Support NeoGAF

[CTLance]

Spoiler

(That's an otherwise untouched screenshot with two logos from the webkit. I know, lame. Give me something better and I'll put it up.)

What is Ryzom?

It's an MMORPG. But not just any MMORPG! This one is different. It's run by ze fabulous French guys at Nevrax, for one. Also, it's ridiculously awesome. Most importantly: You want to play it.
Furthermore, its story is certifiably awesome:

You need to be at least this tall to become a french alien:
Windows 98SE/2000/XP (/Vista [with UAC workaround]) (/Linux [via wine])
Pentium III 1Ghz or equivalent
512 MB RAM
Nvidia Geforce 2 or equivalent video card with 64 MB RAM
DirectX 8 compatible Sound Card
7 Gb free Hard Disk Space
Rudimentary knowledge of either English, German, or French in its written form.


...what what what?
-> Cliquez ici! <-
The installer is roughly 1.6 GB, so you'll need to waste some time, but hey, you can take care of the user registration while you wait (no credit card required). Hurry up though - there's only a limited amount of accounts left... roughly 10000 last time I checked.

Also, get the manual and have a look at the goodies section on their website. There's some neat stuff there, like music, wallpapers and artwork...

If you're like me and still have an old installation/client floating around from some time ago, just download the Ryzom fixer from the Forums or manually add some lines to a text file and let the game updater take care of the rest.

Bored? Well, why not read through my incoherent babbling while your download finishes?



How is Ryzom different from your average MMORPG?

Well, take Mobs for example. In Ryzom, Monsters prey upon each other, migrate, etc. The devs spent considerable manpower to make the world feel... alive. You won't see wolves and sheep happily living together, that's for sure.
Each species behaves slightly differently, not only in combat, but also "in real life".
Seasons, weather and day/night cycles affect that too (there's rain, fog, snow, the occasional storm, sunny days, starry nights, and so on...).
Be prepared to face entire invasion armies of bloodthirsty aliens on some occasions thanks to the RAID (Realtime Army Invasion Deployment) engine: it allows for combat involving hundreds of players vs. hundreds of computer-controlled enemies in the same area. Huge armies of enemies can attack entire regions at once - which must be countered by a cooperative player effort to kill their boss.

Ryzom Ring. This is probably the most ambitious aspect of the game. It's a ... MMO level editor. Design your own quest, choose and modify the location, position monsters and NPCs, set triggers, dig through your stash for rewards and treasures - you have full control. Of course you first need to go out into the world of Ryzom - you only start out with a handful of building blocks. You can either be an invisible game master/god that controls NPCs, monsters, and triggers in realtime, or you can be part of the advenure itself as one of the players for added fun. Just upload your "level" to the server, and it's accessible on Ring terminals throughout the game for other players.
Honestly - how cool is that? Create. Share. Have fun.

The design and setting is pretty unique too. The whole planet (Atys) is one gigantic plant/tree! Don't worry though, it's not all brown-and-green organic stuff. There are huge seas, wastelands, caves, and so on.

Four distinct humanoid races, or &#8220;homins,&#8221; came to exist on Atys hundreds of years prior to the game's current timeline and developed into separate, fairly isolated societies in their own favored ecosystems. Interacting benevolently with all four homin cultures, but hostile towards each other, were two additional and far more advanced races: the magical Kami and the technological Karavan. The Kami are depicted as elusive, chaotic, playful, and highly protective of Atys, while the Karavan are more secretive and have never been shown outside their environmental suits or far from their machinery.

In the game year 2481, the homin races were decimated when the hostile, insect-like Kitins were accidentally released from their home deep within Atys's root system. Surviving refugees from all four homin cultures began working together in 2485 to rebuild a single, mixed society in relatively remote areas. Soon came the added threat of the &#8220;Goo,&#8221; a spreading infestation that renders areas uninhabitable and drives wildlife mad with rage.

It's part SciFi, part Fantasy, and really engrossing once you manage to escape the starter Island. It didn't earn MMORPG.com's Reader&#8217;s Choice Award for &#8220;Best Story&#8221; in 2005 for nothing, and if you ask me it's still unmatched in its uniqueness. The artwork doesn't disappoint either.

