Review of Ryzom posted to my guild of 200+
Posted: Thu Oct 14, 2004 5:26 pm
Some of you will hate me for this. Nevrax might choose to delete this thread. I'm sorry, but it has to be said. I'm not trying to put anyone down for liking this game. I'm trying to help Nevrax understand where they are falling short and what needs to be fixed to make this game succeed. I'd like to come back to this game in a half a year and see it actually fun and playable. (Assuming the rumors are untrue about deleting chars if you cancel your account. If Nevrax takes that unwise course they are *really* shooting themselves in the foot.)
As a preface to this review, I've posted it internally to my multi-gaming guild (of 5 years) that has approx 230 active members. I'm literally the only person in the entire guild who even bothered to check out this game. That's how little buzz this game has generated (or indicative of how much bad word of mouth spread from the betas). There are a lot of guilds out there, large and small, and in many of them, at least one person has probably tried this game. Like me, they ALL report internally their impressions of the game. Word of mouth among guildmates is the number one factor in determining the success of an MMOG. A developer/publisher has to get it right by open beta these days, because most of the scouts are IN your open betas. If you go to retail launch with major problems that were clearly identified in open beta, you have a very rough road ahead of you.
Well, here ya go. Candid feedback from a veteran MMOGer who's played pretty much all the MMOGs. I daresay this is typical of the internal word of mouth being circulated among most MMOG-based guilds. I hope you can do something constructive with it because this game really does have some innovative and promising aspects.
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In a word, don't bother. It's cool at first but Nevrax got it wrong with several very basic gameplay factors. The worst offense is that your ability to PvE is based on your gear, and you cannot buy decent gear from NPC vendors. All the decent, actually usable gear *must* be crafted. The next worse offense is that the decay time on your gear is insanely fast. Players in teams, fighting mobs that yeild appropriate exp for the group members, routinely wear down their weapons and armor in a day or two at most. Some players even go through two weapons in one evening of playing.
To exacerbate the above issues, foraging for the materials needed to make the decent crafted gear is fairly time-intensive. Interesting, even fun at first, but too time intensive for the yeild. It can take 2-3 hours to forage the 112 pieces of material needed to make a set of good heavy armor, for instance. You can sell that set at level 50 for roughly 250,000 to 300,000. In that same amount of time, you could be hunting and leveling your fighting/magic skills, having fun and thrills, and make the same amount of money or more off the mob loot drops. The net result is that there's no serious incentive to craft for most players, so there's not enough crafted gear to outfit all the players who'd rather hunt and not deal with crafting. Even in guilds with dedicated crafters and lots of people foraging to help the crafters make gear faster, the crafters can barely keep up with the demand. You see the regional chat filled with people asking for a piece of gear at a certain level and you seen almost no responses. The few crafters actually advertising gear to sell rarely have anything that is germane to yourself.
This game is, on some levels, Horizons all over again. Way too crafting-centric. When will developers understand that it's a Bad Idea to make crafted gear mandatory for just exploring and hunting? World of Warcraft and Anarchy Online, by contrast have two of the best crafting systems I've ever seen. In those games, crafting is not mandatory... You can do just fine with the gear you get from mob drops or as mission/quest rewards. In those games, crafting either enhances the gear you already own, somehow, or it provides utility skills that are fun and neat and useful situationally.
In AO, for instance, a crafter would be needed to put together your implants for you, or to modify your weapon for better damage output, or to put together quested materials into an armor piece for you that was uber armor. But in all these cases, the crafter did not run around getting all these parts. You brought the parts to the crafter, he put them together for you in a matter of minutes, and then you tipped the guy for helping you. And it was not time-consuming/boring to get those parts together. In the case of implants, you just bought the parts from vending machines. In the case of the more uber armor, you acquired the parts while hunting mobs (fun) or solving a tough, interesting quest (fun). In other words, you acquired the parts you needed while questing or hunting. Not staring at a resource node on the ground, pulling the slot machine handle while you slowly accumulate 0-4 resources with each attempt.
In WoW, most of the crafted items are supplemental goodies that are not mandatory for gameplay. Potions are arguably mandatory according some folks, but IMO they're not really. You can do just fine without potions. Engineering toys are situationally useful and fun in PvP. But they're not mandatory. Armor/weapon crafting can enhance a weapon you already have. Or they can build weaps/armor that are better than most of what drops from mobs/missions, but not so much better that they become "must-have" items just to play the game.
Anyway, with a superb game like WoW due out very soon, don't bother with Ryzom unless you're really bored and just want to see something different for a "free" month. You won't want to actually subscribe after the free month is over. Which is a shame, because the game is beautiful and could be so much better. The game designers just really have wrong ideas about very basic stuff. Plus the game was released too early, like most MMOGs (except WoW), and there's very little content other than killing mobs and foraging and crafting. No end game. Not even any quests. Yes yes, some of this is "coming soon" but again, when will developers and publishers learn that they shoot themselves in the foot by releasing a game too early? Players always chew through your newbie/lowbie content with amazing speed. Again, Blizzard has done an amazing job with WoW in this regard. There is more diverse and content ready and polished in closed beta than most MMOGs have a year after retail launch.
