jokque wrote:These particular pets he talks about are just that, a pet that follows you around. It has no impact on gameplay. The combat pets would be "minions"
A good point. Although, what's the problem with pets that fight/minions anyway? As long as they're balanced there
is no problem, they're just another tool for combat. A Walock's pet is very useful for combat - it doesn't make a Warlock overly powerful, it makes them more equal with the other combat classes. A Warlock cannot fight alone (before anyone reacts to that, sometimes people get jumped, rather than just soloing), and a minion at least gives them a fair chance of survival.
jokque wrote:95% of WoW's quests arent instanced.
Another very good point. I'm on the fence on this topic though - a friend of mine was raving about the WoW quests, but I don't find them hugely interesting or entertaining, at least after you've done a few. Still, the magnitude of difference between Ryzom Q's and WoW Q's is quite staggering - they have a good interface, a little background to each quest, and some (quite a few) make up a series with connected story. And Ryzom? A rough-and-ready looking list of "kill this and I'll be happy", no reasons why, and nothing to keep you going if you actually finish a quest.
I hear this 'quests that everyone has done before' bandied about a lot here - what, and the Ryzom quests are unique? And interesting? Some people here need to take a step back and appreciate the things they're praising. I used to love this game, but I've never been blind to it's shortcomings.
And finally back to WoW. I haven't played in 3 weeks - Ryzom or WoW. I have, however, tried WoW properly before making any judgements. Some people on this forum, who are criticising WoW at every opportunity, are guilty of one or more of:
1) Not playing WoW before criticising it
2) Criticising it because it contains 'the usual' kind of races and characters
3) Seeing features in both games as 'better or worse', when in fact the standards for several things are quite close indeed
4) Mentioning the 'cartoon' look of WoW, which is in fact an artistic style (cell-shaded as opposed to photo-realism).
1) This is plain silly, and anyone who does this has no relevant opinion to state
2) Oooo, not Orcs eh. Some of you have been playing MMOs for years, and hate this fact. Well, that's unfortunate. Maybe you should play less MMOs? Or, maybe you should be a game/world designer and create something nice and new and fresh (this is obviously easy). Either way, producing a game with MMO scale, using completely new characters, themes and surroundings, is a huge job. Nobody has managed this so far, including Nevrax:
Matis=Elves(-ears), Tryker=Dwarves(-beard), Fyros=Humans, Zorai=(insert beast/minotaur/generally different/outcast race here)
Indeed, that's a generalisation. Anyone who says the above generalisation doesn't have any grounding, isn't looking properly. Forest, desert, lakes and jungle you say? Yep, very original indeed - groundbreaking. Special.
3) This just comes back to the missions again. The missions in Ryzom are, compared to WoW, empty and pointless. The WoW quests aren't a huge step by any means, but they're better, more varied, and more interesting - fact.
4) This one really makes me chuckle. Ask an artist who specialises in cel-shaded or cartoon-style art/rendering. I don't know any, unfortunately. Still, I'd wager they'd say that WoW is an acceptable execution of that style of art. Almost all of the seams are invisble, the textures are deep and rich with colour, and the animations are nicely detailed. I quite like both styles, as long as they're done right. Cel-shading creates a nice stylistic appearance when done properly, and the WoW graphics are done properly.
I've never used the word Fanboi before (doh). I've been a supporter of Ryzom for some time, and have always had hope and confidence that it will become the beatiful flower that it could be. However, as my interest fades and times get darker on these forums, I see more and more that the veteran players here have little ability to be objective, and I can't shout praise about something that just isn't worth praising. That's a shame, because it's those players that should be setting the standard, not making empty criticisms that aren't even accurate. Empty is a good way to describe this place at the moment - there are players here, but the heart and soul seems to have disappeared, and the type of response in this thread is one of the causes.
Well, keep those comments coming. And keep the IRL meetings going too - soon you'll be meeting the entire player base for a drink.
(eyes, etc, comes to mind)
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