[Feedback thread] Creative Director Letter - The Ryzom Ring

[Xavier Antoviaque]

Hello,

David asked for your comments about his letter on the Ryzom Ring - here is a good place to post them.

--
Xavier.

[vinnyq]

Hi David!

Please give us more info about these "hosting fees" that I have seen mentioned. Do you guys have more concrete decisions on this yet? How much are you thinking for the "advanced" feature of these hosting service? (I am assuming that you will have a free but limited feature).

[sasaj]

- Is it possible to create "maps" in team of players (more ppl, more opinions, maybe even more fun)?
- except for PvP and RP task kind of "maps", what else will be possible?
- It's clear that we will use already made maps. I know that maps in Ryzom are probably made in 3D Max and need some rendering. Will there be any tools (maybe even standard NeL tools) that allows us to do the same? At any stage, not only in short turn.

[helbreat]

my question is. do you think it is wise to announce the creation of ryzom ring with the game in the state it is at the moment and lack of updating/bug fixes or time it takes to get them done? surely this must make the player base think that your rescources are being used elsewhere other than on fixing the stuff we alrdy have and getting outposts out?

as it does me the first thought i had when it was announced was does this mean we have to add the content ourself? like them salt and shake crisps =/

i do like the idea of the ring btw just think it could have come after we got all the other promises sorted out first =/

[raynes]

Questions:

1) If I go back and read some of your interviews and letters from before Ryzom was published most of them will paint a much different picture than Ryzom is today. You spoke of a living breathing world were every player action had an effect on the game world. A game where the player had the chance to effect the story with gameplay that centered around it. A game that was unlike other MMO's that are pretty much level fests. Currently Ryzom is a level fest, the story is absent from gameplay, and players have no effect on the world or story at all. Now seeing you talk of the Ryzom Ring in much the same way you talked of Ryzom before launch. What is different about this product that will make sure that it doesn't end up the same place Ryzom is?

2) When I heard about this at E3 I was excited (and still am). I posted on a few other boards I visited for peoples thoughts on this idea. Some people liked the idea but most were very reserved about it. The three main concerns people had were that it would open the game to exploits in a big way, that this was a way of getting rid of proper development, and that player created mods and content usually are horrible. What precautions are being considered to deal with these concerns?

3) What factors are you going to use to determine if a players project becomes part of the official game or lore? Say I create a zone and mission set that the end result is that I say the Kami are the Karavan. Since this is in direct violation with lore, how would you deal with that? What if players create zones based upon lore NPC's (like a temple where the Zorai Leader is).

4) To what detail are we going to be able to develop stuff? Will we be able to specify mob travel patterns as well as locations? What about towns, are we going to be able to place individual building? Place and name all of the NPC's and give them things to say?

5) What about things like lag and memory consumption due to too many objects, how is that being delt with?

[scarazi]

you speak of using template maps and only about adding mobs, tribes as you walk through the map, does this mean terrains, mountains,cliffs, trees, chasms, hills, rivers, streams, islands, tunnel systems, bridges etc will not be editable?

Scar

[marct]

If you are initially going to stick the RR (since I can't seem to figure superscript) with set base maps to start, is there a direction that says someone will create base maps, and release new base maps regularly (weekly) based on user requests? I see you getting there with the Rites, a steady trickle of items ready for production.

Which systems will we be in control of. It seems the base map, and the base landscape are set. Can we control interaction with NPC's, have control over mob migrations to a great degree, control interaction between animal groups, change behavior rules, change break off distance, have 'timers' that expire the zone (As in a race to make it through the zone.)? Set limits to the zone (i.e. a team of 5 or less) Beat through the mobs and find the mats, and then protect your digger digging. And as he starts his pull and has 2 mats, time expires. (Maybe it is Generic raw material or something along with a RP story, etc. ) Will you be able to cap skill level in a zone?

I can see great factors in timers. Proving the value of a team and teamwork.

Is there a beta system planned for this, early adopters could help out and give some content at the onset.

