IRC Chat mit Phelan

[sadji]

Da unsere englisch sprachigen Homins zwar die News schnell ins englische Forum gebracht haben, aber den Rückweg nach hier dann vergessen haben, hier ein Log des IRC Chats mit Phelan der heute dort verabredet wurde, leider auch englisch.

[corizo]

Sadji, das ganze läuft noch Oo

Ich werd nachher ein komplettes Log hier posten, ohne den Spam.

[sadji]

ja, gemerkt. Die lange Pause hat mich glauben lassen das zu Ende ist.

[certago]

Ich warte dann mal sehnsüchtig auf das Log

PS: Jetzt aber nicht wegen mir des gar nicht posten ok?

[corizo]

Ausnahmsweise Sorenal...

(Sadji, machste deins dann noch raus?)

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(19:43:12) (@Souls_666) ok first question
(19:43:20) (@Souls_666) <Semariel> "Can you reveal some future plans, especially relating the content? Phelan mentioned
(19:43:20) (@Souls_666) the range combat earlier"
(19:44:24) (+Phelan) Range Combat and Economy of the game are the current big issues we are working on
(19:45:32) (@Souls_666) not even a small hint of what you have in mind?
(19:46:54) (@Souls_666) ooooooooooooook then
(19:47:06) (@Souls_666) apologies to who asked this next one as i lost your name, but it is a good one
(19:47:14) (@Souls_666) "Some people were afraid of your use of the word "MMOG". So, to kick away the fear: you're not planing on eliminating the "RP", are you?"
(19:47:29) (+Phelan) for the future? hmm.. there is a lot of stuff lying around here, almost finished, half finished.. we have to be careful where we spend our resources
(19:48:36) (+Phelan) well.. Ryzom IS an MMORPG, and it shall stay that way. when I use MMO it is just because I am too lazy to type. i cant remember using either MMO or MMORPG
(19:49:37) (@Souls_666) the stuff you have lying around, is it RP oriented?
(19:50:11) (+Phelan) some of it.
(19:51:27) (+Phelan) what i dont want to do is to tell you we will be doing this or that next. when we are done with the 2 things, we can see whether it was a success and then, based on this experience we will decide what comes next
(19:52:14) (@Souls_666) ok fair enough
(19:52:15) (@Souls_666) next
(19:52:24) (@Souls_666) from Therowan I believe 'How many ppl from Gameforge actually play Ryzom and know what the players need/want?'
(19:53:37) (+Phelan) Well, all the former Nevrax guys are now in Gameforge, so we have them and their experience. We do not deceide things without consulting them. We did not buy just the game, we bought a whole company.
(19:54:16) (+Phelan) but in Gameforge germany, around 20 of the 40 employees are playing, however, the decissions for the game are made in france
(19:54:41) (@Niddy) Phelan - what will happen with the lore? Who will be responsible for it? As we all know only one person really know all ins and outs about the lore
(19:56:20) (+Phelan) The lore will be handled by Gamforge France (former Nevrax) now.
(19:57:01) (@Souls_666) ok next question
(19:57:14) (@Souls_666) from jonasq: " How are the plans relating Missions and Rites.. especially those, which are already tested on the Advanced Test Server, but have never seen ingame"
(19:58:49) (+Phelan) Missions are being reworked, there were some flaws in them. We are also redesigning some tools so that the level designers can get new missions and bosses faster programmed.
(20:01:00) (+Phelan) anyything that is ready to go will go online.
(20:01:13) (@Souls_666) from jonasq: "Are there any plans (later on) to implement a Z-Axis for interesting features like Jumping, water animals (which have already seen in files), fishing, diving and so on ?"
(20:02:34) (+Phelan) was one of our first ideas. however, ryzom has no physics engine included, so it would take us at least a year to implement. so we put that idea on ice again
(20:03:23) (@Souls_666) and casting back to the missions question just briefly, weve been asked if you can put any kind of eta on that - no matter how rough
(20:05:22) (+Phelan) i would burn my fingers there. if all goes perfectly, maybe just a few weeks. but no commitment there. The first new quests will be for lowlevelplayers (for newbies on the mainland) and then we will do something for the highlevelplayers
(20:06:37) (@Souls_666) from aspi: "Are there any plans to improve the economic system?"
(20:07:40) (+Phelan) To improve? you mean repair but yep, one of the 2 things ingame we are working on
(20:08:21) (@Souls_666) ok ive had this one from just about everyonem including my pet rats
(20:08:33) (@Souls_666) " What about the announced Kitins lair and spires?"
(20:10:53) (+Phelan) kitin lair: we are still trying to figure out how long we would need to get it working. what i see so far is that there really is a lot of work left. I hate waste, so, when we have time we try to fix everything that has been started and makes sense. but priority now lies on economy, range combat and a smaller client
(20:13:27) (@Souls_666) from Badomen. "I want to know do they plan to fix all the broken quests in the enclopedia etc before making new ones"
