etrusan wrote:Both eve and Ryzom reward Real world time. It so happens that in Ryzom, you are penalized relative to other players who play more often then you.
That's certainly a different view than I had of the matter, but it seems to me with my dealings with EVE that although you didn't need to be playing to increase your skill levels, the rate of increase was much slower. I believe that the fastest you can up a skill in EVE is around 20 minutes with the first level of the entry-level skills, while in Ryzom, the leveling for the first level is around two minutes at longest for magic, although the time taken to gather materials for crafting could make that the longer of the set. It'd be interesting to see a hybrid of the two, so that the motivation for playing is that of faster leveling, so a casual player wouldn't be stuck at a standstill, but an enigmatic player would still be able to power-level. Think of a EVE style leveling, but with signifigant boosts to the percentage of a level when you perform a task related to that skill.
etrusan wrote:In ryzom, you have a small cadray of spells. If you are up against a plant, guess what spells you will be using? In eve, if you are up against the exact same type of ship two times in a row, I can promise you will not use the same tactics two times in a row or will die.
First, I'll try and bust that promise by saying that I had outstanding success against NPCs in EVE by doing long-range attacks. Now, PvP there may be different, but I digress. The stanza system in Ryzom does toss up the limitation of spells that you'll see in other MMORPGs, in that since you character is not leveling in a linear manner - i.e. 1 level = 30 more HP - you need to set up your spells so that they utilize your character in an efficient manner. I've yet to see an RPG apart from Ryzom and the Elder Scrolls series that allowed a player to 'craft' spells, and that makes combat in Ryzom in the magical spectrum rather unpredictable. Sure, you're fighting a plant with only one type of attack, but what of range, speed of casting, and casting cost? It allows more player styles within one character model.
etrusan wrote:Is there anything really all that different from a 250 1h weapon crafter and a jewler? They both did nearly the exact same thing to get where they are and these choices were made for them.
When you strip away all the trappings, yes, a crafter is a crafter no matter the crafted thing. But when you talk about need for given items, a jewler or amp crafter would find themselves in much more demand than a, say, launcher crafter. And here once again, the stanza system allows for differences in player styles on their path to level 250, although the destination is the same for all players.
rushin wrote:chucking any old mat u find into a craft plan and hitting a button is the grind, that is 0.001% of what being a crafter and/or digger is.
I dunno. In terms of creativity, eventual product, and goal, very much so. But as to what is required to get to that level of character competience, I don't think so. Much of what I heard from Bri and Cait during their craft training was "I need more mats" and "How much longer is this going to take?" If you factor in the effort and/or connections needed to pull together the mats for the crafting for leveling, that's a lot of effort. Once you get to a comfortable level where you can start experimenting with more favorable results, than that would be a big, happy, top-of-the-mountain thing, but some players aren't the kind that would think of that kind of endgame as worth the, oh, 1,000 hours (conservative estimate here) or so of repetition. You know:
some play the Skinner box model to feel that they have achived something of their own,
others want the virtual sandbox so they can just go fiddle with stuff,
others yet that want the experience that the world offers, et'cetra. (Which leads nicely into...)
etrusan wrote:If you look at most of the really fun games out there, generally it is because there is so much choice involved. Take chess for example. More currently, take Civ IV.
...or, IMO Morrowind...
etrusan (continued) wrote:In the early game, the fun part, the amount of choice is daunting and yet the game is extremelly fun for the first third or so. Total war is another one. Eve is like this also, tons of choices, almost nothing i made for you.
Just to play devil's advocate for a moment here, isn't EVE just about delivering goods, making goods, and shooting down enemy ships? If you're playing EVE, you're doing one of those - unless you're talking with another player, which you could also be doing at the same time as some of these things. Anyway, there really isn't much choice in all these games in what the _destination_ will be; victory or defeat. There's really no two ways about it - even with a neutral player: they win if there is peace, but lose if there is war. The real choice factor comes in what they do on the way to that goal, and the other things that they do that aren't even related to that goal. RPing with a few comrades in a Pyr bar doesn't bring one's character even one hair closer to the next level of melee, but if the RPing player likes to RP, well then, it just might be better than that level.
etrusan wrote:I think that is a fair assesment. You are more optimistic then I am, however.
Hey, R2 seems to be THE thing that Ryzom seemed to be angeled toward for...oh, maybe half a year or so, and it could do some nifty stuff. I'd like to see it hit broad daylight before I pull my last coat-tails out the door.
i'd love to buy you a drink kind sir and when we drunk enough get into forum clearing brawl stumble back home and kick a couple yubos before i pass out in my own vomit.
Skills in Eve do mostly three things. One, allow you to fly ships. Two, allow you to fit modules. Three, allow to use fewer ship resources so you can fit better modules. There are others, of course, but to keep this simple we'll just stick to those three IE piloting skills.