Likewise, is it possible to have 2 or 3 map designers in each community that are volunteers? They would design base maps to be produced for the community, the Nevrax Engineer would review / approve them and they would go into production. This way we could have 10 map creaters initially instead of 1. (I would still suggest a trickle approach to the new maps.) The designers would be able to collaborate too as mentioned before. This would help greatly until folks could fully develop their own maps.

Noin. (More to come I am sure)

[grimjim]

"R² is about player made adventures & customized maps, the true essence of RPG. When people play a pen & paper RPG, they usually have fun with the adventures they buy until they start making their own. It usually is a lot of fun depending on the quality of what the game master talents. This dimension is something missing in the MMORPG genre as it is today, and we want to change that with R²."

Heh heh heh, actually in the P&P industry that is no longer really true. Pre done adventures can't be GIVEN away unless they're also resources on cities, creatures etc. The 'module' is almost dead in and of itself and games tend to restrict themselves to one simple 'starter' adventure and more GM advice. Hey though, that still supports the idea of created content being a good move.

Are these tools going to be simple enough for a layman to use while still retaining complexity for others with those talents to add to them? I'm an art and writing/plot type person, I can't script to save my life and that's where things fell down with me for Neverwinter Nights (It is that and Vampire: Redemption which would appear to be the closest existing things to Ryzom Ring).

What sort of levels of complexity and interactivity will we be able to craft and will it be simple to do so with more depth for others who can?

"R² allows players to make their own contributions to the world and to the story. Some maps will be ‘in-scenario’ meaning that they will be coherent with the on-going story development of the game. Other maps can be ‘off-scenario’ meaning that they just take advantage of the world, but are not coherent with the story. The in-scenario maps will be connected to the rest of the game, while the off-scenario ones won’t."

OK, parts of this worry me for two reasons.

1 - Dilution.
People charging off and using Ryzom Ring to make all sorts of content completely and utterly irrelevent and unrelated to the game itself will dilute the Ryzom game experience with people spending less time devoted to the game and more time fiddling with... oh, I don't know, naked yuboball or something. New players may find it hard to tell the difference between non sanctioned content and sanctioned content.

2 - 'Instancing'
One of the major attractions of Ryzom to me is that every quest, event, player event or anything else I take part in has MEANING and IMPACT on the game. I build a reputation amongst the players, get famous and, in more recent events, feel like my actions help to actually steer where Atys is going. Instances end up with everyone doing the same mission. WTF? I already killed Bongo Mc'Dappy the evil Tryker pirate and scourge of Fairhaven, how the hell can you thirty other people also have done it! I tore out his nanoseed and burned his ships, he couldn't have been a threat again already!

What we need are more events that we can get into and influence, not instanced content of that type. Any reassurance there?

How will 'attached content' be vetted?

And how will we access the unattached content?

These preset maps, how much will we be able to influence them?
Are they pre-made blocks (like Neverwinter?) put together to make a whole?
Can we raise and lower land? (Like populus)
Can we add or remove water?
Can we make tunnel systems like those in the crag in Fyros?
Will we be able to place/move trees, bushes and microveg?

Basically how wide will the customisation perameters of the initial release be and will they get broader?

[vinnyq]

- Can we write text and dialogues for the NPCs?
- What kind of triggers will there be?
- Can we make our own unique items?
- Can we implement some sort of unique rewards for mission such as items or dappers?
- Can we actively control mobs and npcs while we're playing our own map?

[mmatto]

As a feedback to the article itself, I would have loved a little bit more meat in it.

Most of the information in the article has been already in other media. Discussions and speculation about r^2 on Ryzom forums had already reached couple of magnitudes more detailed level compared to latest article.

On the other hand, this article was a good start for a new weekly tradition. I can't expect a weekly article to be definitive manual or specification of subject at hand I hope to see more articles like this coming up and maybe delving deeper into issues that interest players most and discussing about new surprises that you might have in your sleeves