The NeL engine is a very powerful engine and could have been the framework behind a lot of open-source MMORPGs. The problem is that it is only meagerly documented. Nevrax nearly abandoned the community (with a couple exceptions of developers from within helping us in their spare time) so none of this documentation was ever updated and completed. Recently they converted to a wiki and some of us have been putting together documentation ourselves. One of the big issues, that opening Ryzom up would help with, is that there is a lot of code that makes no sense without context. An example that I use frequently is the NLLIGO module. Nevrax refers to this as "legos for landscape." Ligoscape is a module for rapid development of landscape/levels. Only about 10% of this module is really documented (and only self-documented through code and examples of usages in the NLSOUND library) and the pieces that make this module shine - notably the pieces that take the "legos" and generate the landscape you as a player see - are contained in the closed source tools. Opening these tools up would empower existing (and new) NeL projects as well as encourage the ongoing improvement and development of the tools.