Ryzom

Gingos still hurt, but they are much more tame. I killed my first scary gingo again since the patch. When it first came out it was 3 hits and I was dead. They are tweaking the mobs down.

All games have their good days and their bad days. Some days you just die a lot and you are frustrated. It doesn't matter if its an FPS, a space combat sim, or whatever, you are going to have bad gaming days. I had a day in AC1 when it first came out that I must have died 20-30 times. My vitae was so high I coud'nt kill a stupid drudge. Some people I met helped me work it off over a couple hours.

there will be days as a casual gamer that you will get nothing done. There will be other days however that you will meet or exceed your goals. Most people take what they accomplish for granted and only look at the negative.

komori wrote:...
I read a report on Gamasutra (an industry site) that more and more "over tweens" women are gaming. Id say they also fall into this group given their life commitments.

...
As a casual gamer, the turn offs for me are:

...
Turn ons for casual gamers:
...

Over tweens? I don't recall hearing the term before, but I'm guessing I fall into the category. Both work and family limit my gaming time to the point where I can count on 12 hours or less per week, and 2/3 of that is on weekends.

komori, I thought your list of casual gamer turn off/ons was just about perfect! I find many of those same things important, especially keeping solo gaming fun. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE to group in these games but due to time constraints I am lucky to be able to more than once a week, if even that.

I generally play one MMORPG at a time, because with as little time as I have it makes no sense to me to split it among multiple games. I haven't quit Ryzom, but I do find myself occasionally drawn in other directions these days. I am hoping the devs will make changes (and additions) that will help to focus my interest as I really do like Ryzom a lot!

Eschiava and Komori - Good points about casual gamers!

Nevrax - give us something we can accomplish in 2-3 hours [with no more than 1 hour to prep]. Personally, I'm getting bored with shooting stuff to level ranged, melee fighting for minimal xps, and harvesting for no apparent reason. I've done the "kill # of X" missions quite a few times through and don't have the patience to randomly search the whole continent for the harvest missions...What else is there to do????

thanks for the wordful description, i will now use it to describe my way of playing and my viewpoint of rzm

>Ill give you mine. The casual gamer has about 4-5 hours a week to devote
>to the game, spread out over the week in an uneven way. They *may* have
>that amount again on the weekend.
>The casual gamer friends I have, have intensive day jobs (or other
>commitments) and have some sort of family situation that keeps them from
>dramatically increasing their hours.
exactly the situation i am in, i am currently studying, sometimes from 0800-1900 and have two working parents and a sister who also goes to school, meaning i get quite a bit of workload and max. 2 hours time per day to play

>I think casual gamers and power gamers both want a sense of completion
>during any one session. Therefore, any penalty needs to be able to be
>worked off relatively quickly and there still be time to "get ahead" and maybe
>complete a quest of some kind. Load times and unload times for the client
>matter more for casual gamers, too.
i think this relates to the matter of DP, currently the max i can get is 190k(tested that while wasting a weekend with getting to matis oO), i can work that of by using my second-highest skill on the various critters out front of pyr in about half an hour, not to mention that by the time i'm done i always return with a bag full of q30 and q40 loot which is actually useful to the crafters(yubo and capry eyes and strangely enough yubo hips are kinda high in demand =) )

>As a casual gamer, the turn offs for me are:

>1. Nerfing characters. If it takes me 2-3 times longer than a power gamer to
>achieve a "level of satisfaction", I dont want my goals nerfed. AC2 did this
>several times, changing core capabilities of characters.
depends on the game mechanics for me, when there is an overpowered aspect of a game and it is easier to soften that aspect, then i'd prefer that to a fullscale rebalance (ex.: blind)
i agree on unnecessary nerfs that hit bigger regions and are more than simple bugfixing(ex.: harvesting)

