So, is Nevrax back?

[dnycran]

As the whole of Ryzom is still apparently owned by the mysterious "Spiderweb", I made a WHOIS query out of curiosity. Actually I'm not sure what I really expected to find, but I did find something.

The record has a last-modified date from July 1st 2008, valid until 2010, and it says "Nevrax France" with a street address in Paris.
So, the current, up to date information is that Nevrax owns the Ryzom domain name.

Apparently, someone has physical control of the servers and plans to make Ryzom available again, and apparently neither the owner of the domain name nor the owner of the game assets takes offense in this.
That suggests that domain owner, asset owner, and the one who has access to the site are the same entity. Ergo: Spiderweb = Nevrax?

Now, was this whole Spiderweb thing only a covet operation for Nevrax? It would be ok with me if that was the case, at least then we finally knew who is Spiderweb. But still, it strikes me a bit weird from a PR point of view.

[clyne]

I don't think Spiderweb as a whole = Nevrax, instead I think the new team has few of the former staff within Nevrax.

Either way, I do hope they make a clear statement. My twin cousins and I have quite a number of proposals and several written out as well. Right now, however, it's like talking to a solid wall. :o

[abizmal]

Nevrax always owned the domains even when GF was running the show. GF were too lazy to get it changed.

[kaetemi]

For all we know Spiderweb was just Nevrax' hidden stack of money, but it could just as well be some really rich guy. What we do know for sure, though, is that (according to the whois history) the address of Nevrax/Spiderweb is not the same anymore as it was before they went down.

[dnycran]

Ok, the change from August 5, 2008 15:31 CET shows that whoever owns something, they do read the forums :-)

So, now... we have "Winch Gate", hmm...

[kay22626]

As the whole of Ryzom is still apparently owned by the mysterious "Spiderweb", I made a WHOIS query out of curiosity. Actually I'm not sure what I really expected to find, but I did find something.

The record has a last-modified date from July 1st 2008, valid until 2010, and it says "Nevrax France" with a street address in Paris.
So, the current, up to date information is that Nevrax owns the Ryzom domain name.

Apparently, someone has physical control of the servers and plans to make Ryzom available again, and apparently neither the owner of the domain name nor the owner of the game assets takes offense in this.
That suggests that domain owner, asset owner, and the one who has access to the site are the same entity. Ergo: Spiderweb = Nevrax?

Now, was this whole Spiderweb thing only a covet operation for Nevrax? It would be ok with me if that was the case, at least then we finally knew who is Spiderweb. But still, it strikes me a bit weird from a PR point of view.

I cannot understand the purpose of these desperate wannabe detective attempts.
Are you a paparazzi in rl?
I assume that if they did not say anything about themselves yet, they must have a reason and i dont see why i would ignore their wish to remain anonymous. I see no purpose in these prying attempts and wild speculations.
Im sure when the time comes, we'll know all there is to know.

[d29565]

I cannot understand the purpose of these desperate wannabe detective attempts.
Are you a paparazzi in rl?
I assume that if they did not say anything about themselves yet, they must have a reason and i dont see why i would ignore their wish to remain anonymous. I see no purpose in these prying attempts and wild speculations.
Im sure when the time comes, we'll know all there is to know.

You sound slighty peeved in your post. It doesn't really matter. It's fun to speculate. Knowing the owners allows you to feel more confident that your money is not going to be wasted. Such "secrets" makes a lot of people wonder what will come of Ryzom.

[moon2]

Sides, i want a know who i am hugging & kissing, for Ryzom being back up

[ajsuk]

My reason for wanting to know is I like knowing where my money is going so I've got someone to blame for wasting it.

[targosz]

My reason for wanting to know is I like knowing where my money is going so I've got someone to blame for wasting it.
Seconds it.

[lmcready]

Who cares, somebody turn the lights on plz!

[kay22626]

My reason for wanting to know is I like knowing where my money is going so I've got someone to blame for wasting it.
Right now the money isnt going anywhere, the billing system is not up yet.
By the time the billing system is up and running, im willing to bet we'll know where the money goes. Im curious who this mysterious company is too, i just think its better to respect their anonimity if thats what they want for now, i assume they have their reasons *shrug.

[final66]

I'd rather they spent every second of their time getting the game up and running along with the billing system rather than making announcements about who they are. I'm sure they will tell us all about themselves / intentions when they do the official re-launch.

[uberzone]

If you whois it now it is owned by a Whinch Gate Properties Limited out of Cyprus.

[eriu3]

Sean Lee Hogan, the sole shareholder of spiderweb lives in cyprus (or did)

[kaetemi]

If you whois it now it is owned by a Whinch Gate Properties Limited out of Cyprus.With the same address as a subsidiary of http://www.lvfh.com/ "LVFH Asian Multiplayer Gaming", but that's probably some sort of dummy address again.

[riveit]

Try out this tongue-twister: Sean sells shell corporations by the seashore in Cyprus. :)

[browserice]

Having gone through 2 bankruptcies, most of us still feel uneasy because we do not know if this new Spiderweb is a small potato or a Big Player. Not knowing this makes us worry about Ryzom falling down again in 1 year.

