Worst MMO Ever? - Ryzom

[@ReneRivers]

I was a player who played this in 2004 and I wanted to give you some history and perspective that might explain much of what you are seeing. Saga of Ryzom was introduced in 2004. The main storyline was that there were two factions that the various races belonged to. Those were the Kami and the Karavan. The Kami were magical creatures that wanted to protect nature. The Karavan were basically invaders that believed in technology at the expense of nature. The developer stated that the tree that you were on was just really the first part of the Saga and that game would go more into who the Karavan actually were and where they came from. Future content would focus on additional planets. Concerning real content. At the time there was also a very cool idea of something called the encyclopedia. The idea was that you would go around the world gathering information and providing it to the various races through missions they would give you. As a reward for the mission, you would either be taught how to craft some new item or given new information about the world. The game also had the ability to create large raids with massive waves of creatures for players to battle. One of the game areas is called the Prime Roots where there are these very large insect creatures called Kitin. Every now and then the game would have a massive amount of them come above ground and it would take pretty much everyone in the game to fight them back. Sounds great, right? So what happened? It was later revealed that the game was really just a way for the developer to showcase the open-source MMO game engine they were trying to sell to others (you can look up the company nevrax and the game engine is called NEL). The developer kept promising that the encyclopedia would be implemented, but that never happened. Eventually, they told the players that it wasn't possible for technical reasons. My personal opinion is they never really intended to implement it. During this time players started pushing the whole "it's a sandbox" bs. There would be complaints of a lack of proper content and players would bark back that it wasn't that sort of game. That you made your own content by going doing the various activities. Well about a year after it was launching (maybe 2, I don't recall), there was a new feature called the Ryzom Ring. The idea was to give players the ability to create their own content and have other players be able to play it. It was actually quite amazing. One of the first things I did on it was to create some storyline missions and real quest content. People were amazed at what I pulled off. The problem is that for the thing to work you had to be logged on. So you could create this amazing thing and you would literally have to log on and sit there doing nothing hoping people tried your content. It obviously failed miserably. After that, the developers went bankrupt and the game got sold. The new developer got it cheap, but it also went bankrupt because obviously, the game didn't have the players it needed to support it. It might have switched hands a few more times before finally ending up in the hands of some fans (I could be wrong about them being fans). Since they took it over, they implemented the new player experience which is better than what was there before, that being nothing. Nothing has improved in 15 or so years because that would require changing the game engine and creating new game assets, both of which are far beyond the abilities of the owners of the game. The lack of content and the current players going on about it being a sandbox and being so special because it doesn't hold your hand? That's really them justifying the game has really nothing to do. If the game had gone in the direction that it first said it would, I have no doubt it would have been a very popular and exciting game. As you pointed out the skill-building system was incredible and revolutionary at the time. The massive Kitin raids were a sight to behold. The graphics were really amazing. That never happened and now you are just left with the failed glorified demo for a open-source MMO engine created in 2004 only alive because a group decided to keep it alive. My personal opinion is that players should have just let it die when the post Nevrax company went bankrupt. And that now, it's really just there for existing players with no intention to get new ones to play. As a new player, you are 100% correct on your observations, I just wanted to give you history as to how it ended up this crappy content free MMO that's been stagnant for over a decade.

[@Allmyf4ult]

There are not enough likes here for this post lol. Thank you for the explanation!

[@Biouke]

Was there at the time, tried it again when it did go open source with the Ryzom Ring and tried it again last year because I wanted to do some research designing my own build-your-own-skills system and saw that a motivated fan team had decided to salvage what could be and hold that game "alive". And this game still reeks of wasted potential even after all those years. As it is now it would only be enjoyable if there were at least a little community of RPers, enough to have people to group with and chat regularly to atone for the content desert.

[@kyotheman69]

I laugh at those players since there been better sand box mmo's then this game, this game might been good in 2004, but once casual mmo known of wow came out it killed this player base, people just dumb the hardcore base doesn't make up all gamers, gamers tend to be more on casual side, people don't have time in the world to play games, people got work, have families, etc. These hardcore games should just disappear all together, they only cater to no lifers.

[@Amgarrak]

@@kyotheman69 pfft are you for real? I guess you live under a rock as people were saying Classic WoW was so much harder than retail WoW and its not suitable for "people have work and families as they will be woefully behind" and "this game is for people who dedicate their time into this game". Ya know, the same game you said was meant for casuals. XD

[@NoOne-qn2hv]

@@Amgarrak Classic WoW is still much more casual than any of the MMOs that existed back then, and pretty much started a trend of making every MMO after it as casual as possible. The entire reason WoW got popular in the first place was because of how accessible it was for everyone and not just the "hardcore" audience.

[@vessbear5187]

"I asked him how he liked the game, he didn't respond and logged out. That seemed apt." Freaking killed me 💀😂😂😂

[@wesleythomas7125]

(Smash-cut to Mephisto drinking heavily with a horrified expression and a gun)

[@TheHikariOne]

" _...Which is why WoW has the income of a small country and you've got three players on Steam._ " This might be the most savage thing I've ever heard from a game reviewer and it's absolutely glorious.

[@Jack_Rakan]

I know, as soon as I heard that line I went into the comments to see if anyone thought the same

[@henryviiifake8244]

Big oof energy 😔

[@MantraMindenNapra]

This line just earned Josh a lifelong sub! :D :D xD

[@SoulFoxie]

Me: "Holy shit you fucking killed him dude"

[@yamispade]

I dunno that intro bit about " go ahead and write a hateful comment now" was pretty savage.

[@makeaton]

It never ceases to make me laugh when "The first player I really talked to was amazed I made it out of the tutorial without going mad" Everytime it gets me.

[@Beliar275]

It wasnt that - he was amazed that Josh left Silan after only 6 hours - you used to stay on that tutorial island for around 2 - 3 weeks depending on the amount of time you could play per day. You have several people offering a questline of 10 - and some of the quests require a group which makes it near impossible nowadays. Aside that you are "encouraged" to grind here 'n there just to get stronger (level and skill-wise). Iirc the highest mob level is 25 - then there's a boss-mob that only spawns at certain times. Your best equipment stalls at level 20 or 21 because that is the limit on Silan. You cant train higher and harvested stuff is max level 20 as well.

[@TowelGamingHammer]

@@Beliar275 Speaking from how Ryzom currently is since I got done with Silan less than a week ago: I have literally never needed a group for the 4 trainers. It helps, especially with the foraging trainer, but you can totally do it yourself. So, I would strongly disagree with it being "impossible" and I'm not even that experienced with the game yet. Highest mob, I don't actually know the highest level but I've seen some mobs as far as 30+ and that's without going to the "kitin area". You can train your skills to 30+ and I know for sure harvested stuff goes higher than 20 because of the resources on the island to the northwest of the ruins being max quality 35 (I do a lot of foraging). Everything else you got right, especially the part about staying on Silan for a while.

[@Beliar275]

@@TowelGamingHammer No .. foraging and crafting are simple although looking back from later in the game I miss the harvesting gear you can build much later - that increases the quality of the harvested stuff AND helps avoiding imploding spots ... All in all when I came back there were literally not enough people to deal with the goo fanatics ( at least not as easily as back in the days when you fought them in groups of 10 ... ) and fight the high level kitin at the last zone of Silan. When you tell of level 30 it seems the current devs changed a bit about the game - when I used to play you could advance maybe to 25 with much grinding because the highest level foes gave like 10 xp each

[@TowelGamingHammer]

@@Beliar275 I can't speak for the Chiang missions because I only did the trainer missions, I wanted to move on to the mainland at that point. But yes, things definitely changed in that case, as killing things around or above the skill you're using for combat gives a lot more XP, plus a 2x multiplier if you're subscribed... I rarely get less than 1500 xp and sometimes get up to over 2000 xp if I'm fighting a slightly challenging enemy. The goo head enemies that I think you're talking about are the ones not in the SIlan ruins but past that island, I think I remember them being level 35 or higher. Pretty good XP if you don't plan to go in to the Kitin Forest, which I did not end up doing.

[@countfrackula6707]

I was a beta tester for Saga of Ryzom. I was honestly really excited for its release, but was very surprised to hear the release date when it was announced. I was still reporting all these bugs. Would they be fixed? The devs assured me that they would be, but I didn't believe them. Day before release, I was reporting an average of 6 major bugs every day. This shattered all of my confidence that it would be fixed on release, and, as a consequence, I never played it after it released.

[@KlokJammer]

The skill-splitting mechanic sounds good on paper, forcing players to specialize in one branch and relying on other players to specialize in the other branch. However this only works if there are other players.

[@TheBrazilRules]

That is the paradox of MMORPGs. They are supposed to be games in which you play alongside hundreds to thousands of people but somehow you never can play directly with them, it is always hell doing group content because people have different schedules or are at different parts of the progression. Then what happens is that a game that is supposed to be online with you playing with your friends become 70% solo play, which makes no sense

[@alexanders.1359]

And if there is actually things to do with those specialized skills! If there was an endgame raid for example that really needs a maxed out high-level healer and another maxed out high-level DD Mage and a high level tank... And so forth. If there is no such endgame content... Why grind?

[@eugenezandberg8057]

Most of them don't use steam, so that's a bad missimpresentation. Won't be times 150 maybe times 100

[@SyntheticFuture]

And if both skill paths are viable. Often there is 1 that is better so no-one bothers about the other path.