>2. Upscaling existing challenges without any real value added. Here are the
>gingos. They arent more fun, they just keep me trapped in the city. AC1 did
>this once, for an entire month -- every critter became a much more powerful
>monster, effectively trapping low levels in cities. No fun.
i agree again, this happened right after patch 1 in the nooblands (250 hp suck. yubos), but it is warranted in cases where there is an imbalance like: player-range 1-250, mob range 1-250, the average player was able to level on mobs that were 30 lvl above solo and upto double his lvl in teams(if not more -_-). personally, during the beginning of the game it was kinda nice, being able to have 3 goaris nipping on you and simultaneously defeating a kipee in noobland, but at the same time it made me wonder: "these were the fearful kitins that destroyed 4 civilisations?" and as a result the upscaling of the mobs put things in perspective for me =)
in regards to being trapped anywhere i can say with confidence that i could move almost anywhere in fyros with a lvl 1 character by utilizing 2 things: the radar (most aggro mobs have a max. aggro range of about 40m) and (granted, it's a hack that not everyone knows about) being able to zoom out a good deal further than normal, also setting the far clip range for characters to 200 is critical, as it really helps to be able to see that gingo from as far away as possible =)

>3. Massive downloads. Yes, true for everyone. If you have 1-2 hours max a
>night, you dont want to spend much of that time patching. Of course,
>broadband helps. If the demographic for casuals are generally "older", then I
>guess we can assume they are willing and able to pay for broadband.
agreed

Turn ons for casual gamers:

>1. Engrossing storyline with inventive back system. It should capture
>interest from the moment of logging on. This is why I got into Saga. Its
>beautiful and is really something special. But I loved the monthly events in
>AC1. It looks like that is coming with Saga.
once again agreed, i really love reading books, and also rpgs with lots of story(albion, planescape torment), i too have high hopes for rzm in that regard, and atm they are already being fulfilled, as we have a guild on our server that likes to do rp events =)

>2. Challenges in the right places. Add a new dungeon, add a new location.
>Populate new locations with new quests. Start quests in home city, go
>elsewhere. If there is a storyitem which impacts character starting points,
>there needs to be an easy way to avoid it (like town attacks in AC1 -- great
>fun if you were strong enough, but you can run away too).
agreed too, and i must also say, dungeons will come too, in regards to invasions i have to say that i really like the possibility of a town becoming overrun, although the event managers would have to be judicious there in regards to relieving the threat, also note that during invasions you do not gain DP when respawning

>3. Solo. I want to be able to solo as much as possible. If that means taking
>on a dungeon full of weenie critters (so one character can take on a good
>sized mob alone), okay, but I still want some reward for it. Instanced
>dungeon settings are capable of doing this nicely, anyway.
during my whole playtime(two months) i have always been able to solo properly, if i kept to the right regions

>4. Player Economy is useful but not Required for fun. I thought AC1 had it
>very good. You could buy the standard products, and, very unique and
>"dropped phat loot" would be for sale for a while after a player sold it. If I
>see a cluster of sellers around an NPC, I can choose to run and buy if I like,
>or not. Saga has a good compromise here, but the crafted items arent all
>that unique and interesting.
i really love the system =)
and in regards to unique items, it depends on what kind of equipment you are seeking, i usually fight in light armor and wield two daggers, and at times it can be quite challenging to replace them, also i'm always on the lookout for items with special capabilities (like my living buckler) if only to have a nice looking attire for certain occasions, also a very good find are enchanted items, lately i saw a quite highpriced sword and upon checking it i found out it had been enchanted with a 1000 hp healspell =)

>5. Unique items. This goes along with the engrossing story line. Saga has a
>lot of interesing, named objects you can harvest. Cool. Give me lots of
>useful and fun recipes to go along with it. Sure, a Gingo Steak Sandwich and
>Shooki Salad may only give me the same sort of heal, but they sound cool --
>and I want to be able to see them, give them to my friends, etc.
not sure what you mean with this, in case you are implying that the mats and loots should have more interesting names i can only say that i like the realistic approach that nevrax took

6. Now i have to add a point: Exploration
I really like to walk around in gameworld and try stuff or watch things and until now i have perhaps seen 1/3 of Fyros and spent a great part of my time just walking around. Add to that the wildlife that is not always benevolent and you have a nice mix of excitement and visual and aural enjoyment.(i kinda like to sit near to the humming ... things south of Fyros =) )

>This is how I see it, and reflects what my casual gamer friends talk about
>when we talk about games we enjoy. Anyone else?
that's my take on the points you brought up, i close this post with the hopes of giving you some new perspectives on ryzom and also a question: what kind of gamer am i? until today i regarded myself as a casual gamer :/

eschiava wrote:Over tweens? I don't recall hearing the term before, but I'm guessing I fall into the category. Both work and family limit my gaming time to the point where I can count on 12 hours or less per week, and 2/3 of that is on weekends...!

