You guys who haven't bothered logging back in since patch 1 -- they fixed it since

[xenofur]

ok, to put in some opinions and clear up some lies:

1. to all those wondering why they introduced patch 1 and the big fight changes:
they put them in because you, the players demanded it, on the boards was a huge dissent with how slow and boring the fights were, how people would double-click a mob and go make a pizza or something, well, they fixed that and i haven't heard such statements since P1

2. harvesting is not difficult for noobs, it is difficult for noobs who
a) absolutely want to play alone and
b) can't accept that harvesting is quite a challenge when doing so
you can quite easily level up by employing source care skills and making teams and being social and you can also level up on your own, but it will simply be more difficult

3. soloing is not destroyed by any means, mobs have simply been made more varied, now there are several groups which have several purposes and gains for the player:
a) Carnivores: they are supposed to be a threat, they kill fast, but they also die fast since they have low HP, but this also means they give low XP since it is also determined by the HP
they also drop some nice weapon mats, and esp. in the higher levels they drop better mats than could be harvested
b) herbivores: these are supposed to be your daily average hunting targets, they don't hit nearly as hard as carnivores and have more HP which means they give good experience, also some of their loot is quite useful, for example the eyes

another thing you have to look at is the resistances, i'm using double daggers and most of the soft and fleshy mobs are quite easy prey for me, i can even level on gingos as they have a lot of nice cuttable flesh
now birds are a different matter, these thin and fast moving critters are really hard to hit and when i hit i don't do much damage, in a nutshell, they are almost as difficult as carnivores
this changes when i take out my 1h axe and shield, general damage output on fleshy mobs drops a bit, but birds are now easy prey as i can simply splinter their frail bones, in counter the difficulty of gingos rises :/

4. hyping
nobody is actively trying to get people to hype the game here, the posts mentioned were simply made by players to see if there were forum goers who still liked the game

5. content
nobody said any content would come with P1, that was never said anywhere, so stop bringing it up, also to those of you who say content-less games die, have you ever played ragnarok online? that game has absolutely zero content and the official servers are packed, not to speak of all the in-official servers
5.1 the quests suck
no they don't, there aren't any quests, those are only place-holder missions

6. beta feeling
yes, this game is still in beta, but it's not in that state because nevrax wanted it to, they did all they could to delay it, but the money givers forced them to release it now

7. suckling yubos on newbie island could kill you in a single hit for a full week following patch 1
quite an exxageration, yes you were unable to kill them alone, but they did not kill you in a single hit, it took about a minute of trading blows until both of you were almost dead, the only true thing in that sentence is that for a few days(not a week like he claims) lvl 1/1/1/1 players could not beat a yubo when playing solo

8. encyclopedia
it will not just be a mob-database it will collect all information your character gains, also including things like: customs of tribes, informations that are puzzle pieces to other quests
also it will provide you with quests, namely the rites, which means you do certain quests and get rewards from tribes to who those riter belong

[xenofur]

well good to hear my post wasn't misunderstood, now for a way to help you decide wether ryzom is the thing for you or not i suggest this:
http://www.andreasen.org/bartle/test.cgi

my type is SEA with these percentages
Socializer 93%
Explorer 73%
Achiever 26%
Killer 6%
and i play ryzom for about 1-2 hours per day and am having fun

[vinnyq]

Hullo! Sorta new player here. I like to put in a newbie perspective that is missing from this thread.

I was interested in Ryzom from reading about it, seeing screenshots, and playing for about a week during the first open beta. I finally succumbed and bought the game a few months after the release (I was going to wait a while), and registered and logged in. This was on November 5th, 2 days after P-day (patchday).

I didnt know the patch was that recent or major when I logged in, just noticed the patch update thing and let it run, assuming this was a small patch since release that I had to get for my client.

I started a Fyros character and familiarized myself with the interface. First thing I did was to get the Welcomer mission, which consist of running around to the various trainers, then go to kill my first Suckling Yubo. Oh boy was I surprise! That yubo was meeeean!

I died a lot, I complained, I got help from some players, did a few more missions, then logged off and run straight to the forum to post a complain.

And here is where things got interesting for me. I spent half the night reading through the various threads in this public forum.

I got a sense of things on both side of the fence. What made my night was a post by somebody to my post that said help is on the way real soon! Another small patch. On that very night!