[@Rynjinivar]

@@TheBrazilRules And that has led to MMOs primarily making their content solo-able outside of dungeons, to the point that a lot of story quests can ONLY be played solo. This leads to even supposedly "good" MMOs like Final Fantasy XIV feeling like an absolute slog to get up to current content (200 MANDATORY SOLO FILLER QUESTS BEFORE THE FIRST EXPANSION REEEEEE) when all I want to do is play with my friends but I can't because story quests are solo only lmao.

[@EdmundKempersDartboard]

I was a beta tester on this. I'm pretty shocked it's still around given that it was long enough ago that they actually sent me a disk in the mail.

[@DawnOfMutilation]

So many ex-betas here ^^ Greetings

[@oneshot1218]

What is disk?

[@CompagnonDeMisere25]

@@oneshot1218 Disk storage (also sometimes called drive storage) is a general category of storage mechanisms where data is recorded by various electronic, magnetic, optical, or mechanical changes to a surface layer of one or more rotating disks. A disk drive is a device implementing such a storage mechanism. Notable types are the hard disk drive (HDD) containing a non-removable disk, the floppy disk drive (FDD) and its removable floppy disk, and various optical disc drives (ODD) and associated optical disc media.

[@kennethkristofferson797]

Also a tester and Holy s..., it was amazing. It died, and that's all.

[@tiredoftheliesalready]

I did beta testing for it, too; I remember thinking the skill /magic mechanics was an intriguing concept, and if done right, could be great. After all, what better way for a magic user to feel invested than to have them crafting their own spells from scratch? It was one of my favorite concepts from Morrowind. Alas, the game never made it, and the devs didn't care about it initially. If they had, it could've been something unique for the time. Since it didn't, I'll just remember hilarious times of casting a high-damage DD at an enemy while also managing to heal myself 🤣

[@catdude5567]

Hard core game? Life is hard core enough. I want a game that won't double or triple the stress I already have.

[@ericb3157]

i seem to remember someone saying The Sims was too much like real life, the characters were too much like his RL co-workers!

[@testacals]

some people like hard core games thou

[@SquaulDuNeant]

@@testacals it depends but the tendancies of making things "real and hard" is stupid .

[@moosenman]

@@testacals Eh there’s a difference. I like a challenge, but I like the challenge to be based on my skill, not how convoluted the system is. I want to understand something while it still challenges me. If I don’t understand it and it doesn’t seem like it wants me to learn them I won’t bother.

[@LadyAhro]

I can appreciate a game that’s a good challenge but even though I’ll happily play Bayonetta on Hard/Umbra or The Witcher 3 on Deathmarch sometimes I just want to find simple satisfaction in killing things without having to work for it after a long day. (Doom or God of War are great ones for this, just mowing down enemies with ease.) People can get weird about difficulties and believing that no game should have easier modes or be easy to understand.

[@saltalmighty1141]

I just remember beta-testing it , then forming a guild .. and two months after launchdate 99% of my guild said " well ...we're moving to world of warcraft " 🤣, two months later i joined WoW ..cause ryzom only accepted credit cards, and WoW accepted game cards i could buy in the stores ... so my 18year old mind said ... fuck it .. WoW it is!!

[@BobardeZanzibar]

​@ManaCloak One of these games has lead to lifelong friendships, marriages, and has left an indelible cultural impact. The other is Ryzom.

[@Xegethra]

"It makes it hardcore and realistic" If anyone says that then they have forgotten that written instructions are very much a real life thing too, not just video games.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

Losing exp and money on death isn't realistic at all. RL is permadeath and the money loss goes to the other players in your friendslist. Yup. And MMOs are like cooking. You have recipes that you can follow to learn how to do things, but at any point you can diverge from it and cook anything at your own risk. But you always have recipes and experienced cooks to fall back on.

[@sefogonzales5864]

what? a toxic playerbase that gatekeeps their old dead game from newer players? _haven't heard that one before._

[@OpiatesAndTits]

Sounds like many RTS players :p

[@youtube-kit9450]

Basically every "hardcore" mmo audience. Are toxic, excessively gate-keepy, hostile to newcomers or any change to the game, but then whine incessantly on the forums that the game is dying.

[@Feroke]

>toxic

[@MK_ULTRA420]

Meanwhile 4chan private servers give free stuff to newbies because otherwise they leave and the community dies.

[@ladycenobia5147]

@@youtube-kit9450 i think it varies depending on the game. Back when I played WoW I def ran into a good amount of toxic hard core ppl in the PVP scene, but I've been playing FF14 for years and honestly I've rarely had a bad experience doing endgame stuff with randoms.

[@xRosaliax]

"You walk into a room and there are several people you don't know, a few are sitting in a corner brooding and not paying attention, while another person walks up to you and greets you politely..." Way to call out my last 4 D&D groups, Josh...

[@HowBigistheMap]

When you reach the second map, the main map, you get so many monsters, it's frustrating. I can't even walk across the map in peace.

[@JoshStrifeHayes]

I love your map walking videos

[@HowBigistheMap]

@@JoshStrifeHayes You know my videos? How?

[@JoshStrifeHayes]

@@HowBigistheMap because I've watched you walk across maps :D

[@HowBigistheMap]

@@JoshStrifeHayes Cool. Thanks to your channel I added a few MMORPGs to my long list. Even though some of these games are very unknown, I still want to walk across their game worlds. And I don't know what it is but I find a lot of these mmo games kind of interesting :)

[@exodore2000]

Have you ever walked accross the agents of Mayhem map?

[@Uradamus]

Desora used to be a game library service that was something of a cross between something like ItchIO and HIB. They focused mainly on indie games and doing really good sales events, but usually on one game at a time, instead of assorted bundles if I am recalling correctly. But several years ago they went down, and it was gone for a couple years before being bought by some other company that turned it into that abomination it is now.

[@saibax9579]

Interesting note, at one point Desura had its own launcher and was an actual indie hub and storefront. They tried to be a better more modern IndieDB and failed. I dont know the full story but it wasn't a bad service back in the day.

[@HarperGamble]

Looks like Desura wasn't a thing from 2016-2020 but came back and is now completely different. I always wondered what happened to Desura, some of the games that I bought on the humble indie bundles were only available on Desura and not Steam.

[@itsagabe]

I didn't use it extensively, but I remember Desura fondly. They had some interesting games on there, some of which I haven't been able to find since it shut down.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

@@HarperGamble Reminds me of xfire, at one point they completely rebranded their identity, and failed spectacularly at it, while also alienating the existing userbase.

[@NHH009]

If you're going to call your mana system 'sap' I expect it to have its refill rate tied to the amount of trees around you or maybe how much sunlight you're absorbing.

[@xenxander]

sounds like some gay oral sex thing.. sapping your erection..

[@PrimePalYT]

mmh, i would accept any weak explanation why you have changed the name. even if it wouldn't make any sense later like some random npc saying: did you know that you recover sap by being close trees and by consuming sunlight. and then you later explore a dungeon without any green life or sunlight and yet npcs around you are recovering their sap like at outside. or potentially make questline where npcs discover that player has unique way to recover mana without green life or sunlight which would lead to quests around you being a test subject to give npcs access to your mana recovery so npcs could get to places without planting a tree and waiting for it to grow whiich would open new worlds as npcs can slowly chop few trees to allow you to reach areas behind them. give literally any kind of why is it called sap or drup or anything.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

@@PrimePalYTOr what if there are different kinds of magic resource that refill differently. Sap refills faster when near trees, charge when in a thunderstorm or near other electric things, heat when close to open flames, etc

[@undefined6512]

I remember when I was 7 and my uncle was visiting to babysit me and my siblings. We watched him bring up random funny crap on the internet, then he came across an ad for this game. The first thing he did after he entered the world was go up to another player and say "You look like a gay Thundercat". He was banned almost immediately.

[@larrypoppins6273]

"Gay thundercat" implying that thundercats aren't already gay.

[@mr.misfit9514]

@@larrypoppins6273 damnit, you beat me to the joke

[@thebetaguy]

omg lmao.. Thunder.. Thunder..... Thundercats.... haaaaaaay. /wink lol

[@uvexeorozahagan5385]

@@larrypoppins6273 lawl

[@mrbrewed6978]

I laughed entirely too much at this, thank you.

[@Cp-71]

I often use the arrow keys and here is the explanation of my awful choice: I'm right handed so when as a kid I started playing mouseless flash games I went for the arrows and just stayed this way.

[@Skywolve1998]

My thinking was actually the inverse. I use my right hand for my mouse so WASD is the more comfortable place for my left hand. But if you were left handed then the arrow keys would likely feel better.

[@Cp-71]

The thing is that the games I was playing as a kid weren't using a mouse so my right hand was able to use the arrows

[@badfoody]

Im right handed and i use wasd.... I know left people who use wasd....

[@Star46783]

I'm left handed, I used to use arrow keys for movement until minecraft forced me into WASD by not letting me look around while walking. Not sure if younger me was just stupid for not being able to fix it, but its fine, because WASD was much more versatile once my hands got used to it

[@max_208]

Also if this menu allows to chose something else than wasd it's a good thing, when you don't have a qwerty keyboard (like most non English speaking countries in the word) wasd is just plain impossible to use.

