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Nevrax got insolvent ...
Regarding to this Post :
http://ryzom.com/forum/showthread.php?t=13352
NEVRAX the Company behind SoR hit the Roof and asks for protection of creditors in a Chapter 11 like process ...
Comments
This is a typical strategy employed by small companies with high startup costs. Absolutely nothing surprising here. This game will survive longer than EQ2 or WoW as it should.. It is a better game.
Make a difference!
I do not think a company expects to make a game that looses money. Chapter 11 is not critical but it means the company has to attempt to restructure its debt to become solvent. If it cannot do this it will be forced into bankrupcy. The only other game that went through this is Horizons. There is a lot of similiarities between Horizons and SoR.
I doubt any game that has over 300k subs has anything to worry about SoR. SoR will be niche market at best..bankrupt at worst.
ROFL.
Only you could see a company plunging into fiscal complications as a surefire indicator of their longterm success.
Enjoy Ryzom while it lasts.
ROFL.
Only you could see a company plunging into fiscal complications as a surefire indicator of their longterm success.
Enjoy Ryzom while it lasts.
I know the downright fanboi stupidity is amasing
.
Ryzom is gonna die
.
Beta Tested: Lineage 2, Ryzom, City of Heroes, RYL, EverQuest 2 World Of Warcraft European
Truly Loved: World of Warcraft
ROFL.
Only you could see a company plunging into fiscal complications as a surefire indicator of their longterm success.
Enjoy Ryzom while it lasts.
Copeland is actually somehow right. This is not unusual strategy. It's not that long time ago, that almost all US based airlines went through similar process. You enter it as troubled company on side, exit as highly successful, debt free (or almost) on the other. Next very likely candidates from the world we know are the big 3 car manufacturers from Detroit (guess what the names are)
I guess this is nothing to make fun about and certainly not ridiculous either...
Anyway, I hope Nevrax will come out clean and will be able to continue running the game for us, it's better than anything I have seen so far, and I really enjoy it. Would be a pitty, well, actually, quite a big loss if they went down...
--- Bambul's Signature ---
Ummm, using airline companies as an example probably isn't the best idea. Most aren't in that great of shape right now any many have / are receiving government funding to stay afloat as they have in the past.
- Scaris
"What happened to you, Star Wars Galaxies? You used to look like Leia. Not quite gold bikini Leia (more like bad-British-accent-and-cinnamon-bun-hair Leia), but still Leia nonetheless. Now you look like Chewbacca." - Computer Gaming World
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Copeland is actually somehow right. This is not unusual strategy. It's not that long time ago, that almost all US based airlines went through similar process. You enter it as troubled company on side, exit as highly successful, debt free (or almost) on the other. Next very likely candidates from the world we know are the big 3 car manufacturers from Detroit (guess what the names are)
I guess this is nothing to make fun about and certainly not ridiculous either...
Anyway, I hope Nevrax will come out clean and will be able to continue running the game for us, it's better than anything I have seen so far, and I really enjoy it. Would be a pitty, well, actually, quite a big loss if they went down...
Wow, how anyone can compare a a very small gaming company to critical national industry is beyond me but I will try to explain why this doesnt work. The airlines are in finincial trouble and even with a restructure will not come out clean. I would guess there will not be as many airlines in the future as there is now (at least big carriers). This industry is also critical to our country as the collapse of the air line industries would have significant impacts on our economy. I would expect subsidies by our government to keep the remaining airlines afloat, if it comes to that.
Chrysler was the only company, that i know of, to get bailed out. The government was faced with hundred of thousands of people being laid off or floating them money and hoping they can become solvent.
Now this takes us to SoR. A very minor almost insignificant MMORPG that has less than .1% of the market share. I would compare this to your local party store. If SoR stays or closes shop it will really have no impact on the economy and a slight impact to a few people.
SoR had potential, but like horizons never came close to achieving it. Although some may enjoy this game the majority of the population disapproves and does not support games like this with thier $.
Morax, I was not comparing here Nevrax to airlines or car industry leaders. I was just trying to show legitimacy of what they do on few examples. And if I told you what my grandpa did, it wouldn't probably convince anyone. Has nothing to do with the size of the company or anything else.
