The Atysian Subscription

[elthunim]

And the Pessimist Award goes to...

Arispotle is one of three servers.

114 on Arispotle + 115 on Leanon + 165 on Aniro = 394 votes total.

Responses, as of today, do vary.

Ja, der Preis sieht fair aus. 11 9.57%
Ja, weil ich Ryzom helfen möchte 47 40.87%
Ja, aber der Preis ist viel zu hoch für mich. 18 15.65%
Nein, Ich möchte mich nicht länger als ein Monat bzw. ein Jahr binden. 9 7.83%
Nein, es ist viel zu teuer für mich. 4 3.48%
Nein, ich werde nicht so lange bei Ryzom bleiben 0 0%
Nein, ich habe kein Vertrauen in eure Transparenz oder die Zukunft von Ryzom. 26 22.61%
Voters: 115.
German poll

Oui, ce tarif me parait honnête. 13 7.74%
Oui, car je souhaite aider Ryzom. 42 25.00%
Oui, mais ce tarif reste bien trop élevé. 10 5.95%
Non, je ne souhaite pas dépasser plus que le coût d’un abonnement par an, ou par mois. 22 13.10%
Non c’est beaucoup trop cher. 4 2.38%
Non car je ne souhaite pas rester sur Ryzom à long terme. 2 1.19%
Non car je n'ai pas confiance, ni de visibilité dans le futur de Ryzom 75 44.64%
Voters: 168.
French poll

Yes, that price seems fair. 7 6.14%
Yes, because I want to help Ryzom. 24 21.05%
Yes, but the price is still far too much. 3 2.63%
No, I don't want to exceed a yearly or monthly subscription. 20 17.54%
No, because it's far too expensive. 3 2.63%
No, because I don't plan on staying with Ryzom in the long term. 3 2.63%
No, because I don't have confidence in your transparency or the future of Ryzom. 54 47.37%
Voters: 114.
English/US poll

Let's all give the German crowd a big round of applause for their confidence in Ryzom

Assuming all voters answered the question that was actually asked, let's note that:
- only 5 players overall responded that they won't consider the life account because they wouldn't be staying at all.
- among those who gave the last answer, a fair, if not large, number will apply caution and pay month-by-month or by quarter, instead of a flat lifetime fee.

[zarozina]

I voted the last way partly for the reasons stated on the box, but also for the reasons Nysha mentioned earlier - I would rather pay by month and give Ryzom more money AS THEY NEED IT than give them less money overall. This coupled with the fact that I to don't have a weeks wages to spend on it all in one go.

I don't believe a company in the state this one is in, selling what is eseentially a speciallist product to a minority market, can realistically make use of a "loss leader". Month by month subs are better for the game financially in the long run, as well as being better for the player who is not convinced Ryzom's future is safe yet.

[fadebait]

Ah, I didn't realise the other servers had their own polls - but still...

although that's slightly better news - assuming only one in three subscribers vote, then they end up making somewhere between 60-90K per annum... which is still not enough. Sorry, but I don't think it's even remotely possible to run an MMO of this type with this few subscribers without making significant financial losses.

[rdfall]

say about 400 votes. If as you say 1 out of 3 people votes (keep in mind, new accounts can't vote, so i think it's an even lower percentage) that means 1200 subscribers. Times 8 euros is 9.600 euros per month. I think you can have the servers running and a couple of devs working.

Nobody knows how many devs there actually are at the moment, but i say we don't need too many extra subs to get profitable, not with a small dev team, and afaik all CSR and event team are volunteers.

Say only 1 out of 5 can vote; with all of the new people, you have 2.000 subscribers, at 8 euros per month that makes 16.000 euros per month already. Still not enough to support old Nevrax's 50-odd people, but with that amount of money i believe you can have 6 payed devs working on the game and maintain the servers.

[suib0m]

Firstly, every indication I've found is that winch gate is just an investor. I don't know why everyone decided to call the owners winch gate just cause the domain was registered by wg. Calling them wg just confuses things.

Secondly, I haven't really seen any indication that the owners plan on taking over the MMO universe. It wouldn't make sense, as the longevity of this game has been largely due to its niche nature. There have been games out there that live in survival mode with relatively little yet still function. Merely the fact that this game was resurrected again with some of the same folks working the backend is an indication that there is some amount of love for what Ryzom is, more than just wanting to make big profits.

Thirdly, as said before, there are many players who cannot vote, and I'd hazard a guess that there are even more that don't even bother with the forums but would still be willing to pay (tho obviously not the lifetime sub).

This thread isn't about solvency, it's about testing the waters for a potential option for a quick infusion. Yes I think it was poorly done and its timing was even worse, but this thread has gotten way off track.

Vote. Let the devs know what you think of the options you are voting for. But there's not much use in guessing all over the map as to the plans for the future. Right now we just don't know (again, I don't agree with this stance, but that's not the point).

Peace,
- Sui

[crs48]

I answered no because in a business like this, a one-time payment is NOT the way to go. They'll need a steady cash flow monthly. Once you spend the one-time payment, there's nothing left.

Not a good business idea.

