Concerns

[zianno]

As someone who is an experienced MMO player and yet new to the world of Ryzom, I must admit to having some concerns about the current state of affairs.

While looking for something new and exciting to play a few months ago I was quite pleasantly surprised to learn about Ryzom and it's f2p return to the marketplace. This gave me an opportunity to start playing and learn about a game which appears to have a passionate playerbase despite a rather chequered history.

I immediately fell in love with the gameplay and graphics of the game while becoming involved in a Guild which seemed to have a lot of experienced players.

I am the kind of person that will quite happily subscribe to a game that appears to have an active development cycle and regular content updates to keep the game feeling fresh and exciting.

Now I understand that the new owners of Ryzom have a mammoth task in front of them in getting to grips with an existing codebase, setting up a new billing system and the other 1000 things that no doubt go along with taking over an in depth MMO such as Ryzom is... but this is where the concerns start.

So here goes..

1) While setting up a new billing system is obviously a priority, would it not be sensible to discuss with the community at large the various payment options available? (credit cards, paypal, paybycash etc..)

2) Even though there are obviously many things that need to be done before Ryzom can go back to p2p would it really not be in everyone's best interest if more regular updates were given.

I'm not asking for much here, but I'm sure a lot of people would agree that a little information given frequently would be a whole lot better than chunks given every month or so. People need to feel they have something to look forward to.

How about setting up a 'Developers Diary' kind of thing ? A simple post once a week that tells small things i.e "Well this week we reviewed the events structure and there was some talk about updates to previously unfinished content. We created a thread HERE for you to discuss the ideas available to us at this time"

3) Some form of long term plan? Yes I know it's hard at the beginning to give any definite plans for something as complex as an MMO, but even a rough timetable would give the long term players something to smile about and get their teeth into.

4) News about advertising ? The MMO marketplace today is cut-throat, and while Ryzom obviously has features that make it stand out from the crowd it is going to need some hard advertising to achieve a position in the market and become self sustaining.

I post here btw as I do not have rights to post to a more appropriate area due to the fact i'm new here.

I'd be interested to hear comments and opinions in what i've posted...

Zianno

[piquedram]

All sound like great ideas to me...

[ajsuk]

All sound like great ideas to me...

I concur. All little things that don't require much effort, but would go a long way in pleasing and making the community feel more confident.

I'm glad you took the time to post your thoughts, seems the concerns of the veteran players mean little, perhaps yours will carry more weight. =)

[fiach]

/signed

[knijntje]

/agree

give us something to look forward to...

[jam2005]

I'm not asking for much here, but I'm sure a lot of people would agree that a little information given frequently would be a whole lot better than chunks given every month or so. People need to feel they have something to look forward to.

QFE and /signed

[zianno]

Thanks for the comments everyone. I'd really like to push the idea of the Developer's Diary.. even if it's a small post once a week... How about it Community Liasion / Managers / Moderators ? Is this something that could be put forward to the Dev team / Management etc ?...

[kalindra]

It would get more visibility if it was posted in the Marketing "Brainstorm" section, methinks. It's honestly a good suggestion, as it would satisfy both the current community and might spark the curiosity of potential new players.

[zianno]

Done, posted to Brainstorming

[0bahtun0]

Late joining the topic.

Any chance we can get a "life-time membership" option? I know -some- games offer it. (ok, ok, don't stone me for saying it). It's just that personally, my play time has gotten erratic w/ work and RL issues. And I would like to help the game out by paying my sub, but if I'm not around to play, seems it's being wasted. But if I have the lifetime membership, I have the option and convenience of coming back to playing more when RL responsibilities permit.