I see some people claim that, but I am not sure.

If it is, I will definitely try it, but there must be a reason why the sandboxers on this site do not play it.

Maybe they will now that it will be free?

yes it is... one of the best really.

I hope the game get some attention with the Freemium move. The game is amazing, old but amazing.

My problem with it is that you can't jump, annoying but you can get used to it.

I wish i had more time,  i'd play it for sure.

Never played it because it was P2P, will try it for sure!

My experience was that it's a grinder game. 

I tried it and it had some interesting ideas with a lot of freedom (classless, you design your own powers from an assembly of smaller abilities, rich harvesting mechanics) but after two weeks I still hadn't managed to get past the starting zone.  It was a classic case of the game being always slightly ahead of me: in order to get enough skill to challenge the next spawn site, I'd have to grind the current one long after it stopped being fun.

It's a great game, but for some reason I can't get over the fact that you can't jump in it. I know this is lame and gay reason to not play it but ...I can't let that go. Why I didnt like GW too. Game has a lot of depth to it i thought with characters and crafting.

Didn't realize it was going Fremium, I gave it a try once, never got off the starter island to see the "real" sandbox game, suspect to really have fun you need to hook up and make friends, not much of a solo experience.

Perhaps if my current game doesn't pan out I'll stop back in to give Ryzom another try.

It definitely has a sandbox feeling to it. 

You don't pick a class, you gain skill in "Fight", "Magic", "Harvesting", and "Crafting" as you use skills in those areas.  You can even customize your own skills (i.e. you specify certain benefits of using a skill, like "+Dmg" but each benefit comes with some cost, like "-HP"... in that example, using the skill in a fight would do extra damage to a mob, but it would cost you some of your own HP... interesting concept.

The harvesting/crafting is where the game really shines, in that it's (1) difficult (to find resources... you have to actually search for them rather than seeing a glowie on the ground) and also (2) very deep (different types of the same resource result in different types of armor/weapons/etc.  and certain resources only spawn in certain places, at certain times of day, during certain seasons and weather conditions!)

Now... having said all of that... as much as I'd love to like this game, until the population is high enough where you actually bump into other players from time to time, it just won't be for me.  Server-wide chat seemed rather helpful (i.e. a hardcore of devoted helpful fans) but it still feels like a ghost town.

I for one hope that their recent announcement of moving to an unlimited trial helps boost the populations...

the problem is how are people going to hear about this game going FTP

really not sure how they will get the word out even - it isn't like they have some cash to advertise and they have not been very good about putting out any game related news to sights like this one

might download and take a look this weekend to see if there are any noobs running around

It's definitely a sandbox. I played it for quite some time and I loved the world and the lore.

However, it got boring after a while, because essentially, you keep doing the same things over and over again. It is very much a roleplaying game because the story evolves through events and player actions, not through quests and such. So if you're not that much into roleplaying, all you'll be doing is grinding skills on the same mobs over and over again, and PVPing (fighting over Outposts). I am into roleplaying, but when I was playing, the population was so low that often, there weren't a lot of other players to roleplay with :) Hopefully this will change now. 

The game is what you make of it and that's why it is a sandbox. I will  be returning as a free player, can't wait to visit my favourite places on Atys again!