Would SOE... be likely to buy up Ryzom?

[Etro]

be likely to buy up Ryzom? They have the finances i'm sure and they did do that thing with taking over MxO. If this bbc news article is anything to go buy it could be snapped up if they can beat the community pledge amount. Opinions?

[schild]

They bought MxO for the DC Comics license (how many times do I have to say this?) Buying Ryzom would be a colossal waste of money.

Edit: Vague topic titles for uncool things is uncool.

[caladein]

They bought MxO for the DC Comics license (how many times do I have to say this?)

More precisely, "We'll sell you the DC license if you take MxO off our hands."

[schild]

Well, yes. But that's goes Without Saying.

[Krakrok]

$100k for it is a bargain.

[schild]

Too bad $25k is realistic. I doubt it turns a profit and who would want that engine when that Hero thing is out. Also, Unreal 3. Nevrax was mediocre from day 1.

[stray]

What Hero thing?

[schild]

Simutronic's Hero Engine. From what I've seen, it's not that great, but what would I know. Also, I wouldn't trust any devs using it either. Sounds like Diku in a Box.

Edit: Lol, at the quote on their landing page:

"At BioWare we selected HeroEngine because it had the most sophisticated and complete development tools available for building an amazing online experience. Our team wanted a great rapid prototyping environment and to work with experienced MMO developers. The HeroEngine from Simutronics is a perfect fit for BioWare Austin's requirements."

Gordon Walton
Co-Studio Director of BioWare Austin

Anyone want to know what type of game the Bioware one will be?

[Krakrok]

It's the art assets that are worth the money. Not to mention that Ryzom has a content editor built into the client. A good portion of it was already available as open source so it's already built as an API platform. Their MMORPG suite was previous 500k euros. Someone looking to knock off SecondLife could have a field day. The 'Free Ryzom' people have 71k euros pledged ($93k).

And Multiverse is in open beta now for more diku-in-a-box. Their demo client was pretty crappy.


Edit: Um, yeah after reading the PDF I'd use that HeroEngine before I went with Ryzom. The art assets are still worth something though.

[stray]

Simutronic's Hero Engine. From what I've seen, it's not that great, but what would I know. Also, I wouldn't trust any devs using it either. Sounds like Diku in a Box.

Edit: Lol, at the quote on their landing page:

"At BioWare we selected HeroEngine because it had the most sophisticated and complete development tools available for building an amazing online experience. Our team wanted a great rapid prototyping environment and to work with experienced MMO developers. The HeroEngine from Simutronics is a perfect fit for BioWare Austin's requirements."

Gordon Walton
Co-Studio Director of BioWare Austin

Anyone want to know what type of game the Bioware one will be?

Forgive my ignorance, but how exactly is it Diku in a box? From the PDF, it just seems like a bunch of environment and character morphing tools. Doesn't seem like it dictates game mechanics.

[WindupAtheist]

Matrix Online at least has neat-looking fights and is based on an IP people have heard of.  People aren't rushing to play it, but it helps fill out the Station Pass lineup with something Joe Average will recognize.  But Saga of Ryzom?  The title and concept both just scream of blandness.  Nobody knows what the fuck Ryzom is, and nobody will ever bother to find out.

[stray]

The worst thing about Ryzom is that it rhymes with Jizzum. And the combat.

Otherwise, it has some decent ideas.

[schild]

From what bits I've actually seen of the engine being demoed and such at trade shows and knowing some of the studios using it, while it may not have been created to be diku in a box, it's most certainly being used as one. Which, I suppose, is more depressing.

Also, unless I'm mistaken, Simutronics is - at its heart - a MUD dev.

[Lantyssa]

Yes, they're the ones that put out Gemstone and are working on Hero's Journey (which I am watching due to an emphasis on RP, but not getting my hopes up).  I do not know how "diku" Gemstone is, but that should at least give some indication of past work.

[Yoru]

Yeah, from what I've seen, the basic core of it is an unpurposed 3D client, backend software, and content creation tools. Really really rapid content development tools, which is nice if you're trying to push out a whole lot of dev-created missions and areas.

HJ is interesting because they're really taking character customization to an extreme; all gear, from what I recall, essentially behaves similarly to 'socketed' items in other games, except the # of sockets isn't determined by the gear's level/quality (I think). The idea is that you basically determine what your character looks like at any given time and can evolve the look as you develop the character, and use dropped 'plug-in' things to determine what your gear does for you.

[Soln]

brilliant idea

ask Smed for a finder's fee

seriously

all those content assets, no matter people think, are worth something.  Costly to replicate that stuff.  Port it to SOE's environment, and do an MxO-like hosting and respin if popular

[HaemishM]

Why would SOE want to buy a shitty game with no player base and technical issues like Ryzom? They just signed up Vanguard, after all.

[sinij]

Anyone want to know what type of game the Bioware one will be?

It would be highly disappointing if it turns into another Diku treadmill.

