Ryzom

A friend of mine from Vanguard talked me into trying this game (I think a lot of people here know Beau Turkey, he just seems to become a beloved celebrity in every virtual world he visits!!). I am so happy that he urged me to try Ryzom, because I am enjoying this game so much!


I have been playing for about three weeks now, and this game grows on me more every day. I love the complexity and depth of the game. A few things in particular that I think are near-perfect for my own playstyle:

* Freeform skills instead of the conventional classes and levels. This is probably the biggest factor that brought me here. I like the idea that no two characters will ever be exactly alike in their skills, and that you can grow a character "horizontally" instead of the usual "vertical" race-to-get-a-higher-level system, where everything seems to focus on power-playing to the endgame instead of enjoying the journey. I love meandering 'jack of all trades' characters and have always disliked the more restrictive "D&D" class system that the majority of current MMOs use, and love being able to switch modes on the fly between melee/magic/crafter/explorer and making choices about how to develop my character

* Sandbox gameplay! I LOVE sandboxes, and hate being trapped into a linear guided path where Quest A takes you to Quest B which takes you to Quest C, and the entire game feels like you are on an amusement park ride past pretty landscapes.

* Harvesting & crafting are usually almost a prerequisite for me in a game, and especially having them fully integrated into the world economy (actually a strong and dynamic world economy is right up there with harvesting/crafting for me).

* Large world, with meaningful travel and emphasis on exploration. Quite a few other games really lost a sense of world immersion for me when they started switching to a "convenient" travel system where you could instantly pop anyplace you like. For me that significantly takes away from the sense of a large world. I love the fact that the world is a dangerous place, and going to new places is a REAL adventure, instead of a click on a portal bell to immediately pop anywhere.

* Changing seasons and dynamic world. I just love seeing snow on the ground in winter, cherry blossoms out in spring, autumn colors in the fall. The first time I saw a herd of bodocs migrating for a new grazing area, I was just astonished, and the animal behavior here is simply one of the best I have seen anywhere.

* No 'forced-grouping' or forced PvP. I know that this game is all about community, and probably its most stellar feature, but I tend to be a bit of a shy hermit/explorer type who likes tramping all over and puttering around with dozens of half-finished projects at once, and being able to change my mind entirely about what I am doing at any particular moment. I may may not get a lot done that way, but I sure have fun. Having done most of my gaming while raising two sets of twins also meant I was easily distracted while online and also needed to be AFK frequently, which can be more difficult in a group situation. So I am very happy for many reasons that this game seems to welcome and embrace solo players as well as those who are more socially active.

* Mature & friendly community - I thought Vanguard's community was good, but the ingame friendliness here to new players just blows me away. When I finally left the starter island of Silan for the Maric\s homeland, there were a group of veterans at the city gates healing new players, handing out cats and needed gear and supplies, and just asking what they could do to help. It was absolutely amazing to see. And a special big thanks to Sunce, Sherkalyn and Trader who answered a lot of ingame questions for me!


I do still like Vanguard very much so it is going to be a very difficult choice for me next month when I have to decide which subscription to stay with. I love Vanguard's world, graphics and crafting system, and just wish there was a way to smoosh both games together into one! In any case, I am here for now, and enjoying myself immensely

To give a bit of my gaming background, my favorite games in the past have been Asheron's Call, The Elder Scrolls Series (Morrowind & Oblivion), World of Warcraft (sorry!), and Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. (I've also played at least 2-3 months of most of the other MMOs, including Horizons, EQ1 & EQ2, DAoC, Eve Online, FFXI, and probably a lot of others I forget offhand now..)

I tend to become very involved in my games -- in Asheron's Call I started a popular website for archers, Unrepentant Archer; in WoW I created the hunter's website Petopia (now run by my good friend Mania, since I moved on from WoW); and in TES I was very involved in the player modding community, creating some popular mods such as Wood Bows & Leather Armors, the unfinished and perhaps overly ambitious Morrowind4Kids, Fantasy Colored Morrowind, and numerous other mods.


