Ryzom

[Epyon]

I was searching at the beta testing section on gamespot, and i saw this game called Ryzom under open beta. It is a mmorpg that is set in a world called Atys and you goal is to uncover the history of this planet. Sounds a little lame, but i when i play mmorpgs, i dont really follow the story Anyways, i watched a couple of videos, and is currently downloading the beta from fiileplanet, which is the only place to get it in the US. Theres a lot of cool features, it has the common stuff in most mmorpg's like player houseing, PvP, crafting, guilds and so on, but theres also some other cool stuff. For example, while watching one of the videos they had a part that should the monsters getting born, and then growing up into adult monsters. Which i thouhgt it pretty cool. Also, there are very big battles with thousands of monsters and thousands of players fighting, with magic stuff going every, fire, and everything. This is only a very little part of what this mmorpg can do. Oh, and the setting for the game is a sci-fi fantasy game, its hard to explain, for example there are swords, armor and shields, but then theres also futuristic rifles, and drop ships and such. heres the site to find out more http://www.ryzom.com/ . The download is at 25% with 35 minutes to go, so ill post later on how it is. BTW, the file is 1Gb if you are planning on downloading it.

 

[mrchimp]

I'd give it a go if there was another place to download it other than file planet, it does look a bit odd though.

 

[Epyon]

Theres sadly no other place to download it, and the only magazines that have it on their cd are in eurpoe.

 

[Epyon]

I played it for about 30 minutes, and heres my little review

To start off, i didnt do that much, so im only reviewing the parts that ive did

Fighting - 4/10 - The fighting sucks. Two things, one, if someone asks me how to fight, and if i tell them they will give me 1,000,000 dollars, i wouldnt be able to tell them. And two, the fighting animation is horrible, i have no idea what the hell me, or the enemy is doing. I gave it a 4 and not a 0 becuase i was able to kill the enemy.

Character selector 6/10 - If there was a poll for the dumbest looking characters in a game, this would win for sure. Every single race looks retarded. How your character looks is a big thing in a mmorpg, and this alone, makes me not wont the play it. So why did i give it a 6, well there was a load of options to change the body of your character, but nothing to change the actual face, just lowering or makeing something bigger or smaller on the face, like the nose, and you can customize the hair.

Sound 4/10 - No music, annoying character/enemy sounds. But, the enviormenmts sounds were pretty good. I think....

Enviorment 6/10 - You start off in a desert, fighting cats, house cats.... WOW!!!!!!! So why i gave it a 6, well, looking at the screenshots, the jungles looked pretty cool, so i guess the enviorment gets better. Oh, and the day time/night time/ weather thing is kind of cool, to bad its in every game though.

Other activites, crafting, PvP 0/0 - I have no damn clue, i was to confused to try anything.

Animation 3/10 - I already said that the fighting animation sucks, but the "running" animation is just horrible, it makes me sick. Basically, the walking animation looks like a grown man running like a girl in a dress, while being mentally retarded.

Connection 8/10 - this is probably the best part, there almost no lag, just a few occasion of it.

Confusion 20/10 - most confuseing game ever, especially since i dont have a booklet.

Overall 6/10 - In school, if you get a 60% on a test, you fail, same goes for the gameing industry.

 

[Anthraxxx]

I've played the Ryzom demo and I too thought it sucked ass...

 

[Epyon]

Its good to here im not the only one, i printed out the manual, and im going to read it, maybe the reason that it sucks is because i have no idea what the hell im doing, of course, that isnt a accuse why the animation sucks.
But you know what is wierd, how come every mmorpg looks good in the screenshots, but once you actually play it, it sucks?

 

[The Dark Elf]

Its good to here im not the only one, i printed out the manual, and im going to read it, maybe the reason that it sucks is because i have no idea what the hell im doing, of course, that isnt a accuse why the animation sucks.
But you know what is wierd, how come every mmorpg looks good in the screenshots, but once you actually play it, it sucks?

hype. Because there are now so many MMORPG's on the market or coming up, they have to overhype to get the sales or vanish in a sea of medicore online RPG's. Unfortunately that means putting lots of effort into screenshots, slapping some typical music style on short example vids and then forgetting these online "worlds" need life to work, they need to get out from the whole FPS wannabe area and be proper RPG's. This however takes a very long time to do, but should be done before a single line of code is written. Thats not going to happen while the all mighty dollar blinds most development houses. All the MMORPG's were good.. once, but these great idea's just aren't always possible, not on a budget or a deadline.