Customisation, aka classes... There are no classes. You gain XP with every action you take (casting, foraging, crafting, attacking,...), and after you've accumulated enough you earn a certain number of points you can spend at the respective trainer. You think your tank should be able to cast magic? You can do that! Why? because...

Skills... you don't just buy/acquire skills like that, you "purchase" Stanzas at training NPCs. Some special Stanzas can stack and provide fixed bonuses, like increased MP/HP, without the need of equipping them in any way. The rest of them are like indestructible building blocks for skills. Some of them provide momentary energy by eating into one of your stats (HP/MP/...) once or with every use, others inflict a negative effect (e.g cooldown), another kind consumes said energy to provide a positive effect (e.g. inflict bleeding, or propel a spell forward in a straight line for x meters). Even the most basic attack is built out of Stanzas. This can even go so far that you can cast magic for free... only, it'll be a bit weak, and its range won't be great, but hey, free magic!
Everything has a tradeoff of some kind. The further you advance down the four main "skill" trees (Foraging, Crafting, Fighting, Magic), the more specialized and deadly your Stanzas become.
Too complicated? There are prepackaged skills at the trainers for the lazy - but don't worry, they can be broken up into their respective Stanzas with a few clicks. In fact, you just may be way more efficient if you customize the hell out of your skills.... and don't worry, they only charge for Stanzas you don't already own.

Foraging/Harvesting isn't "go to point B and click on disguised treasure chest" anymore, foraging is a piece of work on its own. First, you need to have built an acceptable skill to look for whatever you currently want, with the correct range and quality settings (controlled by Stanzas). Then, you actually have to find a suitable area, which isn't all that easy. Also pay close attention to the seasons and weather, as those greatly influence what you can harvest. Last but not least, you'll have to coax the materials out of the source using another skill, without it blowing up in your face or angering the resident Kami (one-hit-kill if that happens, some negative side effects too), all the while trying to get the most out of the source before either your concentration stat or the sources "energy" runs dry. Others can help you while you're harvesting, so don't think you'll need to go out alone. This sounds complicated, but believe me, it's very immersive and makes sense in the game. Of course the higher the risk, the greater the award. Foraging in a peaceful area void of carnivores will net you basic stuff - if you want to make it big, you'll need to gather your friends and forage/harvest as a team in highly dangerous terrrain or PvP area.
(Of course slaying animals/monsters/whatever and then quartering them rewards you with a whole different set of items - but no money or weapons, which leads us to...)

Crafting! All the equippable non-trivial items (and that really means ALL of them) have a limited life expectancy. This means there is an honest-to-god economy, and crafters are actually needed, because without them, there would be no armor, no weapons, only naked and freezing aliens with butterknifes and loincloths. You can prolong an items' life at a risk of destroying it prematurely, but that chance grows each time - there is no escaping its eventual destruction.
And what a crafting paradise Ryzom is. There's a pretty intricate quality system implemented to reward proper item choice, -quality, and skill level. You have a ridiculous amount of different combinations of materials for even the simplest dagger - but each of them will be unique (if crafting succeeds). The materials affect not only the color, but the design and of course a wide assortment of stats. Plus, there's lots of different stuff to be crafted. Plenty of accessories, weapons, shields, armor, ammunition, consumable items, and so on. Of course, again each of the crafting skills are built from Stanzas, heavily influencing risks, quality, effects, ... Customisation am total.

Selling! You won't often find someone running around spamming about how they're selling their awesome +5 toothpick either, you get the choice of either selling your items to the vendor directly (which takes them "out of the game"), or have him sell them for you, for a cut of the profit of course. You can freely determine the price - but the vendor will keep the item if he doesn't manage to sell it in time, leaving you with only a small advance payment.

Your choice. Prices vary according to your overall fame, your standing with the vendors' faction, and the demand/supply situation.

