The Saga of Ryzom

Well the web site is down, it just tells you that the game will be back so... Answer the title please? :)

Is it mostly PvP or PvE, and if there is PvP are there any sieges and such? What about grinding, and so on...

pvp = yes (very balanced too)

fights over outposts = yes (mostly large factional fights)

PvE = alot of but not in the way of other games

Solo'ing = very difficult, the game really encourages teams

otherwise I dont have room to explain this game, it isnt anything like the others

Thx for the info. I've read somewhere that it was different and so i wanted to give it a try... I'll wait now :)

O and y probably the most hated question: was it free? :)

no, pay to play

about £8 to play iirc

Ryzom is a skill based sandbox fanatsy RPGMMO. There are 4 races and 2 factions. The skill system starts with 4 basic skills and can have branches at levs 20,50,100,150, and 200.

Whatever skill you are using requires the player to use actions which are mostly player created. For instance in creating an elemental magic action ( nuke ),  a player has to chose which type ( cold, acid, or rot; and after lev 125 fire, shockwave, poison, and electricity are added ), and what level of damage -- and then conterbalance the cost of the action with HP costs, SAP costs, range costs, and/or time casting costs. One would think that one would just create the most powerful spell but thats not always the best. There are also options for double elemantal attacks, multiply targets, and dots.

Skill points are awarded for each skill level achieved and are in the 4 basic skill trees. There are more than enough skill points available for a player to have every skill in the game. However, that requires doing several branches in the skill trees. And if anyone has mastered all the skill trees they are being quite quiet about it.

Which skill that is best utilized is controlled by the equipment that is equiped. For magic, a player normally equips magic amplifiers ( amps ) which will both increase casting speed and effect (heal, damage, etc ) up to 100% ( +120% boosted ). Also for magic the player normally wears Light Armor so there are no additional casting costs cause by "malus". The amp is worn on the hands but equiped in the 2 handed weapon slot. But it also possible for someone meleeing to unequip their weapon , equip their amp, and cast spells ( but the cost of the spell will go up because of "malus" associated with wearing Heavy Armor, Medium Armor, Shields, and Weapons.

Every player should do the heal skill at least up to lev 40 or 50. The reason is that is how players are rezzed by other players. A player is first knocked unconscious when losing a battle then he gradually loses more HPs over 5 mins till he dies and is rezzed with a Death Penalty ( max 10 DPs ). However healing HP spells will gradually revive the player or not so gradually if done by a master healer well equipped. But a lev 50 healer ( prob lev 20 for that matter ) can revive even an uber player. Also it is normally the first skill that can be utilized in OP battles if one wants to join in the fun early on.

The newbie area ( Silan ) is quest based for tutorial reasons. It introduces the player to the basic mechanics of gameplay in Ryzom. The mainland is sandbox mainly. There are quests but really only worth doing for faction and some goodies for encyclopedia quests ( 1 biggy for improving the life of equipment ).

ALL eqipment WEARS OUT. So there is always a need for crafters. However don't worry, you'll outgrow equipment before it wears out till high levels.

There are 4 Homin civilizations in Ryzom each with their own terrain type zones basically broken up into lev 50, 100, 150, 200, 250 areas. Atys ( the planet ) is a living organism -- basically a big rootball. There are also Prime Root zones that are basically huge underground caverns but really no different from above ground zones in layout ( mobs are another matter ).

On the mainland a player starts out in the capitol of one of the races. Fast transportantion is down by a factionalized TP system with the Kami and Karavan factions having different TP locations. Faction requirements for TPs varies with many being avalable to all Homins with their starting faction points. However one must buy a TP ticket at the TP to be used. So players must trek to the TP locations the first time.

To trek from 1 Homin capitol to another Homin capitol can be very hard and is usually done with at least 3 masters. The easiest capitol to capitol trek is  about 30 mins well done and several TP locations are visited. The harder capitol to capitol treks are about  2 hours well done. Treks are guild organized a lot of the time. Treks are enjoyable for both the trekkies and the players trekking them. Not even all master players are good at leading treks or even attempt to lead treks. Treks are soloable but sneak trekking a low lev char all around Atys usually requires a lot of Ryzom experience and knowledge.

Hunting skills are usually raised by group hunting in a team. Soloing is possible but hard for newbies and a lot of down time waiting for HPs to regenerate. Players can not cast heal spells on themselves. There is a self heal power but that has a reuse timer and most save it for a battle going bad. Soloing lower level skills by a master is quite possible and even easy as stats are improved by skill levels so say a master 2 handed swordsman may have huge HPs and Q250 equip and solo a lev 50 1-handed wepon melee skill quite easy and fast. Regeneration rates also go up with skill ( does require spending skill points though ).

