Review of Ryzom after two weeks of play: The Good and the Bad...feel free to discuss

[raynes]

The game IS empty! But you're right... it wouldn't seem as barren without the echo. It's quite startling, also, when you're wandering about in virtual silence and some great creature suddenly screams at you. That has literally made me jump a bit when it happens.

Trust me when you have surround sound speakers on, you tend to jump all the time.

[pinssx]

Trust me when you have surround sound speakers on, you tend to jump all the time.

Right on the money Xixan, they made a mistake releasing the game this early. There are too many things that needs to be refined and polished, and MMORPGs cannot afford the bad impressions of launching without taking these measures.

[shundley]

Trust me when you have surround sound speakers on, you tend to jump all the time.

I will trust you, Raynes, and because I do, I will not be buying expensive surround sound speakers for my VERY mediocre computer any time soon. You have probably saved me from both a blood pressure AND wallet malfunction. You may have even saved my marriage as my husband tends to get cranky when I spend lots of money on things I never use.

Thank you, friend!

[ilsefa]

I've been playing for one week now, just for reference.

- Most beautiful game world I've seen. Some negatives: some armor on female chars is way too revealing to please the player.

- I like the skills system, very versatile and you can customize your character. I think later, though, we'll be seeing people with every skill line maxxed. I do wish we could sell back bad purchases but that's not essential since there's always more XP.

- Crafting is good, complex enough for the nerdiest crafter, simple enough for anyone to get a foothold in. Same with harvesting. Too many clicks, my wrist *hurts* after a good play session. The future for young crafters would be brighter if there was some way of putting a level requirement on item use. e see level 20 players whining that they can't get the money to pay for full kits of level 50 choice gear. They aren't interested in buying from the crafters who are making good level 20-30 gear. This will get worse. Adding an "effective" use on higher tier items might help if high items are mostly wasted on younger chars. NPC vendors might help, too.

- Selling is too clicky, too. After crafting selling the items is painful and slow.

- Storage: get a packer. For the time invested to get the cash, packers have to be the best storage to player time investment I've seen in any game.

- The pesky, curious messab standing behind me when a node releases toxic gas and I can't step away from it MUST be turned into steaks!


Peony residing in Fairhaven

[gatineau]

So far I have overall enjoyed the game. Ryzom has good potential. Shall wait and see after a few months, when 'potential' becomes a four letter word.

On the plus side, the scenery and concepts are great. If the story line develops, Ryzom can be a nice, long-term game.

On the minus side, lag often makes the game unplayable. Also, having saved characters VANISH when you next log in is not encouraging. In the past week I have lost 5 characters due to technical issues. It currently seems pointless to try and develop a character, when there is no guarantee the character will still be there the next time you log in!

Taking a wait and see attitude. But the 'free' month will be over all too soon.

[jamkull]

(FEEL FREE TO DISCUSS, AGREE OR DISAGREE - THANKS)


-Stability/Tech: The game has been very stable and I have encountered much less bugs than in other MMORPG's (don't even get me started on AC2 or Horizons).

Hm.. i begin to wonder if we are playing the same game.. since i've started every night is horrid on lag. Please Wait... do i need to say more?

-Content: The game, at least the newbie game (i.e. up to around 30 levels of melee or magic combat) is very very stale. You just run around the outside environment and kill low level mobs. There is not exploring, no dungeons or buildings.

I just want to fully agree.. this is the main downfall to me for this game.

-Sound: Dead boring. I've heard more interesting sounds at the library!!!

Yeah no kidding.. you'd figure this would be one of the few things they would finish in beta.

-Crafting interface is too cumbersome...you can only make 1 piece at a time...why not have a field that allows you to set the number you want to create? Am i wrong...is there a way to do this already?

-equipment/loot: No usuable dropped loot....if you are only interesting in combat and not crafting, than you are nothing more than a worker drone collecting raw materials for crafters. Other than XP, hunting is not rewarding, especially since there are no quests, boss mobs and exploring for new content that makes adventuring more interesting. I have yet to see special loot/equipment, everything is standard issue from crafters. I believe that there is an enchantment system but I have yet to see people selling enchantments.

This i think you probably couldn't be more off or wrong about. the reason i think that you can't make mutiple items is the fact that there is a random chance of each item made being magical in nature. so far i have made many daggers and pikes that have special magical properties to them. one QL 24 pike having acid 6 on it and doing 54 base dmg with 157 damage from the acid. the cast was only 2.8 seconds also. but only held 168 sap and used 55 sap per shot. so it didn't hold much and the crystals are fairly expensive.

So if they did more than one at a single shot it would be power leveling for crafters... and umm.. that won't work.

-Quests: The quests are cookie cutter and only consist of killing 'X' amount of a particular animal or gathering X amount of raw materials. There are no epic quests, there are no variations in quests for any of the different races and no quests which have any storyline to them. Ugh...one of the worst aspects of Ryzom

Well once you've played many mmorpgs you learn that killing X critters isn't a quest at all. it is simply a task or a mission. in this game it calls it a mission. quests usually involve some story and require multiple actions that require a small amount of thinking.. in the very least. this game doesn't have even that.

-Combat: Too much down time between mobs.

