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Answers To Questions From The Board - 2005-03-12
Some words on the "Spring Clean", Linux client, the loading time, NeL, the novels of Alexis Aubenque and some bits on the Outposts.
Here we go : a new week, and a new round of questions & answers. :-)
First, to avoid any misunderstanding, I would like to point out the fact that the weekly questions & answers article is not a features request area... With questions like "Will you implement the feature XXX ?", when it is not something we are currently working on, I have two possible answers : either I say "That's something we are looking into - stay tuned" or "No, sorry, that's not planned for the near future". It doesn't mean that I will *never* answer this kind of question (there are some questions of that kind in the current article), but it will be more the exception than the rule, since having an article filled with this kind of answers would not be really the most interesting thing on Earth... I prefer focusing the Q&As on questions for which I actually *have* an interesting answer to provide.
Also, if you have missed the first Q&A article from last week, you can find it here.
No : cleaning and content production are two separate things, with dedicated teams working on both fronts. While the code team is focusing on cleaning, the leveldesigners are producing new content for the game. As a matter of fact, the spring clean even helped content production to increase its delivery rate : as explained in the Clean-up! article, a large part of the spring clean is actually targetted at helping content to reach the game more easily and cleanly.
Even if this week's patch was mainly a bugfix patch (the new testing process helped us to find some subtle bugs with texts, so we pushed back content release), but new content is still being produced.
Ahhh, I was waiting for that question.
That's something I'm also interested in, since I'm a Linux user : I work on a Linux box (Debian rocks! 
) and my computers at home also run Linux - once I tasted the kind of freedom it gives, there was no way to return to the Microsoft World. :-)
Happily enough, the Linux version of Ryzom is something which has been planned from the start : the NeL engine, at the core of Ryzom, was designed with portability in mind; the game supports OpenGL 3D acceleration, OSS/Alsa sound (through FMOD), and uses as few OS-dependent C++ functions as possible. So porting Ryzom to Linux is something which can be done quite easily if you compare it to other games; but still - it requires time.
But the good part is that you can already run Ryzom under Linux : the Cedega emulator works well with Ryzom. Since most of the processing burden relies on the 3D card nowadays, even with the emulation layer you get a very good framerate in most cases (and thanks to Grandma's unofficial HOWTO, the installation is painless). I use it to play Ryzom - and really I don't feel the difference between my Ryzom and the one of my Windows-liking collegues.
So, I do not know for you, but since I'm able to play, even if it's only emulated and not official supported, I prefer to see the development focusing on features and content. The native version will come soon enough.
It's quite true that loading the game or teleporting takes time in Ryzom. A few parts could of course be optimized (like the the XML interface initialization), but from the start we have taken the conscious decision to make some concessions on loading times in order to obtain higher quality 3D graphics (most of the loading time is spent preparing textures and meshes that are too large to stream off the hard drive without stalling the game). 3D art in Ryzom is very rich, with a lot of details that create its unique visual environment and atmosphere. We would really hate to see these details disappear to become that pixel soup that a lot of MMORPGs are serving us, just to gain a few seconds...
You're definitely right, that's something which would be quite helpful. I will sit with the artists to collect elements for a new webkit.
We have real ambition for range fighting, as a third form of combat - something different from melee and magic - bringing an original diversity to the game. So this is a major point here : range fighting clearly needs to be deeply reworked and improved. But for that we need to finish the other big works currently in progress - the cleaning and the outposts.
Yes : that's linked to the fame improvements which are currently being actively discussed in-house. We want it to be more attractive, and that means giving the fame more impact. When this revamp makes it into the game, you will need to explicitly choose an alignment - being pro-Kami, pro-Karavan or neutral. I'll tell you more about that when it makes it into development.
NeL licensing is really something separated from the production : independant contractors are in charge of handling the commercial operation, so this is not affecting the devs at all. Our main focus is really on Ryzom : selling commercial licenses and support for NeL is a good way to finance Ryzom's development.
No, they will be published on the website, free of charge. The reason why they will be on the website (and not in a book or in-game) is quite anecdotic : Alexis Aubenque and David Cohen (Nevrax' CEO and editorial director, for those of you who do not know him ) met a few months ago; Alexis became a Ryzom fan and they decided to work together on a few novels. It was too late to introduce the novels into the encyclopedia, since most of its texts were already written, but they would still illustrate quite well the lore section of the website. I hope you will enjoy them. :-)
We have a general rule in mind when we add new content or features, which is to not break existing game mechanisms.
So, when you will approach an outpost, if you are neither in the guild owning the outpost or in an opposing guild, the outpost area won't be different from other areas of the game : you won't be able to use the features and facilities of the outpost, but you won't be considered as an enemy - at least, no more than you already are in the current version of Ryzom. :-)
Even if there are some good reasons why you would want to take advantage of the new outposts, as they will provide some nice features for the guilds controlling them, it will really be up to you to decide to go for it or not.
