Your new home is at the Virtual Citizenship Association website.
Informations and contributions
Where to get news, discussions about ryzom.org and contribute to the project?
What is the goal the donations have to reach?
How to help the project except by doing pledges?
Ryzom.org, the buyout plan and the Association
What is Nevrax's position toward this project?
What are the project's chances of success?
What are Ryzom's alternatives?
Who is actually driving the project?
What about the juridical form? The Plan.
And if it works?
When Ryzom has been purchased by the community, will I still have to pay to play Ryzom?
Will you start off with only one shard / server?
What will be done with surplus money, if there is any?
About the webpage
Why do you embed non-free video streams on your webpage?
Informations and contributions
Q: Where to get news, discussions about ryzom.org and contribute to the project?
A: Discussions, news and decisions regarding the project are open to the public, you can check them or participate by the following means :
- English and French ryzom.org forums
- The project dedicated chat (freenode IRC network, chan #ryzom.org)
- Ryzom.org mailing-lists
Q: What is the goal the donations have to reach?
A: The first goal for the donations pledges is 100.000 euros. This sum has been estimated as a reasonable target, in order to have some credibility with the administrator, to cover part of the expenses linked to Ryzom buyout and recovery and last, to provide to the Association enough involvement as a - at least - third part in the SAS (Société par action simplifiée) structure offered by the buyout plan.
Q: How to help the project except by doing pledges?
A:
- Discussion: first, you can contribute to the project development, in the forums and chat discussions.
- Diffusion: "Spread the word next steps". You can also help diffusion and knowledge about the project by communicating and debating on it around you and in the various places of speech you are used to be active (forums, etc.). Ryzom.org doesn't want to give a strict guideline about it, nor "news model", which can simply appear as spam. The Community think the conviction of each one's own is the most precious strategy of communication. Nevertheless if you have no idea of how to communicate, and in order to coordinate actions (the deadline is very short), you can find on the forums some threads making proposals (French, English) and listing websites which have been may have to be contacted by the community (English).
- Translations and various skills: at last, some help regarding to the online writings translations (Call for translators), website improving and update, or more largely every genius and constructive idea, any goodwill are welcomed !
Ryzom.org, the buyout plan and the Association
Q: What is Nevrax's position toward this project?
A: Nevrax France is nor linked to and does not support Ryzom.org project.
Q: What are the project's chances of success?
A: Our chances are weak but not nonexistent. In fact, the stronger your investment will be, the more the project will stand a good chance. At this time, the project's credibility is growing exponentially with time and each one's commitments.
Q: What are Ryzom's alternatives?
A: Some potentials purchasers will propose buyout plans which will be studied by the judge. Priority will probably be given to the financial offer, to the viability of the plan over the time and to the preservation of French employments.
Q: Who is actually driving the project?
A: At the moment and as a temporary situation due to an urgency context, a decision-making committee has been made up with four personalities of the community (following the 27th of November chat's decision) :
- Ace: Technical (ensuring the website is running, configuring the shards if we get the code, getting new servers, etc.)
- Quim: Community Communication (ensuring the information is everywhere, writing news on the ryzom.org forums & MLs, translations, etc.)
- Thanys: Juridical (making the best proposal the judge will ever see, checking everything is made according to the law, etc.)
- Xavier : Philosophy (checking the social contract is respected, staying in touch with everyone, answering to contact demands, etc.)
Q: What about the juridical form? The Plan.
A: If the first idea was about a buyout and management by a community of donators, it appeared after careful consideration and feedbacks from various consultations that other kind of organisation should have more credibility with the administrator, and should also provide a more reliable management of the project.
- A tripartite "Société par actions simplifiée" (SAS) (cf. to the statutes - in French) The plan will propose the legal structure of a Société par actions simplifiée (S.A.S.), with three associates: the Association (non-profit organisation), Mekensleep's company and Valentin Lacambre. These three associates will be able to offer a more important sum, shared between the three parts.
- About the three associates:
- The Association. This is the legal structure chosen for the donators and volunteers Community involved in the Ryzom.org project. This is a non-profit organisation (law 1901, in French).
- Mekensleep is an independent videogame studio, which alternative positions on development are explicit. Mekensleep's chairman is Olivier Lejade, one of Ryzom's pionneer.
- Valentin Lacambre (Gandi, Web Altern) is a well known personality in France for his involvement to the Free Software movement.
- So, what about the "Free Ryzom Campaign»?
This plan was proposed to the community for a vote, closed the 3rd of December (6pm) with the following results :
95 respondents, 94 pros (98%), 1 cons(2%). See the results and coments around the vote.
Q: And if it works?
A: If our plan is accepted, we will have to quickly complete the legal stuff (registering the statutes, choosing the people in charge, etc.), and take the necessary steps in order to keep the servers online.
Q: When Ryzom has been purchased by the community, will I still have to pay to play Ryzom?
A: Yes, for the official project Ryzom server, you will still have to pay, since servers and internet connections to run a large game like Ryzom is quite expensive. Even though we still have to charge to play on the official servers, the goal of this project isn't to make money, but rather to cover the costs of the operation and keep Ryzom alive for and by the players (for more information refer to our budget). We estimate that the monthly fee will be approximately 10 €. Note that player run servers would likely be free to play since their playerbase would likely be much smaller.
Q: Will you start off with only one shard / server?
A: First it will be necessary to keep renting the servers at Jolt, which is a quite important cost, to avoid stopping the service (this is not including the customer-support service currently also provided by Jolt). This situation would last 3 months, which is the necessary time for Valentin Lacambre (a web hosting specialist) to setup a cheaper internal solution. Once past these 3 months, we will probably chose to have only one multilingual shard/server online. We want to run a tight shop initially, so the project will have long viability. There would be nothing worse than bringing too many servers online and then have to take them down, because we aimed to high, too fast. Once a sufficient number of people are registered on the server, we will open new servers.
Q: What will be done with surplus money, if there is any?
A: Our first priority would be to buy new servers and to hire (or rehire) developers, graphic designers, level designers, sysadmins, testers, etc. who would work full-time to improve Ryzom. Their contribution would be combined with the volunteers of the project. New developers will be chosen by vote, and the developer's work will, of course be distributed under a Free licence.
About the webpage
Why do you embed non-free video streams on your webpage?
A: We are aware that embeding YouTube streams on our webpage uses non-free technologies, but like many other things in the campaign, we did not have the time to convert the video to a proper format. We are currently working on finding free alternatives to stream the movies directly on the webpage and/or provide URLs to the movie files on a proper format.
Don't hesitate to ask questions in our forum. We'll add any questions which appear in the forum repeatedly to this FAQ.