Ryzom - An MMORPG blessed by the Free Software Foundation
Ryzom 
is an MMORPG with a rather strange story, good graphics and a GPL’d engine, NeL. Recently, Nevrax, the company behind NeL and Ryzom, went bankrupt and Ryzom will soon be sold off to the Chosen One. As with most GPL works, there’s a happy little community around the game, and they didn’t want to let go. In fact, they were willing to actually buy all artwork and data for the game and that’s where the FSF stepped in with 60,000 USD pledged for a total of upwards of 140,000 USD to the cause.
The game is free (as in open-source), and if the deal does come through, the game data will probably go under a Creative Commons or freer license. What this means is that though the official server will have a pay-to-play model, any of the private servers will be able to work legally and use all of the work done by the community while being able to easily modify the game if they so wish to. The possibilities are endless! To you freeloaders out there, there you go!
Also, this isn’t just any old game that died out of it’s own lameness. It’s ranked up there with the giants (Everquest, EVE, Guild Wars) and beats out some of the most-touted games there (City of Heroes, WoW, for example) at #4 at mmorpg.com. 
Also, the game supposedly only needs a steady bitrate between 2500 B/s (on a highly populated scene) and 250 B/s (on an empty scene) and that should be easily available on the lowest of broadband connections. The graphics are pretty awesome and the provided Ryzom Ring encourages user-made maps and scenarios and in the original game, these were actually accessible on official servers through terminals ingame.
Hopefully, there will be a native linux version if the whole thing works out. Sure it works in Wine, but why not go the whole hog and support that last 3% of the desktop market too :) Well, okay, may be it’s just me being selfish. Still, I’m a long way from playing that game as long as I’m stuck with my graphics card. The game requires a card with atleast 128MB memory. Ah well, perhaps later.
Posted by roshan.george under Games, Internet |
Shucks… and here I was hoping I (you) found a decent MMORPG.
Comment by Chetan — December 17, 2006 @ 8:30 pm
I was trying to figure out what you said, then I realised you meant “a decent MMORPG with good graphics that will work on my computer”, where ‘my’ there means your.
Comment by roshan.george — December 17, 2006 @ 9:18 pm
He probably meant one that was ready to play, not one whose future was uncertain.
Comment by Marc — December 18, 2006 @ 4:23 pm
Knock yourselves out…
Comment by Chetan — December 18, 2006 @ 6:51 pm
What the hell is that supposed to mean, Chetan?
Comment by roshan.george — December 18, 2006 @ 10:25 pm
Ever heard of the ‘I am the Walrus’ contention?
Comment by Chetan — December 18, 2006 @ 10:35 pm
No.
Comment by Marc — December 19, 2006 @ 12:39 am
Chetan, you can’t afford oysters. Also, I’m the carpenter.
Comment by roshan.george — December 19, 2006 @ 10:14 am