Open-Source Ryzom a Possibility

[joshuapurcell]

This looked liked a good place to post this bit of information. Ryzom is a MMORPG that seems to have a larger player-base in Europe than in the US, and the company who owns and runs the game is bankrupt and going into liquidation. A community of players are trying to raise enough funds to purchase the game and then license it under the GPL. While I've never played this game, I've heard of it several times. In the interest of having more open source games to choose from, you may consider helping their cause. See this link for more information:

http://www.ryzom.org/

EDIT: I should have added this originally, but donating funds to get this game GPL'd doesn't actually mean giving money right now. The people in charge of this don't want to be in the position of having to refund everyone who donated if the gaming community doesn't raise enough money; instead you make a pledge to give a certain amount now, and when the end-goal is reached in pledges then the actual money is asked for.

[Rob Williams]

It's great to see the community jump on this. If that game worked on Linux, then that would open up a new world, literally, for a lot of *nix gamers.

Sad to see Nevrax go down the hole though. It's increasingly difficult to make it in the MMO market unless your name is WoW.

[Svartalf]

It's great to see the community jump on this. If that game worked on Linux, then that would open up a new world, literally, for a lot of *nix gamers.

Sad to see Nevrax go down the hole though. It's increasingly difficult to make it in the MMO market unless your name is WoW.

Yeah, it is, isn't it?

For those not tracking this on their site, they're at the 2/3rds mark for pledges. It wouldn't take much, really, to push this to the next stage- even if you can only manage 10 euros (I pledged 50, myself, with the promise of more if needed and they were just short...) you should wander over and pledge it.

[joshuapurcell]

Yeah, it is, isn't it?

For those not tracking this on their site, they're at the 2/3rds mark for pledges. It wouldn't take much, really, to push this to the next stage- even if you can only manage 10 euros (I pledged 50, myself, with the promise of more if needed and they were just short...) you should wander over and pledge it.
At 2/3 already... that is impressive. When I made my pledge (I think I did 50 as well) they were barely scraping the bottom of the meter.

[Svartalf]

At 2/3 already... that is impressive. When I made my pledge (I think I did 50 as well) they were barely scraping the bottom of the meter.

Make that 3/4ths mark since I'd last posted... :D

[joshuapurcell]

This is a copy of an email update I received yesterday:On Tuesday 5th, the judiciary plan was presented to the administrator.
As we said, specific details could not be made public since that could
severely affect our chances to succeed on the process.

Since now all proposals have been presented and it's up to the judges
to determine which offer is the best one for the game and the company.
Xavier started a thread on our forums
(http://www.ryzom.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1161#1161) where he
posted all the details about the documentation presented.

Unfortunately, we still can't set a date to when the decision will be
taken, but as announced on ryzom.com news (only Nevrax could attend
the session), we will get updated around the 12th and 19th of
December.

Feel free to check the docs and discuss about the proposal content!

Current pledge sum: 81.483€!
Remember that every euro might raise our chances to open-source this great game!

Quim Rovira,
on behalf of the ryzom.org community.
_______________________________________________
news-en mailing list
news-en@ryzom.org
http://ml.ryzom.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/news-en

[colo]

Pledged for 30, but will donate 100€ if they're gonna make it. If there are more people behaving like me, it should be possible to compensate for those jackasses pledging for "fun", which surely do exist.

It would be just too frickin' cool to have a completely free as in speech AAA mmo-game. :)

[Svartalf]

The FSF has pledged 60k Euros to the cause, putting the project past the 100k euros mark and they're now at something like 170k of pledges. Just thought everyone here ought to know. Step up to the plate and pledge even 5 euros if you've not done so already.

[Michael]

Today/tomorrow is the last day to donate: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/63246355/article.pl

[Svartalf]

IF you can get in (It's Slashdotted...heh...) you should go and pledge. Depending on how close they are, I may carry through with my promise and pledge more. Folks, if you're serious about Linux gaming, this should be something where you're ponying up even 5 euros as a pledge.

[Svartalf]

Well, the trustee and the court went with Gameforge instead of the Free Ryzom project. They were intent on keeping most of the employees, etc. It sounds, though, like the court never even really considered the proposal in the first place, based on some of the discussion over there.

They DID, however, get 171k Euros pledged, on top of another 100k or so that was already in the pot for the project from two of the main players.

[Michael]

A thread on the Ryzom forums about the buyout: http://www.ryzom.com/forum/showthread.php?p=375212#post375212

[joshuapurcell]

I'm a little out of the loop I guess, but who is Gameforge and what type of license will the game be released under? Will the game pretty much continue as is, but just owned by another company? I was really looking forward to this game become a new addition to the open-source games already out there (and many other people seemed to feel the same way), but from reading the thread linked above it seems the community is fine with the outcome for the most part. I guess that if all you are interested in is being able to continue playing your favorite game, then this outcome is a good one by all measures. I'll need to know more about who the Trustees chose before deciding for myself.