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Previews: Saga Of Ryzom
Saga of Ryzom is an MMO Game in development from the French (we have to emphasize they are French) developers Nevrax, bringing us a mixture of fantasy and sci-fi in their persistent world. Working with Themis Group and Nevrax, we were given the chance to bring in our super-seekrit-ninja-group of testers for a hands-on look at the game, and play we did!
* GameRifts Testing Team: Chernevog, Div Devlin, Hawarel, Kalvaer, Karmastorm, Kattanah, Tunewhistler, and Vash
The Saga of Ryzom is the tale of a mysterious planet known as Atys, in a universe where the past has been forgotten and the future remains unknown. It is a world where magic and swordplay are still in existence, though you can pick up a "rocket launcher" at your local crafter if you have enough money (seeds) to do it. Karma enjoys blowing things up. Character Creation: Creating your Character is simple enough, though as with many games being released now days, there is a considerable amount of detail that can be changed. Complete face customization from nose size, length, width and position, to the tattoos that you have if you want any. A new one for Kalvaer when he was in character creation was the possibility for female characters to, well... change the size of their "assets". Hawarel thinks that the Nevrax team is utilizing bump mapping technology very well with this feature... something that I'm sure will entertain most of the male gamers out there, and I'm guessing it will be easy to spot which of the men are playing female characters. No woman in her right mind, according to Sorcha, would purposely wield 44-DDs. We're guys, though, so we don't mind! Moving on, even though it's hard to after that feature, we get to specialize our characters with races. In SoR, we can choose from one of four races. The Fyros: a bold race of loyal and fierce warriors from the desert lands. The Zorais: a race of mystics from the jungles, who are spiritual. The Trykers: a race of hedonists who make for great explorers and inventers. What game would be complete without a race that dwells in haunted woods and are proud heirs of an old Monarchy? We have that as well, with the race known as the Matis. Unlike other games that offer you the traditional classes or templates, Nevrax has created a system which directly ties to your race, giving you cultural powers and allows you to customize your character through "Action Packs." Action packs determine your character zones, allowing you to choose from three base disciplines; Crafting, Foraging, Fighting, and Magic. Taking all of your three base skills in fighting will give you a Character with extra fighting skills than say going two fighting and one magic. Of course even a pure fighter can change their profession at a later stage in the game by using the skill points acquired when you level. One of the best features with this is that you are not restricted to a single class, and can become a jack-of-all-trades type of character.
Most games that are released in today's market have pretty good graphics and all the strings attached. SoR is no different and I must say I am pretty impressed. The scenery is spectacular and a lot of time has been spent on small details. You even have fire flies around lanterns, which further enhances your immersion into the world of Atys. There are even seasonal changes which effect how things look and what resources can be found, and I'm sure I even saw a whole herd of "herbivore" creatures migrating as winter started approaching. At least they were there the one day, and gone the next. During a lull in the excitement, Kalvaer created a new character during the winter season, and following a patch which added more features into the game, his female character developed, well. she has a cold, and can be seen sneezing around town. It the little nuances like this which is really impressive and making all of us as a group anxiously waiting to see what else will be added once everything has been completed. The interface is pretty much standard, with different "windows" for the different "chat channels" available, hotkey bar for actions, etc. One thing that seems different is the option to have four different "desktops", each with its own windows and hot bars. This allows the player to set up one desktop of hot bars for fighting and the windows for stat bars, team chat, etc., placed where you want them, and another window with your Health bar displayed and the map up when you suddenly realize you have bitten off more than you can chew and need to get back to the nearest city. The game can be viewed in a first person or third person view, with the option to "scroll" from one view to the other with either a key press or the mouse. Movement is standard but not with the WASD keys, and instead uses the arrow keys on the keyboard. Almost every key on the keyboard is linked to an action and of course you can change most of these settings. I personally would like to zoom out further than I currently can and use a "free look/Mouse look " system, but before you know it you've adapted to it and end up getting frustrated with other games systems after a few hours of play when you head back into them.
Leveling is easy enough; when you kill something you get points, when you craft something you get points when you forage and extract resources you get points, etc. Magic and Melee points can only be gained though killing things. When you have enough experience points you gain a level. With a new level comes new skill points, which can be used at a trainer in a city to learn new skills in your profession, change your stats, or even buy skill points in another profession. The cost depends on what you want to do, so for example, changing from a fighter to a mage will cost you additional skill points. Your current level is viewable through a skill tree, with the base skills of Melee, Magic, Crafting, Foraging and Defense. Once you reach level twenty in your base skill, you can start to specialize in your profession. Fighting characters can select between which weapons they want to fight with and what armor to wear, Crafters what armor they want to make, by race and by type or even what weapons they want to specialize in making. Actions: This has got to be one of the most interesting aspects of the game. As I've said you can use your skill points to get new skills for yourself. These are called actions, and each action is made up of different "building blocks" or "Bricks" as they are called. Each time you learn a new action you get the new bricks that go with that action. These are displayed in a sort of accounting ledger system. Let's say you have learned the "hit harder" action. It will be made up of (for example) a +15 hit harder brick, and to balance things out you will also have a -10 action brick, and a -5 speed brick. As you learn more actions you get more bricks, which can be used to modify or enhance your actions. You can "unbalance" actions towards the Negative side, making it easier to perform but with a higher cost, or vice versa. To elaborate more, a mage's simple cold spell can be modified with the right bricks to be cast in one second flat, and do huge damage, but at a HUGE cost to your magic pool (sap). This can be done with almost all the professions allowing crafters to enhance armor/weapons, fighters to combine actions, and so on. Almost every character can be completely different depending on their playing style. Even two level twenty fighters, who have all learned the same skills, can fight totally differently, allowing one to hit hard and slow, and another to run in with that tiny dagger of his and slice up his opponent before the poor guy knows what hit him. This makes for a great PvP setup, since you have no idea how your enemy has optimized his actions.
As this is beta things have not been completely implemented yet, and only certain aspects of guilds are working. However, the guild system also seems to be another rather interesting aspect of the game. The website states that certain missions will only be available to guilds, and completing these missions will increase or decrease your guild's fame. I am not sure yet how this will affect the guild, but all of us are eager to learn more. It does seem to me that this means any guild can be as competent as any other. Being a large guild with 100 members could have just as much fame as a smaller guild of 20 players who always play together. That's really a fair system. No zerg guilds and even the smaller guilds can compete. Overall: The design concept, graphics, and especially the customizable actions makes this a game that has a lot of potential. While Saga of Ryzom may have too few of the "traditional" fantasy elements to appeal to the mainstream "Elves and Orcs" crowd, this is sure to be one of those sleeper hits where you can't just stop playing. Saga of Ryzom is currently in open beta, with a release date expected this year. To learn more visit the official website. Discuss: Whats so bad about the French?
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