The resurrected Ryzom has been updated to v1.4.0.  Check out the patch notes here.

Blue's News updates on the current situation with regards to Ryzom subs.

The folks behind the revival of Ryzom announce plans to release a major client-side patch for the MMORPG tomorrow at 11:00 am GMT, offering this outline of when this will be happening locally and these patch notes to summarize what the version 1.3.0 update includes. As for the recently announced plans to add subscriptions to the game, they say that this has suffered a setback "due to bureaucratic delays beyond our control," so the game remains free to play for now, though they say "we don’t yet know for how long."

Ryzom reintroduces subscriptions Oli Welsh writes at Eurogamer.

The price has been cut since players were last charged, making it one of the cheaper subs games on the market - and the game itself is free to download. UK players won't see much of a saving thanks to the current weakness of the pound, however.

The new rate is EUR 7.95, USD 10.95 and GBP 7.75 for a month's subscription, with the usual reductions for committing to three, six or 12 months at a time.

Jon Blyth writes of his first hours playing Ryzom.

You can ignore the lore, leave the crafting until later, and suck up the unfair deaths and XP penalties. You'll find it easier - but you're also left with a game without the deepest rewards. The unapproachable stuff is the most compelling; you'll just get into it a lot faster if your father is a spreadsheet.

The unfriendliness of Ryzom is more than counterbalanced by the friendliness of the players. People are keen to help, or share your confusion. And if combining stuff to make more impressive stuff gets you a bit thrilled, then Ryzom will launch your brain towards the moon.

You can now try out Ryzom for free here.

Ryzom is a wholly original MMORPG fusing science fiction and fantasy. Ryzom Ring (R²), Ryzom’s first and free expansion, evolves the Saga introducing the first ever MMO scenario editor!

News on Ryzom's return on their forums.

Our next step in the coming days will be to re-open the servers for free - a VIP access to all our former Homins to thank them for their patience (to be specific, all the players who had a paid account at the time of the closure of servers).

Then, for the second step, we will allow new adventurers and travellers to come and tread the soil of our beautiful planet Atys!

Thank you once again for your loyalty and above all for your patience; the new Ryzom team bids you a very warm welcome and is looking forward to seeing you again in our world...

 Offical site posts a return teaser picture.

The Ryzom Community Manager has reported the sad news that the Leanon server has joined Arispotle in being shut down, with no word on when or if it might be brought up again.

Yes, as most of you will probably have heard by now, Leanon went down today and we don't have any ETA on when it will be back

For the moment, Aniro is still up and doing well

In a post at the game's official forums, the Ryzom Community Manager has passed on the unwelcome news that the MMO's servers may be shut down in the near future.

Dear players,

I'm very sorry to inform you that GameForge Germany has today told us that there is the possibility that the Ryzom servers will be shut down this week. Currently I'm being told that Arispotle will not be restarted in the near future.

This doesn't signal the end of Ryzom however; the liquidation procedure is still ongoing and there is still time for us to get new owners, so don't lose hope.

I'm afraid I might not be able to answer all the questions I'm sure you have, but I'll keep you updated when we know more.

If/when the forums go down, don't forget that we have the forums at http://arispotle.yubovision.fr/ - once again I'll post any and all updates there as well.

It seems that Ryzom's financial woes did not stop with Nevrax.  Gameforge has announced that it is going into receivership and the future of the game looks uncertain.

Ryzom is going to pass through a few uncertain days/weeks, a second time. Our efforts to move Ryzom forward didn't get the expected repercussions and today as I speak, while the game continues to run and to be supported, the company behind its development - Gameforge France SARL, located in Paris - is lacking the funds to keep going. For those who've known the Nevrax times and went through the transitory period in last December, the same legal procedure of "liquidation judiciaire" has been put in place yesterday. This means that while the appointed liquidator will do what it takes to close the company, potential buyers may show up to take over the game Ryzom. If nobody shows up, the servers will be shut down in less than 3 weeks at liquidator's request.

MMORPG.com takes a closer look at Ruins of Silan the trial area in Saga of Ryzom.

Missions in the Ruins of Silan are a bit different than everywhere else on Atys. The missions you’ll encounter here aren’t just for shiny rewards; they’re here to teach you how to play. Ryzom’s game system has always had a steep learning curve that could sometimes put new players off. This need not be a problem anymore with these new missions.

The official Saga of Ryzom site has been updated with some information on Gameforge's decision to acquire the game from Nevrax.

