Free Ryzom Campaign

[mithur]

- Make the code, artwork and such publically available under the GPL/LGPL and similar licenses.

True enough, and it have all my respect.

But, it appears that the aim of ryzom.org is more the GPL than Ryzom. Hey, that's pretty fine, but is a little annoying that it isn't clear enough for a lot of players who don't cares at all for the GPL or the free soft.

I know the entusiasm of the Free Soft fanboys, but in this matter, it could be very dangerous.

- Try to set up a dacent server like the one we have now, with the same characteristics it has now, more or less, but obviously not allowing to upload/download chars to turn this into a diablo-like cheater game.. how could you even think that!

I really don't think you can do that.

- Set everything up so everyone can modify the codebase of this game, but that does not mean integrating everything into the code! The Free Ryzom Project is aimed to become a democratic organization.

LOL!!! Man, I like democracy in my country, i like democracy in the world, I even love to see democracy in all the countrys don't having it. But democracy in things like this is chaos. The service that Nevrax offers us isn't only a gameserver and a gameclient; it's neutrality and independency. You won't and can't offer that.

Anyway, that would mean anyone could set up a server to offer a paid or not service under his own terms, so it's up to the user to decide if he want to play a free/unreliable/cheaty server or if they'd rather join a more trustworthy paid service.

True enough. But inform better to your donators. You are making a big FUD with all this.

I obviously lack yet a lot of information, which I wish I had, but I'm not gonna be the one throwing stones at volunteers trying their best on a non-profit goal.

Me neither; but if this project wanna be serious, they'll need to do it much better; inform better, give all the potential donators a structured planning and some economical data, speak less of GNU and more of service. If they can't do that, then they'll not be able to rule Ryzom for a week.

[rheda]

I really don't think you can do that.

It's the long defended position of the "pay for service" instead of "pay for game" philosophy.
I do think it's possible, and as an IT employee (yet with a lack of perspective since we're talking about something huge), I do think it's possible.

True enough. But inform better to your donators. You are making a big FUD with all this.

My donators? I'm not part of the project, I was just utterly amazed by finding there were quite a lot of people working towards that, and i would like to help them were possible

Me neither; but if this project wanna be serious, they'll need to do it much better; inform better, give all the potential donators a structured planning and some economical data, speak less of GNU and more of service. If they can't do that, then they'll not be able to rule Ryzom for a week.

Obviously it requires a lot of work, and things have to be done well.. we're not talking about something easy.

Ona side note... my apologies if I've offended you, it was never my intention.. I'm just trying to defend a position that was been attacked with some arguments that imho are not very realistic.

[iphdrunk]

speak less of GNU and more of service. If they can't do that, then they'll not be able to rule Ryzom for a week.

This is one thought that came to mind too... For the moment, I only saw the social contract and nice hints about the GPL, the LGPL, Creative Commons, etc. but little to no information related to the game and service itself.

The cost analysis lacks depth ("we'll see, it can be tens or hundreds of thousands of euros, then we'll deploy a server; with time; hire a developer, etc."). When asked about a roadmap, the answer given was "we don't have one". I guess that's understandable, the time window they had is the order of a couple of weeks.

On the other hand, to me, there are two different aspects: one, developing the game, and second operating the game service.

Considering the developing the game, I am not bashing them, they have the right to try... but, if Nevrax, with its 20-30 perm staff (guessing, after the layoff from 50-60) has had troubles keeping up with features and half implemented options; with lots of wait and see....it is doable, (e.g. PlaneShift) but it raises a lot of questions, and the pace of development is slow.

For operating the service, I think it becomes necessary to have a paid service.

That said, it would interesting to see how the Free Software model applies to Ryzom. But there is an important difference between "would you like to see/use/enjoy/have a GPL based MMRPG implementation?" and "would you like to pay for it to be GPL?" and "would you like to pay so Ryzom does not die?".

[mithur]

Ona side note... my apologies if I've offended you, it was never my intention.. I'm just trying to defend a position that was been attacked with some arguments that imho are not very realistic.

Not offence at all . The only that bothered me was the "stop *****" part. There are a lot of options, and everyone have an opinion. We can depart, debate about them, but all of us have right of speak as long as we want of the different options. I have my oppinion about the ryzom.org option, so I say it. This is a forum, after all. At the end of the day what we have discuss here will have little or no influence in the final events, I think.

