The saga of a player that misses the point

[katriell]

Once upon a time, Johnny decided he was fed up with raiding on three level-60 characters in World of Warcraft. WoW had been his first MMORPG, and he had enjoyed it until he reached the "endgame." Not ready to quit the addiction yet, he tried creating additional characters to alleviate the endgame problem. But alas, eventually he simply could no longer stay with it, and left in search of new, greener pastures.

Johnny tried several games, at the assorted behests of his friends, but nowhere did he find that elusive thing he was looking for. Then, he heard about another game - Ryzom. He heard nothing but good things about the game and its community, so he visited the website and clicked on the free trial link as soon as his eyes caught sight of it. Chipperly he filled out the registration forms, downloaded the client, installed, patched, created a character, and entered the world...

He was greeted with a line of quests that gently led him through his first few hours in Ryzom. As he completed each and was handsomely rewarded with money and uber-seeming, epicly-named items, Johnny experienced an epiphany of satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment. "This must be that fabled thing called 'fun,'" he thought to himself! He quickly decided that this was the game for him, and subscribed, looking forward eagerly to the hallowed Mainland, where - he was sure - countless quests awaited him. "I'll have as much fun as I had before in WoW, only without the stupid raids!" It was late in the night, however, so he reluctantly logged off and retired to bed.

The next day, Johnny logged into Ryzom as soon as he could, and promptly made his way to the mainland. The pictures along the bottom of the loading screen ticked by with a sluggishness made painful by his anticipation...

And then he arrived!

...

...

"Hey, an NPC, maybe they'll have a quest for me!"

Johnny approached the City Welcomer and checked their missions window. He picked several, and began with the one that asked him to deliver a message to another NPC. Having no idea where the target NPC was, he asked in Region. No one answered. He set off to find it on his own...

*a half-hour later*
"Where the **** is that NPC?" Johnny gave up on the mission and started working on his fighting levels. After bashing a couple hundred mobs to death, it was time for him to log out. He did so with a vague feeling of frustration and boredom.

Over the next few days, that feeling increased each time he played. Every time he logged in, he would be standing in the area he had been hunting in the previous day, so he continued working on his levels. Every so often he'd have to go looking for a new place to hunt, when the exp got too low. Everywhere he went in the starting region, he saw the same mobs, and if he wandered into other regions, he would inevitably walk into an aggro and die.

Finally, after a week of this, he gave up on the game entirely. Before cancelling his subscription, he posted complaints on Ryzom's forum, as well as MMORPG.com, where he had first heard about it. "No one should be tricked like I was!" he thought bitterly.

"Ryzom sucks, cuz they lie and make u think it's fun, then when u give them ur money to get on the mainland theres no content, its just a big grindfest, same mobs everywhere, cant go anywhere without getting killed, no one even plays this game on the mainland"

[nillian]

*claps, and wanders off into the desert, bag on her back and pick in hand*

[rushin]

(ten chars yet?)

[kiexa]

*tries to find a way of responding to this post*

a agree this game isnt for all, far from it, some people dont get it - true, but how many times have you read ALL the documentation/website info/forum before starting a trial of the game. Dunno about you, but i try alot, reading little, relying on ingame tutorials and such. majority of new homins who arrive on Silan dont know about the gameplay of this game;

the talk to first NPC, "go kill some yubos" 3 weeks pass of "go kill", "go dig", "go craft" and "go find" quests (nowhere is this described as a tutorial island).

some will get the wft syndrome when they hit the mainland. This game needs an intro, no super special FMV needed, just an intro into the kara/karavan, a homins struggle to grow and survive against the kitin threat and a intro into the trial. (look at EVE`s opening sequence for the sort of thing i mean)

Easy for someone to click on Chieng the Stong for guidance on Silan, and offering no alternative on the mainland is a bad move, whether it be a quest/task/welcome/introduction.

edit: sorry Kat, not dissagreeing, just there is 2 ways to look at this recuring problem: Ignore and joke about it, or resolve it

[nillian]

...Easy for someone to click on Chieng the Stong for guidance on Silan, and offering no alternative on the mainland is a bad move, whether it be a quest/task/welcome/introduction...

Perhaps the Ring will allow players to create this lacking feature?

Just a thought x

[kaetemi]

when you arrive on mainland, you normally start with the rite initiation thingy... the one where you need to walk to the barman... who then tells you to go talk to certain other people, etc etc etc...

[marct]

Point is, if you look around it is happening again, and again, and again. I agree. The starter island misrepresents. No where is anyone told

"THESE QUESTS ARE A TUTORIAL TO GET YOU STARTED AND SO THAT YOU UNDERSTAND THE RYZOM SYSTEM A BIT." "This game is a sandbox game, and once you have a little feel for it, we expect you to go out and find your place in the community and do what it is you would like to do." *Breathe* You may find this challenging, it may even be your most challenging moment, but THIS GAME IS NOT QUEST BASED." "We will not (stealing from someone else) lead you about by your nose and tell you what to do." Go find something and do it."

"Oh and lastly, for God's Sake DON'T stand in one place killing the same damn thing for hours on end and then scream it is a grind fest. No one insisted that you stand there and do that."

"Sincerely, folks that will never tell you what to do."

[rundll32]

Yeah when other games are quest based, setting the ruins up like that seems pretty foolish, as it completely misrepresents the mainland. Seen a lot of people asking about quests in universe once theyve got to the mainland, and explaining that there arent any as such is getting pretty painful.

But as nili said, maybe the mainland will be altered with R2, from what ive read will certainly be easy to do

[rothimar]

I was fortunate enough to have some more experienced players inform be about the mainland's lack of mission structure that the isle has, so I was prepared when I got there. I would, however, love to get some work done on my encyclopedia... the lore is rather interesting. I need to look more closely into that...

anyway...

It would be very beneficial to have some sort of warning system in place, or even some missions on the mainland weening people off of the concept of questing.

Quests or no quests... I still love the game

[kostika]

This is why I do my best to refer to the Silan missions as tutorials. It helps put them into perspective. (I've seen others refer to them the same way.)