1.

Gamona: Originally announced for release outposts needed more than one year to be implemented into the game. Lots of players are disappointed about them. There is only one single building (a drill) available and only a few outposts have been opened. Do you plan to open more buildings in the near future (maybe at the prime roots)?

Guillaume Puzin: Yes we plan to add new buildings in the future but not quite yet as we are currently focusing on new content to bring to the players who have been with us from the start. After releasing the outposts we switched our focus away from PvP for a while in order to work on PvE content but we do plan to come back to them again. As it happens one of the buildings that we will be adding corresponds to another of the questions that you have been asking as it gives extra storage space for guilds to stock their items.

2.

G.: Since release of the game some players are begging for a better guild management (e.g. access rights to guild inventory) and the promised expansions of the guild halls, e.g. more storage space and better filter (also applicable for character-inventory since the available space is very little for crafters). Are similar functions planned for the future?
 
G.P.: As I mentioned above, there will be an increase in the storage space for the guilds via the outpost buildings. As to new guild management features, we have no work planned in the short term as we already have a solid line up of new content planned out for the months to come, although we still intend to do more here some time in the future.

3.

G.: It has been announced several times that new continents and races might be implemented. Jessica Mulligan said, that only 5% of the surface has been released yet and every now and then there are rumours about races like "Dark Matis" and "Nomad Fyros". Will players ever see such things?

G.P.: Atys is indeed a vast and largely unexplored planet. There is plenty yet to be discovered! There is a new territory in test right now, burrowing down into the planet’s hostile core and there are clearly plans for more territories to open in the future, although there are no new races lined up for the players to play just now.

4.

G.: The encyclopaedia and the corresponding missions, rewards and background information’s were very well received by the players. Due to massive development resources needed to finish only a few of them are actually in the game. With the citizenship the available encyclopaedia missions for a single character have been reduced because of the fame requirements. Therefore old players have an advantage over newer ones. Is there any hope to see more missions and rewards in the future?

G.P.: Missions are clearly strongly tied in with the both the new content currently in test, and more that is in development. Some of this content opens up more of the encyclopaedia, but to say more would be to spoil the surprise.

5.

G.: Episode 2, a long running pvp-event, struck the german community very hard. There are not only significant less players, the interaction between them suffered and the much praised helpfulness and friendliness has almost vanished. Spires can have an even bigger impact on the remaining community. The announced features continue to harm our community. Are there any plans to compensate for players that might loose access to their raw material sources?

G.P.: We won’t release the Spires until they have been through both extensive in-house and open testing. We are certain that there will need to be a number of modifications made to the way in which they work before everyone is happy with them. Rest assured - we do not intend to impose PvP on our players.

6.

G.: Most of the long-term players are harvester or crafter. But those professions are apparently hardly considered with the ongoing development of the game. There have been new items (new look and superior attributes) added to the game that could not be crafted by players. They are reducing the motivation of those players. Harvesters and crafters are very rarely taken into account for events. Do you plan to strengthen those professions in the future development of the game?

G.P.: Absolutely, there is already work in progress on integrating foraging into Ryzom Ring, adding the necessary extensions to make interesting scenarios for foragers.
For the new content in development and in test we have also taken the crafters and foragers into consideration, with rewards designed to not devalue crafting and new rewards for both crafters and foragers.

7.

G.: Complete patchnotes have been promised to players some time ago and for a short time they have been almost complete - even including known bugs. But the quality of patches and the documentation for players has been reduced again. Known bugs are not mentioned any more - even if they reduce playing experience significantly for some players. Official statements are usually only announced in the french or english forum (direct reaction to player questions). Are there any plans to improve the  communication with german players once again? It would be great if questions from that community would also be answered from time to time.

G.P.: There has indeed been an intentional change in our release note strategy. We have in fact stripped down the release note to make a lighter weight document, giving less detail directly and released the deeper details on the forums where they can be discussed and decorticated more easily. We believe that this strategy offers a much richer environment for interaction with and feedback from our player community.

8.

G.: What is your "new big project" after the Ryzom Ring release? Can you tell us anything about this?

G.P.: After the Ryzom Ring our focus will be on improving and extending our existing game systems. There will be a team continuing to focus on the Ring while the rest of development works on the systems such as Outposts and PvP that we have discussed above, on enhancing the different skills that are least used today, such as Range Combat, and on developing and extending the landscape to introduce new challenges, new missions and new rewards across the game as a whole. Given the great scope to go further with the features already present in Ryzom (including Ryzom Ring!), we don’t intend to start work quite yet on anything completely new.

9.

G.: In which way do you develop Ryzom Ring now? How do you improve it?

G.P.: What Ryzom Ring brings to massively multiplayer gaming is the direct integration of player-created zones into a persistent online world. Our goal over the coming months is to ensure that players in Ryzom embrace the Ring as part of their every day play environment. This means both developing the Ring features that our players consider to be important and reacting to the way in which they play to fine tune the systems that deliver rewards and that facilitate organisation and access to the Ring. Because there are very many small features and improvements that can be added to the Ring over time, we intend to continue to provide regular upgrade patches for a long while to come.

10.

G.: Can we expect new areas in the near future?

G.P.: As I mentioned above, we have a new high level zone currently in test, and it won’t be the last!