Ryzom

Johntf, there are no fanboys in Ryzom. A fanboy is a person blindly defending a game, tending to "attack" anyone who dares bring any critcism, positive or negative. Typical fanboy answers to your post would be: "if you dont like it dont let the door hit ya..." or "may i have your stuff?". Anyway, thats just nitpicking, this is not the main point.
I totally fail to see how a server wipe will help bring new players....
The existing high level players are not a problem of this game.
Do a server wipe and all you achieve will be lose part of the players (thats already the last thing you want) and the ones that stay will level back to their original levels...and then what? Do a server wipe again for a new "fresh start"?
What this game needs is not a server wipe but the infusion of fresh blood (easily done with decent marketing, *fingers crossed) and especially new content. It needs to grow and expand on its great original concepts.
Getting rid of the present OP system and reverting the game to its original more pve oriented nature while adding new content and expanding the game would be a lot better than a simple server wipe....would be nice if any of the problems of this game could be fixed by a server wipe.
Besides we have no clue who the new owners are, and we have no clue what they want to do with the game, so basically all we say at this point is pretty much useless, but always fun to discuss

Well I meant fanboy in its loosest offensive sense, just as in real fans of the game and those who would play it and have no matter how badly run.

A server wipe after another open beta kinda event would do well to bring new players in I feel. I often find myself put off joining a game if someone has 3+ years levelling over me especially in a game where there's a skill tree system like ours where you can level every skill. So it's not like someone reached max level in 5 months then made a few other chars, there's a lot of really ultimate characters with masteries in everything that a new player could never aspire to catch up to ever. So I feel an open server event on a fresh server would give ryzom a fresh start. New players would feel like they can have an effect on the developing plot, the ingame politics etc without the "old guard" of super players being incontrol of everything in a way the newer players never could. I'm not saying its the right answer but I feel it's a good start.

I also heartily agree that if not a wipe remove or completly revamp the op system with just two major powers representing at every fight it became a boring repeating lagfest that honestly brought no one any joy. Either that or link outposts to area specific faction points (so long now I forget its name, your standing with tribes all that lot) so that only people involved in op taking can be those with a high level with the local area race/tribe and those taking with low rating with those people and a high rating with their enemies. That way only people who've spent say a week or two building up reputation with the correct tribes could challenge for them and it would stop every guild being involved in every battle. Smaller groups fighting with more tactical combat would make the pvp a lot more fun. As although I loathe pvp mostly no current game can survive without it in the current market.

As for marketing, well the old ryzom had great marketing. I got it from a free dvd on a pc mag, I saw it all over the front page of mmorpg.com even Gf had banners on a lot of gaming/webcomic sites I visited. People just felt the game a little inacessible or too different I think or where put off by something.

To actually get back to the point of this thread which isn't just server wipe it's kinda derailed; why return to ryzom is the question. As in would staff from the new company like to share a few things with us, do they have mmorpg running experience ?, is new content planned ?, in house development team ?, open up the game to community coders and model makes ?, wipe or current servers ?, Unlike GameForge do you have full rights to the game ?, or even just a simple statement letting us know your here and you care about making the game good ?

two thing first:

1,this discussion may be render mood in as few as a few days
2,there may be even more sinister and/or negativ thoughts behind our VIP Status atm

to #1, we don´t know who is behind "spiderwed" nor there motives for buyin our beloved game(YES i´m a diehard Fanboy, but that doesn´t stop me from thinking), they could be a korean gamecompany just seeking for a cheap addition to there portfolio or a group of diehard fans with to much money at hand and/or everything in between. but whatever "they" are, they seem to see a future for Ryzom in one way or the other.
it doesn´t matter if you, as an individual, see it atm, they do.

to #2 even if spiderweb has to much money to spend, they will seek to minimize expenses on there behalf and find out how much income the community=we players, old and new alike, can generate to sustain the company=keep the game running.

both, #1 and #2, tie in to one thing, if you think about it, spiderweb(whoever they are) wants to know if they can get enough costumers to pay to sustain the game by itself or at least to attract sponsors that help in that way.

so they give out free VIP accsess to old players, followed up a bit later by free trial ones, take the numbers they get, multiply it by planed price and then subtract the cost from servers+line+companyupkeep.

if the numbers they get are negativ, we, gamers and Spiderweb alike, are royally f***ked. no matter new, old or any content/wipe/bugs fixed at all.

if the numbers come out equal, or better yet, positive, they can go on and/or attract sponsors.

what you, me and everyone can do atm is rather simple, wait and see what ever may come...

or better yet, if you can´t wait(like me ), come up with some constructive ideas to discuss and/or put some ideas up how they can help you to help them keep the game running(besides new content).

hey, we ARE grownups(i hope at least ), lets talk about it.

Well there was never any suggestion by me of a sinister side to the VIP members, why they where chose seems fairly obvious.

