MMO fans who thought they saw the end of The Saga of Ryzomwill be surprised to note that the game is coming back yet again. Find out more about the incredible story behind Saga of Ryzom's return (as well as if you're eligible to play it) after the jump!

For the second time in a row - much to the grief of players and developers alike - The Saga of Ryzom, Nevrak's legendary MMORPG, is now once again in danger. This unfortunate bit of news comes directly from the game's forums, in a post made by Community Liaison Marjo.

So what's happened? Apparently, the recent rescue of The Saga of Ryzom was not quite enough to snap it back to life, as Gameforge AG has now made the necessary legal steps to liquidate its assets and close up shop. It seems the company that snatched the Nevrak title from the brink of financial obliteration did not have enough funds to see it through to the very end - which means that yes, the fate of The Saga of Ryzom is now up in the air once more. Until another company decides to pick it up, that is.

Of course, there's still a silver lining in here somewhere. Marjo reassures players that Ryzom is still running, and the characters you've come to know and love are still there in the game's database. Unfortunately, game development has been frozen, and there's a couple of things that are to be changed, as stated below:

• Paying subscribers will not be billed and will be able to continue playing for free.
• It's not possible to pay to subscribe to a full Ryzom account anymore.
• You will still be able to create a Free Trial account, but at the moment there will be no possibility to upgrade your account and go to mainland.
• The level cap on Silan is removed for the Free Trials in the meantime.

Bittersweet news indeed. Updates as we get them, so keep it locked right here for further developments.

 

With new owners and a substantial fanbase, it seems The Saga of Ryzom is still far from dead. Nevrax's MMO will continue under the auspices of German company Gameforge AG, and they recently put up word of the return of subscription fees fees for the game.

Gone, however, are the days when players could pay for a year's worth of gaming in advance. Instead, you can now choose an appropriate gaming subscription for one, three, or six months, depending on your own budget. You'll have to pay for the whole selected period as soon as you choose your rate though. For the rates themselves, the screenshot below lists them all down for you:

The folks at Ryzom do note that if you haven't changes your subscription rate from the previous setups created by Nevrax, your subscription will be automatically renewed unless you change it. In other words, make sure you check their site and update your subscription information accordingly.

This thing has been settled already even before the holidays. Germany-based company Gameforge AG has acquired the rights to The Saga of Ryzom and is in no mood to give it to the open source community. Although it seems like a good idea to leave the game in the hands of the public, the takeover, in the long run, may prove to be beneficial to the game and its bewildered players.

Anyway, one week had passed since the take over and Gameforge finally made its first public statement regarding the matter. According to the company's director Klaas Kersting:

The Saga of Ryzom is a fantastic game with a high potential. We saw the chance to obtain a first-class product together with qualified staff and set up a base in France, one of our most important markets. We just had to act. Along with our future colleagues we will continue improving the title and offer our players a really fantastic product. Of course our competence in community management, marketing, and publishing will greatly benefit this project.

For everyone's information, Gameforge has a subsidiary publisher company in France, under the name Gameforge 4D headed by CEO Carsten van Husen. The game currently boasts of 4.5 million active players worldwide. Well, kudos to Ryzom and to Gameforge as well. We certainly don't want to see more than four million disappointed fans anytime soon.

The good news is that The Saga of Ryzom will live on. The bad news is that it won't be in the hands of the open source community.

The news posted on the official Ryzom website notes positively that Nevrax's former MMORPG was bought by Gameforfge, and that they are announcing the re-opening of the billing system to let people re-subscribe. It's definitely good news for the RPG and for a good number of its players, but it's also saddening news for another dedicated group of folks who were hoping to make Ryzom completely open-source. 

The Free Ryzom Campaign wasn't able to pull off its last ditch attempt to buy the game, despite increasing support from different communities and a substantial pledge from the Free Software Foundation. They aren't giving up though, and even if they weren't able to get Ryzom, they were still able to pull something amazing off.

As Xavier Antoviaque writes in Ryzom.org's forums,

Even if a conventional company is winning the bid here, the campaign is still a success. It has made a lot of noise on the Net, it has been covered by mainstream media, we have found two FOSS investors, we have got the backing of the FSF, 170K euro of donation pledges have been registered, and – perhaps the most important – we have found we were not alone dreaming having of own our A-Grade MMORPG, our own world.

The Free Ryzom Campaign is setting its sights on continuing, perhaps attempting to grab another MMO to turn into open-source. If they do manage to pull it off, it'll be a great achievement for the open source community. Let's hope they find something new to take on, and wish them well.

