Originally posted by sekrog

@Miles

I have no issue with your review.  Why? Because you have made it perfectly clear that character customization is REALLY important to you, and that Ryzom's in only so-so.

Now, I'm also glad that you pointed out many of the great things that I've experinced in the game so far.  I also agree that  you're rating of the game is no big deal, and shouldn't be taken so serious.

For me, I completed my trial a week ago,and put my money where my mouth has been over the past month...I subscribed for 3-months (only about $10/mnth).  Why?  Because I'm finding so many things that Ryzom has done that I've never seen in other MMO's (many that you've already mentioned).  Certainly the game is far from perfect, but the "sandbox" nature of it is such a surprising change for me that I've dropped my two other linear MMO subs.

My favorite feature of Ryzom?

You get to develop your own abilities?  You heard me right...a taskbar full of my own custom skills.  Game over.

 Good post.

I find it funny that so many people are asking for a sandbox on this forum. the main topic as of late has been the negative aspects of harsh pvp in these games and how people want a more pve focused sandbox game with optional (fair) Faction pvp. They cry for it and yet here it is.

Ryzom is the best Pve oriented sandbox i've played since SWG. Sure the game has pvp but its totally optional much like SWG.

It doesn't toss it self in your face trying to ruin your day.

Seems like a game they would want yet they keep crying.

Originally posted by angus858

Originally posted by angus858

I played Ryzom years ago and had fun but I was trying to solo which was very difficult. 

Lately I have been playing mmorpgs with a group of real-life friends and we are looking for a new game.  Maybe it's time to return to Atys.  I have some questions, though.

1)  How many players can be in a team?

2)  How active is the fight over outposts?  Do they change hands often?  What type of force is needed to take one?  Is this just an activity for the large guilds with maxed-out characters or could a guild of 6 or 8 casual players hope to grab their own piece of real estate (until someone takes it back)?

3)  When I last played the encyclopedia quests were just in the process of being added.  They were incomplete and buggy but still the most interesting thing I did.  Has any further progress been made on this system?

 

Thanks, Homins!

 

I give you all a 6/10 for thread hijacking :) 

Can anyone who's played the game for a while address questions 2 and 3 ?

Thanks!

The game has a very small playerbase so the outpost mechanic isnt used as much and no i havent seen a small guild make an impact in the game.

I believe the encyclopedia is similar today. The new company has only released a handful of small mini patches in the last year.

Recent addition was a revamped quest line for new players and the introduction of a kitin lair along with UI changes thats all.

My only question:

Do you current players feel that Ryzom will have a decent lifetime left?  Or do you honestly feel like it will probably die again?  I mean it already died once.

Originally posted by xephonics

My only question:

Do you current players feel that Ryzom will have a decent lifetime left?  Or do you honestly feel like it will probably die again?  I mean it already died once.

It's fine. Obviously it could use more players but i havent seen any indication of the game dying. Patches have been coming down the pipe at a decent rate for the amount of subs it has.

I tried it for a bit about a yr ago, and did not really get into it, but I think i might give it another shot.

Too bad about the encyclopedia.

I know the game has a small player base.  I was actually hoping that would allow a small guild to grab an outpost of its own.

What is the maximum group size?  So many games today only allow six in a group and I'm hoping Ryzom allows at least 8.  Although I suppose we could run two groups of 4 as long as we had a common chat channel.

Maximum team size is 9.

Funny, most of you debated about the mini review but no one mentioned two things:

1. You can use mouse driver tool if you have a logitech mouse to bind buttons. I have all my 10 buttons binded with in game actions.

2. Chat font can be resized. Just go look at the options panel.

So, 2 of the 4 cons are not really cons, after all...

Char customization is not really great for the moderm MMO but, once you jump in any of the capitals you will find a tattoer and an hair-styler with much more options compared to the creation screen.

