Ryzom gives you a great deal of freedom. This is important to gamers who like to play on their own terms. I have been influenced to play more and more games like this pay to play MMORPG. I have characters on Ryzom that make their living as crafters instead of becoming warriors, sages, or harvesters. True, I had to learn a little of all of these skills in order to develop my crafting, but now I have advanced items, a lot of money from selling my crafted items to numerous NPCs, and I have gained a wealth of experience in my craft skill by becoming a great merchant.
By harvesting and crafting items, I have been able to take a break from the constant fighting with characters like Arken, other players, and predatory animals to just enjoy the scenery. I have been able to wander happily around Atys taking in the sites and sounds of the game. The screen shots online do not do the game enough justice. Even when I play with the detail level low, I can still enjoy the beautiful planet. The graphics are stupendous! The only problem that I have with them is that they take up a lot of memory on the PC, an even gigabyte's worth, and can make the load time of the areas a little slow sometimes.
Other than that minor problem the game has few. Some argue that there are not enough players. I think that the close-knit community is great.
The game has relatively few problems and a very helpful support staff that tackles any issues that you are having. I am comfortable rating this game very high because it has a lot of the qualities I need in a pay to play game without all of the constant battling (both with PC errors and in game play). I can easily devote hours to just watching the creatures roam around, looking at plant life, or crafting items. I have the freedom to do just that in Ryzom, which is why I am so impressed with this game.
There is a huge number of MMO games on the market these days, with almost a new MMO enters the competition every week. Some of them are great and original while others are horrible and boring. MMO-Play has looked at all the MMO's out there and decided to list the top 5 original ones that every gamer should at least try.
DasReviews writes: "On Wednesday, March 9 between 09:00 and 11:00 GMT, the servers will be brought down for the implementation of patch 1.11.0.
This patch brings the following:
New Free Trial System..."
I haven't played Ryzom since the alpha/beta of it. It was very hard for me to play as a mess of mechanics and skill system. At that time I had to play it, though, for support of the Vault portal for the game.
I know they've made some changes, so I might check this out at some point. Been dipping my toes back into LotrO and EQ2 recently. Lifetime subs really are a boon to those of us who play a ton of MMOs over a long period of time.
MMOHut, "There are some game designers out there, usually the exception to the rule, that hold fast to the belief that gamers enjoy themselves most when they are given as much creative control over their character and the game world as possible. Will Wright, the man behind the now legendary “Sim” game franchise, comes to mind immediately, as do a few others like Peter Molyneux, and various, assorted small game studios that are mostly defunct and long gone..."
You should def try EVE Online out if you think like you said in the review :p That game wouldn't even work without its crafters and merchants and the free market they create.