Maybe you wonder why did Gameforge acquire Ryzom and what are their thoughts on the future of the game? Find here the first articles about the take over.

Klaas Kersting, Director of Gameforge AG, and Carsten van Husen, CEO of Gameforge 4D (subsidiary company) answered an interview on Gamesdynamite about their view on Ryzom's future (in German only). For our French readers, Faunis from Aniro provided a good French translation of this article on the forum.

You will also find here the article announcing Ryzom's take over (in German). On the forums, Khyle from Leanon kindly proposed an English translation of it while Faunis also worked on a French translation. Thank you!

A short news post at the official Ryzom site reveals the rather momentous news that a new owner for the MMO has been found.  Nevrax has opened a forum thread for those wanting to discuss the announcement.

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!

Ever since the uncertain future of Nevrax--the team behind Ryzom--has circulated, a well-intentioned group of former Nevrax employees and Ryzom fans have been collecting donations for their Free Ryzom Campaign in hopes of purchasing "the source code, artwork and other game data associated with Ryzom, so [they] can breathe new life into it as an open, democratically run player project." They have already collected a whopping 85,570 euros towards their goal and this list of donators shows just how many people believe in that goal.

What are we doing...

Until now, Nevrax has produced Ryzom, as a typical commercial software company. Nevrax, not the players, decide what direction the virtial world of Ryzom takes. We want to turn this model on it's head and give players control over the virtual world their character's inhabit. We want to purchase the source code, game data, and artwork, so that we can further develop it by placing it under a Free Software license. Once this is accomplished we would reopen the universe of Ryzom to players and have it function and further developed under democratic controlled basis.

A short update on Ryzom's situation is up at the official site:

As you may already know, there was a hearing at the commerce tribunal today about the future of Nevrax. The discussion was short and went as expected.

As a number of serious take over offers had been officially presented, the court decided that we continue our activity normally until Ryzom is passed over to its new owner.

The name of the prospective buyers are still secret, however we should be able to tell you more between December the 12th and the 19th.

Nevrax has updated the official Saga of Ryzom site with some further information about the company's receivership process.

To keep you in the loop with what is happening in Paris here is the latest.

The situation here as you know is that Nevrax as a corporate entity will probably cease to exist in a few weeks. It is not up to Nevrax to decide the exact date, which is why we can't be more specific right now. Discussions are ongoing with various creditors so you may see "news" stories appearing here and there about Nevrax going under, but you will still hear all the facts here first.

In the meantime, Ryzom will continue to run and evolve. Right now we are happy that several companies and/or individuals are actively engaged in negotiations to take over Ryzom. Again we can't tell you more at this moment as these negotiations have to be carried out privately.

We've opened a thread in the account support section to answer your concerns regarding your account. Click here for more information.

An important message on the Ryzom site informs that Nevrax will go into receivership next month but a new (and unnamed) company will be stepping in and taking over:

As you will no doubt know, Ryzom has been going through a transition over the last few months. This transition is continuing into the new year and changes are starting to happen today.

The first news is that while the game WILL continue to run and be supported, Nevrax (as a corporate entity) will be going into receivership next month. We emphasize again that the game will continue to run and be supported as this is not the beginning of the end - just the end of the beginning.

As you all, we love our game and we want to see Atys and its homins continue to evolve. We are not alone in this feeling as from the shadows a company has emerged and are currently preparing a plan to take on Ryzom. We can't tell you more at the moment since it is being discussed but we will keep you informed when we get hard facts. We can assure you that much is happening behind the scenes.

In the meantime, Ryzom goes on. Your CSRs will continue to help you and to take care of everything, while our devs will continue to work on their current schedule: the next step is to patch the ATS with a few new things. So basically, while these negotiations are ongoing, everything else is business as usual.

As we don't want to cheat on you, while Nevrax is going through this transition period, the following actions have just been taken today around 3pm GMT regarding the billing system:

• All existing subscribed accounts created before 3pm GMT will be turned into free account with 1 month of free access.

• It will not be possible to pay to subscribe to a full Ryzom account anymore.

• You will still be able to create a Free Trial account, but at the moment there will be no possibility to upgrade your account and go to mainland. As a result we've removed the level cap for the Free Trial to give players in the Ruins of Silan much more to achieve in the meantime.

As things develop you can expect a return to the usual more conventional account options soon.