[@Tuttifrutti_Extrafruchtig]

Funny thing: I played DAoC for a long time. Then I heared of Ryzom. I applied to get into the beta test. I was accepted and they sent me a physical disc of the game with an acocunt + password. I installed and started playing ( think it was a french developer). When the beta was over and the release drew near, the developer sent me a free copy of the game (+key), a postcard with autogramms and a big thank you for participating. Nowadays: Pledge us 1000€, and get beta access. If the game sucks, jokes on you >:) Or a big hoax, like Camelot Unchained

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

We know how games look when the devs don't want to risk money. Just look at CoD, BF, FIFA and basically every open world Ubisoft game. Do the same game again, because it's a proven formula, give it a new coat, maybe add a small thing every couple years, and play it safe.

[@Myrdin90]

35:51 "Skills split into subskills at higher level." That sounds fantastic. I love this idea. If only it was explained in game and didn't mean that maxxing a skill now took 16x more time.

[@ChaoticNeutralMatt]

Yeah, that timesink sounds painful. I don't mind the splitting, BUT the fact that leveling is split (more than once as well) is painful. Basically slowing things down even more.

[@ironmilutin]

Ye, I like the idea since it lets you specialize into exactly the kinds of magic an stuff that you'd use, tho I'd much rather those subskills be faster to train than the 'main' one to compensate for having more skills in need of work.

[@israelpereira5442]

I would love to see you reviewing Albion online, one of those full loot mmos.

[@UrbanSyed2904]

for albion, You'll need to farm and sell at marketplace... go to a tier V town, more money Josh Strife Hayes

[@gcook725]

At least Albion has a tutorial. Its short and sweet, but its there and gives you the basics and lets you run around in a safe area for the "Tutorial Town" and its surrounding zones. But yeah, no story and just grinding loot and killing/getting killed by other players and losing all your gear. The gameplay is less about farming materials and making your gear and more about finding a niche in the market to make your silver and just buy your gear.

[@johnny2552]

Honestly albion does so much right that its not a bad mmo at all, it's just not everyone's cup of tea. But I'd say it's the best mmo of all due to its mechanics. Super accessible, super new player friend, hardcore player friendly, isn't a theme park for the most part with genuinely engaging mid game and endgame content. Has extensive pvp that is surprisingly balanced with the pve content. It's honestly the standard everyone else should be look to start from then twist it their way. I love the wear your class system, the builds are so unique and I could theory craft for days and min maxing tiny things. And I consider myself pretty casual in it.

[@killroy421]

It’s hilarious that an Albion Online ad played as I was reading this, thinking the same exact thing.

[@vladstefan5216]

@@johnny2552 I tried Albion for a while, as I was one of those excited for its release before it came out. My experience very much defined by a lot of grinding, which I personally didn't object much too since I am that weird to actually enjoy farming in many games. Never got intentionally into PvP outside the Arena or some duels since I recognized that my stuff was way under level. Unfortunately, I didn't get to explore what I was most excited about, that being buying and building yoir own house however you like, since the city bidding system was complicated as is and I always got outbidded, and other plots of land were always owned. I did eventually stop playing because the waiting period to get enough people in an Arena match was very annoying, and I felt that I couldn't progress that much otherwise.

[@janosv5401]

Dear Josh, The words you say around 8:00 are golden. I wish all (actually any) of my university teachers and professors would hear of what you said. I wish. Yours truly, J.

[@oliver_twistor]

I had a statistics teacher who refused to give even one lecture or hint at which parts of the literature was most important for the exam. The course literature was hard as well, in my view targetting intermediate level statistics. Mind you, this was a beginner level statistics course I had to take for my Bachelor's degree in computer engineering. 80 % failed on the first exam, including me. It wasn't until one of my classmates found a link to Khan Academy's excellent curriculum on statistics that I was finally able to pass the course. The course was online-only too, so we classmates hadn't the benefit of meeting and studying together either. It was the absolute worst university course I've ever taken, and I'm used to online-only courses so I know they can be done very well by an engaging teacher.

[@tarron3237]

I absolutely second that. A lot of teachers are just lazy and call neglect 'a challenge'.

[@erbz]

Imagine going to uni to get the same job or worse than someone who has high school LMAOO what a fkin waste of money

[@OceanbornAngel]

When a user of your game commenting on a KZbin video critiquing your game has to explain your game's storyline you're doing something wrong.

[@testcase72]

So, I have actually taken the "This class won't hold your hand" foreign language class. It was first year (30 weeks) Latin at university compressed into six weeks. Day 1, the professor said, "If you do not already know Latin, you will not pass."

[@SissypheanCatboy]

why do people like this get teaching jobs. Well, I already know the answers, because they're twats who picked a pretentious and useless major and now all they can get are teaching jobs for that major, but still.

[@ChristmasLore]

That's just because for some majors, you're supposed to take Latin already in middle school and highschool. Nothing unusual, and not a case of "not holding your hand" "1rst year at university " means exactly what it means: at university. Not 1rst year overall

[@suspectxxxl2980]

Yeah, but latin isn't a universal thing. Why not just have an advanced latin course, and a beginners for those who don't know anything. Obviously, im not blaming you for that, unless you're some mythical being lurking KZbin comments that happens to control the US education system.@@ChristmasLore

[@ChristmasLore]

@@suspectxxxl2980 , it's not expected to be "universal", it ...just expects you to build up your future at whatever age you are getting in middle or highschool.. Most people studying either History and/or Literature take Latin early on. In middle school, we had reunions with instructors telling us this, in case your parents had no idea.

[@goosegas2087]

​@@ChristmasLore What is a middle school reunion? Is it like a British thing?

[@MrEnArC]

I love that you sound so posh and well spoken, so hearing you drop the f-bomb instantly makes me cry laughing. Thank you for all these videos

[@AoiYukinoMisharu]

I feel like a lot of these games treat 'accessibility' as 'easy' or 'dumbed down' and I think that's why they fall flat.

[@youtube-kit9450]

Yeah, some game devs seem to forget that in the end, for most people, video games are supposed to be a hobby, not a job or even more stressful than their job.

[@lionheartt15]

that is what pisses me off with too many game devs and players. they are too stuck up with the idea that a "good" game doesn't hold your hand but the problem for them is they think that any actual direction from a game is hand holding and a "real" game just dumps you in the game with no direction training or anything like it was a souls game.

[@Toksyuryel]

@@lionheartt15 Even souls games give you direction and are carefully designed to teach you their most important mechanics.

[@lionheartt15]

@@Toksyuryel they just give you only the most basic training for movement and combat then nothing else. the player has to figure everything else out themselves. but to be fair also from what I've heard seen and played they keep the games minimal so that there isn't overly complicated systems that exist only to pad gameplay and screw with the player as they add nothing to the game. it is a fine balance to tread but the souls games find a way to do it.

[@lenkagamine4145]

@@lionheartt15 they tell you how to move and fight cause thats all you really need to do in a souls game. You're never going to think 'I have no idea how to engage with this system' because the system in play is 'attack the enemy until they're dead or you are'.

[@Leeqzombie]

I use arrow keys. I was right handed, but I've lost feeling and occasionally dexterity in that arm now (thanks MS) and so trying to use a mouse just results in constant accidental clicking. It's just easier to use a mouse with my left hand, and when I can use my right hand use it for keys. I'm like the worst kind of ambidextrous now lol.

[@HereTakeAFlower]

What's Ms?

[@Leeqzombie]

@@HereTakeAFlower Multiple Sclerosis. TLDR: my immune system gets confused and attacks the 'insulation' (myelin) of some of the nerves in my brain. Thankfully I have the kind that goes through 'phases' and lets my nerves heal a bit, so I'm back to using WASD now

[@roslin8060]

Interesting, I'm left-handed so I use the mouse with my left hand, but still use WSAD on the keyboard, you just have more keys available than on the arrow keys. Though I was actually surprised how many left-handed people simply learned to use the right-handed setup (or even just started out with it).

[@ikuma8291]

When I first played PC games I also used arrow keys, and I was left handed so when I discovered rpg games I first played with my left hand on arrow keys and right hand crossed over for hotkeys :p

[@jessicaguarneri8460]

@@ikuma8291 I use my left hand for arrow keys too (and also to type almost every letter of this except shift/enter)! My right hand is for the mouse though. In my case it's because I learned to play computer games on a tiny college-issued desk & chair with no arm rests so I had nowhere else to put my left elbow than on the edge of my laptop.

[@GameAlicornLuna]

'Why is this game better than the others?' Player: SHIT! ABORT ABORT!

[@catriona_drummond]

Poor sod probably thought he was being trolled.

[@flamefierce998]

Player: about to say it's not Game: You have been disconnected

[@youmukonpaku3168]

player: "It uh. It. Hang on I had a...huh. I think I'll go try something else"

[@rasmusazu]

I finally remember where I heard the word "Desura" from. It used to be a small games platform that wanted to do right by gamers.. I think I bought S.P.A.Z on there (Space pirates and zombies). I was rather pissed when they then shut down a few weeks later.. Turns out, they shut down, only to reemerge as what can be seen in this video..

[@tamask2172]

"..it feels so grindy and i don't feel like a part of something or that my story matters..." - you just described real life. And the problem with real live is that they tell you the same thing usually, that it gets good after xx years, or that you need to make your own story :D Thanks, that's a lot of help, life!

