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This is what I asked to the first veteran I met in the mainland. I quit playing some years ago and now that I came back the only change I see is the addition of a marauder faction which isn't even fully implemented. Besides it, all bugs and flaws I remember are still present, plus some more I didn't notice back then (like the username+password challenge being faulty, which is simply ridiculous). No other improvements otherwise.

It seems Ryzom stopped evolving at some point. It's still alive but more like a snapshot of the past. No wonder there is no sustained flux of new players, which is a must for the regular leveling process (95% of Ryzom activity). Can do without them, but in the most unnatural and boring way.

Not dead, not alive. Undead? Is Ryzom the most beautiful graveyard?

I would like to know the will and goals of those who keep it working.


(This game has some of the best core systems I have ever seen on non-experimental products, but they are mostly wasted on under-developed dynamics)

Please have a look at the ryzom forge forums and the teams roadmap app!

+1 Limoria.

There is more events since server merge. There was a few months hiatus because of an emergency to fix the pay system, (Which includes Paypal), plus make a new program for in-house ticket system in anticipation of the program used to start charging a fee, but now it seems fixed and we are going to go on with new events that last a year for each race!
See! That is what you learn from attending Ryzom Forge meetings every Monday. Also, they are working on making plugins for Blender, which is a Free 3d software so players can add content to Ryzom graphic-wise. 3DsMax is what they used, but its expensive, so they are looking for options.
See Ryzom wiki on 'How you can help!'

Also, there is a Ranger organization currently in developement, and implementation.

I get so tired of people complaining about how Ryzom is so 'Static,' Maybe that is true, but all these people are people that can help make it successful if they volunteer.
You can just be a translator, or a Grammar fixer, or a Graphics Artist, or a programmer, or a Coder, or a reader/lore person, or a wiki fixer, or a mission idea specialist, or Tribal mission idealist, or an ARCC specialist. There is room for all players to help make Ryzom more dynamic and exciting if you only wish to help and do it. I'm not saying you are complaining, I'm just saying there is opportunity to help here. ~Thanks if you do :)

I just joined, but I am kinda surprised there aren't more people. I mean there isn't to many options like this game. I would say though it is in good health in my opinion. There are always some one on when I play, I will admit I am not very far, but I always see some one. Not to mention they are generally nice.

I only met one person I didn't get along with, and that was a CSR, but that was because he was trying to threaten me to be scared of him, because I told him I couldn't understand what he was typing. Not really sure why Gms randomly pop into chat and try to talk to people, but what ever.

As for new content, well I dono for a game like this if that actually matters, as long as the game has people. Its not like a content grinder, where every one just does the weekly mission, to get a useless reward, and then quits till the next one.

If by 'good health' you mean new content being released on a regular basis, then no. Ryzom is not that kind of game, we all live in an environment and do our own things, changes happen very slowly, and this game isn't about the newest boss or dungeon that was added...

So Ryzom is not dead, there are a couple hundred paid players living on a single world (server) and just because it doesn't change as fast as other games does not mean something is wrong with it!

New content is meant for "end-game" players. It won't affect the flux of new players in any ways. The lack of such a flux is a serious health problem when the game forces collaborative behaviour. Higher level players can help by giving items, cats, powerlevel, etc, but more than helping they will be stealing the gameplay experience. As stated before Ryzom is 95% grinding: if it is not fun by itself then...

NO FLUX = NO LIFE

Many reasons could be argued but the problem is that simple. In the end, we can say that Ryzom is NOT good enough "as it is". It needs to keep evolving.

Ryzom Forge is a mean for an end, not a solution alone. And the most important aspect is missing: game mechanics.

I thought you were asking the community, but now you answer your own question?

I have no idea where you get this 95% grinding from. Ryzom is a sandbox game. Many players do spend their game time grinding, others never bother. Ryzom is only about grinding if you want it to be.

5% forum? xD Joking. I mean that most of the gaming experience is based on growing your character. Ryzom is very limited as sandox by the way.

Sounds to me like he just wanted to complain. As far as it being limited as a sandbox, I dont know where you get that from. The world is one of the most realistic ones I have seen. With seasons, wildlife, good story, and more. If by it isnt mine craft then yes, but minecraft doesnt work in mmos, it just a bunch of people braking each other stuff, and making the world look stupid. it sounds like this was never your kind of game. You sound like you prefer a game, where they tell you what to do, your in luck my friend, there are about 100+ games like that.

