Requiem for a Game

[vguerin]

Well folks, I've played now for about a month, and I have a few observations to make. It doesn't matter if anyone agrees or not, because these are my opinions. And as these are forums, I am wont to voice my opinion in a way that might upset some people, because that's what forums seem to be good at doing.

Until the problems get fixed though, I'll keep my eyes on Ryzom and I might return.

Obviously this wasn't the game for you... by feeling a need to give your credentials then telling us what game you were leaving for, that was apparent.

I won't claim there isn't issues like the fanclub, but your picture is gloomier than those of us who have more than a month under our belts will tell. There are many things that seem incomplete or not well thought thru, bugs and far fewer events than the fansite manager tries to chronicle... In spite of it's many faults your one month playing doesn't even describe how little you know of the evolution of Ryzom, much less it's promise for the future...

Bon voyage and happy trails...

[raven41]

name me one mmorpg that doesnt have bugs and i'll buy you a drink, but all are minor annoyances there isnt a single one that approaches being game breaking is there?

Only one bug I know of that is "game breaking" ... And its only durring PvP ...... The STUPID team bug... Its game breaking to me when it happens, because it ruins the fun I am having when PvPn....

But other then that I don't know of any ...

Goodluck to the OP, Hope ya find a game you love and HF

[sofiaoak]

Can't really answer to original post, because it's all the personal opinion and what everyone wants from the game to support they playing styles. There is notting wrong to say what someone thinks is hard to find in this game and they wish there would be more of it or easyer way to find it. What is amazing me, is the unfriendly answers from some players in Ryzom community. The attitude like "We are happy, don't talk to us, go to somewhere else".

My biggest problem in this game is that many game function is design so that it supports only certain playing style and still it affects other playing styles very much. So I would hope to get better answers from Nevrax that, take it or leave, like I see here too. People don't like changes when it takes away something what they like and gives them something what they don't like.

Don't make asumption that all players wanna play SoR just like Nevrax is planing and then be amaze when they whine about it. People have habid to choose they own paths and it's not allways same what's designed by game developers.

[chessack]

What is amazing me, is the unfriendly answers from some players in Ryzom community. The attitude like "We are happy, don't talk to us, go to somewhere else".

I agree 100%. It's not a flattering image of the community that not just one but several players do this any time anyone says something even remotely negative about Ryzom. Heck, I got that sort of attitude on another thread, not even for saying anything negative, but for merely saying I did not happen to love the current Kitin invasion event (didn't say I hated it, just that I was sort of meh towards it... and that caused a minor uproar).

I think people need to take some chill pills. We have to remember that just because someone says he is not madly, wildly in love with ONE feature of the game, does not mean he's bashing it.

C

[0balgus0]

Can't really answer to original post, because it's all the personal opinion and what everyone wants from the game to support they playing styles. There is notting wrong to say what someone thinks is hard to find in this game and they wish there would be more of it or easyer way to find it. What is amazing me, is the unfriendly answers from some players in Ryzom community. The attitude like "We are happy, don't talk to us, go to somewhere else".

I was expecting this bit of backlash from what I posted so I will explain it this way. I have a problem when Ryzom gets compared as being a lesser game compared to so-and-so game, only to have that so-and-so game be a mediocre game like swg.

More specifically, the great-storyline-content from that other game are as follows:

• Kill/destroy missions given by characters from a movie: go kill this bunch of people for whatever reason and come back for a reward. (Ryzom has this when you grind fame)
• Delivery missions: bring this to some bozo over somewhere and come back for a reward. (Ryzom has this, although I've never completed any)
• Points of interest places related to the movies: You go to a location on the map marked as a Point-of-Interest (POI)and you get a note on your player info sheet that you've been to that poi. (Explore Atys. The rewards I find are in the discovery and learning of something new about the land)
• escort missions: pick up this guy somewhere out there and bring him back to mission giver. (Only you don't really have to. You just need to speak to the npc mission target and go back to quest giver)

And many other combinations of the above bunched together as a "story arc". The rewards are either new info added to your player sheet info, item rewards like weapons, armour, and/or decorations for houses (e.g. paintings, statues, etc). And we really need such rewards in Ryzom, since we don't have a crafter-driven economy, and we have so much storage space that we'd want to have item rewards to decorate our houses.

