Ryzom

Typically for me, the best rewards for exploring are just the new places I find and the things I see.

If it's awesome items you're looking for there are two ways to go about getting them. Putting the boss armor drops aside, everything great is player crafted. But those crafters need the best materials to make the best equipment.

First source of the best materials is the excellent and supreme harvested mats. They are usually only available during certain seasons and weather, and often in very dangerous areas. Obtaining those is quite the reward in itself, let alone the equipment that can be crafted from it.

Also, if you'd rather go right for killing, the named and boss mobs have equivalent high quality mat drops. They of course need teams to take down but are fun and rewarding too.


I think like Jyudas said many people are not used to the type of gameplay Ryzom offers. They are used to others that tell players what needs to be done next and where to go. Here, your entire experience is what you want to make of it. Hunt, fight, roleplay, trade, harvest, craft, scout, socialize, whatever you envision. There are no instances and therefore no quests to save the world that every player goes through. Ryzom has one big story that is unique and never repeated, but needs everyone to play their role, whatever you choose that to be.

Want to be an explorer and scout? Start learning to sneak. You will die. Lots. But death penalty isn't that serious. Learn the behavior of the mobs as you do it. Learn the aggro ranges of the carnivores, the barely safe passageways between hordes of baddies. Watch their movement, sit and wait for the group to move out of your path, many animals in the wild migrate. It's harder, but a lot more rewarding then running away from a bunch of stuff too slow to catch you.

Personally, I don't do lots of missions, but I will pick some up and do them as I run around doing other things I enjoy. The rites in the enclopedia can be rewarding when the time is taken to finish one. This stuff isn't your goal in the game though, it's extras on the side to help progress in what you're really interested in.

Some of the most exciting things in this game are the large treks between the lands. While it is technically possible to sneak, that takes way more skill than many players have. So players band together and form caravans to travel between the lands sneaking for part of it, but fighting when it's unavoidable. Players who've been to all the lands a thousand times join these to help the new ones and for the sheer enjoyment of the travel.

Whatever you do, the more you get involved in the world and the story and with the community, the more fun you'll have. There's a lot of big stuff happening on the horizon.

I'd say get to work learning about the world, making some friends, and making a name for yourself. You can do that here. This is a game of freedom to do what you want, not one that directs you what to do.

I notice that rant was a bit of a ramble, but I hope it makes sense.

railshot wrote:1. The grind. Yes I know every game has grind, but there seems nothing else to do in the game (see below)
3. Just a general lack of things to do besides grinding especially if crafting is not your thing.

Agree with the previous replies that there's plenty to do on Atys. I myself have spent as least twice as much time exploring as I have grinding. Then there's quests, events, socialising, or just goofing around. And then there's the open skill system, so if you do get bored of grinding one thing, you can always switch to another skill. Personally I enjoy that there isn't a set path for you to follow, a predetermined goal for you to archieve, but that instead you can simply do whatever you want.
It's possible none of this appeals to you ofcourse, but that doesn't mean there's nothing to do, just that there's nothing you'd like to do. Which would sadly mean Ryzom just isn't the game for you. Out of curiosity though, when you say there's nothing else to do, what kind of activities are you thinking about that you'd like to be doing?

railshot wrote:2. Exploring or lack of there of. Since it seems to be impossible to utrun monsters, I can only go as far as I can kill everything. Even if it was posible, whats the point? Monsters only drop raw mats, so its not like I am going to find something interesting.

