Ryzom

Heya,
The name's Stormakov and I am looking to make a permanent MMO change from my previous one (which shalt remain unamed). However, reading through the boards I haved gather alot of information on the game's mechanics and community, and what I have found is that the opinion of its players are swayed into the radical of both ends. Either the game is absolutely horrifying and unorthodox, or it is one of the most intellectually thought out games to date. So I'm going to ask some very straight forward questions which will help determine if the game is worth it for me, any and all comments/suggestions are appreciated, no matter what your take on them are.

First of all, I would like to state that I am an avid PvP'r, not one of those "i R t3h ]-[@x ph33r m3h!" kind of pvp'rs, but rather one of honor and respect for a fellow adversary. So for my first questions I would ask; Can a player SOLO in PvP? And to what extent? Can one player take on 2 (or perhaps more?) of the same level through skill of tactics, or simply just by having a higher level/experience/equipment/time played?

Next, is the PvE aspect of the game. I don't mind grinding constantly to get ahead of the game (bet you never heard of someone who doesn't mind grinding huh? I'm 19 with a steady job and not much of a love for leaving my apartment with the many free hours I have to spend unless my girlfirend drags me, so I have the to time spend ^.^), however my question is to what extent can time put into grinding benefit me? Now when I say grinding, I mean like camping a spawn of creatures, or a certain lair solo to reap the rewards of cash and items going to me and me alone (even if grinding in a group is more benificial, it isn't an issue with me). I love PvE on epic scales. IE: Get a large group of players and slay the almighty dragon, or take over the corrupted lands filled with millions of monsters. But, to rephrase my question more clearly perhaps, if I put hours into solo grinding monsters can I benefit from it and to what extent compared to any alternatives?

As for quests, I hear they are pointless, which actually makes me kind of happy because I always hated running back and forth to aquire something. I'm more of a "slay this a million times and maybe this rare sword will drop" kind of person. But again a question, how is the better (like the most useful/rare) equipment aquired? I noticed that the crafting element to the game is quite developed, so perhaps you got out to slay creatures to retrieve rare materials to turn into a rare item with crafting abilities? Or would I simply find the mother of all beasts and slay it to retrieve the mighty blade it had somehow magically stored in its carcass?

And for my final question on the topic of PvP again (and sort of PvE), is there any form of ranking system & reward for PvP (and/or PvE)? Say I killed 500 Fyros with my Zorai, Do I get like PvP Exp to boast about? Or perhaps a title proclaiming that I am a "Slayer of Fyros" ?

Thank you for taking the time to read my post,
Stormakov

zao101 wrote: I'm more of a "slay this a million times and maybe this rare sword will drop" kind of person. But again a question, how is the better (like the most useful/rare) equipment aquired? I noticed that the crafting element to the game is quite developed, so perhaps you got out to slay creatures to retrieve rare materials to turn into a rare item with crafting abilities? Or would I simply find the mother of all beasts and slay it to retrieve the mighty blade it had somehow magically stored in its carcass?

I`ll try and answer this question,

No, if you kill the same animal 1 million times, it will never drop any swords, armour, weapons, ammo. There are exceptions to this:

-Npc`s such as bandit tribes drop dapper (not worthy amount to activly seek and kill them
-Degenerate Homins (Frahar, Cutes, Gibbai) drop jewels but few are any good
-There are two special Npc`s (Lixie and Aen) pretty impossible to kill, that drop very nice heavy armour.

If you kill something a million times, loot the one million dead carcasses of materials such as bone, skin, hoof, teeth, buds, etc. Get to know crafters and trade with them. they can use these items to boost their craft levels and in return make you some nice gear.

You talk about finding "the mother of all beasts" and killing it for an Uber item. Bleh thats too easy There are these types of animal out there, but they will only drop certain max property mats, ie max speed skin, max damage claw, max parry pelvis. Different Super creatures would be needed to make awsome items. To make these so called uber items, you and your crafter will work closely, killing many "mother of all beasts" and experimenting, trading and no doubt exploring to find what is required.

15 ft tall spiders who carry super sparkly dmg swords and 5 bags of gold dont exist on atys

i`ll leave others to answer question on PvP

For now, pvp has only been orgenised in events. Like episode 2 there was a constant battle between the kami and the karavan for about 5 weeks.

Next up are the outposts. Guilds will be able to aquire outposts witch will give them some benefits (like a drilltower digging materials for the crafters of the guild). Ofcource, the outposts will be faught over.
Outposts are live on the test servers and will be in the game pretty soon.

After that the 4 races will battle over terretory, you'll be able to fight together with lots of fellow players over some large area's. When someone controls an area, again specific benefits will be given to the winner.

At the end of Q1 2006 Ryzom ring will launch. Its currently in closed beta testing. Ryzom ring is a free addon to this game that will allow players to create thier own scenarios, thier own content.
So if you want to create your pvp dreamscenario, feel free to go ahead

As for your question in soloing in pvp: Sure you can, but its a bit logical that a player backed up by a good healer has a significant advantage

As for PvE you'll battle various mobs when you level up, usualy within teams (it can be done solo, but its slower). Camping spawns doesn't really happen here. There are so many things around to fight that there always is something left to fight.

There are big 'boss' animals around, they carry the best materials around, but most of them require a good orgenised team to bring them down. Once killed they won't respawn for sevral days, so there isn't really a point in camping the spawn.
There are lots of these bosses around, so if you want to fight a few, sure there will be some left to kill

if you have any questions in game feel free to chat to me, ive been playing for over a year and have a fairly good knowledge of the game, if you want help lvling ect im online alot, what time region are you and race?

mrozzy wrote:At the end of Q1 2006 Ryzom ring will launch. Its currently in closed beta testing.

Just a little correction; its in closed Alpha testing... big difference

As for the main poster -

But, to rephrase my question more clearly perhaps, if I put hours into [..] grinding monsters can I benefit from it and to what extent compared to any alternatives?

I may be misunderstanding, but I'm not too sure there is an alternative The quickest, fastest, and only way to get fight/mage xp is to kill mobs over and over (albeit in a group, right now soloing is nigh-on impossible to do effectively in the higher levels, and probably not too easy in the lower ones either). In guildwars for example, you get xp for doing missions/quests above& beyond what you get for killing the mobs along the way. Not so in Ryzom, missions only give money and fame. The speed at which you do the grinding is generally what determines how long you spend on Atys

I noticed that the crafting element to the game is quite developed, so perhaps you got out to slay creatures to retrieve rare materials to turn into a rare item with crafting abilities?

As has already been said, its this one Go find some boss mobs, kill a bunch of em and give the mats to a crafter who'll make you a nice shiny whatever

is there any form of ranking system & reward for PvP (and/or PvE)?

In the event that just finished there was a Hall of Fame which displayed rankings. Other than that, there is no permanent ranking system other than word of mouth - become famous and people will know you