I received this e-mail today.

RYZOM IS BACK...

Ryzom - the long awaited return!

To keep you informed if you are not yet aware. For 9 months, our company : "Winch Gate Property Ltd" - based in Cyprus, took over Ryzom to put it back on its feet and allow you to continue to play your favorite game.

Our first action was the restoration of free online play on all our servers. This has continued for more than 8 months now.

Since then, we have applied two large patches that you have recieved for free. These patches have fixed many bugs and added many new features. You can find the content of these two patches here and here. But we will not stop there, in the future we plan to release many patches, on a regular basis.

Concerning Events : many have already taken place on Atys, with many others ready to be launched to entertain you; thanks to our dedicated animation team. The path to the : "Power To Player" is at hand ;-).

Finally, we are in the process of reactivating our "System Subscriptions" from Monday 4th May 2009 and begin payment effectively in two weeks.
With the reopening of these paid subscriptions, we can finally get your financial aid to help fund not only the operation of our game and our teams, but also the future development to come that we have planned.

Above all, remember that starting today, you get two weeks free game time, whereafter - you get the opportunity to come and play test the latest additions to our patches.

CAUTION: In two weeks all accounts will become paying accounts, you can find the new prices at here and the terms here (As you can see, the subscription price has been heavily revised downwards, for example a single monthly subscription is now 7.95 Euro's).

The free trial pass gives three weeks of free and unlimited gaming that does not limit levels gained during the three week period (You are no longer forced to remain on Silan). Do not hesitate to invite your friends, as the game is still free to download (and play - within trial account limits) here and a new free trial account can be created here.

Now you are on the road to Atys, a wonderous, living world awaits, let the adventures continue!

It seems if you had a paid subscription when they went down, they are automatically reactivating and charging without your consent.
 

Originally posted by Dekron

Finally, we are in the process of reactivating our "System Subscriptions" from Monday 4th May 2009 and begin payment effectively in two weeks.
With the reopening of these paid subscriptions, we can finally get your financial aid to help fund not only the operation of our game and our teams, but also the future development to come that we have planned.

 

It seems if you had a paid subscription when they went down, they are automatically reactivating and charging without your consent.
 

Nowhere do I see that in two weeks they will automatically bill me without my consent. I doubt the payment information is still associated with the accounts. The game shut down, why would they of maintained your billing information, then gave it to a publisher who was running the game as a F2P model for all you knew? It didn't just change owners, they shut the game, and the website down completely.

I see that in two weeks subscriptions will be available again. All current accounts, from the looks of it, will be upgraded to full accounts, but you're going to have to put in your billing information before you can get ingame.

The language definately sounds as if they are automatically reactiviating and charging accounts. Just make sure you check your CC statement. And, why would they not keep your payment info? I highly doubt they wiped their payment database.

I'm jus tsimply providing a warning to watch for unauthorized charges. They can easily try to say you "consented" because you had an active subscription when they went down.

I had two issues with this game. First was no player cities. Second was you couldn't put up a vendor to sell goods. If it had these two things in the game I would pay to play.  The wait continues. 0_0

     Yeah I didnt like the way the email sounded either.....I havent played Ryzom in months and was never a paying customer, but they make it sound like even the people that were playing the free trial were going ot be billed (though I am pretty sure I never gave them any credit card info).........I thought Ryzom was an OK game but nothing special, and certainly nothing I'd consider paying for.......It was too crafter/digging oriented and tthe avenues to sell our wares were not very good....It was basically a game to make stuff to give away to lower level guildies.......The community was nice I just didnt like the combat much and digging got very boring after 100 or so........

Originally posted by Dekron

The language definately sounds as if they are automatically reactiviating and charging accounts. Just make sure you check your CC statement. And, why would they not keep your payment info? I highly doubt they wiped their payment database.

I'm jus tsimply providing a warning to watch for unauthorized charges. They can easily try to say you "consented" because you had an active subscription when they went down.