[raynes]

Without a corporate mentality which half listens to the community, I can only imagine the direction the game would head. Even though it has the hope of advancing some things we'd like, it would be the end of an era for me if something like this happened.

As good as this community is, we hardly agree on very much and once someone actually started winning the tug-of-war over gameplay... the losers would give up.

I agree with you on this. There needs to be an outside source beyond the players to determine what is good for the game. Without it, there would be no direction since half the community wants Ryzom to be one thing, the other wants it to be another.

IF Ryzom ends, then it ends. I wouldn't continue playing.

[martl]

I agree with you on this. There needs to be an outside source beyond the players to determine what is good for the game. Without it, there would be no direction since half the community wants Ryzom to be one thing, the other wants it to be another.

IF Ryzom ends, then it ends. I wouldn't continue playing.

I agree there needs to be an instance that decides the way the game should go. But nothing says it cant be the players themselves, or a kind of representation of them. Just needs some kind of organisation, and it wouldnt hurt if experienced game masters are participating but from what i've heard, some people who played an important part in the cration of Ryzom are behind ryzom.org, so i'm positive about that.

Glo

[grimjim]

I agree there needs to be an instance that decides the way the game should go. But nothing says it cant be the players themselves, or a kind of representation of them.

A couple of choice quotes for you.

"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner."
"Demoracy is the only form of government that gives the people what they _deserve_."

A straight vote on things would only give one, sizeable, faction of players control, constant control, they would become entrenched, those who wanted something different would leave and you would get an inevitable snowball effect accelerating the changes off into oblivion in a single direction.

A properly designed system (of any kind) will have checks and balances to help counteract this but I'm not sure this has been properly considered.

[martl]

A couple of choice quotes for you.

"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner."
"Demoracy is the only form of government that gives the people what they _deserve_."

theres different kinds of democracy, and i'm on your side that basis democracy on these things wont be the best way to do it. Thats why i mentioned a gremium, led by (an) experienced game master(s). As some ppl who have been involved with Ryzom on the dev's side are part of the initiative, i guess such a "leader figure" would be available.
Also working democracys have these....

A straight vote on things would only give one, sizeable, faction of players control, constant control, they would become entrenched, those who wanted something different would leave and you would get an inevitable snowball effect accelerating the changes off into oblivion in a single direction.

You show very little faith in people's matureness with living with decisions that they would have made different... i happen to believe the opposite. It may and will be that some ppl will say "nah they didnt implement the q290 uber boss that i was requesting so i'm leaving" or so, but i still trust that will be an, albeit noisy, minority. Most ppl who play MMOs are consumers, not creators so a majority will maybe not even want to be involved in design questions.
I agree that it will have to be a very well thought out concept, if this project is really going to become reality. but i don't think thee is no way it could work. I think it *could* work, if executed properly.

A properly designed system (of any kind) will have checks and balances to help counteract this but I'm not sure this has been properly considered.

Of course not, yet... this is a very tight schedule they are on. doesnt necessarily mean it won't come.

[kostika]

I'm having a sense of deja vu.

Think about the below when thinking about the Free Ryzom project. Just some thoughts for you.

How do they pay for the servers?
How do they pay for the developers?
How do they pay for the support staff?
This is not a simple piece of software, the Debian Project idea isn't going to work. Someone has to be in control.

10 Euros a month isn't going to cut it for all the costs alone.
I love you guys, but I wouldn't trust any of you, or myself, to make all the right decisions for Ryzom.

An MMO is a business, not jsut a simple piece of software to upkeep.

[raynes]

I agree there needs to be an instance that decides the way the game should go. But nothing says it cant be the players themselves, or a kind of representation of them. Just needs some kind of organisation, and it wouldnt hurt if experienced game masters are participating but from what i've heard, some people who played an important part in the cration of Ryzom are behind ryzom.org, so i'm positive about that.

Glo

The problem is that there would never be any agreement as to who would decide what happens and what does not.

Take me and Grimjim, we have completly different views on how the game should be. We are both long time players and we both have some weight in the community.