I am not questioning here the impact of Nevrax going or staying, you're probably right. Anyway, I am part of the small minority that supports with $$$ and really enjoy the game. I does matter to me whether Nevrax stays or not and that's why I am trying to discuss things here.
--- Bambul's Signature ---
ROFL.
Only you could see a company plunging into fiscal complications as a surefire indicator of their longterm success.
Enjoy Ryzom while it lasts.
I know a company that used this tactic on several occasions. Basically this happens to small companies. Most MMORPG makers are not SOE or Blizzard. They are companies of 10-20 employees who have to spend millions on hardware and bandwidth and dont see a return on that cost for a year or two. True if they had the proper financial backing they would never have this problem but when you dont this works just as well. Well i should say it works if people eventually buy into your product. SoR will eventually catch on if they put out some content for it.
The factors behind this game and Horizons are totally different. I havent heard of a hostile takeover from within and a total shift in the game mechanics. This is just a small company with a decent product having the misfortune of going up against 2 monster games with heavy promotional budgets. While they filed for protection they are still working on future content and nothing has changed with their plans. I still see this game as a success down the road.
*edit* i also support this company with my subscription simply for the innovations they provide and the hope that one day in the future those innovations will be supplied with the content to bring the game to life. I really hope they succeed.
Make a difference!
Lol and how long did you have to sift to find that old post?
How old is that 2 months? 3-6?
And yes loooong ago (i cant be bothered changing my sig... at that point i liked both wow and ryzom) i was a firm fanboi of ryzom. But people change and i foresaw this coming a long ways off.
1. At first release no quests were done
2. It was then delayed 3 months to 'focus beta test' f which the only real question/survey done by nevrax was 2 weeks before the end of the FBT. Hardly enough time to implement changes. Basically it was mismanaged.
3. It released and people joined and people came but... like in beta people left. It had no real quests for 2-3 months. Thus showing a bad impression to new players.
4. It perhaps has enough quests now but is cutting staff to try and get out of liquidation problems. Well this can only mean even slower development if they manage to get out of the red. and less customer support. Its a vicious cicle on non-development and thus will kill the game.
5. Wow really did kill it. It truly is an awesome game. But hey dont trust me trust the 1.5 million subscribers wow has.
Beta Tested: Lineage 2, Ryzom, City of Heroes, RYL, EverQuest 2 World Of Warcraft European
Truly Loved: World of Warcraft
Well i'm not a fanboi i barely play it atm because theres just not enough content that is up to my standards.. Unfotunately WoW is pathetically absent of any innovation and that being the case also fails on volume of content. EQ 2 is basically the same as WoW imho it has little to no innovation and the same basic crap as WoW minus the mind numbing pvp. MMORPG'S are really a sad state of affairs atm. I know theres people out there that enjoy easy games like WoW that only require minor thought or games like EQ2 that are so strongly built for carebears theres no danger involved but i like risk and i like new things. I also prefer to support the smaller companies as they're the most appreciative of my business. I had high hopes for DnL but seeing it delayed yet again leaves me feeling it may never see the light of day due to technical problems. Vanguard is going carebear and I refuse to get my hopes up for a freakin D&D video game LOL. I guess that leaves me hoping that the Middle earth game saves the genre? OMG it is hopeless isnt it.. /sigh
One day maybe someone will come out with a game that is tough or almost impossible full of innovation and creativity with a fluid, immersive and evolving storyline where a player must truly risk to gain reward. But for some reason i get the feeling that even the perfect game would be flamed in these forums..
*edit*
When you see a compnay that innovates and tries to add something new to the genre we all have to support it. If we dont support the companies that are expanding the horizons of our gaming experience we will continue to suffer through games like WoW and EQ2..
Make a difference!
First off an example of a company that is still running that filed for bankruptcy protection is Kmart. So just because a company files for bankruptcy protection does not mean it's the end of the company. If they are smart they file as a precaution which Nevrax did.
Now Neas.... WoW is not a truely awesome game to everyone. In fact I think it sucks. The graphics aren't much above average. I've seen people post screenshots of the beauty of most MMO's. People don't do that for WoW. The gameplay is simplistic and not that challenging. As for the 1.5 million subscribers, that really doesn't mean anything. The show Friends had 10 million or more viewers on a regular basis, yet that's anything but a good show. It's popular because of it's name and that idiots can play figure it out easily.
