I was at a friends house last night and he was so overcome with emotion (j/k) that he decided to show me his new toy. A big Diablo 2 fan, it was like all his birthdays had come at once when his wife got him WoW for Valentines day (yep, some girls will do that for their bloke
).He showed me a bit of game play and I created two characters, a Warrior and a Druid, both Night Elves.
The Character creation screen is very basic compared to Ryzom, The end result being a character appearing to look very cartoonish. As you enter the world, it is in a woodland area very reminiscent of Matis, but not as wll presented, the graphics are sort of cartooney and blurry, sort of like a PS 2 game. Anyway, I see a guy across from me with a "!" over his head, so I run across to him.................. the run animation is so rubbish, the character is a female, the animation when she runs makes her look like Raziel in Legacy of Kain with his big claws waving and swaying as he runs, it's hard to describe better than that, so, I'll leave it at that.
Anyway my first quest, kill 7 Boars and 7 Mangy (somethings), no problem, I like killing stuff
, I saw a mob a bit away from me and clicked on it, whacked it a bit and it was dead, no real animations on the animal, as it attacked, It looked rubbish graphically none of the flair in design you get in Ryzom, so I did the quest and went back for my reward, I got a sword that was worse than the one I looted off the animals, I did a bit of levelling and bought some skills, Charge, you click on it and you run towards the mob and fight, then there were a couple of other things that Stunned or caused Bleeding, but it was very basic, compared to the Stanza system in Ryzom.Next up the Druid, this character can use melee and certain spells, but most are for out door use. Anyway, I enter the world and do all the same quests again and I have to say that while more interesting than the warrior to play (you can use the spells as a ranged attack and then melee the mob), The spells are graphically fairly rubbish and cant be tailored like you can in Ryzom.
Next up, the much lauded "all ready implementd" Quest system. You do a bunch of quests (FedEx stuff) to get off newbie island, they are too mundane to list here, but the Final Quest is so laughable I have to mention it. The manual tells you the story so far OK?, So anyway you go to the local Lord and he gives you a flask, he tells you a bit of the "story so far" (SSF
) and says go to the fountain and fill it and bring it back to him (this is a fair bit of a distance to travel, especially whe you are getting a bit bored). You bring it back and he tells you a bit more of the SSF to keep you on tenterhooks 
and says bring the flask to the next town. You get there the guy to whom you give the flask tells you some more of the SSF (WOW! cant wait for this to end) and sends you to the next town with a flask to fill and bring it back for some more of that yummy SSF.I eventually got to the main town, but had lost all interest as to why I went there in the first place Suffice to say it was a cool looking place, sort of Greco/Roman style thing going on, you get trainers and merchants etc. One thing though which was interesting, you buy your skills for cash. I also noticed that you get more XP for quests than for fighting, that made the game very unpalatable for me.
Basically the game is Diablo 2 in 3D (I'm probably doing it a great disservice describing it like that, but that is how it appeared to me). My friend loves it, I'm going to send him some screenies of Ryzom to let him see the difference. Does anybody know if the free Buddy accounts are still valid?
Valda.
. Yes, you now have you revenge, we are evened out once more (I introduced her to AO, then didnt see her for 2,5 year).