Thanks Nevrax for the Unlimited Trial!

[jezabel]

Missions on the mainland are only "task". They are not really interesting to do.
Ryzom is not a quest driven game.
If you cannot play without quest, Atys is not a world for you.
There is a lot to do but for a newcomer, it's more easy to find it in a good guild.

[huntn]

Missions on the mainland are only "task". They are not really interesting to do.
Ryzom is not a quest driven game.
If you cannot play without quest, Atys is not a world for you.
There is a lot to do but for a newcomer, it's more easy to find it in a good guild.

I intend on joining a large guild. My previous experience with MMOs indicates that a large guild is better for logging on and finding someone to do things with.

OK, no quests. In WoW I'd spend the evening knocking out 3 or 4 quests. These quests 95% of the time circle around killing things or NPCs- kill 10 murlocs for the quest giver, intercept a courier and obtain a letter, obtain x number of oil flasks by killing some mobs, escort the NPC from point A to B. NPCs and mobs respawn after a short period of time so the satisfaction comes from completing the quest. Granted the setting is totally static and I burned on the roving targets.

So for someone who enjoys SoR, how would you spend the evening? I assume crafting plays a significant part.

BTW, regarding animals in SOR, they are so much better than WoW in how they act and gather.

[alhanna]

So you want to know how the average homin spends their evening in game. Well, I dig and craft, or I grab my casting gear and train, or I work missions for racial fame to work on rites so I can get those little goodies, or I gather some of my guild mates together and we xp hunt - this can go on for a LONG time since there is always another skill to work at low levels. I answer questions in Universe chat. I boss hunt for mats. Sometimes I share crystals with the less fortunate, and I meet lots of interesting new folks that way. I spend time helping new arrivals to the mainland find their bearings. I ... um... live here.

We all have little lives that we carve out for ourselves. Make friends, train your skills so you can contribute to your guild, and repel the next kitin invasion. If you're interested in faction battles/rp, train your pvp skills so you can tell the other side what for. This is your other life here. Make a name for yourself, or not. But whatever you do, I hope you find yourself immersing into this fantastic world and developing an alter ego that cares about the goo, the races, the kitin, Ma-Duk, Jena, and the fate of all homins.

[wolfcape]

yeah! I was amazed that something so spectacular has a free Trial! ...I can stare at the stars as much as I want now!!

[magick1]

Missions on the mainland are only "task". They are not really interesting to do.

I would agree and then not. The tasks serves two main purposes.
The obvious one is to gain fame with a faction, tribe or civ. Most of the tasks fall in this category, and are rarely hard to do.

On the other hand you have some that require skill to perform and have you go explore. These will teach you (if you don't use short cuts, like BM) various aspects of the game.
The ones that I think show this the most are the mission mat tasks, you have to know how to track mission sources, that will teach you what kind of terrain they are located in. That way you can easy tell if a new area is a normal mats area or a mission one. You will learn to keep an eye on mobs and their movements, since you can't just go dig a safe spot, some mission mats are right under agro and you can't go elsewhere to get them (unless you travel to another eco system, it might do the trick in some cases).

[roezen]

I also think the RoS is a great idea. I probably wouldn't have tried this game if RoS was not available.

The only issue I have with RoS (versus the game play) is that RoS is not representative of the mainland in terms of questing. Questing allows rewards, whether monetary, items, materials and/or experience. These are nice little bones that are fun to recieve in addition to the storyline, plot, etc. They also allow alternatives to the proverbial grinding that I hear complained about in mainland chat daily. Since I enjoy this aspect of the game, had I not been aware of this significant difference ahead of time I might feel duped when I transfer to the ML.


Just to toss out a couple of my review points about the game, I think for a low budget MMORPG (compared to games like SWG, EQ, FFXI, WoW, Lineage, etc) it is impressive. The crafting system is sophisticated enough to make it fun to dabble in. There is reward for killing certain creatures (at least on RoS) to get better materials to make better items, which help with grinding to the next level a bit easier as well. Crafting would be worthless to me if I was not able to make at least some of my own armor and/or weapons for my own use for progression. Without a proper reward for progression, I personally would soon be bored.

Stanzas also make it fun to gain additional experience points to spend, to gain better abilities and make some interesting combinations for crafting and/or combat. They are fun to play around with and learn, plus they add a component that keeps combat and harvesting from being overly routine.

Just a couple of issues that come about almost daily (and if I am wrong and there is away around it, then /hugs ahead of time ):

-I think at least on RoS combat is so short it is hard for my real life friend and I to group for experience gaining. By the time either of us attempts to cast a spell or heal the other the creature is often dead. The melee person gets all the experience and the caster gets none. Experience is simply not distributed in a way that makes grouping enjoyable from 1 to 50. The one time where we have found grouping beneficial for the last two weeks is for questing, or killing named mobs. But those are fairly limited; it is shame as I see it.

