Newb with some new (I think) questions...

[hertscha]

Hi all. I heard about this game from my sis & bro-in-law but they just started the free trial themselves, so if anyone could answer the following that would be cool. This will most likely be a loooong post, so thanks in advance if you make it all the way through, heh.

First, some info on my gaming experience: I've been playing MMO's forever - Total Annihilation:Kingdoms, EQ, EQ2, Lineage 2, City of Heroes, Guild Wars, DDO, and WoW to name a few...I'm sure I missed a couple! I have Beta tested a few of those as well. I prefer to solo as much content as possible because pugs don't always have great results. But, I also really enjoy well constructed groups and even full scale raid content when everyone involved knows what they should do and does their job(s) well. I am currently playing WoW, but have gotten to the max level with my main and finding it hard to find a guild that raids a few times a week, but doesn't make it mandatory. So, me, my sis, and bro are exploring other games.

Ok, now onto SoR and my comments / questions:
1. From what I gather on the games main page and these forums, it seems that there are no set "classes" and anyone can be anything/everything. I like this idea a lot, but wonder how that works as far as finding a group and figuring out who will do what? Or, does this not even matter?

2. What happens when your toon dies? Are there any penalties? Does it take a long time for "corpse recovery? Are there any costs to repair equipment? Any info on this would be helpful.

3. It sounds like there is no actual "level" system, other than for each skill individually. Maxing out a certain skill "branch" can open up other branches from within that category, allowing for more diversity and specialization. Am I correct in this assessment? Anything that can be added to further explain this would be appreciated. (IE. what exactly does everyone work towards besides maxing out skills?)

4. Are there any bonuses/penalties/starting-stats for each race other than factional alignment? Or, is your race choice merely for looks/role playing only? Is any race better at gathering resources/crafting/fighting/magic/etc.?

5. Very IMPORTANT... How customizable is the UI if at all? Is it possible to resize/customize the existing windows (ie. delete borders of frames, shrink a window to have more screen space, make the compass bigger to see more area, etc.?) Can you have more than one Hot Bar open at once, or do you have to scroll through "pages" on the one bar? Can you move the windows and lock them anywhere? Are there any custom set-ups that you can download/install to change the overall appearance? Lots of questions here, please answer as many as possible.

6. What is the economy like? Can you earn enough early on to buy/make decent weapons/armor or do you have to grind and save up for a while to improve equipment? Is there a method (auction/consignment system) to sell your stuff to other players? Do long-time players find they have tons of money and nothing to do with it?

7. Are there emotes that you can do (/salute, /wave, /dance, etc.) and are there any animations or sounds to any/all of them?

8. Are there any mobs that require more than a full group (Raid) to conquer?

Well, I could probably think of tons more but this is already getting long-winded. I downloaded the game this morning and will install & try it tonight. By then I will either answer some of those myself and/or have more to ask tomorrow, lol.

*Edited for some color*

[rushin]

i know by the time i have answered 6 ppl will be ahead of me, but

1) makes it easier for finding a group i think. the majority of people are pretty flexible, so you might have been planning to go level your axe but the team needs a low level healer np (hope that made a bit of sense)

2) death penalty - so after a death any xp you get goes towards working off the debt, using your higher skills results in the fastest recovery. I could mention nasty numbers like 465000 when i die, but its all relative - only takes me 15-20 mins to clear. Digging is very good for this as you will have a bag of mats to play with after clearing it and dont need to worry about finding a team. At low levels you can clear it in a few mins.

3) yes. i work towards having fun and meeting interesting people have only 2 masters (in digging) after playing all this time

4) no. races have inate magic resistance to their eco system but its irrelevant ultimately.

5) very. extremely. etc. only one hands bar open at a time but ctrl + num short cut

6) ecomony is ok (ish) could use some love and there have been many helpful threads over the years with ways to improve. yes there is a glut of dapper at higher levels, yes you can sell using ingame merchants (i do) and make a living, but could use love

7) yes /wave

8) yes

[hertscha]

Thanks for the reply, very helpful.

One more question if I may though: What exactly is "Digging"?

[rushin]

foraging. that painful 'hey! i've spent 30 minutes looking for basic zun amber oO' or 'yay. i forage one mat and blow myself up' experience does sooner or later turn into a lot of fun

[gretchen]

"I dig sixteen hole, wha' did I get,
A little Pha Amber and dappers in debt
I coulda dug longer but I don' know...
I think this hole is about to explode"

[sprite]

Well Rush already answered everything but lets see if I can give some more detail in a coupla places.