This past weekend I downloaded and started playing Saga of Ryzom. I believe the download also includes the functionality for Ryzom Ring, the free expansion to Saga of Ryzom, but I haven't investigated that yet. The download and patch didn't take very long, considering I was getting the whole game.

Setting up the trial account was also very easy. The free trial allows you to play in the Ruins of Silan starter-island indefinitely, with no credit card required for account set-up. Of course, the creatures on the starter island only go so high, level 30ish is the highest I've seen, so you'll have plenty of playing time to get to know the game controls and some of the type of content before needing to convert your account to a paying account. One thing to note is that your username on the official forums is automatically your account name, so you don't want to make your account name personally identifying if you don't want that showing up on every post you may make on the official forums.

The night sky was deep black above the jungle, dotted with myriads of small stars, which sent their bright light towards Atys. The picture that Sian Gai-Lua was presented with when he opened his eyes was simply incredible. For some minutes he enjoyed the sight Ma-Duk gave him, and remained lying on his back listening silently to the sounds around him.

Everything meshed together in a harmonious vision of peace.

We will apply a patch tomorrow Thursday the 20th. As a result, the shards will be closed from 9:00 UTC to 12:00 UTC. This patch will mainly bring some improvements regarding your daily life on Atys.
In a nutshell:

* The Wastelands map should be fixed to fit better in its window (its coordinates were wrongly modified in a recent patch);
* The Karavan Altar of Scorched Corridor will be slightly moved to fix the stuck issues you can get when teleporting there;
* Herbivores' drops will increase;
* The temporary inventory should behave a bit differently: when you die or log off while your temporary inventory is open, the items in it should be automatically transferred to your inventory (in case you have enough space in your bag);
* The Yubo population in the Ruins of Silan will be increased;
* The Gingo's Lair in the Ruins of Silan will be renamed "Ragus Lair" to be more consistent.

I would like to invite everyone interested to an Atysian film-makers conference on the Zora Stage, Arispotle Shard on Saturday the 22nd July at 9pm BST (8pm GMT, 4pm EDT, 1pm PDT). This conference is open to everyone from all shards. The main purpose will be to meet other film makers and exchange ideas.

We have just updated Ryzom.com with a few additional fixes, improved the comments presentation and added a draft portlet.

* New:
o Official comments (from Nevrax or CS staff) are now displayed differently than the others, to let you find them more quickly;
o The poster full name (configured in the personal preferences) is now displayed instead of the login name in the comments;
o A new portlet now appears on the right column when you are logged, containing all the draft documents you have created on the website.

As suggested by the name, the Kitins' Lair is a closed underground area full of Kitins of different kinds, sizes and strengths. Let me warn you right now: Homins are quite unwelcome here, this is a dangerous area and the Kitins bite hard!

The size of the whole lair is roughly equivalent to the size of a small region of the Atys mainlands (such as Resting Water).

The lair is composed of several tunnels and rooms, each having an important place in the lair organisation. Here, it may be possible to witness how Kitins organise themselves, behave, and protect themselves, which could satisfy any curious Homin or Ranger's apprentice. It is also possible to try killing them all, or foraging for some good and well guarded raw materials, such as kitin larvae.

We will apply a patch tomorrow Thursday the 6th. As a result, the servers will be down from 10am to 2pm (GMT+2, Paris time).
In a nutshell:

* The Javing population will be increased in the Ruins of Silan;

* The Outpost amplifiers effect that was unintentionally reduced in the last patch (#500) will be fixed: the success rate should be back to 20%;

* Several mistakes in texts in the three languages should be corrected;

* The mission code bug we experienced after the last patch will be fixed; we also reworked on the domino effect fix, as the one we applied after the patch 500 was a quick fix.

Turenkarn, Game Master of Aristople, worked recently on a comic book made of screenshots of Ruins of Silan, in order to help the newcomers in their first steps in the game.

Veterans will surely find a good place for it in their library as well. : ) Big thanks to Turenkarn and to the CS team for their help!

Ruins of Silan Starter Guide (PDF, 9.7 MB)

It took some work, but it's finally here. The Ruins of Silan is the new, reworked starter lands for new characters in The Saga of Ryzom. This new land offers a look at all the races, a detailed look at the skills and a chance to see a sampling of the flora and fauna of most of the lands.

With the new addition of the Ruins of Silan the beginner's gameplay should be much improved. One of the biggest problems for a new player was figuring out just how everything worked. The learning curve was steep, which could be a downside for new players.

Good news today! We've updated the client installer and included the recent patches in the file, whose size is now 1.637 MB.