With heal self and with high regen trained i don't have much downtime on mobs... at level 33 i would kill 5 to 7 growling cloppers and have to rest after that. but i feel that is good.

-No player vaults/storage and no NPC consignment vendors.

Have you not been to the mainland yet?.. there are pack mules for sale at the stables. they hold a good chunk of stuff. they take a little getting use to. they cost 118k, or you can buy a house/appartment for 1 mil. hehe.. i think the pack animals will do for now.

But i'm with the fact there should be some bank. i personally loved the banking system in WoW. tons of space to begin with and you can buy up to 10 more pack spaces if needed that have just as much as the main space. and you have a couple of bank spots for shared banking as well.


but for the rest of the stuff i pretty much aggree with...

[terokone]

I've only been playing for 5 days and I'm addicted already. In fact, I stay up until 0500 playing. Not too good when I got classes to go to at 1230
I don't play with sound on (in fact, the game doesn't even detect my sound card). Graphics are great, and the mob AI system is great too. I love sneaking by the cloppers and goaris (I'm still in newbie zone) just to get to the Kipee area. I also like running by a group of cloppers, hoping to get attacked, and I usually get attacked by 5 at once I really can't wait to get to the mainland just so I can explore something. One thing I have explored though is that Tryker Island is... Tryker Island What I can't wait for is storyline. EnB had an absolutely great storyline, but EA (must refrain from swearing at those two letters) didn't give the devs the resources to get the storyline out.

What I don't like is the lag, and yes, I understand that that's inevitable and I can live with it. Oh yea, and the one thing I don't like is the CTD after I visit the skill NPCs.

And Raynes, are you the Raynes from EnB? Just curious

-------
Terokone of Tryker

[jclifton]

Problem with Ryzom:
-- The players that complain about things that 'dont exist in the game' but really do, they just dont take the time to ask or figure it out...


"-No player vaults/storage and no NPC consignment vendors"

PACKHORSES.... you can buy a packhorse, IE a vault/bank that you can access from any stable. Just buy the packhorse, put it in stable and it becomes another 'bag' in your inventory that you can look at no matter WHERE you are in game (that is a first for me with ANY game, being able to see in your bank/vault from any location in game) and you can move stuff in and out of this horse when you are at ANY stable in any town (rename them to bank in your mind if it makes you feel better). Buy the horse, stick it in stable and voila, instant bank vault.. need more space? buy ANOTHER packhorse.

PATCHNOTES!!!
Learn to read the patchnotes. The developers dont write them and make them public for their own enjoyment. There is actually some pretty factual stuff there, such as PLAYEr VENDORS which will come in next major patch. Lots of games dont come out with player vendors at release, they are almost always planned for a later patch as they can cause a lot of hassle/bugs/problems and a new game has enough on its plate without the extra hassle all at once. Dont play a game from release if you want the 'finished' product. Games released are never released with every single possible little feature that is planned for them due to time constraints on getting the product out (yes it costs money to code these games and they need to make money in order to keep coding etc), and how much content goes into the initial release that will need to be debugged. No matter what you say about how a game should be released without bugs, when you put a game to the test on the open market with tons more people using it and doing moronic things that no one ever thought of doing, bugs will occur. Look at some of the ways that you could dupe items on Ultima Online (become a outlaw murderer by killing another player, run across a server line twice, die to a mob, get someone to rez you and then go ld blackholing yourself for a day, come back and items in your pack were duped, or something equally silly that was not thought of to be tested for..)

Not being able to craft multiple items at once?
Ive been a career crafter in most games i have played, UO, SWG, DAOC.. and games simply do NOT allow you to make multiple items with one click. That is called mass production and this game has no need for someone to make 500 daggers in one click. Why not let me kill 500 mobs at once so i spend less time fighting and getting more xp more quickly? There would be no achievement in the skill if you could just mass produce items for xp (since i assume you didnt really want to make 500 daggers for your own personal use) so everyone would be a crafter since it takes no effort and the people who LOVE to craft wouldnt stand out for their dedication. These multiplayer online games are places you are suppose to invest a lot of time into your character in order to achieve your goal.

[aelvana]

Not being able to craft multiple items at once?

So crafters won't powerlevel themselves, ya.

[bremmon]

I like the game alot. I agree with many posters who say that the game has great potential.

Graphics: Love the graphics. This world is far more alive than most of the MMORPGs out there. The lag is bad though and I can't wait until they get the servers more stable or beefed up.

Sound: I don't have any problems with the sound. They could have more ambient sounds than they already have if there won't be any music but, for the most part, I enjoy what is there. Again, makes it feel like you are in an actual world.

Gameplay: I enjoy what is here presently but this game definitely needs more. Need actual storyline quests. I find I don't do any missions/tasks as there are very few I can actually accomplish. Concerning tasks, it would be good for them to have a more balanced approach and make enough for all skill levels.

I agree with a post above that in time some will have all skills. There really is nothing to discourage that except time and some people seem to have alot of that. Would be nice to have more individuality in the game. Things to make you unique outside of your race.

It will be interesting to see what will happen as the first two big patches are released. Definitely variety will be important for the long-term enjoyment of the game. Right now I have a lot to grasp with crafting and harvesting so that will keep me busy for some time.