New Player considers Ryzom for long term play

[xeenon]

Let me open up with that I really like alot about the game. Please consider my questions in the light of curiousity and not in an attempt to attack your beloved game. So far the people I've met in game have been pretty cool and not the insane 'pwnors' I've met in other communities.

Since I am really new to the community I was hoping that y'all could answer something for me. Is there a decent development process? I see alot of game that seem to milk players along with promises of features to be released and in the 4 days that I've been playing I've noticed a few things that seem to be missing and I was wondering what the development cycle is like.

For example: (Also I don't find any of this game-breaking just curious as to why they were not included)
* I was in a bar and I could not sit on the chairs.
* I was in a watchtower in the middle of Pyr and I couldn't climb the ladders.
* There was complete silence in the city, if no soundtrack at least add the murmurrs of a busy market when I'm in Cheapside.
* Everyone was wearing armour, there is noone in civilian clothes.
* The game promised offspring, and I understand that it is not included yet, but there are no children running around Pyr.
* The tatooist and the hairdresser had nothing.
* No 'civilain' professions - but it's not that sort of game is it?
* un-dynamic delivery missions

Anyway. That is just a quick sample the things that made me go.. huh? And I'm not expecting any official addressment of anything here anyway, but I was wondering if there was some sort of patch process that adds features, and how good the community considers the process to be.

[madnak]

I'm not expecting any official addressment of anything here anyway, but I was wondering if there was some sort of patch process that adds features, and how good the community considers the process to be.

Quite poor. Content trickles down very slowly and is usually bugged and incomplete. Many of the features slated for release are nowhere in sight. The official events happen every two weeks if we're lucky, and players haven't had the ability to change Atys outside of win/lose scenarios (we haven't lost yet so we have no way of knowing how significant the changes might be).

For me, the game is worth playing for the vibrant world and strong community. I see a lot of promise, but there are a lot of issues to work through.

[grimjim]

* I was in a bar and I could not sit on the chairs.

No you can't, and that's a pity, but a lot of games you can only 'balance' on top of rather than sit.

* I was in a watchtower in the middle of Pyr and I couldn't climb the ladders.

You get to the top of the towers by taking the glowing teleport things.

* There was complete silence in the city, if no soundtrack at least add the murmurrs of a busy market when I'm in Cheapside.

Personaly I'm glad there isn't intrusive music all the time and wish there were less NPCs getting in the way

* Everyone was wearing armour, there is noone in civilian clothes.

True, I don't know whether more clothing or armour types are coming, each race has its own light/medium/heavy and skirt at several quality levels and there are some unique armours.

* The game promised offspring, and I understand that it is not included yet, but there are no children running around Pyr.

That was an early promise, I didn't see it in the box notes. Who knows? There's a lot of people getting married

* The tatooist and the hairdresser had nothing.

Its likely your shop filters are set incorrectly, make sure they're set to a wide amount and look again.

* No 'civilain' professions - but it's not that sort of game is it?

Harvesting and crafting could be considered civilian professions, what did you mean?

* un-dynamic delivery missions

There's other missions and encyclopaedia missions too.

[sprite]

I was wondering what the development cycle is like.

We have no idea how the actual development of the game itself is going, but the patches (imo) keep up with the bugs reasonably well with the exception of a few *very* annoying ones that have persisted from way back.

* I was in a bar and I could not sit on the chairs.
* I was in a watchtower in the middle of Pyr and I couldn't climb the ladders.

The lack of interaction with the scenery bothers me a little, but I don't think there are any plans to include it. If they wanted us to be able to then I think the game would be differently structured with the chairs & ladders being more than simple 3d boxes. They probably would have got that working first because suddenly being able to climb a ladder when before you had to rely on a teleporter (which represent lifts/elevators normally) is a little weird.

* There was complete silence in the city, if no soundtrack at least add the murmurrs of a busy market when I'm in Cheapside.

The addition of music (player created) is apparently planned (don't ask me when, and I'm sure some people will say "its never going to happen" but I'm giving you the facts) and they recently included the "capital music" that plays when you enter the respective cities.

* Everyone was wearing armour, there is noone in civilian clothes.

In a world like this, what is the difference?

* The game promised offspring, and I understand that it is not included yet, but there are no children running around Pyr.

