IDEAS FOR RYZOM

I think we should have another Region like an Artic Region

Have this new region a new race, or is it like PR?

I think we should have an instanced bar, with kegs everywhere, poker tables and Ghuiss'.

i say no new race, and yes it could be like PR, it would also allow for new types of mat's, thus leading to new craft recipes and a new land to explore.

but this is just my 2 dappers.

Already suggested here: http://app.ryzom.com/app_forum/index.php?page=topic/view/11002/1

Great minds think alike.

I think we should have fewer bugs in the regions we have, as well as variety to the missions available in them. I think it would be great, too, to have the unused people (NPCs) walking around in towns talk to the player, even if they didn't say anything particularly interesting.
I think we should have a more active dev team : )

The key to a more active dev team is more money and more people.  I have counted dev members from forum posts for the last several years. I come up with three possible and only one confirmed.

The coder enthusiasts at Ryzom Core go where their muse leads them, but they are not paid and they are not actually part of the Ryzom game.  Some of their stuff is used in Ryzom, but they aren't really devs.

The only paid employees that I know of in Ryzom are the dev(s).  CSR's are not paid, nor are Event Team members. In addition, while I am sure about the CSRs and ET members (because we have been told as much), I am not even sure that the dev(s) are paid. It may be that all our money simply pays the rent on the servers.

We know that there is at least one dev, because things do get fixed, albeit slowly, and there is a new Dev report in the selections in WebIG. http://app.ryzom.com/app_devroadmap/index.php?from_index=1

What can we do?  What we do in game -- make new things happen. If you have skills in 3-D modeling, in model skinning, in animation of models, in graphic design... are you willing to work for free?  If you are, send your resumes in to Ryzom. You could probably use the well known support@ryzom.com address; I'm sure the CSRs will pass the volunteers on.

-- Bittty (not a CSR, not a dev, very little 3D modeling xp, general gadfly)

well bitty, keeping the server running every month cost's about 250 us dollars to rent a server that can handle the load of the players, and let's say they rent a server that is equal to a server used for the millions of players in WoW, that's about 1500 us dollars at the very top end, now, let's look at how many players we know playing ryzom, i can count just on my friends list 87 subbed players (do a little math, 87 x 10.00 = 870.00) thats more then enough right there to pay for the server to stay up, and of those 87, there are 54 with 2 subbed accounts, so those pay 2x 10.00, and a few have 4 subbed accounts, they each pay 40.00 a month, so making the excuse that the game isn't making money is completely WRONG, the issue is what are they doing with the money they make? i have never seen an ad anywhere for ryzom, so there's no advertising expense, i've also only counted one dev working on things actively and publicly, so if they are paid that's an expense but doesn't reflect the amount of subbed players in game vs the pay of the server rent and pay check for ONE dev. ryzom has had some of the same bug's for the last 9 years, so there is only one thing that's really at the heart of the issue, the current owners of the game are stickily using the game as a cash cow, they're not putting much at all back into the game that i can see at all, sure they do work on somethings, and i'm amazed that if it's something to benefit the players it's a rare addition, more often it's only the beneficial bugs that are fixed quickly (NH bug for example) while other bugs like the prospecting bug have been around as long as the game has been open to the public, so i really must wonder who is really doing anything, and what they are doing. the game is quickly loosing players becasue of the issues, and empty promices we're give, they're going to other games that DO reinvest the capital gained into the game it's self, rather then just lining someone's pocket while leaving the paying players to live with the bug's and issues.

i love this game, it's the ONLY mmo that i play, and will be the only mmo i play, i'll continue to pay for the 2 sub accounts i have, but every time that money goes out to cypress i wonder what it's real use will be, to better a game we all love and enjoy, or go into the pocket of a few ceo's pockets so they can keep their fancy table at the country club.

so bitty in response to your first line of the last post following the quote of none, it's more about more money and more people, it's about using the money they already get from all of us for the game it's self, fix the bugs, advertise, ryzom has more to offer then any other mmo out there i've seen, and the potential for ryzom to have more players then WoW is there, but WoW wasn't afraid to spend on ad's, they weren't simply trying to make a cash cow for the high up's at blizzard, they made something that worked, they add to it (sure most of it's just fluff now from what i read, but fluff's more then we get in ryzom).

bitty, please stop always making excuses for the company, unless you are indeed on the pay roll, as a paying customer you should want more from your dollar then we're getting now, we all should want more, and if we as a whole don't soon see more, those of us that will stay till the death of the game will find the big tree a very empty and lonily place to be.

so there's my 20 dappers on that.

Talkirc

 the current owners of the game are stickily using the game as a cash cow

Now that has to be one of the most amusing (or delusional, your choice...) things that I have seen on these forums in quite some time.

TalkIRC -- I'd be interested in where you got that 250 dollar figure. That might be true in the US, but I know I don't know what server prices are like in France or Germany.

However, I do know what a programmer/system operator costs, even on the cheap, and it's on the order of $US 100,000/year or higher. Let's pretend that the dev is willing to work for really low wage, say $US 60,000/yr. That's $US 5,000/month, or 500 subscriptions. I'm pretty sure we have that many. We might even have twice that many; I don't know. We might even have 5 times that many. However, if we have two devs, the salary figure doubles.

The point is that if the (1) dev we apparently have is working on keeping the game running (and doing things like implementing some small improvements and changes), *who* is supposed to be adding the new material, generating the publicity and paying for it? The Event Team does give us some new material, but they are volunteers with day jobs.