Pretty standard fare for any mmorpg, except using the star wars character skins. That's the great story the OP is touting.

Pet peeve: new players that try to make Ryzom like their previous games. Go play your previous games again if you don't like Ryzom so much. Leave any preconceived notions about other mmo's by the door before you enter Atys.

This is the Saga of Ryzom. Live the Saga.

*pins fanboi button on his LA*

[skeith8]

On a serious note, I' found this line very interesting, could you elaborate ?

I am sorry let me explain, the world of MMORPGs is quite new to me, though I've dabbled in alot of them for years, just dabbling here and there- mechanics, battle systems, RP factors and how everything is handled by event masters. I, for the most part, have been a heavy console roleplay gamer for years: since I was around 6 or so.

Remembering the times I used to have my notebook scribbling down notes about how this affects that, how classes were set up, battle systems (what works, what doesn't, improvements that could be made), kind of brings a tear to my eye. I've been longing to create RPGs basically since I was born. It had been my passion for years. Unfortunately, after losing my notes awhile back, I stopped studying so much, but then about 4 years ago roughly...I found a new genre....Forum Roleplay. I set up everywhere, roleplaying many genres: Silent Hill, anime shows, real life RPGs, a personal created RPG, stat based, everything. I kept in mind what level of involvement I enoyed while RPing on consoles and stuck 'em to the forum text games I created.

Then about 2 years or so ago, I stumbled upon something wonderful. The MMORPG. I knew it existed, but had never been able to download anything because I never had the internet. Playing Dot Hack (great series if you want immersive story and realistic characters, as well as a genuine feeling battle system) really fueld me to check some things out. The first thing that put me off was the lack of actual roleplaying (in character and things of that sort), and more focus on hacking and slashing. I felt that MMOs lacked the deep storyline and characters that made getting away from reality so easy... instead it became a 3-D chat room. So I tried desperately to find one that would actually allow RP on a bigger level, one without so many restraints. And then I found Ryzom, this brilliant creation, and I am loving every minute of it while waiting on my friends to join.

But when I say studying, I meant mostly mechanics and ways of going about character development, story and plot, battle systems and their differences, class systems, and things unique to one or two console RPGs (such as the dating simulator from Thousand Arms or the PA system frommy favourite RPG, Star Ocean:The Second Story). I mean hours of studying aspects and writing notes, just to have them lost in a huge move....Which sucked, because all of my plans for my thought-up RPG (it's my baby ^^ and WILL come to fruition one day): Swoon: The Forgotten. I had it all drawn up, and then...feh, too painful to talk about it.

However, I am going BACK to college to earn my actual game-design degree so I can make steps in completing this game, which will hopefully become part of your collection. I also hope to extend it not only to more volumes in the game set, but also to other media (I am and artist, singer, and author as well...so plenty of venues!). I hope it becomes the player's second life, as I expect to make it fully submersive.

Anyways, I've ranted on too long! Get out there on Atys and MAKE SOMETHING OF YOURSELVES!

[mithur]

Uhm. I won't comment on your time ingame and your first paragraph made me laugh and give you a friendly punch but there are is a story and there are characters, you have been looking at the wrong kind of characters. NPC' sjust dole out quests. It's the player characters who make the story!

If you laugth at their paragraph, I cry about it.

You know, I'm sure you have been playing for a long time, and you have a huge social network ingame.

The story it's made by the characters, but it's made by the high level characters. And for a low level player it goes pretty far.

Sure, the high level characters help the newbies, guide then, etc... but the low level don't play and a lot of times can't see the history.

Yesterday my guild has a battle for outpost; I can't participate because the level, pretty high for me, and event can't reach the place.

That it's OK, there are a time and a place for everything, and it's fine.

But my point is that the low level players need a little bit more of story, a little more of inmersion not PC-dependant, because they use to be more disconnected, by game design, from the main line of the game defined by PCs.

