General is full of ideas..but us newb's can't enter the golden area..

[aternox]

Seriously, its like Heaven up there and I'm stuck in purgatory...

Anyway, After Leaving Silan, the mainland was a shock...

Where was everyone?
WTH should I train with all there skills??
and why do the stupid gringos keep chewing my foot off?

If it hadn't been for a few people I would have thrown my hands up after the first few hours

What I'm saying is you lost a lot of people when they realized there was absolutely NO structure to the game. Players from WOW and WAR and Lineage 2 or any other game need some kind of structure to start with....

How do I make a Paladin? Warrior? Shilien Knight? So far I'm just @ lvl 50-70 in my disciplines and can see how to tailor myself to these classes ina few more levels. AOE? Yummy!

I know, I know, those aren't the people you want on Ryzom, but the 300 people that do play every day won't keep the server open. You need a mish- mash of Ryzom elder, Wow PVP'ers and a nice mix of Raiders to keep the server alive.

Massively.com published a article on how classes in Wow compare to classes in War, the same could be done by the people in the late 200's that have been around forever and know the skills inside and out.
(Actually their article in August or September is what sucked me in.)
Has anyone given them updates on the even managers conversation from today?

I would gladly post on behalf of Ryzom at Large, but considering I can just get into the desert from Yrk, I wouldn't be all that interesting.

Your Friendly low level noob
-Noxious

[r1vver]

What I'm saying is you lost a lot of people when they realized there was absolutely NO structure to the game. Players from WOW and WAR and Lineage 2 or any other game need some kind of structure to start with....

yes, it's _sandbox_ MMOG
there is _no_ stupid _quests_ that lead you by the hand, not giving to make your own choices here
there is _no_ fictitious _classes_
and it's _not_ WoW or LA2

that's why i love this game

[fiach]

You know, Lineage two had virtually no quests, but the best quest I ever did in a MMO was in lineage two, that was the quest to become a Shilien Knight, where you had to make your own coffin

Welcome to Ryzom aternox

Its a "sandbox" game isn't a valid argument IMO, no offence r1vver. GTA is a "sandbox" game and an incredibly successful one, because its hung on a structure, same for Saints Row, Merc's etc.

If you wish to attract players from games like WoW etc. you will have to accomadate them and providing structure is not "dumbing" down.

My suggestion aternox is if you want structure, you may be better off joining a guild, here is a list of them, each post contains a brief description of what they aspire to :

http://forums.ryzom.com/forumdisplay.php?f=114

As a former Lineage player, you will be more than welcome in DCP if you find it to be your type of guild.

Hope you stay on in Ryzom, its great to see new players taking the time to express their opinions here, it shows that they have seen something beneath the surface of Ryzom, rather than just have a quick look around and shoot off back to woW

[kalindra]

Valda, you're getting confused between r1vver and afternox (Noxious), methinks.

There is no such thing as classes, you aren't limited in the number of skills you can train. In fact the only limit is how much time you have to spend. Unlike most MMOs' feat (or talent) tree, the skill tree in Ryzom branches out, not to limit you to a certain role, but to give you access to more potential Skill Points to spend on stanzas (options and counterparts that you buy from the trainer) to build your actions from.

I know no other game in which you can customize every single one of your skills. I'd have a really hard time comparing a game that limits your character to a certain role depending of its race and faction to a game that lets you get every single skill no matter which race and faction you chose. Especially if I have to find resemblances between the two... they are fundamentally DIFFERENT.

Ryzom is not class based. Pretty much everyone ends up being a jack-of-all-trades, by necessity. But in the end, no one takes exactly the same path because we don't all have the same goals and preferences. (And not everyone has the same talents to use those same skills.)

[fiach]

Nice catch Sherk mate, (note to self, never post just after waking up)

There are certain things missing from Ryzom that would give it structure, firstly, it needs an AH, but I guess you would need an economy for that, so thats two things I guess If I play an MMO, I want to be able to buy equipment, its virtually impossible for a new player to get gear, except maybe from the generousity of other players.

In Lineage for example take mob levels, they radiate out from each town, at the same time guiding you towards the next town, eg starter area, to Dion, the mobs get progressivly higher. So there you have mob structure and a roadmap built in.