As a paying customer (two subscriptions), I receive my money's worth. If I did not, I would not be paying. Yes, I'd love to have more, but I'm realistic. I'd love to see advertising, too. If we knew that Winchgate had half a million in extra cash, I think we'd be justified in wondering why it wasn't being used to hire more people. We don't know, but I really, really doubt it.

If I had the 3D modeling skills, I'd be volunteering. If I had the programming skills, I'd be volunteering there. I can afford to do that -- but I don't have those skills. (FORTRAN from my scientific programming days does not qualify me.)

I am not "defending Winchgate". I am attempting to point out the reality of the situation.

ok perhpas some of my figures may be slightly off for pricing, and sure there are tech job's out there that pay that much, i guess the big thing i neglected to figure in at the time of my last post was that the server is in another country, and that being said, accounting for the 1000's of programmers fresh from collage looking for a job in their feild while working at mc donalds with a collage degree (check the stat's out yourself, it's a very over loaded field still, there was a boom of it, and then everyone went to school for it, only to find out that there's not as many jobs now for it as there were when they started that study, so it's very difficult and competitive a field, thus only the top % are going to get those huge $ amounts in pay, there are many professions like that these days, sad to say, how many students have graduated only to find no job in their field, for the us, while the stat's say that unemployment is going down, no one stops to consider it's only going down because people who where on it can no longer apply, thus the numbers on paper show a drop in the rate, where at the fact remains that more and more people are without work, and are also now without unemployment bennifits.)

but hey, what do i know, i'm just some guy that watched 80% of the company he worked for get laid off with no hope of return in the future to that company, and with years in that company and being in the top 35% of the company didn't save my job for me. and from what i am learning right here in ryzom from other players elsewhere in the world, it's little if any better in other countries.


bahh, i won't waste my time with this anymore, i can see that the over-all point is missed yet again. maybe someone will be able to see what i'm basically saying and translate it into terms more people can understand. but the point is this: ryzom was once a far more played game, with far more sub's, so what excuse now is there for bugs that were around then to still be there now, years to fix something? and if no one's paid that's doing anything with the game, bless those kind souls for anything and everything they do, but once again i go back to "where's all the money going?"

http://www.abmx.com/ renting a server cost's too much, then buy your own and run it, a 50k investment that can be used for not just the game, but then they can rent server time and turn a profit from that as well.

i could go on, but as you can see, i do know a thing or two about how to look up information, i don't just pull number out of the air. i check them, and yes you can rent a server for 250$, that covers everything up to a ds-3 (45Mbps connection with scaleing up to 54 durring peak loads)

but i'll just call it a day on this topic, because we'd never have this topic to talk about if they gave us a little more then an app with some %'s on it, i'll be intrested to see when the %'s change the first time, and i'll really be intrested in seeing when they add all the real issues in game to the list, not just a few of them, let's see where they stand on all the major issues with that app, then i'll shut up about it all together. also i'll be happy to see .001% change every month, so we can add some .000's to the progress, as long as i see regular change i'm happy with here my money is going the, but as things are now, there's very little other then the fact that i can log in when i want to and play becasue the server is up and running.

sorry for typo's and mis-spelling's it's after midnight and i've only have about 4 hours sleep in the last 48, been busy enjoying killing kitins with teams to help protect the family and friends in my city that i call home.

We've strayed a bit from the original topic.

What a trainwreck of a topic .. :)

yes we did, and i'm very sorry.... sometimes i get way off topic, but it sometimes seams i get a little bumb in the wrong direction, and then i take my place on the stand to "preach"

So this is kind of a sore point for us. I don't think we get enough credit in the Ryzom arena for what we do for the game. Your point at the surface really is that we don't have any decision making power within Winch Gate, which is true. But what we work on impacts the game you play. The code we write and bugs we fix get pushed to your game. We're developers even if we don't work for or volunteer for Winch Gate. That being said I think I get the "spirit" of what you were saying as it is often frustrating for us when we put in new features (camera animations and guild missions, for example) which aren't used in the official game. Those of you who want to make a difference but don't necessary want (or can't be) part of the "Ryzom Team" can come and learn from us and contribute and make a difference.


Do not forget the sizable loan that must have been necessary to purchase the intellectual property necessary to keep this wonderful game alive. The fine people at Winch Gate care about the game but I have to imagine they have to answer to people whom gave them the money necessary to care. Who knows how much that is.

So I'm going to say forget sending in your resume. Come to Ryzom Core if you're willing to work for free. I know that there's a lot of "forgotten knowledge" within Winch Gate on content creation. This is because no one has focused on creating fresh 3D content for Ryzom in a very very long time. It's not always simple. We provide the exact same platform that the real game does and you can get your feet wet and work on your proof of concept or whatever it is you want to work on with our help. I can promise you that you won't get the same level of help from the Ryzom development team - we don't and we're already part of the "meritocracy".

The work you could do on Ryzom Core is directly portable to Ryzom - so if you come up with with a really awesome continent idea you can submit it to Winch Gate and go through the whole ordeal. If not run it yourself and enjoy it with your friends and share the knowledge of how it was accomplished with the community.

Who knows - maybe if we get decent documentation on core content creation Winch Gate might say, "hey, that's not that hard. Lets comission an artist to get a new <whatever> in the game."