Ryzom

I have been playing for a couple of days. I have played, SWG, WOW, FFXI... and others.

Ryzom has:

1) the most incredible atmosphere, weather, enviromental graphics I have seen any mmo

2) the races are very well thought out in terms of looks, architecture, culture and environments

3) the Crafting and gathering systems and skill progressions are not overly complicated and seem to entice you into continuing down the crafting path even if you are a fighter type personality

4) the magic/combat and skill progression system is unique and very well thought out, from what I can tell so far

5) the animals that I have encountered on the islands so far have exhibited behavior like real animals, and have been designed very well


I am sure there is plenty more, but out of any game, I have had the best initial impression from this game, out of any other game.


So my question is... why aren't more people playing? I just recently found out while checking mmorpg.com for a game that would get me away from SWG... Was going to give it a test try based on the rating they had on the site, and to my surprise found that there is a 2 week trial anyway!

I am not saying I would like a crowded server... I do like to have many people to meet, as well as adventure with, or ... plain get angry with and kill. But it just seems to me that a game with this quality should be teeming with people, much like the recently released world of warcraft is.

Warcraft has more of a subscription base because it caters to people with simple minds as the game is very easy to understand and operate... could this be part of the issue? (not saying its an issue... heh)

-------
At any rate, happy to be here and hope to meet a lot of you here soon when I leave my little island!


-Tryon-

First of all welcome and hope you enjoy your stay on Atys.

As for the question of population... well prolly a couple different reasons. First of all Nevrax is a small company, so I guess that the advertisement budget isn't as developped as the one a company like Blizzard can afford. And maybe (but I'm just assuming here), it being a French company doesn't help. There is also the fact that many stores do not cater the box anymore, since it's been 10 months since the game has been released. However, I've come to understand that its presence at the E3 convention in Los Angeles this year has not gone unnoticed.

As for the rating on mmorpg.com... the game has only been up there for something like one or two months. Mainly because players suddenly realized they needed to tell the other mmog players about Ryzom . And yes, since it's been up there, I do get the feel that we have more players.
Another drawback is the starter islands. It was a good idea at first, a low lvl area where one might get the feel of the game without it being overcrowded. Unfortunately, they are almost deserted. So many people start the trial, and then stop because they believe the game is empty...

These are a couple random reasons why Ryzom doesn't have the playerbase WoW has... and yes; as you suggested, the slightly more 'complicated' game might put some off. Luckily, it has mostly put off the young "leet" kids that are feared in mmo games .

Hope I answered your questions, and have fun playing.

PS: Don't forget the beginner's forum if you have any questions, I'm sure someone will be glad to answer them.

aquien wrote:I am sure there is plenty more.

Well there are more nice places, mobs & skills and some of the usual things like a market place, guild hall & simple 'missions'. But, as has been said many times in these forums; you will need your own inventiveness and creativity because beyond the basic world and basic mechanics there isn't actually much 'content'. Although it's in the pipeline.

The upside is that if you can find a guild you like then you can be part of the players world. The downside is that while strolling around on your own you may die from solitary repetition.

Ryzom doesn't have the "killer" name license WoW has and Nevrax folks were actually quite bold when they went live about the same timeframe as WoW. Luckily for me, I've never liked any Warcraft so checking out obscure French MMORPG was definitely worth it - This has been the second MMORPG I've enjoyed this far and first to keep me from returning to UO.

Some other companies actually dropped their MMORPGs when they learned that WoW would be published about the same time: UXO and Warhammer Online spring into mind here...

Hi there.

Welcome to our World, hope you´ll enjoy your Saty as much as I am and the people i know of are.

First I absolutely agree with the statements above.

But let me add a few things of my own to consider.

That there aren´t that much Players around helped two major things:

1. The Game isn´t crowded, so no waitingqueues to enter any Server
2. The Community is pretty close and overly friendly, mature and helpfull.

