Profile: XoloX
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• • I see the forums are up again!

  • If it does, please let us know.... I have to visit with an old trial acc, too...

  • Posted: 7/18/08 1:52 PM
    The Saga of Ryzom
• • Saga of Ryzom is comin back...

  • In small words: /ack

    The larger part:
    A great, huge, enormous, lack of Ryzom, rather Ryzoms operating companies, ever since the last Closed Beta ended, was communication. As well, listening is a fundamental part of communication...
    Of course, this also implies to filter opinions that reoccur only by being given in full blast volume (which will always occur anyways) to get an at least decent impression of what the main playerbase wishes (e.g. see above *g*). Those that cry out loudest usually move on fastest as well.

    I seriously hope that will be "fixed" with top priority, I'm convinced that it'd not only let all of us who got their MMO view of the universe "cleaned" thoroughly by Atys return for a glimpse but rather return and stay for as long as it's possible...

  • Posted: 7/18/08 6:50 AM
    The Saga of Ryzom
• • Saga of Ryzom is comin back...

  • Originally posted by yamiblade
    

    Honestly, their best bet is making a new server.  That way, old players get to keep their characters and newbies get a place where everyone's on equal ground.

    
     

    That was done already a ways before all servers were closed...
    The new server was "Cho". It was an international server, at least that's what was told. So there were four servers as a total: an english speaking server, a french speaking server, a german speaking server and Cho, the "international" server. Doesn't that combination sound comprehensable? *grin*

    Some new players did start there, indeed - new ones split quite evenly into the then existant four servers, though. Still, the majority of Cho's population didn't recruit from spanish, russian or korean speaking people. It consisted very largely of vets from the other three servers who tried to get a kick out of a new start or simply wanted to try a different approach or face a new challange. (I had a few days of fun there trekking the whole world without any help, at least.) They knew their ways around and they quickly got ahead of the ones who actually started their first time on Atys. Or in other words: the vets started an arms race about the rulership of the outposts. They had no real time to care for inexperienced ones in action. (They did in words and with gear, if needed, though. Everyone in Ryzom does...)
    At that time, real newcomers were recommended in the boards to start on some of the three established servers because they'd be helped to whatevertheywishedtolearn better there.

    Cho was merged with Arispotle, the english speaking server, quite a while before closing all of'em down.
    I still consider it to have been intended as test for whatever. I think it failed.

  • Posted: 7/12/08 1:34 AM
    The Saga of Ryzom
• • Saga of Ryzom is comin back...

  • Originally posted by Curate
    

     

    Iterating away:
    (...)

     

    4)      Be as subtle as a sledgehammer about expectations. No matter what, people will leave the tutorial and ask the nearest person/chat channel, “What should I do now?” Other games have conditioned us, it’s not our fault, we’ll still try and make Tutorial Lesson = Quest. Still, put in a message about “You will not have quests to steer you, your make your own goals” as you depart so that the handful of people who read such things will have a clue.

     

    
     

    Agreed. This #4 of yours is what was (is) really lacking the (once) current strating area, called Ruins of Silan, RoS.
    It has (as the servers are slowly restarting, I'll keep the present tense for now) quests to make the players learn the mechanics.
    That approach was OK, as you stated, most MMORPG players are quest-spoiled after all.
    It had the very serious mistake to tell the player that there would be no quest system in the "real" world (There are "quests", but few and very special ones...). That, ofc, led the pre-spoiled new children to misexpectations.

    RoS has some other, pply smaller, faults, too: it is too large (encouraging a longer stay than actually needed); it gives -for the expected player skills- uber item rewards (-> wrong expectations again, Ryzom is playerdriven itemwise, plus no market for crafted items on RoS); it does not encourage teaming by only having one single "boss" of a few that cannot be solo'ed; it doesn't give a correct impression of the four main "lands" the four civilizattions split into, including to only mentioning once that on RoS found friends are likely to be seperated upon leaving, which leads directly to the last fault I can remember right now: it has an option to be summoned to any capital of choice instead upon leaving (which breaks the immersion and has some other small disadvantages for crafters and their crafting plans and in terms of initial fame).

    Apart from that, RoS is a very good idea. Ryzom is very hard to learn, especially if players are spoiled by questdriven and/or static other universes.
    Those have to learn about beiong able to learn everything, about creating their own actions/spells/combos/call'em-howya-like, stanzas, and editing the predefined ones, about the differences of harvesting, about the interchangeability of crafting materials, about the two main religious! factions, and most importantly about the interaction with the other inhabitants of the planet, the difference between carnivores, herbivores and kitin and their common behaviour, as Atys is alive and interacts with itself - you don't have a combination of all that anywhere else.

    RoS is needed for learning. It should only make very clear that it is there for that purpose only and that it's different from Atys. The problem with telling the player just that is: which casual player actually reads what the "system" is telling them? From my memory and experience with RoS 85% of all questions about mechanics itself have been answered by the system before...and have simply been skipped, clicked away...
    How do you transmit information to a player that doesn't read?

    Ooops... now I'm seriously offtopic, am I not? Too loquacious, too. Sorry...
    *looks for the donkey hat*

  • Posted: 7/11/08 4:20 PM
    The Saga of Ryzom
• • What (was) is the game like?

  • Now that the posts slide into being off-topic (this one pply included), I was inspired by a passage of a post from DonnieBrasco in another thread ("It will be a wipe?") to yet post again, regarding the OP (well - I simply have to write the thought down and it seemed OT there but OK here ).

    Donnie wrote (Link):
    "*snip* ...people who are interested in playing Ryzom for the first time, but are a bit scared with the prospect of being able to play only amongst really high level vets.
    *snip*"

    The word that drove me to write this is amongst.
    My very first thought simply was:
    Contrary to most other MMORPGs out there, Ryzom isn't played amongst the other players... You don't even really play it against other players. In the longer run Ryzom can, IMO, only be played and enjoyed with other players.
    In Ryzom players are what's commonly called "content".

    OKies - finished what I had to do. You may go on, thank you. 

  • Posted: 7/09/08 11:58 AM
    The Saga of Ryzom