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The Nevrax Nevrax Land of Ryzom
Devin Cambridge, 2004-03-31

Never heard of Nevrax? Neither had I before I received my personal invitation to preview the Paris, France based company's new MMORPG at the Game Developer's Conference. I am glad I took the invitation. The 55 member developer raised 10 million in funding to put together a phenomenal AAA title. The graphics are stylized and colorful, the game play smooth and interesting and the interface is well designed and intuitive. A recent falling out with former partner publisher Wanadoo, lead to relationships with veteran US MMORPG marketing and backend IT firm Themus Group for U.S. distribution and Europe based Jolt online gaming for E.U. distribution. Moreover, Nevrax created and GNU public licensed an engine specifically for this title called NeL (www.nevrax.org) to fit the need of persistent world development. The game is Ryzom, a science-fiction fantasy online game influenced by modern media such as Star-Ship Troopers and French futurists like Moebius. The world's main story arc includes a 200 year back-story that the players will have to discover by investigating the plant based world. As players discover the truth about the past, the shard, or server, inhabitants will make some important decisions. These decisions will permanently affect the shard (server) universe they live in. Thus, each shard will move across different destiny paths along the main storyline.

Unlike some other developers in the genre, the Nevrax team decided to create one large persistent world. There will be no instancing. Servers will create shard universes and each shard extends 100 square kilometers. Don't worry, a portal system and mount capability will allow players to traverse the large distances. In keeping with the �size does matter' philosophy of the design, the mass combat system differentiates the world from other titles. The engine supports large skirmishes so that epic battles will ensue; moreover, dynamic elements in the AI allow for creatures to ambush players in the wild. There are no static spawn points; instead the modular action system creates creatures at random causing them to burrow up from the ground. Certain creatures will migrate in patterns and they will change patterns over time in response to players' actions. I was lucky enough to meet David Cohen-Corval, CEO of Nevrax and lead designer of Ryzom, who discussed the dynamic AI and some of the other elements of the design. In designing the AI, the Nevrax team wanted to create creatures that exhibited sociology. So, players may notice unique interactions between the creatures such as marking of territories and offspring interactions. While characters can solo, players will notice incentives for forming guilds. Since the resources are dynamic and seasonal, explorers will play a vital role in finding resources and establishing caravans, but once they establish a caravan, they will need fighters to protect the convoy. The resources and weapons possess the organic look of the resources and the characters look almost like they could be out of Dune. Tribes look reminiscent of Predator and insect creatures look like the spider creatures from Star-Ship troopers. Also, players can recruit tribes of creatures to their cause to fight.

David's talk about the heavy socialization aspects in Ryzom's design reminded me a lot of the heavy social elements of the games of Peter Molyneux. In interviews, American designers seemed to talk more about the mechanical and technological aspects of the games while Europeans talked more about organics and sociology. I asked David if he thought that Europe influenced the societal blending element in their game design.

"Definitely, Europe has a large mixture of people and cultures like America; however, the space we share is much smaller, so we have a lot more direct contact with people. For instance, when you walk down the streets of Paris, you don't see a lot of cars. You see a lot of people walking and people are more in direct contact, so we share and exchange ideas, but also, we like to fight over ideas. We like to argue, we like to contest, and we like to defend our own opinions. Ultimately, this environment forces you to form your own opinion, confront it, and share it with others. At some point in this process you find out that people have common interests but maybe a different way of expressing [those interests]. Which is why, in game design you have to offer a variety of expressive means, not just actions, but a way to create a place and an identity. You have to establish your identity through things like facial expressions and clothing." The game features a very nice avatar customization feature, avoiding the pitfall that Lineage2 fell into by not supplying a means to express yourself through a truly customizable avatar. Players will be able to change clothing and facial features similar to the character creation process of Star Wars Galaxies. He expanded further on his game design philosophy. "We believe that changing your clothing in real life, to change how you look for a particular function, is an attempt in the real world to change your identity. In us are actually a lot of different identities that we want to expose from time to time, and I like to think that we are more than just what we look like at the moment. I like to think that we play MMORPG's because we want to get in touch with all the people inside of us, but that we cannot get in touch with in one lifetime. I like to think that we are more than just one possibility. Which is why I like to classify the mechanics of my work as the MMORPG, and why I like to classify the experience of the game as an alternate reality."

While talking further, David expounded on character development. Skill based development will be unique. Players will custom design skills by combining basic blocks into more complex units. Even tasks like harvesting will modify so that players who want to sacrifice stamina can harvest quicker. Other skills will be unique and can be found only by exploring the game or by finding codecs. Players who find unique expertise will choose if they would like to share their newly found modifications with the community or keep them secret. Some features such as a bleeding option will exist
purely as an esthetic skill modification.

Since Nevrax is a French team, I asked about the concept of money. Articles on other current forms of French media, such as film, show that French culture currently grapples with the attitude of contempt towards money and flamboyant displays of wealth. So, it is no surprise money in Ryzom takes a twist and serves a duel nature. Money in Ryzome serves as both a currency and a source of energy.

Of course in talking about game design, you have to wonder why certain people enter the profession, particularly in the large scale tricky MMORPG arena at a time when the genre is still very new and challenging. "At the age of eight, I was living in the French countryside. It was the time of Pacman; we didn't have the bars like in the big cities so we had to wait till computers came out to play a lot of [these early] games. When we finally got them, friends and I would swap games, but we would actually have to copy code and build them ourselves. Then we found out about pen and paper RPG's. I loved the process of not only creating a character, but creating the stories. I eventually took my skills and went to work for a movie company in France. However, I really liked the fact that computers on a personal level could immerse you so much more than film. But at that time game objectives were still simple, you kill things, you get experience points, and it's a viscous cycle that becomes futile. What I really wanted was to be immersed in reality like we are now, i.e. the experience we are having by talking in this room. I really hope that this will become a possibility before I die."

Overall, Ryzom packs a lot of good things into a title. Had the game been released three months ago or even now, they most likely would have solidified a place in the market. However, their biggest challenge now will be World of Warcraft, a title that almost every developer at GDC admits they would like to play (but even they can't seem to get into the Beta). Nevrax plans to release Ryzom at the same time as WOW. Right now their best strategy may be to get as many people in the Ryzom beta as possible in the hope of converting them to full time accounts. Ryzom does have a lot to offer in the mass strategy arena and the slight SCI-FI touches like the Star-Ship trouper inspired spiders are a nice departure from the typical fantasy base. They also have what seems like a really nice team (check out the video on the Nevrax website of Ryzom characters hanging out at the studios). Their engine is also different since it boasts a real time massive combat system which provides a different focus and experience from WOW's quest based system. Moreover, they were also featured at the NVIDIA booth showing the ability to partner with some major technology vendors. A solid strategy would be to form an alliance early with a major video card manufactures such as ATI or NVIDIA and bundle the game. Either way, the competition is heating up in the MMORPG arena and gaining the subscriptions to sustain profitability will be difficult. However, as they say "Never say Never."

Average Reader Ratings: 7.33 (12 votes)
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