Ryzom

This is my first day playing the game, and I'm definitely interested in the world environment and story. I'm currently shopping for a new MMO to play, and this is on my short list.

Now, yes, this is my first day. Even so, I have a few thoughts --

First, I can't post on the feedback forum (or General, or a couple others). I'm not sure if this is account duration controlled (eg, no posts before a week or some such), but I suspect it's account level controlled (eg, I can't post on it because I haven't subscribed). This seems counter-productive. You want trial players who aren't going on to subscribe to post complaints to the feedback forum so you know why they aren't buying your service. Even if they're rude and offensive (which is no loss to your community as a whole if they leave), repeat complaints are a kind of flag or signpost. Now, I'm happy that Ryzom doesn't seem to be as subscriber-enslaved as some of the bigger MMOs, but I rather suspect the developers, whose paychecks depend on player base, are less so.

Second, the dialogue interface is awful. I started a conversation with the first guide NPC and kept walking away midway through, unaware he had more to say. Having to hit "Ok" and <i>close</i> the dialogue box to continue the same conversation really interrupts the experience. You might also consider having a "subtitle" option for dialogue, in which it displays in a fixed box somewhere on the screen... having to muck around with camera angles to read what someone's saying is distracting. If this already exists and I simply haven't found it, my apologies.

That's it so far; I'll likely provide more feedback as I continue to play. The game seems to hit two of my pet peeves about MMOs (excuse my harshness! I really do like the game -- I wouldn't be bothering to post here if I didn't); repetitive actions and no 3d movement (jumping, climbing, so on and so forth). I'm not suggesting these be changed... the former is pretty much a trope of the genre, while the latter is a relatively minor point for most players, and so fixing them would be a lot of effort for relatively minor benefit. Still, if I personally don't subscribe to the game, that's probably why.

Anyway, again, I'm enjoying this so far, and hope to be around for a while. Thanks for a cool game.

-Arafelis

The feedback forum is pretty much an announcement oriented thread. Suggestions/bugs etc. go through the game interface under tools. It's always good to do a forum search for the issue first.

In the feedback forum you can only reply to the topics which usually have to do with no developments that are being tested at the moment.

About the dialog i admit it is quite bad and at times quite badly translated (orginal text is/was written in french)... later on in the game this isnt such a problem sense there isnt a great amount of interaction with npcs like other games.

Also for a final point about there not being able to jump in the game is just a small issue, there is so much to see and do on atys and places to explore you will forget about not being able to jump. So i recommend try paying for a month to see if you enjoy the main land experience or not before you make a final choice about the game.

arafelis wrote:Second, the dialogue interface is awful. I started a conversation with the first guide NPC and kept walking away midway through, unaware he had more to say. Having to hit "Ok" and <i>close</i> the dialogue box to continue the same conversation really interrupts the experience.

Yes Chiang the Strong was indeed too chatty and boring. This has been addressed in today's patch. Any feedback is welcome to continue improving the game, thank you and keep going.

You might also consider having a "subtitle" option for dialogue, in which it displays in a fixed box somewhere on the screen... having to muck around with camera angles to read what someone's saying is distracting. If this already exists and I simply haven't found it, my apologies.

Sometimes it does exist sometimes it doesn't. I'll pass it on to the devs.