I have to agree, it sure SOUNDS like they are planning to start charging people subscription fees.

Now, I see two possibilities here...

One, it may simply be that whoever typed up this email does not speak english very well and meant to convey that they will be allowing people to start registering for paid accounts in two weeks. This surely seems possible since if I recall corrently it was a European company (Game Forge?) who owned the game before, so its likely that whoever owns it now is also located in a non-english speaking country. This could all be just a miscommunication based on the person who typed up the email having English as their second language.

OR

On the other hand, this could be the exact same stunt Dark and Light pulled right before their game went to hell in a hand basket. Nearly everyone quit in beta (or "pre-release" as they tried to call it as an excuse to charge money for it) because it was such a horrbile game and when the final release of the game came along they started to charge subscription fees from people who had already quit the game and were trying to get refunds for the money they had already spent. People tried to cancel their accounts and continued to be charged. Finally once everyone did quit and started demanding refunds the company shut down the servers, fired all their employees and dissapeared into the night, never to be heard from again (probably went into hiding to avoid all the people trying to bring lawsuits aginst them, which inculded customers, former employees and even their own former lead developer on the game)!

It could be that something similar to the whole Dark and Light stunt is about to happen again with Ryzom. I think the OP did a good thing by coming here to warn us about this. We should keep a close eye on it and hope that it was just a case of a poorly worded phrase due to the language barrier and not the foreshadowing of another criminal game developer about to strike.

CAUTION: In two weeks all accounts will become paying accounts, you can find the new prices at here and the terms here (As you can see, the subscription price has been heavily revised downwards, for example a single monthly subscription is now 7.95 Euro's).

That sounds to me like they are going to start charging everyone with an account a monthly fee. I logged into my account just to make sure that I didn't have any credit card info in it.

My account was created after it went free to play so I didn't have to enter any cc info to play it. If your account was created back when you had to have a cc to play it, you may want to make sure that it's cancelled, or remove your cc information.

Originally posted by sevitoth

CAUTION: In two weeks all accounts will become paying accounts, you can find the new prices at here and the terms here (As you can see, the subscription price has been heavily revised downwards, for example a single monthly subscription is now 7.95 Euro's).

 

 

That sounds to me like they are going to start charging everyone with an account a monthly fee. I logged into my account just to make sure that I didn't have any credit card info in it.

My account was created after it went free to play so I didn't have to enter any cc info to play it. If your account was created back when you had to have a cc to play it, you may want to make sure that it's cancelled, or remove your cc information.

 

 

 

 

 

 

All accts. that are active now should be fine. When I played the free trial I never had to give any financial information Credit Cards etc. So if they do not have the information how can they charge the acct? I think the Caution is to let those used to playing free to get ready to start paying again if the want to continue playing.Now that being said ,It does say All accounts so if you had a previous active acct. I would call them and make sure.

on the official forums it's been explained that there was an error in translation, nobody will be charged any fee unless they subscribe . "paying accounts" as mentioned in the mail should have been "accounts that require payment to remain active".

WinchGate does not have any billing/credit card info and never will have, as it works through companies like Bibit and PayByCash.

Even older accounts that used to be subscribed wouldn't get billed without the conscent of the player. The account would simply switch back to unsubscribed as actually did for some old time players whose forum names turned gray because they didn't subscribe, yet used to be paying users.

Stop spreading the fear, Winch Gate does NOT have our billing information and will NOT charge us unless we do subscribe.

Originally posted by sevitoth

CAUTION: In two weeks all accounts will become paying accounts, you can find the new prices at here and the terms here (As you can see, the subscription price has been heavily revised downwards, for example a single monthly subscription is now 7.95 Euro's).

 

 

That sounds to me like they are going to start charging everyone with an account a monthly fee. I logged into my account just to make sure that I didn't have any credit card info in it.