I logged on the next night and sure enough, I was able to go whack that suckling yubo on the head that I had so much trouble with the night before. They fixed it pretty darn quick. For the record, the Super Killer Suckling Yubo issue was fixed in 3 days, give or take

I spent a week on newbie island to learn as much as I can and level all my skills to at least 20. I soloed most of the time and died quite often (dam gingos). I only teamed up once for about 15 minutes with one person to go try kill a goari, and got us both killed. The good thing was that the death penalty wasn't that major at the point, and I could dig it off pretty quick.
The environment was pretty, but dangerous. When I move too far from town I was always careful and wary. Things were pretty scarey outside of town for me at first. But this put an element of excitement to the game.

I met some really great people during that week on newbie island, all of us newbies, and we were all learning the game together. I did sensed that the place was mostly desolated, about 20 people on average when I was on.

After I got to the point where I can jump into a herd of goaris and kips and lay them all to waste, I decided I was ready for the mainland. So I went and talked to the weird monster next to the pole (a kami!) and ported myself to Pyr.

From that day on I have been having fun just level grinding and exploring. I played for a few days mostly soloing or went huntng with random newbies outside of pyr, and usually get ourselves kill if we wandered off too far.

A few days later a Guild outside town was recruiting and I joined up. I have had a blast ever since. The old players would help all us new recruits out by running spawn points, getting us weapons, going on big hunts so we can level faster, etc. As the week progress there would be new recruit to the Guild as more refugees filtered in from newbie island. I even recruited a few myself!

The common concensous among most of us new players is that we like the game, and have much to learn. Only a handful of us know about the Patch, and the patch vs. pre-patch stage.. A lot of us doesn't even know about this flame war with the patch (most of them doesn't do forum). I had a mate asked me the other day "what's this I hear about a patch? What was it like before?". He was having a blast and didn't understand some of the complains he have heard.

So what I am trying to say with this long post (sorry!) is, I can see that there is definately a lack of in game content, and how this would discourage and infuriate those long time players who have been playing this for a while now, who was promised content but still haven't seen it. Once you get to a pretty high enough level and there's nothing to do but grind, it kin git pretty boring. All of us know that Patch 2 with the content is coming and hope it would hurry the hell up already. But even with that, for us new players, the world itself and the grind and the learning is content enough for now. Things are still fresh to us.

I can see where the oldbies doesn't have this privilege. What I do see are the veterans sticking it out waiting for events and the patch and the contents to filter in, and in the mean time grinding for that new title or skill sets and helping new players find their way and running spawns and group hunts (our guild + a few nonmembers took down an Ocyx Boss today!) and exploring Atys. Atys is huge, and there are place so far and dangerous that I am sure no player have visited yet. I was lucky enought to make a few ventures into the Prime Root with a bunch of veterans who were still exploring the place.

We all know content is coming, albeit slower than was planned/promised. To think that it is not would be totally illogical. Nevrax would not build this game and leave it as is and *hope* it'll keep players and bring in more. That would not make sense. The thing I want to hazard here is, the influx of new players are more accepting of this fact then the older one. The bitterness is the more bitter for those who has been playing this game longer (I am guessing from open beta all the way through closed beta to release).

The statement that there are only a handful of hardcore "faibois" still clinging to the game is simply WRONG. The game is in release-mode right now, as Aelvana had said. The game official release was 2 months ago, not a year ago from open beta. Also, a huge part of the playerbase do not frequent this forum nor the private forum or if they do, they just like to lurk and not post. 95% of the people in my Guild and the people I have met does not even read this nor the private forum.

To the people who were dissapointed or think they wasted money on this game, I suggest (as many other has) that you wait a few months and then come back to visit to see if the game is forming into what you had hope it would be. I am thinking it will, or at least a semblance of it. I really do wish they would at least open up the private forum for nonsubscribers to browse through without posting privilege so that nonactive accounts can at least see what's going on in the game (though there are lots of guild forums out there, look them up!).

One last thing I'd noticed, not all people (like me) are attracted to the Warcraft or EQ universe, as evident by the playerbase trying the game out and being dissapointed and those still defending it and the new influx of eager players. There's definately going to be a following for this game, because of the fact that the world is so unique and innovative, and the story fairly intriguing and complex (Kami? Karavan? Kipies? Wth?)

Anyway, thanks for reading! I hope you didn't get bored, and if you do, please don't flame me! I am just a newbie, and I get burn easily.