permaneo wrote:What are some key aspects to the game that are so good?
This question gets asked alot. Especially in this section of the boards.
1) The community : Yes we brag about it a lot, and we are proud of it, but log in and see for yourself. Ask questions about the game in Universe Channel, ask for a rez in region. You might be surprised.
2) The crafting: 99% of the ingame gear is player crafted. In this game, crafting actually MEANS something. And crafting requires player skill, you make your own recipes, your ingredients will influence the resulting stats of your craft. Master crafters keep their recipes as precious secrets, since they earned them, not only through a long grind, but hours of experimenting with diverse materials. And because of this experimental system, even non-masters can make "good" gear, provided they find the "recipe" and have the good ingredients.
3) The environment: Seasons, weather and night/day changes that actually matter : they affect what materials you can harvest from the ground, seasons affect the migration of mobs so you might find that trekking through a region is easier in Winter than Spring, for example. Also, the mobs have an AI never seen in any game: Predators hunt herbivores, some mobs defend each other when you attack them, some even defend mobs from other races (try attacking a Timari near a Lumper...), some migrate in herds...
4) The Skill System: I have yet to play another game that lets you build your own skills/actions through a stanza system such as Ryzom's. Of course it might be a bit frustrating in the beginning while the options are still limitated. But in the end you get enough stanzas to adapt your skills to your every needs, wether it is to make an all-powerful double-nuke bomb or a very economic healing spell for your leveling team.
5) Jack-of-all-trades: I don't know for the other gamers out there, but what I hate most in an MMO is the fact that to do a certain action, you need to be of a certain class, in a certain race, in a certain faction. In Ryzom, you do not have that problem. You pick whatever race you want, and you do whatever you want, in whatever order you want, all on the same character. You earn XP for a skill as you use it, which gives you Skill Points to invest in that Skill Branch. The only things that your civilisation is going to affect is your looks, your fame (that can be modified through missions) and your resistance to certain spells. You
might want to start in the capital of your civilisation once you leave Silan to get crafting plans from your race and harvest mats from your own land but
you don't have to (you can eventually get the plans from all races).
The only limit to the number of skills you can master is the time that you are willing to put into it.
There are many more but my wall of text probably hit you for over 9000 damage.
*runs the hell away*
Hopefully I'll be able to play it a bit before (and if) it becomes P2P...