The Saga of Ryzom

List Price: $19.99 Discount Price: $18.58

Features:

• Explore the world of Atys - uncovering the past while learning about the mysterious Prime Roots
• New Modular Action System -- from a set of pre-defined Actions, you can customize your own spells, attack patterns and crafting skills
• The RAID engine lets dozens of creatures launch offensives at the same time, challenging your players in epic battles
• Band together with other players as a guild, then take on missions to earn outposts and your own land
• Battle native tribes, the invading Kitin or the contamination of the Goo - your choices will decide the fate of entire regions

Accessories:
PC Gamer (1-year)	Games for Windows: The Official Magazine

Customer Reviews:

3 day impression of full release [Posted on 2004-10-15]
The true test of a MMORPG is how you feel about it after 3 months; however, the fact that I still want to play this game after 3 days is amazing. It's amazing because I've tried Star Wars Galaxies, Legion 2, and Shadowbane and didn't play any of them for more than 2 days (I have played Dark Age of Camelot -DAOC- for a couple of years though).

Some points of note about this game that I don't see mentioned in other reviews:

- It has a steep learning curve because of the unusual classless system and because of the typical "We don't want to tell the players how things work or what they mean" philosophy that MMORPG companies have.

- The behavior of the creatures in the game is incredible. You'll see herds of herbivores being chased by a predator. You'll see some creatures come up to you and act like they want to play. It's hard to describe but it's obvious that a lot of time was put into the creature AI. Some of the herbivores are so cute I actually feel bad about killing them (pathetic huh?).

- The environment feels alive unlike any of the other games I mentioned above.

- The steep learning curve I mentioned above seems to have helped weed-out the immature jerks you find in other games but I've only played for 3 days so perhaps I just haven't run into any.

- I haven't seen any undead. What!? An MMORPG without skeletons and zombies? Yep. Good.

- Be warned that the graphics are intense even at the "normal" settings. You would need a seriously powerfull computer to run this game at the best settings without getting jerky movement.

- Some people, particularly with ATI video cards, have had trouble with lock-ups (including myself). They applied a patch the second day I was on and the lock-up problem got better. It has still crashed once or twice for me but hey, DAOC still crashes sometimes and that's been out for years. Is there an MMORPG that doesn't have these problems? I don't think so.

- The interface is very intuitive, I've never had trouble finding what I was looking for.

- I love the classless system (I'm so sick of the totally unnecessary, archaic, restrictive class systems that I could scream); however, I think the "uniqueness" of characters is more of an illusion than a reality. Of course, I've only reached skill level 21 in the Fight tree and a few in Harvest and Crafting so perhaps there are more "branches" to follow at higher levels that would allow for more individuality. (I can't tell since I can't find a list of the skills anywhere. Are they trying to sell Prima guides perhaps?)

- I haven't experienced any server lag but I have had some jerkiness due to the graphics. I'm on a cable modem so I can't say how (or if) it would run with a dial-up.

- There doesn't seem to be any music or else it just isn't playing for me. I would have turned it off anyway so I don't care.

- The combat is only mildly interactive, similar to DAOC or SW: Galaxies, but it is fun to watch.

- So far the game is pretty darn easy. The only time I've died is when multiple creatures attacked me and one time I attacked something clearly too powerful for me. There doesn't seem to be a way to check a creatures difficulty short of attacking it, which is kinda bad. Fortunately, death hasn't been a big deal so far. You die, lose your health, stamina, etc, then you have to earn a certain amount of experience before you can get new experience applied to your skill trees. You don't have to go loot your body or pray at a grave.

- The thing I like the most so far is that it is relatively easy to create a good fighter or mage that can also craft his own items and even gather the materials to make those items.

- You can craft anywhere! That's right, you don't have to find a lathe or forge or something. For example, I can go out kill some monsters and do some harvesting and once I have the materials I need I can craft something right there in the middle of the wilderness.

