Developer: Nevrax | Publisher: VU Games | ETA: Out Now! | Price: £29.99 inc. VAT

Games Fusion reviews Nevrax’s MMORPG title, The Sega or Ryzom. Nevrax is a Paris based online game and software development company that specializes in the creation of massively multiplayer online games. To date The Saga of Ryzom is the only title under the Paris based company’s belt. During the games beta stage, which ended September 14th, the game received close to 170,000 sign ups and was deemed 2004’s “Best MMOG of E3” by WarCry Network.

The game is based on a SCI-Fi adventure storyline, which mixes the usual elements of a SCI-Fi adventure, that isn’t set in space, including sorcery, war and tradecraft. What else could there be!? Three generations ago a civilization called ‘Atys’ perished when they were savaged by a flock of kitins. So let’s get this straight in the rock ‘n role 70’s a bunch of kittens (possibly!?) obliterated an entire civilization? Well not exactly! Kitins are in fact a type of beast, which look surprisingly similar to the bugs seen in the Starship Troopers movie and now roam the land of Saga. And it doesn’t actually say what period the game takes place in, but we know for sure that it isn’t set on Earth. It’s now your role to join forces with thousands of others, master the arts of sorcery, war and tradecraft and re-claim what was once yours.

As this game is a MMORPG you are, of course required to pay a monthly subscription fee, in addition to the retail price of £29.99 in order to play it. The Saga of Ryzom comes with an out-of-box one month free trial, but still requires you to enter your credit card details before you play. At the end of that month you will be charged a fee of £8.49 per month, which will rebill until you cancel. If you were to buy and play this game for a year it would cost you a total of £131.87, which for many is too much to pay for a game. There is no single player mode which means unless you sign up you can’t play the game and if you don’t like it you can’t return it either. This is the problem, which I am sure many gamers and publications have touched upon in the past. A couple of questions which often arises are “Why do we have to pay the full price for something which we have to pay to play?” And “Why can’t I return it if I don’t like it?” The answer to the first question is that the price of the game and the price of the subscription have got completely nothing to do with the other. The price you pay for the game goes towards the developers and the subscription fee goes towards maintaining the server, which includes bandwidth costs, support and hardware etc... However, the answer to the second question is a little more complicated since I feel gamers ‘should’ be able to return a game of this particular genre.

One of the main reasons why retailers stopped buyers from returning games was due to illegal copying. Gamers would often buy a game, copy it, return it and then get their money back and in the end software retailers were loosing a great deal of money. The difference between predominantly off-line games and MMOG’s is that the honest gamer out there can’t play the game, should he or she decide to cancel his subscription. The way forward seems to be what Valve has done with their content distribution system, ‘Steam’. However, it will take some time before ISP’s catch up to allow a majority of consumers to buy and return their games online.

Gameplay

After you are done entering your credit card details and logging into the system you will be presented with the character selection screen. There are four civilizations to choose from, which include the Fyros, Matis, Tryker and the Zorat. For this review I chose the Tryker, who evidently look the most human. Building your character can actually be quite fun! And you can spend a good hour doing it. As well as being able to choose the sex of your character you can also edit its proportions, including its height, torso, arms, legs and bust. You also have the ability to edit the characters face, including its haircut, hair colour, eye colour and even add tattoos. Additionally you can modify the shape of the eye’s, nose, mouth, ears and chin. It’s all great fun! Probably the most important phase of the character selection screen is providing your character with its actions. You have the ability to select three action packs, which will provide you with the necessary skills to perform tasks within the game. These action packs include fighting, magic, forage and craft.

Once in the game those who are not so familiar with the whole RPG genre might have a bit of trouble navigating. There is a help box bellow but I was a bit disappointed by the lack of an interactive tutorial. The heads-up-display is set out with various windows, which include details on your character, your available weapons, tools and spells etc… There is also a multiple desktop feature, similar to that seen on a Linux OS, which enables you to cycle through windows quickly and easily.

The world is built up with various outposts spread across the map, which have already been captured and are under guard by different civilisations or ‘Primitive Tribes’. To get to these outposts you need to travel on foot from one area to another, on your way you will come across different beasts that will try to stop you on your travels. It’s actually harder than it sounds to get from A-B, especially when you are new to the game and don’t know how to attack yet! My first attempt was being chased for about 15 minutes by something which looked like a giant crab (that would be the kitins). Needless to say I never reached point B and surprisingly there wasn’t a Starbucks or Mc Donald’s in sight either! The good thing about Saga is if you are new to the game you can always team up with a player and they will hopefully fend off the beasts for you until you get to grips with the controls. You don’t even need to be at your PC to follow players, as the game has a neat little auto-pilot feature that enables you to select any mobile object and follow it.

The game is based on a task and reward system where you can choose to undertake tasks for different characters within the game and in return receive money or ‘points’. This is important to be able to build up skills in the training area, which requires points for each training session you do. You may also trade items at trading centres for weapons, magic, clothing and other items.

Ryzom's RAID Engine introduces a completely dynamic and non-linier experience to gameplay. If territories are left unguarded or unchecked for long periods of time monsters will try to reclaim different outposts, territories and entire regions. Intense battles between vast gatherings of monsters and civilisations can also take place. Monsters will often send for reinforcements should they feel areas are threatened by opposing forces. The RAID Engine is an excellent feature of the game, which helps to build up tension and maintain the excitement of the game.