5. Very IMPORTANT... How customizable is the UI if at all?

I've heard many new players' comments saying that the UI is extremely "bad" and "uncustomisable", "unhelpful" etc but personally I just don't see what they're complaining about - hopefully in answering your other sub-questions it'll help you make your own mind up - what I do have to say is ignore the default layout - it sucks.

Is it possible to resize/customize the existing windows (ie. delete borders of frames, shrink a window to have more screen space, make the compass bigger to see more area, etc.?)

In the UI config screen you can set a master opacity (2 settings - one for normally and one for when your mouse is over it), fade in/out settings, colours, everything you could want. Also, nearly all windows can have individual opacity settings, most can be resized, hidden, or locked in place if you like.

[acridiel]

I agree on the UI Part, most new Players do seem to have an aversion against the "right click". The right click is your friend here. Right click on everything you see UI, MOBs, Players, Chat whatever and you´ll ge a load of options to choose from

That said as far as MODs are concerned there are none that I know of and mostly you don´t need them, because unlike as in for example
( theGamewhosenameshouldnotbeuttered ) your Crafts of War are not that multiple and easily changed before a battle or even during one if the need should arise.
I usualy check on what I´m going to do do, in the next say hour or so, and then right click the Action, change some stanzas and go at it. All a matter of about 30 seconds. Allright, in the beginning that may rather be one or two minutes spent fiddling around a bit. But time creates experience and experience is something you´ll need far more on Atys then "this new cool digging MOD, or a "fastdrawfighting" UI.

If that something you don´t like and you need to be L337 in al you do, then let me just state firmly that Ryzom isn´t the game for you.

I´d further like to direct you to the Link below my signature : "Newbes, please read." it might help you get a clearer Picture of Atys and the Game

CU
Acridiel

[hertscha]

Thanks for the further info gang, and Acridiel, I already read your post after making mine...wish I did that first cause I would've had less questions!

My concern about the UI customization is more about functionality than looks. But at the same time, I like to have plenty of space to see the environment. I typically use my left hand for movement, and use my mouse to click-to-target and then click my skills/attacks. I like to have my attack/defense skills hotbar real close to the center of my screen so it's almost like double clicking the mob...if you understand what I mean (minimal cursor movement.) I also don't like to ALT-# to choose different bars when one isn't enough...I want all my stuff visible to just click on when needed. I prefer to have the hotbars shrunk in size and cut out all the wasted border space so I can put more bars close to the center.

Now, I must confess that I have recently just bought a 24" Widescreen LCD with 1920x1200, so the shrinking isn't all that important anymore. I managed to move the hotbar to the left of the center of the screen, and put it on top of the chat box (which I stretched longer and made smaller top-to-bottom). It seems to be working fine atm since I only have a few skills to use. Cursor movement is just a few inches, so not too bad... plus I am using the number keys to take care of casting/attacking since they are right above my movement keys. Mouse scroll might work fine to change hotbar pages once I need more pages I guess.

I found the opacity options, and was messing around trying to keep the map onscreen fulltime. Unfortunately even though I could see through it fine, I couldn't click through it so I trashed that idea. 8-( Was great to see that the world map was resizable though, so I kept it open in a small box under the compass.

Well, I think after a bit of practice, the UI system will be ok. I do like the right-click menu, and found that you can actually just double-click to attack or harvest or interact with an NPC, etc.

To Sprite: I don't know if you ever played a game like WoW where the UI can be personalized in many different ways, but once you do, it's hard to accept when a game doesn't allow it. In WoW, you could literally create your own windows of any size/shape (with your own artwork if you prefer) and create buttons that will do actions/use items/send messages to people/etc. ... basically you can make macros that do a string of things all with one click. You can also create a custom window to show various information like: how much money you have, what your current level is, exp bar, latency meters, your x/y location, etc. all in one place. You can show this information in actual numbers, %'s, or even in bar form. I know you can just open x number of windows and already show this stuff, but it would be scattered around the screen. Well, that's probably why the new players are complaining about SoR's UI. I personally don't think it's that bad, and am happy that we can at least drag the windows to move them and/or make them different sizes.

[rushin]

as a side note, click targetting is not always the best way..

have a look at the macro system, press 'k' ingame, you can setup say num pad for targeting team mates, and write things to target in all sorts of ways. gets extremely helpful in events and OP battles