Animating Virtual Worlds: Emergence and Ecological Animation of Ryzom’s Living World of
Atys

Paul Manning
Department of Anthropology
Trent University

Abstract Ryzom is a long-running (from 2004-present) science fantasy MMORPG (henceforth MMO)
set in the science fantasy gameworld of the planet Atys, an entirely organic “rootball” teeming with
alien life forms. The most oft-cited distinctive properties of Ryzom in the MMO world is the way
creates not only an immersive sense of “worldness”, but a living, breathing, organic world. The
gameworld is not only a richly animated “world” like all MMOs, but the aggregate of these animations
also produce a sense of life, a “living world”. Following Silvio (2010) in particular, I ask how and
when the properties of animation -- understood in the narrow sense as a medium or media form – can
produce a broader sense of “animacy” (Chen 2012), a lively affect of “animatedness” (Ngai 2005: 89-
125): how and when animation (movement) is read as life; how an animated world becomes a living
world. And specifically, why is it that in the animated world of Ryzom, as in animated cartoons, the
animation of animality is central to this transition from animation to life: why the reading of animated
“movement-as-life tends to settle on cartoon animals” (Lamarre 2013: 119). The “immersive” feeling
of Atys as a ’living world’ is displayed in the “emergent” animation of animals, particularly the ways
that animals interact via “ecological” algorithms of predation and mutual care. animations which
players explore as part of the emergent living worldness of Atys.

[...]
https://www.academia.edu/36649284/Animating_Virtual_Worlds_Emerge nce_and_Ecological_Animation_of_Ryzoms_Living_World_of_Atys?email _work_card=view-paper