Hello (and sort of apology)

[elvigy1]

First, hello to everyone. I just started playing a couple days ago and am having a good time.

The apololgy part is to Nevrax. I downloaded and tried a free trial about a year ago and ended up unistalling after a couple hours and sending Nevrax a rather testy message saying what I thought was wrong with the game.

Basically, on that attempt, I ended up in a desert area all alone (in the whole 3 hours I played, I saw maybe 2 other players). There were only a handful of NPCs and a couple of them were inside some building that you had to access by stepping into a colored light. This is all from memory, by the way, so I may have some of the details slightly off. Basically, I was all alone and, not knowing much about the game, I tried to play it as a leveling game, concentrating on magic skills. It sucked. No matter how much I went up the magic skill tree, I was getting killed a lot. And there was no one around to team with or explain things. The desert was not this lush, beautiful landscape I had expected and basically I unistalled completely upset and disappointed in a game that I had been told would be good for my play style. I sent them a message that basically said "You suck" though not in so many words, lol.

I decided to give it another try, however, since I am bored with the games I've been playing. This time, I find myself in a beautiful area, full of players, with tons of NPCs, some nice quests, etc. Basically, a complete 180 degree turn from my previous experience. Based on watching the comments in chat and from the helpful NPC quests, I've gotten a better handle on the play style needed to succeed. I'm basically heading up all four paths at the same time. I have always been more of a crafter type (I was a Master Bio Engineer in the original version of SWG which, if you know what that means!). I really like the crafting implementation, as well as the harvesting. And by leveling up both magic and fighting, I've become much less death-prone than I was last year.

All in all, an awesome game and I'm looking forward to many months to come. Glad I gave it another try, and even more glad that Nevrax revamped the tutorial/free trial process.

Hope to see you all in game (my ingame name is Thool)

Oh, and one last thing, er...if you haven't checked your email box in a while, Nevrax, ignore that last message I sent you.

[jamela]

lol Welcome back

[hmclee]

Welcome Back!

[riveit]

Welcome to Atys! and I fully agree with you, the new tutorial area is an enormous improvement!

[vguerin]

First, hello to everyone. I just started playing a couple days ago and am having a good time.

Greetings, I am glad your looking at the game from a different perspective. Bear in mind depending on your race, you may very well see a desert once again. The mainland is vast so you may still not see many people unless your in one of the hotspots for hunting/foraging.

RoS is not the same as the mainland in many ways, but an area to help you get thru your early years on Atys. Missions on the mainland are primarily done for fame or dappers, you won't get quest gear.

[elvigy1]

Greetings, I am glad your looking at the game from a different perspective. Bear in mind depending on your race, you may very well see a desert once again. The mainland is vast so you may still not see many people unless your in one of the hotspots for hunting/foraging.

RoS is not the same as the mainland in many ways, but an area to help you get thru your early years on Atys. Missions on the mainland are primarily done for fame or dappers, you won't get quest gear.

Understood. And I'm fine with that. Just curious, though, and I can probably find this by doing a little research myself, but what is the mainland area for Matis like? Is that the desert area?

[jamela]

Certainly not! It's called Verdant Heights and is the greenest, most splendid place in the world
The Fyros were the race to choose the Burning Desert. Tryker live in Aeden Aqueous which requires swimming lots. And the Zoraï inhabit Witherings, something of a tropical rainforest but surrounded by goo in many corners

[vesas]

Ruins of Silan is probably the best MMO trial I've tried - just bear in mind that the mainland is not so quest-driven. (Its very cool though, especialy when you have some good people to hang out with.)

At first, Ryzom can be quite confusing as lots of oddly-named things present themselves to you: basic buo fiber, stanzas, Suckling things...wtf? The island introduces the concepts to you in a more gentle manner, and you're surrounded by others who are doing, or have done the same stuff so there's always some useful advice to be had. The island has it own sort of mini-community around it. Its really quite cleverly done.

I tried the old trial too, maybe for 2 days or so and that was quite a contrast to Silan. I found the same as the OP mostly, hardly any other players about...weird NPCs in a weird tower and not much to guide you.

I didn't hate it, something about the game intruiged me which is why I ended up trying it again. I think I got magic and fight to 20 first time round, messed about with a bit of foraging (failed dismally at it) and then quit, rather nonplussed with the whole thing. I have to say I didn't send a sh*t-o-gram to Nevrax tho

Came back ~1 year later, tried the island and loved it...signed up for 3 months straight away.

[elvigy1]

Hehe, yeah. I haven't entirely figured out the stanza thing. But I did, last night, get a tutorial lesson on how you can change your actions (stanzas? spells? hmm...).

Anyway, that is an absolutely awesome feature. So even if I end up with the same skills as a lot of other people, I could modify it quite a bit to have more range, using more sap, or less range, using less sap, or apparently just about any other combination I can think of. As long as the credits are equal to or greater than the effects of the action. (Forgive the terminology, I still don't have that down yet, but you get the idea of what I'm saying).

This game has some really nice ideas.

As for quests, I can live without them. Particularly the "go there, kill 30 dust bunnies and bring me their pelts" type things. Though I do enjoy long, story-driven type quests that make you feel a part of the game world. But you can't have everything, I guess.

And I'm looking forward to Verdant Heights. Sounds like I picked the nicest one, through luck!

[chessack]

Well, the long story-driven stuff is done by the players in combination with the GMs with live events and such, rather than static quests. So that possibility is there, it just takes a different form than in most other games.

Ryzom is a lot like the launch version of SWG. Launch-style SWG didn't have much in the way of story arcs and long quest elements either... So if you liked that, you will probably like Ryzom.

Just, as people have said in the past, be aware that the island is a tutorial, and the quest style you see there, really won't be repeated on the mainland.

C