Let's chat...

[katriell]

Oh wow!

I never heard about that. Was that before the north American server merge or did I just miss out?

It was on Arispotle, and it happened sometime after May 2005. In fact, wasn't it the first precursor to the temple wars...? Elias warning about the coming of Jena...?

[iphdrunk]

I never heard about that. Was that before the north American server merge or did I just miss out?

After. If I remeber correctly, a selection of homins (I can't remember the exact criterion) were tp'ed where Elias and his bodyguards gave a speech.

(another smallish reason to start over would be that the NA server and the European server had totally different event teams at launch)

Yes. But the overall impact is negligeable. No significant advances (imho) were made -- apart from minor side stories --. And after the merge, I guess CSR players at NA were offered or volunteered to work on the European server. That said, managing 2 communities with almost basically opposed timezones seems to be a pretty hard thing to do unless you have double resources and basically events are done twice.

[riveit]

Oh wow!

I never heard about that. Was that before the north American server merge or did I just miss out?

http://forums.ryzom.com/forum/showthread.php?t=15214

http://forums.ryzom.com/forum/showthread.php?t=15362

http://forums.ryzom.com/forum/showthread.php?t=15363

You just missed out.

The Guild of Elias was, at least on Aristotle, hardly developed beyond the pre launch mythos. I think it was thrown in as a wild card story line. I have always found it interesting that Elias has been so frequently referred to as neutral. I have also found it interesting that so many "role players" only accept "role play" as "role play" if it is about being neutral. ..

I disagree that Elias was thrown in as a wildcard. I think that he was originally intended to be a central part of the storyline but he was sidelined by the game developments of adding the Temple conflict and then the factional outpost struggle.

We certainly had some fervent Karavan and Kami roleplayers on Arispotle but they were generally dismissed by the neutral role-players as too one-dimensional.

[dlixus]

The Arispotle (English server) Role-Player community seems to concentrate on playing neutrals; this is what I’m hearing, and whereas other players RP in both factions there seems to be a conflict that exceed from IC to OOC dispute?

One way to help these unnecessary conflicts is by organizing role-players. The website I’m proposing is for any and all role-players that will be playing Ryzom…The forum boards will cover all aspects of the game including general discussion, PvP, PvE, game mechanics, lore, characters, event planning, cross-guild interaction as well as creative writing and role-play adventure. I will try to include something for everyone. Once a management team is assembled, hopefully a group of mature administrators and moderators, it will be possible to insure the founding principles of enjoying role-play of all types are upheld.

Featured role-player guilds will be linked from this website and receive a forum board to describe and discuss their guild with the role-play community, as well as answer questions about their guild and recruit for members. Guild leaders will become or decide who will be moderators of their own board. In addition, representatives from featured guilds will be invited to join a website council which will be made up of guild leaders and/or guild representatives who will discuss guild politics and cross-guild events, as well as support the role-play community.

The guild council will be an out-of-game/out-of-character group of role-players representing the various guilds featured on the Ryzom RP website. The primary function of the guild council is to help unite and support the role-play community by joint effort.

I bring this to the Arispotle community now in the hopes that we can establish an accord before the game re-opens. Then we can work on attracting fresh blood to Ryzom, and intentionally role-players.

Another question!

Clearly the lore and the many undeveloped stories are in need of clarity or review perhaps even amended. But what are the major concerns with the game mechanics, the Ryzom Ring, and other general issues that can and should be improved by the new owners? I know these topics have been discussed already and many good points have been posted here, and here, but considering these post are old issues and the situation, how much of a sacrifice is the community willing to make in order for the new owners to correct the major issues?

[riveit]

Strangely many people on Arispotle do seem to have a problem with that. And go at each others throats OOC, just because he/she is a Kami/Karavan. I have absolutely no idea why that is the case and I might as well be mistaken, but from what I read over the years in some posts it´s a realy strange place to be. It sounds just like the Horde/Alliance OOC Conflict at WoW to me and that I don´t understand either.

I think that the factional conflict became so intense on Arispotle because, to a large extent, it became a cross-Atlantic conflict. Communities separated in timezones as distant as Moscow from Los Angeles did not know each other at all. They generally miscounted and misunderstood each other, leading to all sorts of propaganda and demonization. Timing battles in a fair way was largely impossible. Also Nevrax’s grossly unfair method of initially distributing outposts began the conflict with a bang.

