Free Saga of Ryzom
polycounter lvl 18
Since the makers of the MMORPG "Saga of Ryzom" went into liquidation, there is a project to free the entire game (code, art assets etc) with donations (similar to what was done with Blender a few years back).
Everything will be free to be used for other projects also, and should also prove as a valueable resource to learn more about gamedesign.
Have a look at this page, and pledge a donation!
http://www.ryzom.org/
Everything will be free to be used for other projects also, and should also prove as a valueable resource to learn more about gamedesign.
Have a look at this page, and pledge a donation!
http://www.ryzom.org/
Replies
Amazing how much money has been pledged already, btw.
Anyway- I helped with beta testing Ryzom. It was ok. Nothing really stood out as being above average (gameplay & graphics-wise). From what I got out of it all of the interesting stuff was at the higher levels (like most mmo's), but there wasn't enough to keep me going to get close to the cool stuff. You don't need the source and assets of the game to learn about gamedesign. Just playing the game (any game) you should be able to understand what works/what doesn't work in the game. Then you could think of what they could have done better.
Also doesn't seem like it's 100% going to happen. They're just trying to get funds so they can ask the developers if they can have their work. haha
Interesting... MMORPG shows it as #5. Hah, number 1 is Eve!
Anyway- I helped with beta testing Ryzom. It was ok. Nothing really stood out as being above average (gameplay & graphics-wise). From what I got out of it all of the interesting stuff was at the higher levels (like most mmo's), but there wasn't enough to keep me going to get close to the cool stuff. You don't need the source and assets of the game to learn about gamedesign. Just playing the game (any game) you should be able to understand what works/what doesn't work in the game. Then you could think of what they could have done better.
Also doesn't seem like it's 100% going to happen. They're just trying to get funds so they can ask the developers if they can have their work. haha
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Actually there are several games tied in points, so that would arguably change the ranking a bit
Anyways... sure Ryzom isn't the absolutly greatest out there, and it wouldn't have failed if it was. But it is a really solid title with a nice consistent art-style, and could really benifit from going open-source.
Concerning the the use as a tool to learn gamedesign... I was refering to "gamedesign" as a broader term meaning how everything fits together and works, as opposed to having just a mesh to learn from, or just a playermodel etc.
Besides that it can also be used as a good starting base to expand on without the huge step of starting from scratch, kind of like modding as a learning experience but much broader in scope (since if is truely open, not just partly).
Last but not least, sure they are just trying to get the game, and I don't think it will actually work, but maybe it will. And since you are pledging a donation and pay only if it really works out as planned there is really no harm in doing so.
Played it myself in the beta, not the greatest MMO but always lots of stuff to do (the others I've played were Korean MMOs and all of them lacked anything besides combat). Not quests, I don't think those were implemented by then but I liked how fighting, crafting and mining worked on separate "energy bars" so if your character was exhausted from hunting animals for materials you could start hammering those into items or pull some crap out of the ground while waiting for your mana and stamina to recover.
From what I heard the rest of the game would be very useful to understand the engine, which is already opensource, better.
I imagine an MMO that's developed by its users and doesn't need to retain people for the monthly fee would play a bit different from the commercial ones.
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Very true, but that could be for the better or the worse
I remember buying NeverWinterNights1 when the Linux port came out, and while the single player part was great, the multiplayer part was really only good in LANs when playing with friends, since most of the online servers had been taken over by strange register only server networks, where some hardcore "roleplayers" sat around (in game) all day and chatted about beeing an elf or what ever. Not fun at all.
But I am optimistic this doesn't have to be the case with this game, or at least not with all of the possible "realms" created.