(20:16:05) (+Phelan) i think it will be parallel. fixing usually is easier than making stuff new, so fixes will probably come first. but now we are working on some lowlevel missions on the mainland, then we go for some highlevel content.
(20:16:58) (@Souls_666) ok quickly nipping back, you commented on the Kitin lair, what about the Spires?
(20:23:30) (+Phelan) Spire: same, but it is more finished
(20:24:03) (@Souls_666) ok big one from Minni
(20:24:05) (@Souls_666) i'm curious as to why they are trying to market a product but being so very vague about future in regard to what the product is,ie. what will it include and what major developements are planned, surely there is a case that letting people know what to expect in the near and distant future will only encourage existing player base loyalty but also encourage new players into the game, after all no one wants to join the secret service because the
(20:25:01) (@Souls_666) join the secret service because they don't know what to expect
(20:25:05) (@Souls_666) for those who got cut off
(20:29:00) (+Phelan) ok. marketing a game and developing it further are not the same thing. we believe ryzom is a great game and we have the people here that have developed it. what we need to have to make further plans for the future is solid facts whether one step or the other is successful.
(20:29:55) (+Phelan) i am t keeping things secret here, it is just as it is, we dont know what comes next and i dont want to raise some exspectations that we cannot fulfill afterwards
(20:31:17) (@Souls_666) ok a few more nice ones, and then the rest
(20:31:31) (@Souls_666) from <Vhaldir> Any idea when we will be seeing further outpost expansions? ie; New Outposts (new areas such as PR as well as existing areas), More building options, etc.
(20:31:37) (+Phelan) so, this was just to lure me into a flase sense of security?
(20:31:43) (@Souls_666) yup
(20:31:59) (+Phelan) no, no idea yet.
(20:32:26) (@Souls_666) bah that was too easy
(20:32:27) (@Souls_666) next
(20:32:39) (@Souls_666) from <Vhaldir> Another question I have is.. how high on the priority list are the current known bugs? Are they being addressed? There are several teleport bugs as well as various client-side memory leaks that have been an issue since beta, yet still have not been resolved.
(20:33:59) (+Phelan) they are being adressed. especially the client is being completely reworked now. what we put behind is stuff that happens only seldom and stuff we cannot reproduce yet
(20:35:48) (@Souls_666) ok last of the easy ones
(20:35:54) (@Souls_666) from <Nikooo> Question : "Seeing as fishing can be done in so many way and is really a neat thing that gives a distinct feeling in MMO's, are there any plans of fishing at all?"
(20:37:46) (+Phelan) nope, havent thought of that. but, what we will do is an "Idea Section" in the board. so we can collect ideas from the community
(20:39:11) (@Souls_666) ok you might wanna put the kids to bed now folks, time for some "other" questions
(20:39:40) (@Souls_666) "With the servers now based in Germany, will future csrs be based there as well?"
(20:40:56) (+Phelan) no. the location of the servers has nothing todo with the location of the CSRs. The server market in Germany has more competition then the one in the UK or in France, that is why we went there
(20:41:49) (@Souls_666) " it feels you are clearing out what made ryzom good with no clear step forward" any comment?
(20:44:01) (+Phelan) hmm.. what did we clear? we did not continue the contract nevrax had with jolt. Jolt was doing an incredible support job, however ryzom just doesnt have the income to pay for jolt. if Ryzom would earn the money, we would have had no problem in taking over the contract we had with jolt
(20:45:03) (+Phelan) if ryzom earned the money (sorry, I am german )
(20:45:57) (@Souls_666) "Why have they been so reluctant with passing on information that is vital to the community?"
(20:57:15) (+Phelan) When we bought Nevrax, we started negotiating with a couple of hosters. Friday we asked all of them, including Jolt, for a final offer. On saturday we got an incredible price from one of the hosters gameforge has been working with for years. We decided that the offer was too good to refuse and stopped the process there.
(21:00:08) (@Souls_666) ok next
(21:00:11) (@Souls_666) "how many have been sacked from the nevrax team taken over"
(21:02:24) (+Phelan) the list of employees from the liquidator was 25. we took over 21. We would have taken all, however, french labour law is very restrictive, so we went 'only' for 21. however, as time goes by and when we grow we will hire some of the old guys back. but we want the jobs to be secure, so we will first earn more, then spend more
(21:03:25) (@Souls_666) "What, in your opinion, is keeping Ryzom from bringing in sufficient funds for services such as jolt, etc.? and what do you plan to do about it?"
