Ryzom - first impressions

Since we got back home from Leipzig GC, most of my time has been spent together with Spore in order to get my review done. But I have managed to find a few hours, spread out over a couple of days, to try out Ryzom which I've been dying to give a proper go for a long time. And since it's currently free to download and play, I just couldn't stay away.

I just thought I'd quickly sum up my first impressions of Ryzom (the artist formerly known as Saga of Ryzom), but first of all I must point out that I have not yet left the newbie area, known as the island of Silan. I have not seen the Mainland yet, which - as far as I've understood it - the real Ryzom starts. Silan is meant as a place to learn the ropes, and I've been told many times that the Mainland is very different experience to the island. So what I think of the game right now might change when I finally get to leave.

Also, I haven't spent that much time with the game yet - about 5 hours or so in total. I haven't had the time to sit down and spend a whole day with it, like I would to do. So I am in no way an expert or an authority when it comes to Ryzom and I might very well have misunderstood a large part of the game's system. No judging, please!

Anyway, first impressions...

Ryzom is, in short, a very different game. At first glance it is very similar to other MMOs and when you recieve your first quest to go kill 10 suckling yubos outside the Ranger Camp where the game starts it's easy to be decieved into believing that this is your standard diku-MMO. And to be honest, when doing the fighting- or magic-quests it kind of is. It's when you start crafting, harvesting and putting together your own abilities the game really starts to stand out.

Leveling is spread out in four different fields - fighting, magic, harvesting and crafting - and you simply level them by using them. Finish a fight using only magic you recieve magical XP, mix it up with a bit of fighting and you get XP in both, for example. For every level you gain you get 10 skill points which you can then spend at the trainer, buying new recipies to craft or attacks to use against your enemies. But these new skills are made out of smaller parts called "stanzas", which you in turn can mix and match to create your own abilities.

I've only started to get into this system, putting together an Accurate Attack that does increased damage at the cost of some HP and an icebolt that does more damage but has a lower range and costs more MP (known as Sap in Ryzom) compared to an ordinary one. With a quite limited amount of stanzas available to me at this time I haven't been able to play around very much with this system, but it seems like a lot of fun.

Same goes for crafting. You can put together your own crafting abilities, that add certain bonuses to the things you then make (personally I can only make pants, boots and gloves with a small HP-bonus). There is also a lot of different materials you can use to put your newly crafted gear together, even the smallest animals drop material that can be used even though the quality of those materials won't make a very good boot or sword. I can craft basic stuff right now, but to be honest I have no idea what I am doing or if the gear I make is better or worse than the stuff I am currently wearing.

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And here's the problem that faced me as a new player in Ryzom. It's not that complicated to get started, but the tutorials (if you can even call them that) are quite cumbersome and not very intuitive. They get you started, but fail to actually explain what the hell you are doing. My newly crafted pants looks good and I know how I made them, but I have no clue if the stats are any good and what I can do to make them better.

Also, the UI doesn't help - even though it is quite basic, it is not nearly as smooth as later MMOs. Of course Ryzom has been out for a few years, so that was more or less the standard at the time. But perhaps the new owners of the game should consider updating the UI for easier use. The inventory interface is quite bad, there should be more ways to sort wares when shopping at a vendor, things could be made faster and more efficient.

With that being said, I am so far enjoying the game tremendously. I have usually only found the time to play late at night, only planning to play for 15 minutes or so and not realising that more than an hour has passed. With all its faults, Ryzom is incredibly intriguing. It looks really good for its age, the design is quite unique, the world is not like any other fantasy/sci-fi world out there, the animal AI that make them roam in packs and come up and sniff you if you get close (if they're not predators, of course) gives the game a very different feel.

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I am getting ready to leave for the Mainland, I just need to find a group to finish up the quests in the Shattered Ruins to the north of the Ranger Camp. With Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning going into open beta on Sunday, and the whole review circle that will start for me, I am not sure I will be able to spend as much time with Ryzom as I would like. But I will try to put in a few hours here and there, especially if I can find a nice guild to take me in, and I will blog more about it in the future.

And in any case, I think Ryzom will actually be getting my money when the game is no longer free to play.