saga-of-ryzom
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Official website teases the return of Ryzom
The Saga of Ryzom met an untimely end in February. Its players were scattered around the MMO universe -- a diaspora of Ryzomites without a country to call home. History has shown us that not all MMO deaths are final, though, and Ryzom might be coming back.The official website relaunched with the message "Ryzom will be back soon!" hastily typed in three languages (English, German, and French) over a screenshot from the game. Researching the site's domain reveals that the last known owner was Nevrax -- the original creator of Ryzom. Thing is, Nevrax no longer exists. It's likely that the whois data hasn't been updated yet.A couple months ago, we reported that an organization called Spiderweb International Unlimited had placed a bit for the Ryzom property, and that fans of the game were trying to raise enough money to outbid them so the source code could be released to the public. We haven't seen any news since then, so we're not sure what ended up happening, but we'll let you know as soon as new info comes up.[Via WarCry]
The Daily Grind: Will your MMO still be here in 2009?
Nothing lasts forever. MMO's come and go, business plans succeed and fail, and sometimes the best will in the world keeps bleeding cash. MMOs and virtual worlds cost a bundle in power and bandwidth to operate and (for decent customer service, GMs, admins and billing) can cost even more in staffing (hint: That's why a lot of operators keep the staff counts down). All the while the developer/operator is trying to keep the cash-burn rate down and recover the costs of the game, in the hope of breaking even before the money runs out. Asheron's Call 2, Auto Assault, Saga of Ryzom, Earth and Beyond, and more are gone. Sometimes subscriptions never quite rise high enough for the long-tail model to be sustainable for an MMO. Do you think your online world will still be here this time next year as the end of Q1 2009 rolls around?
The saga of the Saga of Ryzom: Not over yet
The Saga of Ryzom (or just Ryzom for marketing purposes), has had a pretty rocky time in the market, struggling and never quite taking off. Poor Ryzom, even spiffy advertising on Penny Arcade could not save you. As we posted back in early February, things were starting to fall apart, and servers beginning to close. The last of them finally did in mid-February. Game over, right? Well, maybe not.
Saga of Ryzom may be going sunset
The rocky road Saga of Ryzom has walked over the past four years appears to be drawing to a close. The game, originally launched in 2004, is a unique approach to the Science Fiction genre. Over the years the game has prompted a number of interesting innovations in online games, including the user-content generation system Ryzom Ring and advances in streaming art content to the user. Still, financial problems have plagued the game almost as long. Nevrax, the original developer of the title, filed for bankruptcy near the end of 2006. The German company GameForge stepped in to run the service in a sort of reduced capacity, and has been keeping the servers live for players since. GameForge's French outfit, which ran the game, then ran into financial problems themselves in October of last year. Ryzom players were made aware that time may have been running out for the game.A discussion of the current state of the servers is below.