When those in their twenties are starting to look like "teens" to you

Im guessing we are both in the same boat here, how much fun time we can actually allocate to ourselves after everyone else is taken care of.

xenofur wrote:.6. Now i have to add a point: Exploration
I really like to walk around in gameworld and try stuff or watch things and until now i have perhaps seen 1/3 of Fyros and spent a great part of my time just walking around. Add to that the wildlife that is not always benevolent and you have a nice mix of excitement and visual and aural enjoyment.(i kinda like to sit near to the humming ... things south of Fyros =) )

That's something I like as well. I havent found a game though that really rewards exploration, except if you need to get some sort of validation of an item in multiple locations. Maybe characters need some kind of pedometer.

well, there are 1.5 games that do that =)
WoW gives exp for discovering new regions, and ryzom will get the encyclopedia with P2, i suggest doing some searches in the forum on that

Really good discussion has developed in this thread, with some great points about casual gamers. As a 46 y.o. physician with 3 young children, about 10 hours/week would be the most I could ever hope for. Some weeks I may go days without playing at all. Thus I too am a casual gamer.

I have not had too many problems with the aggro mobs since the patch. In fact, those mobs are now much further away from Pyr than they were before, so the chance of dying within "spitting distance" of the gates is considerably lower. For awhile, I too felt like I was trapped in a very small area near the gates, but that has improved. Buying better equipment one piece at a time (still nothing great, all below level 50) has helped when I can afford it, and gives me something to work towards. I definitely agree that as a casual gamer I too want to feel the ability to be "rewarded" and make progress in the game. If you can only enjoy the game after level 100, something is wrong. You should be able to enjoy the game at any level, although obviously you can do different things at higher levels.

I too came to the mainland around level 20 and I've gotten now to level 38 or so in harvest and melee with only about 2-3 deaths altogether. By the way, I'm pretty much exclusively solo and haven't joined a guild. Have only grouped once in the month or so I've been playing.

I do have a couple of questions/comments about what others have said:

Is there any way to identify aggro mobs on the radar? Right now I think all the mobs are orange dots. There are sooooo many that when you push the range out, the screen is filled with tiny orange dots, which tells me nothing. The aggros are lost within that mess of planteaters. How do others keep track of aggros?

Also, someone mentioned something about level 30 mats, which I sure have obtained lots of. Unfortunately, due to what I think is a bug in the merchant implementation, I don't see any mats or items between level 21 and level 40. Thus I've sold several decent level 29 swords that I've crafted that I wanted to resell, at very good prices, but they don't show up on the merchant screen. Items of level 41 to 50 do show up, so there seems to be a gap.

Doctor Z.

it is regretable that you didn't ask others that have been to the mainland. Going before level 30 is pretty much WAY too soon. I didn't leave nooblands until I was 35 melee and I still take a serious beating.

North gate is a bit less dangerous, and I AVOID roads. Roads are pretty much SUICIDE in Fyros territories.

komori wrote:Im located in Imperial Dunes. Treking out to the south, there is a stable and lots of beginner monsters, but it doesnt take much, going west or east, to run into a wandering baying gingo or a pack of scowlers.

My character is in the 21-25 lvl range in fighter. It just takes 2-3 bites max and Im down.

About the merchants, filter for the levels you want and the Type of material or gear you are looking for and you have a higher chance of finding what you want. Merchants have a list of about 100 I THINK, but whatever the exact number is, it is not enough to show ALL of any one grouping. If you don't find it. for instance you are looking for a Q60 or higher, then you need to find the proper part of town to look in.

In Pyr there are TWO markets, one is like Kmart or walmart, great if you are in a hurry and want "run of the mill" lower level gear/mats. BUT the other part of town "high market" I think it is called is more like Saks Fifth avenue or Neman's. Higher level gear up to I THINK Q100.