As a preface to this review, I've posted it internally to my multi-gaming guild (of 5 years) that has approx 230 active members. I'm literally the only person in the entire guild who even bothered to check out this game. That's how little buzz this game has generated (or indicative of how much bad word of mouth spread from the betas). There are a lot of guilds out there, large and small, and in many of them, at least one person has probably tried this game. Like me, they ALL report internally their impressions of the game. Word of mouth among guildmates is the number one factor in determining the success of an MMOG. A developer/publisher has to get it right by open beta these days, because most of the scouts are IN your open betas. If you go to retail launch with major problems that were clearly identified in open beta, you have a very rough road ahead of you.
Well, here ya go. Candid feedback from a veteran MMOGer who's played pretty much all the MMOGs. I daresay this is typical of the internal word of mouth being circulated among most MMOG-based guilds. I hope you can do something constructive with it because this game really does have some innovative and promising aspects.
-------------------
In a word, don't bother. It's cool at first but Nevrax got it wrong with several very basic gameplay factors. The worst offense is that your ability to PvE is based on your gear, and you cannot buy decent gear from NPC vendors. All the decent, actually usable gear *must* be crafted. The next worse offense is that the decay time on your gear is insanely fast. Players in teams, fighting mobs that yeild appropriate exp for the group members, routinely wear down their weapons and armor in a day or two at most. Some players even go through two weapons in one evening of playing.
To exacerbate the above issues, foraging for the materials needed to make the decent crafted gear is fairly time-intensive. Interesting, even fun at first, but too time intensive for the yeild. It can take 2-3 hours to forage the 112 pieces of material needed to make a set of good heavy armor, for instance. You can sell that set at level 50 for roughly 250,000 to 300,000. In that same amount of time, you could be hunting and leveling your fighting/magic skills, having fun and thrills, and make the same amount of money or more off the mob loot drops. The net result is that there's no serious incentive to craft for most players, so there's not enough crafted gear to outfit all the players who'd rather hunt and not deal with crafting. Even in guilds with dedicated crafters and lots of people foraging to help the crafters make gear faster, the crafters can barely keep up with the demand. You see the regional chat filled with people asking for a piece of gear at a certain level and you seen almost no responses. The few crafters actually advertising gear to sell rarely have anything that is germane to yourself.
This game is, on some levels, Horizons all over again. Way too crafting-centric. When will developers understand that it's a Bad Idea to make crafted gear mandatory for just exploring and hunting? World of Warcraft and Anarchy Online, by contrast have two of the best crafting systems I've ever seen. In those games, crafting is not mandatory... You can do just fine with the gear you get from mob drops or as mission/quest rewards. In those games, crafting either enhances the gear you already own, somehow, or it provides utility skills that are fun and neat and useful situationally.
In AO, for instance, a crafter would be needed to put together your implants for you, or to modify your weapon for better damage output, or to put together quested materials into an armor piece for you that was uber armor. But in all these cases, the crafter did not run around getting all these parts. You brought the parts to the crafter, he put them together for you in a matter of minutes, and then you tipped the guy for helping you. And it was not time-consuming/boring to get those parts together. In the case of implants, you just bought the parts from vending machines. In the case of the more uber armor, you acquired the parts while hunting mobs (fun) or solving a tough, interesting quest (fun). In other words, you acquired the parts you needed while questing or hunting. Not staring at a resource node on the ground, pulling the slot machine handle while you slowly accumulate 0-4 resources with each attempt.
In WoW, most of the crafted items are supplemental goodies that are not mandatory for gameplay. Potions are arguably mandatory according some folks, but IMO they're not really. You can do just fine without potions. Engineering toys are situationally useful and fun in PvP. But they're not mandatory. Armor/weapon crafting can enhance a weapon you already have. Or they can build weaps/armor that are better than most of what drops from mobs/missions, but not so much better that they become "must-have" items just to play the game.
Anyway, with a superb game like WoW due out very soon, don't bother with Ryzom unless you're really bored and just want to see something different for a "free" month. You won't want to actually subscribe after the free month is over. Which is a shame, because the game is beautiful and could be so much better. The game designers just really have wrong ideas about very basic stuff. Plus the game was released too early, like most MMOGs (except WoW), and there's very little content other than killing mobs and foraging and crafting. No end game. Not even any quests. Yes yes, some of this is "coming soon" but again, when will developers and publishers learn that they shoot themselves in the foot by releasing a game too early? Players always chew through your newbie/lowbie content with amazing speed. Again, Blizzard has done an amazing job with WoW in this regard. There is more diverse and content ready and polished in closed beta than most MMOGs have a year after retail launch.