Now having said that Ryzom is not going to close in the immediate future. They will be at E3. That is a fact and nothing is going to change that. What will make or break the company is what they show at E3. And yes, they are showing something new there.
Hi,
good to know, and what exactly they want to show @ E3 ? The total conversed SoR for Korea Release ? That would be proberbly cool, did anyone Remember the ISO Char Conversion at Beta ?
How could it be that some Guy's are so totaly mhh blind ... You could tell us 1000 Names of Company's witch are in the same or an equil situation but, it change nothing ... Getting into a situation where i'm or my Company is unable to pay my Bill's couldnt be something good ....
And just to let everbody know WoW havent anything to do with it, beside the Fact that it suck
Gotta love the optimisim here.
I hope they pull threw and come out better in the end. Chapter 11 is there for a reason and if used properly, this could be a good thing.
No I'm not a SoR fan.
In order to qualify for restructuring they have to provide the court with a business plan that shows changes enough that it will cause them to be able to pay their bills. If they can not do that, they won't get the protection. The court did approve it. So they must have some plan in place.
As for what is being shown at E3. All that has been said is that after Chapter 3, there will be no chapter 4. Instead an expansion (free to subscribers) that will bring to the game the part that will allow players to change the game world. According to them it's something that has not been done in a MMO before. What that is I have no idea. We will find out at E3.
;p
Beta Tested: Lineage 2, Ryzom, City of Heroes, RYL, EverQuest 2 World Of Warcraft European
Truly Loved: World of Warcraft
I wanted to wait a couple weeks to answer this post because I was a bit wary of the whole restructuring as well. The changes they've made have been for the better though. Will they go bankrupt and die? Maybe. I, however, will be there to support them to the end because the game in its current state is very enjoyable and the game in its near future state sounds very promising.
One thing about trolls is that they are quick to dismiss any character attack towards themselves. I clearly showed you being a hypocrite based on comments you yourself made when you enjoyed this game and yet you brush it off as if a moral standard or personal value isn't worth anything. I beg to differ. You can enjoy your hobby and not crap on anyone else's. Respect and manners, it comes with being an adult.
At any rate let me address some of your "points."
1. There still arent very many quests - 8 working ones at the time of this writing. All dependent on faction and levels so it's kind of difficult to do all of them. Each race has at least 1 working one, some have 3. More rites are being patched in for the Encyclopedia but will they be as complex or involved as some of the ones in WoW? I don't think so. But, and here's where you have to shut off the part of your brain which stays on such a one track mind and think about this for a bit, the game isn't about these npc quests. The rites are there for people like you. Ones who don't want to have to interact with people to accomplish things, the ones who just want to log on for 45mins and get a story thrown at them to play out. I applaud their effort but am dismayed at the same time that they HAVE to put resources into making this crap for people. What game started this trend? Surely not UO. Everquest? Not the original cause I played that to death and don't remember it being so insipid. Maybe the expansions; I wouldn't know I didn't buy them. Start playing a role in this massive multiplayer online game and you will see the content flowing in from other players. It was there the whole time! It still is! Wow that turned into a rant.
2. Wasn't around in beta so can't comment. I know the ATS is very well managed, some bugs still slip through but their turn around time to get the major ones fixed is exceptional. They now have a weekly Q&A which is fantastic and has managed to alleviate many concerns about progress that some have had. Their communication from devs and CSRs is such a treat after having played Star Wars Galaxies. Probably cause the subscribers are far smaller but that's a plus not minus for some people.
3. People left, people have come back, and many have stayed. Every MMO has its turn around. Hopefully E3 will have an impact and get more people to try it. Personally in my guild our retention rate is very high, out of the 41 in our member list about 25 are very active. And we are one of the smaller ones.
4. Development is steady. In their first Q&A they explained why development was so sporadic since release and have admitted it was a mistake. How many companies do that? They also informed us how they planned to fix that mistake and so far they are doing very well. I for one am looking forward to the additions after their code cleanup. Customer service has been better than ever. Jolt, who has taken over customer service for all the shards, hired more people and now response times are great and GM events are coming in at a steady rate. Closing the NA server and merging was a great idea. I don't like or dislike the old NA GMs and CSRs but honestly they were understaffed and struggling to fill our needs on the event side of things.