As for speculation on spiderweb well thats not something I wanted to start, I'd have liked them to introduce themselves. After all they are a holding company, with no real history and probably just company directors in name if not action.

They are however breaking the number one rule of running a mmorpg, thats being open, honest and trustworthy. They seem lke a holding company for someone with no history, no real address, no website and no information and they aren't exactly keen on saying hello. Which sadly leads me to believe there may be some truth in the speculations banded about on the web or in the links at the bottom.

http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/ind ... try1673068

http://sor.warcry.com/news/view/82027-R ... New-Owners

So they aren't exactly starting out on the best foot with trust, I mean has there even been a real hello introduction post, although the one by the admin in next step clearly shows they are familiar with ryzom before buying it simply from the tone and familiarity of the language used. Although language aside there's a questionable use of an apostrophe in the post

Who they are old developers, old players it's hard to say but there is a group of die hard ryzom fans and forums users tellingly missing at the moment. Although using the old admin account last used in 2004 gives a rather large hint perhaps my moneys on old nevrax. Which isn't so bad as going by who posted the old admin posts if they are in anyway related to the new one (from a cursory language and grammar scan, yes very much so right down the the near perfect grammar and the repeated use of paranthesis for more emotive text) So I'd guess its that Bridgette person.

http://forums.ryzom.com/search.php?searchid=655075

Compare the old and new posts, seems to be the same person.

Although holding company still seems likely with some research on the directors

http://66.102.9.104/translate_c?hl=en&s ... Myv_F2noUA

http://forums.ryzom.de/showthread.php?t=31953&page=38

I wish I'd never started wondering who spiderweb where now it's giving me a headache and I don't really care much who they are, just that they do their job well

johntf wrote:[...] I've already seen and nearly done everything in the game, got disolusioned by it's lack of pro active management, dwindling player base, and slipping community attitude so I'm looking for a hook or a reason as to why I should start over again and pay my money when the time comes. [...]

After 3 years of playing I realise I have done very little of all that I want to do in terms of game mechanics. But much more important than that: I feel that the community shifts and swings can make for me content for another 10 years easily with very little effort from the new company.
That much about optimist, I think

johntf wrote:[...]I don't really care much who they are, just that they do their job well

Precisely my point. Even if it proves to be SOE or GF - if they do the right thing - I couldn't care less.

However the marketing of the game was not poor was shameful. Whatever personal examples you may give, in every single game I've tried these months and before, during the three years, I couldn't find one single non Ryzom person who knew even that Ryzom was a game not a biology term paper.
Personally before developping, revamping etc I would put most of my capital in advertising on one side and CSR events on the other, but that's just my 2c.

arfindel wrote:After 3 years of playing I realise I have done very little of all that I want to do in terms of game mechanics. But much more important than that: I feel that the community shifts and swings can make for me content for another 10 years easily with very little effort from the new company.
That much about optimist, I think

Other than storm the kitin lair ingame not during an event and kill aen I can't think of much ingame that I haven't done... the community was always pretty stable due to being small in ryzom I don't remember many swings and shifts and well 10 years would be foolishly optimistic. Although after nearly 10 years eq1 is still a good game...Longest I've played a single mmorpg was 5 years and you do get very bored by then.

Precisely my point. Even if it proves to be SOE or GF - if they do the right thing - I couldn't care less.

However the marketing of the game was not poor was shameful. Whatever personal examples you may give, in every single game I've tried these months and before, during the three years, I couldn't find one single non Ryzom person who knew even that Ryzom was a game not a biology term paper.
Personally before developping, revamping etc I would put most of my capital in advertising on one side and CSR events on the other, but that's just my 2c.

The marketing could of been better, but it was given away free on one of the most major uk pc mags at the time, it was on the front page for highest rated mmorpg (second i believe) for mnoths on mmorpg.com. I spoke to many people who'd heard of it but really didn't get what it was about and preferred more simplistic games. I'd distribute my capital with a bit more research and a little more finesse than split it in two myself...Not to mention whats with the SOE bashing, they are probably the best pound for pound company to run mmorpgs with the most expereince sure swg was a howler of a mistake but they've been giving the best games and some of the best service for god knows how many years now, was it pre 1998 ?

johntf wrote:[..]Not to mention whats with the SOE bashing, they are probably the best pound for pound company to run mmorpgs with the most expereince sure swg was a howler of a mistake but they've been giving the best games and some of the best service for god knows how many years now, was it pre 1998 ?

You're sure you're talking about Sony Entertainment here???
best service?????
best games????

ok i'll stop here. If SOE ever, in their most glorious day, ever ever gave "best service" really sorry, maybe we're living on different planets. And yeah I played SWG for 5 years and never got bored.

So every single person is a light and miracle but SOE then Now who's being negative lol.

Well SOE did run Everquest 1 and planetside very very well when I played them and they had a bunch of other fun online games too.

I see you have just started and yet still not finished puberty, I've purposely ignored your existance on these forums child I suggest you do the same to me.