IDEAS FOR RYZOM

I have to disagree with the OP's point. I don't think the comments made by Sterga Hamla on Silan should be changed.

When I was starting on Silan I was entertained and delighted by the game and learning the various skills available. When I got to Sterga Hamla I was shocked. His attitude - for a trainer on a starter island - seemed to be overly abrasive. I was playing a Matis and if this is what Matis are like I would maybe regret chosing a Matis toon.

When I got to the final part of the missions I saw the genius of the character of Sterga Hamla - I had to chose to be a 'good' Matis or a 'bad' Matis. I had not expected such depth of characterisation or backstory. I immediately read as much of the Lore as I could find, which I found thrilling and intriguing.

As we know there is good and bad in all people, races, nations, civilisations etc. but I had not expected to find this reflected in an MMORPG.

I was quite surprised when I found out that this 'Bad Matis' spoke not only to Matis toons but all toons. I had assumed that the four races would each have this depth of lore revealed, in its own way.

I would suggest as an alternative to modifying Stergla Hamla's comments and missions; that each of the 4 races betrayed the same depth through missions given on Silan.

I'd rather they changed the practical part of his tutorial rather than the roleplay part of it. It's honestly what I thought this thread was going to be about.

Half the missions in his chain aren't about crafting but gathering resources. Most aspects of crafting go completely untouched, like explaining the relevance of certain attributes, or the impact of higher grade materials on the overall craft.

Similarly, half the harvesting missions have nothing to do with harvesting at all. Care planning, for instance, is never even mentioned. Weather conditions are brought up only vaguely but are never fully explained, etc..

Some roleplay is nice, but I fear the lacking tutorial aspect of the tutorial missions is being overlooked.

+1 Pruvan

I would kindly ask not to add stuff into this idea thread which does not belong here.

I might agree that all Silan missions might well have use and to some extent, need of revamping or brushup. But fact is that this would be a lot of effort which would better be spent on innumerous other issues of more use and urgency, before.

I was dealing with the RP aspect which may be modified without major effort, without testing or debugging necessities of any kind. So please be so kind and stick with this intention. Feel free to present additional ideas no matter how realistic in a different thread.

I never played the Silan missions - on the Matis starter island everything was fine for me, no evil characters - some a touch arrogant probably, but that's fine for me if in turn the Fyros on their island were a touch stupid, the Trykers slightly irresponsible and the Zorai talking in riddles. Fact is that people for some reason seemingly seem to choose the Verdant Heights less often than they did before Silan was installed, and some reason might be that this character implies that we are villains to the core and players decided as Talkirc did and choosed a "good" character - although despite some unfortunate implications in the description of the race this is counteracted by the history of Atys, where you can see that, for example, the conflict in 2499 was provoked by the Trykers and Fyros breaking the old Treaty of the Four Nations. It is clear that the Matis had already the Fyros on their knees by the capture of Dexton. Here Mabreka saved the day by mediating between the war parties. Without any real need at that point, the Matis then signed a peace treaty and set Dexton free for a (rather minor) reparation payment. Doesn't sound villainous to me. That Jinovitch was a villain, there can be no doubt, but most likely he killed more Matis than people of other nations ...

Having said that, I wonder where Talkirc read that the Matis are responsible for the Goo. They aren't, of course, and the main knowledge about the Goo is in the hands of the Marauders - mainly of Zorai Marauders.

Fundamentally, all races have negative traits - the Fyros released the Kitins and burned down part of our world, the Zorai were slavers for a time and let the Trykers die at their gates when the Kitin came, the Trykers - the most harmless of the races - provoked a war just out of greed. And that's just for starters.

A final word on slavery in RL - most so-called civilised countries (if not all) have a sad history of slavery. It is true, though, that probably the US was the last nation to get rid of it. That it still is deeply rooted in the minds of the Americans, though, might be due to the fact that although slavery vanished after the Civil Wars, Afro-American still were bereft of many rights until the 1960s and 1970s. So I understand sensibilities here, but - as said - the Zorai introduced slavery for some time as well.