I fully agree with the "Overall" section of the review:
'I cannot recall ever wanting so desperately to love a game as much as I have with The Saga of Ryzom. It is a dubious honor indeed to hold the title of game that defied my best efforts at love. The environment is awe-inspiring, it is beautiful, and it sings a sirens song of attraction to my deep-rooted craving for truly original ideas. There is just so much promise that its almost unbearably painful to see that potential crippled by a complete and utter lack of content. Now its worth mentioning that Nevrax is patching in features like mad, but it's cold comfort indeed that they expect players to pay a monthly fee to beta-test their unfinished game. It doesnt help that they have been wielding the nerf-bat with incomparable savagery: Their first major update was so thorough in its tweaks that it rendered much of the manual incorrect and seriously imbalanced the already out of control economy as well as the difficulty levels for crafting. If this title can last a year or more and fill in all the empty holes, it might be a serious contender. However, with the three-headed juggernaught of MMO heavy-hitters to contend with, it is doubtful the players will stick around to make The Saga of Ryzom a lengthy tale.'
I plan to check in on Ryzom in 6-8 months to see if things have settled down. Hopefullly, Nevrax will have gotten the content in place and it will be worthwhile. As it is I don't really feel like paying for the ongoing beta
On the positive side, I did send a nice note to Themis Group saying how much I appreciated their customer service despite my cancelling Ryzom...
Last edited by fellgrim on Wed Nov 24, 2004 5:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason:i kant spel
For the sake of the many I read the Avault review. Yes it's very poetic and such a tearjerker. Unfortunately, the review is a bit inaccurate, something even this newbie player could notice straight away.
Example 1)
He puts down the Ryzom chat interface, saying it is like EQ's and uses tabs and that this is not good and he wishes for separate windows or something lame like that.
Hey, you can right click on any of the chat tabs and CHOOSE to make that tab a separate window. How do I know? It's in the Chat Window Help and in the Tutorial ... um doh Mr. Reviewer ... doh?!
Secondly, the tabs work great. Does he not recall how every reviewer now thinks Firefox is roxxors for having tabs for multiple open windows instead of Internet Explorer's set-up? Come on , dude, get some perspective.
No it's clear that he has certain expectations and habits, I know, at first I said .... oh no it doesn't have the exact Dark Age of Camelot set-up I dreamed of. Within a few hours of anal reading of the help and just trying a few things, I found I had it working fine and dandy and easily.
Example 2)
He talks of some lag and even display lag, yadda yadda. Hey dude, come ona and play a myhouse-ah. I have a 384 MB RAM , Pentium 3 1.4 GHz BELOW MINIMUM SPEC machine. I run the game on 16.8 K dial-up partly as an experiment to see if I was right and that it could be done. Well guess what Mr. Reviewer, it does at least in the Newblands where there are , yes, less player characters, but I've been surrounded by multiple herds, firing off spells etc, very little lag, certainly nothing that effects my game. Plus it looks way better than Anarchy Online on high, I have a longer view that tracks all the players, animals, etc .. I don't have Horizons dummy placeholders, everything displays up to a football field away, on low graphics arcross the board and it looks better than Dark Age of Camelot for anything mobile or anything constructed on Medium . The trees even sway in the wind. So give me a break on your lagola comment. Let's then say that individual experience can vary, if I can with a 16.8 K hookup blast things with impunity and not notice meaningful lag. Asheron's Call 2 and Dark Age of Camelot were worse at 28 K hookup, so give me a break.
Look gang, he really hints at his issue with it when you read the poetic phrasing. He wanted this game to be perfect , he expected it to be perfect, and he found out that it isn't, just like every other MMORPG. This is what you get for hyping for almost three years that every MMORPG do out this year is Second or Third generation. He bought into the very hype his own brand of journalist has been spewing out as crap for the last couple of years. I'd like to know what his opinion of Horizons was, I bet it was higher than Ryzom, he ought to go back and try that game and see how Ryzom got Horizons right. He also loves Larry Niven, so he's expecting Ringworld complete and he is obviously suffering a bit from MMO burnout but most of the people suffering that never do see it until they unplug the modem for 3 months or more and figure it out. That explains the poetic phrasing and the I"m a man who watches Oprah mystique. Game reviewers just don't come across like that except when things get to them. Else why kill that Yubo, Homin, Human, or monster anyway in an MMORPG? To seem like MR. Sensitive, I don't buy it. No, he is disappointed too much while also saying things like .. it looks great .. I wanted it to succeed .. so much is there, so much to offer. Right, how come you don't like it then?