Anyway -- you all have a fantastic game here, and all I can say is that I will help spread the world about this often-overlooked gem and hope this time Ryzom is back for good and gets some of the appreciation it may have missed in the past!

-- Brash Endeavors
http://brashendeavors.net/

hi Brash and welcome to Atys!

You seem to have really seen the best of Ryzom so far and I must say that there si still so much for you to see and explore, you have mentioned ho you like crafting and the ahrvesting side of the game and also how much you like it in vangaurd. I have played Vangaurd too and admired its harvesting and crafting side, building sloops etc but I must say that Ryzom is in a completly different league when it comes to crafting.

When you get higher level you will start working on recipes using dug mats, dropped mats and even op mats in some cases. You will be using mats which are Basic, Fine, Choice, Excellent and Supreme all having different stats and every material used will effect the outcome of your craft, dont think that all Supreme mats is the way to go either as too many high mats can nerf so you in some cases use fine and excellent materials in some of your recipes.

If you love crafting you can loose days just playing with recipes for 1 item, honestly as you progress in game you will see this.

The other areas of the game you have pointed out are pretty much as I see things, unlike vanguard you are not class restricted here. There are no real raids here as such however, the end game is different to that on Vangaurd.

Anyway welcome again to Atys, if you have any questions or just wanna chat about ryzom / vangaurd or whatever feel free to send me a /tell scorpius in game.

Glad to see you are having such a good time Brash, its great to find someone that actually "gets" Ryzom

Seems you won't have to make a choice between subscribtions until the end of October. Ryzom should remain free until then.

Glad that you're still enjoying Ryzom !

Whoa, loved Pettopia when I played "thegamewhosnameshaltnotbeuttered" while the servers where down here

Great to have you here.

The Beauman struck again it seems.
I did some installments of the RyzomRadio with him and I do miss him.
Would you mind kicking his behind to finally come back here if you run by him in Vanguard?

I tried Vanguard too but couldn´t get my head around some of the more ugly models there and while the world itself was pretty nice I hated the fact that all anthropomorphic Characters did look just like humans with an animal head glued on. And that some of the NPCs Mobs were so extremely "we don´t have any better idea" looking that I wanted to cry. Especially human ghosts...
Bah, I hated these ugly blobs of semi transparent models. -.-

Anyway, Ryzom does have its share of flaws, but we all hope our new owners will not pwn the game like others did in the past

CU
Acridiel

Welcome

The game is indeed pretty friendly to solo players tho finding a group is not so hard now that we have more nice people like you fklowing in

The carft system is really complex and there are tons of @projects@ for one to work on

If you ever have any questions about forage craft or whatever else you will always find help in Uni chat And naturally every vet will be more than happy to help you aswell

Make sure you check out this website: http://www.ballisticmystix.net It has a lot of info and might answer tons of questions for you

Welcome and thanks for coming

Big Welcomes!!!

And tell that funky little fox-dude (what are they called again? Raki?) that if he'll get back here I'll finally do that podcast segment I promised him ages ago.

Very nice review, making me more excited to be able to get into the game.

Hey Brash!! Nice to see you in the forums, I saw you on Silan a short while ago and was wondering if you would show up on the forums since you are so active in the Vanguard forums..

Hope you stay with this game, as much as I enjoyed Vanguard I'd be hard put to pick between the two and so far Ryzom is on the winning side.

Looks like Beau might be getting back into making a short podcast for Ryzom, I'd absolutely love to hear that. Welcome to Atys!

brash1963 wrote:
I tend to become very involved in my games -- in Asheron's Call I started a popular website for archers, Unrepentant Archer; in WoW I created the hunter's website Petopia

I totally agree with all the things you said about why Ryzom is better than other MMOs - I found Ryzom only a couple of days ago, have been playing solidly all weekend, and I'm hooked.

But... PETOPIA? Allow me to fall at your feet and worship you. That site was the best and most useful site I ever found when I was playing WoW.