5. It's not dead yet. WoW is a great game, just not for everyone. It's got a lot of polish and I'm glad people like you have a place to go. Now I'm going to go back and enjoy the day with my guild as we join the world wide raiding party to attack the Kitin lair in the Matis lands. We hope to eradicate the queen there and stop the Kitin hordes from amassing. As soon as that is accomplished this group of 100+ Homins will march on past Hidden Source into Fyros lands eradicating the Kitin bosses we meet up with. Finally, using the new portal entrance that was uncovered after the last large invasion we will port directly into the backyard of the main Kitin hive, Desert Stock located in the Zorai lands. We expect to see a swarming of over 200 Kitins as we march toward the heart of the hive and the matriarch herself. Phaedra(a GM) has warned us the repercussions from the Prime Roots Kitin may be massive but with a stolid will we march onward for its better to fight to the death than live in fear.
Why not join us?
http://www.ryzom.com
----
Dagger
Ballistic Mystix
http://www.ballisticmystix.com
Neas I would have guessed you played Ryzom, with your displaying characters from the game on it.
Ya im playing wow way too much to give a rats ass if my siggy shows Ryzom
At the time of the sig i wantd to play wow from reading about it and i was playing ryzom :P.
Although 1-2 months after it was made i totally went off SoR.
As to address your points:
I havent read them alot cause ya they were ranting :P. Basically SoR has all of 8 quess.... yea i guess you dont need quests at all for games. I guess all you need is people.
Yea this would work in theory and coultd potentially (Man why do i keep hearing this word with ryzom... :P ). be the best system.
But without an infrastructure or some basica background players are thrust into a shell. Now believe it or not but the masses of the world... these people who pay the bills for companies like blizzard and nevrax are not Serious roleplayers. They need some help here or there. They prob dont know what OOC means and they probably laugh at you when you speak in your character. yea they could.
But as with all life on earth and everything related to life MOB RULES. Majority controls the rest. Roleplayers who could stick with ryzom an empty shell like game with nothing to do but grind all day an 'make up' your own adventures are far and few between.
But... i guess your right and im wrong.
Tbh i dont really know why im arguing. The facts speak for themselves with a clarity as clear as an icicle.
Ryzom has approximately 5000 subscibers across 3 servers.... im guestimating here but just run with me for a moment.
At its current rate with 5000 players thats only 75,000 euros a month income. Now i dont know about europe but thats around 4-5 (if that) peoples annual salary. So unless Nevrax pays people Penuts and the services,servers, and customer support cost nothing. it just isnt making enough to pay for stuff.
And its in its current situation.
Anyyways:
75,000 euros a month. so lets say an average worker gets 25,000 euros a year or lets say 2,500 euros a month (wihich is a reasonable sum). The income from 5000 players would give them 30 staff members to pay.
Now you have atleast 4 GMS with Jolt so thats 26 staff members left.
which perhaps could do it but theres other costs such as electricity, water, gas, heating for their HQ. Most probably a mortage or lease to pay on the property. They got to also pay for the servers themselves which is handled by jolt. This reduced cost but id reckon after bills, servers and the GM cust support Nevrax has enough money to pay around 15-16 underpayed worked 2,500 euros a month.
Now factor in the CEO gets paid twice as much as an underling that leaves 14 workers. Of which will be variable salary so most likely they will only have enough money for 10 specialists designers.
From what i can see theres too many mouths to feed and not enough mony coming in. And that is IF youve got 5k players it could be less than that.
A final thing to remember is that ya, the game was delayed and reinvested in by investors the shareholders have got nothing back on their investement of MILLIONS of pountds and the company probably has debtors with the money owed increasing monthly.
Now this was the current situaton.
