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Saga of Ryzom: The Ryzom Ring - First Look Preview
Jon Wilcox
10/11/2005
It's Viva la France for TVG as we visit Nevrax, developers of this most European of MMOs...
Released in 2004 the MMORPG Saga of Ryzom heralded the debut of French developer Nevrax led by David Cohen-Corval, a former Vice-President at Gaumont Multimedia. Since then the Parisian based company has been trying to evolve the story of their Science Fantasy MMO beginning with the launch of Episode 2 earlier in the month, and the Q1 2006 release of the first official expansion for the title: Ryzom Ring, or simply R2.
Recently TVG was invited to discover more about Corval's creation and to look further into the future of The Saga of Ryzom, so after travelling under The Channel to the French Capital we were able to see for ourselves exactly where Ryzom stands in a Warcraft dominated world of MMOs, and how it differs from the Blizzard developed behemoth.
Based in a world of two contrasting factions the magic following Kami, and the more technologically minded Karavan, as they battle for supremacy, Saga of Ryzom features some of the greatest amount of character customisation in an MMO yet where everything from Race, Sex, Facial Attributes and other body parts (right through to the ooh la la re-sizing of boobs) can be determined. Following in the footsteps of other RPG titles characters in Ryzom are not secured to a specific Class system; instead skills and life attributes are linked directly to the players actions, which go on to affect Fight, Magic, Craft, and Harvest attributes. By allowing playing the chance such an expansive level of freedom to mould their characters a more realistic population is found in across the plains and islands of Ryzom.
The newly released Episode 2 looks to expand beyond this with a series of gameplay features making their debut in the narrative expansion, which is directed by the decisions made by Ryzom subscribers however this is merely a part of the Ryzom story.
The idea of releasing packs that expand upon the original story is of course not a unique premise for a videogame, least of all the MMORPG genre but the creative team at Nevrax think that they've found a new feature that will place the onus on Ryzom fanatics to take the world into their own hands - the so called Ryzom Ring or R2. Set for release in the first quarter of 2006 R2 allows gamers to take piece of the Ryzom world and mould it for themselves. This WYSIWYG component means that guilds will be able to have their own homeland away from prying eyes (ideal to dampen the complaints of guild spying that currently dog the world of Ryzom), or even create their very own scenarios with sort of flexibility and customisation that has come be expected from Nevrax.
Although the overall 'plot of land' cannot be customised the breadth of customisation is still phenomenal and thankfully the accessibility seems to be fairly wide though a final GUI is yet to be nailed down. In total over 2500 creatures will be available to use in R2 though the actual number of objects is likely to capped around the 50-100 figure; enemies, flora, fauna, and structures can all be added into the world and is just a small part of the experience on offer. Filters will also be in place for the scenery objects so that desert based creatures won't find their way in a jungle and teleports can be added to transport characters from one R2 'island' to another.
Just because the expansion implements a WYSIWYG structure to it that allows simple drag 'n' drop system does mean that it's basic. The creations of scenarios actually allows for a significant level of logic to occur from dropping logic objects such as timers into the environment through to tracing routes for specific characters to follow. More advanced narratives can be accomplished with the ability to split the scenario into various Acts so that certain enemies or events occur at specific times.
The level of depth sought in Ryzom Ring even goes as far as conversations between NPCs, which can be scripted by the players who are also given the power to take control of a conversation between an NPC and a player to enhance the responses. Each of the customised lands created by 'Ryzomers' will be hosted on servers at Nevrax though fees to use such a facility are yet to be outlined by the developer.
The story of the Ryzom Ring (or how it came to be) is rather an interesting since it was originally touted as part of the original Saga of Ryzom release. It wasn't to be however with publishers insisting that it was left out but with Ryzom already released Nevrax have decided to bring an integral part of their vision back. What's more is that the expansion will be available for free from the Saga of Ryzom website, which is sure to act as an even greater encouragement for subscribers to the game. For those interested in the feature but who are yet to buy into the land of Atys, a free version of Ryzom will also be available from the site. It's obvious that the team at Nevrax are passionate about the world that they've created and the prospects ahead for the Saga of Ryzom; experiences of RPGs that date back to the dawn of MMORPGs and paper-based RPGs form just a small part of the pedigree on offer in Paris and that they've pressed ahead to release R2 is a testament to that.
Anonymous
Date Added:Tue 12th Sep 2006 12:32
Anonymous
Date Added:Tue 12th Sep 2006 11:49