- So far I kind of like the missions (AKA tasks) I've seen. The reward has always been money, which is fine since you get experience while carrying out the mission. There are missions for each of the skill lines (fighter/mage, harvester, crafter). The fighter missions may be "Collect X items of Y quality from monster type Z" or "Determine how many creatures of type X are on the island" or "Determine if creature of type X is on the island at all" or "Deliver this to person X in town Y". Sometimes they have time limits but usually not. I never had to go far to complete a mission, which is the main reason I don't hate them like the DAOC tasks.

- I don't have them but I hear you can get a pack animal and a mount. Nice! I don't know if you can own land or build/own a house. I hope they have player run merchants but I don't know for sure yet.

- I can't say too much about game content yet but so far I haven't seen or heard of anything that really stands out. It appears that in the end this game will be like all the others: Kill, Craft, and Chat are the only things to do, which is why I give it 4 stars rather than 5. Even so, I think the unique parts of the game are enough to make it worth trying.

For what is to come. [Posted on 2004-11-22]
Ryzom at release was pretty much a world void of any content, it lacked what games like WoW and EQ2 are ripe with. On the flip side, Ryzom has a story that is not cliche like WoW or EQ2, and for the most part the community is a step above most MMO communities.

Slowly the game has evolved. Only two months from release and we have seen major changes to gameplay, as well as a full respec of the skills.

NOW is when it should have launched. Two months after release, the game is on par or better than any other game coming (and I'm on far too many "beta" lists NOT to know how the other games are).

Ryzom is a SKILL BASED game, and it will have a HEAVY focus on the story. Sound familiar? Anyone that ever played Asheron's Call or it's sequel should know this type of gameplay very well.

Already we have had a raid involving not only the primitive tribes, but the ever-watching factions of Kami and Karavan. Which brings me to another point. Your actions in the game determine where you can go, what you can do, and who you follow.

As a Tryker player, I am "born" with positive fame (faction for you EQ nuts) for the Karavan but I have been working on Kami fame and slowly but surely the fame I am "born" with has vanished. The big events in the game have a very strong lore focus. Even the unguilded, or smaller guilds get their mention for helping in these events - the GMs post the event story to the official forums.

In truth, this game should have waited to be released until now - but with a 14 day free trial available I imagine it's not so bad. An influx of new players has made the game ultimately more interesting and provides a lot of possibilities for an RP-lite mood.

I cannot say this game is "excellent" or "great", these are words I would claim for the future of this game. If the direction the developers have taken recently is any indication, only good things will come from the world of Atys.

For now, enjoy your free month of EQ2, or WoW - then quit those sissy games and play the real MMO: Ryzom.

Well-engineered core game leaves a lot of room for growth [Posted on 2005-07-12]
The blessing, and the curse, of MMORPGs is the evolutionary nature of the genre. What you get today will not be what the game is two years from now. Ask anyone playing STAR WARS: GALAXIES, for example, and you'll learn how a single patch can make a game go from being enjoyable to impossible, literally overnight. It's almost impossible to say how good the game is, because MMORPGs are genuinely living creatures.

Because of this, all I can tell you is what I think of the game so far, and where I think it's likely to go based on that past.

RYZOM has changed a lot since its release, building content slowly but surely. While the producers have tended to err on the side of caution, regularly missing patch release dates to allow for additional testing, the game has been fairly consistently stable as a result. Rarely have the coders introduced a patch that seriously screwed up the players' experience, and on those few occasions that they have, they've tended to react swiftly and offer up a "patch for the patch" that players have generally seen as a good compromise between progress and "tradition".

To be sure, Ryzom is in most ways a fairly standard MMORPG-at first glance. You spend a great deal of your time wandering around its huge world, meeting people, joining guilds, going on quests, killing things and questing. But, unlike other MMORPGs I've seen, it does seem to have solid fundamentals in place, and its development trend seems to be pointed in a satisfying direction.

Graphically, it's a very impressive game. You'll be hard-pressed to find other MMORPGs that look as good as Ryzom. Indeed, many console games can't hold a candle to the richly detailed environments. There are a lot of players who spend immense amounts of times just doing screen captures.