(21:06:16) (+Phelan) well...the main part is the big client. only around 10% of the players signing up on the website actually start playing. so we will reduce the client to CD size and try distributing it on magazines. another part will be more language versions (ad rework the german translation). the signup process (it used to be 7 steps, now it is one) is another issue.. finally making mainland more attractive
(21:08:25) (@Souls_666) "You previously said final offers were on a friday, yet recieved and went with an offer the day after? is that not somewhat dodgy, esp with a rumour that the winning bid had been testing for some weeks?"
(21:08:55) (+Phelan) Call for final offers, sorry.
(21:09:46) (@Souls_666) Q. I dont think anyone here is upset about you switching hosting companys. We are upset about the CSR and support that we as paying customers get. We want assurances that GF will keep the quality which Ryzom has seen in the past. What assurances can you offer that you will keep the quality that we saw with Neravax and Jolt?
(21:14:40) (+Phelan) That is a matter that only time can answer. The next few days will be more than bumpy, no doubt about that. But I am confident, that we will be able to handle it. Right now we have not that many paying customers, so it should not be impossible. I would be lying if I said I do some magic and we can do the same work Jolt did with a budget that is way less.
(21:16:09) (@Souls_666) "so in essense, custumoer service isn't high up on your list, Phelan?"
(21:16:52) (+Phelan) no. that is not what i said. we will do the best customer support we can afford.
(21:17:06) (@Souls_666) ok next one, almost done
(21:17:16) (@Souls_666) "can i put forward a possible question please: For all of us the CSR are a major part of the community, and i think i speak for nearly everyone in saying we play because of the community, why should we carry on playing? What short term things are going to happen which will make us want to stay?"
(21:19:25) (+Phelan) the community stays the same. I hope the CSRs will continue playing. A question in return, do you think all existing paying players would agree to pay, say 20 euros per month if we kept jolt? do you think we would get more players paying with a higher price and jolt as support provider?
(21:21:59) (@Souls_666) "What short term things are going to happen which will make us want to stay?""
(21:22:50) (+Phelan) I hope you still love the game. I hope you still love the community. What we are working on right now i have already told you
(21:23:20) (@Souls_666) ok next one
(21:23:31) (@Souls_666) while i grab a coffee
(21:23:35) (@Souls_666) "is it true that GF is in reality ceasing any long tern development so that ryzom can just become a small cash cow, rather than a project to be invested in"
(21:34:16) (@Souls_666) ok guys five minute time out
(21:35:08) (+Phelan) dunno where you got that from. if we wanted that we would not havetaken over any employee. we are investing (the money we spend on advertising would goin to millions of euros this year alone if we had to pay for it). No, we are not interested injust short term profits. but we are not at all interested in a long term failure
(21:35:41) (+Phelan) I don't know if you understand the situation: Nevrax went bankrupt. Suppliers have not been paid.Ryzom has been living on investments for all its existance. Just throwing in more and moremoney has been tried. We have to cut down costs so we can grow in a healthy way again.
(21:36:35) (@Souls_666) ok so five minute time out to restock coffee/lungs
(21:36:43) (@Souls_666) first question for the return will be
(21:37:01) (@Souls_666) "how do you plan to replace the CSR team? you have given no warning whatsoever that they will be gone tommorow, all under agreements with jolt so unlikely to come over. Your established players are variously pissed off/shocked/quitting over this so are unlikely to help.
(21:37:09) (@Souls_666) that leaves an open invitation on the forum.. how can you expect us to have any faith in this process, when it seems like you will just be desperate to get random people in with no idea of their suitability?
(21:42:13) (+Phelan) Ok. Gameforge has some experience in building up teams. Right now we have around 2500 volunteers working for us. Here at nevrax we have people knowing the game since it went online. It will be a lot of hard work, but it can be done.
(21:43:55) (@Souls_666) Recently it seems like there has been an exodus of sorts of long term players that played a large role in the community. Many cite lack of end-game content among their reasons for leaving. I was curious to see what GF was planning to do to keep players playing if the Kitin lair is so far off
(21:50:35) (+Phelan) well. that is something we will discuss with the eventteams, content that we can get with little or no coding will be implemented as long as it fits into the game. Why are the long term players leaving? Because Gameforge messed it up? hm, i dont think so, we did not have the time to do so.
(21:50:37) (+Phelan) Of course i could promise you in 8 weeks we will have the kitin lair and other stuff, but that would just be a lie. I told you what to exspect from the near future more i cannot promise.