Ryzom is mainly PvE. There are PvP challenges with no penalities as long as the down player is rezzed ( can be down by the winner ). And of course it will wear out equip some. There are some Prime Root PvP zones but have never seen any serious PvP there.  There is also a PvP tag which can be turned on for those that want PvP in all zones all the time. There are a few master players that do that, I'm not among them so no idea how that is; never seen them going at it.

PvP is mainly Outpost Battles which are for guild controll of the Outpost which generates Cats ( doubling exp when used ), Mats ( for uber crafting ) , and some small stat boosting goodies. The battles are mainly up to 2 hour factional battles but gameplay mechanics are really guild vs guild with guilds getting assitance from allied guilds. Battles can be as small as a solo player attempting an attack on a low level outpost with his launcher. However the big battles can be huge, 100v100. There were detailed explanations of OP battle mechanics on the Ryzom website before. Players can do some good at these battle swith skills as low as say 50 in heal, 150 in elemental, and 200 in melee. Of course the real fun begins with master skills, and not really sure when the range weapon skills become useful but they are very effeective. However range weapon skill leveling is not that easy and usually done as a 3rd or 4th hunting master.

As for grind, leveling can take quite a while but can go fast with good groups. The last 30 levels from 220-250 do take quite a while. A lot depends on your approach to a game. Are you interested in having fun and enjoying it all the way up the skill ladder? -- if so it'll be months if not a year or more till your first master. Do you just want to get to uber fast? -- then get into an uber guild, play a lot , and prob get your 1st master 2-handed weapon skill in 3-6 weeks.

Foraging ( the gathering of mats for crafting ) is a large part of Ryzom. It requires the player to cast a prospecting action to just make nodes available for "extraction". While extracting mats the node can explode(nuke) or gas(dot). The player can see this happening with bars that show the status of the node during the extraction. The player can also careplan ( CP ) the node to restore the health of these health bars. There is much more to foraging than just this and is the best part of Ryzom for a lot players ( me included ). Its an art with lots of options. It is however a huge grind to become a master digger much less a master digger in all 5 terrains, However really players usually just want a master PR dig skill cause the Supreme dug mats are only in PR zones. 

Leveling in crafting skills is straight forward with no danger. Crafting good usuable equipment however is somewhat complex and takes a while to learn. Uber equipment for the most part requires supreme mats from both digging and bosses. In addition equipment can be boosted up to 20%(random stats, 5% chance of a boost ) when crafted with tools made from OP mats ( remember them OP battles ). I've never used an OP tool but believe that is at least somewhat accurate. Personally I like the equip I can craft with EX mats from named mobs and dug Supreme mats and throw in a Sup boss mat or 2 or 3 or 4 occasionally. Ryzom is even quite playable with equipment made from choice mats -- and good groups are more important than great equipment. But crafting great equipment is fun too. And crafters will go out of their way to craft nice equipment for newbies -- just don't expect them to craft you uber equipment every time -- some mats aren't easy to get.

Equipment in Ryzom is basically Weapons, Armor, Jewels, and Tools. All player crafted equipment can have a stat boost usually HPs.

Weapons are basically damage and hits/min for melee stuuf. However there also are stats for dodge, parry, adverasary dodge, and adversary parry. Dodge and Parry are actually pretty much the same thing in Ryzom but the player must chose whether he is in dodge mode or parry mode. Meleers usually parry, Casters usually dodge ( because Light Armor has + dodge for casters; and Heavy Atrmor has + parry for meleers ). Some mobs will dodge, some will parry -- the player can tell by what is displayed in the sys window.

Armor is mainly Heavy Armor ( meleers ), Medium Armor ( range weapons ), Light Armor ( casters ), and shields ( 1-handed meleers ). The main stat is protection factor which varies from around 10% for LA, 30% for MA, to 50% for HA. Also the Quality of the Armor is important but that is governed by a players stat that is associated with skill levels. Armor also has dodge and parry stats and max amount of melee types of damage mitigated. there are 3 different types of melee damage; Slash, Pierce, and blunt. Also there are melee stanzas for attacking particular body ares.

Jewels have both protection and resistance stats. Protections are against type of elemental attack ( acid, cold, electricity, etc ). Resistances, I don't really understand well but are Terrain related -- apparently all spells have some terrain association with them. All protections ard resistances are capped at 70% so any amount above that is wasted I think. Also any piece of jewelry can only affect 3 resistances and 3 protections so having all protections and reistances at 70% is impossible. Uber players have special sets of jewels they wear for OP battles -- that's how those meleers stand out there getting battered by multiply nukes ( of course they still get massive healing too ). A specialized set of jewels for what one is hunting can be helpful too but usually isn't necessary as most mobs are all melee but there are some tough mobs that cast too.