And, I remember you, if the low level it's not funny and inmersive, the low level players will never become in high level players.

Obviously this wasn't the game for you... by feeling a need to give your credentials then telling us what game you were leaving for, that was apparent.

I won't claim there isn't issues like the fanclub, but your picture is gloomier than those of us who have more than a month under our belts will tell. There are many things that seem incomplete or not well thought thru, bugs and far fewer events than the fansite manager tries to chronicle... In spite of it's many faults your one month playing doesn't even describe how little you know of the evolution of Ryzom, much less it's promise for the future...

Bon voyage and happy trails...

I think he's taking a good point... I'm sure that it could be a pretty good objective for the Nevrax team, and pretty possible, to make the game more inmersive, bring more lore, for the beginners.

I think that if you need more than one month to take the hang of the game, it's a design problem, not a player problem. I've been two months playing, and it take a lot of work. For me it has another rewards, but not everyone its the same.

My problem it's the same: the game it's targeted to be pretty funny at high level; i'm sure you can do, without change that, more fun at low level too, and less frustrating (Like the actual event; while it's truely a slaughter week, it far from fun for a lot of people).

[fiach]

The only things I can think of to say to the OP are :

SWG pre-CU no longer exists and tbh I never liked it either, I left for Ryzom, The missions were a load of old rubbish and time consuming.

One month is not long enough to play Ryzom and begin to "get it", but hey, horses for courses and all that.

I never noticed a particular storyline in WoW, EQ2 or Lineage, but they are hugely successful games. CoX had story arc's, but the level you needed to be able to complete the arc was so high, the story arc reward was rendered useless to you, because it was too low.

Ryzom has a rich lore and a pretty high RP value to many RP'players and those guys are pretty fussy when it comes to background storylines.

I would reckon the community also help Ryzom become more than the sum of its parts, but only playing a month, you haven't set down any real roots here yet.

There are no games I can recommend to you, that are as good/better than Ryzom, believe me I have looked, but always come back here.

Good luck in your search, maybe you'll come back someday and tell us of your adventures in search of the perfect game, meanwhile, we'll stay here and play it while we wait in anticipation of your return

[tekon]

But if people want PvP, they play WoW because that's a damn good PvP game. So Nevrax should include PvP, but they shouldn't try and make it a focal point of the game.

They're never going to take customers from WoW, and SWG has lost most of their customers to other games already.

Sorry I cant disagree more, the PvP system in WoW is lacking, and the social aspect of the game is almost non existant. The best PvP I have ever experienced in an MMO was Ultima Online, which I still play once in awhile.

Oh yea, and I played WoW from public release and guess what Im playing now.

[xenofur]

Why is Nevrax adding more content when it hasn't finished the content they started already?

To give you a straight answer: They aren't simply adding new content, they are adding different content. In MMORPGs there are three types of content, basically: One-time content, repeatable content and long-term content.
Rites and quests are basically one-time content. You do them once, get the reward, and that's it.
Repeatable content are the missions, you do them and can come back later to do the same exact thing again.
Long-term content are mostly things between players: Outpost pvp, pvp over supreme mats and the ring. You can do them for a long time and they are always different.

The main problem Nevrax faced is: The players want the one-time content that we promised by release, but creating it is very slow, even worse: The players experience the content much faster than we can create it, so it will be a total up-hill battle with no end. (WoW solved this by simply throwing lots and lots and lots of cash at quests, Nevrax can't do that.) Repeatable content is nice, but we need something better, as it gets boring fast, especially when there is not much point to it. (The point to the current repeatable content is access to rites, teleporters and guild membership. Hard to expand on that.)
So they decided to create something that is long-term content, first outposts, then the Ring, add a bit of hype during the production phase to keep the players on their toes, also add in more long-term content that is easier to realize as well as keep them involved by announcing more such things. (Spires and such.)
Once the long-term content is done and realized, it will keep the players busy and allow them time to return to adding more one-time content.

In short: They add new stuff to buy them time so they can complete the existing content without having the players run away due to boredom.