I have no Idea about Aniro only that in the last month it took the same developement as both other Servers, in one side, in their case the Kami, becomming much stronger than the other and many people choosing to join "the winning side" for "more fun in play". *sick*
Which destroyed the atmosphere (RP and non-RP wise) even further. *sigh*

I think that you are misunderstanding the situation. I believe on Aniro there was a long standing domination of the Kamists. The Karavan were a small minority for much of the outpost era. Players, on average, joined the Karavan to reverse that situation and eventually led an overthrow, attacking all Kamist outposts at once, taking them all on Aniro. The situation was reversed on Arispotle, where a Karavan alliance dominated for about a year. The Kamist faction grew and eventually attacked 10 Karavan outposts simultaneously, taking 5 at once and later more outposts, destroying the Karavan dominance. So the majority of players that you are deriding for joining the stronger sider, actually joined the weaker side to redress the imbalance in a sort of holy crusade.

[katriell]

In all the time I remember, there were (correct me if I'm wrong) only ever two Karavaneer RP guilds and one Kamist RP guild. And these were far from simultaneous. One of the Karavaneer guilds disappeared, the other dissipated, and the Kamist guild failed due to lack of interest and the leaving of its leader.

I would tentatively think it's partly due to the mechanics of guild membership that resulted in a predominance of neutral RP guilds, because with our limited numbers it was easier to coagulate in guilds where the majority were joining their natural alignment and the remainder could keep all of their faction RP except the actual alignment. If one has a Karavan-aligned guild, even if only for the sake of allowing officially Karavan-aligned members and having factional perks, Kamists will not join, not because they can't have their alignment, but on principle and due to feeling alienated. Conversely, Kami-aligned guild = no Karavaneers.

But things aren't the same on the other servers, so mechanics could only be a small factor. And the above does not explain why the majority were neutral in the first place.

It's very easy to "roleplay" a factioned homin. Karavaneer: Grr, hate Kamis, kill Kamists! Kamist: Grr, hate Karavan, kill Karavaneers! ...But that's the most shallow and limited form of roleplay possible. Politically-correct disclaimers of differing RP styles aside, that kind of RP is just lesser-quality than what was common within the neutral RP guilds. I'm not saying all factioned roleplayers were/are like that! There have certainly been some good ones. No doubt more than I ever met. But there is a difference between developing a character and playing that character according to their personality and beliefs, versus macroing warcries at outpost battles and occasionally responding to political debate, then playing in a non-RP fashion 90% of the time. Both types exist in factions and in neutrality.

Factions get minor perks, like extra teleports, flagged PvP, and a relatively simple concept of who one's allies and enemies are. On the other hand, neutrals don't have #2, usually don't have #3, and have a different direction of #1 (access to both teleports in some regions). Personally, I never considered any of this an issue. Some neutrals did, and possibly some new players chose to join a faction because of it.

How I perceive it, at least, is that there are non-RP reasons to join a faction. There are fewer non-RP reasons to stay neutral. Therefore those who stay neutral are more likely to be doing so for roleplaying reasons. This is exaggerated by the Arispotlean coincidence of neutral RP guild predominance (either join a neutral guild, form a faction RP guild and fail, or join a non-RP guild), into a self-perpetuating cycle.

Now, I hope, that legacy has died with its constituent guilds. Perhaps now, with a fresh groundwork of new players, new ideas, and a different political climate, we can create a more even situation.

Form three RP guilds, one of each alignment, and do our best to support and grow all of them via the organising website? Plus, of course, doing the same for additional guilds of whatever alignments that later come into existence naturally.

[danolt]

I was to lazy to review the linked threads but I think a fully functional and easy to use Ring tool is of paramount importance to the financial success of the game. I do not see the primary purpose of the ring as player developed content but as a developmental engine. I see it as a way for the owners to expand the world quickly and cheaply. The ability for Ryzom staff to add zones with little or no programers involved would allow for speedy expansions and give the event teams the ability to create their own environments. The world could literally change overnight. Floods, droughts, fires, invasions all could happen at any time, at least in the new ring created environments.

As far as sacrifice, at this point we only have these boards left to lose. Not knowing what resources, if any, the new owners intend to invest in Ryzom makes it more difficult to give guesses on what the player community is willing to cheer or jeer. With the servers being shut down, it certainly gives the new owners the upper hand.

The stagnation over the last two years has lead us into an entirely different theme then what was first envisioned. The races are now nothing but toon skins, the supposed guiding factions have turned into backdrop art for TP's, the nations governments are nonexistent and the kitin are all asleep. Outside of the actual players, there was really not much left to lose on the old servers.

I think the player base would accept a temporary Atys while a new Atys was envisioned. Meaning, I think the new owners could reopen the server as is, get a feel for the game and the community. After they feel comfortable with the story and mechanics they could then consider wiping the slate or better yet an additional server that starts from scratch and continuing the story on the existing server. I would strongly suggest they listen to the community but not be led by us. I think that many of the decisions made by the previous owners to accommodate unhappy players cost them quite a bit more money then it saved/earned them.