Oh well, one day

 

[Epyon]

And then this, comes to yet another arguemnent about mmorpgs. The arguemnet that has been going around since the first mmorpg came out. Why must there be a monthly fee. And the answer is simple. The developers have to eat too. But then, why does it have to be so much, why does it have to be 12-15 dollars a month, why not 6, they make enough money with 6 dollars a month. For example, right now, around 500,000 people are playing everquest. Everquest is i think 12 dollars a month. So times 12 by 500,000 and the developers get 6 million dollars a month. Now times 6 milllion by 12, and thats 72 million. So the developers make 72 milllion dollars in one year! And thats not includeng the 500,000 people that bought the original game, and the 2319034109 expansion packs it had. So now, lets say its only 6 dollars a month, now the devlopers will make 36 milllion a year. I persoanlly think that is enough, but of course, what do i know, im not in the gameing industry. But the example i just gave is from a game that is 5 or more years old, FFXI has over 1,000,000 pllayers world wide, if the monthly fee for that was 6 dollars they would be makeing 72 million dollars in one year. thats 32 million more dollars then it cost to make hl2 .

(im posting to long of posts today)

 

[The Dark Elf]

And then this, comes to yet another arguemnent about mmorpgs. The arguemnet that has been going around since the first mmorpg came out. Why must there be a monthly fee. And the answer is simple. The developers have to eat too. But then, why does it have to be so much, why does it have to be 12-15 dollars a month, why not 6, they make enough money with 6 dollars a month. For example, right now, around 500,000 people are playing everquest. Everquest is i think 12 dollars a month. So times 12 by 500,000 and the developers get 6 million dollars a month. Now times 6 milllion by 12, and thats 72 million. So the developers make 72 milllion dollars in one year! And thats not includeng the 500,000 people that bought the original game, and the 2319034109 expansion packs it had. So now, lets say its only 6 dollars a month, now the devlopers will make 36 milllion a year. I persoanlly think that is enough, but of course, what do i know, im not in the gameing industry. But the example i just gave is from a game that is 5 or more years old, FFXI has over 1,000,000 pllayers world wide, if the monthly fee for that was 6 dollars they would be makeing 72 million dollars in one year. thats 32 million more dollars then it cost to make hl2 .

(im posting to long of posts today)

They charge monthly to pay for, but not limited to, keeping the servers all running, advertisements, upgrades, patches, bug fixes, moderating, licences, staff, office space, backups. Etc and so on.

The problem with MMORPG's is once you buy a game, then thats it, you've paid for it. So while 3 million units are sold, as an example. Thats a few million dollars. But that wont last, and those people will be a bit miffed if every month they have to pay the same price for an upgrade with even the smallest of changes. That price would be charged to keep paying staff and all the other above mentioned things.

So by charging a relatively small fee, they can continue to offer upgrades and improvements cheaper, aswell as keep the system running and also to cover themselves and make a profit which will allow future improvements to be made.

I know thats not very well explained, but basically thats it. Guildwars offering online gaming in an MMORPG for free is only going to last if they can backup the claims they've made to the advertisers. If people ignore the adverts Guildwars provides, then the companies in question will cease paying Guildwars to advertise with them, which means Guildwars wont make the money required to continue, which means it'll end up a monthly fee unless its method of advertising works how they hope.

 

[spookymooky]

I've played ryzom a couple days now, and have thoroughly enjoyed it. This is the first mmorpg ive ever played. Its not really as complicated as Epyon makes it out to be. Although i am still in the desert. The only problem ive had is that it keeps shutting down. I would be angry...but it is a beta.

 

[Epyon]

I downloaded the booklet, printed it out, and i read it before i went to bed. Then on sunday i played it, and i was actually enjoying myself once i understood what i was doing. Ive been doing a lot of crafting which isnt the most exciteing thing, but its cool how even at the beginning of the game you have the money/power to be able to craft anything, unlike ffxi where a piece of bronze sigot is like 1,000 gil and you would need 3 to make something plus other mateirals that would cost to over 3,000 gil. But anyways, i should have made a review after i understood it. So, if you were playing to try it, then try it. but, read the booklet first.