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The Great Swarming occurred from about 2481-2484, followed immediately by the flight of the homins to new lands. It is now 2556, so it has been approximately 72 years since the flight to the new lands.

What is the general status of the civilizations? From the infrequent in-game events, it would appear that the civs are developed and comfortable enough to be at each others throats again, complete with full-scale attacks.

What is the average lifespan of the typical homin? In real life, 72 years is enough time for someone to be born, wed, produce children, see their grandchildren and maybe great-grandchildren, and then die. How does this play out for the typical homin on Atys?


What is the lifecycle like of Kitins? Since we know about kitin larvae (and sometimes eat them with the new occupations), it is presumed that Kitins produce eggs like arthropods in real life. How often do they do they lay/produce eggs, and are there cyclic conditions that are conducive to reproduction? How long does it take for eggs to hatch and are they, how long from larva until chrysalis, how long in chrysalis stage, and how long after until sexual maturity? Is it safe to assume that only a queen type Kitin produces the eggs?

What is the average lifespan of the various Kitin species (that don't have a negative experience with homins)? Does one queen produce one species of offspring, thus requiring multiple queens, or can one queen produce each species of Kitin? Is there only one queen, as is due to be implemented in the Almati lair Real Soon Now (tm), or are there multiple queens, perhaps with an over-queen?

Do Kitins generally have a hive-like mind, on the order of a colony of bees or ants (as opposed to the Borg), or are they more independent thinkers? If they have a hive-like mind, is it colony-centric (multiple semi-independent colonies loosely connected) or global (one planet-wide colony with multiple production and resource centers)?

Have the Kitins always been on the planet, or do they originate externally and have become adapted to life on Atys and falling into the balance of nature, supposedly the way homins have?


If the answers to the Kitin questions are "we don't know" or "we're not going to tell anyone", does that mean the story hasn't been written yet and is open to future development, or is there really a story written that will play out in time?

Are there parts of the story that have not yet been decided upon, and if so, could we know which parts?

I'm not sure if you're asking the players or the devs, but I can answer a few of those questions...

The homins arrived in the New Lands in 2483, and the game started in 2525, so the 42 years inbetween exist in lore only and are the time in which the current civilisations were build up from scratch to what they were at the beginning of the game.

As you say, now it is 2556, so 31 years since the game started. In those 31 years, the status of the civilisations probably has not advanced as much as the original game creators had hoped - whether their original plans were overambitious or they just didn't get enough subsribers to realise them, I think it's safe to say they had planned a rapidly developing world and instead the world is mostly in stasis since 2525.

These are all the actually permanent changes to the gameworld since 2525 that I can think of:
- the Tryker got a new governor
- the temples were build
- the guard posts were build
- some outposts were reconstructed
- the Ranger camp in Almati was build
- everything you see on Silan was build
- all 4 nations (re)established their lower governments (Akenak etc)
Not exactly much considering everything else you see in the world was supposedly build in 42 years between 2483 and 2525.

As for the lifespan of homins, it is comparable to that of humans. This means technically, for everyone who created a character at launch, their character is now 31 years older. This character was created in 2526, and I imagined her being 15 at creation, which I guessed as about the onset of adulthood in a more primitive culture. So she's 45 now, and I do try to play this out a bit. She had a hippy youth, roaring twenties, and about 2.5 real-life years ago I played her as early 30s and thinking about settling down. Now she's reaching an age where she's starting to step away from swordfighting and focussing on calmer activities like floristry and politics. ;)

But there are no game-mechanics to enforce this, our characters don't actually look older, and most players don't like to see their character age anyways, so it's not really played out much.

As for NPCs, technically some of our merchants and questgivers should be old or even dead of old age and replaced by a new face now, but I would guess that's simply to much work and hardly anyone would notice.

The event team does try to play age out properly for the event characters. For example, the nation leaders (except Ailan) are all around 70 now. Hence why recent events are trotting out the Fyros and Matis prince's more and more, as they'll soon replace their fathers who will be dead of old age if nothing else gets them before that.

The answer to the Kitin questions is indeed "we don't know", at least as far as the players or our characters know.

There *was* originally a story all written out and planned out for Ryzom, which would be revealed over time. Without giving too much away, this original story involved certain disruptions in the evolution of Atys, which created the Kitin, the Goo, and the Kami.

However, before most of this story was ever worked into the game, the original owners went bankrupt and the story leaked. So the new owners completely got rid of it. As far as I know, they've since been winging it, making new background up as needed.

I'm actually hoping anyone who knows anything might answer, because any "canon" knowledge can help create a common frame of reference for anything that happens.

As far as "31" vs "70-something", I'm more interested in the 70-something full time-line. Unlike other games, our characters in this game aren't all heroes who save the world, we're hard-working homins trying to do our little part in the overall picture. So the years before the "game" started are just as important as the time that our characters have (potentially) existed.

Some marauder story I've read seemed to touch on the Goo, though I think that your last bit may have been an answer I was looking for (not necessarily hoping for). Do the new owners authorize (or even author) the chronicles, or are they pure fan-fiction?

The 42 years from 2583 to 2525 are chronicled in some detail in the lore.

Though yeah, none of our characters would've been there for it unless they're specifically roleplayed as being over 40 and having been around for it :)

As for the chronicles, they are considered official lore, authorized by the new owners. Mostly written by a few volunteers I think, though some of it may be leftovers from the original writers.

The owners do occasionally elevate a piece of fan-fiction to official lore, but as far as I know, it's only happened with a few pieces.

http://atys.ryzom.com/news/400

It would appear that based on the conclusion to the above event on the German server that the Kitin are not a complete hive mind, but are only loosely connected. It should then be entirely possible for different Kitin lairs to engage in activities unknown by the others.

I don't know everything that transpired, nor do I understand German (or Google's poor translation), but it appears that the Kitin are making some sort of preparation for something, and it is drawing near.

Now, how united are the stories between the three different servers? Right now on Arispotle, we have the petty bickering between Matis and Fyros. Does the Kitin story have relevance on Arispotle, or can we assume that each server is a separate existence with completely different stories?

A CSR who is too shy to post here informed me I'm not exactly right about the leaked and thrown out backstory. Apparently what was leaked was just part of the backstory, and the original plan is still being used in an adapted form.

As for the different servers, the stories between them can be quite different, but there is a limit to how much they can diverge. For what I assume are economy reasons, events run on one server tend to also be run on the other servers sooner or later, but depending on how the players react to the event, the progession and outcome of the 'same' event can be different from server to server.

Hmm, so basically, the part that seemed to indicate that Kitin are a little more disconnected than a single planet-wide colony would (or should) hold true for all servers, but the particular bit about "something about to happen" should really only hold true at this time for Leanon? That makes sense.

It does seem to imply a level of intelligence in the Kitin far above that of normal creatures, which makes for some VERY fun possibilities in the future.