The rest is the usual MMORPG fare.
e.g. PvP. Yeah. It's there. Arena-based, Guild-based Defend-the-Outpost, Faction griefing, or your standard 1-on-1 consensual duels - there are even some special PvP-enabling areas. If you want to make others cry for mommy, wade kneedeep in blood, this game supports your dark desires. There are some awesome PvP-exclusive foraging spots too ...
Basically, Ryzom should cater to all of your MMORPG tastes, and then some.


By the way, if you're interested in tinkering with stuff, the games' engine (NeL 3D) is now open source (GPL). This is awesome for reasons I'm still trying to invent.

Teh multimedias
Want some videos? Uh... why? MMO fans always insist on putting some stupid music and effects in their videos. Oh well... not my problem.
If you don't want to subject your eyes to the tiny youtube videos, have a look at this site. "Memorys of Atys" (sic) is pretty neat and shows some of the locales and monsters. "Sites of Atys" and "The Atys Movie" on the same page are nice too. Also, the movies on this site show off some locales.

Aaaanyway, youtube vids. Here they are:

A quick trailer about Ryzom Ring
Another one.

Quick glance at the starter area, and a bit of PVP against someone who didn't fight back, be sure to watch the HQ version.
RAID engine at work (HQ available)

A sped-up log of an attack on an outpost of an opposing faction(HQ available)
the four playable races and their surroundings
some extremely basic gameplay (walking around and killing stuff with hugely overpowered spells)

Obligatory neat thing: The game has an integrated MP3/OGG player with support for m3u playlists. Very convenient. By the way, the OST is very nice too. Bjørn Arve Lagim of The Longest Journey and Anarchy Online fame is/was responsible for that. Here are some quick samples.

Whelp, that's all.

See you in the game.
If you observe a "Terkat" behaving like an idiot somewhere, say Hi. Don't expect a coherent response though, I only play MMO stuff when I'm KO and seriously need to relax.

 

[Leezard]

Sounds interesting. I'll give it a try in French to level up my language skills.

 

[A Black Falcon]

Vista workaround? I don't need a Vista workaround...

Oh, that's why. I turned off UAC a long time ago, and use the admin account as my main account. If you turn off UAC, you won't have problems (in this and many other things).

Anyway, as I said in the last thread, I installed it again. Won't be playing a lot, but it's definitely an interesting game, quite different from the standard MMO... interesting design. The interface still isn't very intuitive and finding things can be frustrating, but you get used to it. Pretty good game.

 

[Fireblend]

I'm almost tempted to play, but damn, MMORPGs make me waste months of my life.

 

[CTLance]

I'm almost tempted to play, but damn, MMORPGs make me waste months of my life.

BUT THIS ONE'S FREE TO PLAY, AND FOR A LIMITED TIME ONLY!!!!111

Seriously though, it's your decision. You don't know what you're missing~*

 

[Torquill]

I will never forget what a person manning the booth at a pre-E3 event once said to me.
"As you can see, the gameplay is amazing."

...the screen was showing character selection.

That was awhile ago though, so I won't pass immediate judgement.

 

[JoeMartin]

Skill system reminds me of UO. Which is a good thing.

I signed up, but it's a damn shame it's coming out so close to Warhammer's release since I probably won't have time to give it a legitimate go.

 

[Gwanatu T]

I haven't played WoW for a couple of months because of costs, so I've gone ahead and made my wife and myself a Ryzom account. Thanks a ton, this is some awesome stuff. This is one of those games that came out during my WoW/EQ2 days and I just don't have enough time for 2 MMOs, much less a third, so unfortunately this one went by the wayside. Glad to see it having some promotional free-bee though, this is awesome.

 

[CTLance]

OK, let's do a quickie How-to-play section.
This is a typical (shrinkified) screenshot:

Let's go through that screen in a clockwise motion, starting on the top.
Note: You may drag your windows around as you please, so this will only serve as a small orientation to get you started.
Of course the whole interface is littered with pop-up help bubbles and stuff, but a new interface is always a daunting proposition, so relax and read through my post, I'll try to keep it short.

Anyway, let's start at the top.

