Saga of Ryzom Trailer
We have a trailer for you from The Sega of Ryzom, this video displays aspects of the upcoming expansion pack.
The story and graphics alone are good enough for me to want to play this game. It will be interesting to see how they manage the Living Ecosystem, if it they can pull it off the in game world will be changing indefinitely. Sign me up.
Click the jump to view the game features.
We have a trailer for you from The Sega of Ryzom, this video displays aspects of the upcoming expansion pack.
The story and graphics alone are good enough for me to want to play this game. It will be interesting to see how they manage the Living Ecosystem, if it they can pull it off the in game world will be changing indefinitely. Sign me up.
Click the jump to view the game features.
A Storyline That Matters
Who are the Karavan? Why does Atys grow? Is the Great Dragon real, or only a legend? Who are Jena and Elias? Why are we here? The planet of Atys is rich in mystery, and much is left to be discovered.
Because of the collapse of civilization in the past, vast amounts of knowledge and history have been lost – only time and exploration will reveal these pieces of the story to the players. Each server will develop differently than the others, relying on its players to uncover caches of information and knowledge hidden away by distant ancestors of the current refugees.
A Lush, Living Ecosystem
Known as the Living Planet, Atys doesn’t behave quite like any world you’ve experienced in an MMOG. To start with, Atys is growing, slowly sending tendrils out which can unveil new lands and cover up existing ones. Due to this constant growth, the climates and weather on the surface can vary greatly, even in a short time span.
On the surface, the creatures behave even more intelligently. Each creature has its own set of behaviors, and natural enemies. Wild gingos travel in small packs, willing to attack anything they think they can kill for food. The more docile bodoc will travel with its herd, but fiercely come to each others defence should they be attacked. Some creatures will migrate naturally; others will prefer to remain in the same general area.
Seasons change naturally, altering not only the landscape of Atys but also the resources available to harvesters and the behavior of the creatures that live there. The weather can also change these things, from raging sandstorms in the desert to thunderous storms in the jungle.
Massive Territorial Invasions
Outside of the major cities, many outposts exist that provide valuable services. There may be valuable materials located nearby, or they may be a line of defence against invasion – each has its own measure of value. These outposts can be controlled by players and guilds, but may also be attacked depending on their location and value.
Kitins
The Kitins are very opposed to homins, and will do everything they can to prevent the players from holding too much territory. Their end goal is to remove all homins from Atys. They start from one of their brood locations, and may send out armies to invade any place that homins control.
Kitins might also have other home locations in the wilderness, where non-combatant Kitins live. If the players find these locations and begin to kill the Kitins there, reinforcements will begin to be sent out to reinforce the area. Continual attacks and provocation can encourage further invasions, and larger amounts of powerful Kitins appearing.
Goo
Like a cancer, the Goo corrupts first the land of Atys, then the creatures nearby. These creatures become stronger than usual, and extremely violent against any non-infected being. Unless players begin vanquishing the infected creatures and driving back the infestation, it can render large areas of the land worthless and toxic.
Although the Goo doesn’t take over outposts, it can have a similar effect as infected creatures begin attacking everything nearby, and the poison in the land can slowly kill anything that resists the infection.
Epic Battles with Hordes of Monsters
Supporting the dynamic invasion system, Ryzom provides battles on a scale that have never been seen in an MMOG before. While there is plenty of room for the traditional smaller battles between individuals, there will be situations where individuals or small groups will not be capable of handling the threat.
Imagine standing outside a city, watching a hill in the distance, and seeing the first members of a wave of Kitins appear. Now imagine hundreds more following them, moving as a single, swarming army. Battles of this scale will require dozens of players working together to fend off serious invasions.
The players are not under equipped though. In addition to area of effect and ricocheting spells, the homin can use powerful ranged artillery weapons to wear down the first waves before engaging the creatures up close. Ryzom also features full collision detection for both players and creatures, allowing players to use tactical formations to protect their mages and healers from more dangerous enemies.
Flexible Skill-Based Advancement
Although characters in The Saga of Ryzom earn experience and gain levels, character advancement is measured on a skill tree. There are no classes in Ryzom, and characters can advance in any tree as far as they’d like.
New characters only have access to the four most basic skills – Fight, Magic, Harvest, and Craft. As the character advances, these skills will begin to unlock new ones below them on the tree, each getting more specific than the one above. For example, fighting with a mace will first gain skill in the Fight tree, then Melee Fight, and eventually all the way down to Master Mace. Each of these skills allows a player to train in different Actions that will work for any skills below it on the tree. The more specific the skill gets, the more powerful the Actions learned, but they will only be able to be used in a smaller number if situations.
It may take a long time to be able to completely learn an entire skill branch down to one of the most specific skill levels, but it’s not necessary to do so to become a capable character. In some cases it might be better to generalize: For example, if our mace warrior from before were to run into a creature that is very resilient to blunt attacks, he’d be in trouble. On the other hand, another player may have devoted their time to learning all the general 1-Handed combat skills, and not focused down. In this case they would be less effective with a 1-Handed Mace than the specialist, but they’ll be more effective with swords and spears.
Our skill tree also makes it possible to give the benefit of flexibility to veteran characters, while still allowing newer players to be effective. Because characters never forget a skill once it has been learned, and because there is no penalty for learning multiple skills, the more skills learned, the more options that are available. In a class/level-based game, eventually a character has to stop advancing, or they become too powerful for the world. Under the Ryzom skill system, a character who has advanced as far as they can in one skill can just pick up another, becoming more flexible, but not too much more powerful.
For more information on the flexibility Saga of Ryzom allows, please take a look at the Modular Action System.