Level advancement was, at least on release in 2004, perhaps its biggest innovation, and it's still the thing that most separates RYZOM from other games in the genre. Unlike some RPGs that allow for several "classes" of characters, RYZOM instead focuses on four main skill trees: crafting, fighting, magic use, and foraging. As you gain experience in each one of these areas, you'll get more and more specific with your advancement. By the time you get up to the upper limit of level 250, the general "fighting" category will have narrowed down into something as specfic as "Master Pike User", or "Master Autolauncher User". What's cool, though, is that just because you choose to focus in one way to start with, you can theoretically attain level 250 in every single sub-branch. Making a choice today doesn't preclude your changing your mind about your character later on. This greatly reduces the incentive to re-roll your character. If you get bored with one line of development, you just start doing something else with the same character.

RYZOM is, in other words, skill-based, rather than level-based. And this skill system is richly detailed. Not only do you eventually gain incredibly detailed powers, but to also be able to create your own completely unique combinations of the skills, or "stanzas", you learn. These so-called "actions" can be highly specific.

Take for instance harvesters. A good many people spend a lot of time in this game gathering resources, which they then sell on the markets as raw materials, or maybe use to craft their own items. Well, let's say you're making guns. Guns require four different raw materials, and one of them is the material that makes the trigger. Different triggers give different properties to the gun. Some give greater range, some greater accuracy, some greater power, some greater speed. Maybe you're interested in making extremely rapid-fire guns, so you want to emphasize speed. To harvest the best materials for this goal, you would create an action which looks around you at a particular radius in front of you, for a particular distance, looking for a particular quality of trigger, but ignoring any other materials around you. So, if you've bought the right skills, you can string together a stanza for arc, another for distance, a third for quality and a fourth to only look for triggers. Once you've done that it's a relatively simple matter to stand in that location and fairly quickly amass a ton of exactly the kind of trigger you want.

Likewise in combat, maybe you want create a spell which does a certain amount of damage to the creature standing in front of you, but also to his companions standing next to him, who aren't nearly as powerful as he is. In other words, you want him to take the brunt of the spell, but it to remain powerful enough to take out his weaker friends. But you also want to be able to do it from a reasonable distance, so you have time to run and hide if it doesn't work. So you take a stanza for a ricochet spell. Then you add the kind of missile you want to send-in this case, let's say an ice blast. Then you fiddle with some other settings to have it set to maximum range. Then....you hope for the best.

Now some might say that this level of detail is just overwhelming. And, to be sure, this isn't your older sister's MMORPG. There is a kind of steep learning curve. But once you get it, you'll never want to go back to anything else. Because it lets you decide precisely the kind of player you want to be. And it creates a great deal of natural in-game discussion. Players are always having debates over how their action is better than your action. And if you get in on these talks, you'll soon find the conversation drifting away from RYZOM into other things. And you'll have made a friend before you know what was happening.

The attention to detail on the skill advancement side is fully justified by the complexity of the enemies you'll face in battle, and the range of tasks you have before you as a crafter/forager. The sheer number of beasts and NPCs you'll encounter is staggering, and the way you approach them is equally varied. Some attack you immediately. Some won't touch you until you attack them. All respond to different types of attack in different ways, completely succumbing to one type, while fully resisting others. You have to really get to know the game's wildlife to learn how to safely travel around.

On the levels of quality graphics, level advancement, and a rich, interesting environment to explore, RYZOM already has enough in place to be considered in the very top tier of MMORPG. As a functioning "level-grinder", I really doubt you'll find anything better. But is that enough to keep you playing? I think for a lot of people, it will be. RYZOM, though, aspires to be more than that-it wants to be taken seriously as a story-teller-and I think here the game is currently more potential than reality.

