Community;
graphics;
wonderful atmosphere, both in terms of visuals and people;
the fauna (except big kitins);
the forest in the spring, and in the autumn;
the open skill system, with such fantastic looking weapons / spells;
and Seanchai Noone brightens the game up more.
Can't wait for the new stuff to hit though, I've been looking at some of those 3rd gen MMOs but I don't think I'll bother
Everything in Ryzom is very good. But it's like one of those really posh meals. You get this huge plate and there's only a tiny thing in the middle. Very tasty, but I'm still hungry for more dammit!
1. The maturity of the community.
2. The quality of the graphics.
3. The openness of the skill trees.
4. The willingness of the community to help each other out.
The last one however seems to be changing. As a peep who probly played 3 - 4 hours in beta and FBT for every retail hour, (took 5 months for Nevrax to straighten out problems converting my FBT account to retail account) I must say I enjoyed the community much more in beta and FBT when we were all on the same side. The guild concept, while rewarding for the "in guild" relationships, has deteriorated "out of guild" relationships with peeps now competing for resource spots, keeping crafting recipes as "state secrets", crafting good stuff only for "in guild" peeps, finding only "grind quality" items at vendors, etc. Over the course of three weeks I was looking for a decent LA set by tramping to natae, dyron, avendale before I was able to cobble together a mutlicolored mismatched set from 170-220. And it did feel a bit weird being turned down after asking peeps, that I had helped and crafted for consitsently during Beta and FBT, to craft items for me if I supplied the mats, with the answer that they only craft "in guild".
I understand this all follows into the concept of what the developers want the game to be....I am just saying I personally liked it better when it was homins for homins and against kitins. I don't like the fact that, as a kami aligned race, I am automatically enemies of a sort with all my ole FBT buds who prefer to pay as a race which is karavan aligned.
Personally, I am happy to craft anything I can for anyone who wants it the way the want it for no cost provided they bring me the mats or at cost if they don't. If they want the item to have certain qualities, I will tell them what mats, to the limits of my knowledge, (remember most of my crafting historcally was in the days of wondermat) will provide those qualities. I am happy to share the location and restrictions of excellent mats to the extent I know them with the exception of things that I have been told on the condition I not share it with anyone else. But anything I have discovered on my own is shared with any homin who asks.
Kitins don't discriminate as to what flesh they like to chomp on and don't seem to care whether that flesh is kami or karavan aligned. I recognize that some peeps do like this stuff however and I wouldn't want the game to be my way or their way. It can be both.
The PvP checkbox is a great idea but , as some have pointed out, it could be taken advanatge of. Perhaps it could work better if the choice was "by guild".....allowing some guilds to be nuetral ...essentially.....the "Swiss" or diplomats of Atys, allowing them to be go betweens between warring factions. Another option would be a Merc guild who hired out to either side. A guild could select say either 1) Karavan / Kami Faction PvP, 2) Nuetral (no PvP at all) or 3) Merc and the selction would last for one full Atys year. Then again, the "choice lasts for a full year" could solve many of the isues with indovidualy slected PvP choices.