You can click here or go to the download page of the site to get the new installer (ryzom-installer_062006.exe) or the updated BitTorrent file (ryzom-installer_062006.exe.torrent).

This client includes all the patches until the patch 500 (from the 12th of June).

If you encountered download or installation issues recently, feel free to try again with this new file.

A lot has happened with the story for Ryzom, and the players are taking an active part in the events that will shape the future. This involvement is part of what sets Ryzom apart from other MMOs. Players setting the mood and decisions in events can bring the story to new levels and shape it into something that the players want. This can only be a good thing for Ryzom and is the reason why it won the MMORPG.com Best Story award.

The skill system hasn't changed since release but it has gone through some rebalancing. Harvesting in particular had a major reworking just after Patch 1 after the retail release. This changed how the harvesting skill worked and was definitely an improvement. Other changes included the balancing of melee in PvE, a complete rebalance of the Healing skill tree, and some basic combat balancing for PvP.

If you ask the players, there are many mixed opinions on these changes, but I personally find most of the skill changes to have been a good improvement for the game in general.

Good news today! We have successfully patched and opened the shards. Atys now slowly awakes from her slumber, ready to welcome back the many Homins she shelters.

You can have a look at the content of the patch in this news, or in the corresponding Release Notes.

Important! When you log in, your guild list, contact list or encyclopedia may take several minutes to load. This should occur only the first time you log in after the patch. To force the update, you can try relogging. If you keep having troubles, feel free to contact the CS.

Have a nice day on Atys!

You can now patch your client, as we've just reopened the patch system. However, patching now won't enable you to play as the shards are down, but to have a client ready to use as soon as we reopen them.
The patch size is 45.2 Mb.

The billing system which is handling your account profile is also accessible again.

Important: you can't play yet, as the shards are down. You can follow the patch deployment progression on this page.

The 4-days patch we announced recently is finally ready. We will close the servers next week, from Monday the 12th at 8am to Thursday the 15th (GMT+2, Paris time).

As you won't be able to play during the patch, 4 extra days will be credited to your account.

This heavy patch includes a change in the server architecture that will allow you to meet players from other servers in Ring sessions later. Once the patch is done, your account will grant you access to Arispotle, Aniro and Leanon. You will still have 5 slots for your characters, but when creating new characters you now get to choose the server that they will play on. Characters are still bound to a server, meaning that you won't be able to play on different servers with the same character.

After we spoke about the architecture change some time ago, you raised the issue of the existence of a same name on several servers. For instance, what would happen if two characters having the same name, one from Leanon and the other from Aniro, met in a Ring scenario?

We thought about a viable solution, to allow you to keep your name, and yet being able to know who's who (in mails, /tell, contact list, System Info window and R scenario). I explain below what we have in mind.

Note: this system should be effective with the Ring patch, not the upcoming 4-days patch.

Characters' Names & the Multishard Architecture - Detailed document

Lately, we have been working on an update of the Ryzom.com engine; it is now up, and you are using it to read this news. :)

a) New Engine

The look&feel of Ryzom.com is mailny kept as is, but the engine behind it changes completely for something more robust and extensible. We use Plone, a content management framework (http://plone.org/), which is already used on the Ring website.

Good news for those who were waiting for it: the NPE has been patched on the ATS 2 (opened yesterday). All the ATS testers are welcome to log in and test it! :)

Reminder: the NPE - New Player Experience - is going to replace the current first experience of players. The four separated "newbie islands" are going to disappear to be replaced by a unique and larger island. Moreover, new players should be able to find more help through new designed missions that will guide their first steps on Atys.

Well it's getting close to that time again folks, the next IRL is going to happen and we want to get some idea of where you'd like to go for it. After all, it's your meet so you should get a say in where it is held.

The last two have been held in The Old Star in London (transport links to London are very good, plenty of cheap hotels if people want to stay over and apparently there are one or two things to see and do in the city if you arrive early) so if you'd prefer we can do that again. Or we can find another venue in the city, or even choose a different city altogether.

Tomorrow Thursday, we will upgrade the website, replacing the current engine with a more elaborate one. As a result, Ryzom.com should be down from 3 pm to 5 pm (GMT+2, Paris time). Note that during this time, the forum will be unavailable as well

Just a quick note to keep you updated: the 4-days patch, bringing changes in the server architecture, will most likely occur in June. We need to pass through a long series of tests, then correct and test again; as always, we will patch only when the results are satisfying.