You say they have a plan.. that plan is to drastically cut the workers who HAVE BEEN SUPPORTING your GAME that you ARE PAYING FOR. Now your gonna get less support and design put into your game as the staff has been significantly cut. Also even with the cut with the current numbers they just cant upgrade, they cant compete with WoW or EQ2 investment and update rates. For example in all of 9 months tjhey have got 8 quests. So what u get 1 new quest every month?. LOL that sux. Sure u can roleplay but come on how long do u think people will play on roleplay alone. It took me 4-5 months to get sick of it and im sure u havent played as long as that yet but you will see in time that the only reason you enter the game is because of the community and not the game itself.
Its a vicious circle. Low development means slow development means no updates to compete with the very competitive market. Bad press, bad reputation and this Bankruptcy charge means that its all bad PR for the game putting off potential new people to the game. Who wants to play a game that could die in 3-5 months?. basically if it wants to suceed it needs to pull its finger out and Spend ALOT of money making the game work right and actually be finished BUT it cant do that cause it has no money and thus will fail.
Or perhaps they will cut back to 7-8 staff members and you faithful people will support the outdated game through the years?. i think not
Btw if you was right about your comments i guess 1.5 million people are playing Ryzom right now. There not and because of this Your wrong in the eyes of the majority and we are right.
Beta Tested: Lineage 2, Ryzom, City of Heroes, RYL, EverQuest 2 World Of Warcraft European
Truly Loved: World of Warcraft
Neas you have no facts, just made up numbers and ideas.
1) Your estimate on the Ryzom subscriber numbers is based upon nothing. You have no idea how many subscribe to the game. It might be 1000, it might be 5000, it might be 10,000. You have to remember there are 3 seperate language servers. Unless you have played on all 3 recently you have no way of making anywhere near a good estimate of subscribers. Heck even if you did play you have no idea.
2) You have no clue what you are talking about with Jolt. Jolt is not a company that is run by Nevrax nor is it a company setup to run Ryzom. The company is an online game company. Their business is to provide the staff, servers, support and any other non developmental aspect of running the game. If you visit Jolts home page they currently run Ryzom, Face of Mankind, and AC2. It is very likely that at least two of these games share server hardware. It is also very likely that the support and cs staff work for more than one game. A contract with a company like that does not specify that Nevrax will pay for so many CS staff or servers. It is for the service of running the game. Therefore your estimates of how much it costs Nevrax to run the game are anything but correct.
3)Ending the NA server was a huge money saver for the company.
No longer to they have to pay 2 companies for the service of running the game, just one. There was little to no cost increase to putting the NA subscribers on to the EE server. Nevrax was already paying Jolt for running the EE server. There was no new staff added by jolt when the servers were merged. The games GM's and CS staff have remained the same. The only additional cost that would of incured is the amount of work that was needed to merge the databases that ran the NA server and the EE server.
4) You obviously do not understand what bankruptcy protection or business reorganization means or how it works.
When a business files for bankruptcy protection or business reorganization it does not mean they have to close up shop. It does not mean they have to end all services in fact its quite the opposite. When a company decides to go into a chapter 11 they are give legal protection from any debtors they have. In order to qualify for this protection they have to prove to a court changes to their business plan and operations. These changes have to show how you can stop operating in the red based upon current operating income. So the only way they could qualify for reorganization (which they did) would be for them to show that with the current subscriber income and changes, they could make enough to pay their bills. Obviously cutting out the North American costs did that.
I find it amazing that you feel the need to visit this board do much to talk about how wonderful WoW is and how horrible Ryzom is. You don't play the game. You don't have an active membership, in fact you haven't had one in months. If you don't like Ryzom, that is fine. If you think WoW is the perfect MMO more power to you. But your nonstop trashing of Ryzom no longer serves a purpose other than to make you look like a bitter troll.
Just to prove Neas wrong, Ryzom is not shutting down. They are not canning their staff. In fact they just hired a new producer that has quite a MMO history, including work on AC and AC2.
http://ryzom.com/forum/showthread.php?t=13967
I don't think i've ever seen more intelligent responses to an inspid troll. Sleepy and Octa, I applaud you for responding to an obviously ignorant child when you really didn't have to.
I played Ryzom in Beta and after Beta. I left for City of Heroes (i only want to pay for one game at a time)> I look into the game's site now and then and reconsider joining. Maybe one day. I have to say that Ryzom is one of the best MMO's out there, and I know because I've played most of them.