Outposts battles still are done regularly, despite they are not massive as in the past. Outposts wars are managed as a faction affair, not just guild. Any Guild can participate and take their place in the filed, al long as they join (or make friends from other guilds) one of the 2 alliances or, if neutral, have friendly guilds. Generally a single guild will not be able to maintain an Outpost without the help of the allied.

This mean, on the other side, that even a small guild, with good politics, can settle strong in Atys.

A previous patch added 2 new Encyclopedia rites, introducing the Kitin nest in Almati Wood. Devs already stated that they will add more rites in future patches. That means they will add some in several steps, not all with one patch. Actually there are about 14-15 (not sure now about the exact number) working rites in game.

What Gilga said.

And one thing in addition.

To the one with the "colorful"  writing ^^ (Sorry, forgot the name)

You CAN change Text size and color.

Just hit the "u" key and see that there are MANY ways to customize the UI to your own personal needs an wishes

(or hit the "System"Icon in the Main UI Bar.)

And you may just right-click on almost every window to change its properties.

CU

SaM

If your gonna bring a force of 8 into Ryzom, you will not be the most powerful guild in either alliance but you will be a major force with the capability of tilting the balance of power between the alliances in 3-6 months times as you gain levels and strength.

We basically have a Kara and a Kami Alliance but it isn't quite that simple as we also have a couple of neutral guilds, not sure if the consider themselves an alliance or just partially allied with both alliances. And not all Kami or Kara guilds are part of either alliance either. The game mechanics are actually guild vs guild for the outposts with guilds allowed to get anyone not in either guild to help them.

As such I'm sure either Alliance would probably help your guild obtain lower level Ouposts pretty early on.

But if your plan is just to come into Ryzom as an independent group of 8 and ignore the current Alliances, you'll have a tough go of it. You might be able to pick up a lev 50 or lev 100 Outpost and maybe even a lev 150 but I would be amazed if you were able to get a lev 200 or lev 250. And either alliance could take any outpost from you any time they decided to.

Outpost battle activity varies from none for a month to 1 good OP battle a week usually on Friday and Saturday to even 2-4 in a week. Sometimes an Alliance will attack 4 or more OPs at the same time in an effort to split up the defenders. Some OP battles are just 8v8 or so, even just 2-4 powerful master players can take an undefended lower lev OP, the best battles in the last 6 months or so seem to be about 30v30 and we have had runs of 1-2 good tight battles a month off and on.

As Gilga said other than the new 2 encyclopedia rites, the encyclopedia rites probably haven't changed much. However there have been new low level mission lines on the mainland that have been added that have some equipment rewards similar to Silan missions.

As for a chat channel, there are guild chat channels although it sounds like the team size of 9 and team chat is enough for your needs.  And forming a guild can be done with 1 character and a small amount of dappers in any of the capital cities. You could even make an alt, level a bit and get the dappers up, take the alt to the mainland, creat the guild, and then guildinvite your main and friends on Silan even. The only problem with that is that you cannot move the guild from one civilization to another but you could always make a new guild wherever you wanted.

Xephonics, One never knows if any MMO will continue but I've heard that Ryzom is doing ok now. Ryzom was a big budget MMO that came out just a month or 2 before both EQ2 and WoW. It never got the playerbase to pay for the development. There was an initial bankruptcy that seemed to emphasize keeping people employed, then a second bankruptcy where apparrently all the overhead got thrown out. The new company appears to be very lean and the game has been stable and patches that fix bugs and do some minor updates have been every couple months. The new mainland mission lines, return of the Kitin patrols, varied and more boss spawn locations, making 1 handed weapons more useful, the new zone, player elected governments, and frequent events are some of the new things the new company has been able to do so far. The new company has announced intetions of raising the level cap above 250 this year.

I keep trying to tell people that Ryzom is awesome yet they keep ignoring me.

I wasted two months in Fallen Earth just to come back to Ryzom.

It's sad that the game has around 5k subs.

Originally posted by Rockgod99

I keep trying to tell people that Ryzom is awesome yet they keep ignoring me.