If someone official would come down and tell us that this company is just a front fro a major league player as big as Electronic Arts, Blizzard or even ID Software, then it would make us feel more relax but I seriously do not think this will happen within the next 2 months and I understand (and respect) that decision.

[kaetemi]

True, I can't really see a big corporation just shouting "Hey, we just bought this totally awesome game that went bankrupt twice!" to it's investors and whatever else.

[dnycran]

I cannot understand the purpose of these desperate wannabe detective attempts.
Are you a paparazzi in rl?Actually I shouldn't answer to such a question at all, not only due to it insulting character, but also because it already shows that you'll be unable to understand the answer. But, so what, I'm doing it anyway.

My concern is that someone is sending me an email telling me that I'm a VIP and I get to play for free, and that I need to install a "fix". Traditionally, "VIP" and "free" are buzzwords to catch the simple and the stupid, especially when these words appear in emails.
Excuse me when these words get me leery for a second. They just so happen to be the same words that people use who try to steal your bank account information or install spyware or spam relays on your computer. I'm not saying that "Spiderweb" is doing or intending any of this, but the wording in combination with an entirely anonymous entity approaching you is a bit of an awkward combination.

Usually, things work a bit differently. Normally, there is some kind of trust relationship between people who deal with each other, whether they're individuals or companies. This involves at the very least knowing who the other person is, or for example what a "fix" is indended for (when what's being fixed wasn't "broken" before).
You wouldn't just let me use your computer and your credit card either, if I rang your doorbell and was wearing a black mask, would you. You wouldn't let me fix the brakes on your car either, if I came to your house and promised to do it for free, would you?

I don't see how the desire to know at least who you're dealing with (and nothing more) is so unjustified. In fact, EU law has it that for any type of online business (regardless whether you take money or not), you are required to provide contact information and some other information such as court of jurisdiction or vat reg number (what exactly is required varies by country and by business type).
This is very different from personal privacy. Insisting on your personal privacy generally must not be interpreted in any negative way (except in countries like China, USA, and Germany... but that is another story).
In business (apart from the obvious necessity of trade secrets), covert operations are considered illicit unless proven otherwise. The idea behind this is easy: if an transaction is legitimate, there is no reason why you can't reveal your identity.

The last I remembered was that there were some questions after a mysterious company from Cyprus allegedly threw in some 250k euros, and this Xavier person wanted to file a compaint because of some mistake in the suit. Also, according to some rumour, Gameforge had not even paid most debts from the first bankruptcy either, and whatever... all in all, most kamiesque.
People were talking of "at least half a year or a year" before anything might be heard from the court, or maybe longer. Now, out of nowhere, the game is back, all of a sudden, without a word of explanation.

The terms of service say that the terms are a contract governed by French law. While this might theoretically be a remnant of Nevrax times, the terms nevertheless contain "Spiderweb" in all places that were once Nevrax or Gameforge France, so obviously the document has been reviewed. This makes intent more probable than accident.
The download server for the client download was an OVH Kimsufi, and the email came from the OVH network too, which again points to France. Also, the now changed whois record entry from 1st July wasn't left over "from before Gameforge" as abizmal suggested. Registrars aren't charity organisations, they don't renew records upon expiration if you don't pay for it.

I don't know, but is it so unreasonable to feel a tiny bit uncomfortable? Don't get me wrong, if the game is back, then that's great... but if it is legitimate, then why does there have to be such a darn mystery about it?
Mind you, we're not talking about accidentially forgetting to mention something, but about an active concealment.
What is so difficult in saying for example something like: "Welcome back to Ryzom. I'm Etienne, head of Spiderweb's new development team. We are ... [some former Nevrax employees, let's just pretend they are], and our principal office is located in Cyprus [for our very own private reason *cough*]. The address is [whatever], and our chief operating officer is [whoever]. As you probably already know, we managed to buy the game back during the most recent liquidation process.
Last week, the court finally granted us the rights on the game, so now we're planning to roll out again. For the next 1-3 months, we invite you to play for free while we fix/tune a couple of things, and after that, we'll see about pricing and such.
Because the old client contains a hardcoded server address which is no longer valid, it will need a small patch that you can download."

[katriell]

Having gone through 2 bankruptcies, most of us still feel uneasy because we do not know if this new Spiderweb is a small potato or a Big Player. Not knowing this makes us worry about Ryzom falling down again in 1 year.

If someone official would come down and tell us that this company is just a front fro a major league player as big as Electronic Arts, Blizzard or even ID Software, then it would make us feel more relax but I seriously do not think this will happen within the next 2 months and I understand (and respect) that decision.
I for one would be much more comfortable if Spiderweb is a small team that includes some Nevrax and is, quite preferably, willing to accept volunteer developers. A "big player" is very likely to misunderstand Ryzom and either kill it or relegate it to undeath.

