Ryzom has proved to be one of the most popular games on Ubuntu, placing inside the top 10 most downloaded apps every month for the last 9 – no mean feat in the world of fluctuating tastes.
But the popularity of the ‘free to play’ MMORPG doesn’t stop there. It boasts a passionate and committed user base across Windows and OS X – some 500,000 players strong.
So you’d think that everything was going well for the games. Turns out not quite.
Later this month Ryzom bods will be making drastic changes that will impact – and no doubt annoy – much of their user base: a character reset.
Character Reset
Like many things in life this change has been brought about by lack of money. Financial constraints mean Ryzom can no longer afford to monatain several communities across several servers. And so, later this month, the ‘difficult, but necessary decision’ to downsize to just one server will take effect.
The downside of the downsizing is that all free players characters will be reset. Why? Ryzom cite ‘difficult technical issues’ as making it ‘impossible’ to keep all of the data.
“We would not have made this decision if there was an alternative, and we realise that many of you will be dissapointed (sic)”, they explained in an announcement on their forum.
So whether you’ve spent several years ora couple of days building up your characters they will, from September 29th, be no more.
Subscribers will not be affected by the switch over.
Reaction
The reaction to the news has been largely one of frustration.
Over on the Ryzom forum users Misatey writes:
“I guess the end has come, I will not be …rebuilding another character. Our identitys will be erased, very sad. Maybe someone else will get our names first, we may not know how to contact our friends and relationships we have made. Thats what kept us all together was our tight knit communitys, you cannot bring this back after you erase they paying players, you will be left with f2p.”
Sonej says:
“I have been playing for 6yrs or so and have been continually subbed for I think about the last 2 yrs and only really pop on every few months because my character draws me back. If this goes ahead as planned you have lost one more sub.”
But other users are more upbeat.
Effex thinks that it will be fun, saying that ‘being an elder it got kinda boring sometimes’.
Faa notes that the ‘wiped or not wiped the world will be [t]here for whoever wants to keep it alive.’
“The Good News”
But there are some bitterly sweet positives to the change.
- Reset means rebalance
- All players will now be in the same universe
- Value of the in-store currency (dapper) will be reset
- Ability to create multi-national guilds
- The chance to rediscover Silan and Atys with your (new) friends
- Introduction of a new achievement system
Are you a Ryzom player? What are your thoughts on this decision?
Via Glaasje in comments