New! Sadly....

[kibsword]

WoW uses older technology to run the game, it does this so lower spec PCs can run the game as smooth as super computers. Ryzom on the other hand is a far more resource hungry game. If you cant run WoW, you pretty much cant run most of the p2p MMOs out there.

[pahya]

Ryzom has a mind boggling amount of emotes, mind -boggling-. You can see them all by clicking on the "Emote" button to the right of your text line entry. Each of those options has three different lines of text depending on whom you have targeted.

Right now, no you an not create your own emotes using /em as you're use to. Roleplayers are perfectly fine with using astrisks, brackets etc. However, with the next patch on the test server right now they're adding -highly- customizable emotes. No only the ability to do simple /em emotes but options to do any of the already existant actions/motions with no text, or to do the motions with your own custom text attached.

As for RP, it is MOST certainly out there *smiles* I've played a lot of MMOs in my life and the roleplay and community I've found here has impressed even my RP-snobish self. Don't, and I repeat -do not- judge the community based on what you find in Silan. Once you hit the mainland you only rarely hear a leet idiot and it's actually rare to hear people talking grossly OOC in spacial, atleast where I spent most of my time around Yrkanis.

If you're looking for someone to roleplay with feel free to contact Aiwe in game, every soul on my contact list and in my guild are roleplayers. I'd be happy to put you in contact with a wide range of people or simply adventure with you once you hit the mainland. Hope you enjoy your time in Ryzom and give it the chance it deserves.

[gretchen]

You might want to play with the config settings available from your Programs menu or on login. If things are set too high, too detailed, it can be slow.

I have everything cranked, and am using a 3.2 ghz P4 with 2 gig ram, and an aging nvidia 6800GT. Note that with nvidia recent drivers you will want to set the config to Direct3D, if you allow the game to "choose" (the default) it will put you in OpenGL and half the textures won't load.

If you are going to roleplay, you will have a challenge explaining why you as a Zoraï have chosen to ally with the Karavan despoilers of Atys. Zoraï are beloved of Kami (though you could certainly be a heretic.)

As for tech, there are projectile weapons, but that's as techy as it gets. There are special civilization perks in the form of weapons (Zoraï being amber-tech based have electricity weapons I believe.) So yeah, gunpowder tech is the limit, Karavan aligned characters don't get Blasters or Mechs or anything, but Kami followers don't get Moss Giants to command so it's all fair.

This all assumes you are not actually "gone" but might still read this...