[@bloodmoon5232]

I'm sorry you're to lazy to go grind in rpg games maybe play somthing more your speed instead

[@dopesickdog]

@@bloodmoon5232 unlike an MMO we have 1 life with limited time, why shame someone for not wanting to spend it on something they find irritating and boring? lol

[@Remianen]

I use arrow keys for movement on occasion because that's how it used to be when I first got into MMOs (late 90s with EverQuest though I casually played TRO, M59, and UO prior to that). EQ's controls were MUD inspired so arrow keys for movement was standard. I came from MUDs and MUSHs so that's what was second nature to me. Also remember, when EQ was top dog, most games that came later duplicated EQ's control scheme because it was assumed "everyone" would be comfortable with it. EQ's abilities were activated with the number keys (at the top of the keyboard, not the keypad) so moving with the arrow keys made perfect sense.

[@grimmftw8044]

Me being left handed, and mousing left handed... while EQ being my first MMO I was hooked on made me feel so included. You did not even need a mouse for EQ and that made me feel so happy to be part of a community and not be judged while being able to maintain the same skill as other players.

[@astarryeyedgirl]

Funny you mention the MUD connection. When EQ came out, I wasn't at all interested precisely because it felt like old school DIKU, just with graphics. A close friend got into it and all their complaints were about stuff the MUD world had dealt with and fixed years earlier. I didn't try any MMOs until a couple of years ago.

[@cmdr_thrudd]

Ah Ryzom. I have such fond memories of this game. Was a beta tester for it and it had such promise but it launched at about the worst possible time (something like a month before Wow) and had some really unfortunate situations with the dev team. One of the leads died IIRC. I loved the world, crafting and action systems. It was such a great community and the group gameplay was fantastic. All the other gathering & crafting systems I played in MMO's after just felt boring and simplistic

[@DawnOfMutilation]

Another tester ! Greeting !

[@kennethkristofferson797]

All rhese years later...I still dream about gathering in the underground areas, watching out for dangerous animals. It was amazing. The social part was brand New for me, and I still have friends from that time.

[@cmdr_thrudd]

@@kennethkristofferson797 Yes! I loved venturing into the prime roots with a group. It was so weird and dangerous down there, it really was a great social game. :)

[@munky4333]

*Mentions Desura* Me: Oh I remember Desura, that was like a pretty decent indie game distribution site wasn't it? Never really could stand up against Steam but I remember it having a niche for a while. *Shows the Desura site* Me: OH JESUS CHRIST WHAT HAPPENED.

[@Shrakathan]

Desura got shut down due to low sales and turns out running massive server farms isn't feasible with reasonable profit margin and low sales volumes. I would imagine the Desura seen here is just someone picking up known web adress and trying to wring money out of them somehow. May it be via ads, or scams or actually trying to provide service they think people want.

[@lizardjr.7826]

I also remember old Desura

[@StandardGoose]

After Linden Labs (makers of Second Life) sold it to Bad Juju Games, Bad Juju went bankrupt. All that is left is the website, owned by a Finish flash game developer.

[@StandardGoose]

@@Shrakathan Sort of. The company who now own the site are a Finnish company called Behemouse, who make Flash games. The site, desktop client and back library were bought by OnePlay in 2016, but they just couldn't resurrect it and sold the site domain to Behemouse in 2020. Behemouse aren't scammers, they're legitimate purveyors of low-quality content.

[@ravenwinter6984]

Rolling through so many of your vids and I love them all, new and old. You have such a balanced, fair, and critical perspective while still seeing the strengths! Thanks for your reviews, I've played several of the games you covered, and your perspective is always spot on!😂

[@jilaelennio6944]

I used to play this game. This is a great game to play with friends (at the low levels). The newbie island was great as you would be a new player and have to learn the ropes. You'll meet up with someone more elder than you that will take you to the harder areas to farm. You level up and they leave, thus making you the leader for the next new people until you leave. That's how it was for my friend and I. But once you leave newbie island... unless you can find friends, this is where the game ends. The game hits you with too many things you can possibly do and no direction to do them, plus the community is horribly small. The game requires people to play. It's too difficult to solo. Sure, I tried. I gathered on my own, got a weapon, killed some mobs. I was often completely alone in the desert starter city. Eventually I gave up. My friend however, picked the more populated city and joined people that power leveled him. Basically there was 1 or 2 super groups that went around the entire game world picking up players to keep the game going. There is content that needed many players, so if you wanted to experience it, you needed a lot of people. But, you couldn't play the way you wanted. Apparently, leadership of those super groups forced you a play certain way because you wouldn't be effective doing whatever you want. My friend was a heal slave and they only wanted new players to be heal slaves. You would level up only 1 skill so during the raids, you could be of use. On the off time, you could do what you wanted, provided you were prepared to be a heal slave. This method of play let you have a community, be useful, and experience the upper parts of the game. I just couldn't get behind being forced to play a certain way. That, and the fact that I picked and unpopular city actually hurt my experience. Ryzom, however is a great game. It's one of the deepest games I've ever played. If the game had a permanent x4 or x7 skill gain, and removed the skill cap for freeplayers, I would be playing it right now. The skill customization, the art, and the combat was fun and different than the average mmo. I liked the "sandbox" aspect, but this game isn't a sandbox game. It's an mmo that doesn't force you to play a story. There isn't world building and all you really do is some form of grind. The best combination of skills has already been figured out, so I don't see anything unique ever being created outside of the custom quests which I don't think works. I truly loved this game even for a the few days I played it. If the game's population increased by 1000%, it would probably be a better experience. But it's an old, complex game that won't hold a candle to FFXIV or New World. For a free mmo, you are probably better of playing Runes of Magic or Black Desert (when the game is free or for $2). This game is the definition of "work." If you aren't having fun in the grind, you aren't enjoying the game.

[@Arenumberg]

Desura shouldn't be judged by what it is now, it used to be a platform for indie games, mods and the like with reviews and a storefront, etc. It's another Defiance being refered to as spawning the show and not the reality of vice versa :p. (I'm having a binge which makes it noticable, but I'm loving it, keep it up)

[@Redslayer86]

Ironic, this was my favorite MMO I ever played and the only one that ever hooked me, but that was back in 2005-2012 era, the community was amazing back then, still small, but much more active.

[@lucidfairy3969]

Same here lol.

[@madmindlabs]

lol lot of memories. Ryzom found a bit of the magic. Newer mmos are too theme parky, by design.

[@ErgonomicChair]

Yeah Josh honestly doesn't get games. He is acting as if Everquest or EVE don't have players... EVE's player base continues to increase and has NEVER decreased in its life, and EverQuest 1 sitll has a population of ten thousand people for the third MMORPG in existence. More if you include Project1999. I mean... Josh couldn't even do research to learn what Desura actually was.

[@GodwynDi]

Which is odd since I recall him doing a video on the different types of MMORPG players talking about how most games are tailored towards the mechanical players while ignoring the RPG ones. The older open MMOs gave a lot more options to the RP people to be active and functional.

[@alastairdaniela6741]

What was your player name back then? I played around the same sort of time, maybe was a bit earlier but I was Alibooma

[@Borengar629]

Actually it is really nice that there is an option to use the arrow keys for movement instead of wasd. There are lefthanded people you know^^

[@Boyzby]

I've never once desired to use the arrow keys for movement because, as a leftie, you just get used to doing things the way right-handed people do. The first time I ever used arrow keys to move was with Cave Story and it took some getting used to.

[@ayumikuro3768]

Looked for that comment, was not disappointed.

[@tekelupharsin4426]

I'm ambidextrous but use my left hand for writing and prefer it for eating as well (although I can easily eat with my right hand). I have always used a right-handed mouse configuration with WASD movement, but with an exception... I used to use arrow keys back when I played Delta Force 2 (a multiplayer FPS from 1999) competitively. I still used the mouse right handed. The reason I used the arrow keys for that game was because it had a glitch called prone jumping that was accepted into the community as normal gameplay because it was so easy to do and impossible to moderate. Competitive players would eventually learn to really rapidly prone jump - or RRPJ as we called it. I found using the Shift and Ctrl keys to the left of my arrow keys to be the most suitable keys for it since they were vertically stacked and had sizes and positions that suited my hand size very well (Tab and Caps Lock couldn't be used without side-effects). There's always exceptions to things like WASD movement. Josh was just trolling us. 🤗

[@jakey........]

