Ryzom Ring: First Impressions

We arrived at our interview not completely sure what to expect. We knew that Ring would factor prominently being only a month away from release. I have played with many RTS and FPS design systems in the past and knowing how finicky they can be, I could only image the issues around creating a design system for an MMO.

We met with Milko Berset (Director) for what turned into a hands on demo of a scenario that he apparently build in 1⁄2 a day to demonstrate at E3 and a fairly in-depth training session on how to use the design tool to create my own level.

Milko started off with a demo of a scenario that he had created. It showed that he had been able to setup patrol paths, NPC’s, communication, quests, scripted events and much more. It looked like a professionally designed quest in any MMO, however it was one he build with Ryzom Ring in about 1⁄2 a day.

Zone Setup

Character Customization

He then went into the actual editor and showed us how to build a zone, add a village, NPC’s, patrol paths, MOB’s, quests, events and more! In the space of about 20 minutes we had a zone that was playable. It was a very simple zone, with only the one quest, but to be able to accomplish that in any designer in that limited amount of time was impressive.

Milko then went on to explain and demonstrate some of the complex actions that you could incorporate into the game though a very intuitive interface. He demonstrated traps, action zones, zone transfers, and more. He also showed how you could interact with and edit the world in many different ways.

Lastly he showed several movies that he had made using the editor and entirely pre-scripted events. The movie displayed many of the world elements that are already available such at time, light, weather, ecosystems, interactive fauna and more.