1) No, unless you have good diplomacy skills and get allies to do the fighting for you. :-) At least not at first.
2) Yes. There will be various control mechanisms to ensure fair sport, as we know how some sneaky techniques can ruin all the fun in PvP or GvG; declaration of war will be one of these control mechanisms.
Yes.
But the answer here is slightly more complex than a simple "yes" or "no" : we are quite aware of the "ubber-guild" effect, so it won't be that easy to play Monopoly with the outposts. We want to give everyone a chance to enter the game, so there will be control mecanisms to help the fight of small guilds. On top of this, owning an outpost won't be free; the outpost upkeep will have to be taken into account, occupying several of them will be costly.
And do not forget that you can have allies helping you. Sometimes, brute force is not the only key to victory - having good relationships can go a long way toward your success.
In the short/mid-term, if you have followed my recent posts, you should already be quite aware of our current works in progress : the spring clean, the outposts, the new content being prepared, the events improvements, etc. All these points will contribute in giving more lasting appeal to the game.
On a longer term, the question becomes quite interesting. :-) We have some ideas about that in-house, and I believe that you could be really surprised by what could come out of it.
As you all know, we aren't one of these big corporations which have been dominating the game market lately. This can have some drawbacks (such as the testing capacity issue I was discussing in News from the Devs), but it also gives us several major advantages : they are bigger, so they have more brute force than we have; but since we are smaller, we have a better aptitude to be responsive, and - the most important here - we are able to push back innovation frontiers in a way big corporations would have troubles to follow. Institutional investors and shareholders have a tendancy to freak out at the very idea of trying something new.
I do not want to make any promises here that I wouldn't be able to keep afterwards. But watch out.
--
Xavier.
First, to avoid any misunderstanding, I would like to point out the fact that the weekly questions & answers article is not a features request area... With questions like "Will you implement the feature XXX ?", when it is not something we are currently working on, I have two possible answers : either I say "That's something we are looking into - stay tuned" or "No, sorry, that's not planned for the near future". It doesn't mean that I will *never* answer this kind of question (there are some questions of that kind in the current article), but it will be more the exception than the rule, since having an article filled with this kind of answers would not be really the most interesting thing on Earth... I prefer focusing the Q&As on questions for which I actually *have* an interesting answer to provide.
Also, if you have missed the first Q&A article from last week, you can find it here.
''I am all for Clean up But.... Does this mean there will Be 0/none/zip/zelch/nunca/(all the words David Spade says in Captial one commercials) Content ?''
No : cleaning and content production are two separate things, with dedicated teams working on both fronts. While the code team is focusing on cleaning, the leveldesigners are producing new content for the game. As a matter of fact, the spring clean even helped content production to increase its delivery rate : as explained in the Clean-up! article, a large part of the spring clean is actually targetted at helping content to reach the game more easily and cleanly.
Even if this week's patch was mainly a bugfix patch (the new testing process helped us to find some subtle bugs with texts, so we pushed back content release), but new content is still being produced.
''Will there be a Linux client for Ryzom ? If the answer is yes, will its features be the same as those of the Windows one?''
Ahhh, I was waiting for that question.
That's something I'm also interested in, since I'm a Linux user : I work on a Linux box (Debian rocks! ) and my computers at home also run Linux - once I tasted the kind of freedom it gives, there was no way to return to the Microsoft World. :-)Happily enough, the Linux version of Ryzom is something which has been planned from the start : the NeL engine, at the core of Ryzom, was designed with portability in mind; the game supports OpenGL 3D acceleration, OSS/Alsa sound (through FMOD), and uses as few OS-dependent C++ functions as possible. So porting Ryzom to Linux is something which can be done quite easily if you compare it to other games; but still - it requires time.
But the good part is that you can already run Ryzom under Linux : the Cedega emulator works well with Ryzom. Since most of the processing burden relies on the 3D card nowadays, even with the emulation layer you get a very good framerate in most cases (and thanks to Grandma's unofficial HOWTO, the installation is painless). I use it to play Ryzom - and really I don't feel the difference between my Ryzom and the one of my Windows-liking collegues.
So, I do not know for you, but since I'm able to play, even if it's only emulated and not official supported, I prefer to see the development focusing on features and content. The native version will come soon enough.
''Is it possible to reduce loading time ?''