If we were to assess Ryzom's current situation, we'd say its future isn't as bad as we thought it would be weeks ago. There have been efforts to save the game through the Free Ryzom Campaign, wherein a community of Ryzom faithfuls hopes to acquire the rights to the game for €100,000. But as it stands, there are quite a number of take over offers for the ill-fated developer Nevrax. The said offers have been officially presented and the court ruled that Nevrax is to continue normal operations until Ryzom gets a new owner.

The names of the prospective buyers are kept in secrecy, but Nevrax hopes to reveal some pertinent information between December 12 and 19. This is the first confirmation that a company (or companies) will be picking the game up.

This time, the waiting is sweet, knowing that Ryzom is here to stay. We're one with the Ryzom community in hoping that the game falls into the hand of a worthy company.

Now this is what you call a fanbase. Despite some sobering news about the impending liquidation of Nevrax, the company that developed The Saga of Ryzom, some of its developers and a good number of folks who've played the game or like the idea of an open-source MMO code have banded together in an attempt to free Ryzom, in one sense of the word.

The Free Ryzom Campaign is an attempt by the community to acquire the rights to the game - the source code, artwork, and game data - to give the community the chance to maintain Ryzom and steer the course the MMO will be taking in the future.

To do that, the campaign asks for volunteers to chip in even a little bit of their cash so that the campaign can propose to the person heading the liquidation process for the sale of the game. At 100,000 euro, the price is steep, but it could be very worthwhile in the long run.

What would this mean, if it succeeds? Besides keeping a pretty good RPG from falling into obscurity, imagine what talented programmers and artists could do with the base source code of an entire MMORPG. The Free Ryzom Campaign's website states:

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 (sic) on MMORPG.com.

They're only one quarter of the way to reaching the €100,000 goal they've set for themselves. Hopefully, with some help from a lot of interested parties and members of the open-source community, the Campaign can make a precedent for the creation of an open source MMORPG that everyone can get into, as well as keep a saga alive.

While Ryzom faithfuls have been assured that the game will "continue to run and be supported" by its creators, yesterday was indeed a bad day for the two-year old MMO. Its French developer Nevrax, as you might be aware by now, will soon enter into receivership. That's actually a nice way of putting it but in plain and painful words, that only means the company will soon cease to exist.

The game's official forum site is currently wrecked with emotions, running from shock, sadness and the more laudable hope and resolve. It is in this light that heads of Ryzom's community just stepped up and released a statement for all its followers. "Ryzom will continue to run and evolve," reads one of the posts. Accordingly, several companies and individuals are actively engaged in negotiations to take over the game.

Community leaders furthermore warns people about rumors surrounding Nevrax. As it is, the company's fate is no longer in its hands so it is inappropriate to listen to such. "You may see 'news' stories appearing here and there about Nevrax going under, but you will still hear all the facts here first," states one of the leaders.

There has been a bit of confusion about the transition that Ryzom has been undergoing for the past weeks. Players are wondering what this transition is all about. Apparently, French developer Nevrax will enter into receivership next month. This means that the company is placed in the hands of court-appointed receiver who might start liquidating the company's assets to pay back loans. It's one of the first steps in throwing in the MMO towel.

While this is a sad news for Ryzom faithfuls, Nevrax assured players that the game "will continue to run and be supported". So, there's really nothing to be alarmed about. In fact, there's a lot going on behind the scenes, but the developers can't say much about it. In the meantime, it's business as usual.

But while Nevrax is going through the receivership process, players are advised to take note of the following changes in the billing system:

• All existing subscribed accounts created before 3 p.m. GMT will be turned into free account with 1 month of free access.
• It will not be possible to pay to subscribe to a full Ryzom account anymore.
• You will still be able to create a Free Trial account, but at the moment there will be no possibility to upgrade your account and go to mainland. As a result we've removed the level cap for the Free Trial to give players in the Ruins of Silan much more to achieve in the meantime.

Are you one of the Ryzom Ring guys who had minor problems with your favorite MMO? Have you tried editing a scenario with a character from the Ruins of Silan and then just found out that you couldn't go into Ring editor to edit your characters? Well we may have found the cure to your problem. The main site has just announced that they've finally fixed this annoying glitch, and that all your characters can now edit scenarios.

Given just what Ryzom Ring offers to the players with regards to options and environment controls, expect capabilities of this undertaking to have the occasional bug or glitch. At the very least, they fixed that problem fast. Get back in the game, and enjoy some good ol' Ryzom action!