Not true at all. It's possible to sneak through almost any area in the world, even if the creatures there kill you in one hit. (Almost, there's a few areas with narrow corridors that are completely blocked off by predators.) And this was so even before the recent patch that made it possible to outrun predators. Yes, it's possible to outrun them now, all you need is melee protection aura to survive their first hits, and then speedup to get out of their hunting area fast. That's only an emergency last resort though, the best way to get through an area is to avoid being seen by predators at all. But this takes a long, long time and a whole lot of patience (and deaths) to learn properly. If I recall correctly I died about thirty times just walking from Dyron to Zora for the first time, which is a relatively easy route.
What kind of interesting thing would you want to find? Some kind of super powerfull equipment, that can then be used for more grinding? Well, there are the excellent and supreme materials that will require some exploring to be found. Mostly though, I like to explore simply for the purpose of getting to know the area. To learn where which creatures and which tribes and which resources are, which areas are dangerous and which safe, and what the best route from one place to the other is. To occasionally be surprised by stumbling upon a unique location, whether that be a waterfall or a crashed spaceship. To feel perfectly safe walking amongst predators I couldn't hope to defeat in a fight, because I know how to avoid them and where to run to if one does see me. It's much more satisfying than feeling perfectly safe because you can easily kill anything in the area.

railshot wrote:I think the fact that I cant explore yet is bugging me the most

And this is going to bug you a lot more if you plan to continue exploring. As you can probably tell by my previous rant, exploring is by far my favorite activity in the game. And yet even I have sometimes wanted to throw my monitor through the window after having failed to sneak through a certain area for the twentiest time. Just to let you know what you're getting yourself into

railshot wrote:I think the fact that I cant explore yet is bugging me the most

It is quite hard in the beginning. I was quite frustrated back then when weeny and puny raguses kept on killing me just outside zorai newbie town.

If you rolled matis character, I can understand your frustration as there is quite much ragus and gingos just outside Yrkanis.

Try to learn what mobs are agro (it is rather obvious) and try to look for them. Listen to sounds, look for your compass (set 50m range) for hints. In dangerous areas I like to know what each spot is in your compass close to you.

You should also note that some mobs respawn immediately after you have looted them, so it might be good idea to leave agro corpses at some occasions. I personally, would like to see mobs respawning further away from player though.

Exploration in this game has a challenge, but if you have patience to learn how to beat it,you will get great sense of achievement. There is lots of interesting places to see I can't stand games where you can just run to see new places nowadays, whats the point?

Having said that, I would like to see that agro mobs could be outrun more easily at low level areas. There was a lengthy discussion about this just a short while ago, maybe we will see some improvements here in future.

mmatto wrote:Try to learn what mobs are agro (it is rather obvious) and try to look for them. Listen to sounds, look for your compass (set 50m range) for hints. In dangerous areas I like to know what each spot is in your compass close to you.

Set your compass every once in a while to the 125 range (wish there was a 100 range!) and watch how the orange dots move. Yellow ones are dead animals/people - a signal there's something bad that way.

It's quite something to watch the kitin patrols boiling through the roots on the radar; I catch myself holding my breath as they stream by my small patch of safety.

Cant possibly add much of value to what has already been said. However, the "content" discussion is very hard to ignore ...and it is a rather frequently debated issue; not only on these forums, but on many other mmorpgs as well.

My guess is that most people seem to couple content with reward. Let me explain: I have played many other mmorpgs, and the content I see in them, which is not found in Ryzom, is mainly quests and dungeons with a nice reward at the end. Neither of them is really content in a qualitative manner. Its the exact same thing as people tend to refer to as "grind", but with the little difference of there being a nice, shiny sword at the end. The stories constituting the quests are very seldom particulary good written, and given a thought or two, I guess very few can honestly say that it really gave them a sense of accomplishment of finishing them.

And why should it? You and thousands of others have done the exactly same quest, killing the same mobs etc. There is nothing unique about it.

I assume we all can agree on that the "Lord of the Rings" is a story filled with content. Essentially, it is just a long journey (Trek . The end is quite fast over with, where Frodo throughs a ring into a fire. All over within 5 minutes.

The content in that story is (VERY simplified ofc): the dangers in the areas they passes through, in the people they run into, and, of course, the intrigues among the fellowship; which of most is only achieved through the interaction between "real" characters and that they are doing things together or against each other (think pvp)

I have myself come to revalue content in a mmorpg context. The only "true" content, for me (important remark), is to be found through meeting other people in one way or another (pvp again) ...and sharing a world to populate and discover.

That is content as far as I am concerned in mmorpgs.

Oups, got caught in a content thread once again :/
Sorry folks.