-Why is it when I am in a group there is a bar that is about 2 x 5 cm showing the name of a group member, but the group members health/sap/sta bars are so small I can hardly see them? I was told you can not change the UI, and I didn't see anyting off hand to change this.

-Why when I click a special melee attack does it automatically move me to face the creature I am attacking and move closer to it? Very annoying when I am trying to act as an affective tank and move around a couple of creatures to keep them off my casting friend. Along the same lines, why does the avatar stop in game when a spell is cancelled (another pain) or you finish/drop loot from a creature? This starting and stopping is annoying, not to mention it takes away from a feeling of submersion (sp) in the game, almost like the game wants to play my avatar for me.

[vladww]

I also think the RoS is a great idea. I probably wouldn't have tried this game if RoS was not available.

The only issue I have with RoS (versus the game play) is that RoS is not representative of the mainland in terms of questing. Questing allows rewards, whether monetary, items, materials and/or experience. These are nice little bones that are fun to recieve in addition to the storyline, plot, etc. They also allow alternatives to the proverbial grinding that I hear complained about in mainland chat daily. Since I enjoy this aspect of the game, had I not been aware of this significant difference ahead of time I might feel duped when I transfer to the ML.

Imo, Nevrax only got half the job done with RoS : *Attract new players*.
The second half is to *retain these players*. The best way to do this might be to finally complete the Encyclopedia & add hundreds of lore/rite quests.

Everything & anything can be said against questing but :
- Questing is not mandatory
- Quests + Lore = Immersion

Most puzzling is the fact that Nevrax already has great tools to build up a large Encyclopedia + Rites.
(The same tools used for the incoming Ring).

When such content pours into Ryzom, i'd bet a large number of the RoS newcomers will stick to the Mainland, spreading fear and chaos to the Yubo population !

[marct]

Imo, Nevrax only got half the job done with RoS : *Attract new players*.
The second half is to *retain these players*. The best way to do this might be to finally complete the Encyclopedia & add hundreds of lore/rite quests.

Everything & anything can be said against questing but :
- Questing is not mandatory
- Quests + Lore = Immersion

Most puzzling is the fact that Nevrax already has great tools to build up a large Encyclopedia + Rites.
(The same tools used for the incoming Ring).

When such content pours into Ryzom, i'd bet a large number of the RoS newcomers will stick to the Mainland, spreading fear and chaos to the Yubo population !

You are right, as any long timer has realized the development cycle is currently not in weeks, but in months.

I would expect as you have noted that there is NOW the ability to add these things much easier than in the past. I figure once the Ring is out, some of the efforts can change to exactly what you have stated.

In fact, we have seen that there is a Kitin Lair in process. Immediately after that I would expect to see more and more work on additions to the Encyclopedia. I would still like for it to be non-directed like the encyclopedia is today, however tying the quests more to daily life and purpose would be nice. Delivering messages that then allow a mission to deliver supplies, etc...

Search my back posts on the missions, etc, I could go on forever.

999!!! Next post = 1000

[jamela]

999!!! Next post = 1000

Quick! Start a new account

Roezen, you could make teaming for experience more effective, and just more fun anyway, if you didn't use your very best stanzas and equipment all of the time. Try using cheaper actions and pulling multiple creatures at once and generally cause chaos

I find the team window is often larger than I'd like - it more than adequately shows my teams status and could even be smaller. Size is dependent on resolution, so if you've a massive monitor I can imagine it might be awkward.

I find the camera focus snapping towards actions annoying too, I guess I have gotten used to it now. I agree that it detracts from immersion which is something I think Ryzom generally does extremely well. However, the problem you describe concerning effectiveness as a tank sounds as though you're concentrating too much on one creature - to go drag aggro from your teammates you should disengage (F6) and shift your focus onto said aggro.

[roezen]

F6 to disengage. I did not know this. It is precisely when I try to disengage and I get a startled stop action with the avatar that makes the whole thing annoying. It causes a couple of second delay. I am sure with time I will get better at it as well.

As for pulling multiple mobs, it seems even with medium gear at the lower lvls a caster only can take one or three hits often. The combat structure seems to support a creature killing someone in 3 hits, or allowing the person to dodge/parry a few times in a row and take no hits (making combat unpredictable in a wide range from very easy to very hard). Pulling multiple creatures invariably gets one of the casters killed (not that I don't smerk in real life *wink* as I prefer melee).

I do enjoy the game for what it is and recommend it.

Thank you for the good advice,

Ro