Hm. For reference, there is another old game that could be taken as example of sandboxing: Wurm Online. Land, buildings, items, animals, almost everything is subject to the player's hands. You can grind but you also spend a lot of time being creative in your most personal way, alone or with friends (or enemies). Ryzom doesn't have all that but, in exchange, it's sandbox properties are oriented to actions and crafting.

Creativity. But how creative can you be when making custom actions? The system is incredible but you end up making and using the optimized actions because there isn't much alternative. That's what I meant by under-developed dynamics. Item creation tends to be similar (not sure about special versions, never seen any).

We could go much deeper but the main point I want to check is if players, developers and owners are:

A.- Counscious about the situation.

B.- Willing to move forward.

The things you can do with Ryzom core systems would ashame most last generation games. And would be fun as hell.

And just in case, I do love Ryzom.

Answer to #A Yes
Answer to #B yes

Final comments: read Limoria post again, Each monday is a Ryzom forge meeting where all can participate to add content to Ryzom. Coders, Graphic artists, writers, mission makers, translators and so on, so if you wish, please voluteer and help out. Everyone can!

naema, you know i'm part of the forge too, as are others, but no matter how much work someone puts into something, it's not 100% that they will use it. there's at least one person that's created things from start to finish yet none of that's been put into game. perhaps they're beta testing it, i can't say because i'm not that high up on the food chain. I totally support this new content they've created, i've even seen some of it, and while it's nothing i could use because i'm not a marauder, i'd still love to see some of it go live on the server because it's something NEW.

i've offered my services in several aspects, writing, ideas, new zone ideas (upper branches, even wrote the RP for the basic story of it, still never got an official reply about anything {i will admit that even if i did i couldn't tell anyone, but then i'd not complain that nothing was getting done}), i've gotten others interested in forge works, some of them professionals, but for reasons not explained to me they abandon working and leave (no idea why the few that i've gotten in suddenly left, so i won't speculate).

i've had problems of my own related to development of things, some of my works have been altered when i was taking a brake from the process, when i returned much of what i had done was changed in ways that rendered the work useless, and required many hours to go back over script after script to fix errors that were not there when i left things. since my beta tester had no problems during the last session of work done, i can only guess that someone accessed my account and did something to my work, some of the issues i found and fixed, but in the end i gave up trying to find the errors because i shouldn't have to correct things that worked due to someone's malicious fun at my expense.

but all that is off topic, back on topic, is ryzom in good health, i would have to say it's alive and kicking, and those of us here are dedicated to our game, many of us still have much that we can do. ryzom is a very vast game, and while it's progress is slow, it's not something that can be "beat" in a few weeks, to truely master ryzom would likely take years, because there's so much one can do, grinding isn't the only thing, sure if you want you can work hard to master all 63 skills, but your "quest to master ryzom" has only crossed the first major milestone when you do that, there's still fame, doing ALL missions in the game once, finding all the uber best crafting recipes, doing all the occupations to master, doing all the rites, exploration of all of atys for achievements, doing all the things on the achievements list (there's 588 total plus heroic deeds), getting 1,000,000,000 dappers isn't easy (not sure anyone has yet), try getting a Q290 or higher item, since server merge i'm not sure their has been any (from what i'm told it's event related items and impossible to get since there's not been any events offering them that i've known about since merger, although there's a rumor there was a little announced ranger event that had one) there are titles that are very hard to get, like the kitin hunter titles, without kitin events there's no tokens to get them, try getting guardian titles, those are all but impossible to get (again requiring events that almost never happen, and when they do there's 10 tokens to try to divide between 100+ players that attended, which is BS imho).......

anyway i can go on and on for hours (anyone that knows me knows i'm long winded to the power of infinity) but clearly you need to read my signature's quote, as well as a friends signature quote about "completing the main land". half the reason new players don't stick around is because they want their cookie, and milk to go with it, and ryzom doesn't cater to the "give me give me give me play style", in ryzom if you want it, your work for it, there is no other way here on atys.

now i'll end this short story of a forum post and give people a brake from me living up to my name.

talk

It seems Forge (as a whole) is not working very well right now from what Talkirc says, even if there is willpower behind. But it is easy to check just by seeing those many-years-old bugs still camping Ryzom.