Re: [Nel] Greetings! And some questions / comments

[Olivier Lejade]

Hi Sal,

My name is Olivier Lejade, I am Nevrax's CEO. I won't be intervening too 
much on this list since we really would like to keep things technically 
oriented, but since there seems to be so a lot of questions, I figured it 
would be a good idea to answer some of them here so that they can go in the 
FAQ.
I'll leave the technically oriented ones to the Code Team though.

At 04:18 PM 11/11/00 -0500, you wrote:
> I am also a Worldforge developer, like Bryce.  Though not nearly as
> famous ;-)

Or so you think... ;)

> And a commercial effort such as Nevrax could be a powerful force in helping
> to achieve such a goal.

Thanks for the attention.
We hope and believe so too.

> So I then
> came across Worldforge, and that is where I am. Finally a totally free
> opensource project that met, if not exceeded my own standards for an online
> gaming system.

Yes, WorldForge is a very impressive project with a very, very large scope. 
We are all admirative of your capacity to handle such a large and diverse 
community. Managing a team of artists over the internet is especially 
daunting and WF has accomplished an incredible feat in this area.
As Bryce kindly reminded me, code is cheap compared to Art...

Here at Nevrax, we do not intend to have such a large range of activity. We 
are concentrating on a 3D client (no 2D, text, etc) and we are doing all 
the artwork/game design internally.
Nevrax.org will focus on fostering a "technical" community.

> 1) how compatible our projects are

I'll let the coders answer on the technical aspect. However, on a more 
philosophical point of vue, I'd say our project are very compatible, 
siblings really, since they are both GPL.

> 1)  I understand that Nel will be a library to create games, but is this
> project also developing a specific game that uses the library?

Yes. we are currently developing a yet unannounced commercial MMORPG.

> If so what
> details of it are known?  As far as ruleset... gameplay...

At this time, I'm sorry to say we cannot disclose any information 
concerning game design / artwork. However things are bound to change as we 
go along, and some information will start trickling out in the coming months.

> 2)  What is the development strategy?  For example Worldforge will be
> developing several smaller diverse games in succession (Acorn, Mason... etc.
> etc.) until we reach the final goal, entitled 'BelchFire'.  Will you guys be
> doing a similar thing?

Not in the sense of WF (i.e lots of intermediary games). We are working on 
a single game. However, we do have a number of milestones. Also by the end 
of the year, we will be disclosing a "sample world" under an open content 
license for the community to kick around and have fun with. But this will 
have nothing to do with our final game.

> 4)  I get this question a lot :-)  Why develop a 3d engine from scratch? Why
> not use/build from an existing engine, such as Crystal Space?

We checked out CS of course as well as many others, and while it is a very 
nice engine, it did not seem to fit our particular needs.

> 6)  Is development open to outside influence? Or are you following an
> internal-only plan, and just opensourcing the results?

Well, we are following an internal plan and Freeing the resulting software, 
however we are very open to outside influence on technical aspects. And 
while we concentrate on our priorities, we will integrate any worthwhile 
functionnality.

On the game content side though, we are keeping things to ourselves for now.
Expect to be really, really suprised though... :)

> 7)  Was there knowledge of Worldforge when this project was started?  And if
> so,  why was it deemed necessary to start another,  independant effort with
> the same goals?

Yes, we knew of WF (actually, since the time it was called Altima !).
We took some time to consider joining the effort, however we felt there was 
a number of reasons for not doing so. I'll give you some of them :

- We wanted to keep a tight focus on the game we are doing and did not want 
to be hindered in political struggles to get the code where we needed. We 
felt the WF community might ressent us steering in directions that they 
would not care for. We have a tight schedule : we want the game out in 2002.
Which means we could'nt spare to much time arguing about it.

- We have different goals : we are a commercial entity. We don't have the 
educational/hobbyist approach of WF. Nevrax has a complete team of seasoned 
professionals not only at the programming level, but also on the design / 
3D artwork / concept side working every day towards one goal : getting the 
game out.

- We have a highly original world which poses a great number of 
constraints. We felt we would be in a better position to adress them by 
leading our own effort.

That said, I must emphasize that we do not see ourselves as "competing" 
with WF. We are simply two different projects, taking two different 
approach at building a Free Software system for MMORPGs. Diversity is A 
Good Thing.
I wish WF will succeed and I hope there will be as much cooperation between 
the two projects as possible.

> 9)  How the heck do you guys manage to pay a full development team off of
> free software? :-)

Ah ha ! :)

Free Software doesn't mean free content or free service.
While our software is Free, we retain property of our game data. And to 
access our servers in order to play our game, users will be asked to pay a 
monthly fee just like with the other commercial games.

Bottom line is : Free Software and commercial MMORPGs are a perfect match. 
And we believe we have everything to gain and nothing to loose by opening 
our source code.

I hope this clarifies things a little even though I'm sure it will raise 
even more questions !

Thanks for your encouragments,

Olivier