English

I want to drop a few comments concerning some scolding and rumor mongering about the Forge, the way how development is done in Ryzom, and, in particular about the decision to do future content development using ARK and other tools under development or yet to be created.

First one thing: I have no insight into Winchgate internals, and never had. I had some contact, mainly over chat and email, with some Ryzom Core contributors (most not active anymore to my knowledge). So I do not claim in any way to be knowledgeable about development internals other than those publicly disclosed. I have read a bit through Ryzom Core code, but not to too deeply. I downloaded Ryzom Core stuff several times, but lacked the time to adapt it to a Fedora or OpenSuse environment.

What I do know a bit, is programming, programming in the C programming language in particular. I never did much C++, belonging to the older generation of procedural programmers I somewhat detest the so called object oriented paradigm, which is not mathematically formalizable (much, though not entirely, business babble. There is the evil saying "C++ is to C what lung cancer is to lung" :). Other OO languages are even worse).

It is highly injust, though, to spread the rumour that WG people were incompetent to implement further content in C++ and therefore created ARK/ARCC. There are good reasons not to continue content code creation in that programming language, and everybody familiar with C will easily understand that.

The C programming language is beautiful, compact, efficient, it allows programming close to the hardware in an abstract and portable style. That is why code like the Unix and Linux operating systems are written in C. C++ is fairly close to it, though it has some restrictions for good reason. In fact, programming in this kind of languages requires much experience, discipline, thorough code review, and even more careful testing. Even then, extremely nasty side effects and bugs may occur, and are very hard to find and to insulate.

That means, you need a fairly large and at best very experienced team of programmers, code reviewers, and testers, to implement projects using this family of programming languages. That is why more safe and more boring stuff was invented and introduced allowing more inept and careless people (hired with lower wages) to generate applications.

And that was no wrong move, to be honest, as it allowed to overcome the "software crisis" of these times (the 1980s). And higher level languages and tools are a good idea, too, as they are allowing people familiar with application requirements to formulate them in a way computers may understand and execute, without much programming experience. Also, it is a good idea to add content by scripting languages not requiring a coding, compilation, then testing cycle, instead allowing rapid prototyping and instant testing. That is what tools like ARK are for.

Moreover, those methods are insulating content from the running program. A faulty mission written in C++ and being part of the main loop of ryzom could be able to crash a whole process at least on client, at worst on server side. That's why it is wise to insulate added content from the running core (in fact this has been the case since long time, as far as I understood).

I read, with some amusement, Icus' mockings about ARK syntax (I did not perceive them as a destructive critique). Indeed it seems more clumsy to me than any C syntax (I think it is PHP, but could be wrong). But it is learnable even for non programmers. Everybody may write a mission or so using those formalisms without ever having undergone CS training or education.

Therefore, I would plead for seeing the new tools as a chance for everybody having the time and being interested to contribute to the further development of Ryzom. I kindly ask those who engaged in polemics against to check the opportunities and rethink their point of view.

I would add this useful reference here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson's_law_of_triviality

In software, criticizing the tools is easy. What is hard is to come up with a business plan that makes very efficient use of a set of particular tools and people.

So, while I may (and I will) personally criticize some overall managerial failure (e.g. not adding content) - I will refrain, and advise everyone else to do so, from criticizing the tools the company chooses to use. It is never an easy job to pick them or use them.

Nicely said Daomei. +1

Although, I'm not sure it is correct to say,

'That is why more safe and more boring stuff was invented and introduced allowing more inept and careless people (hired with lower wages) to generate applications.'

I hope you didn't mean that those currently working on Ryzom are inept, (well, I am, lol), but, I think they are doing a wonderful job considering the game is open source now, and open for all to contribute. Some are very good coders, or content adders. Some contribute once in a while and some might not be good at all but are all talk but no substance, yes. (I'm talking about criticisers of the game or those who say they can code but do nothing about it, or didn't really know how though they say they do).

I believe the scope of adding content to Ryzom is beyond one person or even two or three. It needs a team of developers like when they began. They should be a paid team. They should constantly be adding 'Moduals' to expand the game according to the 'Ideas for Ryzom' comming from the players within the boundaries of the Lore.

I only wish David Cohen Corval would get back involved with the game, it sounded like he wanted to make it a fully
immersive game now according to his recent interview.

Occulus Rift is possible from what i understand reading stuff about Ryzom Core. with only 1, 2 or even 3 Devs not paid, who has the time to code this? not even volunteers do imho. I weep with tears over this. We all have to make a living so everyone has separate jobs. If this game is to become a super game, it needs a paid staff to add content. But i feel it has the potential!

This game has an excellent foundation no other game has. Imagine if you had such a team to keep adding to it. It would be the best game out there.

First: I disagree with the F2P "thing". I have always paid to play the game. However, we should, at the very least drop the F2P max level to more that 100, at a max, and more probably 75, In My Not Humble Opinion.

Second: Likewise, I am an old C programmer, and I despise the OO "philosophy". Most C++ users dont even use OO paradigm at all.

Fun Fact: You can get legitimate OO behavior, with inheritance and everything by using K&R C. Yes, the original K&R C was defined to use inheritance. So there!

CRAP!!! Almost forgot my point!

If we do away with F2P, or at least most of it by reducing it to lower levels, we can be able to PAY the developers who richly deserve to be paid. As has been said, people working for Ryzom, or alot of them, do it gratis. That is unacceptable, to me. These people should be paid, IMHO.

Hi,

At the risk of shooting my mouth off before having taken the time to actually see how Ryzom does this, I just wanted to note that C/C++ vs ARK sounds like a false dichotomy:
Lots of games use a happy middle ground scripting language, often Lua. It's pretty easy to write (and read!), interpreter context setup is cheap, and it performs well enough to run AI logic.

