Your new home is at the Virtual Citizenship Association website.
Disclaimer: this project is not affiliated to or supported by Nevrax France SARL.
Free Ryzom!
Help us make Ryzom a Free MMORPG! Donate now to help us purchase the source code, artwork and other game data associated with Ryzom, so we can breathe new life into it as an open, democratically run player project.
"Players are a constituency, not just an audience. The designers, far from being auteurs, are more like local politicians. The audience doesn't just watch the story. The audience is the story. The players are producing as much as they're consuming - perhaps more."
JC Herz., 50,000,000 Star Warriors Can't Be Wrong, Wired 10.06. 2002
Check out some other videos
What is Ryzom...
Ryzom is an innovative MMORPG, which has been developed since the year 2000 by the independent studio, Nevrax. For the past two years Ryzom has been marketed and sold to gamers, developing a fiercly loyal fanbase. Unfortunately, due to market conditions and other unforseen cirucumstances, a request to begin bankruptcy proceedings has been filed at the commerce tribunal.
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.
How can we hope to purchase a large software package which took millions of dollars to develop? We must be crazy, right? Not exactly, what we are attempting isn't without precedent, and we look to make it happen again! Blender, a powerful 3D modeling package cost millions of dollars to develop. In 2002, when the company behind Blender went into liquidation. The community surrounding Blender came to the rescue and raised 100,000 Euros to purchase the software package from its investors. To this day, Blender is a highly successful and actively developed Free Software project, maintained by its community of users. This is the success story we seek for Ryzom.
Check out some other videos
We are now working feverishly on a proposal, which we will present to the official presiding over liquidation process. The gist of this proposal is that we would seek to repurchase Ryzom, financed by a donation campaign, as was the case for Blender. The principal difference is that, we would likely not be the only party who would wish to purchase Ryzom. Also, any repurchase that occurs, will be carried out by the liquidators, not the shareholders. So far we do not know the conditions the liquidator may impose on the sale, nor the exact sum of money that will be required. We estimate that the amount will be, at least, tens of thousands of euros, and in the worst case, hundreds of thousands Euros.
Regardless of the exact amount, it is an large sum, but far from being unattainable. When taking into consideration millions euros necessary to the development of a MMORPG, this is a golden opportunity. If we get 500 donations, each contributing 20 euros, we would already have 10,000 Euros, easily attainable and well on our way to repurchase Ryzom. For this relatively small price, the community would obtain a game, which as of the time of writing this was tied for first place on MMORPG.com, as rated by the players. Developers would be able to build their own worlds and servers, based on the code, artwork and tools used in a #3 rated MMORG on MMORPG.com.
Who are we...
We're a group of former Nevrax employees, members of the NeL community, people who enjoy playing Ryzom, people who enjoy playing MMORGs in general and people who advocate the use of "Free Software". We strongly believe that virtual worlds, such as Ryzom, should belong to all of its players. Furthermore, we believe that the players, as virtual citizens of Ryzom, should have the right to influence the laws governing the virtual worlds in which they live. Also, any sufficiently motivated developer should be able to realize their own dreams, by starting their own virtual world. That all This vision should include making all of source code, artwork, documentation and tools available to any developer as Free Software.
Ground breaking, risky and unconventional, it could as well fail as open a new era of creativity and exploration.
The only question remaining is, will you help us succeed?