* remembers this fear, uncertainty and doubt from past December-January.*
@Acridiel: of course, all these things are "theories" (conspiracy theories, even), but given the lack of communication, you can't blame the players...
That said, what can we expect? Let's just think out loud for a moment (all this is my imagination):
Nevrax France sunk. Gameforge Gmbh took over 21 employees, as per Phelan words. That's 21 salaries, more or less, a bare bare minimum of 25000€ / month (I know it's more, just rounding) plus hosting costs. There are let's say 500 players per server x 3 x 15 = 22500 . It does not look like we players are generating enough revenue to make Ryzom profitable, and we know it has not been the case for years. It seems clear to me that to make the game profitable, something needs to change "radically", with a new wave o players similar to release or the Ring announcement. Some measures were taken, such as "no-Jolt" and substantially less expensive hosting. Was that enough? It's hard to see whether the population increases notably, for I see lots of new names, but there are many not logging any more.
Now assume Gameforge did a market and cost analysis. And they concluded that Ryzom will not be profitable and that there is little point in investing more. One could go nuts and think that, despite the best intentions at the beginning, GF decided to "get the best out of this situation". HEck, maybe they just grabbed the opportunity to acquire a full-functional 3D MMRPG at a bargain... What do you expect them to do? What would *you* do if it was your money?. Reduce costs. Keep Ryzom while it is barely profitable. Check the laws and keep the employees for one year. Make them "train" your employees. Make them "transfer the technology". Use Nevrax assets. Integrate the code in your new projects (Oriental MMRPG anyone?). Suggest old Nevrax devs to "find better opportunities". And would you expect them to say "we estimate that we will shutdown servers in like 4 months"? that's naive...
It is easy to suggest "GF should invest more", "better market the game"... as if it was *that* easy. We have no means to know that with a new investment of x M€ Ryzom will become a great success. That "by doing this and this" Ryzom will be known by thousands of new players that will rush to subscribe.
Enjoy the game. Let's hope for the best. Be aware that the worst is a possibility, and enjoy in the meantime. Don't get me wrong and this is nonsense. Maybe tomorrow we will download a huge Patch (Kaetemi gave me hopes
) and not only Gameforge is commited to make Ryzom a great game. But you can't blame the players for a) lack of communication b) Gameforge 4d has another 3d MMRPG c) Ryzom does not appear in GF list of games or in wikipedia.... etc etc.
(wheres the harm in moving them to germany? i'm sure theyll have no problem (http://www.math.lsu.edu/~bogdan/photo-a ... n/fiat.jpg) driving them there!
