IDEAS FOR RYZOM

Ryzom has some great artwork and I am sure music and some 3D elements took it's time to implement, too.

But the experience is shallow, because every aspect in Ryzom is implemented better in other games I remember
– altough I have to admit that no game shares the unique collection of Ryzom which makes it it's own experience you can enjoy for some time.

So what does Ryzom need for a deeper experience and long-term enjoyment?
Something which attracts creative minds with a lot of experience from other MOMRPGs.

–––
1.
Add more hair-styles - like front/rear view. And seriously: add more colours (it's just a huge shift and brightness, really!).
Also add more tatoo choices (just an overlay), colours and overlapable parts that create a mixed texture based on numeric parameters.

In some games you can spend hours on hours just to create your character - even free to play ones like "Second Life", "Shaya" or other free games I could play years ago when I was still a newbie "default-Windows user".

But, in this game, character creating is mostly hair and tattoo – here should it improve first (and everything really difficult is already done).

2.
Extend the Stanza-system for spells.
In "Oblivion" and "Skyrim" you can adjust the range, damage, AOE, cast/cooldown –everything of 10+ stats– freely after some archivements.

During the tutorial it is just a matter of maxing the DPS of a spell, have 3 different for (initiation + follow-ups) and close-range for tougher creeps.

All the Stanzas, options and credits here give little room for individuality.

3.
I am now at Tryker's Main-Land and bored a bit.
– I see the same creeps, still have to just-run 2+2 minutes for quests.
– Foraging or hack&slash through mobs is still mostly waiting in front of the screen.
– The tutorials items I got ruin any hope of crafting something better myself.
– I see a lot of copy+paste work, NPCs which wear player outfits and have some generic-player-faces.
– Whater in which I cannot dive for pearls, walk-ways under which I cannot swim through, cliffs from which I cannot jump into water.

The thing I enjoy are other players to chat and beef-up the experience, but this is nothing Ryzom itself contributes to the game, but the players.
– Also, I figured it even more difficult to form parties on the main land than it is to form then on Tutorial-Island.

But there is a quick fix:
In oblivion, you could level everything individually – swords, daggers, each spell (here: each Stanza which is part of it).

If you can approach 100% Sap-to-DMG efficiency, but never reach it …
… if you can level your skill against each mob-type, once by super-type and once by sub-type (skill ratios multipled) …
… if you could level an item's super-type and the individual item.

It wouldn't be more complicated than implementing an inventory with a number how many items you have.
But it would add a nice feature to the game.

EDIT:
Wouldn't you like it if you could change the colour, split count, visual speed, flight pattern (arc, zick-zack), etc of a magic projectile just like you can modify your character? Or the animation of your meele-character?

All those are available here as well, you'll get all the options as you level up. There are even 3 individual AoE types, for squiggly lines, circular areas and cones.
As soon as you outgrow these, better can be crafted. However, leveling crafting takes considerably more effort than your combat skills. As such it is difficult to keep up and craft all your own gear.
The game engine isn't really 3D as such, closer to 2.5D, and as such the possibility for vertical movement is limited to slopes and such. It is from 2004 after all.
Here you will notice that you need to level skills individually as well, since the skill tree splits at 21, and every multiple of 50 after that. Elemental magic stays together as one tree, but all melee skills need to be trained individually in the end.

This isn't oblivion, and it isn't your "run of the mill"-asian fireworks show. It is also a very old game with some quite chaotic coding. Don't expect any significant changes to mechanics, models or areas.

That said, it is a very interesting place to spend your time, and you will find plenty of mechanics which simply do not exist in other games. There are plenty of bugs/features/tricks which can provide new ways to go about things.

Other: none of the above.

Nothing of those, except maybe some new tattoos from Ryzom Forge

None

I've heard about the splits, but the mid-game seems boring.

I do not see much of a difference between the stairs for a balcone in south-Fairhaven and being able to swim below wooden connections of platforms in FH (it's done in the tutorial zone).
A few more stanzas is not changing the code much either.

I just miss something to keep players between the tutorial and Level 50 interested.

There is a lot of proposals for new stanzas, none of them have been implemented. Last time they added something new to stanza system was like in 2007. Looks like it's not that easy as you may think.

I have not heard or read about any delayed-damage stanza.

There are acid/cold/… drain spells, but they are affliction and repeated damage, not delayed damage.


I recently found an entry to Darkmoor in Lakes. It has multiple areas in which you can move which overlap each other (you can walk on roots over the water).

I wish, such is more frequent in or around Tryker cities. A larger Darkmoor with outposts above the water for example.
Or it could be an embassy from the other homin races there.