This is your action bar.
Its sole purpose in life is to hold the actions you build out of your Stanzas, let you access and organize them, and show what your character has currently in both of his or her hands.
Clicking on empty slots lets you define new actions. Rightclicking on an action pops up a menu that lets you choose between editing it, deleting it, or showing a quick overview on what Stanzas were used for it.

If you leftclick on an action (or press the appropriate key), this will show up below the action bar:

This shows the action in the left box is currently being prepared, and that nothing is planned afterwards. You're free to queue up another action while one is being prepared - it will be shown in the box to the right if you do so.
The arrow fills up slowly or quickly depending on the action, and once it's completed, the action in the left box takes place and the action in the right box will be moved over into the left box. If the left box would now be empty it simply disappears, otherwise the action will be prepared just like before.

Hint: If you want to have an action repeated until you say otherwise, doubleclick its icon.
Some actions go into "endless repeating mode" by default, like harvesting and basic attacks, and others like crafting ignore your doubleclick.

The bar can hold ten sets of actions, and lets you cycle through them via the arrows above and below the numbered field on the right (the mousewheel or keyboard shortcuts work too).

If you want to take something into/out of your hands, leftclick on the hand you want to "modify" and choose an item from your inventory.
Your actions will light up according to your equipment. If you have a weapon in your hand you may not use any crafting skills, therefore they'll be disabled (like the three icons on the right of my example - I'd have to equip an appropriate tool for them to become acccessible).

Hint: It's very convenient if you keep a certain set of "heal self" actions at a constant place, e.g. the rightmost four slots. This lets you get out of tight spots without worrying about what set you're currently using.

This is your compass.
You'll depend on this a lot. It shows you where to go next, and your immediate surroundings. Your character is represented by the tiny triangle, and the various dots represent NPCs, PCs, monsters, and sources around you. Rightclicking on the compass pops up a menue with a vast array of options.

Yellow blips are corpses (mob/player).
Orange blips are monsters.
Gray blips are humanoid NPCs.
Blue blips are players.
Green blips stand for sources that have surfaced.
The white blip represents your currently selected target.

For now we only needn't worry about the fineprint, but setting the range of the displayed area (here: 50 meters around my character) and choosing the arrow target (here: a quest marker set on an NPC 11 meters in north of me) can come in handy even in the beginning, so make sure you acquaint yourself with the compass.

Ooooh.... the system menu.
This lets you access all of the windows, settings, and info you'll ever need.
This menu can take on several shapes by clicking on the icon in its upper left corner. Leave it like that for now, later on you'll have emorized the meanings and shortcuts, allowing for some space savings by putting it into the tiniest configuration.

Three windows that may be of particular interest to you at the beginning are sitting in the "System..." tab.

One is the key config screen, the next is the settings screen, and of course who could forget the OGG/MP3 player. Ok, so only two items are really vital, but I suggest you go and configure the game to your liking ASAP.

Like in all MMOs, you don't simply shut down the client, you choose quit at the bottom of the system menue. A screen will pop up letting you choose between quitting to desktop, character selection screen, or Ryzom ring editor.

Coming up next: the invisible status info area.

Not much to say about that, but sometimes important info is displayed in that area. You can't miss it, and it's out of sight 99.9% of the time.

You chat with this. Duh!
As you might already have deducted from the screenshot, pressing Enter will take your keyboard input - send it to anyone within your reach by pressing Enter again. You can adjust whom to talk to by the button on the left - in this example, we'd only talk to everyone around us (50-100 meters). Of course you have a dedicated party/guild/continent chat, so just press that button and go hogwild. Actually, don't. Always stay polite and helpful please. I doubt I need to explain what the emotes button does...

Leftclicking on the Sys.Info tab hides the chat window and displays lowlevel game-related information instead.

Hint: If you want more chat windows open at the same time I'd recommend rightclicking the respective tab, which will detach it into a separate window.