Good point. I never noticed that before, but since ageing/childbirth is going to be an optional thing that is sorted out much later, I guess they will just add them when they add the mechanics

* The tatooist and the hairdresser had nothing.

What do you mean? They work fine for me. I doubt you have changed lands in the 4 days, but you can only buy cosmetics that were designed for your race (so only purchasable in your capital) and your sex (make sure you talk to the right one )

* No 'civilain' professions - but it's not that sort of game is it?

Again, these are planned for later inclusion. Such professions include Hairdressers, animal tamers (tho these will have combat applications) and musicians.

* un-dynamic delivery missions

You mean you always go to the same people in the same place? I guess thats just the way it goes

I was wondering if there was some sort of patch process that adds features, and how good the community considers the process to be.

There are major patches ("Chapters") that are regularly applied to add new features (the last ones included mounts, new trading systems, the hairdressers, the encyclopedia, and some other stuff) as well as the normal "everyday" (as in they happen more often, not literally every day) patches that fix bugs and so forth. Coming up in the next Chapter (Patch 3) will hopefully be outposts.

As well as this there are much less frequent "major updates" which add new skill-trees, races, lands, or whatever to the game. Some people expect one of these to happen in about 30 days, but I for one am not holding my breath for that long I think it will take a little longer to come, but I am sure it is coming at some point

Lots of people complained about Patch 1 which seriously "rebalanced" some areas of the game, and I think it is fair to say that Nevrax messed that one up a little, but they fixed most of the issues within a week and ever since they have been improving their communication with us.

One final word of warning: all of what I have said is my opinion and I'm sure many people will disagree with me. It also has to be said that I am on the EE server, and I am aware that the events/guides/etc situation on the NA server is radically different due to legal issues, but I don't really think that affects anything I have discussed.

[systemv]

and I am aware that the events/guides/etc situation on the NA server is radically different due to legal issues...

I'm pretty new... wasn't aware of any issues like that. Can you give more details or point me in the right direction to learn more?

[lyrah68]

Labor laws in the EU are pretty tight, they can't work the HUGE overtime that Americans take as "just part of working". Europeans also get MUCH more vacation time than we do. So the fact that Euro servers have a different schedule for their GM's is not surprising to me in the least.

Pretty much in the US an employer can work the employee as many hours as the employee will stand as long as they pay them for it (or as long as they pay their salary, once salaried, you are pretty much the corporation's paid slave, they can work you 80 hours or more and you HAVE to work it or you're fired). In Europe, they can't do that. Maybe they have the better system, in my opinion.

I'm pretty new... wasn't aware of any issues like that. Can you give more details or point me in the right direction to learn more?

[rrwfreak]

and I am aware that the events/guides/etc situation on the NA server is radically different due to legal issues....

edit: lyrah68 got his post in before mine....so that is what sprite is referring to. Gotcha.

*scratches head*

I'm with SystemV on this one......What legal issues are there exactly?

I've read through most of the threads on the NA server section as well as most of Nevrax's press and news releases, and I can't find anything about any legal issues...though I could have looked over it since I was gleaming through them at a pretty good clip and on little sleep to boot.

xeenon, good questions, btw.

I agree with everyone on the tattooists and hairdresser. You need to go in and adjust your filters if you aren't seeing any selections to choose from. There should be quite a number of hairstyles and tattoos available for you to choose from. One thing to remember is that, if you are playing a male character, you need to select the male tattooist and hairdresser and if you are playing a female one, the female tattooist/hairdresser. If you want to view the tattoo or hair style/color, just right click on the particual one you're interested in and a window will pop up showing you what the new tattoo or hairstyle/color would look like.

As far as the patches and updates are concerned, since I've been playing for the short while, just about 6 weeks, I've seen no real issues with the patches except when they moved the Kami Teleporter from Thesos to the Thesos Springs. Updates adding new content are slow in coming though. Good point on no kids running around, though, just take a stroll in Tryker land and you'll feel like its been over run my school children ...no offense ment to my fellow Tryker brethren btw

Overall, the big winners for SoR are the great community and the look and style of the game. Ryzom is not your typical,cookie cutter fantasy mmorpg with orcs, goblins, elves, dwarves and such. The game offers great freedom in what you want to do.