Yeah i tried it and lefties using arrow keys get closer access to left shift and ctrl

[@Badusername2000]

Yes, if feels so weird to have my right hand all the way on the left side of the keyboard to play a game, and I'm never gonna use a mouse with my right hand

[@NeiasaurusCreations]

I want to thank you Josh, as someone whos always been on the opposite paradime of hardcore games and pvp, having your perspective has changed my over all opinion. I realized that my choice of games would probably drive most people away as they already kinda have. Games like anarchy online being something I've been at for roughly 15 or 16 years at this point. (Started at 9 or 10 years old, I'm 24 now.) I also realized how unfriendly games like AO actually are, that no matter how amazing us vets with more time than people have at their jobs, under our belt playing this game, think it is. AO is the type of game that most people drop by level 15, out of 200 RK levels, 20 SL levels, and 30 AI levels. (Don't get me started on this, the level system to explain is absurd.) Let's start off with the most obvious : AO has a skill system with points, called "IP". It is incredibly easy to fuck up your character, blow through your resets not knowing they're limited, and as a result have a character incapable of the most basic things at mid to late game. The IP system is also super complex, and never really explained well. You really only learn by failing at it, or until someone spends the time to sit down with you for a few hours to give you a basic rundown on things so that you can BEGIN to play remotely effectively. This isn't to mention how grindy the game is. How obtuse the power curb can be as its optimized for "twinking" which in AO is taken to a whole new level. You can LITERALLY throw on endgame weapons by around 120-150ish, literally just halfway through roughly. The only reason AO has survived, and has any new players is because of the community. Most of the bois and gals are like an extended family, we know most of each other, and have been homies for a decade if not more. And frankly any new people are jumped on and literally MUGGED with all the help they're given. If a vet finds you're genuinely a new player they will spend hours explaining anything and everything, as well as preparing entire backpacks full of goodies, and credits needed to get started. They will show you the best the game has to offer, and basically tow you to the starting line. Because the community is literally the absolute best thing about AO. Especially these days, most of the guys and gals with the game have been there for decades, and the toxicity has sorta been long gone by this point. It also is a very bad thing to do to piss off who remains because they probably know you, and a lot of your main toons. So once word gets out you're being a cock demon, you'll find yourself excluded from any and all group activities. We also know it benefits us to invest in new players, because once a person actually sees the best of AO, most get as hooked as we do, and will invest years into it. I personally have given away hundreds of billions of credits, items, and spent prolly months of not years worth of time just helping new players get items, explaining things and so on. I used to camp in front of the first 'dungeon', and hand out stuff like an inverse mugging to anyone I saw looking particularly lost. This investment has on more than one occassion came back to really bless me. And despite my toxicity in other games (I was a teenager...I regret those toxic days man) my reputation in AO has become kinda like a well known positive figure. And I've always stated investing in your brothers and sisters might not instantly pay out, but eventually it will. That person will go on to get to endgame, get involved in raids or pvp, and we all win with more geared people at endgame. And it also means more friends to chill with and bounce twinking projects off. I love AO, but without the community it would be literally impossible for a new player to get into it. And no mmo should take after AO, instead they should learn from what it does well, like player homes, player cities, the unique concept of gear system allowing awesome and unique twinking, and so on. But they should not take its worst parts, and how unfriendly the game itself is to new players. Because you probably won't have the AO community sitting around to help players over come that first hump. And sadly we can't always be there for everyone's first time, and first impressions make or break a game. So its really important game devs listen to people like YOU, and not people like me. Because you're absolutely right when you say most people want a game they feel welcomed into. We know that in AO, that's why the playerbase goes truly beyond any other community to welcome new people. And we will utterly destroy people for harming new players, because not only is that not cool, it actually is a life or death thing for AO. Especially as a lot of vets get older. I've actually recently lost a close friend of like 10 years in AO due to health complications. There's not a day goes by when I play AO that I don't miss him. We're that close of a community. And people who don't like AO for justifiable reasons, usually admit the community is great, and that we're a unique community. Where there's almost no toxic players, most are weeded out and long gone. (Its not perfect I've run across one or two negative experiences in past 5 years, but that's one or two experiences, out of thousands upon thousands....So the rate is so low its unreal.) It actually threw me to a loop the first time I left AO and was exposed to the normal...Well toxic mmo community. And I learned a lot of brutal lessons that turned me into a bit of a prick. But in AO I don't have to be a cynical prick, I can actually help people and know it'll have a meaningful impacts.

[@MrXaeb]

Loved me some AO. I played for many years and enjoyed all of them. Still never got grid armor for my Fixer. Maybe I should give it another try.

[@NeiasaurusCreations]

@@MrXaeb GA can be used in SL now. Ga4 on a 150 fixer with a syndicate is amazing.

[@juliusevola4135]

@@NeiasaurusCreations ive been playing games like gw2,eso,d2,poe,and warframe. would you recommend ao to a person who enjoys those type of games

[@NeiasaurusCreations]

@@juliusevola4135 AO makes them all look very very easy and simplistic. Especially if you choose anything but the easy classes. So it's hard to recommend if I don't know you like a challenge that won't hold your hand and will punish you for expecting such. While rewarding you for creative out of the box ideas. Here's an example. AO starts to give death penalties as early as level 15. Out of 200 base levels. AO also let's you put on gear double to triple your character level. The only limit is your resources and connections for the most part. I once had a 260 wep on my baby 110 agent. AO has a rich 2 worlds and immense lore and story telling. It also is a grind fest. So honestly it depends on you. For me AO has been my love for well over 15 years. And I will likely never stop playing until the game dies or I do. And there will never be another game like it. AO had player housing, real world cities owned by players (this was changed they are instanced now and rk is worse off for it) tower fields that players own and fight over. To this day you can get full raids warring over the top level sites. It has flying, ground, water mounts. It has an insanely customizable system for characters once you understand each class and how ip works. But it's also brutal. And mistakes you make early on can become game ending later if not fixed or if you waste your resets for ip. The only way to make it is to find players willing to help ya and to show grit and determination. But relying on others too much will cripple your ability to actually become better. So need to balance it. Luckily AO has the single best community of any game. And you will find they will shower you in items, cash, and wisdom once they find your a true new player. So... What im saying is give it a try and you can play the full base game free. All 200 levels and all RK is yours. And if you like it you can sub and get the expansions and the 2 paid classes. (DO NOT MAKE A SHADE. THEY ARE TOO DIFFICULT AND EXPENSIVE FOR EVEN MOST AO PLAYERS. I happen to main a shade so I know first hand how painful they are. Do not let the cool description fool you to playing something you will abandon until much later.)

[@BobardeZanzibar]

This was a very nice post.

[@Forgotton1337]

That ending was a masterpiece. I might be years late, but man am I glad I found this series!

[@JeroenMW2]

The reason for arrow keys is that French players use an Azerty keyboard, on such a keyboard WASD are layed out very awkwardly for movement. As a kid in Belgium it always confused the hell out of me why people would prefer to move with WASD, until I figured out that the world has different keyboards.

[@thedarkknight9021]

Could you not just use Z, Q, S, D to move since they have the same placement of WASD?

[@JeroenMW2]

@@thedarkknight9021 You could but almost no games have that as default setting. So you have to set it yourself. Idk why the designers didn't use Z,Q,S,D maybe to not confuse users with qwerty keyboards?

[@thenewfoundation9822]

@@JeroenMW2 Just switch the language you use on your computer to English. Your keyboard will automatically adjust.

[@JeroenMW2]

@@thenewfoundation9822 Yes, but this is about the game designers. You can force all users to use a qwerty layout even though they have an azerty keyboard, sure.

[@mktj1]

@@JeroenMW2 ZQSD was an option if you go to that part of the video.

[@lisafairymeadow2034]

It's utterly heartbreaking how many good ideas are doomed to die in bad games, and be tainted by association. That skill/spell builder is SO COOL but we'll NEVER see anything like it in any meaningfully decent game.

[@kiencancap]

Try Noita. Wand building is one of its primary mechanics.

[@luketfer]

Reminds of Eclipse War: Online. It had a really cool system where the enemies dropped cards that let you then turn into that enemy, gain their abilities and the like it also had the bonus of making that enemy type neutral to the player. There was even some quests hidden this way that you couldn't normally access unless you were that current creature type. HOWEVER it was attached to generic ass boring Korean Grindathon MMO which, even at the time, we're dime a dozen and almost ALL of them had failed miserably in the west (look at how Aion died spectacularly) because they did very little to transition the game to the Western audiences.

[@AlphaSquadZero]

What's the closest another game you've seen come to the skill/spell builder of Ryzom?

[@AlphaSquadZero]

@@kiencancap I wanted to love that game, but with each run having a terribly slow start and then the game coercing you into a slow and tediously play style to avoid constant chip damage or instant death made me hate it.

[@D16Nichevo]

@@AlphaSquadZero I don't personally know of any MMOs that do it, but a few single-player RPGs have it. Perhaps most famously the Elder Scrolls games. It's more open (and abusable, and fun) in earlier games like Morrowind, and more locked-down in later games like Skyrim.

[@kobinbrown5698]

"Hardcore" was a pretty popular thing for a time, a lot of survival games were released with the promise of being just that. And then everyone (mostly everyone) woke up and realized how boring and tedious that is.

[@fonesrphunny7242]

...at which point "survival" mostly turned into "run past a bush to collect berries"

[@youtube-kit9450]

It imo mostly failed because game devs mistook "obtuse" and "tedious" for "hardcore" instead of the game being complex and challenging.

[@leovaeg]

"hardcore" was never truly popular, it was always the dream of the bully-segment of gaming, but at any point it actually existed in any form it instantly got seen for what it was - because bullies dont like games where they themselves get bullied, and nobody new joins - so its only the scummiest of the gaming trash and then the game dies

[@kicapanmanis1060]

You mean like 99% of new games now?

[@kicapanmanis1060]

@@leovaeg You sound pretty judgemental yourself there

[@jasonrhome710]

Being a new video follower, it's such a trip bouncing through the backlog and going from a half-dozen people emblazoned on the Patreon credits with different stylizations to trying to read the bottom of Gene Wilder's Wonka Factory Visitor Contract.

[@JoshStrifeHayes]

@@jasonrhome710 glad you're enjoying the older vids :)

[@jasonrhome710]

@@JoshStrifeHayes Fun stuff! Animyst is an oddly compelling game that is triggering my, "get a new gaming rig," buttons. And it's fun to listen to you stumble across the hidden gem moments. Same vibes to when How To Drink ends up making a good cocktail out of something Greg is expecting to be a disaster.