The basic storytelling tension in the game is of the political relations between the four main species, and of their adherence to the religions of two opposing groups. Much is made on the game website of the world's deep history, but not a whole lot is currently active in the game. More, surely, has come since January 2005, but still it doesn't really matter to game play if you pay attention to this stuff, as yet. Theoretically the game will receive major updates in the form of "episodes", which are supposed to fundamentally affect the way the world looks. As it is now, the world is, with the exception of the mostly unused gun technology, a very fantasy-oriented world. Also, even the über-powerful characters really don't make much of a difference to the persistent world. They kill a super-powerful character...and it just re-materializes a few minutes later. In the future, however, we're led to believe that the technologically-inclined religious group, the Karavan, might be brought to greater prominence, and the developer's promise that this world that blends science fiction and fantasy might one day be more obvious. Also, there is a long-promised development of "outposts" that should be introduced soon. This will allow a guild to actually capture a spot on the map, and then have to defend it from other players. If the developers manage to bring these changes about, then we might really have a dynamic storyline that players will actually be able to see in-game as obviously evolving. Suddenly, this inaugural year of a more fantasy-based world might come to be seen as a "prologue" of sorts-a "more innocent time"--and the part we've played in its development might form a kind of narrative thread.

But, for now, your enjoyment of a "storyline" amounts to merely reading the game's website and noticing a few things in the environment that have a bit of a connection to some of the things you've read. If you're lucky, you might encounter players who've read the website and are interested in doing some roleplay through the chat system. But, again, none of that matters. About the only thing to have been incorporated into actual gameplay is fame alignment. If, through doing missions, you curry the favor of one of the two religious groups, or one of the major species, you'll get access to other missions. Or maybe you'll be allowed to buy property in that land. Or you'll get a marginally better rate at the local merchant's. Or maybe one of the NPC tribes might resist the urge to attack you on site. Hardly the stuff of captivating legend-or indeed of a consistent one. Oddly, starting fame levels for the various races make little sense, given the website's stated histories.

I tend to think, though, that this dearth of storyline, and maybe even some its internal illogic, is soon to be reversed by the introduction of the game's first separately-boxed expansion, due out in a year or so. R2, or "Ring", is reportedly going to allow players themselves to create whole new persistent areas. Though apparently the development team is going to continue to release its own "episodes" through the patch system, they're taking a different approach to expansion packs by putting a great deal of creative control in the hands of their player base. We'll eventually get the ability to make our own "über-mods" that any other player can access at any time. The announcement of this new product is fairly recent, so specifics are a bit hard to come by. But if it's true that we'll eventually get the power to craft whole areas, maybe RYZOM will finally realize its storytelling potential because we, and not the devs, make it so.

boring [Posted on 2005-08-29]
[...] I seriously cant see how it got such a good rating. I definitely cant see people paying $15 a month for this either. I tried playing it and got bored very quickly. The keyboard setup was retarded (yes i changed the bindings but i still couldnt enjoy the game). It could very well be because i didnt leave the noob area. Though, IMO regardless of the area I should enjoy the game right away. If you want a real MMO get WoW or FFXI (2 MMOs i enjoy playing). Even Kal online was better than this game and it was completely free!

A place to be [Posted on 2005-12-22]
Almost buggless, the game surprises with a great community and an incredible technical support.
It is not for the easy-fun-easy gamers though. It is a slow paced, complex world to learn and to be in for a very long time. Dedicated, mature players can find a kind of heaven.
Good graphics, well balanced software, almost no lag, and incredible respect for the customer. These were my first month impressions.

Pve very sophisticated, with different mobs, specific AI, specific resists and areas, requiring the patient skills of a dedicated socut.
Excellently balanced crafting in a a world where most player products are useful for someone if sold. No need to grind your way to the end of the tree to be able to compete.

Community life pretty rich as the population lacks almost entirely the usual exploiters,griefers and all the fauna we meet in some percentage in other games.

Pvp at its begining. Last fresh patch promissing both in factional war and guild vs guild confrontation.

Storyline immersing once you learn it, as it is not based on a story already known by everybody, but rather on a mythology of its own with no good or bad alltogether. Lots of details to learn, and a lot of place for the imagination of the payers to develop.

No player cities as yet, but still there are appartments available to advanced or half way players.
A world much bigger than it seems when at first contact.

I do think the producers had in mind the pleasure of a mature player base rather than making most earnings out of a business.

I would recommend it to any long run gamer that wishes relaxing in an immaginary world after the long hours at work.

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