Customized Skills and Special Attacks
The Saga of Ryzom combines every action a player can do within the world into one unified game mechanic, called the Modular Action System. This system holds special combat manoeuvres, spells, material prospecting and harvesting, and even crafting.
Each individual Action is made up of a number of subcomponents, which are called Stanzas. These Stanzas each have different abilities and costs associated with them, and once a player learns them, they can combine them into their own custom actions. Each individual Stanza also has a cost associated with it, which prevents seriously unbalanced actions from being created – more powerful abilities will need higher costs in order to balance them out.
New Stanzas are learned by receiving training in different skills. A new player starts with only one basic offensive magic spell, Acid Damage 1. After advancing, they can then learn Life Gift 1, which gives them additional Stanzas. The actual Stanzas for each spell are below:
Acid Damage 1 (cost) Life Gift 1 (cost)
Acid Damage 1 (+3) Heal 2 (+10)
Credit Range 1 (-1) Credit Range 3 (-3)
Credit Sap 2 (-2) Credit Life 6 (-7)
By using the Modular Action System, this same player can then create his own custom spell, naming it whatever he would like:
Free Acid Bolt (cost)
Acid Damage 1 (+3)
Credit Range 3 (-3)
Although it may not be very powerful, and has a serious range penalty, it does have the advantage of being completely free to cast. This makes it great in situations when the caster is already in close and doesn’t need that extra range – by far superior to the standard Acid Damage 1.
Of course, this example used only two different spell abilities. The more actions a character is trained in, the more Stanzas he has access to, and the more possibilities there are to create ones perfectly suited to your play style. And not all Stanzas and abilities can be earned from the trainer – some can only be gained by completing missions or quests. New Stanzas and abilities will be included, adding more possibilities into the mix.
Rich Item Creation/Enchantment
Although NPCs sell basic equipment for players of all levels, high quality and enchanted items are only provided by player crafters. Even at very low skill levels, crafters can begin creating items with stat increases on them, and the bonuses they can place on equipment only get better as the crafters get more skilled.
Each item also has a quality level that determines its level of protection, and the maximum value of the enchantments that can be placed on it. A beginning level item with a quality of 10 can only have the most basic of bonuses, while a very high level item can have an array of powerful bonuses.
In order to craft an object, materials need to be found to fill each of the roles in the equipment. Depending on the item, a dozen or more pieces of raw material may be necessary to create a finished product. Creating a higher quality item also requires higher quality components.
Quartering
One way to get raw materials is by hunting the creatures of Atys. Each creature can be quartered for materials appropriate to their type. For example, a carnivorous creature may provide sharp teeth that are appropriate for spearheads, while a herbivore may have a soft skin that makes excellent armor padding.
Foraging
The other, less violent, way to get materials is to harvest them from the land through the Harvesting skill tree. Two separate actions are necessary to do this. First, a player must search for material locations using their Prospecting ability, which will make nearby resource points visible. Then a player must harvest one of those resource points, to gather the material.
Gaining skill in the prospecting line will allow a character to search farther, find resources with a longer duration, and find resources faster. Gaining skill in the foraging line will allow faster gathering, and higher material quality.
Foraging isn’t always safe though. Atys is not a normal planet, and the Kamis are very vigilant in their protection. The more harmful your actions are to the planet, the more likely that the Kami will become hostile.
Crafting
Once all the materials are gathered, creating an item is as simple as equipping an appropriate crafting tool, and using an Action that represents the crafting you’d like to do. For example, a player may have an Action that creates a quality 10 weapon with a +5 Stamina bonus on it. Once crafting begins, all that is necessary is to select the materials used, and make a crafting attempt to create the item.
Different materials provide different item bonuses when used – each item is unique. Crafting with some materials may increase the attack speed of a weapon, while others may increase the damage or parry.
The further a player goes down the crafting skill tree, the more possible quality levels and bonuses that can be applied to an item. The range of items also gets larger, including the availability of special civilization-specific weapons and more decorative armors.
Guilds
Once off the starter islands, players can form guilds by visiting a Guild Clerk in any of the capitals. For a modest fee, any player with enough fame can form their own guild.
During the guild creation process, players are presented with a variety of options for customizing the guild. In addition to a guild name and description, each guild also has a customizable guild crest which is displayed when a member is examined.
In order to increase the presence of a guild within the Saga of Ryzom, they can seek out a guild hall in one of the capitals of Atys. Once rented, these guild halls come complete with storage facilities.
Factions
Two groups as powerful and mysterious as one another seek to control the destiny of Atys.
Both the Karavan and the Kamis claim to be the true guardians of the planet, both come to the aid of homins as long as they obey their rules, both are secretive about their origins and perhaps even their true intentions. For centuries now, they have followed different paths, observing one another without confrontation.
You have no choice but to live with these powerful factions around. However, they may offer you their services when you get a good fame with one of them. Thus, you are able to choose which side youÂ’ll join and follow : the Karavan, the KamisÂ… or neither.
Their presence and pressure becoming more and more strong on the world, a war finally began with the Episode 2 – The Homes of the Gods, where you were able to act for your faction and erect special buildings with the help of your allies.
The Karavan and the Kamis will be rewarding those who help them. When you accomplish tasks for them (in faction PvP, or through missions), you will be granted honors points, which you will be able to exchange for special rewards, or fame which will allow you to have access to more teleports.
Moreover, Steles of Valors, where are engraved the name of the best homins for each main skill branch, will remain permanently on Atys, and anyone can read there who were the most famous ones who acted during ‘Episode 2’ factions war.
Finally, you will truly have influence on the outcome of the factions conflict, nothing is written yet, and nobody can foresee who will win!
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