[dlixus]

http://forums.ryzom.com/forum/showthread.php?t=15214

http://forums.ryzom.com/forum/showthread.php?t=15362

http://forums.ryzom.com/forum/showthread.php?t=15363

You just missed out.



I disagree that Elias was thrown in as a wildcard. I think that he was originally intended to be a central part of the storyline but he was sidelined by the game developments of adding the Temple conflict and then the factional outpost struggle.

We certainly had some fervent Karavan and Kami roleplayers on Arispotle but they were generally dismissed by the neutral role-players as too one-dimensional.

Nice to see that my view on Elias is shared by at least someone else. Thank you for posting the links. I was told that Jena was coming to Atys and it was nice to read these old tales and the reactions by players.

[gcaldani]

Hello homins.

Not being a RPer, because of the language difficulties, i can't say much.

But, in my non-RPer experience in Atys, i never felt myself OOC during my whole playtime.

Maybe it's just because of the natural immersion you get from Atys, I have always seen IC players.

About to restart from scratch, of course i can restart from level 1 today, if you turn on the servers! And I think most of homins would do.

[iphdrunk]

I would tentatively think it's partly due to the mechanics of guild membership that resulted in a predominance of neutral RP guilds, because with our limited numbers it was easier to coagulate in guilds

Caveat emptor: I'm well aware I'm mixing concepts, RP, PvP and faction based conflict

I would say that we would need to take into account how the game was developed and evolved since launch. Blunty said, in game mechanics were lacking and the context did not favor conflict.

Elaborating a bit more, the game started in a cooperative way. Several game mechanics and game elements were half deployed, or not pushed enough. The original plans were to create a 4-way racial complex conflict, which was later dismissed in favor of a simplistic bipolar faction-based conflict, in part due to the scarcity of players, the race imbalance (in terms of players per race) and the lack of resources to better organize things. The conflict setting was reduced to "We / Them".

The craptastic PvP system was ill-conceived from start. No amount of tweaking, revamping, overhauling or "PvP strike teams" (paraphrasing Ms Mulligan) could change what some (most?) saw as a limited and reduced no-skill needed PvP system. Fame was half-implemented and had little to no impact, it was buggy and had to be disabled and planned ig impact reduced. Released outposts were a dumbed down version that went live years after original intent. Guilds, teams and chat systems had no restrictions based on races, or religion. TPs were either disabled, tied to a supposedly coming in game event that was subsequently dropped or usable by all.

Conflict and Kami / Karavan tensions were supposed to be present in game since day one, but as I put once in these same forums (gawk, more than 2 years ago!):

one of the problems but also one of the biggest strenghts, is that the game started within a cooperative scenario, homins cooperating against a common foe. In this sense, one may say that conflict has always been there since release and that Kami/Karavan tensions were there. Right, but missing the point. From a gameplay point of view, PvP was completelly absent from the game, barred a buggy and incomplete duel system that basically allowed us to check if we were fast with the mouse, if we had luck with a random number generation and if our stanzas were 'optimized'. Later on the PvP roots were added, and so on. In other words, the kami/karavan conflict was absent during the day-to-day playing time, appearing only during RP events once a month, while we kept on saying "oh, yes, Kami will eat your soul" in public (while in the meantime we were disussing if you have some spare fung resin). After the event was over all back to our activities. It was as if homins went to a theater as actors to play a role in a piece within the game itself.

The low population, the mature community has made most players meet and play with each other regardless of race or faction. At some point, it could be possible that any other logged player was from the opposed faction. The gameplay didn't force you to attack a "horde" player and so on. Net result: players have friends from both sides, and 4 races. And the weird part here, is that, according to the background, these players must now be considered quite abrouptly as death enemies. Also, the players are not simple "smart NPCs that think", just a name to target.... one would know their habits, the last armor they got, their skills, etc.

The tricky part is that I think that Ryzom praised community owes much of its notoriety to the cooperative scenario within it started.

"To add insult to injury", a lot of players relied on the hope that, despite the latent and later existing conflict regarding to factions, the greater and present danger of Kitin defined a reasonable scenario. It wasn't until it was too late that Nevrax decided to drastically change their plans and boost the Kitin menace aspect of the game: first, with creative directors and producers announcing big changes that turned into design documents and Community Manager posts that went finally, undelivered.

Finally, although unfortunately it is also changing, do not forget that Ryzom at lauch was fed by an important number of old beta players, that had played together and had... gasp! ... debugged the game together. Lore was practically *Absent* from day to day playing... other than the strict barebones, we started getting lore pieces (incoherent and incomplete) like rain drops.

We can't change the game once the game has started, and expect all to follow, I guess