IDEAS FOR RYZOM

As we allwell know, Ryzom has an awful amount of bugs. Yes, the dev workforce is low if non-existent, it is known -- but it is not an excuse for something that purports to be an MMO (remotely competitive and which expects to have players).

We could chalk the lack of end-game content to continued RP events, after all the game purports to be about RP. But before you get the player to stick around, you must ensure the player does not quietly leave because of gameplay issues.

Well ... every year, universities around the world require their students to do an internship, as part of their education. In some parts of the world the would-be employer is not expected to pay the student, with the understanding that their knowledge is still incomplete, and their presence is certainly an administrative burden but only a questionable benefit to the company. This is great news for WG, I believe.

(I'm thinking eastern Europe to boot, maybe Cyprus is like that too, I really don't know)

Would this not be a feasible way to bring in more developer power? Computer Science students, even if not advanced, can help with basic tasks like testing -- bug and bugfix testing, integration testing for the work done by the Ryzom Core project, etc. This does not require writing code from scratch or understanding the big picture, which would be more daunting tasks. Under the supervision of senior developers, a group of rather untrained testers could still provide very valuable insights into the current codebase, and (hopefully) a few improvements both client and server side.

Sure, there's some extra administrative overhead for Winch Gate. I believe the set-up costs are minimal and the actual work overhead bearable, while the benefits for short- and long-term retention incalculable.

For an easy comparison: the "wild Ryzom" contest fell on almost deaf ears, it cost at least a few hundred euro in prize money, and the results are questionable at best (~70 participants in two months, most of them old players). The introduction of the megacorp.io website (which is an improvement of the game) saw the returning of a LOT of old faces that otherwise are lost customers, and also garnered a disproportionate amount of attention from everyone.

Of course, it's possible I'm missing something here.

It's a pretty normal thing for a company to have a registered and records office in another country for tax reasons. I wouldn't be so certain Winch Gate, not the records office, is actually based in Cypress.

i like it, the basic idea is sound, perhaps they should also consider making the game a little more open source as well, right now the only thing ryzom core works on is the engine it's self, not anything more then that. with an open source community of a few hundred there's a chance for more rapid improvement, and give the one dev we seam to have a light brake from his or her INSANE work-load for a single person, give that dev the power to supervise the work the open community does, and let them give project outlines to said open community to work on, as the community finishes one the single dev can test it alpha style, and then release it to the server for beta testing live on the server, some of the more active open contributors with stronger skill set's could be given more direct access to the server for bug fixing as they're found by the current active player base's bug reports.

just my 2 dappers and i'll stop now before this becomes a novel sized post.

Sorry Mj.. the content is too big.. I could not finish it.. :/

Idea is cool! Any possibility of Ryzom players to be recruited for internship? I believe that there can be N number of tasks. Mayeb WG can come up with plans to get the best out of its player base!

Hey, thanks for bringing this up, I had a link that I wanted to share.

It seems this exact idea has been tried in the past, with less than glamorous results.

link

Yup, winchgate solved the problem by having paid employees doing terrible code, so they don't need internship anymore !