[@AegisAmaranth]

I still play with the arrow keys to this day. Gaming since the 80's, I got introduced into shooters with the arrow keys. Doom, Duke3d, Quake, Lands of lore I and II, etc... all with arrow keys. So when wasd became popular, the arrow keys were already ingrained in my mind. I tried to wasd once, and I kept walking around like a drunk. Perhaps it's the 'isometric' layout of the keys, and so when my brain wants to walk forward, I often press e... and die. I'm actually grateful for games still including the arrow keys. I got death stranding director's cut, and can't play it, because I can't bind vehicle movements to the arrows. Something other people have been asking for as well, and which was present in the original version. And to this day, the developers still fail to write this simple small piece of coding, that presents itself as user-friendly for all people. I have to use a third party program, that rebinds my keys outside of the game, then reboot the pc. If I then want to write, I have to reverse the same process each time. I have the same with invert mouse. As I played many flight games, like wing commander. So when game devs don't add it, I'm like: 'what, they don't like pilots? Then they should abstain from going onboard planes or helicopters. To be consistent.' I'm looking at you, Genshin discriminimpact.

[@ThomasCoote89]

I use arrow keys for movement, I'm left handed and my right hand naturally sits where the numpad is

[@HenriqueRJchiki]

Then use the numpad for movement, it's objectively better

[@ThomasCoote89]

@@HenriqueRJchiki numpad is for abilities. Not that it matters because it's absurd to suggest a particular control setup is *objectively* anything.

[@HenriqueRJchiki]

@@ThomasCoote89 It's not absurd, it's like arguing 1+1 isn't 2 or like saying controller is better than m+k for FPS. You're definitely having a subpar perfomance on any game you play with that garbage setup and wouldn't like to have you on my raid group at all.

[@ThomasCoote89]

@@HenriqueRJchiki I mean you come across as a half cut sperg so I won't lose too much sleep, thanks anyway

[@TheAzureGhost]

kinda reminds me of the old descent (shooter) days where there were players with all kind of control setups. Some swore on Joystick/Keyboard (actually the most), some preffered Mouse/Keyboard, ,some gamepads, some Keyboard only, some Dual Joysticks, some used a Steeringwheel , some else added feet panels to any of the above configs... and some rare cases even crafted their own controler devices...

[@yomli]

38:23 Back in the days, Desura was a gaming platform like Steam, closed in 2016.

[@teddyreid9055]

I remember buying Project Zomboid on Desura back in the day. Nostalgia!

[@Nersius]

@Java Monsoon Did they have some rather pretentious forums or something? If it is just that it focused on indies, don't get the prejudice.

[@damienthonk1506]

@@Nersius indie game devs and communities (especially pre-Undertale) were extremely notorious for having insufferably pretentious fanbases with that kind of "in-crowd," us VS them attitude, with "them" being popular triple A studios or fans. Think say, YIIK: A Postmodern RPG or YandereDev.

[@Nersius]

@@damienthonk1506 I thought it was a small group like w/ Phil Fish, but I am very disconnected from any sort of gaming community, so I guess I wouldn't know much of anything. YIIK pains me, charmingly jerky graphics w/ incompetent game devs. Hopefully their re-releases (YIIK and Brothers) fixes all the bugs and design errors. If they can make it into Valhalla they have to have some sort of merit.

[@jorymo4964]

I mainly remember using it to get Half-Life 2 mods

[@Aqua-wc2bk]

This game treats you the way my entry level spanish teacher treated students. Speak spanish in class no english or you fail

[@konnraihlx9754]

This seems very much like the devs don't know the difference between complex and complicated. And that's a shame because there should be more complex games that allow for full exploration of the systems. Without adding uselessly complicated bells and whistles.

[@360noScoop]

I'm late to the party but I loved the "no handholding" rant 9:28 . It's so true. If the game doesn't explain a single thing how would you ever get into it? Funny enough, I had this exact same issue with League of Legends, not an MMO but back in the day it also would explain a single thing to you and to this day its still difficult to really get into.

[@MajorSquiggles]

One of my biggest pet peeves is when a game or community doesn't provide you the tools to learn yourself. They expect you to pull some eldritch knowledge from the void and come to some magical understanding without any information. It's like giving the player a puzzle without any of the pieces. Any conclusions the player base comes to will only be a theory since you've removed the ability to prove it. But either way it'll get added to the wiki so what was the point? You've just moved the tutorial from in game to an external website.

[@Nekoszowa]

Like Black Desert Online. You either need to figure it out yourself or watch/read hours upon hours of guides... Why not just give me a simple in-game tutorial?

[@sorrenblitz805]

Or when you ask members of the community and they laugh and just say "Git gud scrub"

[@somedragonbastard]

Part of the reason I like stardew valley is that I have never met someone who didn't reccomend the wiki, not because the game doesn't explain mechanics but bc the wiki is just so well laid out for helping new players optimize profits and learn npc schedules and what they like

[@lionart5230]

@@somedragonbastard But shouldn't you learn it yourself? I mean you are playing a role playing game, put into designed, well though world and you are not willing to explore, learn things about it. These things are easily to be observed if you are actually interested with them. Profits are just part of trials and errors. See what works, what doesn't.

[@somedragonbastard]

@@lionart5230 the game does teaxh you and let you learn in your own, i did that in my first playthrough

[@Fe_Fers]

i genuinely get excited for your videos

[@arank1409]

As you should

[@robjones9696]

"why the hell would anyone use arrow keys for movement" maplestory players:

[@zibix4562]

Yep....learned arrow keys before wasd

[@StarboyXL9]

Me, a Need for Speed player: O.O

[@LixyFox]

But maplestory is a 2d platformer, we don't have to use the mouse lmao

[@johnnaylor1706]

Because Gamers who came into PC gaming in later years don't realize that in 2004 WASD wasn't yet "a thing" .... nowadays , every KB has those keys highlighted or lit to stand out ... won't find that on a 2004 KB. But if the reviewer didn't spend the time to find that out ...

[@miguelcondadoolivar5149]

@@johnnaylor1706 17 years is long enough to get used to it. I too used to play games with arrow keys (Dreams to Reality comes to mind), but I couldn't go back if I wanted. WASD is way too comfortable.

[@onelerv1]

The whole 'its hardcore because its hard to understand' reminds me of Hemmingway. Its not smarter to use bigger, flowery words - a simple easy to understand enables him to access the highest amount of people to which he can carefully place complex ideas. For books, the most accessible books enable the reader to more clearly see the complex nuanced message - For games the more understandable the system the more the actual REAL difficulty/hardcore whatever can shine in. Learning how to do something not explained doesn't require intelligence or skill it requires patience and time.

[@BigPuddin]

Exactly. It requires extreme levels of raw talent and intelligence to condense something complicated into an accessible form that's easily understood. It takes virtually NO talent or intelligence to haphazardly slap some shit together making it all obtuse and unintuitive with no explanation in order to be "hardcore." That's like asking someone to fucking play chess when you don't know the rules, and they slap you in the face every time you ask to learn the rules.

[@wolfnoneofyourbusiness6220]

his name was "Hemingway" (one "M"), just saying.

[@kicapanmanis1060]

I think it heavily depends on the context. Josh for example dislikes any mmo that doesn't get good in the first few hours. While I also understand and agree with that, I can also understand the opposite view something rewarding you with only a lot of investment. I think there's something to both types of games. While I agree that being accessible earlier is generally better I also think alternate designs where that isn't the case has it's merits.

[@kicapanmanis1060]

@@BigPuddin And yet not everything can be easily condensed and compressed easily while being accessible.

[@onelerv1]

@@wolfnoneofyourbusiness6220 Sorry didn't know hemmmingway was spelt that way

[@frikyouall]

I use arrow keys for movement, primarily because that's how I learned to play video games on the computer. Typical layouts were arrows to move, zxcvasd were combat and spells.

[@siskavard]

I think one of the coolest things the game did was your mount was an actual creature that took up space in the world, not an inventory item that just disappeared & reappeared on the fly.

[@astarryeyedgirl]

Black Desert Online handles mounts in a similar way. I liked their mount system a lot. It's too bad that game fell apart like it did.

[@skyking4557]

@@astarryeyedgirl atleast it is still playable now,Although it became quite P2W

[@temjiu9915]

that was a great description of how people learn differently, and how it applies to games. Having taught in various positions myself, I can identify completely with that. Game wise, I tend to be the Do-er. I like to jump in, but I like to have the resources available when I run into a hurdle. No resources to use, I tend to just walk away.

[@louiseogden1296]

I have to say I'm a fan of tutorials. Partly it's because I'm autistic, meaning some forms of hand/eye coordination are hard and I'll never be the most precise gamer. And at 42 I'm happy with that. I grew up with Amigas, where there was just a joystick and one button, then graduated to point and click adventure games or tactical RPGs like Baldurs Gate, then on to Civ which was point and click and occasionally move with arrow keys. I bypassed a lot of real time combat games and still prefer to use a controller even on a PC (if it makes sense, the analogue joysticks have the right sort of substance to them to feel in control: mouse is OK in games like WoW but the worst thing is motion controls which I find terrible to handle (thank god Nintendo didn't continue down the path they went down with the Wii). So a good tutorial is a must. Games that ease the player in are cool. Games that dump you into a place with no clue what you're doing get shelved pretty quickly (so, like, a lot of pre-PS3 games will forever be beyond my scope; sad, but again, I'm happy with that except for never being able to handle Resident Evil 1, 4 or Silent Hill because of the weird controls while such things were still being worked out by devs). Josh is a great teacher but I really hope he doesn't take the snotty approach to people who have a variant hand/brain coordination to others. That bit about lefthanded controls was unnecessary -- I get that he's angry about the game, but it's legit unnecessary and bound to alienate some of his audience, particularly those with such a common neurological variance. I hope he is more tolerant of neurodivergence in his offline teaching.

