Saga of Ryzom, unexpected contender?

[Bulge]

I will be testing this mmorpg that you can find here http://ryzom.com/game/overview/ from 20 februari on (yay!).

I had this bookmarked for a long while already but always though it was a vapour project. However, beta started and they are already sending out the second batch of CD's, for the Beta 2 that is to start on the 20th. That made me think there is some money behind this project after all, and this trailer http://ryzom.com/downloads/movies/video/teaser5/Ryzom_Teaser_05_XVID_HUGE.avi convinced me that they are serious about this project.
Wanadoo is one of the biggest Cable/Multimedia mologs in Europe. The project seems to be a French/Chinese/Korean co-production of some kind.

Anyway, it's off course another EQ clone but with a much more dynamic environment and NPC world, it seems. Changing seasons, crafting with resources shifting, a little bit of the Horizons thingy with Tribes and Hordes fighting for domination and shifting back and forth and so forth.

I thought the video was funny. :)

:beer:

[Shintuk]

If you are looking to get into beta, here is a sure way:

http://www.jolt.co.uk/index.php?articleid=1043

I hear the average for their beta now is around 150 people on, which is alot for an early beta such as this. They certainly know how to make videos too. I have heard nothing but good things from people who beta this game. Still waiting to see if pvp is in though, nothing has been released on that topic to my knowledge.

[Bulge]

I have been playing it for a little, and I must say, it has a distinct feel to it. Still *very* much in beta though. It is a mix of Fantasy and High Tech and it looks like it could have an interesting NPC-community and mob-life. There was one thing that really begged me to explore a little further, and this was a strange thunderous noise that you heard far off. Surround sound works extremely well in this game and you could pin-point the direction where it was coming from. I have not read anything about the Lore, but there are these HUGE Arches way up in the sky, that seem like they have forests on them too. They seem to arc down somewhere at the horizon, so I went off to see if they actually touch ground somewhere: however, at some point you reach the end of the continent (as shown on the in-game map) and instead of bumping into an ocean, I bumped into a huge Void, with the arches still going on forever though. This void is not a beta-bug, it's seems meant as some sort of "end of the world" There was an invisable fence here, which kinda sucked, at least let me fall to my death. :)

I am thinking I will find clarification in the Lore about the Arches and the Void, maybe I will read up some later.

So this game does seem to have some magic to it, though again, no jumping. :D

[Shintuk]

I think you are talking about the roots... The world is on the trunk of the tree and I guess the roots are going back up the trunk or something.