Ryzom

totnkopf wrote:I'm sure this is exactly what Nevrax said when they released Ryzom.... it obviously didn't... and it still doesn't despite them being reduced to a skeleton staff and reducing the number of servers. If they truly plan on hiring a decent dev team and maintaining servers, they're going to need to get a hell of a lot more subs to get the game to where it pays for itself. Nevrax was never able to do that (hence the current situation)

Nevrax had the burden of coding a few years in advance before the first dapper rolled in, so salaries and sever costs piled up over 4 years (2000-2004).
That would be the advantage of this project: they already have a game and a player base to start with, at a fraction of he cost.

raynes wrote: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.

The easiest way to tame complainers: give them responsibility... when you are actually making the decisions, things look different

martl wrote:Nevrax had the burden of coding a few years in advance before the first dapper rolled in, so salaries and sever costs piled up over 4 years (2000-2004).
That would be the advantage of this project: they already have a game and a player base to start with, at a fraction of he cost.

You still have the same problem. Paying a dev team, switching to the new routines and rewritten code, etc. Thats on top of the fact that Nevrax wasn't able to make the game profitable at any point. If the game was making money and pulling the company out of debt, Nevrax wouldn't be in the position it is now.

If Xavier is successful, I would be tempted to set up a Ryzom server (at home) in its current state for friends to play on.

I personally would stuggle to do anything more because I personally couldn't afford:

£100,000 for the comercial usage licence for (the free) Nel engine that ryzom runs on.
£3,000+ per month for the server hosting and admin.
£10,000+ per year for the bandwidth.
...

Plus the costs associated with 24/7 support staff.
Plus the costs for providing a subscription service.
Plus the costs and fees for Accountants and Lawyers.
Plus the marketing costs.

The list of setup costs goes on and on.

All of this is to run Ryzom in its current state.

I called the bank with the idea and ... the computer said ....NO!

borg9 wrote:I called the bank with the idea and ... the computer said ....NO!

"... but you didn't even touch the computer that time!..."
give it time to load... and ignore the stupid ad at the start

totnkopf wrote:You still have the same problem. Paying a dev team, switching to the new routines and rewritten code, etc. Thats on top of the fact that Nevrax wasn't able to make the game profitable at any point. If the game was making money and pulling the company out of debt, Nevrax wouldn't be in the position it is now.

We dont know if Ryzom has been profitable or not. Even if you make a (small) profit, creditors may pull the plug if they dont see money coming in fast enough. Depends on the ammount of debt you have... less debt = you can live with less profit (in the start).

martl wrote:The easiest way to tame complainers: give them responsibility... when you are actually making the decisions, things look different

Let me at it

like a moth to a flame i cant leave this thread alone.

some interesting quotes from slashdot

I find it immensely sad that it has come to this.

When I started Nevrax it was with the idea that all the code would be GPL both on the client and the server side. Following a dispute over corporate strategy with the VCs funding the company, a good chunk of the core team left (myself included).

From that point on, the remaining managment and shareholders slowly closed more and more of the code - destroying in the process the spirit and the vision over which the company had been founded. In the end, destroying the company itself.

If Xavier Antoviaque and the folks behind this initiative think they can bring the ideas underlying Ryzom back to life , I sincerly wish them the best of luck.

and

As a member of the NeL community this effort signifies great hope for me and my project. We've been in the NeL community and contributing bugfixes and updates to the engine that runs Ryzom for over 3 years. The community has supplied the engine more than 1k bugfixes in the 6 year lifespan of the GPL'd version of the engine and all of this with dwindling interest in the community from the company, as Olivier Lejade stated. For more than 2 full years we were next to ignored by the company (except for the wonderful support and help from Vianney Lecroart and Olivier Cado) but we continued. Between this thread and the threads raging on the ryzom.com forums I'm surprised at the treatment this idea has been getting from the user community and others considering the numerous contributions we, the open-source movement, have already made towards this game. Whether Xavier's group can maintain a viable commercial entity doesn't matter. By contributing funds to his group you're not helping him buy Ryzom - you're helping everyone buy Ryzom.

Any person here, with some expertise and financial backing, could run their own commercial version of Ryzom if it were GPL'd. A lot of comments have been made about the "chaos" of opening up Ryzom. Hundreds of players contributing code and compromising the integrity of the codebase, etc. A lot of projects do very well if they have a strong maintainer, a bright core team and very well founded peer-review practices. We submitted over 1k patches (as I stated earlier) to Nevrax and we never once compromised the integrity of the end-product. Dozens, if not hundreds, of people contribute to the OGRE but it still remains a strong, viable open-source project which is being used extensively in the commercial arena because Steve (Sinbad) is a good maintainer. Likewise with Linux and Linus. As far as the financial probability of Xavier's group managing servers - I can't say whether he has put a lot of thought into that or not. But by pledging and helping Xavier's group buy and open Ryzom you won't have to rely on Xavier alone to run a Ryzom shard. If Xavier cannot manage to do this Ryzom does not die with him (much like it may die with Nevrax) - anyone will be fully able to take up the torch, commercial or free. Olivier, thank you for your post, it means a lot to us in the community that you started so many years ago.

Not sure if this was listed or not on their site...but what happens to the donations when/if this doesn't happen? While i'm all for bein an optimist, i feel that this is the least likely of any scenario to come to pass, so just thought that i would bring this up as i havent seen this topic discussed yet on these forums, and havent seen it mentioned on their site either (which it may very well have been and i may have simply missed it). I just wouldnt be a big fan personally of throwin 200+ dollars at someone to not have it be used for what it is intended is all. If this is discussed somewhere please link to where for myself as well as others following this thread. Thanx.

slay13 wrote:Not sure if this was listed or not on their site...but what happens to the donations when/if this doesn't happen? While i'm all for bein an optimist, i feel that this is the least likely of any scenario to come to pass, so just thought that i would bring this up as i havent seen this topic discussed yet on these forums, and havent seen it mentioned on their site either (which it may very well have been and i may have simply missed it). I just wouldnt be a big fan personally of throwin 200+ dollars at someone to not have it be used for what it is intended is all. If this is discussed somewhere please link to where for myself as well as others following this thread. Thanx.

The point is that they are by now only asking for pledges for donations, which will only be collected in case the whole project can go on. There are some alternatives being discussed right now.