So, got to reading up on Ryzom. I've been on MMORPG.Com for some time now, and I've seen the name, visited the forums, but never thought about trying it out.

I was an SWG player from just-after initial launch up until about 6 months after the CURB. After SWG I went over to EVE Online, and have been a pod-pilot for 3 years now. I love my career as a pod-pilot, but I'm always on the hunt for a nice secondary MMO to fall into when I need a break. And I've always missed pre-gimped SWG, the complexity of player-crafting, the open-endedness of your career paths, the multi-stat experience-point tree, and of course the sandbox experience that was once SWG prior to being dumbed down into just a handful of professions. Not that EVE isn't a complex-monster in its own right, it is, but a space odyssey such as EVE is an entirely different beast than a ground-game such as SWG was/is.

I've heard from many, and read many articles about, how Ryzom is along the same lines, and since it's currently F2P I figured what the heck.

Well, it's been 3 days now, and I'm enjoying myself. I like the fact that it's not just a basic XP grind, but you actually earn points in specific areas based on you using skills related to those areas. Very much like the old days of SWG.

The crafting also seems fairly interactive, where player-crafted items can vary based on the materials used and your level of expertise.

And I'm liking the self-created moves that a player can make and learn. This is something I've not experienced in other MMOs.

I've been dabbling in a little bit of everything, running missions for combat, magic, and crafting, at the moment. I haven't made it very far from the town my 'toon started in, and I'm pretty much surrounded by others like myself; new to the game, so I haven't had much interaction with old-timers yet. But I'm not seeing any leet-speak or gold-spamming, so it's already better than my experiences with other F2P MMOs I've tried.

I think I'll be staying a while, to venture out and see what there is to see in the land of Ryzom. For now, though, I just wanted to say Hey to all the existing players. If you see a lost female 'toon named Tsillah, point me in the right direction, LOL :)

Don't forget to turn on Universe chat, its a question and answer channel basically (or is supposed to be but sometimes chatter happens :D)   People are friendly and don't be afraid to ask newbie questions, most folks are GLAD to help you find your bearings.

Welcome to Ryzom..enjoy your stay.  Btw I am an old SWG player prior to the CU and NGE debacles. :) 

Cend

So it's been a little over a week now, and I'm really enjoying Saga of Ryzom. I've started experimenting alot with the ability to create custom actions, and macros, and I'm very impressed with how customizable the game is in this category.

The custom actions are a nice change of pace from any other MMO, as you can build your own custom moves based on the skills you have. You can buy prebuilt actions from the NPC trainers, or you can buy just the skill upgrades and give a go at creating your own actions. I've found this to be a very intuitive way of give the players a way of changing around their character builds on a level not available in other MMOs.

The player community is very helpful. Many times I've had to ask my nOOb question in the Universe channel, and I always get at least one, if not many, response to my question.

One individual was especially helpful, leading me to an excellent website that specialized in tweaking the configuration files, which allowed me to do things like change the height of the 3rd-person camera view, the zoom-out/zoom-in values, even the CPU-ticks that the game consumes. The 3D engine that the game uses is quite impressive, and I've come to realize has actually been released to the GNU/GPL open-source community, which means I can grab a copy and start geekin' out with it, :)

I plan on getting into the Ryzom Ring shortly, where-in apparently players can actually create and add to the in-game world! Talk about never saw that before! Players can create areas and upload them to the server for others to experience, now that's just excellent!

I've still to experience a LOT, as I'm still fairly low-level and still running around nOObville, but I'm having an excellent experience thus-far. Enough-so, so that if/when the game _does_ return to a pay-to-play status I may just actually subscribe to it, which is something I've never considered doing for my "backup MMO" before.

More updates to come... :)

See you all in-game, :)

Unless this has changed recently (I don't think so..) You can only share you Ring creations when you are online yourself. If it actually stayed in the world I'd be all over it. But I have seen machinima made and rp events held in ring scenarios.

Maybe i'm just old school but i remember a monthly fee to get off the noob island and once you did that it did become a grind, not a long one but it was for sure a grind.

Originally posted by pronet

Maybe i'm just old school but i remember a monthly fee to get off the noob island and once you did that it did become a grind, not a long one but it was for sure a grind.

You grind each day of your real life, doing almost always the same things, so what's the problem with grind?

The grind is in your mind and not in games: it's how you do things and what you feel that makes the difference.

No school exists to teach how a game should be, so 'old school' is just a non sense.

You simply didn't liked the game. Point.

Nice to see you´re enjoying your time on Atys Danag. :)

But just for completitions sake, I´d like to point out that once you actually change anything in your Games files/codes, you loose every right for support from the owners, in case it won´t work anymore.

Much like, if you open a toaster, fiddle with it, it breaks. You loose all guaranty and such. ;)

I´ve done it myself, as anyone can see in my videos and I accept the risk.

CU

SaM

Just a warning OP, the mainland in Ryzom is pretty hardcore, you need patience when figthing mobs and exploring. two-three mobs will eat you. Also the game is rather group focused and the ML isn't as robust mission wise as the starter area.

You can run missions on ML but they give you fame and cash only (no items or Skill points)

Once you get into ML get yourself into a nice sized guild that actively PVPs and does raid stuff (so you can take full advantage of the content).

Since you play Eve you shouldn't have a problem playing in ML with no direction just live out your characters life as you would a pod pilot in Eve.

GL 

So, going on two weeks now, and and still on noob-island. There is so much to see, and so many missions to run, I want to make sure I see as much, and experience as much as possible before heading for the Main Land. The guild that recruited me suggested the same thing, especially since by the time everything is said and done I'll have a good amount of dapper, as well as decent weapons, armor, and stats. Though I'm anxious to see the ML, I don't want to rush things, or miss any part of the story, as I just know I'll regret it later.

So far my only complaint, if you can call it that, is from time to time while in Melee-combat, I'll do damage without the combat-animation happening. It sort of ruins the immersion. Other than that things are good.

I've got my client.cfg tweaked to just where I like it; terrain/player/npc/mob viewing distance, LOD, FOV, CPU-ticks, priority, you name it. Pretty much everything you can think of is available for tweaking from within the client.cfg file.

The seasons just changed in-game. It's currently Spring, and man can you tell. Everything was beautiful, green, and lush when I logged in last night.

I've started experimenting with some crafting, and I love how based on your currently skills and the materials you have available to use, determine what type of stats your end product has. It's nice to see complex player-crafting. I haven't had that type of experience since my SWG days, about three years ago. It's a nice change from the MMOs I've tried since then.

I'm psyched to get to the ML, especially now that I've been recruited by a guild. By the time I get there I should be set to start enjoying the rest of the game. Hopefully I'll have enough dapper for a mount, or at least a packer to store equipment. I'm also excited to get a look at the guild halls and player housing once I get out to the real world.

"Doing damage with no animation" is probably just a small lag issue with your provider, or a whee bit of Packetloss.

And yes, despite urban myth, this isn´t always a games fault. :)p  May be a the distance issue, if you´re not in Europe.

Nothing to worry about and something that I encountered in just about every Game I played. Sometimes a tiny amount of Info gets lost on the way to you, or from you to the server and the cleint doesn´t get the proper signal which animation to execute. It just happens. ;)

CU

SaM