Nevrax send word that their free-to-play MMO, Ryzom, which had previously been closed down, is now back online. I’m not quite sure how they’re paying for it to be online and free, as there doesn’t seem to be advertising or anything, nor am I sure how much the game has changed since it launched (when it was intriguing with its science-fantasy take, and yet broken) but it does have an editor that allows you to create your own instanced scenarios, which is an idea that I like very much.
Hell, it’s free. Someone with a few hours spare download it and report back.
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Does it have anything to do with the Deleuze and Guattarrian concept of the rhyzome?
Sweet, always had a weak spot for Ryzom (because of the science-fantasy setting as mentioned, and because of the environment (awesome creature flock/herd AI and weather with seasons and stuff…. Which looked very purty)
The website advertises a “Free Trial”. Surely this means that there is some kind of monthly fee?
There doesn’t appear to be any option to pay for it at the moment.
When signing up it has a number (700 when I registered), saying how many free accounts are left.
I just tried signing up and couldn’t see the number you mentioned Riotpoll. Where was it?
It is at the top of the register form, is around 685 now.
For the moment, it’s free to play. No infos yet on what will happen next. There’s quite a few new players, and lots of helpful old ones too : there haven’t been any wipe.
I’ve registered purely because of the sentence “Unlike normal planets, Atys is an enormous tree” on the Wikipedia page. I’ll download the client and have a go in a bit.
This was my first mmorpg. A bit of a mixed relationship. I died, alot. And there was this death penalty that got me good.
Might have a try at it again, to see how far I’ve developed. Anyways, good to see it back.
Very excited for this, I have always wanted to play but I hated the monthly fee. 280 or so left.
I tried this a while back and found it immensely complex, with little curve for the newbie to get started without immediately dumping money into it. Willing to try it again, 176 accounts left.
Half an hour left on the client download. Ho Hum.
It’s not *so* complex since the new newbie area (Ruins of Silan). NPCs guide you quite well through quests. The gap is quite present when you quit this land : for example, there’s no guided path like WoW. So if I should give you one advice, take your time on Silan.
Said 200 accounts left when I signed up. I’m thinking this “limit” is just to give the impression of scarcity and you can sign up whenever.
I played the beta for this back in the day. It was very buggy (both in the literal sense in that the main enemies were bug creatures and also in the unstable client way). The world mythology was interesting though, very French.
First impressions aren’t bad. Generic mmo gameplay for my first hour or so, but the world seems quite pretty, and the character development seems intriguing. You level up seperately in fighting, magic, harvesting, and crafting, getting experience in each by doing it. You can create your own abilities using the components of the ones you buy from skill trainers, with a clever balancing system – you pick the effects of your spell, attack, recipe, or whatever, and they have a point cost, which you have to match with penalties (mana cost, casting time, etc). Plenty of people around too it seems, I’ll be firing it up again in due course.
I’ve played two months of this game like half a year ago and enjoyed it. Very nice and very helpful community (at least on the German server).
Graphics are still quite good, the best aspect of it is the skill system though, in which you can build your own moves out of components (see above post).
When I was playing the “Ryzom Ring” (the area where self-built instances would play out) wasn’t working though, don’t know what happened since then, but don’t really expect it to be implemented completely yet.
Or was it just that nobody used it? Don’t really remember.
But go ahead and give it a try, its good fun for a mmo.
“Said 200 accounts left when I signed up. I’m thinking this “limit” is just to give the impression of scarcity and you can sign up whenever.”
Nope, there are no more accounts available. Here’s what they say:
“RYZOM REGISTRATION
Sorry but it’s too late; all new accounts have been taken. We’ll make more available regularly, so please come back later.”
Now just under 2000 accounts available. :)
Got a warrior/harvester up to around 15. I tried the instance editor, pretty fun. This is a lot easier to get a hang of then previously. Character customization/ cosmetic is awful, scenery is very nice, skill system pretty fun. I’m guessing at around lvl 20 you can start to play with guns instead of melee.
Hurry! There’s “Only 1912 new accounts left”!
In an hour there’ll be just 3000!!! I warned you!
I never got into french humour anyway…
The game? Oh, won’t try it. I doubt it has changed much since I played it. Good ideas on paper, poor execution, grind-grind-grind, etc, etc.
i have been a couple of hours there, got some of the last new batch of accounts last night, and so far i havent felt the grind, yet i havent advanced much.
its fun after a few hours, i can say that much, we´ll see how much does it lasts.
Bleh, misclick.