I can't remember how I originally heard of the game, The Saga of Ryzom. It happened just when I finally lost interest in struggling through grinding villas day in and day out in Age of Conan.

Age of Conan? I still love, I really do. It is without a doubt a game that actually outshone Vanguard, and when I played Vanguard, I thought it was the most amazing graphics MMO wise (that I'd seen,) yet. AoC blew this out of the water, several times and twice on Sundays. I reflect and think about AoC on occasion, much like I did with Vanguard. But it was over, this love affair. AoC forgot to give content to those of us over 50. Quests that did not take a full group to do any of them disappeared, crafting was FUBARed beyond recognition, and hitting the same 20-40 minute instances with the same mobs, with the same drops, every day (because there was a timer on the villas. You could only do them once every 24 hours) was not my cup of tea.

But what did that leave me? Nothing but the quest to fiddle with free to play games.

I tried to get a hold of the international Perfect World (as I had the Malaysian version)--that didn't work out. It took them four days to send me the first account verification e-mail. By the time I got it, it was no longer valid. The second try, I made an account but could not sign into the site nor the game itself--no matter how many times I changed my password at the site itself. So needless to say? I gave that up too.

( And then I found Ryzom in my boredom inspired search. I was actually entertained. )

Too long; didn't read:

Ryzom Pros:

A great community

Endless customization level wise

Complex crafting/harvesting system

A huge world with great environments despite the limited look an aged game has

A small, thriving community of role players

Free to play at this moment

Ryzom Cons:

Learning curve: it is steep for those of us used to having a game give us a tutorial or walk through in the beginning. A lot of the missions aren't explained very well, there is no "quest book" that records NPC instructions. You have to pay attention to what the NPC's say to you in speech bubbles when you first pick up their missions because that is the only time you get any in depth information as to what you are doing.

Travel is expensive by transporter/mount and very dangerous by foot

Missions are generally not worth it but for faction

It's an old game with aged graphics

There are bugs with the system used to mark flags on user map. If the game crashes, you some times lose the file

Some players complain of lag (I haven't seen any of it yet.)

So there you go. I play Ryzom for the people. The fact that it is, as of right now (they may not always be) free to play helps but it wouldn't make me stay as much as the group of crazies I'm occasionally thrown into. There is something about Ryzom that charms me which I cannot quite explain as well as I could with other free to play games which captures and keeps me.

Screen shots by House Etchmarc and yours truly :D