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I think I found a good alternative instead of Vanguard
delete5230
Member EpicPosts: 7,081
Please don't get me wrong I absolutely love Vanguard.
I like Vanguard because it's one of the only mmo's left that is community driven.
I like Vanguard because it's hard, and you have to depend of others.
I like Vanguard because it's a big open world, and do what you like. The sky is the limit, and not on rails like what we have now in so called mmo's.
But I need some change, I don't like SOE, and their business practice. I hate them for never advertising. I'm very discouraged that they will soon be going F2P soon to increase population instead of putting some effort into advertising. Will I try F2P ?......... Maybe later, if Vanguard grows a little in it's paid sub base. I don't like playing next to the freebie players that are gimped because they are trying to squeeze as much as they can for free.
Soooo, back on topic :
I just found an older hardcore game called RYSOM, Sure it's been in front of my face, but I ignored it until now.
RYSOM has a lot that Vanguard has, Community driven, hard, big open world. It suffers from a low population the same as Vanguard, but it's an alternative.
It has 250 levels, you can play half the game for free, un gimped up to level 125 in each sphere, Fighting, magic, crafting and harvesting all on the same character. You make your own abilities using a very complicated method that I like. You make your own healing abilities if you decide to be a healer. You can easily make yourself a full strong fighter yet change rolls to be magic, healing or caster.....For an older game it's amazing.
The game is so hard that it's recommended to not leave the tutorial area until you are level 25 or harder. I can't believe how everyone is helping each other out.
I can't say for sure that it's great. You will have to be sociable to survive....Tonight I'll try and make a few friends, now that I somewhat know what I'm doing.......But I'll give it my best !
Comments
Three things drove me away from Ryzom
No jump (seems a minor thing, but I can't play 3d games without jump...even EVE has jump)
Crafting mechanics were great, item variety was not. No I don't mean stats on an item (don't care about those, but item stats did greatly vary)...however, there was so little variety in appearances of the armors and weapons.
While I love grouping (and I spend most of my time doing that in MMOs), I HATE forced grouping. Pretty much unplayable solo, and I'm not a big fan of being forced to do anything (in a game, or in real life)...even if I group mostly, I still want the option to solo AND not actually be forced to group. A dev of a game (can't remember what article it was in, or which dev...think it was a dev from the company who made) Kingdoms of Amalurr) recently said that is just bad game design. You should make the players WANT to group, not FORCED to group. Asheron's Call and VG do great in that regard.
Everything else I really liked. Community (while small) was great and friendly, even had GMs talking in chat...pretty much like VG in that regard. Seasons were great and very few MMOs do that (Asheron's Call did, not aware of any others) and no MMO has actual animal migration. Actually, even animals interacted with each other (and the player)...very few MMOs (if any) do that.
Hunting was great, it actually felt like hunting. Had to watch how animals interacted. Also had to keep an eye out for tough carnivores, because they could kill you easily
Just wait for the relaunch of VG.
Ryzom is a pretty good game. I think it's biggest downfall is honestly the tutorial. It's not really the same game once you leave the starter island.
There's all this direction (not hand holding, but direction) in the tutorial zone. You have a quest chain you can follow that gives you something to do and makes you feel like you have purpose. Then you enter the real game, and things aren't quite like the tutorial island.
You have to group, it's not really an option. There are NPC's that give you objectives, but the objetives aren't the same as they were in the tutorial; so it got a little confusing. What are these things I'm supposed to get, off what mobs, and why exactly? The tutorial had a very clear point to what was going on, the objectives didn't seem obscure, and there was clear direction. Not so much in the real game.
EVE actually does a better job of orientating players to what the game is then Ryzom does.
It's like, at a certian point in Ryzom you'll reach a level were you can start doing some sort of pvp thing with towers or somethig. But no other part of the game was directing me towards pvp?
Even a sandbox ultimately has to have some kind of a point (I mine to sell ore, I build stuff to sell, I smuggle things, or fight over territory. All points by which you're able to define yourself, but aren't told to do), and after a bit I started to feel like the point of Ryzom is to just level skills. Leveling skills is just not enough.
I felt like the game was mising the mechanics that let you truelly exist within the world. You craft weapons, and then put them on a broker type system that didn't feel like it was anything more then just a WoW type AH. I didn't feel like I could BE a crafter and make a name for myself. I could be a fighter, and kill monsters? Do some sort of pvp? To what end though? Just felt like farming to me.
I felt like it was an interesting little sandbox, but someone forgot to include the game.
I'd personally stick with VG, even if it's SoE and going F2P. Ryzom has actually been through much more trouble and is older then VG. It even shut down at one point before it was bought by another group of people and then reopened. VG actually gets more attention and developent from SoE then Ryzem gets from it's current developers.
Ryzom actually suffers from everythig you said you're unhappy about with VG, only to a larger extent.
125 levels takes a while, so you've got plenty of time to form your own opinion.
Okay, where is the hidden camera ?
There has to be a hidden camera.
This cant be a serious posting !
I know theres a hidden camera filming me right now. Where is it !
(Okay, possibly she's refering to the f2p release of Vanguard. I wouldnt call that a "relaunch". But yeah, I guess one could call it that)
Technically it is a relaunch.
And seeing how many bugfix patches they are pushing out at the moment. One after the other. It seems they are taking this one a bit more seriously this time.
They really are trying to fix a lot of the annoying bugs that plagued this game for so long.
So we will see how it all pans out. I am surely gonna give it a try again.
I really like Vanguard, despite the poor char models and animations. The world is vast, crafting is insane, and lot of the long quest lines are interesting. Open contested dungeons. "Encouraged" group play.
So I am looking forward to the F2P conversion. That is, as long as it stays out of the idiotic EU agreement with Prosieben Sat Sieben!
Ryzom, it's named Ryzom with Z not with S. I tried it some time ago and its a good game too but I'm not sure abot calling it a "replacement" for Vanguard.
Ryzom was a fascinating concept, but if you think Vanguard has a low population... surviving in Ryzom was nigh but impossible. The game changed a lot after the initial starter island, because at that point all the "noobs" weren't jammed together in one small space for easy grouping. Like VG it's a huge open world, but unlike Vanguard, you can't even travel from zone to zone without help. It's a difficult game in the sense that it's unforgiving, and if you're not paying attention you can easily wander into an area 40 levels above your own, and mobs will chase you down for what seems like miles. Even simply harvesting can kill you! Granted, that was actually very refreshing and fun, but with such a low population, it also gets a little depressing. Unlike VG, there really wasn't any reason for the top-heavy population to hang out in low-level areas, so oftentimes my area chat was blank for hours on end since the other two people in the zone were afk or nonresponsive.
I wish Ryzom all the best, it's got a crafting system that may be the best ever put into an MMO (never played SWG), and why no one has ever copied the stanza system for creating skills, I can't figure out. Like the OP said, it's pretty unique. For everyone who craves innovation in game mechanics, you should at least try Ryzom. I got each of my 4 skill-spheres up to about 50ish, but I found it difficult to turn it into a long-term relationship.
I understand your frustration with SOE, but I don't think you're going to find Ryzom to be an advertising powerhouse either. Both games are "Sagas of Something", so there is that.