Ricowan

Notch had it right when he left Rolf/WO to make Minecraft instead. WO (and by extension WU) just plain isn't fun for the vast majority of gamers. I have personally introduced WO and WU to eleven friends. Some of them are big MMORPG players (WoW, FF, etc.), some are more into sandbox and single player games (Minecraft, Vintage Story, No Man's Sky, Elder Scrolls, etc.), some like them all. NONE of them liked WO/WU. None of them wanted to stare at a rock wall for minutes at a time before the tile broke. None of them wanted to work on a skill for MONTHS before they could produce something worthwhile. None of them thought the combat was at all fun, and PvP was a joke. I enjoy playing the game, it's casual and calming for me. When WU came out, I never looked at WO again, because I could increase the action timers a lot, and the skill gain a bit. Add mods, write mods, etc. None of these tweaks were enough to get any of my friends to try WU again. For PvP... well, my opinion is that open world PvP cannot be done correctly in any MMO game. Full stop. Wurm's PvP is almost entirely PvE except the "E" is player owned. Nobody can defend their deed when they're offline. Nobody wants a fair fight. Nobody wants to share.

This forum section is for Wurm Unlimited, not Wurm Online...

I don't expect that, but 99% of people who play MMORPGs DO! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ The argument is that all the devs need to do is advertise more and people will flock to the game, or they need to improve the tutorial so people who do try the game will stay and play. But that's not true, because this game is NOT appealing to the vast majority of MMO players, who want to hit max level in a week.

Runescape Ironman is entirely cosmetic in nature doesn't impact gameplay directly. How many players actually play this mode? Maybe 20%?

My quick opinion on all of the "player retention" talk is this: 1) Wurm Online is SLOW, and the vast majority of gamers that I know and interact with DO NOT WANT slow games. A comprehensive tutorial will not change this. New mechanics will not change this. When a new player sees that it takes several minutes just to mine one or two tiles in a cave, they ask why would anyone want to do that? I tell them "it will get faster once your character gets more skill and higher quality tools!" and they ask "How long will that take? I want it now, not a year from now!" I'm part of several large gaming groups, hundreds of people playing all kinds of MMORPGs, and I've tried to get them interested in Wurm. We even have some dedicated Wurm Unlimited servers. But only a small handful can stand the slow pace and NONE of them have stuck with the game long enough to get to the point where they're having fun. 2) PvP sucks. In every online RPG game. Period. Look at any MMORPG that has both PvE and PvP servers and compare the population of each. All game companies say they can make it fun for everyone, but none of them succeed. This is because people suck, they take things personally, they take the battle outside the game, or they cheat, or whatever it takes to "win". There's no way to make things fair in WO, because character skill is the deciding factor (not tactics or how many friends you have) and it takes way too long for most players to get that skill.

My theory, purely speculative, is that Rolf was looking for a buyer and rushed out the standalone version to make the property look better than it is. Wurm Unlimited is the superior version, in my opinion, but it will never again be touched by the developers.

Serverpacks has to be installed on the client for it to be able to use ... server packs. Right??

It's magic... same bucket as enchanting a tool to make it faster to use or give you more experience for using it. Or throwing a bolt of ice at a damn dragon. WU is not a medieval earth simulation.

Server owners have the option of stating that ESP and any other mods you don't like are not allowed. You have to police your user base and investigate users you suspect of violating the rules, then banning them if they don't stop, etc. In other words, you can have the experience you want, but you have to work for it.

I'm not sure how this ruins the point of servers, except maybe PvP where you're trying to sneak attack or something?? Regardless, there's no way a server can prevent clients from displaying data that's sent to them. Even if the display isn't intended for the vanilla experience.

I believe the anti-xray mod is part of Wyvern's mod collection. It removes ore veins from the data sent to the client if there isn't air next to them. It adds a LOT of overhead to the server, but if your server can handle it you have that option. You can't do anything about highlighting mobs or whatever else ESP does. The client HAS to know about mobs in the area, or it wouldn't be able to draw them. There is no way a server-side mod can disable or prevent anything happening on the client side of things, except to simply not provide the client that data, as Locath said.

I finally tried this out, and I like it a lot! I set tilesize to 8 and it looks great while maintaining the FPS I had without the minimap. I would like to suggest an enhancement to add a context menu for setting north facing, for setting tile size (if that can be changed while in-game), and to toggle the marker dots on/off. Even without a context menu, adding a toggle for the marker dots would be very appreciated.

Winter doesn't start until December 21st. Don't rush it!!

If the water is self contained in a lake/pond, not connected to the sea, then the water is fresh.

Wurm is a sandbox game. You bring your imagination with you and you make whatever goals you want to have. Or none at all. The beach is a clean slate of sand and if you can only sit there wondering were all the pre-made entertainment is, you're missing the point.