"GMs Leaving" & *reads "Letter to the SoR community, from David Cohen Corval"*

[micrix]

Y'all Brits wouldn't be considerin' this to be a retakin' of the colonies, now would ya? 0.o

Dont worry, you ll meet people from all over europe.

[zukor]

You do know lots of companies are successful without any NA operation. You do also know that there are many MMO's they run in non-NA areas and are very successful. The NA market didn't work for them, so they are ended the NA operations and focusing in the ones in Europe.

Perhaps. We shall see. I'm sticking with my opinion for now. This kind of retrenchment has also been seen in many MMORPG's that were failing. In the next 6 months or so, we will know the answer to this.

Doctor Z.

[tomimaci]

You do know lots of companies are successful without any NA operation. You do also know that there are many MMO's they run in non-NA areas and are very successful. The NA market didn't work for them, so they are ended the NA operations and focusing in the ones in Europe.

I don't know which games you mean Raynez, but I fear those games were succesfuly in Korea for example... like Lineage 2.

I will stick with SoR as long as they don't shut down the servers, but seriously Mr. Cohens thread was not very happy about the present situation. He was very honest, so I really respect him, bit what he wrote, showed me, that not even he is satisfied how things are going, both financial (meaning the number of people playing) and the development rate.

Lets hope for the best!

[andreaw]

I agree with Melanija. Events are what our csr excel at (aside from unbelieveably fast ticket-response times and super-friendly, professional attitudes). There is an almost constant stream of events of all kinds, appealing to everyone from role-players to dedicated fighters, with an entire spectrum in between. The best thing as I see it is their response to what we ask for. You can guarantee that within a couple of weeks of someone suggesting something on the Arispotle events boards the guys will have produced it. And if they don't, the players themselves will.

The player-organised events are amazing here. Some of the best I've attended. I don't know where these guys get their ideas from, let alone the wherewithall to put them into practice, but we're so lucky to have such an active community.

I truely sympathise with you over losing your familiar csr team. If they are anything like as wonderful as our guys then it must feel like you are saying goodbye to friends. I couldn't imagine what it would be like to lose ours But I really hope you will give them, and us, a chance to prove that new and different isn't always a bad thing. I played with so many ppl during all betas who subsequently moved to the NA server, and I missed them so much. The thought of being able to play alongside them again is SO exciting. We all have different qualities we can bring to this mix and I for one have so much faith that we can re-integrate really smoothly and create something great along the way.

This all feels so exciting now. The game, and Klients, is buzzing with yesterday's news and how it will effect us all. There are some from both servers who quite rightly have worries, but the over-riding opinion seems to be incredibly positive and hopeful, certainly from our side

To get back on topic, I think (and hope) that you can't fail to enjoy the quality of events we have here on Arispotle, and I and my friends are looking forward to taking part in them alongside you guys.

[raynes]

If you read his letter it's clearly talking about the North American operations. They introduced the game in Sept of 2004 and it never caught on. It came down to the fact that the number of players in NA just didn't support the cost of running the game in NA. Of course then people will say "But if the other servers are doing well, why not keep them all running and cover the NA loss with the profit from the other servers?". SImple... The number of players. In order for a MMO to be successful it needs players. If new people try a game and see no one playing it, they will not stay. This was the case with the NA server.

No matter how you look at this, only good can come from it. Players will have more people to play with. The NA players will get the events they should of always had. There will be no more "We can't have guides for legal reasons". The only bad thing that people are complaining about is LAG, which isn't a problem if you have a high speed connection.

[sprite]

There will be no more "We can't have guides for legal reasons".

I was thinking abuot this, I wonder if the people from the US will be able to become guides? Maybe since the server you guys&gals connect to is now on UK soil, things will be subject to UK law and there will be no more restrictions \o/

[zukor]

If you read his letter it's clearly talking about the North American operations. They introduced the game in Sept of 2004 and it never caught on. It came down to the fact that the number of players in NA just didn't support the cost of running the game in NA. ..........
............No matter how you look at this, only good can come from it. Players will have more people to play with. The NA players will get the events they should of always had. There will be no more "We can't have guides for legal reasons". The only bad thing that people are complaining about is LAG, which isn't a problem if you have a high speed connection.

and despite the patches we brought into the game over the last 6 months, we still haven't got the right number of players in SoR to support both the in-game dynamics and the company. In order to successfully confront this present situation, and deliver the most awaited SoR experience, we have decided to adapt Nevrax itself on different levels of its organization and priorities.

I don't know, raynes. I don't see Corval specifically mentioning NA in his comments. I get the feeling the underpopulation of SoR is a global problem, and shutting down the US is the first step in cutting losses. This won't magically increase the population of the game, BTW. In fact, I expect the number of NA players to dwindle further. I suspect Nevrax is still losing money even after they close the US server and get rid of the support team. What will be next, close the German server if that isn't making money? You can get into a vicious cycle here. The main reason, to recapitulate, that there aren't more people in the game is that they simply haven't done enough with it. Very little of the original premise ("on the box") is present even after all this time. Corval more or less acknowleges this in his letter.

The question is will they run out of money before they can correct this?

Doctor Z.

[zumwalt]

I was thinking about this some more, you know how many people would up and buy the game if they added dune buggies? I mean seriously, I would re-subscribe, create 2 more accounts for my kids, just so they could ride around and blow stuff up.

Add a machine gun on front for a passenger, a turret on top for another passenger, and 3 accounts in one vehicle blowing stuff up.

I'd be willing to give them $20 a month per account for some sensless chaos like that.

The map already is cool for such a device, they have the particle effects in place, imagine, driving along running over yubo's for fun!

Or better yet, a race from town to town in a buggy!

Full pvp race vs race wars in vehicles with respawns like half life!

That would be sooo cool..

And we know there engine supports it!

[sprite]

Go play XMP

[rmillard]

Go play XMP

I think Zum was speaking tongue-in-cheek

I hope the predictions (including mine) of doom are wrong, but I've seen these kinds of 'reorganization' letters before and the end result was always the same.

Nevrax still has an NeL game engine to license so it's in their best interest to keep the game going, on any scale. If more players depart they will merge more servers. The point is to keep one server running somewhere with an adequate population as a testbed. I'm sure they would've welcomed an explosion of population in NA and stood at the ready to add server farms to keep pace with the demand.

We started with a bang and word of mouth was great - I sure did my part to get people excited about the game. It's only in the last couple of months that I've backed off my enthusiasm. And it's not just about lack of content. I could live with that personally, but it's that every blessed time they patch, not just once in a while, but every single time they patch I have more bugs after than before! Then another mini-patch and another one follow to 'fix' the problems.

Maybe they rushed this to market. I suspect they did in order to beat WoW and EQ2 to the punch. Their strategy was to get people hooked and then add the box features after they had gotten out of the red. Well the tide swelled and is receding and the features don't exist, the bugs remain and the water is receding to the sea again. They will consolodate and reorganize and consolodate and reorganize and a new name will appear on the letterhead and then another and finally one day the last three people online will be told to log out because the server is coming down for the last time.

Alternate ending: the source goes open and the community takes it over and keeps Ryzom alive albeit in a limited sense for years to come. These people who still rave about Atari 2600 games and the days of D&D with pencil and paper will continue to log in daily and make new stories for each other long after the rest of the world has lost interest.

I adore this game and the community that has sprung up around it. Nevrax, please prove me wrong.

Jaspernak
Eye of Atys