Then by the end of Page 3 ... his burnout becomes obvious and I didn't read any further pages. Notice the multiple uses of the word "nerfbat". There you have it. I'll explain it really succinctly.
He came to a new and beautiful land, Ryzom the MMORPG. He puts all this love and effort into his new wonderful game. He is beginning to get over all the old MMORPG nonsense, the forced quests, the competition for uber armor , the forced grouping, the fighting over loot and kill stealing ... because there is almost none of that in Ryzom. He's almost over his MMORPG burnout, but it has only been a couple of weeks, and then .. he finds that Mr. Dev decides that the maxi-min habits of Reviewer types and others not over MMO burnout are not intended ... and the reality that he is in an MMORPG hits him and his favorite characters that he loves over the head with a king-sized Nerfbat. Thou shalt not do that. Boom, he is reminded of what he hates about all MMOs and boom .. there goes the dream state and disappointment sets in and he is doomed.
Gee, like that was news. Nerfs happen all the time in MMOs. It shoudn't even dent his hide, he's an experienced reviewer and game player , right? But it does , how come?
Exactly for the same reason the poetic verbage hints at. He's human and he loved the game so much that when he was reminded that deep down it's just another , even if good or better, MMORPG he got all upset and emotional. That explains it all.
Remember, this is Avault, people. Adrenaline Vault. It used to follow the Quake Leagues and AMD's sponsorship of who is the very best twitch player in all the known universe of cocaine, teenspeak, and who has the best custom controller or script to mine gold in Everquest. When one of these reviewer bozos starts doing the War & Peace dance or faking a Dostoyevsky on you, dig beyond the poetic license and see only that his humanity was momentarily exposed for all of you to see.
Any game that can bring a near full time gamer like a game reviewer to the brink of humanity for an instant, is a lot better game than his hurt review says. Just like that old flame must have been a lot better than you say now when she forces you to write like John Keats even 10 years after the fact.
Though there were some minor inconsistancies in his review most of the basic points ie. content, nerfs and grind, I have to agree with...
Most recently the nerfs have made leveling at the higher levels of harvest next to impossible and way too time consuming to even make much headway... Granted the insta heal focus has been helpful but still does not address the unbalanced action cost of skills whatsoever... It is almost like the devs responsible for harvest have never really focus tested a harvester that is primarily a harvester with very few other skill sets....
Fighting in SoR has become way too deadly and on the gratifiacation scale for reward via xp/loot extreemly low. The nerf of my primary magic tree making it next to useless was quite disheartening to the point I do not think I have even leveled once since patch one in this tree (Offensive affliction).
When it comes to melee I was able to partially handle the mobs in my level area solo. Now, i dont even stand a chance against any of my level mob solo in proper gear using the best edited stanza's a homin may so choose.... Solo fight is a necessity of a forager now I just accept death and the following 30 minutes of DP if evasion is impossible.... I can think of many occasion I just let the mob do his dirty work being I stood 0 chance in hell from the point of unequipping my pick re-equipping a weapon by that point on most occasions I am already dead being I cannot use other heal options during the equip cycle... It had been that melee fight was the only way to survive before level 100 now even that doesn't suffice....
I cannot help but have the feeling nevrax has just placed us in a holding pattern till they can get their heads on straight but meanwhile we are losing the community to other rpg's being nevrax released way too early before providing the needed content. Then when players were progressing in a way that would not support the three month plan they reacted rather than thoughtfully and slowly making changes and destroyed much of the magic that made Ryzom fun....
It started with the overeaction of Kittin Patrols with high aggro range... Then on to harvesting nerfs forced damage that you would think a homin would be used to by now but I am not even close.... It is pretty sad when a source hits ya for 2.5 to 2.6k damage but it happens.... Or a gas cloud nails you for 350 to 400+ hp per tick. Affliction magic that doesnt even come close to usefullness. Mages and melee now are in the same useless boat if solo and still the game heavily relys on players of higher level to support those of lower level... Progression is at a snails pace making the game seem, well, dull.
However I am still here... I still have faith the dev's can figure it out... Hopefully breathing some new life into Ryzom focusing more on content less on nerfing what was already promised in manuals external interviews and what not... The nerfs have almost made some of the best reviews nevrax selling points borderline "false advertising."