This is your mission journal. Choose a mission that you want to tackle via the dropdown menu at the top, and read up on vital info and requirements in the area below. This will give you access to all relevant bookmarks for your compass too, by the way.
The X at the upper right corner lets you close this window. If you want to get it back, either press the keyboard shortcut or press the "Missions" button in the System menu.

Hint: Finished missions don't disappear unless you press "Finish" on this window, so clean up once in a while.

This is your character sheet, more or less. It lists the name of your character, his/her current title, and shows how he's doing. You'll gain titles left and right as you progress through the game, so pick a nice one (System Menu->Identity). The four bars stand for health, magic reserves, special attack energy pool, and concentration needed for harvesting/prospecting (from top to bottom). The only one of them that hopefully never ever reaches zero is the health bar, for obvious reasons. You'll slip into a coma once it does, and for a limited time anybody wandering by will be able to resurrect you on-the-spot by casting healing magic against a continuously filling "death" bar. Just pray they succeed, the alternative is painful.
The green icon (

) shows yourPVP status. If you click it (or enter a PVP area for more than 30 seconds) Faction-based PVP will be enabled.

The box below with the empty bar represents your target. You target something by leftclicking it - a targeting reticule will appear around it, and info like Name, Title, health and danger/rarity rating will be filled in if appropriate. The action bar will react to your target and disable/enable some actions according to your target.

You'll also notice that more often then not context sensitive actions will show up after you target something.

Righclicking something will bring up a menu of things you can do with it, like trade, follow, or chat. You'll soon remember the keyboard shortcuts for that, but it's nice to have in the beginning.

A word on the star rating:

In the beginning, run from everything that has more than one star and looks hungry. The guys n the Ranger camp will not attack you of course, but even a "weak" monster can take a sizable chunk out of your health bar with only one attack if you're unprepared. Baby steps!

If you see icons between your character sheet and the action bar that's an indication you are under the influence of a buff. Just move your mouse pointer over it and a popup will tell you what's going on.

That's all for now; please enjoy your stay on Atys.

 

[Eccocid]

interested and downloading

 

[CTLance]

Forgot to expand about the star rating ("con") system some more: Actually, there's a bit more to it than counting the stars.

Look at the color of the targeting reticule (and around the stars in your target stat window), it's giving you a clue about your targets' level:

Green: up to Lvl 30
Blue: up to Lvl 50
Yellow: Lvl 50-100
Orange: Lvl 100-150
Red: Lvl 150-200
Purple: Lvl 200-250

The number of stars goes a bit more in-depth about the monster or NPC in question. The lower the amount of stars, the lower the level. E.g. a three-star green monster would be around Level 25 (±5).

If you're not sure about the level of a target, just mouse over the stars, and a popup will tell you an approcimate level range.

Special stars:
One black star on a colored background means it's a named mob.
Two black stars on a colored background is a boss (-> "Dominant Cray" above). You no attack boss alone, k? Brains your damage, it does.

By the way, if you target something or someone and see an eye (

) pop up to the right side of its name it means he/she/it is targeting you/looking at you as well. Monsters can target you without repercussions... depending on their nature. Some immediately attack, others flee, some ignore you... some stroll over and want to play.

Poke your nose in someone elses' business, dammit! Go away! Shoo!


On death penalty: If you die (after dropping unconscious and not getting resurrected) you will receive a pretty hefty penalty in the form of "negative XP". This penalty will stack, so if you were too weak for a mob the first time around, don't even think about immediately fighting it again, or you will only manage to go deeper in "debt".

The death penalty also adjusts to your overall level, so it becomes more severe the further you advance in the game. While there are items in the game that alleviate the death penalty by speeding up the process, they're out of our reach for some time.

The only way to decrease the death penalty is to gain experience points. So go out there and slay some monsters (or finish quests, or harvest materials, etc...) if you got mauled.

So... if you get clobbered and lie unconscious in a ditch somewhere, try to get someone to resurrect you to avoid painful repercussions.

In my neverending benevolence I sacrificed my life and died for your amusement! This was entirely by my own volition and in no way, shape or form connected to the rumors that the dastardly mob snuck up on me while I was foraging. Nuh-huh. Anyway, this is what it looks like when you're dead:

BAM. OUCH. Just like that.

