What kind of sci-fi fantasy game is Ryzom - English

#1 Added by Jamarcel(arispotle) 1 decade ago Report | Quote [en]

Ryzom is quite unique in it's style, world, characters and lore, among other things. I can't quite put my finger on it.

It's a sci-fi game because there's obviously sci-fi elements, but then there's also fantasy elements so it's like a fantasy game, but it's not like most fantasy games in style.

It has a more natural and mystical feel, and I almost wanna say a more tribal feel or something like that, but I don't think that's the right term.

I know the game is unique, but what would you call such a unique setting? I almost want to call it Xeno-Fantasy, but I'm not sure if that best describes it. What do you think?

#2 Added by Bitttymacod 1 decade ago Report | Quote [en]

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Well, aside from the question of why do we need to classify it at all, I believe that I would call it an eco-religio-sociological sandbox game.

The SF elements (the Karavan and possibly the gates) are not central, nor are the "magical" elements which might just be use of natural forces. Remember that on Silan we are told "all homins have the ability to generate an acid attack" and that we see creatures every day that have fire attacks, electrical attacks and poison attacks, not to mention reflective shields.

The central elements of the Lore are the ecology, religion, and civilization, but they are only occasionally important to our lives (just as in the real world). What is important is exploration, foraging and building.

It is clear that Atys was *made* (leaving aside the rival claims of Jena and Ma-Duk) since the motion of the celestial bodies cannot be described using orbital mechanics and therefore they are being held in position either by technological (jena) or mystical (Ma-Duk) forces.

-- eh, I call it addicting...

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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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#3 Added by Chalai 1 decade ago Report | Quote [en]

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It's science-fantasy, like it says on the tin.

...Oh wait, it doesn't even say that on the homepage anymore, since they focused too much on spamming it with failSEO keywords when they "revamped" it. o_O

#4 Added by Marelli(arispotle) 1 decade ago Report | Quote [en]

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I call it "creative", or perhaps "less lazy" :P

Seriously, it's just a fantasy world. The reason that name doesn't seem to do it justice is because 99% of all "fantasy worlds" go for the same "medieval earth + magic" setting. Maybe out of lazyness, maybe to be more familiar, who knows?

Fact is though, the definition of a fantasy world is one that is different from ours. Ryzom just took the "different" a lot further than most fantasy world dare to.

Last edited by Marelli(arispotle) (1 decade ago)

#5 Added by Suboxide 1 decade ago Report | Quote [en]

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Totally true Marelli, The Saga Of Ryzom is a pure and simple fantasy game on a totally different scale then most other games. The devs of ryzom made up a whole lvl from scratch. There are no goblins here and no metal or even dragon scale armor on atys but instead the crazy devs where able to come up with zorai heavy armor and big kittins.
Yup ryzom is a great fantasy game but I also think alot off ppl are so used to the "day to day fantasy rpg" that they have a hard time adopting to it or can't adopt to it at all.

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#6 Added by Marelli(arispotle) 1 decade ago Report | Quote [en]

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To expand a bit, it seems many people still use the definitions of "fantasy = magic" and "sci-fi = futuristic technology", which I find rather strange because those definitions have never really held up. We've always had fantasy stories that involved futuristic technology and sci-fi stories that involved magic.

The definition I usually use is that a fantasy world is a world that operates on different laws of physics than ours - and as a result has different intelligent species, different history, different societies etc.

If it's a different history and society but all the laws of nature are the same as in our world, then it's just alternate history fiction.

A sci-fi world on the other hand is a world that shares the real world's history up to the current time and speculates on how it could go further into the future.

It blends ofcourse, when the base of your world is "thousands of years into the future, humanity has settled on a world with very different laws of physics and forgotten earth completely".

#7 Added by Bitttymacod 1 decade ago Report | Quote [en]

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If your last sentence was supposed to reference Ryzom, there's no indication in Lore that we homins are descended from Earth Humanity. We came from elsewhere, yes, but that elsewhere was not necessarily (or even likely) Earth.

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#8 Added by Kilgoretrout 1 decade ago Report | Quote [en]

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Perhaps the fact that SOR was a post apocolyptic storyline was enough for some to consider it sci-fi.

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#9 Added by Suboxide 1 decade ago Report | Quote [en]

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Isn't SOR just a totally different timeline? Isn't it possible to think this is happening in the present so humans and homins live at the same time but not knowing about each other? Or SOR could even be happening in the past.

I've heard ppl talk about thinking the Jena deciples are humans and if that's true then we would be playing in the future but I have yet to see any proof of that (targetting jena deciples and using the token "$t.race$" to get their race identity has until now always shown that they are "matis")

I think Marelli just put that last sentence there for example.

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#10 Added by Marelli(arispotle) 1 decade ago Report | Quote [en]

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Yeah, just saying you can turn any fantasy world into sci-fi by saying it's in the far future when the current world has been completely forgotten, but that's cheating :P

I was just clarifying why Ryzom is clearly fantasy and not sci-fi for me, since my definitions are different from most. The definition of sci-fi, to me, is that the story is about how future developments could change the current world. Fantasy is a story in a world that's always been different from ours.

Star Trek is sci-fi. Star Wars is fantasy.

A story wherein humanity discovers magic in 2030 is sci-fi.

A story can still be both, ofcourse, for example a story wherein humanity discovers another planet in 2150 is sci-fi, but a story about the indigenous culture of that planet is fantasy.

By that definition, Ryzom is very clearly fantasy. Atys has always been different from earth. There are no sci-fi elements at all unless you want to speculate that homins are somehow future humans, something for which there is really no ingame support.

#11 Added by Sherkalyn 1 decade ago Report | Quote [en]

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Unless the Karavan is a human corporation and Jena is the name of their CEO. :P

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#12 Added by Kilgoretrout 1 decade ago Report | Quote [en]

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Jena was their Suri from their version of an Iphone.

Last edited by Kilgoretrout (1 decade ago)

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#13 Added by Marelli(arispotle) 1 decade ago Report | Quote [en]

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Wait no, maybe "no sci-fi elements" is the wrong way to say it, because what makes Ryzom unique is ofcourse that it does have many elements that are *usually* only used in sci-fi - even if they're not inherently sci-fi.

Because almost all fantasy goes for the "medieval stasis europe + magic" setting, we usually come across "post-apocalyptic tribal society" only in sci-fi works. Ryzom is rare because it's gone for post-apocalyptic tribal society in a fantasy.

The 'post-apocalyptic' automatically means you get a strong focus on recovering lost history and re-discovering lost technology. This means the game is permeated with the feeling that society is constantly evolving as technology marches on - something we usually encounter only in sci-fi, again because almost all fantasy plays in an eternal medieval stasis world.

And many fantasies do have tribal societies, but only as a backdrop to the medieval cities. Making the tribal societies the only societies in the world creates a whole different atmosphere.