Originally posted by bhuma
A sandbox MMORPG = The Saga of Ryzom.
I was recently able to get a new account for this resurrected game, and it is both liberating and a lot of fun.
Large gameworld, about equal in size to WoW before Burning Crusades.
Decent graphics, acceptable animations, and rich, complex skill-based gameplay.
But most importantly lots and lots of freedom to become what you want to become without any class restrictions. Seriously, if you are looking for a decent fantasy type sandbox game, with up to date graphics, this is it, at least for the time being. Although its a fantasy type game, you wont find any orcs, dwarves, or elves here. Everything from the races to the mobs are completely unique.
The best items--in fact virtually all of the items--are player made. The only things that drop from mobs are crafting components. And I have never seen a more intuitive, yet complex crafting system, where the quality and grade of a huge variety of crafting components directly impact the crafted item, resulting in an almost endless variety of highly customizable crafted goods.
The same thing applies to your attacks and spells. Each player has the potential to customize their attacks and spells using the highly innovative stanza system.
Moreover, you can master any skill that you want, without any mutual exclusivity. For example, this means that a tank can also cast some offensive spells, and heal himself as well as others.
However, there are some 42 different skill branches, and for each of those you can earn a total of 2500 skill points = 250 skill levels. No one has ever come close to maxing them all. After a year or so of play, a player 'might' max out one or two branches. Having a fully maxed character would take years of constant play, and is unlikely to happen ever.
So there is plenty of diversity with respect to player skills, according to what you choose to focus upon. Some players focus on spell casting, others on melee dps, others on healing, others on tanking--still others focus on crafting, and others on harvesting. In principle, a given character could do it all---but in practice there will always be some better at one thing than another. That means highly customized characters--where almost everyone is unique. You are free to become what you want to become, without any restrictions.
The game world is also unique. Each zone has its own seasons. In one season the zone might be covered in snow, in another season it might be covered with lush vegetation waving in the wind. In one season, migrating herds of animals might be passing through. In another season, those animals are not to be found. In one season, certain harvestables might be present, in another you cant find them anywhere. Some harvestables are present or absent according to the day/night cycle. And the best harvestables cant be found by mere visible inspection. You have to 'prospect' for them, luring them to the surface from deep beneath the ground--and each type of harvestable (of which there are thousands) have unique stats, that directly affect the item created from them. In addition, the best harvestables come from the free for all pvp zones, where you have to fight for the 'good stuff'
This is not a static game world filled with static node and mob placement. This is a living game world, filled with excellent AI, where the nodes and mobs have their own behaviors that shift from time to time.
Beyond the tutorials in the newbie zone, there are very few actual quests in the game. People dont form groups to do quests. They form groups to do 'treks' or 'walkabouts' in the living world, exploring, harvesting, crafting, and fighting both mobs and other players along the way. And this is no 'walk in the park'. The mobs in Ryzom are tough, and most of the boss mobs are non-soloable.
This is an amazingly rich sandbox if you ask me. After just a few days of play, Ive been sold.
Thanks a lot for the description of this game B! Downloading it on my daughter's PC and mine now:)