(21:51:11) (@Souls_666) Communication has been a big issue with many players. There were Q&A sessions about a year ago in which players submitted questions and received answers on aspects of the game. How is GF going to handle communication with its player base? Could we get the Q&As back as they were quiet helpful?
(21:52:21) (+Phelan) You see that I am rather active in the board. once i have more time, i will do so even more
(21:53:26) (@Souls_666) Have a question, how much does it cost gameforge to keep Jolt? After all i assume nevrax and jolt had a special deal?
(21:54:41) (+Phelan) that is a confidential matter.. believe me if it was just around a euro per paying player we wouldn't have changed anything and i would be at home by now
(21:55:24) (@Souls_666) ok longish question now
(21:55:34) (@Souls_666) You as an investor need to understand that Ryzom is a unique game. It’s community is unique, and it’s story is unique. I very much understand that you are looking at this from a business prospective, but you need to understand that we are your subscribers.
(21:55:40) (@Souls_666) Without us you have no business. Several people have already left and if you want to break even in your investment you need to listen to us. Customer support is our biggest issue here. Period. Whether this is in game CSRs or development.
(21:55:46) (@Souls_666) I very much understand that you as a company don’t want to pour more into this until you see some return. Would increasing the monthly cost increase development and keep the support team? If it would do both I’m pretty sure we would all happily pay more. But once again you offer no assurances.
(21:57:50) (+Phelan) true, without payig customers there is no business, no argument from me there. But the fact remains, you cannot spend more money than you earn.
(21:57:53) (+Phelan) Nevrax learned that lesson the hard way, and i have no intention to repeat it.
(21:58:43) (@Souls_666) Will R2 be used to create permanent additions to Atys, and do you envision R2 being functional as opposed to being a gimmick? If yes, is R2 going to put the emphasis of storytelling on the developers rather then individually played events and characters?
(21:58:44) (@Souls_666) will there be any ring additions, improvements ?
(21:58:48) (@Souls_666) two questions in one
(22:00:05) (+Phelan) Ok, ring. The ring is a good idea, but also needs a lot of work. I think that client, range combat and the economy will be more fun for the players.
(22:01:04) (@Souls_666) Follow up to the answer to question about what's required to get more subscriptions. Phelan mentioned "making mainland more attractive". Can he elaborate on that please? And if that involves making the game more like WoW, can they tell us now, before letting us know after the fact, as with the server location move, and the Jolt contract not being renewed.
(22:02:29) (+Phelan) Ryzom is not WoW, will never be and it would be stupid to try to immitate WoW.
(22:02:59) (+Phelan) Making the mainland more attractive: more content there is the main part
(22:04:09) (@Souls_666) Does GF expect Volunteers to put the kind of hours in that the current CSR team do for a free account ? Also will the current CSR team be consulted on any of the apps that are sent in so we dont get power idiots as CSRs , as they have some big shoes to fill , and we as paying customers have been spoiled with a fast and experianced responce to all problems.
(22:06:16) (+Phelan) The current CSR Team already consists mostly of volunteers. The thing that will change is that we will handle Jolts part on ourselves. Naturally we will make some mistakes on picking CSRs, but that will be rectfied quickly
(22:07:28) (@Souls_666) with the ring editor it seems easy to create new lands, can't the dev team use the tools to make permanent new lands quickly and cheaply?
(22:08:13) (+Phelan) unfortunatly no the system was intended to be able to, but unfortunatly it was finished oly by 80%
(22:08:30) (+Phelan) but that is something we are looking at as well
(22:08:48) (@Souls_666) "seeing as your new purchase is in terms of business "unstable", do you really think you can afford to make mistakes when selecting the support team? The current one was perfect to this game and made it in so many ways! Alot to handle right?"
(22:11:04) (+Phelan) What we cannot afford is jolt. We try to minimize the mistakes, but when chosing personel you WILL make one mistake or the other. Happened to jolt as well. I count on you guys to report bad csrs asap.
(22:12:15) (@Souls_666) "It was mentioned that we just have seen about 5% of Atys. Is that true and will there be more land coming soon?"
(22:12:56) (+Phelan) define soon. we will work on it, obviously.
(22:13:28) (@Souls_666) 6 months
(22:13:34) (@Souls_666) er, they said, not me
(22:14:09) (+Phelan) more and i cannot promise, but is likely. more content definatly.
(22:14:24) (+Phelan) more land