[kay22626]

Actually I shouldn't answer to such a question at all, not only due to it insulting character, but also because it already shows that you'll be unable to understand the answer. But, so what, I'm doing it anyway.."
This looks insulting to me, but it might be only because of my inability to understand things, right? ;P
I read your post and i noticed you spent a lot of time and energy looking for things and did not find out anything concrete. Mostly rumours and speculations.
Dont get me wrong, im not trying to defend Spiderweb or whoever the new owner is, but i see no reason to be suspicious so far.
I mean what could they do? Install spyware on our PCs to get account info? Steal our CC info? Im sorry but there are far better ways of doing this than buying an MMO client and paying devs to put it back online, not to mention paying for the servers and so on.
Personally i find their secrecy weird and slightly unpleasant, I dont know what are their reasons and I dont care.
Im sure they will "show themselves" before the game gets officially open and they start billing, nobody in his right mind would pay otherwise.
After they show themselves and more facts are known, only then i can decide if i trust them or not.
Until then i see no reason to be suspicious, im just in "wait and see" mode, enjoying the early access.

[karmelit]

Judging from the invitation to help with translation I doubt Nevrax is back.

The German community has a sticky pointing to ours, but the French haven't (as far as I can see). Why would Nevrax ignore the French community?

[eriu3]

Judging from the invitation to help with translation I doubt Nevrax is back.

The German community has a sticky pointing to ours, but the French haven't (as far as I can see). Why would Nevrax ignore the French community?

if that were the case, surely theyd be asking for french and german translators also. could be just that "admin" only speaks english and nobody was about in the office yesterday to translate for him/her

[boroshi]

if that were the case, surely theyd be asking for french and german translators also. could be just that "admin" only speaks english and nobody was about in the office yesterday to translate for him/her
The game is already in French and German ;)

[elrest]

Judging from the invitation to help with translation I doubt Nevrax is back.

The German community has a sticky pointing to ours, but the French haven't (as far as I can see). Why would Nevrax ignore the French community?

hi I'am from the french community and we think that they didn't propose to us the work of translation because we think they want to traduce directly the game from english to an other language and they may think that is easier for you to translate english to spanish and they may be right, just read my english to be sure :)

[ulani]

We can continue speculate about the new owner and why they remain in the shadows, I don't think it hurt anyone. My take on the secrecy is that they have a PR plan and will try to make some headlines when it's time for the official relaunch. I expect lotsa hype soon!

[eriu3]

The game is already in French and German ;)

was refering to news articles :p

but as well as this they will be responsible for translating news posts and so on when required

[karmelit]

Thanks Boroshi. I had no idea you actually encourage us to speculate widely :eek: Had I understood that I wouldn't have bothered trying to narrow the possibilities.

[acridiel]

The game is already in French and German ;)

Yeah, German that was so full of misspellings and simply wrong words that it almost scared me last time I saw it... *shudder*
And letīs just say that I definitely know that GF already had a completely correct translation at their hands, but never got around to implement it... -.-
I hope it was included in the deal and gets ubdated "soon".

CU
Acridiel

P.S.: I ony came back from vacation today, so I did not have the chance to look if maybe they did update already...

[kaetemi]

[ Removed - Boroshi ]

[kay22626]

[ Removed - Boroshi ]

This could be a fitting emote for the above statements :P
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkqqMPPg2VI


Ok, joke aside, when you said the Russians are behind "it all", may i ask behind WHAT exactly? Did "they" do anything wrong? If the investors are indeed russian, thats supposed to be a bad thing?
Far as i know all they did was invest quite a bit of money to buy Ryzom.
They hired a development team to bring the game back online. These are the only facts so far and they managed to do quite a bit for a "dummy investment company".
Besides, as a player, im more interested in the dev team and their plans and goals, not in who the investors are, and that goes for any mmo.
If the purchaser is an investment company, it means they will need to find a company that will be in charge of the game, maybe they didnt find one yet (yes i can speculate too).
I think when the time comes we'll know all there is to know, until then i see no reason to be suspicious.

[kaetemi]

Ok, joke aside, when you said the Russians are behind "it all", may i ask behind WHAT exactly? Did "they" do anything wrong? If the investors are indeed russian, thats supposed to be a bad thing?Lol, you think that was serious?

They hired a development team to bring the game back online. These are the only facts so farAs far as we know, they might've only called up one or two guys to take care of some things.

I think when the time comes we'll know all there is to know, until then i see no reason to be suspicious.Sure there is, it's fun, rofl.

[riveit]

[ Removed - Boroshi ]

[kaetemi]

[ Removed - Boroshi ]

[komissar]

This could be a fitting emote for the above statements :P
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkqqMPPg2VI


Ok, joke aside, when you said the Russians are behind "it all", may i ask behind WHAT exactly? Did "they" do anything wrong? If the investors are indeed russian, thats supposed to be a bad thing?
Far as i know all they did was invest quite a bit of money to buy Ryzom.
They hired a development team to bring the game back online. These are the only facts so far and they managed to do quite a bit for a "dummy investment company".

Darn! You shouldn't have guessed that the investors originate from Russia! At least not that soon!!!

Now even the "witness protection program" won't help ya Har har har :P

[ajsuk]

Last name Litvinenko? :p

[akovylin]

Muhaha, don't u know we already own the whole world.... hmmm where's my piece of pie??????? :DDD