Take a good look at the respawn map, as it offers you some respawn points.

There are only three of those on the starter Island, and two of them are closely grouped together in the ranger camp. If you're 110% sure you won't be resurrected select one and choose Respawn.

This icon in the buff/debuff area will remind you that you're a horribly stupid alien that didn't manage to be resurrected in time:

Rats!



I'm thinking about scrounging together some chat commands next. Anybody knowledgable reading this? I cannot be the only Ryzom player on this huge forum...

 

[Gwanatu T]

I'm thinking about scrounging together some chat commands next. Anybody knowledgable reading this? I cannot be the only Ryzom player on this huge forum...

Thanks for all your info. I'm sure there's someone else who plays or at least has played before, but I haven't yet. I'll start this weekend and see how things work from there.

 

[CTLance]

Let's craft a bit today, shall we?

First, you'll need to own a crafting plan, a crafting tool and enough mats (materials).

The crafting plan can be purchased, upgraded, and extended with skill points at your skill trainer. Once you've bought it, it's yours, it's one of the few items that don't disintegrate over time - all Stanzas are yours to keep. Later on you'll even find plans on certain boss mobs, but that's far off for now.

Mats... mats are everywhere. Kill mobs and quarter them, prospect for and subsequently harvest sources. You may also want to check out NPC vendors if you have the money.

The crafting tools can be found there as well.

The quality level of our product will be determined by the mat with the least quality, but it may never exceed the quality level set by the plan. "Fine" or better materials are always preferred, since they have higher stats.

To look at the stats of a certain mat, rightclick on it and select info (in some windows rightclicking alone will do). This will bring up a window like these:

The drop down menu lets you view the stats if you use the mat in a different way, e.g. as stuffing for a vest instead of as a grip for a dagger. Most mats have more than one use.

Anyway, so we have everything we need, yes? Just in case we don't have an action yet I'll walk you through the required steps (keep in mind you may not have all of these Stanzas yet, don't worry about it, just grasp how it's done and you're set):

First - click on an empty slot on your action bar and choose "new action".

This window will pop up. Do as you're told and select an appropriate plan.
The window will change shape. I want something better than the default choice of ql (quality level) 10 jewels, since I've bought the relevant upgrade at the skill trainer. Since that's the case, I'll click on the credit stanza and choose a better one:

See the green number on the bottom? That's our "credit". We can leave the action like that and gain an advantage from the unused credit, or we may add options that usually eat into our credit, but provide beneficial effects. Normally you can add more than one credit stanza (as long as it's a different type) and Option stanza, but we're crafting lowlevel stuff, so this will have to be enough. We cannot use more credit than we're providing, so at most we can use up all existing credit. Click "Add Option" and look if you have an option you may want. In my case, I had a tiny HP boost stanza lying around, so I added it for shits 'n giggles.

Once again, rightclicking a Stanza will tell you what it does. Let's have a quick overview on how my particular jewel crafting stanza looks like:

I have a small crafting bonus when I use this action, because I didn't use up all of the credit. It'll add a permanent HP boost to all items I craft, and the upper ql limit will be ql 20. I think this will have to do for now.
Click "Learn the action" if you're happy with it. Don't be an idiot like me and forget to give it a good name. If you don't like an action anymore, or if you want to upgrade it because you have purchased new Stanzas, just rightclick it and choose edit. A familiar window will pop up and allow you to futz around with the action... like giving it an expressive name.

Hurr hurr. I maed a funnay.

Ok, now we have a nice crafting action. (On that note, making a combat, foraging, harvesting or magic action is entirely the same, it just differs by your choice of plan and subsequently Option/Credit Stanzas! The underlying mechanic is the same with all of them.)

First, we go somewhere where no nasty mobs can bother us, and we make sure our inventory has a bit of space left for the new item. Then, we equip the appropriate tool by leftclicking on our hand in the action bar and choosing it.

Well what do you know, the crafting action was enabled! Let's click it.