[@fronthal157]

​@@louiseogden1296 ​ Hi! I'm autistic. Chill the fuck down with your accusation. He's making a single joke about how the overwhelming majority use wasd, and all the memes about "hah hah this is a gamer keyboard, you can tell because wasd are worn out!" Refer to this. It's a joke. Also. Just because you let your hand eye coordination slow you down, doesn't mean I will. Keep practicing. It takes ten thousand hours to master something. I've spent at least 10,000 hours on shooters, and rely on my knowledge of the game to overcome my disadvantages. I take some time to relearn how to play when I take breaks to play rts games and games like that. It's not easy. But I think you're selling yourself short, and using my disability to excuse it. I don't appreciate it

[@FinalFantasyIXIIII]

I had a friend who used arrows as movement in games because he was left handed.

[@teejay818]

Yes, my wife is also a lefty mutant and must re-keybind every game we install. I’ve learned through her that many games are just not lefty-friendly

[@callmequaz9052]

I think dark souls handles the tutorial thing well. It teaches you the basics you need to know, gives you some basic enemies to get a feel for it, then pits you against a boss for you to overcome.

[@chalor182]

I don't mind the friends-like naming thing.. reminds me of old style chapter titles in books. "Chapter 5: in which our heroes find out etc. Etc."

[@GoldenFoxTV]

My parents have been playing MMOs for over a decade, use arrow keys, and wholesale avoid games that use wasd format. Rofl

[@henzos88]

My parents don't pass from super mario bros NES. That your parents play MMOs it's amazing!

[@onnol917]

Boomers

[@enderkatze6129]

The proffesion system of Them Splitting Off to more Specialized Things seems Like a cool Idea in concept, starting Off as a jack-of-all-trades and then specializing into a specific class Specialized to your Playstile. Just leaves the jack-of-all-trades Players Out.

[@rolfs2165]

You can probably put xp into all paths, but you won't be as good as someone who specialises in just one. So actually quite realistic in that regard. You just gotta make sure that those options are all (roughly) equally viable in their own ways.

[@paulmahoney7619]

@@rolfs2165 with the number of paths available I find that doubtful.

[@filipfyhr9987]

I used to play this when i was a kid. Sadly my character got deleted when they migrated the servers. I had lvl 150 in almost everything so that was unlucky. This is my favorite MMO/RPG. But only because of nostalgia. Ryzom had the best community i have ever experienced. Armageddons shoutout! Jola Marla (Norway) Xatokar Tendrili (Sweden) Allesandro

[@julz19]

I knew someone that recovered his toon from the merge tho..

[@N1GHTV1PER]

no character was ever deleted by the ryzom team

[@RyzomMMORPG]

I confirm that Ryzom Support team ([e-mail] ) can restore the old pre-merge characters. And also that our community of players is always so welcoming and warm. :)

[@Xiuhtec]

I played this a very short time around its original release. Love the action creation system and have been wanting to find an actually good game with a similar skill and action system to no avail.

[@ktktktktktktkt]

38:19 Desura actually used to be similar to steam for indie games. However, it experienced a couple ownership changes and then filed for bankruptcy in 2015 and then was relaunched in 2020 as a different service. So it was respectable at the time of the review probably.

[@BenLaakkonen]

I played this game back when it first came out, I don't quite remember where I stopped in the game, but I remember someone explaining to me that you could make the starting acid spell cost no Mana by making it a point blank attack.

[@7DragonEyes7]

I was playing with Arrows key when I first learn to game on PC, back in 2000s. The reason I switch it's because I was tired to rebinding for every games.

[@Felunya]

Love the Series, so Glad I discovered your channel.

[@StandardGoose]

Desura used to be a platform very like Steam, but specialising in indie games. Project Zomboid started there originally before it got on to steam. The company that bought it in 2016 went bankrupt before they could relaunch the platform. It really was a legitimate platform once upon a time. It changed hands a few times over the years, including at one point being owned by Linden Labs, the owners of Second Life. Now all that is left is the website, owned and operated by a completely unrelated company who make and market flash games. The review was probably written pre-2016 when the platform was legitimate.

[@FaithPvP]

I only played Ryzom for a month or so several years ago, but man, it had some mechanics in it the likes of which I haven't seen in _any_ other MMO. - day/night/weather system - packs of animals that would react to your presence, following you around, etc. - the crafting system. to make boots you need some leather, something hard for the sole, and something soft for the liner. the materials you used determined the stats of the final product. maybe you use rabbit's hide for the lining, and it increases the dexterity bonus, and you use buffalo horn for the sole and it incases the strength. tailor the materials for the boots you want, rather than having 4 recipes in a book for strength/dex/tough/balanced boots.

[@natecw4164]

I wasn't expecting relationship help but now I totally understand why my wife watches tutorial videos and I just dive in to a new game head first. Never consider it could be a learning style thing! :D

[@lilacaggression8956]

I almost love this game, and I'll reinstall it every few years. It's nice to mess about on the starting island, doing the tutorial and wandering around looking at things. But that doesn't last too long, and when you get to the mainland, there's no interesting quests, and everything gets hard, especially travelling to new regions. I'd have a lot of fun if there was more interesting lore on what is quite a pretty setting, and travelling was easier. The harvesting is a nice idea, and relaxing.

[@lilacaggression8956]

@Michael Carroll Hope things get better for you. Hang in there.

[@commanderkruge]

You must be in the right area to prospect. Different materials appear in different places, some only in one season of the year, during night etc. The radius you prospect in grows with levelling up, so later it will be easier to find stuff. Again - the whole crafting/harvesting system was quite good, actually. But like so much else it kinda needs other players around who help you to learn.

[@Keevacom]

I like “hardcore” games. Not for MMOs though. Dark Souls and Elden Ring or just all From Software games, great hardcore games. Hardcore MMOs are just “hey do you want to grind so hard you prefer actual work to playing this? You know, such that in about a year you won’t die immediately?” and of course I/you don’t but then you’re hit with “well in that case would you like to very slowly traverse the game that isn’t fun to play?” and unsurprisingly I do not but then you’re hit with “well don’t worry because there’s no world building, not just no main quests but nothing” and then I/you as the player get ready to shoot for the head and paint the walls a nice new shade of crimson until remembering the uninstall button exists and then never look back.

[@valeriancincon1343]

As an old player at launch of Ryzom, I want to react to you saying "they had almost 17 year to make it better" This is wrong, because you take ryzom as a "game" which it is not anymore. The real Ryzom died in 2006 when Nevrax crashed. And it is only in artificial life support since then. It has only been kept "available" by hardcore role-players spending money like... hardcore . Up to the game engine and content been made freely available, only due to these role-players lobbying. The awful tutorial zone you are playing in is something that replaced the 4 originals ones. This new tutorial zone was made by I don't know who during the years of artificial life support. So you are not testing a live game. Live to play, to attract player, to be player-driven. You are testing a remnant. Just like the god emperor of manking on his throne.

[@lazur188]

@Peeshy well yeah it failed but i do think he still as a point especially when you consider the good reviews on launch he showed

[@tacoenvy]

I actually played the Beta for this when it was Sage of Ryzom and it was pretty different. But I was heavily invested into SWG and WoW was coming out so I didn’t play it for long. And there’s tons of people that use the Arrow Keys to play games. Some people might have no choice and have a disability and play that way you never know.

[@subliminalist7539]

You calling lefties disabled? lol

[@picblick]

38:18 the original Desura was something quite different, it was basically a neat little store front of games, a lot of indie games, mod categories and many more things. Sadly it went bankrupt a few years ago, so what you saw there has nothing to do with the original Desura, where this review probably was published.

[@platynowa]

I use arrow keys. :) I started to play this recently and I quite enjoy it, but joining an active guild at an early stage is a must. You can switch between icon and list mode in inventory using the little icons below. Later on, you can get items to get rid of DP.

[@MaggieDanger]

Awww, Ryzom!

[@chronowolf4734]

So I just finished binging this whole series and I'm glad I'll someday be able to say "Hah, I subbed to that youtuber before he was cool!"

[@Gahrazel]

I use arrow keys for movement. I am lefthanded. Try and move with wasd using your right hand and see what happens. Seriously Please more games give arrow keys as an option.

[@lareolanKFP]

Yeah, back in the day this game was rather visually appealing with beautiful music, sound and concepts of lore. The intricate crafting system, combat/magic systems and such with their stanzas and balances created a LOT of possibilities and options. Unfortunately between the fact that there was no actual story to follow in the game it became rather repetitive and boring. And once I reached "mid-game" crafting (I always love a good crafting system in a game), I discovered that the place I need to go to harvest materials for my crafting is "prime roots" which is an open PvP zone with full anarchy rules turning it into gank heaven. That's when I quit. Still miss that crafting system though, haven't found any other game with so much depth and variability.

