Ryzom is opening a new website for its Free Software NeL 3D MMORPG engine.

[vl]

We are very glad to announce that we have now opened a new website for NeL, our core 3D MMORPG engine technology, at http://dev.ryzom.com.

We know that many of our players are developers or otherwise interested in opensource affairs, and this news will be especially interesting for them. If you're not interested in such things then don't worry if you don't understand some of the things you read in this post as it is for developers and they are used to this.

To summarize, NeL is a C++ programming framework at the very foundation of Ryzom; NeL contains the 3D Engine, the Networking Engine, the Sound Engine, and much more that is at heart of our MMORPG Ryzom. NeL is multi-platform and works on Windows, Linux, and Mac.

NeL is under the GNU GPL, because we strongly believe in the "Free Software" philosophy which governs this License. In a few words, this basically means that everyone in the world can access NeL's source code, modify it, create new things based on it and release it freely.

We are the first and only commercial MMORPG to provide the source code of the core foundation of it's game and we are very proud of that.

We intend to support all of the new NeL community by giving it as much time as we can alongside our game, Ryzom, in order to create a strong community of developers. As the first step in this direction, our whole new website dedicated to NeL : http://dev.ryzom.com contains everything that's needed for new developers; a forum, a wiki, an issue tracker, a doxygen, a repository browser, and a lot more besides. Our new CTO Vianney Lecroart will be directly in charge of NeL and can be directly contacted regarding NeL on vl@ryzom.com if needed.

If you are a developer and have any interest in NeL in general or in our 3D MMORPG engine specifically, please feel free to join our community at http://dev.ryzom.com. Your second stop after this new website should be the IRC channel; you can find it at #nel on irc.freenode.net where you will be able to express yourself.

But before you 'get stuck in', if you don't know our game and our 3D engine and want to test and see it running, you can download a FREE Ryzom client here, and you can also easily create a FREE Ryzom account to access our game on this page (Hurry up, no credit card required for the moment Wink).

The NeL community is waiting for you; you are all most welcome…

The Ryzom Developer Team

[komissar]

ehem... if this were posted somwhere else other than Ryzom's forums maybe it could draw more people to the game...

But sorry for this simple question: what aboutthe game itself and it's marketing?...

[iphdrunk]

I find it interesting that they are giving some publicity to NeL, maybe they have goals in common with virtualcitizenship, or admittedly, a way to reduce costs may be opensourcing the development (part of) thus benefitting of the improvements of a community.

There is one thing bugging me though... Who are "we"? "we think", "we are very glad", "we are the first". It's getting a bit "rude" It's good to know that there is a Ryzom Developer Team (although it would not be the first time a company has 1-member teams ) Sooo, you could at least introduce yourself, mister "admin"

Other than that, good to know things are moving...

[katriell]

Good to hear more news.

[zerotacg]

sfb:

From the OpenNeL Community:

Many of you may already be aware that NeL was already GPL'd but not actively supported by the previous owners.

Some of you may also know that after the last bankruptcy that the NeL community decided, in an effort of survival, to fork the entire NeL code-base rather than risk losing NeL, the history and years of volunteer efforts to document and test the engine and framework. The resulting for was called OpenNeL. OpenNeL in no way intends to continue its fork or to compete with the sanctioned GPL NeL that the new Ryzom owners and is ready to make significant motion towards merging the (significant) changes into the official NeL repository. The active developers have already done a fantastic job of doing this, but there is much more work to do.

If you're a developer or even if you are not a developer we're seeking the assistance of anyone who is interested in volunteering some time to further the cause of NeL and free-and-open-source MMORPG frameworks in general. We have tasks to facilitate this migration ranging from simple to complex, al carte. Examples of some of the things we need to do to get moving:

* Migrate the content from the OpenNeL wiki @ http://www.opennel.org/ to the new wiki.
* Correct content that is inaccurate in the OpenNeL content, preferably on the new site.
* Migrate the updated CMake build system.
* Fix the unit tests so that they build and run correctly using the preferred Ryzom test kit.
* Update and migrate the downloads such as media packs and third-party libraries.

In addition to work that needs to be done we greatly appreciate activity in the forums and IRC channel. What better way to work through problems or make decisions than to have the opinion of the people using the framework, both directly as developers and indirectly as players of the games based on the framework.

We're eager and excited to begin with our new partners!

[kalindra]

Well THAT was unexpected ! I can see what they've been busy working on, now, though I'd have a hard time trying to explain it.

Let's just say that the most important part of this message, for the non "NeL-savvy" people, (like me, for instance) is that things are getting done and moving forward, that they require lots of work and that they will make the implementation of new content much easier for the DEV Team.

The regular gamers might not feel so concerned about this, but trust me, this is great news. It means that the core engine is being documented and worked on.

I'm starting to expect a lot of good stuff from those new owners, no matter who they are. Unlike the precedent ones, they seem to know what they are doing and what they are working with.

[kazaam31]

hm yea really unexpected... but seems that their were working hard on the core, defo not a 1man job^^

http://resume.ploki.info/
http://www.ploki.info/

[scope]

In relation to zerotacq's post:

I'm wondering if the new NeL Community is meant to reunite with / make a step towards Open NeL. For what i read, the Open NeL Community has done some improvements. Wouldn't be good to loose them and much more important, the people behind it.

Thaxl

[elthunim]

This is good news. The NeL is being valued and supported. That can only mean developers, however many they may be, have an interest in stabilizing the core, and facilitating the development of modules upon it.

I see it as a sign that developers have been working their way up from the core, and are serious both about fixing things and developing new content. I hope that is indeed the case, and that we'll soon have alchemist/wizard branches, to make wizards put the mission mats to good use in recipes that alter weather patterns.

[komissar]

Hmm I must say that I was too fast and rash in my first post. I did not understand what it actually is that they have done.

Now that i do (at least to some extent) I would like to apologise and say that it is indeed a great thing and that I personally am grateful to "The ryzom team" whoever they are