(22:14:44) (@Souls_666) For increasing the profits: do you plan to open new game servers for spanish or chinese speaking players ? Or to reduce the costs: do you think of merging all the servers in one ?
(22:15:57) (+Phelan) yep, we plan other languages, spanish and italian are on the top of the list, china is difficult as they have no propper means to pay, korea is a hot candidate too
(22:16:13) (+Phelan) and merging servers... that is a hard task
(22:16:33) (+Phelan) i dont think that the effort there will justify the savings
(22:17:14) (@Souls_666) "you've made some references to more content - define 'more content'
(22:18:57) (+Phelan) quests and bosses. and whatever else is a good idea and doable.
(22:19:14) (@Souls_666) are there any plans to increase the avatar distance from the camera (prolly has some fancy name) i find it frustrating that the only way i can see behind myself any great distance is to either rotate my avatar or the camera
(22:20:47) (+Phelan) the problem there is, that on some points on the map it leads to problems. we are discussing it, but that is not in our main focus now
(22:21:20) (@Souls_666) are there any plans to raise the level cap past 250 , or add new skills / spells / crafting options etc
(22:23:11) (+Phelan) yep, it is discussed.. we are discussing a lot, but that kind of suggestions would be best in the board in a new section so it wont get lost.
(22:23:23) (@Souls_666) I want to know if Ryzom is going to be a 'standard' mmorpg (quests, bosses, donjons) or will you try to make Ryzom more RP like it was before or even better
(22:25:37) (+Phelan) ryzom is by no means standard and that is what sets it apart. RP is a crucial part of ryzom, but RP lives thru the community, so it will be up to you. we will help though.
(22:25:58) (@Souls_666) will you be keeping klients running as it is now? If not, will you be dropping it completely or changing to something else?
(22:27:25) (+Phelan) hmmm... we will keep it running for now, but to be honest it has a lot of problems. Gameforge is running a huge irc network, so I personally would prefer irc. however, that is open to discussion.
(22:27:58) (@Souls_666) are there any plans to revamp skills which are even more in need of it that ranged? 1handed staff melee and hand to hand for instance..
(22:29:11) (+Phelan) again, something for the board. you are asking detailed questions, the decission to make is not up to me alone.
(22:29:36) (@Souls_666) concerning the RP aspect: will you implement some RP only features without any impact on game mechanics? for example: the description of the generic raw material tells something about craftable campfires? that would be cool for RP but doesn´t need any othe game mechanics than a crafting plan and some grafics.
(22:29:55) (+Phelan) same as above
(22:30:15) (@Souls_666) Can you remove the targeting retical? (as with the rest of the UI when pressing F5) It'd keep alot of video makers happy
(22:31:22) (+Phelan) guys, all those ideas are worth discussing, but we have to discuss it before we make a decission. GF has not imposed a dictatorship on nevrax
(22:31:33) (@Souls_666) "will we see some RP events organized by gameforge like elections, open wars etc...or will the game stay static?"
(22:31:55) (+Phelan) i don't see any reason against it...
(22:32:33) (@Souls_666) do they have any plans on implementing guild mission and making the guild trainers work?
(22:33:02) (+Phelan) also, sounds like a nice idea...
(22:33:28) • +Phelan is starting to think it might be a good idea to get a canned reply set
(22:33:41) (@Souls_666) yeah - see if it works for this one
(22:33:43) (@Souls_666) "are you SpankMe on Cho? if so, would you mind inviting me back in team?"
(22:34:29) (@Souls_666) "do you feel satisfied on how this Q and A session has gone? And how do you feel will the players have experienced your answers?"
(22:34:48) (+Phelan) SpankMe? lol, no. Funny we used to ban "or" or any nick that contained "or" during registration, but that nick went thru?
(22:35:12) (@Souls_666) welcome to our world
(22:36:01) (@Souls_666) "do you feel satisfied on how this Q and A session has gone? And how do you feel will the players have experienced your answers?"
(22:36:56) (+Phelan) Satisfied with it? hmm.. given the reason for that meeting, yep, well i am. I believe nothing i ca say could vanish the mistrust some
(22:37:06) (@Souls_666) "are you finally going to refund the 3 dappers I lost on the last rollback??"
(22:37:18) (+Phelan) of you still have. only time can rectify it. I hope you understood that leaving jolt was not a decission we wanted to make, but we had no choice.
(22:38:36) (@Souls_666) oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooook peeps
(22:39:07) (@Souls_666) we've burned through a lot of questions tonight, some answers you may have liked, some you may not, but no questions were ducked
(22:39:33) (@Souls_666) so thanks everyone for coming, thanks to Phelan for being brave and ill unmod the room so feel free to hang around and chat a while
(22:39:47) (+Phelan) thanks for being here, everyone. we can have a chat like this once in a while if you like.

