RYL: Path of the Emperor

Anyone looking for something a little different from the average MMO, and most especially anyone holding onto that last thread before reinstalling "Diablo II" should do themselves the favor of checking out RYL. It has its share of graphical and server issues, but it includes the most important element of the game formula: fun.

Risk Your Life may be right for you, but if you have a low frustration threshold you might want to look elsewhere. The initial learning curve is steep.

Still, amidst the suffering production values and a myriad of major design blunders, RYL is fun to play, thanks to the cool real-time combat and a healthy supply of gold, weapons, armor, and spells.

Risk Your Life: PotE can be entertaining and thrilling, but it’ll take some work to make it that way.

If the worldwide aspect of RYL has you intrigued, check it out. Or, if you like hack-n-slash gameplay with no end in sight, this could well be your game.

A good game for PvP play, but thoroughly underwhelming in all other areas. Not a game worthy of monthly fees.

With all of the options out there now, however, it really is a matter of too little, too late.

It’s really not that I did not like the game; it’s just that there was nothing to it that really made it stand out to me. Nothing that made it unique from all the other fantasy-based MMO’s out there, nothing that made me want to play it any more than any other.

Other than the novelty of the prize money it doesn't offer anything new to the genre.

The problem with RYL: Path of the Emperor is that it represents a throwback in the current market, offering mostly lackluster visuals, a staid player-versus-environment game, and a standard sort of guild-versus-guild, player-versus-player system.

A lackluster MMO that only does average in most cases, and poorly in most others.

There is very little to do in the game, and it’s the sort of game where I wonder what the developers were thinking when they made it. I mean, why bother making a game that has so little going for it?

Those seeking a PvP-based massively multiplayer game may want to wait for "Guild Wars," which will offer PvP straight out of the gate as opposed to 70 levels in. [July 2005, p.61]

Try Guild Wars if you want guild-versus-guild content, or "Everquest II" or "World of Warcraft" for a quest-driven MMORPG. Unless you're absolutely after that million-dollar prize, RYL is an easy pass.

Individual combats are fast-paced but extremely repetitive, resulting in a truly brutal leveling grind. [Sept 2005, p.70]

The ability to play as a non-human Ak’Kan is interesting, but other MMOs have already gone there, and those games don’t lock you into playing just that race for any other character that you make on that server- the developers really need to figure out a way to let me make different raced characters in my other character slots and not make it an all-or-nothing affair.

Next time, use the million-dollar PVP cash prize to improve gameplay. [Oct 2005, p.78]

Just playing RYL for a week made me want to die. If the game had emotes, my character would have been weeping constantly.

Online world games should be many things... They should not subject you to hours upon hours of tediously repeating the same tasks with no hope for reward in proportion to that pain. Which is why I say to online world gamers everywhere: Stay away from "Ryl."