Yes, since there are a lot of events performed here, that we want all communities to enjoy them.

The UK shard historically had more events than the other shards. They did not only had the "fun" events, like fashion contests (which was played last week-end on all servers), gladiators, etc. But also more roleplay-oriented events, with the introduction and presence of characters like Oba and Desann, or the Harbingers of Doom. Also, for the French players who raised concerns about the cultural differences regarding the way roleplay is performed, you may be happy to hear that Choule, who you already know, is part of the event management team for the French community.

Also, as you have perhaps noticed already, there has been an increasing number of upstream events coming from Nevrax recently, releasing more background into the game and to you (the Kami/Karavan guidelines, the Seed of Life, etc.). This is part of a general process whose goal is to have more events in-game and to make to story more present in the game.

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The guides are really welcome to stay as CSR. Volonteers are not impacted by our reorganization, so they can of course keep their current position : we appreciated them in the old team, so we would be happy to see them staying in the new one.

For those who are leaving, the choice to stay as regular players is really up to them. The only thing is that it can't be with their CSR identity (character and name), which is linked to their position, as there is a need for a clear difference between CSR staff and regular players - otherwise it would confuse some players. But they are of course welcomed.

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Now that the support is centralized, CSRs are all part of the same company, and Jolt will be able to have more feedback at hand, which will facilitate the cross-over. The concrete result will be that they will be able to have a more precise view of your concerns, and Nevrax will get less fragmented reports. So, yes, things should run in a even smoother way.

But your question is also a good place to show some self-satisfaction, :-) since customer support for Ryzom is one of its great strenghts : there is an average answer time of less than 12 hours, in a lot of cases tickets are answered within the hour, and even within a few minutes if your issue is critical (typically regarding stucks/harassement/etc.). But even there, we are still looking forward for improvements.

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This is related to a basic rule for Ryzom : the ones you can attack are the ones that can attack you - it can be either an NPC or a player, the rule is the same. Regarding roaming NPCs, like the guards, the fact that you can't attack them (and that they can't attack you) was designed to avoid unnecessary mistakes - it would just be too easy to die by clicking at the wrong place when you're not watching.

This could be changed for some NPCs in the future : fame will be reworked, and some NPCs (like guards or Kami/Karavan agents) may become less friendly to those who are standing against them.

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That's a mistake of the manual : the quality of materials received depend on the creature, not on the way you're killing it.

The way it actually works is the following : when you quarter/loot a creature, the quality of the materials you get is the same as the level of the creature. As for the class of the materials, each creature is part of a given family (weeny capryni and puny capryni for example are both from the same family, but differ in strenght) : the class is dependant on the creature for a given family.

There will be some subtle enhancements to the loot system some time in the future, but explain them now would ruin the fun !

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Following on the reorganisation, that's definetely something we are thinking about. If we do something here, it would probably be more allowing you to play on all servers/communities, since it's easier technically - but it is not decided yet. Allowing you to switch between communities would require more work from the devs (that's why today we only do it on a case by case basis), but that's also something we are thinking of.

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The reason why tools are not automatically destroyed when they are worn out is that it's even more confusing : we were getting a lot of tickets when it worked this way. Also, when a piece of armor or a weapon is destroyed, you can still fight and earn some money to rebuy it. With tools, that's not the case, so we wanted you to be able to still perform the action and avoid situations were you could get stuck; so they are not automatically destroyed, so you can still craft or harvest, even if it does not give you experience anymore and that the items you craft are of lesser quality.

As for the system info window, you're warned several times (when the item has 25%, 10%, 5% and 1% of its life points, and when it's worn out). But we are considering adding a visual warning on the worn out item so you can see it immediately, even if you didn't watched the system info window.

When it will be done, we could also use the same system - not automatically destroying items - for weapons and armors, since it would be more coherent and understandable if you have to destroy the item yourself when you can't use it anymore.

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Damn, of course we are reading the boards ! :-) I personnaly read them everyday, as much and often as I can. I even try to remember my German classes to read the German boards from time to time, even if that's not really easy to say the least :/ (I'm helped here by Lawrence, community manager for the German community, and also internally by Ravna, head of event management, who is German) and we discuss the threads of particular interest with the community managers.

A lot of other people at Nevrax are reading the boards, at least occasionnaly or to know about specific stuff. We usually do not post directly (even if sometimes it's really difficult to restrain from doing it!), since it's the work of the community managers, and of customer support for the technical side. But it never restrained us from reading.

Also, when there are posts/threads which are of particular interest (positive/negative feedback, ideas, events, etc.), they are usually forwarded internally. To give recent examples, the open letter to David Cohen Corval [French] was discussed and appreciated within the company; the congratulations for the successful merge have been transfered to the system engineers in charge of it, and it brought a happy smile on their tired faces.

All that to say : use the forums, tell us what you think on them, either positive or negative feedback is really welcome. It helps us driving Ryzom on the right path. :-)

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Xavier.