Me visiting from the German community, I can say that it´s pretty much the same on our side of the Ocean.
My personal reasons for LOVING SoR are, the amayzing Graphics and variety of Cratures that you´ll encounter on the Main Land. There simply isn´t any other Game that bridges the Gap betwenn SciFi and Fanatsy so smoothly and thoroughly. And NO other Game with such weird creatures like the Bolobi or the Wombai... You´l see what I mean
Nevrax, being the small, french Company that it is, has a certain "Underdog" appeal to me. They have a great Vision and I want to take part in it. BE part of it. If only by playing and suggesting Ideas and changes.
For the same reason of "smallness" as a company, the do have their troubles and problems though. As was said above, Content is lakking a and some Bugs seem very persistant, but they ARE trying very hard and IMHO they deserve credit and great respect for that. Just recently they fixed one of the greatest features back into "existence": The RAID Engine
Massive Invasions... Oh Boy, did those Kitin look scary as they came over that rise by the almost hundreds...

Lot´s of people have left us because the developement wasn´t fast enough for them. I for myself am sure that the patience of those to last through the Weeks and Month, waiting for things to happen will be revarded in due time with a true Gem of an MMORPG.
Now it´s a raw diamond and it´s cutting has just begun.
The first facettes glimmer in the digital sun and the Masters on the workbench will do their best not to break that precious stone!

CU
Acridiel

P.S.: If you want a good look on the Mainlands, just hit the LINK in my siganture and download some of my collected Fan-Videos under Teleporter.
(No registration needed, feature´s buggy. , just download. )

I think everything boils down to competetive market situation and Nevrax's lack of experience as SoR is their first game. Those reasons led to game launch maybe 6 months too early, quality problems, bad reviews and lack of marketing and store presence.

After game went live, Nevrax strugled to fix quality problems and failed to improve game in any significant manner. This did not help to maintain existing customers and at same time other big name games drew almost all prospective new customers. This led to financial problems and ensuing insecurity alienated existing and prospective customers.

Lately, Nevrax has managed to improve their act considerably in many areas and started a slow recovery after E3.

Well its good to hear that there were some issues, but they are being worked on.

I noticed most of you mentioned that this was a french company. Most don't know this, but Blizzard is actually part of Vivendi Universal, also a french company.

-----

I actually like the not so crowded starting areas. I figured that most of the players would be on the mainland... so that wasn't too much of an issue to me. But having an entire island almost to yourself is a pretty cool way to get a feel for mechanics as well as doing so without the competition to reach the materials you need to get better acquainted.

Thank you guys for answering my questions!

Mikos, that is spot on.

Welcome to Atys! Come for the scenery; stay for the friends!

mmatto wrote:I think everything boils down to competetive market situation and Nevrax's lack of experience as SoR is their first game. Those reasons led to game launch maybe 6 months too early, quality problems, bad reviews and lack of marketing and store presence.

After game went live, Nevrax strugled to fix quality problems and failed to improve game in any significant manner. This did not help to maintain existing customers and at same time other big name games drew almost all prospective new customers. This led to financial problems and ensuing insecurity alienated existing and prospective customers.

Lately, Nevrax has managed to improve their act considerably in many areas and started a slow recovery after E3.

Well, first about the "early" launch, a mmo is never completely ready for launch but if you did compare the game to what it was late 2003 (first closed beta) its was a huge difference in september. Adding to that the development did cost the Nevrax investors about €8 million, the 10 month beta another €4 million, so basicly if they hadn't launched in september, there wouldn't be any Nevrax anymore. The game was first planned to launch in the 4th quarter of 2003 if I'm not mistaken, then they puched back the release date 6 months for an closed beta followed bay open beta and after that another 3 months for a closed focus beta (balancing).
A lot of players left after the big "patch 1" when life on Atys started to get a little tougher, many complained and a lot of players left. Adding to that most players around that time were "old" beta players, some were "testing" this game for 9 months in a row and started to get a little tired of it, patch one gave them a reason.
Things were a bit slow after the launch of patch 2, at first everyone was very excited about it, but that slowely went away when Nevrax went trough its "spring cleaning" wich took about 3 months. The cleaning of the code was needed badly since the updates were coming at an insane rate during the first 3 months after release ... I remember one week we had 3 patches ...
Things started to get better again around the end of April and did have a big boost after E3. Now most of the old beta testers seem to have been replaced by new customers and it feels like we are riding on an exponential curve right now (talking about the amount of active players curve ).

Anyway, that was it for my first little lesson, on the next history class we'll go back a bit more in history and then I'll take you trough close beta