His statement? Simple...
"Most game companies produce games for the money, not because they hope to become critically acclaimed starving artists"
Well, thank God bands like U2, or Death Cab for Cutie, and movies like Juno or 40 year old Virgin gave up.../snide off
Who needs "Critically acclaimed". We need to make money.
That is why we get
Rush Hour 3, Britney Spears and Reality TV shows.
Van Hemlock got a hold of this, and saw Tobold mention one game...A Tale In The Desert.
Van has presented his adventure within this game by taking Tobolds challenge of trying something new.
Based on this, I thought I would go in search of the other "creative" games we just do not look at or play.
First up?
Saga of Ryzom
What do you know, an Indie darling, that just does not seem to want to die.
Guest starring a gorgeous graphics engine, roleplay features, unique crafting (consensual PvP...uh oh).
Back in service, and even free to trial.
Why should people check this game out though?
Bullet points ahead
- Known as the Living Planet- The world changes constantly. Not quickly, but like a real world with certain variations in locale. Creatures migrate, trees grow, why there are even seasons.
- Battle hordes of creatures - Due to this living world, at anytime creatures can swarm out of nowhere. 100's if not 1000's of creatures can swarm small cities and villages. People MUST team up to survive.
- Choose your class path - The skill-based action tree allows you to gain experience in fighting, magic, crafting and/or foraging, and you can also customize your own spells and special attacks (thousands of possible combination's!). In so many words, YOU choose your path, and not let it be decided by a Class name (like Tank, Heal, etc.)
- Create your own weapons - Although NPCs sell basic equipment for characters 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 (extra Life, Sap, Stamina, or Focus) they can place on equipment only get better as the crafters get more skilled.
- Live events System - Event managers run various scenarios at different times so that you do not live within a static world all of the time. This coincides well with the living planet philosophy,
So, why do we not play?
- No Elves or Dwarves - We do not associate with the races. They are unique to this biosphere, and as such, we just do not seem to know where to place these races within our visual acuity.
- Consensual PvP - I still think this is a non-seller issue. A lot of people want full PvP or Factional PvP, but consensual is really not a need for most players. It is simply a diversion...nothing more. Supposedly the other forms exists, but it is either hard to reach (open PvP is underground and only select people may enter) or on set battlegrounds.
- What is my role? - People have not taken well to games that allow such a non-structured class system. We feel the need for the Tank/Spank/Heal it up kind of gameplay. This goes back to not accepting innovation of any sort.
- Who are these guys? - No one knows the company and cannot relate to another product they have done. Blizzard, Mythic, NCSoft, etc...all known for their work. And now, a conglomerate of people who wanted to keep this game alive are in charge, no major company has a hold of development.
Really, there is no real reason not to play this. But, we do not. And as such, even though the game stays afloat, just how long can it survive.
Why not be your own judge though and just give it a shot.
(PS: The manual is somewhat required as a lof the game does not use convential MMO commands...another strike I am sure).
I have not tried the game since its relaunch, so I plan to take a test drive and see how I feel..
More as I check it out for YOUR enjoyment (and either my pleasure or my pain!)
