So after we start paying, will we get to know who Spiderweb is ?

[riveit]

Hi Tyilin,

I miss your movies! Make some more!

...But no one (or <1% players) knew ALL of the names of all of the employees. Thats what a company is: Employees.

Here you go.

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/sagaryzom/tech_info.html

[rdfall]

Riveit, you, my friend, are crazy xD

[fadebait]

It's very easy for anyone to hijack any payment method. It doesnt stop me from using ATM's. It doesnt stop me from buying online using Ebay. It wont stop me paying for subscriptions for other MMORPG's and it wont stop me from paying for Ryzom.

Once again, failure to think. Online payments are guarenteed as secure by SSL certificates, which are signed in the name of a company. Given that we aren't sure of the relationship between Winch Gate, the lady in Cyprus mentioned in the whois, Spiderweb and Ryzom, not to mention the poor quality of the SSL certificate used, this payment is rather less secure than it should be.

I would agree. However. Seeing as the development team is run by someone from the original (and all exhaulted) Nevrax I cant see that as a plauseable possibility.

I see no proof of this. Furthermore even if proof existed it doesn't establish what their intentions are regarding Ryzom - it's a minor point at best.

To form a contract (in the UK) yes. you must know the names of all parties involved. But you're assuming that on billing it wont say who you've paid. IE "Pay Winch Gate". You're also assuming that a company who are able to leagally buy the game have no idea of the basic legal obligations for charging for services.

Given that they are already technically violating UK law I would say that it's entirely possible they have no idea of their legal obligations. And it's not limited to the rules governing legal contracts. Or they just don't care that much. I sincerely hope it's the former, but am not sure about that.


What we have so far is a shadowy group of organisations that refuse to identify themselves. They have started the servers, and established some form of connection. Given current player volumes this need not have been an unreasonably expensive proposition, especially if they already had hosting venues they could use, and they kept the original hardware.
They have done nothing for a long time claiming 'paperwork'. Recently they released a small serverside patch, and started to talk about billing.

To me that picture raises a big red flag.

Apparently the rest of you are a lot more trusting - I wish you luck with that attitude and hope it does not come back to bite you.

Just remember two things:
One is that assuming Ryzom 'never made money' and thus 'There is no scam/con potential' is rather silly. Ryzom did actually make money at one point - just not enough to satisfy it's creditors at the time. Furthermore if they already have sufficent hosting and connectivity facilities Ryzom would not be desperately expensive to keep running in it's current state.

The other is that if someone is asking you for money but isn't willing to tell you who they are, then giving them money is pretty much always a bad idea.

That one actually sums up much (but not all) of my issue with the current status-quo. There simply is no good reason for all this secrecy, and having seperate shell companies in various different countries - one to bid for the game and start it up, and another one, apparently unrelated, to collect payments (in a country with rather less legal protection than you might hope for) is a classic tactic used by people who are a lot cleverer and a lot more ruthless than you give them credit for.

(And as an aside, I haven't been in game much recently either. And you share my avoid list with other such gems of the community as Kimmerin - but I don't let any of you spoil my ingame experience)

[riveit]

Riveit, you, my friend, are crazy xD

Hehehe. You only just noticed?

[totnkopf]

Yeah, because customer confidence in them and their abilities isn't important.

Communication is key.

This.


A company buys Ryzom, is open about its past history in the games market, how large it is, budget, etc. They present a roadmap for the next 2 years for where they want the game to go.

sounds pretty good doesn't it? We have enough information to adjust our expectations and perhaps enough confidence to see if Ryzom is something we'd be ok spending our cash on.

Compare it to this...

A company buys Ryzom, discloses nothing about itself and simply responds through the old systems that were in place before. They give just enough information to make it seem like they are working on the game, but then simply add/remove a cart from a doorway every other patch. In the mean time, subs restarted and a significant portion of the veterans subbed up. Since the game was dirt cheap to acquire due to it having bankrupted several companies and being partially completed, the mysterious company was able to cover the cost of aquiring the game within the first few months. Profit rolls in as players continue to hold on to the last shreds of hope that the game they all loved wasn't actually being used to simply suck up some quick cash.

Its a bit dramatic, but it wouldn't be out of the question. No one bought Ryzom so they could lose money on it. So, I'm all for SW or whoever it is now being very forthright and open about who they are and what they intend to do with the game. There is no saying they'd actually adhere to whatever they come up with, but its a least better than not saying anything at all.


Edit: sup Red. There are a couple of us that still lurk around.

[acridiel]

Hi Tyilin,

I miss your movies! Make some more!



Here you go.

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/sagaryzom/tech_info.html

OMG! Those movies they have over there are early BETA! *gasp* XD
How do I put up some others?

CU
Acridiel

[olepi]

I normally do care about who is developing a game, before buying it. Some developers get more trust from me than others. For example, I really like BioWare, and would probably buy anything they make without seeing it first. It is very helpful to see that a company has been around a while, has released good products, has demonstrated that they care about their customers, have a good track record on patches and bug fixes, etc. Let's review:

- company been around a while? -- heck, what IS the company???
- has released good products? -- they did manage to get Ryzom running again, but they have added nothing new
- demonstrated they care about their customers? -- I haven't seen this.
- good track record on patches? -- they have released one patch that I know of.

So basically, the company wants to remain in the dark, they have not added anything new, they have no track record to speak of. It appears to me to be a group of people who like Ryzom, and they managed to get it running again.

[totnkopf]

So basically, the company wants to remain in the dark, they have not added anything new, they have no track record to speak of. It appears to me to be a group of people who like Ryzom, and they managed to get it running again.

They didn't just buy it to set it up and lose chunks of cash each month. Ryzom hasn't turned a profit for any company that has owned it yet. So while it may be some folks who really liked Ryzom, they didn't buy it just to keep the servers running and losing cash.

And if it is a couple of guys who really want to see Ryzom stick around then development of the game will be even slower than before when there was at least a team of people working on the game. The past 4 years hasn't seen much development of the game at all, and much of that was done by Nevrax early in Ryzoms life. I'm not willing to wait around another 4 years to see the gaping holes in the game patched at an agonizingly slow pace. Any of the other MMOs I've played had a faster development speed than Ryzom. Even silkroad, a free-to-play MMO was developing at lightspeed compared to Ryzom. RFO, WoW and SWG all patched and communicated better with their client base than Ryzom.

[rdfall]

HAH, RFO patch? barely, they'd be talking and we'd be waiting for that next major patch to come for like 6 to 9 months, and then they'd release half of it. And when we'd get the second half, another 3 months later, it wouldn't contain the features it was supposed to have.

Ryzom might not have been developped the past year, but it had no owner the past year. When the new devs know the code they'll be working on stuff, and they'll actually tell us when things are ready and will get ingame.

[suib0m]

Ok.. so I did some digging on the net regarding the current domain holder and found some interesting information that very much doesn't add up.

Please release information as to who the current ownership and developers of the game are before the release of the subscription service. I'm a staunch supporter of Ryzom and I'd happily pay the subscription (as my financial situation allows) for the game, even as it is now. I find it a lovely playground where I can develop a story for my characters. But, at this point, I have decided against giving my billing information for the subscription until I know more about the people involved (which makes me sad, actually).

I will not post my findings since I cannot make any distinct correlations at this time between who "Spiderweb" is what their relationship is to the domain holder. It could be that my information is irrelevant to the game development. I just wanted to express my concerns.

Peace,
- Sui