It's quite true that loading the game or teleporting takes time in Ryzom. A few parts could of course be optimized (like the the XML interface initialization), but from the start we have taken the conscious decision to make some concessions on loading times in order to obtain higher quality 3D graphics (most of the loading time is spent preparing textures and meshes that are too large to stream off the hard drive without stalling the game). 3D art in Ryzom is very rich, with a lot of details that create its unique visual environment and atmosphere. We would really hate to see these details disappear to become that pixel soup that a lot of MMORPGs are serving us, just to gain a few seconds...
''"Where are the webkits ? You said there would be some new ones, but you still haven't provided them."''
You're definitely right, that's something which would be quite helpful. I will sit with the artists to collect elements for a new webkit.
''Will you do something to improve range fighting ?''
We have real ambition for range fighting, as a third form of combat - something different from melee and magic - bringing an original diversity to the game. So this is a major point here : range fighting clearly needs to be deeply reworked and improved. But for that we need to finish the other big works currently in progress - the cleaning and the outposts.
''Are there any plans to make siding with the Karavan or the Kami more attractive ?''
Yes : that's linked to the fame improvements which are currently being actively discussed in-house. We want it to be more attractive, and that means giving the fame more impact. When this revamp makes it into the game, you will need to explicitly choose an alignment - being pro-Kami, pro-Karavan or neutral. I'll tell you more about that when it makes it into development.
''How many people are actually working on Ryzom's development, compared to the number of people working on the commercial version of NeL ? Is Ryzom just a showcase game for the NeL engine ?''
NeL licensing is really something separated from the production : independant contractors are in charge of handling the commercial operation, so this is not affecting the devs at all. Our main focus is really on Ryzom : selling commercial licenses and support for NeL is a good way to finance Ryzom's development.
''Will we have to pay for the novels being written by Alexis Aubenque, which you mentioned in the Q&A round last week ?''
No, they will be published on the website, free of charge. The reason why they will be on the website (and not in a book or in-game) is quite anecdotic : Alexis Aubenque and David Cohen (Nevrax' CEO and editorial director, for those of you who do not know him
) met a few months ago; Alexis became a Ryzom fan and they decided to work together on a few novels. It was too late to introduce the novels into the encyclopedia, since most of its texts were already written, but they would still illustrate quite well the lore section of the website. I hope you will enjoy them. :-)On the outposts : ''What if you're not in a guild ? How does that affect your ability to enter/exit outposts ?''
We have a general rule in mind when we add new content or features, which is to not break existing game mechanisms.
So, when you will approach an outpost, if you are neither in the guild owning the outpost or in an opposing guild, the outpost area won't be different from other areas of the game : you won't be able to use the features and facilities of the outpost, but you won't be considered as an enemy - at least, no more than you already are in the current version of Ryzom. :-)
Even if there are some good reasons why you would want to take advantage of the new outposts, as they will provide some nice features for the guilds controlling them, it will really be up to you to decide to go for it or not.
''Will there be a chance to control, build up and keep an outpost, completely without engaging in any PvE/GvG ? If not, will there be any security measures to ensure fair sport (declaration of war with consent of both parties or delays) ?''
1) No, unless you have good diplomacy skills and get allies to do the fighting for you. :-) At least not at first.
2) Yes. There will be various control mechanisms to ensure fair sport, as we know how some sneaky techniques can ruin all the fun in PvP or GvG; declaration of war will be one of these control mechanisms.
''Can a guild control more than one outpost?''
Yes.
But the answer here is slightly more complex than a simple "yes" or "no" : we are quite aware of the "ubber-guild" effect, so it won't be that easy to play Monopoly with the outposts.
We want to give everyone a chance to enter the game, so there will be control mecanisms to help the fight of small guilds. On top of this, owning an outpost won't be free; the outpost upkeep will have to be taken into account, occupying several of them will be costly.And do not forget that you can have allies helping you. Sometimes, brute force is not the only key to victory - having good relationships can go a long way toward your success.
''We would all like to see more people around, and seeing people leave presents a very bad image at this stage. What are you doing to give the game lasting appeal ?''
In the short/mid-term, if you have followed my recent posts, you should already be quite aware of our current works in progress : the spring clean, the outposts, the new content being prepared, the events improvements, etc. All these points will contribute in giving more lasting appeal to the game.
On a longer term, the question becomes quite interesting. :-) We have some ideas about that in-house, and I believe that you could be really surprised by what could come out of it.
As you all know, we aren't one of these big corporations which have been dominating the game market lately. This can have some drawbacks (such as the testing capacity issue I was discussing in News from the Devs), but it also gives us several major advantages : they are bigger, so they have more brute force than we have; but since we are smaller, we have a better aptitude to be responsive, and - the most important here - we are able to push back innovation frontiers in a way big corporations would have troubles to follow. Institutional investors and shareholders have a tendancy to freak out at the very idea of trying something new.
I do not want to make any promises here that I wouldn't be able to keep afterwards. But watch out.
--
Xavier.
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