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Exploding penises, painful vomiting, plague-ridden vengeful spirits, and being stalked by the author avatar from The Parking Lot Is Full. That was my night. Got damn near no sleep, and what sleep I did have was highly unpleasant.
BLEH.
BLEH.
Okay, so before I went to sleep last night, I managed to get the trial client for The Saga of Ryzom up and running. Ryzom is a science-fantasy MMORPG, and the trial is unlimited...you're restricted to a very large 'newbie island', but other than that, you can do anything you like, gain XP and skills, and just play the game.
So far, I like it a lot.
My big 'thing' in any MMORPG is crafting. And Ryzom has a very robust foraging/crafting system. You first have to gain materials, which can be done in several ways: hunting critters, prospecting to find buried deposits and extracting them, or buying from merchants and players. Every material has certain things it can be used for; these usages are largely very logical. Every material also has certain properties that it will bring to the new item. If you want a very, very light piece of armor, for example, you just need to find materials that give a lot of 'lightness' to the new composition, or you can max out damage resistance against a certain type of damage, or you can concentrate on durability, and so forth. Even at very low levels, you can make a wide variety of useful items (at least, useful to you), and every potential craft piece has the possibility of success right there at the top, so you can decide whether it's worth the risk of losing ingredients.
Also, prospecting is interesting in and of itself. There are three 'risk factors' in harvesting material resources: Source Life, Explosion Risk, and Kami Tolerance. All three of these factors go down (they're in little bar graphs) as you harvest, and they all do Bad Things if they run out. If the life of the source runs out, the source is prematurely exhausted /and/ it seems there's a risk that it makes the surrounding ground barren, too. So no more sources from that area. If the Explosion meter runs out...you die. It seems that you just...die. And if the Kami Tolerance meter runs out, I think a Kami shows up and smites you. On the newbie island, it appears to be set on max, which is good. In order to help you not overwork the land or die in a tragic explosion, you can learn and customize 'care skills' which you can switch to while harvesting to restore the source you're working on. You can also gain more abilities that you can use to create gentler harvesting skills that make the land more stable while you use it. It's really kind of fun.
The playerbase is small and courteous. In my admittedly brief time there, I ran into /no/ kill or resource stealers, griefers, asswipes, or item beggers. The one time someone did post a 'rez plz' to the chat, several people stepped in to tell him that it wasn't appropriate. There is chatspeak, but it's not overwhelming, and if you have a question, several people hop in to help.
I like it. I'll have to see if I still like it once I've done all the newbie quests, but if so...eh, maybe it might be worth 15 bucks a month.
So far, I like it a lot.
My big 'thing' in any MMORPG is crafting. And Ryzom has a very robust foraging/crafting system. You first have to gain materials, which can be done in several ways: hunting critters, prospecting to find buried deposits and extracting them, or buying from merchants and players. Every material has certain things it can be used for; these usages are largely very logical. Every material also has certain properties that it will bring to the new item. If you want a very, very light piece of armor, for example, you just need to find materials that give a lot of 'lightness' to the new composition, or you can max out damage resistance against a certain type of damage, or you can concentrate on durability, and so forth. Even at very low levels, you can make a wide variety of useful items (at least, useful to you), and every potential craft piece has the possibility of success right there at the top, so you can decide whether it's worth the risk of losing ingredients.
Also, prospecting is interesting in and of itself. There are three 'risk factors' in harvesting material resources: Source Life, Explosion Risk, and Kami Tolerance. All three of these factors go down (they're in little bar graphs) as you harvest, and they all do Bad Things if they run out. If the life of the source runs out, the source is prematurely exhausted /and/ it seems there's a risk that it makes the surrounding ground barren, too. So no more sources from that area. If the Explosion meter runs out...you die. It seems that you just...die. And if the Kami Tolerance meter runs out, I think a Kami shows up and smites you. On the newbie island, it appears to be set on max, which is good. In order to help you not overwork the land or die in a tragic explosion, you can learn and customize 'care skills' which you can switch to while harvesting to restore the source you're working on. You can also gain more abilities that you can use to create gentler harvesting skills that make the land more stable while you use it. It's really kind of fun.
The playerbase is small and courteous. In my admittedly brief time there, I ran into /no/ kill or resource stealers, griefers, asswipes, or item beggers. The one time someone did post a 'rez plz' to the chat, several people stepped in to tell him that it wasn't appropriate. There is chatspeak, but it's not overwhelming, and if you have a question, several people hop in to help.
I like it. I'll have to see if I still like it once I've done all the newbie quests, but if so...eh, maybe it might be worth 15 bucks a month.
.