Kaerah
I appreciate all you hard-core Ryzom lovers. Really I do. You have put in your time to learn the game and you think everyone else should too. But, unfortunately, you are the minority group of MMO players.
Business, is business
How may SUBSCRIBERS does WoW have? SWTOR have? Diablo? Everquest? What are the player populations on those servers? Now let's compare those titles to Ryzom. Why doesn't Ryzom attract those number of players? I suspect Ryzom population doesn't even total 1% of those other titles. I'm sure Winch Gate would salivate at attracting those numbers.
I like a lot of the concepts in Ryzom because they are so different. However, I, like most MMO players, don't have the months and years to sink into a game to learn it. It's just not going to happen on any scale like those other brands. ... (trimmmed)...
Various folk have given their points of view, and I largely agree with Chanchey and Neela and Subox more than others, and I don't even count as an Old Phart because I joined (Nov 2006) after Nevrax had gone under. I do have a couple of observations, however.
First, while a business is a business, the Ryzom community and the game would not survive the kind of population that WoW or even EQ has. Why? Precisely *because* they attract people who want to have major advancement in two weeks or two months and want to do it with a few hours of play per week. Ryzom, by its nature, is a niche game. This doesn't mean it can't be improved and it most certainly would benefit from more players, but if it is "improved" it by making it too easy to do, the "improvements" will remove the attraction it has for the playerbase it currently has. What it needs to do is figure a way to attract more people who *are* willing to put in the time it takes to appreciate it.
Second, Kaerah, you can play for as long as you like on the free trial. I hope that you do, since you have expressed an appreciation of the world of Atys and of the challenges it presents. The trial is set up the way it is to allow time for that appreciation to develop. Perhaps after a year or so, you will come to feel that you ought to subscribe. If so, good. If not, no one is applying pressure that I know of.
Finally -- there is a manual: http://www.ryzom.com/data/pdf/en/EN%20Manual%20of%20Ryzom.pdf There is a link to it from the Main page of the website at http://www.ryzom.com/. It's older than the hills, and I probably wouldn't trust it for installation any more, but the parts on the controls are still valid. I have also heard rumors that it is being updated ... but I expect that to happen Soon(TM).
-- Bittty
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Remembering Tyneetryk
Phaedreas Tears - 15 years old and first(*) of true neutral guilds in Atys.
(*) This statement is contested, but we are certainly the longest lasting.
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