[Merusk]

Yes, they're the ones that put out Gemstone and are working on Hero's Journey (which I am watching due to an emphasis on RP, but not getting my hopes up).  I do not know how "diku" Gemstone is, but that should at least give some indication of past work.

That would depend on your definition of "diku."   Gemstone & Dragon Realms are text-based RPGs that use combat as the mechanic for advancement.  Their lore & classes, however, were far, far different from your warrior/ cleric/ thief triad.  Empath, for example, was actually a pretty fun healing class.  You had a ton of HPs, because you absorb the other players damage/ scars/ wounds and then you heal yourself.

  Just mentioning that there were damage/ scars/ wounds should also tell you that the mechanics were deeper than just 'do bigger numbers than the mob.'  Dragon Realms was the only text mud I played that dealt with both positional and ranged combat.  Mobs would try and close in to close/ medium/ long range and use their attacks, and you tried to juggle that based on your own attacks & weapons.  (Dagger/ Sword/ Polearm)

So, while it'll probably be 'ho hum another Diku' for most people, for anyone who can get past that they look to promise a very interesting game.  Of course, they've been developing Hero's Journey for so long I keep forgetting about it.

[geldonyetich]

I'm not sure how the French economy works in regards to games that are "going into receivership", so it's hard to say if Ryzom's really shopping around for a buyer or not.  I do think it's pretty unlikely that SOE wants to maintain more games whose time in the sun has passed, however.

[Endie]

And Multiverse is in open beta now for more diku-in-a-box. Their demo client was pretty crappy.

After reading this I have spent some time playing with the multiverse server software.  What I'll say is this: you could use it to write a diku if you wanted, but it's certainly not tied to that.  From what I've seen from working through a lot of the tutorials and then riffing off them a bit, you could pick elements out of it and do skill-use-based advancement just as "easily" (ho hum) as level-based.  It's pretty flexible.  Or at least, it doesn't take much for granted, which might not be the same thing when I use it more.

[Krakrok]

The FSF pledged 60k euro to the free Ryzom fund and they're at 150k euro now.

[sinij]

This is huge waste of money. Why would anyone want any of the artwork, IP or client or server code from Ryzom? Not only that but I can't see how you can run mmorpg as an OS project.

[CmdrSlack]

This is huge waste of money. Why would anyone want any of the artwork, IP or client or server code from Ryzom? Not only that but I can't see how you can run mmorpg as an OS project.

Well, I guess you could distribute it as either a "run your own shard" kind of thing or as some kind of kit for building your own world, I guess.

[stray]

Wait....When did this become about operating systems? What did I miss?

[tazelbain]

Open Source.

[stray]

Ah.

Just to be a dick, the acronym for that is actually OSS. 

[EDIT]

Anyways, the open source world has been dying for something MMO related for awhile. Something modestly robust that is. There's probably a lot of interesting things that could come from the FSF purchasing it.

[Righ]

This is huge waste of money. Why would anyone want any of the artwork, IP or client or server code from Ryzom? Not only that but I can't see how you can run mmorpg as an OS project.

Well, I guess you could distribute it as either a "run your own shard" kind of thing or as some kind of kit for building your own world, I guess.

It doesn't even need to be distributed. Remember MUDs? We made the source code available so that a large community of "wizards" could code the game. Not everybody has the time to create a persistent online game, but a lot of people have the time to create a small part of it. There will certainly be people who copy the whole driver and MUDlib aganst your wishes even if you choose to restrict its distribution, but they tend to (a) be crap compared to the community effort (b) get snubbed by the players.

[tazelbain]

If they buy it, could I use the art in something like my own Multiverse.net game? At least for the initial prototype.

[stray]

I'm not sure how GNU covers artwork. More than likely, it'd be like open sourced software. You could use it, and even profit from a product using it -- just don't cockblock anyone who'd want to do the same.

[Signe]

Thursday,21 December , 2006 at 14:44 UTC
Ryzom : Good News! by Marjo
The news you were all waiting for is finally here. The new owner of Ryzom was revealed: we are happy to welcome Gameforge who will take on the saga that is Ryzom tonight at midnight (GMT+1).

As a result, the billing system will reopen shortly so that you can subscribe again or give someone a Ryzom account for Christmas. :) Free Trial account owners will be happy to hear that they will be able to convert into a paying account and move to the mainland.

We will provide you more information in the upcoming weeks as things settle down.

Merry Christmas to all and enjoy your stay on Atys!

Maybe it's THIS company, I don't know.  There was no link.  Gameforge.com is just nothing.  Almost.

[Miasma]

Almost.

Those squares were neat, I had some fun with that, I've been drinking a lot of cold medicine so I'm easily entertained though.

[geldonyetich]

It probably is the German gameforge, as they are in the MMORPG development buiz.

They're probably going to gut the tech in the engine and otherwise ignore the game.

[Jamiko]

It is the German company. http://www.gameforge.de/news/9,10,0,1,2.html

[Venkman]

Yep.

I don't see this doing anything for Ryzom except giving their fans a place to continue to exist. If you look at the rest of the Gameforge library, the size of the Ryzom accountbase will easily fit within that family.