche game which isn't widely marketed (at least, in my part of the world).
All-in-all I really enjoyed playing yesterday as the fledgling newbie just trying to survive while figuring out what it is he's doing. So if you're in the area, and see a purply-outfitted newbie dying silly deaths to the local wildlife, don't hesitate to say, "hi!" and snicker as he brushes himself off from his latest folly with death.
Best regards,
Irving of Windermeer
