So, has the game REALLY changed in last 3 years?

[faedyne]

<Sarcasm>
right, because Ryzom NEVER won the MMORPG's reader's choice awards for best story, ESPECIALLY not in 2005, and CERTAINLY NOT with almost a third of the votes.
</Sarcasm>

http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm/l ... 88/page/6/

the reason ryzom never became that big? honestly? Bad marketing, most if not all marketting for ryzom has always been through word-of-mouth, this combined with a bad patch near the start of the game (the horror that was Patch 1) which decimated the population and significcantly decreased the influx of players because there was less word-of-mouth, unfortunately is a vicious cycle.

I agree the marketing was poor, but I don't think that's it's only failing.
The story is wonderful, but it's not pervasive.
It also doesn't happen around the player. It's generally static. All dynamic story is in player RP content and rare events.
The missions they have aren't really worth doing other than for fame and lore alone. And gaining the necessary lore is accomplished quickly, which means you do it purely for the lore. You stop doing "practical" things in order to experience the lore. We shouldn't have to stop leveling in order to do missions. Not that we need to be able to grind as hardcore as the hardcore grinders, but it shouldn't be a choice of one or the other.

Sandbox environments can be really dull when you're not looking to be creative. I'm an artist, so I like to be creative, but I can't roleplay for crap. My only creativity in Ryzom is in looking at outfit combinations, and that's a pretty limited set.
Also, roleplay relying mostly on text and whatever stock animations are available is pretty limiting. Sure, you can use text to describe anything, but it's still text. I know it's used to write books, but how many good book writers do we have? If Ryzom's player base is to mainly consist of fiction writers, it's not surprising we have a low player base. I think it's a bit harsh to say that if you [don't like] / can't RP you should not play Ryzom.

This I don't understand.....there's ton of quests. Want quests ? There's like 50+ tribes in the gamne. Try raising your fame with as many tribes as you can such that you can go hang out in their camps without getting beat up.

Most camps are ambivalent towards you. Those that start aggro against you, you probably don't want to gain fame with. You also can't gain fame with all tribes. Half of them will always hate you.
Also, while they won't jump to help you, they will attack any aggro that enters their camp regardless of why it's there. They're only a little quicker when you have positive fame with them. Yeah, maybe it'll save you, but I don't think it's really worth it.
It's really all about incentives. The ONLY incentive for doing quests is for people who are adamant about not digging, as they need to gain dapper somehow. (sure, I can understand it. it's not a play-style that everyone enjoys, but it's one of the best features of the game. digging and crafting.)

As for the "nothing to explore", my beef with that is that's mostly the player's fault. Getting trekked to all the TP's is a real fun killer IMO. For me, my greatest excitement in game came from our team finally making it from Pyr to Dyron. Months later when we finally made the trip from Pyr to Yrkanis we were in awe. My 1st view of Virginia Falls was like "wow".

The best thing about earning your way to a new place is that you explore various route possibilities and get to stop and "smell the stingas" along the way. Being trekked by a group of 250's who are admonishing you every few minutes to "keep up" (awww....I wanna stop and take a look around) and "don't loot" (geez, we just killed level 210 mob, I wanna see what the mats are like) isn't fun.

Agreed 100%. I sometimes lament at a trek, seeing these squishy, ignorant noobs. (no offense, I meant ignorant in an objective sense that they don't know how to do things like handle aggro solo) I always try to put a positive light on the learning experience of trekking solo when it's brought up.
Truth be told, while small trek groups can save you from death penalty, I actually find it easier to trek solo. There's no need to keep a tank up against aggro that (sometimes horribly) outclasses him, or to come back through aggro for him when he gets killed. I think I got two DP getting the Hidden Source TP a while back because someone was helping me to get it. (no offense. thanks for helping. )

Like most people I think, I most miss the absence of activities along the story line...... this is supposed to be about the kitin invasion and saving hominkind from Atys being over run .... But nothing is happening in this regard.

Yup. and that's not so much lore, as it is that the gameplay doesn't reflect the same sense of urgency and doom that the lore does. Well, I suppose in reality the lore is expressing that we're at a time of relative safety from the Kitin. (for some reason)

I find this a bit contradictory considering the following statement you made on the GOOD side:

*snip*

If the races were different, wouldn't that put people into different "classes" ? OTOH, I have no issue with differences which are not insurmountable. For example, let's say a character of any particular race would get 10% more mats pulled when digging in their own land.

I think you already answered your own question to them. There needs to be something to overcome. While it is more difficult for a race that traditionally follows one of the K's to follow the opposite one, it's not terribly difficult. a few dozen missions and you're done forever.
It would be interesting if fame somehow effecting digging in other lands. That would give a lot more incentive to work one or all of the civilization fame, and would require a lot of work to gain fame with civilizations that traditionally are against your alliance.

[ldjaggy]

An example: desertstock ramp. Mobs usually camp it and need a good effort to pass thru it. Now, i can jump and fall from the cliffs, then go near the border on one side, just 2 people. Then fall down and die. The friend rez you then he fall and die and you gives a rez back. 20 seconds and it's done.
No challenge, no effort, no fun.

Some how I more imagined every Homin testing the idea of falling off the edge of the world, just to see whats down there....

Or for all those Homins who want to jump off the top observation deck of Fairhaven or another tall Homin-made structure and fall to their doom, go right ahead! It reminds me of another game, where the city was high up in the trees, and falling off a rope bridge or platform usually meant certain death.

[gcaldani]

Some how I more imagined every Homin testing the idea of falling off the edge of the world, just to see whats down there....

Or for all those Homins who want to jump off the top observation deck of Fairhaven or another tall Homin-made structure and fall to their doom, go right ahead! It reminds me of another game, where the city was high up in the trees, and falling off a rope bridge or platform usually meant certain death.

