Despite the low polygon count and simple (by 2012 standards) textures, the animations are fluid and evocative.

An important aspect of Ryzom is the scenario editor, which allows players to build their own zones, quests, and so on, with other players able to enter them by invitation. They are not part of the game world itself, but spawned instances.

Ryzom's downsides are mostly to be expected given the game's age and limited commercial appeal. The graphics, while not atrocious, are clearly dated by modern standards. They're evocative and well-done, but designed for much older systems. The interface can be very busy, and doesn't scale too well to larger modern monitors. The worst thing, for me, was the lack of documentation. Ryzom's website has PDF copies of the manual that shipped with the game in 2004, which is very outdated, and an extremely sparse wiki. While the game has pop-up hints on various things, the lack of good documentation on each of the action types and other features is annoying.

Given how small and obscure the game is, I found the starting zone to be lively, and most players were helpful and friendly. The "trial" allows you to train skills up to 125, out of a cap of 250. Given the wide range of skills you can raise, you will play a long time before maxing them all out, and it's tautological that if you like the game enough to do that, it's going to be worth paying for. There's a strong sense of community and player involvement, aided by the fact that the game's engine has been open-sourced. With no initial investment (except time) required, Ryzom is worth checking out for those who want something a bit different.

Note: The Download button takes you to the vendor's site, where you can download the latest version of the software appropriate to your system.