Its great to be able to customise your skills, but In Ryzom, there is skill overkill, there are a ton of skills in each trainer that have an incredible suck value that nobody ever buys, Harvesting has some really sucky skill choices, that wil cause the unaware to waste SP on, maybe an idea would be to give less skill points and less skill choice and streamline it a bit, I have 1000's of SP just laying there.

Just a quick note on the population, I was in Pyr and Dyron last night and there was hardly anybody around, most of our "new" guild members are vets that have returned to Ryzom, we have put about 100 members through our guild, that left the game after about 1-2 months, I'm sure most other guilds have a similar tale to tell.

Bottom line is, they are leaving for a reason and they cant all be wrong.

[r1vver]

They leave because of lack of certainty.
Strange F2P system, lack of marketing, no replys or comments about currient state or progress...
That's why.
Not because they can't understand the new and strange environment.
And the feeling that the game did not complete and virtually abandoned is present in the air...

This game have uncertain future... And it's sad...

_______
That's all - result of depression caused by the sunday events on Fearing Fen Farm and reading of the logs of the meeting with the Events Team.

[kalindra]

They can't all be right either... but yeah, game isn't perfect. Some stanzas are pretty much a useless SP trap and should be removed. There is a form of barter economy, the dappers are just pretty much useless (as well).

Dyron used to be one of the most populated cities at relaunch (with the KT inconvenience on the most sought after forage spots), but Atys is huuuuge and homins are really scattered all over the place anyways. The main cities are not necessarily the most populated and I'm not sure if we can count the perma-AFKed Ryzombies as "population" or as "NPCs", go figure.

Strange F2P system, lack of marketing, no replys or comments about currient state or progress...
That's why.

The game is meant to be P2P. Right now it's pretty much in a pre-relaunch beta. But the lack of marketing and the few announcements can be worrying if you think of how many impatient people would rather leave than enjoy the free time.

I'm sure most other guilds have a similar tale to tell.

I'm waiting for the Holidays to see how many of my guildies will return and for P2P to come back before really reopening recruitment. I'd rather have members who like the game enough to pay for it than invest time in people who won't last 2 months EVEN if they don't have a dime to pay.

Nothing personal against the OP, just a conclusion I came to after a couple exhausting experiences as a High Officer.

[aternox]

But, Some of us , the new ones that are staying. We grasped the material, bought some of the useless skills and still come back for more after the 3000th DP.

I was merely saying that a tool of some sort to help those that were interested and needed help applying a tool from a previous MMO to Ryzom.

and yes I know, doom and gloom and all that, but I will enjoy it until they trip over the power cord.

[kalindra]

Glad to hear it.

You can be a warrior, you can be a healer, you can be a nuker, you can be a ranger (major masochistic multidisciplinary challenge, BTW), a harvester, a crafter ALL on the same character. All you need is the appropriate equipment.

Switch your heavy armor and weapon (shield ?) for a light one and a pair of amplifiers, wh00p! you're a mage. Grab a pick and hit some nodes, you're now a harvester. Grab a crafting tool and get naked (joke, but some really do to avoid gear decay) hey! you're a crafter now. Medium armour is a compromise between protection at a higher action cost. NEVER dig or craft in HA or MA (craft degrades and uber focus cost on digging is a killer, really) you can cast in MA but your healers might growl at you. Figuring out more economic spells will help your survival and cost efficiency.

Fiddling with stanzas is part of the path to mastery.

Lose yourself in the wiiiild !

[iceaxe68]

I agree that the lack of built-in structure can be intimidating to the new player. That need should be met by the community, whether in the form of guild, faction or civilization (assuming the new event direction gives some life to the civilizations) but we can't really expect every new player to understand that and seek it out. (Some will.)

The player looking for a structured single player game that happens to have other people runnign around playing their own single player game will probably be disappointed no matter what we do. But I think there are people who have left who might have stayed if someone had given them some direction.

I don't know the answer to fixing this. Maybe we should hand out tasks to newbies for them to earn gear and cats, instead of handing them out for free and setting the poor noob loose with good gear and no knowledge.

I wouldn't want to see the Silan style of missions extend to the mainland, and anyway, that would just delay the same shock.

P.S. Had a great time on our journey last night, Nox!