ROLEPLAY

1. French, English, and German: how are they referred to in RP? What are they called?

Maybe they're dialects of a single common language/trade tongue, but divergent enough that many homins only know one? (There are cases IRL where speakers of one dialect can understand the language of a neighboring country more easily than they can understand a different dialect within their own language and country.)

2A. How do people envision the Old Lands?
2B. What has been learned about the Old Lands in the past few RL years, and what has taken place there?

One obvious fact is that homins still live there: refugees keep coming from there, and a lot of the roleplayed characters who disappear from the New Lands because the players left the game would have to be (and traditionally have been) explained as going back to the Old Lands for their own various reasons.
Another fact that can be inferred from the continuing flow of refugees is that life is hard in the Old Lands and offers few opportunities; many homins, or even most, make their way to the New Lands at some point in hope of a better life.

2C. I've always assumed, probably based on some lore I read but can no longer pinpoint, that Powers-provided resurrection is only available in the New Lands--do you share this assumption?

3. Are there any RP guilds around these days? Any groups of roleplayers that aren't guilds? Any player-made RP-oriented homin organizations that aren't guilds?

1. Depends on the Nation, but each village got a language assigned to it, so in the Lakes, EN is the dialect of Crystabell, FR is the dialect of Avendale, and DE is the dialect of Windermeer. Someone else can add the translations for other nations.

2.A. We know very little of the Old Lands except that they are very dangerous (hence the continued trickle of refugees that you mentioned). The Ranger Wilk Potskin mentioned that they extend for hundreds of kilometers, but the Lore suggests that the settled part was only about the same size as the New Lands. We know that there is a way to get here, the Route of the Exodus or Oflovak's Path, that is maintained and patrolled by the Rangers.

2.B. Other than a tiny fraction of knowledge from the Rangers and another small fraction from publications about the Marauderss, nothing.

2.C, While the Karavan and Kami altars represent focuses of their respective powers, I can conceive of no reason why Jena and Ma-Duk should be confined to a tiny fraction of the world or that their preservation of the Seed of homins in peril should be limited to the New Lands. The worship of the Powers exists in the Old Lands as well as the new.

3. For active roleplay, look to the Matis and Trykers (by reports), the Rangers (by personal observations) and the Marauders. Player let RP is active in the Matis region, and the SKA is there too. FISHES, one of two Tryker Scientific Societies, is largely event-team driven.

-- My answers. Not difinitive.

1) As Bittty said, different dialects yes. Each dialect originated from a different "river of time" - basically Atys' version of a parallel dimension. This was how the merge of 3 different servers (german, english, french) was explained from a Lore / RP perspective. These different "rivers of time" coalesced in some sort of science fiction / cosmic event during the second great swarming.

3) You'll have more options of RP guilds if you speak french. Some of the more hardcore RP guilds are french, like Amazons Mysticia. There's also player governments you can get involved in, these governments are composed by players and organized/facilitated by the Event Team (matis nobles, zorai awakened, fyros akenak, tryker taliari).

I'd like to point out that there still is a part of old Matia which can be visited and where you also get resurrected - Almati Wood, now under gouvernment of the Rangers, is in the Old Lands. During the Temple Wars, other (tiny) parts of the Old Lands were visited as well, and Homins were resurrected by the higher powers there.

Thank you for the answers! :)

Rikutatis, your answer to 1 is particularly enlightening. I've tried to keep at least half an eye on Ryzom over the years but had no idea how the server merge ended up being resolved from a lore/rp perspective.

Bitttymacod's and Salazar's points regarding 2C make sense. I'll try to remember where I got the opposite impression. The fact that you can respawn at portals and not just at altars seems to support the possibility that Powers resurrection might not be limited to areas they themselves are active in.