Setting up the trial account was also very easy. The free trial allows you to play in the Ruins of Silan starter-island indefinitely, with no credit card required for account set-up. Of course, the creatures on the starter island only go so high, level 30ish is the highest I've seen, so you'll have plenty of playing time to get to know the game controls and some of the type of content before needing to convert your account to a paying account. One thing to note is that your username on the official forums is automatically your account name, so you don't want to make your account name personally identifying if you don't want that showing up on every post you may make on the official forums.

The next task you must perform is creating your character. From what I can tell, the only thing that race affects is character appearance and your starting town once you leave the Ruins of Silan. Despite what the background story on the official site portrays, you can choose which faction to follow, or work to remain neutral and accepted by both factions, so that's not a major decision to make at character creation either. So pick a race and gender that appeals to your sense of aesthetics, as you'll be looking at the character for a long time. Now is also a good time to mention that the official site also has a Ruins of Silan Starter Guide in comic book form, that really has some good information in it.

I'll go into more detail in my blogs as to what Oakleif actually did, but I'll comment on some gameplay elements now.

• The questing system seems fairly robust, with a variety of types of quests. Of course, Ryzom Ring, the free expansion, allows players to create their own quests that play out in instances. These quests can be open to everyone, and each time a person starts a new instance for the player-created quest they can choose who to bring along on the quest with them. That is the first time I've heard of this functionality in a MMOG, though some games like Neverwinter Nights have done it for small group cooperative play.
• The starter quests follow a very nice progression through the skills, easily teaching you what you need as you master prerequisite skills as a player. Melee combat, for instance, progresses from simply how to attack something, to how to use a special attack, to how to customize an attack, to pointing out the necessity to be aware of creature actions to determine their threat level to yourself, to teaming up with others.
• The game is skill-based rather than level based, where every action in Combat, Magic, Harvesting, or Crafting earns experience toward that tree. If you cast a spell to pull a creature, but then use melee to finish it off, your will gain experience in each skill proportional to the damage done with that skill.
• Combat and magic are dynamic, with an easy way for players to customize spells, while still maintaining balance. Two exactly identical players in terms of their skill tree and equipment can still fight very differently due to what customized actions they choose. Crafting and Harvesting are also dynamic this way, allowing for creation of myriads of different items.
• Combat is also fairly quick, with minimal downtime, but not so fast that you feel you are in a first person shooter.
• When you defeat a mob, make sure you quarter it (cut up the carcass to get loot) to get raw materials to sell or to use in your own crafting. The mobs level determines the quality of what you loot, which in turn affects the stats of any item eventually made with it. Also, different types of animals and plants and mineral resources affect stats differently. So the hide of a yubo will create armor with different characteristics than armor made from the hide of a bodoc.
• The user interface is very easy to customize and arrange the way you want. You have easy access to 20 hotkeys, plus macros that can be bound to different key-strokes, plus nearly any action in game can be mapped to the keyboard as well.
• The graphics are gorgeous, in a not-trying-to-be-real, sort of way. The sound is also very complimentary and immersive rather than annoying or distracting.
• Obviously I haven't been playing long, and I'm still on the starter island, but its been full of people and lag hasn't been an issue at all. The number of people running around is also a very positive sign for the health of the game.
• During most of the day today there has been at least one Player Guide, if not two, talking to people in the starting area. They are part of the customer service team and were particularly patient and helpful in answering all those “what if” type questions that new players often have.
• If you don't happen to be on at the same time as one of the these guides, there is a Universe channel that is available to everyone (yes, you can be anti-social and turn it off) that is resevered for asking for help and advice from other players. Apparently the logs of that channel are checked, because they state that abuse of it can result in the loss of the privilege of speaking on it – a feature and policy that I think is very nice.