I wasted two months in Fallen Earth just to come back to Ryzom.

It's sad that the game has around 5k subs.

well didnt sub after the trial I had. but ryzom for sure didnt deserve to go bankrupt....cant talk for its current state but have some of the most fun crafting Ive tried in any game. seem to have forgotten why I didnt sub to the game ;P   think the whole sandbox feel werent sold well to me at the time.

Originally posted by Rockgod99

I keep trying to tell people that Ryzom is awesome yet they keep ignoring me.

I wasted two months in Fallen Earth just to come back to Ryzom.

It's sad that the game has around 5k subs.

Ryzom doesn't seem empty to me and I'm a pretty new player. There are always plenty of people around, most very helpful and friendly. I revisited the starter island yesterday and helped kill Arken about 10 times...so plenty of new players arriving as well.

Originally posted by Ghostflame

Originally posted by Rockgod99

I keep trying to tell people that Ryzom is awesome yet they keep ignoring me.

I wasted two months in Fallen Earth just to come back to Ryzom.

It's sad that the game has around 5k subs.

 

Ryzom doesn't seem empty to me and I'm a pretty new player. There are always plenty of people around, most very helpful and friendly. I revisited the starter island yesterday and helped kill Arken about 10 times...so plenty of new players arriving as well.

Take a look at the Atys map. The starting Island is around 1% the size of the game world. That means people are spread out big time.

Ryzom has a few FFA pvp areas that would greatly benefit from an increase in population.

It's ok right now but It would be bloody fantastic with more players. I say around 10-15k subs across its three servers and the ffa zones would be awesome.

Originally posted by Rockgod99

Originally posted by Ghostflame

Originally posted by Rockgod99

I keep trying to tell people that Ryzom is awesome yet they keep ignoring me.

I wasted two months in Fallen Earth just to come back to Ryzom.

It's sad that the game has around 5k subs.

 

Ryzom doesn't seem empty to me and I'm a pretty new player. There are always plenty of people around, most very helpful and friendly. I revisited the starter island yesterday and helped kill Arken about 10 times...so plenty of new players arriving as well.

Take a look at the Atys map. The starting Island is around 1% the size of the game world. That means people are spread out big time.

Ryzom has a few FFA pvp areas that would greatly benefit from an increase in population.

It's ok right now but It would be bloody fantastic with more players. I say around 10-15k subs across its three servers and the ffa zones would be awesome.

Maybe the ffa zones could use some more people but Void would be very much over crowded! ;-)

Originally posted by Ghostflame

Originally posted by Rockgod99

Originally posted by Ghostflame

Originally posted by Rockgod99

I keep trying to tell people that Ryzom is awesome yet they keep ignoring me.

I wasted two months in Fallen Earth just to come back to Ryzom.

It's sad that the game has around 5k subs.

 

Ryzom doesn't seem empty to me and I'm a pretty new player. There are always plenty of people around, most very helpful and friendly. I revisited the starter island yesterday and helped kill Arken about 10 times...so plenty of new players arriving as well.

Take a look at the Atys map. The starting Island is around 1% the size of the game world. That means people are spread out big time.

Ryzom has a few FFA pvp areas that would greatly benefit from an increase in population.

It's ok right now but It would be bloody fantastic with more players. I say around 10-15k subs across its three servers and the ffa zones would be awesome.

 

Maybe the ffa zones could use some more people but Void would be very much over crowded! ;-)

 

LOL this is true.

When I first started one of the main things that bothered me in ryzom was the lack of a real market. Since the people just give stuff away. I was spoiled by Eve online.

As time has gone on I've come to appreciate the barter system and it kind of fits the overall feel of the game.

Ryzom has a great deal of really awesome features if your willing to look for them.

The other day I went on an expedition through Atys hunting mini bosses with two other friends.

I had more fun than I thought I would to be honest.

People spend a great deal of time tweaking their character stanza system and working on masteries.