I understand. As I said, i like to jump and climb if possible.

What i wanted to point out is that, before asking for something, people should really think better at what would be the impact of such a feature in the world design, expecially when whole planet shows you (if you pay attention) at any corner why you cannot jump.

Maybe, with one million subs devs could have enough time and money to do that, not at the actual state of the game.

Unless the devs will consider enabling the jump and making the game easier (so, not caring of what could happens in the game design) in that way is more profitable than leaving the world as it is now.

Maybe there is an alternate solution in the middle.

But i think a jump is not what makes a game fun to play, anyway. If you have no fun in ryzom without jump, you will not have fun with it.

[suib0m]

To answer to the whole jumping thing, one of the "selling points" of this game, way back when, was the collision detection of player entities with themselves as well as the environment. The angle of this selling point was that you could lure your enemies into a narrow corridor and have some small amount of homins block further passage while other homins behind used this strategic placement to advantage and safety.

Now, this didn't quite play out to reality, but that was the idea and one of the main reasons (I believe) why jumping was not integrated into the game design. At the time it was something pretty new. The world has been designed with this type of strategy in mind, and changing this behavior would have some pretty heavy impacts.

I'm not saying we shouldn't have jumping, I wouldn't mind it (maybe) and I'm fine without it, but for those folks that just say it is stupid, realize that it was a specific design decision made for specific reasons that, at the time, were supposed to open a fairly new type of game play.

Peace,
- Sui

[fiach]

You cannot jump because the gravity on Ryzom is so strong, its especially strong in Tryker land, stunting the growth of its inhabitants.

Who needs lore

[troll16]

What is it with the jumping thing?
I don't understand. So you see a bunch of children jumping in the air. Big deal, I don't care for people jumping all over in front of me.

Personally I don't miss jumping at all.

It certainly is not game breaking.

Sure safer than another game I play where I keep falling off cliffs and many times dying.

Jumping is an important part of a game as well as having the ability to swim underwater. These add another dimension to the game make it a bit more realistic. Not being able to do these things gives the game a dated feel as many other MMOs have these features. Same for the boundaries in the game these were typical of older games.

It's not just children that like their characters to jump, your comment and those that share that view always makes me laugh as it shows a lack of understanding of why people likes these features. And no it's not so you can have a character bounce about like some demented rabbit


Edit: But the big question is could these changes be made to the game anyway, could the game support these features. It's possible it might not be able to.

[iphdrunk]

But the big question is could these changes be made to the game anyway, could the game support these features. It's possible it might not be able to.

Indeed. Rather than discussing whether it is appropriate or not to jump in the game, the question is whether Ryzom can be improved to support a third dimension (otherwise jumping is purely cosmetic and eye-candy much like spells and /alert), and the answer may be "yes, but with a lot of work". If the engine was coded with a "mostly-2d but with a few hacks to look-like-3d", the changes may be way more complex than expected. It is not to just move a bunch of polygons up-and-down, but to change the physics, the collision detection, and the way the server represents entities. It is quite probable that the server stores each entity as a (x,y) position (with a weird-z in some cases)

What I don't think is right is to dismiss those players wishing to "jump" with a condescending remark kinda "what for? to goof-jump like a rabbit?"... "In that game you can jump and there are only jumping idiots"...

It is akin to say "what do you want to sit for? to sit like a monkey?", "eat? what for?", "decorate your appartment? what a waste"....

A honest answer like "Ryzom was not conceived to be 3d and it would be unreasonable to change the engine now" (which I personally agree, there are way more important updates, imho), while explaining that it is not a trivial change as it may seem seems a better approach to me..

yours
Ani

[kalindra]

To be honest, I'd rather be able to sit on furniture. Why do we have stools in bars and taverns if we can't sit on them ? They're just obstacles then. Why can't I sit or lay-down on my bed ? Why do I have a bed then ?

If we can't sit on chairs, then remove the chairs, put cushions instead and lower the tables so we can sit by them on the ground.

I don't care for jumping, but the annoying chairs getting im my way have always bothered me.

[dracolych49]

Re: pointless discussion about jumping


What does that even MEAN?? You can't use that argument about video games!


There's an alternative in between the two extremes.

But I think the argument is moot. (as other people have already mentioned my two arguments against jumping)

1) Jumping would require a lot of play-testing and careful redesigning to make sure that no one could exploit it to get to places they weren't supposed to. (like somehow surviving a 50 foot fall and then ending up in the PR or Silan or someone's apartment)

2) Seeing idiots jumping all over the place could easily be avoided with a cooldown timer, so that they could only use it like speed-run, to clear objects as they flee aggro, or to get up a single ledge. Or have it use up large percentage of stamina. (so that high level players with more stamina wouldn't be able to jump more often, although perhaps they could lower the percentage slightly. I think it'd still need a cooldown though. Perhaps the cooldown could be lowered very slightly at higher levels as well.)


I hadn't thought of that.
Then again, sometimes a bug turns out to be a feature. (like TFC conq jumping)

But like I said, most likely moot. I'm not convinced that it's clearly going to break the game to implement it, but I do agree it would take a lot of work. (that's probably not worth it at this point)
Maybe maybe maaaaybe if (in addition to them figuring out if it would be something that would improve the game rather than detract from it) it became successful enough that it had the money to develop further, after implementing more important things they could afford to implement jumping.

*cough*ranged attack ammo*cough*

[acridiel]

On a sidenote, talking about "realism" in Games.

You either can´t or can´t jump.
Gamers endlessly argue about it.
But running at full tilt for days on end, only walking when its "needed", is completely normal and nobody argues about it.
Funny, isn´t it?

CU
Acridiel