The Saga of Ryzom
Ryzom is a sandbox game. This means there are few if any quests to do andno story lines to complete. The world is very large, with many different areas. These usually progress in difficulty, so near a starter city there are low mobs. As you get deeper, the mobs get harder. The first thing I noticed was the city was well done, lots of npcs looking like a real community. Graphics and sound are quite good, as well as some of the character animations. Much better than I was expecting, to be honest. Character customization is pretty good, you can morph your bodily dimensions and there is a wide selection of unique and really artistic tattoos and facial colorings available to each race & gender combination.
The system for creating your own attacks and spells is really great and brings lots of variety, though it was quite difficult for me to grasp at first. Ryzom is the ultimate game for harvesting and crafting. Crafting is skill based, just like everything else. Also, there are no "blueprints", and no fixed materials to make items. For example, a simple item like ammo requires three materials: a jacket, an explosive, and a shell. Most games have really simplistic crafting systems now a days and this is one of the few games that I love crafting in. The quality of materials affect the quality of crafting output. Resource gathering itself is a profession in its own right, with the more time you spend refining your character's custom gathering stanzas the more efficiently he or she can draw resources from the environment.