Mobs are mainly in herds, herds can be culled as a herd starts to spawn when it is wiped out. Herds overlap a lot and many migrate. And carnivorous herds will hunt the herbivores near them. So herds can be killed off just by mob action with no player activity. And some herbivores will even kill the carnivores in battle but that is the exception. Normal mobs drop basic and fine mats that can be used for grind crafting or sold to vendors for dappers ( in game currency ). There are some special named mobs like demolisher that drop choice mats. There are named mobs like Raj that drop Excelent mats and roam thru a zone wrecking havoc. There are the boss's that drop Supreme mats and have guards ( like 30 ). Then there are the civ boss's like Lixie -- not sure of the drops but think they are very special crafting plans.

Mob behavior is very unique to Ryzom and has more of a real feel to it then most games. Non aggro mobs even get curious about what you are up to. It also makes solo trekking a very skillful activity which requires experience and knowledge of different mob behaviors.

And herd locations are not always the same, when a server is reset some herd locations will change so just cause you see a certain herd here or there; don't expect that it'll always be there. Some of this is seasonal too -- Atys does have a 4 season cycle with a season lasting 4.5 RL days I believe. Oh and the Supreme mats down in the PR zones are seasonal, the player does have actions that allow him to deal with this.

There are also many tribes located all around Atys, there is fame associated with these tribes and there are quests to become friendly with them, however doing a quest with a tribe will affect your relationship with many tribes, some up , some down. Many of the good Kami/Karavan faction fame quests are from tribes too. Friendly tribe guards will attempt to kill mobs that are engaged with you if drawn into their aggro range usually. Unfriendly tribes may kill you. There are roaming tribe squads but they won['t attack you unless you attack them. Personally the tribes appear to be something that the developers hoped to expand on in the future. I'm hoping that Ryzom becomes successful enough that they get their chance someday. But for now, the effort required to get friendly with an unfriendly tribe hardly seems worth it. 

Ryzom has a map that a player can put landmarks on with names that show up with mouse overs. The map can be resized to the whole screen if you like.

A player can have 4 seperate UIs setup with easy hotkey access.

Ryzom has a radar screen that shows all mobs within the set range as white dots, another color for team members, red dots for PvP enemies, blue dots for PvP friendlies. This radar screen is particularily useful when weaving ones way thru aggro. It can also be set at different ranges 25, 50, 100, 250, and 500 at least i believe. However it can not be resized from what I remember but still very nice.

Ryzom has a server chat channel but that was suppose to be just for Q&A. There are factional chat channels available when one joins a faction if one chooses to do so. You can talk just to teammates or guildmates too. Also one can open as many 1 to 1 chat windows that one can tolerate on their screen.

Ryzom has a nice macro system that is user friendly . However it is somewhat complex and takes a bit to understand but worth it. And although a player can do some nice things with macros; it isn't possible to bot with macros.

So what is Ryzom like for most?

Typically log in, check ones guild and  friends lists to see who's on. Send a few tells or guildtalk to say hi and  see what's up. Head out, join a team of friends and level up some skills. If no ones on -- maybe do some foraging if that's your thing. Or maybe go exploring an area on your own. Maybe join in a trek if there is one. OP battles you prob will know of ahead of time from guildtalk days ahead of time. Your group might go a boss hunt with players checking to see if boss's have spawned. If your on for a long time, some team members will leave and others join. Teams are up to 9 I believe.

Battles are typically fast paced, with players doing the skill that they want to level up. Mobs are normally pulled or attacked if pulling isn't necessary. After a battle everyone will use there heal abilities to get everyones stats back up if necessary. If things go bad or adds come in that the skills being used aren't up to handling, players might use higher level skills to save the day. There are auaras and powers with reuse timers that come in handy too. Such as an invulnerability, 10-20 sec very fast run speed, self heal, melee protection aura, etc...

Players will often TP out at a moments notice to make a rez run to rez up a fallen Homin or team of Homins. Almost all normal hunting areas of Atys can be reached by a player with master powers and auras inside of the 5 minutes. It is quite a feeling of accomplishment when you get there just inside of that time limit.

Ryzom is a fun unique game. It is quite complete as is with good graphics and animations but has huge potential for expansion .

---

Originally posted by Tuyet
Ryzom is a skill based sandbox fanatsy RPGMMO.

---

Yep, believe its been advertised as science fantasy or scifi fantasy.

But to me Ryzom has a more primitive prehistoric tribal feeling to it. Not really into the lore but gueess maybe caused by some Homin science gone wrong?