#########

Ganz kurz, nur n paar Eckpunkte:
- Die großen Sachen, an denen se grad arbeiten, sind: kleinerer Client, Wirtschaft und Fernkampf
- Kein Servermerge geplant
- Wohl keine neue Außenposten/Außenpostenerweiterungen in nächster Zeit, selbe für neue Regionen
- Es werden grad viele Ideen durchdiskutiert. Bald gibts hier wohl auch n Subforum für Ideen posten.

[mitchiro]

Besten Dank Numar

sehr schönes log, und fein zusammengefasst

[certago]

Muchas gracis!

[soul782]

Hm - zugegeben sind die harten Fakten nur begrenzt rausgekommen, in dem Chat. Wobei ich persöhnlich zu schätzen weis, wie eng die Kommunikation zwischen Gameforge und der Community ist - und wie offen auch gesprochen wird. Da wo ich herkomme war das nicht so - in sofern bin ich optimistisch was das ganze angeht.

Da ich noch nicht so lange spiele habe ich natürlich nicht den Vergleich mit Nevrax und auch nicht die Bindung an Jolt, in sofern kann ich persöhnlich die emotionalen Reaktionen und das Bohren in Bezug auf Jolt nur begrenzt nachvollziehen.

Ingesamt möchte ich aber Phelan persöhnlich danken, dass er sich der doch recht kritischen Community gestellt hat und offensichtlich recht offene Antworten gegeben hat.