Are we even in the right forum for this?

Ryzom does use Lua in addition to C and ARK.  Lua can produce some remarkably cryptic error messages.  :D

Kovabon --
The current version of F2P (extended trial period, not really F2P) gives us some population.  Reducing the levels would mean less population, not more subscribers (in general).  Most of the people who I know who have subscribed have done so well before hitting the 125 limit.  In the end we would miss out on a few people who cannot afford to subscribe and gain nothing.

I don't really care which computer language is used, the biggest problem to me is a lack of communication. Not much the 2015 roadmap has been added in game and many more things were promised, however no one at forge or WG came out and said that forges priority is to finish fixing the client for steam, and don't expect much to be added in the meantime...

Thanks, Deed. Placio, I do not know whether you did not realize it, but there were three events which influenced development in 2015 towards significant delays, and they have indeed been communicated.

1. The demise of the original paysafe option caught the Dev team off guard and demanded urgent action, as it endangered the economical existance of Ryzom. Loads of players were subbing using that payment scheme. The measures to be implemented absorbed considerable amounts of developers' resources.

2. The accession to Steam was a pleasant development, but not foreseen when the 2015 roadmap was designed. It also required and requires not few adaptations, and puts a lot of workload on the shoulders of both the volunteers, be they in Ryzom Core or Ryzom Forge project, and the Dev team.

3. During the course of development in the Forge the need arose to improve and extend the toolset including, but not limited to new converters from open source 3D design tools like blender into NeL's .shape file format.

Beneath that, the Forge has undergone a learning curve in which several steps prove to be more time consuming than expected, as it seems to me from conversations and lecture of Forge meeting protocols and transcripts.

There have been not few steps of progress, though. It may be not that important for some, but it looks as if the Ranger faction will be implemented by end 2015 or the first weeks of the new year. Also, not few objects and designs stemming from Forge development have been introduced and implemented.

As far as the communication was insufficient, feel free to propose ways to improve it. At least the announcement of Steam has been done in a large public assembly. The rest may have been communicated insufficiently for those not regularly following forums etc. But I feel it could all be found out.

Greetings and good game

Hi :)

I'm Kervala (my real name is Cédric OCHS) and I'm working on NeL since 2004, Ryzom since 2008 and Ryzom Core since 2010.

As main responsible for "Steam" client, I would like to add my viewpoint :)

First, it's not only "Steam client" that will be updated. For the first time, we'll be using "Ryzom Core" code for all clients (Windows, Linux and OS X).

The current official Windows client was not updated since 2012 and didn't implement some features we fixed or added in Ryzom Core.

That means that we have to test, debug and fix all bugs that appeared on Ryzom Core Windows client while they didn't exist with old/current Ryzom client (which is partially closed source).

If you check the changelog of Ryzom Core, you'll notice we are very active these last times.

I just would to precise I have a full time job not related to Ryzom at all, and I'm a volunteer that works on Ryzom on his free time (more than 5 hours per day and the whole week-end).

And I accepted to work on all Steam stuff (patching, compilation, testing) under all OSes.

To improve new future Steam players experience with Ryzom, I decided to improve the client, fix bugs, etc... Nobody forced me. If I didn't like Ryzom, I would have stopped after seeing the client running under Steam and that's alll, letting debugging part to someone else...

I have a very huge TODO list before to release Ryzom on Steam : I would like to fix all bugs players found and implement some improvements.

I'm also working on packaging Ryzom for Ubuntu and I'll be in charge of packaging Ryzom for OS X and Linux as well.

And we'll make more changes on data (packed_sheets, BNP, textures, etc...) and patch system for making it work under all OSes.

To summarize, it's a huge work and I don't know if I'll have enough time to finish everything I planned :(

A big thanks to other Ryzom Core contributors who fixed recent bugs such as Kaetemi, Nimetu, Kishan, Ulukyn (:p), etc...

For content... I let other people work on it, I already have enough work for several months :p

To see our changes :
https://bitbucket.org/ryzom/ryzomcore/commits/all

And all packaging stuff (script to automatize compilation and other related stuff) :
http://hg.kervala.net/packaging/

Bittymacod:

I admit that I do not fully understand about the F2P accounts, as I have alway been a P2P player. So, if I have been a bit harsh, I am sorry.

However, this is one of the MMORPGs that allow a F2P option, and I somewhat resent that fact, sice I willingly pay to play this wonderful game. Also, I think that we need some more developers, PAID developers to keep the game in existence. And that is the original intent of my response. Yes, the support staff and the developers are required, but I still think that they should be paid.

Now, my meanger fee is not enough to pay a developer/support person, and given the number of P2P memberships, I don't know if we could pay a single person to do this job, even if we willingly agree to pay twice the normal P2P fee in order to support a developer/support person.

But, if we are to continue as a viable game, I think we need to do SOMETHING to attract some paid staff in the game.

... just saying....

Kovabon -- I have always been a paying player starting when there were no options and then continuing just in order to support the game.

I agree that we need to attract paid devs.  I think we can start with Kervala; after reading what he has been doing so far I'm good with his being the next paid dev.  (That is, if he doesn't like his day job better.)

However, the half-cap unlimited time extended trial / F2P option is not, in my opinion what is keeping people from subscribing.  As I said, I have heard of a few people who say they can't afford it, and I'm perfectly happy to have them around and playing.  A 125 level healer can be a great assist in a team. 

Most of the poeple I've seen who have said "Oh, I'll play until I'm totally mini-mastered, then I'll subscribe, end up doing so long before they are close...

In the end, we have to realize that Ryzom is a niche game.  We're never going to have millions of subscribers.  However, by going onto Steam we have a chance to collect a few thousand, and that would be enough.