Ryzom has a very old school feel. So i can understand how some people might not stick with the game. You often hear complaints of the game being too grindy, not having enough pve quests and the lack of jumping and diving just kills it for people.

Oh well.

ffa zones in Ryzom are really poor for PvP. If you want ffa PvP zones in your MMO then Ryzom is prob not what you are looking for.

For one, usually the zones are empty. A few times a day someone might do some Boss checking or there may be a trek that is  trekking thru. Someone might actual be digging the regular supreme nodes in those zones too and prob would not enjoy be griefed while doing that and the regular supreme mats in those zones are not really worth fighting over as the regular digging is only lev 150 or lev 200 max in those zones. Occassionally someone might be leveling their PR dig skill in those zones and if you are the type of guy that enjoys griefing someone in dig gear working on somewhat hard to level skill, well reputations are earned.

Having said that, I have known of 2 chars that enjoyed attacking other players in the ffa zones. It took months maybe even a year or more but guess what?

I think the reason those zones are PvP is that the Supernodes are there. It is somewhat good in concept I guess that players should form up in groups and fight one another along with Great Vorax's to dig the supernodes. But most of the players that dig the supernodes don't fight over the digging and don't want to fight while digging -- and they are prob the most powerful players in the game so you know what they say about payback.

But if one attacks someone in those zones for griefing there can be payback. You own an OP, hope you can defend it. You don't own an OP, hope your guild never wants to dig the supernodes yourself.

Now if you want to setup up some guild v guild PvP there, sure go for it. But there is flagged faction v faction PvP which is sometimes done in capital cities for fun. Also there is rather good size arena for team v team PvP. And one can always use an OP battle for fun PvP -- actually you can fight in the OP battle area for at least a day in advance of the actual OP battle rounds -- so form up 2 sides and one side pick attack and the other defend and go for it for hours if you like.

With all those wonderful PvP options other than ffa zones, no idea why those zones are ffa PvP, other than if Ryzom did get to where the server populations are say 5x what they are now the supernode mats might well be worth fighting over.

If more pvp minded individuals joined the game in a few months those "Superior players" Wouldn't mean jack shit.

If you dont want to pvp dont dig in a ffa pvp zone.

Anyway i wasn't talking of griefing just having more people to fight and to me getting a team together and going out in ffa areas to fight other teams sounds pretty cool and something ryzom lacks atm.

I understand the not wanting to pvp part but if the devs wanted crafter to get super nodes without resistance then they would not have placed them in a zone like that.

Before someone points me in the direction of Darkfall after reading my last post. Keep in mind Ryzom has a light death penalty and both a wonderful community.

I see no issue with having a good time and getting alittle pvp fun with the rest of those awesome people.

Originally posted by Rockgod99

If more pvp minded individuals joined the game in a few months those "Superior players" Wouldn't mean jack shit.

If you dont want to pvp dont dig in a ffa pvp zone.

Anyway i wasn't talking of griefing just having more people to fight and to me getting a team together and going out in ffa areas to fight other teams sounds pretty cool and something ryzom lacks atm.

I understand the not wanting to pvp part but if the devs wanted crafter to get super nodes without resistance then they would not have placed them in a zone like that.

 

A bit OT... but....guild politics is also a form of PvP. There seems to quite a bit of that going on in Ryzom.

Originally posted by Ghostflame

Originally posted by Rockgod99

If more pvp minded individuals joined the game in a few months those "Superior players" Wouldn't mean jack shit.

If you dont want to pvp dont dig in a ffa pvp zone.

Anyway i wasn't talking of griefing just having more people to fight and to me getting a team together and going out in ffa areas to fight other teams sounds pretty cool and something ryzom lacks atm.

I understand the not wanting to pvp part but if the devs wanted crafter to get super nodes without resistance then they would not have placed them in a zone like that.

 

 

A bit OT... but....guild politics is also a form of PvP. There seems to quite a bit of that going on in Ryzom.

It's always been like that. Politics, drama...more drama. Comes pre-installed in a game when you have a gvg feature.