Also, if you sold a two handed sword, for discussion let's assume you did sell this, You would have to look on...The two handed melee weapons dealer (he or she is the one with the TWO handed sword equipped), and then he/she would have to also be of the same Q level as the sword you sold. If you looked on the ONE hander dealer OR the Q level OVER or Under you...you wouldn't find it.

Also you can find YOUR sales on the tab on the store side, click that and TA DA.

For the Raw materials merchant, I THINK there are three of them. One on Cheep market to Q ummm 50 I THINK. And one on a road, in one of the orange boxes on the side of the road, he goes to Q100 maybe higher, I don't recall exactly. And then one in the High market area, in a corner, he goes from Q50 to Q100, not sure.

The Forageables go to Q50 in Imperial area, Q100 in Oasis and Dyron has Q ummm 150? not sure, but it IS higher than Oasis.

Fighting in groups is possible, I will dump my crafting efforts if a person calls for a group. My melee is in the 50s, but my healing is in the mid 20's ish, and my mage is roughly 30 ish.

Yeah I also noticed ALOT of parents, and either professional, self employed or over employed (over time on top of over time) and quite a few mid shifters in Ryzom. The game DOES lend itself MUCH more to needing IMMEDIATE afks (you die, not as HUGE an issue as in EQ where you could lose everything you worked for for about two to 6 YEARS. Or Lineage 2 where you could literally drop all your gear and the person that killed you pick up your gear. UGH)

I normally have my radar on 50 m, if ANYTHING moves nearer to me than 45 meters, I hit the 1 or 2 keys to look around me, without moving. I keep sound on as well, LEARN the agro mob sounds...Gingos are growling and snarling, Goari Skitter (for a lack of a better term). If you hear that, STOP whatever you are doing and find that sound. Kinda like in the Oasis of Ro in EQ. THUMP THUMP was normally followed by PAIN, death and a walk from town, after a sand giant ate your level 17 orc hunting self.

And yes, the agro mobs do seem to have had their range tweeked from almost ALL of Imperial dunes, to about 30 m or less. I would be happier if I could kill a two star of ANYTHING, or a four star. If I can kill a four star in Imp dunes, but a gingo of two stars kills me...that isn't right. And if I can kill a ONE star from Oasis, but a TWO star Imp dunes gingo kills me...Ummm time for a retool.

zukor wrote:Really good discussion has developed in this thread, with some great points about casual gamers. As a 46 y.o. physician with 3 young children, about 10 hours/week would be the most I could ever hope for. Some weeks I may go days without playing at all. Thus I too am a casual gamer.

I have not had too many problems with the aggro mobs since the patch. In fact, those mobs are now much further away from Pyr than they were before, so the chance of dying within "spitting distance" of the gates is considerably lower. For awhile, I too felt like I was trapped in a very small area near the gates, but that has improved. Buying better equipment one piece at a time (still nothing great, all below level 50) has helped when I can afford it, and gives me something to work towards. I definitely agree that as a casual gamer I too want to feel the ability to be "rewarded" and make progress in the game. If you can only enjoy the game after level 100, something is wrong. You should be able to enjoy the game at any level, although obviously you can do different things at higher levels.

I too came to the mainland around level 20 and I've gotten now to level 38 or so in harvest and melee with only about 2-3 deaths altogether. By the way, I'm pretty much exclusively solo and haven't joined a guild. Have only grouped once in the month or so I've been playing.

I do have a couple of questions/comments about what others have said:

Is there any way to identify aggro mobs on the radar? Right now I think all the mobs are orange dots. There are sooooo many that when you push the range out, the screen is filled with tiny orange dots, which tells me nothing. The aggros are lost within that mess of planteaters. How do others keep track of aggros?

Also, someone mentioned something about level 30 mats, which I sure have obtained lots of. Unfortunately, due to what I think is a bug in the merchant implementation, I don't see any mats or items between level 21 and level 40. Thus I've sold several decent level 29 swords that I've crafted that I wanted to resell, at very good prices, but they don't show up on the merchant screen. Items of level 41 to 50 do show up, so there seems to be a gap.

Doctor Z.