ИДЕЯ ДЛЯ РИЗОМА

Lots of players have already complained loudly about losing their levels and items during the server-merge.
Quite many do not want to return to the game after the merge because of that.

I understand that it's technically impossible to transfer the characters as they were.

But what if we could reclaim at least our char-levels after the merge to get them manually raised by the devs again? That regain doesn't have to happen right away of course, it could also be done in steps over time…
The data is still there, we could also make screenshots before the merge to proof our claims.
Maybe we could at least reclaim the 3 highest skill-levels or so - compromises could be made I guess? ;)

Also other things that were really, really important to us could be "reset" manually after the merge…

Maybe we could even "save" some items this way - by writing an e-mail to the Devs, with screenshots or whatever before the merge. Every player or character could perhaps do this for a certain number of his current items.
And those items would then be given to him/her again after the merge is done?

Yes I know it would be a lot of work and take time for the Devs.
But wouldn't it still be better than losing many, many players?

How about it, Devs?
Would you be willing to sacrifice the time to do this to save your community?

Absoultely agree, will take alot of work though!

Please do it <3

Why a screenshot?
They have all the data they need.
Select the levels of each char from the database and let a script call the GM commands to set the level manually on the new server.
Thats a quite easy task.

The old data seems to be incompatible, doesn't it?
Some players might not get their old characters back "as they were" because their char-name will have to be changed, and whatever else will have to change...

If compromises are to be made; like only a certain amount of skill-levels could be raised (less work to do) and only a certain number of items could be re-given, then it would be up to us to choose and claim what is most important to us.

Also Emails and Screenshots will proof our wholeheartedness to the Devs about this ;)

I think it is a political decision, not a technical, to reset all player achievements to zero. And I am pretty sure, if not revoked, it will kill the game. This is, unfortunately, a somewhat self-fulfilling prophecy. I shall clearly not grind on the new server to get back the 18 masters, all occupations, and all levels above 151 except 6 fighting skills still between 101 and 150. The reason is that I do not expect the game to survive for the 18 months it took me to achieve that in the first place.

If the devs want to restore the player values it can easily be done automatically. Bit different may be restoration or preservation of items. If a player may apply for even after the merge, the old item stock values would have to be preserved. This is probably somewhat awkward a procedure. Alternatively, a player may select one or two beloved items (the famous yubo, or my 250 tekorn daggers ;), for example) to transfer to the new server.

No it is complete. Otherwise you couldn't play at this time.
The server are currently up and running. Freeze the data at this moment, set up the new server, migrate the characters, take the old servers offline and make the new one public. That is a real migration strategy. The current strategy is delete the old servers, start a new one.

If, for any reason, you want to have a look at your data or keep it somewhere, type this address :

http://atys.ryzom.com/api/character.php?part=full&key=

don't forget to add your full API key at the end of this address

for exemple key=FR521366R0REA16F998

deffo need a chosen language tab in char title bar thingy,
with everyone being ruled by the frenchies it will be difficult :o)

It is surely no technical problem to archive player data and make them readable for GMs. Given the modest number of players online at any time, manual reset of these data is not an unbearable strain for the CSR.

One could even think about a procedure where every player has to start at Silan and get his levels etc. back only when having finished the city welcomer missions in all 4 countries. That would smoothe the demand for toon values' restoration.

The advantage of such a procedure promising future skill restoration would be that playing on the old servers would not die down until the start of the new server. In such a case I would surely resume leveling. In the moment there is no incentive anymore to do anything.

Yep, that sounds good. If the GMs could help out with the manual regain, that would be great.
I also love your special suggestion - to get your former skillpoints back after completing all 4 city-welcomer-missions :) This is right down my alley because I always loved missions and wished you could get fraction-points by doing them (the kind you can use for trading at the capitals).

And this arrangement would give the devs (and/or GMs) more time.

Like I said - it could be done in steps over time :) For a better "balance" of the game. Also one skill-branch could be "restored" after another every month or after completing each single city-welcomer-rite - or only up to a certain level, and up to level 250 only after you have all found all the respawn-spots or whatever...

@Kalean: thank you very much for telling us this easy way to see our character's data!
http://www.3025-game.de/ryzom/de/ seems to use this as well