This will bring up a huge window, but again, we'll simply choose a plan by clicking in the box in the upper left corner. This will bring up a list of items we can craft:

I want my alien to look pretty, so I'll make a ring. By the way, if you want to have more choice, visit your crafting trainer and buy the correct Plan stanzas.

Aaaanyway, the window has changed and now offers different slots to put our mats in. I think this is self explanatory, just leftclick the box and choose from the popup. If you chose the wrong mat, leftclick it again and choose remove. Easy.

As you can see, the game offers a preview with stats on the right side. Be careful, some items have certain restrictions on what stats are actually used and which ones are discarded!

Once you're happy with your item just click the appropriate button in the lower right corner. Bear in mind that there's a chance your crafting will fail, indicated by the success rating on the upper left corner. This is where the credits from before come in: the higher the unused credits, the smaller the risk of failure. Your choice. I want that HP bonus though, so I'll accept the risk.

Aaaanyway....

...

Yay! A purtiful ring! Now don't go clicking the wrong button...
(Rightclick the item to see its stats, either in the above window, or in the inventory window)

Mmmh, not too shabby. Just look at that awesome HP bonus! I may want to equip this...

Go into the inventory screen, choose the Equip tab, click on the ring panel and select the ring you want. Done.

If you're unsure about the stats, remember our trusty rightclick technique. Stats windows stay open if you click on the small tack on the upper right corner, so if you want to clutter your screen with stats windows while you mull over the perfect equipment combination you're free to do so.

 

[CTLance]

I'm not giving up yet! Neogaf may shun this game, but I'll ram it down your collective throats until you like it!

Todays' lesson: Let's enchant our weapons.

Why?
For additional damage or other effects while meleeing, without any need for lengthy casting. When you use it you gain XP as if you had cast the spell in question, so it can be a convenient way to level up certain areas of magic.

Are there disadvantages?
It does have a limited amount of uses until it needs to be recharged using Sap crystals, and it consumes your health/sap/etc according to the spells' credit stanzas when activated.

How do I use these enchantments?
You need to have an enchanted weapon in your right hand (the right slot on your action bar), and it needs to have enough charges to cast the enchantment. Furthermore, you need to have enough Sap (MP) to activate the enchantment. Now target something and press this action:

...and that's all. You may use the enchantment as often as you like, as long as you fullfill the above requirements.

How do I enchant my weapon?
Easy. Get a crystallized spell. You don't need to make the crystal yourself, a fellow player with better magic skills can trade it to you.

If you want to create your own crystallized spell, then...

1. Choose a spell in your action bar
2. Rightclick it
3. Select Crystallize

Your character will do a casting animation, and you'll obtain the crystallized version of the spell. Be aware that this action consumes dappers (money).​

Now equip the weapon you want to enchant, rightclick the crystallized spell in your inventory and choose "Enchant right hand". If there already was an enchantment on your weapon, it will be lost and overwritten with the new enchantment.

A word on weapons:

Pay close attention to your weapon stats! There's a stat called "Sap Load" that severely affects your possible number of charges. If it is too low you might not even be able to enchant it, or use the enchantment! Some weapons cannot be enchanted at all, since they lack the relevant stat. Crafters beware!

How do I know how often I can use the enchantment?
Have a quick look at your weapon, by rightclicking it or by equipping it.

See that little "0" in the upper left corner? That's the number of uses you can get out of that weapon right now. No way in hell you'll be able to cast anything like that. You better add some charges and fill up that Sap load stat.

How do I charge a weapon?
To use the enchantment the weapon needs to be loaded with Sap. For this we need Sap crystals. How do you obtain them? Well, once again, you can ask others, or you can make them yourself.

If you want to create your own Sap crystals, then...

1. Create an action that invokes this Stanza:
   
2. Activate it by clicking it

You'll obtain a Sap crystal

. Once again, this costs a certain amount of money.

To charge your weapon/enchantment, just rightclick on the Sap crystal and choose "Reload right hand". You cannot exceed a weapons' Sap load limit. It just caps out right there, so don't waste your money/crystals.