I'm looking forward, *crosses fingers and bites lip*, to the promised content even though it is being added slowly and a little at a time.

[aylwyne]

Labor laws in the EU are pretty tight, they can't work the HUGE overtime that Americans take as "just part of working". Europeans also get MUCH more vacation time than we do. So the fact that Euro servers have a different schedule for their GM's is not surprising to me in the least.

Pretty much in the US an employer can work the employee as many hours as the employee will stand as long as they pay them for it (or as long as they pay their salary, once salaried, you are pretty much the corporation's paid slave, they can work you 80 hours or more and you HAVE to work it or you're fired). In Europe, they can't do that. Maybe they have the better system, in my opinion.

Actually, based on Fadin's response in this thread:

http://www.ryzom.com/forum/showthread.p ... ge=2&pp=20

it sounds like the laws about guides is more strict in the US and that's why we don't have them in the game. We have GMs like everyone else but not Guides (at least not nearly as many). I recently saw some screenshots of a beach party player event on the Aripostle server where there were loads of people with Guide and Senior Guide people. It'd be cool if they can make that happen on our server so we have more of an official presence and interaction in the game.

[usinuk]

Welcome aboard xeenon! Let me answer your question a couple of ways.

Is there a decent development process...I've noticed a few things that seem to be missing

The sad answer is no, on a couple of levels.

The older level is that the testing, development, and updates of this game have been pretty poor. The launch ranked among the worst of any in MMORPG history, with a nightmare of billing issues and blatant bugs for a game that had already been delayed and should have been delayed more. Then came patch 1 (a bug fix patch that introduced more bugs than it fixed and massively changed balance without any testing or input from players) when a large portion (no one really knows, but any estimate up to half of the base is possible) of the player base simply quit out of frustration. Patches routinely introduce or reintroduce bugs, although there hasn't been a disaster like patch 1 in the subsequent ones and the last couple of patches have actually had a number of unannounced fixes.

More recently, we've had a number of fairly prominent defenders of the game finally give up on lack of content. I can't argue with them on that issue, although many of them powerleveled up and found nothing to do. That is not a playstyle that suits this game.

It appears as if the devs are starting to test things out a little bit more on the ATS (test server) but development and communication here remains really bad, and the six month track record on fixing bugs and introducing new content in patches is not encouraging.

Obviously, some will disagree, but those are the cold hard truths. Do a little back searching by a few months on the forum if you want confirmation since most of the early players frustrated by this have left and obviously no longer post.

So far the people I've met in game have been pretty cool and not the insane 'pwnors' I've met in other communities.

This is the primary reason I continue playing Ryzom and why I recommend you try it.

There's a lot of potential in this game, and while I frankly gave up on the devs a long time ago the community is what keeps me here until we see if Nevrax ever really delivers what this game could be.

In the mean time, as long as you're happy grinding this is a fun game. As long as your satisfied that your interaction with others is the primary source of entertainment here, its a great game.

I recommend a month to month subscription rather than longer than that as things may not get any better and the last thing you want to do is be a bitter whiner on the forums after feeling like you've been ripped off, one reason I focus on delivering the cold hard truth to new players to make sure they're not being sold a bill of goods that ain't right. But I do welcome you aboard and really hope you stay - for the right reasons. Hope the tips in the beginner guide section help and some year I'll have the full manual out to help the learning curve a bit.

(Interesting point on guides btw.)

[raynes]

Actually, based on Fadin's response in this thread:

http://www.ryzom.com/forum/showthread.p ... ge=2&pp=20

it sounds like the laws about guides is more strict in the US and that's why we don't have them in the game. We have GMs like everyone else but not Guides (at least not nearly as many). I recently saw some screenshots of a beach party player event on the Aripostle server where there were loads of people with Guide and Senior Guide people. It'd be cool if they can make that happen on our server so we have more of an official presence and interaction in the game.

To me that's a really poor excuse for their lack of action. Since the beginning of this year the only staff event we have had on our server is the gladiator event where Takashi was present. We have had big events like invasions but those are required by Nevrax. The NA staff has made no effort what so ever to roleplay parts in game. They have made no effort to come in game and get people excited over things. They have made no effort concerning holiday events. Pretty much the only thing that happens on our server is what has been required by Nevrax.