[dollly]

you ask for a lifetime comitment,yet you've barely introduced yourselves.
all that are here ,are here because they love/loved this game.
we have have made a lifetime comitment by staying,
you need to comit to something, other then asking for a hand out as the economy hits rock bottom.
befor you ask for money, you should ask yourselves "are we selling a game".
if so,then SELL IT!
also your lack of communication about any future plans of the game, to keep intrest up, is nonexsistent at best.
i suggest you re-think your stratagy, you have a product and it had a demand at one point in time. you should try "new and improved" approach at least. but to do that it would mean marketing/sales/development. at this point you haven't done anything really but plug it in and let people play.
you have the reins of this run-a-way stagecoach,either do it up right or turn it off!


love always
DD

[faedyne]

I haven't even voted because I'm not sure how to pick one...
Someone else already interpreted the 2nd last choice that says "I don't plan on staying with Ryzom in the long term." as meaning they will not stick around at all. I'm going to stick around, just not for 3 years. Maybe on-and-off. I remember getting bored when I played 3 years ago. I can't remember how long I played. Maybe half a year.
Also, it's mostly for all the reasons... and then some. It's too much money FOR ME. Whether it's a fair price, I'm not sure.
Personally, I'd like something to show for it. A real life fake-amber sphere with a tiny Kipesta in it, like the one in the hilt of the sword in the logo. Or something in game, like the candy canes. Alpha testers got that cool breakdancing move. I'm not sure how this compares to that though.

Firstly, every indication I've found is that winch gate is just an investor. I don't know why everyone decided to call the owners winch gate just cause the domain was registered by wg. Calling them wg just confuses things.

*snip*

Vote. Let the devs know what you think of the options you are voting for. But there's not much use in guessing all over the map as to the plans for the future. Right now we just don't know (again, I don't agree with this stance, but that's not the point).

Well, I think that's part of the problem. We haven't been told what the situation is and who's doing what. I still don't know what "Animation" is, if that's a project or a team or what. Is "Animation" the group that's running Ryzom?? Is it a sub-group of them?
We don't need to know the schedules and progress reports and the names of all the employees, but we would like a "face" to address, at least a general idea of what they're doing, and the name on the contract that we can go find out that others have trusted in the past so that we don't have to worry about it. The "Animation" announcement still is very vague, mostly in context. (like whether this is it, or whether it's just part of the current team behind Ryzom.)

There are other things that could be added, things with better longevity. Regions, skills, and "quests" are shortsighted ideas. If WG added five new regions, five new skills, and twenty quests, two weeks later everything would be status quo again. It would probably take at least 6-12 months to cook that stuff up, even in an ideal financial situation.

I disagree with you at least in regard to regions.
We don't want it so crowded that we waste all our time fighting amongst hunting groups and come away with nothing. (maybe some DP even) While now and in the past, it's been a minor problem, if the player-base grows, it will be much more important. I also imagine it's part of the long-term plans. The canopy.

Quests/missions are necessary to create game content. There just aren't enough good yarn-spinners as players or event managers to do this. Granted, Ryzom does offer interesting possibilities, if you have a good crafter, that you're sent on tasks to gather the mats from creatures. And perhaps the new "Animation" project/team will solve this.

New skills I think that have more to do with fleshing out the game mechanics than offering more things for high level players to do. The combat system in Ryzom's pretty rough.

[totnkopf]

There are other things that could be added, things with better longevity. Regions, skills, and "quests" are shortsighted ideas. If WG added five new regions, five new skills, and twenty quests, two weeks later everything would be status quo again. It would probably take at least 6-12 months to cook that stuff up, even in an ideal financial situation.

Such as?
You can say add things with more longevity, but the things that you've just shot down are what most games companies see as the meat and potatoes of an expansion pack. Even releasing one of those elements would restore a little faith in the current development team.

[totnkopf]

Say only 1 out of 5 can vote; with all of the new people, you have 2.000 subscribers, at 8 euros per month that makes 16.000 euros per month already. Still not enough to support old Nevrax's 50-odd people, but with that amount of money i believe you can have 6 payed devs working on the game and maintain the servers.

Not even close to covering costs... I'll use US dollars as thats what I'm familiar with. I've been involved in the games industry over the past year or so and have been in pretty close contact with several other software engineers, both those working on games and those who are not (to lend some credibility to the following).

A decent computer programmer will be getting about $60,000 a year (usually more, but I'm being conservative).
That's $5,000 a month per programmer.
6 programmers x 5,000 = $30,000 a month for developmers

CEO and Admin pay are always more and are nearly always in the 6-7 figure range (depending on company size)
We'll say $100,000 for a CEO who does a lot of work and does a lot of the HR work themselves.
That's another $8340 a month. Total so far is $38,340 a month.

Servers. Oh this is gonna be a biggie. MMORPG had a discussion a while back that basically concluded that to run a MMO server cost about $5,000 per 500 clients. Assuming your 2000 clients, that's $20,000 for running the server. Add another $3,000 for a solid connection to an internet backbone and another $1,000 or so for tech support on the servers and you're looking at $24,000 a month to keep the game live. To put this cost in perspective, WoW costs about $100 million a year in hosting fees. Granted they are much much larger, but you can also assume that they have much greater bargaining power to get better rates.
Running total is now at $62,340 a month.

so, 16,000 euros in game subs fees = $20,892.80
meaning $41,447.20 short a month.
ouch.

Now I don't think Ryzom has 6 developers currently. I think its more likely about 2 (if that), so there is some money saved, but still no where near being close to profitable. And that is the goal. They want to make money with the game so simply drawing even isn't good enough. Nevrax and GameForge were both unable to make Ryzom profitable and both companies had the advantage of a larger player pool to begin with.

The main reason they are potentially going to offer this new sub length is because the company is desperate for money. They get the cash now and can invest it or develop the game enough to gain other investors. In all probability, SW is having a lot of issues in getting people to invest in Ryzom. And since the game isn't profitable (never has been), SW is facing the uphill battle of getting investors to throw money at a risky investment while losing money to hosting fees and employee salaries. And the truly sad part is that any investor worth their salt would take one look at Ryzom and say "no way". Its never turned a profit, its losing its client base, it has no visibility on the MMO scene and is quickly becoming outdated.