My account was created after it went free to play so I didn't have to enter any cc info to play it. If your account was created back when you had to have a cc to play it, you may want to make sure that it's cancelled, or remove your cc information.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think a previous poster hit the nail on the head that maybe someone that doesn't speak english as their first language typed this message up...

With that in mind, you could also interperit it to mean  that the free trial is over, and the game is now completey pay to play.

Originally posted by Dekron

The language definately sounds as if they are automatically reactiviating and charging accounts. Just make sure you check your CC statement. And, why would they not keep your payment info? I highly doubt they wiped their payment database.

I'm jus tsimply providing a warning to watch for unauthorized charges. They can easily try to say you "consented" because you had an active subscription when they went down.

I've been following the resurrection of this game with some interest.  I read the same thing that you read, but nowhere do I see that they will begin charging people without their consent. 

I understand why you are interpreting the statement that way, really I do.  However, I believe that you are reading a meaning into the statement that the author did not intend. 

It appears to me that people who are playing now will soon have to pay in order to continue.  I applaud the efforts of this company to restore Ryzom.  They've done a lot of work to get it back on its feet.  I think its fair that they begin to generate some revenue at this point.  The subscription fee seems quite reasonable, and the company seems very player friendly.

I just returned to the game a week ago and you have to go through and set up your credit card through a bitpay or something lie that system so they wont e automatically billing you unless you resub.

Originally posted by Dekron

It seems if you had a paid subscription when they went down, they are automatically reactivating and charging without your consent.
 

If you read the official forums (bottom of the first post - http://forums.ryzom.com/showthread.php?t=34011 ) this is what was said:

* Will the billing system automatically debit payment for my account at the end of the free trial period?

No, your account will be unsubscribed at the end of the free trial period and all access to Ryzom services will be withdrawn. To play again you will have to manually choose a payment method and subscribe.

If you do not wish to receive emails from us, you can change the settings on account page. Your account and characters will be stored indefinitely just in case you choose to return Ryzom at a later time.
__________________
Yumeroh
Ryzom Community Liaison

 

Originally posted by Mariann

Originally posted by Dekron

It seems if you had a paid subscription when they went down, they are automatically reactivating and charging without your consent.
 

 

If you read the official forums (bottom of the first post - http://forums.ryzom.com/showthread.php?t=34011 ) this is what was said:

* Will the billing system automatically debit payment for my account at the end of the free trial period?

No, your account will be unsubscribed at the end of the free trial period and all access to Ryzom services will be withdrawn. To play again you will have to manually choose a payment method and subscribe.

If you do not wish to receive emails from us, you can change the settings on account page. Your account and characters will be stored indefinitely just in case you choose to return Ryzom at a later time.
__________________
Yumeroh
Ryzom Community Liaison

 

That's a great clarification ^_^.  Thanks.
 

Originally posted by Zeppelin4

I had two issues with this game. First was no player cities. Second was you couldn't put up a vendor to sell goods. If it had these two things in the game I would pay to play.  The wait continues. 0_0

This game was ahead of it's time when it came out and it still is. Ya, you can't open a "shop", but Ryzom's answer is way better! NPC's will open a "shop" for you. Actually there are dedicated NPC's who you can give your goods to, set you price, and who will then sell your mats or crafting goods to anyone who comes along. You immediately receive the 'base' price of the item, i.e. the price you would get for selling it straight to the NPC vendor, and then you are immediately credited with the difference between base price and your price if anyone chooses to buy your stuff. HINT: you can keep items for sale for up to one week, at which time you may take your stuff back from the vendor or let him dispose of the junk. Use this feature to "create" temp. storage for yourself; charge an outrageous price for the item and let the NPC hold it for you. If anyone actually buys it, all the better cause you are now rich!

Also, in regards to player controlled cities: there are Guild controlled outposts and an extensive PvP system which I am unfortunately unable to speak to, but it's obvious that this guy never made it past the newbie stage.

Awesome game btw. I played the original beta and am so happy to finally see it back! Have fun.