[@luheartswarm4573]

to be fair, when I was a kid back in 2007~ I used to play my old emulators using the arrow keys for movements, however in my early teens I changed to wasd and never looked back

[@billlowery1658]

Arrow keys goes with left handed mouse. It's for left handed people

[@InimicusSolitus]

I use the arrow keys for movement, page navigation keys for some abilities and numpad 0 for interaction/targeting. This is left handed use, right hand on mouse. I never touch the rest of the keyboard. This is my setup in every MMO I play.

[@JoshStrifeHayes]

My eye is twitching violently even reading that.

[@louisoost121]

I am left-handed and just refused to play like that and learned to play right-handed. Was crappy at the beginning but I am so glad I did it.

[@chocobro3198]

Yes, the feeling about a game wanting you there, and how important that is, is so true! Silly little thing but it made me think of how I am always so touched when every year in FFXIV they have the anniversary event that recalls the fall of Dalamud (basically how 1.0 ended and ARR came to be) and then Yoshi-P comes to your character in-game to thank him/her for being a part of the world. It always is so touching for me. Possibly also because I know how hard the man worked to save FFXIV from the clutches of the nightmare that was 1.0. I also agree wholeheartedly with your sentiments about sandbox games. To me, that just usually means aimless and boring. I can't play or get into an MMORPG that has no interesting plot or lore at all, either. This is why FFXIV and Mabinogi are still my all-time favorite MMORPGs, and none of the many others that I've tried have bumped them from that spot so far. On that note, I suppose Mabinogi seems like trash to new players too though. I've been playing it for many many years myself, so I am sure it's also nostalgia for me. But I don't know. There is an incredible amount of different stuff you can do, and the story is great; the NPCs all have personality and are memorable. The only downside is that nowadays the game throws various generations (basically; chapters of the story that were released over time) at new players of which some will make no sense if you don't play them in the right order. But the game has an extensive wiki that will list what order to play them in. I am the type that gets sad when a new friend just skips the game's storyline. Since it's so charming and I am upset they're missing out. The lore is so good! You should check out the game if you want, and never have yet, you might hate it, or you may also see the charm. I am curious what you'd have to say about it, even if it's bad, it'll probably make me laugh and I can most likely agree to as well. I definitely have a plethora of complaints about the game despite loving it, as well, haha. The cash-shop is awful with all the gachapon as well. Anyway, the graphics aren't great, but they're distinct and unique. They're actually hand-drawn. I love them. Some systems are also still very outdated but the game is still being worked on and is getting a lot of love. An example: until like a year ago, you had to go to the shopping channel to check player stalls to find if they sold what you wanted, but they're doing a lot of QoL updates, so it now has an auction house and whatnot. Oddly, I quite liked having to browse player shops somehow. Would always run into interesting things that I didn't know about that I then wanted to save up for, too. I kind of miss it, even if it was time-consuming. Sometimes... faster and more convenient isn't better for me in games. The community is super nice too. Very easy to make friends. If you ever get lost/confused just ask someone and they'll undoubtedly help (given that they're not afk). I know a lot of new players get deterred from the game as well because of the combat system. To me, the combat system was a breath of fresh air after so many generic F2P MMORPGs. Best thing is, once you get the hang of it, it really makes a world of difference. Anyway, this is already becoming tl;dr so I will end it here. 😅

[@sergeysmirnov1062]

Nice video again, tho... I admit IMO some things you critiqued about the game (disclosure, I never heard of it today, so, no, I'm not a player myself) are kinda eh. Personally, I do _love_ things like renaming mana - by (I assume) the same logic you praised the Toast game for not having a yellow exclamation mark/question mark as logos for the NPXs when giving quests, I like when a game breaks from the mold and calls mana something different (see Morrowind or the like), it's small details like this that make me feel the designers actually care about the world they design. Another thing, IMO, not having a main quest is fine, even for an MMO, even if it cuts off players. As far as I'm concerned, a game should be allowed to have a niche and not try to please everyone - if it *does*, all the better and I certainly won't complain about that - *but* I do feel that if the developers comitted to for example catering only to sandbox people or quest people, then that is *also* fine. There are so many games out already catering to either playerbase here, so the players that are cut out fro this won't lose anything, conversely though, if you then use the development time you would have to do a main quest to improve on the other parts of your game, the players that _are_ catered to by this win something. Somewhat relatedl, at least I find that no main quest is several orders of magnitude better than a half assed one.

[@fuzzyface4515]

2:20 The euphoria I experienced when linking this to my wife. She not only uses arrow keys, but uses left/right arrow keys for turning and will not learn to use strafe functions.

[@theburritobandito8044]

@38:53 Seeing that add for Serious Sam 4 gave me the itch to go play through it again.

[@boredfangerrude]

That was the most hilarious score I've ever seen/heard a game get!

[@greggreg2027]

2:20 I use arrow keys for movement. Simply because I grew up with DOS FPS games. Got used to the right side of the keyboard and love the feel of no other button around they arrow keys. I also use SPACE to interact, Right mouse button to jump, and the big old ENTER to reload. Basically I like using corner buttons for use in panic situations: cant hit the wrong button when its the only button. If anything... how do you people use SPACE to jump? So impractical / loud. Granted the only drawback to my keyboard button setup is using alternative fire in some games. Duelweilding 2 guns and firing them individually is near impossible in my layout... and kind of dumb. Why have 2 guns at the same time only to fire them like revolvers.

[@Xix1326]

When I saw the vid title, I thought "Is this the French game?" and, sure enough, it is. I spent about a half hour with this one many years ago, and I have no idea why I even remember I played it that long.

[@burntearth85]

I just found your channel, and after about 10 vids, I just have to say your sense of humor has made me outright giggle. I love the reviews, as a newer MMO player, I know what to avoid.

[@Rinalicia]

I use Arrow keys for movement and the number pad + ctrl macros to play mmos because being left handed, it's awkward to cross my hands in any public computer, so I just adapted and then modified that for mmos

[@JohnSavant]

I use arrow keys because I'm a leftie :)

[@ImperiumofRat]

How do you use 1,2,3,4 etc for spells or does your mouse have buttons you use?

[@sheevpalpatine6373]

I am left handed in writing, but use WSAD with my left hand and mouse with right hand, I guess im both handed or smth.

[@ImperiumofRat]

@@sheevpalpatine6373 yeah my mate is the same as you, left handed used mouse with right

[@thirdworld1186]

@@ImperiumofRat im guessin the keypad? idk lmao

[@drricemice2046]

Yeah I'm left hand with everything but keyboard and mouse its feels strange using arrow keys

[@drmedicechsrick8702]

better question how do you move whit ZQSD? like whats up and whats left? like how do you controll this? aroww keys make at least more sense then what ever that is

[@bricediving2593]

ZQSD is for french keyboard (AZERTY)

[@Stryder45]

The AZERTY keyboard has Q-A and Z-W switched also the M key and ; key as well. Other than that normal QWERTY keyboard.

[@Chaooo]

8:00 Actually, that's exactly how my Japanese class was back in high school! Getting thrown into a course and being assigned a bunch of homework and tests was extremely frustrating and daunting at first, but it also helped immensely when it comes to hitting that trigger where you go "wait a minute, this is all starting to make sense now!" and, sure enough, about midway through the course after a lot of crunching and frustrating study sessions (and anime watching), I finally reached that point where it all started to click together and the rest of the course became easier than first grade math. It's surprisingly effective, but I wouldn't recommend that style of teaching to be used too often.

[@tarron3237]

No, it's not effective, unless you're just judging the level of teacher's laziness. There are different types of learners. Some manage to teach themselves. A lot don't. It has nothing to do with intelligence or ability. It's only, arguably, 'effective', if you wang to put in as little effort as possible as a teacher and don't really care at all about the number of successful students.

[@NathanielBTM]

2:15 I'm suprised you were more shocked about the arrow keys and not the option for Z,Q,S,D

[@The1Helleri]

2:15 Having the option for arrows keys or WASD movement is a good point of accessibility. Some left handed people have ambidextrous mouses with M1 and M2 functions reversed, play with it on the left side of the keyboard and use arrow keys like WASD. My father actually uses his desktop like that (although he isn't big on gaming) because his left hand is paralyzed into a permanent open claw shape with only some slight finger tip mobility. Even that amount of mobility took a few graft surgeries (He was bit by a southern pacific diamond back rattlesnake in his youth). So physical disabilities are another good reason to have an accessibility option like that. But given that left handed people is about 12% of the global population and people with a visible handedness impairment disability (paralysis, deformity, amputation) are less than 3% an option like that isn't all that helpful to have up front for anywhere near most people who might be playing an MMO. Especially considering that the percentage of those who are, given what's typically involved with playing Games is probably going to be a lot lower than global averages. But it is nice that the option is there at all. The real question is were they considering accessibility when they made it? The answer to which is probably going to be found in how many other accessibility options (if any) there are and how well they're implemented. Even if it works out well for accessibility that doesn't necessarily mean that was the intent. A good for instance is the skybox/filter settings in RuneScape (accessed through right clicking the world map icon). While it's just there so players can take cool screen shots and do nice machinima, I've known a few few people who have one form or another of color blindness and get a lot out of those settings functionality wise.

[@dovildas]

mp3 player in cabal online was a thing :D since i loved to use my own rock music then i was grinding :D