Rolf

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Everything posted by Rolf

  1. Cheers:D

    Yeah just removing admin powersđź––
  2. Cheers:D

    I've started a couple of projects these last years, but ditched them for various reasons such as performance issues or realizing I feature creeped. Fingers always crossed for the next one!
  3. Cheers:D

    Yeah I'm looking forward to play at one time or another!
  4. Cheers:D

    Hiya, no not really. Need to focus on failing new projects
  5. Cheers:D

    Ah, well I'm not involved in the such decisions either any longer. Others have better insight!
  6. Cheers:D

    Well, I'll always be lurking, following news and keeping a tab on development
  7. Cheers:D

    Hi everyone! I just wanted to pop in with late heartful cheers and congratulations to everyone involved in the Steam release. I'm thoroughly impressed and in awe with what you've achieved both gameplay wise, graphically, with the marketing, new maps and server wrestling and I am very happy to see all you players who are supportive through this. My thoughts also go to Oracle, Tich, Eir and Duce who would have loved to see this happen. As you probably know I'm not active in Wurm development since a couple of years back and this release was done without any involvement on my part so I want to mention that I've asked for my accounts to be removed from forum and other administrative roles for security and clarity reasons. Lastly, I know this release has been a bumpy and sometimes exhausting ride both for the team and players but from what I can tell it's panning out nicely. Player numbers are on the rise which is always what keeps Wurm alive. Being on Steam is a crucial step to that end and probably will be for years to come. It's fascinating to think that back when we released commercially in 2006 I thought Wurm had the potential to survive for decades but I also estimated that we ran the risk of being put out of business if competition would catch up around 2011. Seems the decades estimate is ON mostly thanks to superb team members and all you loyal players With Love!
  8. Okay the pvp changes are postponed for now due to this management change and focus on Steam. We'll give more information as soon as we've discussed more but the new Epic rework may be the version that comes to Steam. Sorry for the disruption.
  9. Possibly joined depending on how they work out like I wrote in the first post in the thread here We'll make more announcements the more certain we are about how we'll do things. It's still months away and the more we code the more we'll know how things will work. Please keep the Steam discussion in that thread:)
  10. Yes the current plan is to open new servers, at least one pvp and one pve. Although they will use the same account server you will not be able to travel or trade between these and the old servers.
  11. First of all I want to thank you for the Steam discussion we've had. Even though there are both strong skeptics and very positive opinions I have decided that we're moving in that direction aiming for a Steam release in the beginning of next year. I've been doing a road map for it and most things just have to be implemented in a pretty straightforward fashion which means we need to redirect our resources.That's why I also announce my decision to appoint a new Product Manager for Wurm: Samool. He's has worked hard on improving the look and feel of wurm, with huge improvements in client performance, massive visual features such as distant terrain, modern renderer and a lot of old desired client changes. He's been doing some server changes as well and even though he'll have a lot to learn we both positive he'll do fine.We're upping his contract and he'll now be taking a more focused approach in generally improving the game, leading to the Steam release. Myself, I'll be looking at implementing different QoL changes mainly for the Steam release but depending on your approval for the current version of the game. Buddas contract will expire in a month, and although I know many of you will miss him sorely these are the types of tough and possibly disruptive decisions I have to take from time to time. I can't say how thankful I am for him taking over the helm of Wurm back in April 2016 and for all the great work he's done for Wurm and you the players. As everyone understands. filling Buddas costume wouldn't be an easy task for anyone and therefor it's often best for a successor to do it in steps, sometimes changing parts of it and taking his or her own path. Hopefully game management won't be too disrupted though and soon move on in old wagon trails.Budda's legacy will live on in things such as the archaeology skill, the new journal system, the ability to gain affinities through pve, runes, and the new jackal server. I want to say from my heart, thank's a lot Budda and Welcome Samool!
  12. WO Steam Discussion

    Allright, lots of comments during the night It's a lot to take in and often diametrically opposed opinions. Here are some thoughts: I don't see us launching without a new UI. We need to look into the stuff people have done right in WU with QoL improvements and newbie stuff such as the things I read Sklo did. Also the monetization and premium model will be questioned. We might tweak it in such ways MrGary suggested. Eve still has monthly premium/subscriptions so it's not like it's a dead business form. The login server will be the same for both clusters so we could allow people to go from Steam to the existing servers. And we can include an option to log on using old accounts via Steam. We need to sort out what that means for our requirements to prohibit the sale of silvers, items and accounts between players outside the Steam Wallet though. We'll have to look into it and can't really give an answer at this early time. Yes we could launch both a Freedom and a PvP server at the same time. A lot to sort out (and mainly improve). Is there an extensive list of QoL improvements most people agree upon kept anywhere? Actually Retrograde has been compiling such a list for a good while
  13. WO Steam Discussion

    The account databases will most probably be the same so you can't register MrJonnyboy on Steam if the account is created already. So if MrJonnyboy is premium on existing servers you can't play him on the Steam servers since the account already exists. If you create MrJonnyboyTwo via Steam you can prem him up via Steam. You will probably be able to prem him up via our website as well but we'll have to sort that out carefully due to Valve's RMT restrictions.
  14. WO Steam Discussion

    Yeah worth considering for sure.
  15. WO Steam Discussion

    Hmm nah quite a lot of the free MMO's have various shops. Don't know about subscriptions however for instance Eve Online sure does.
  16. WO Steam Discussion

    Yeah, although because we lose almost every player who don't want to pay as soon as they hit this ceiling we should consider simply slowing down skillgain instead. We'll see. Also I like the idea of letting people start at 10 or 15 or so.
  17. WO Steam Discussion

    Yeah Retro and I try to answer with our best capabilities but we have a bit of different ideas since the subject is still up in the air and we're looking for your feedback. You might get some contradicting answers. Also, in the end things might not work out the way we think because of technical reasons. At least we try!
  18. WO Steam Discussion

    Ah yes there are no plans to remove the existing client. Also we might make it possible to log on to the existing servers (the accounts you have today) via the steam client as well.
  19. WO Steam Discussion

    Hmm no not really a revamp. It would mean opening a new server with the same code as before and releasing the game client for free on Steam. If we need more servers because a lot of players come we would start new ones. The existing servers will remain. I don't know the difference between a dream and a plan. Thinking about something becomes a plan I think, especially when you ask around and find out if there are any showstoppers or big problems with the idea. It's not like we need to plan a lot more once we've discussed this thoroughly. Then it's more "should we do it or not" and take the obvious steps.
  20. Allright, so I thought I'd quench some of the will I stay or will I go-rumours by starting a new thread about an idea I've had quite a while. Back in 2015 we put WU on Steam and it has worked out allright. Now sales there are dwindling but Steam remains the best place to promote and sell PC and Linux games. Trying to promote your game via Facebook or Google ads is very expensive to the point of being pointless unless your game looks and has a really triple A newbie experience. The attempts we make have very poor conversion rate. Not to mention larger expensive ads on websites which simply are huge costs per click for us. Also trying to SEO the top rated search places for sandbox games isn't easy either even if we actually show up which I guess yields some traffic. But trying to improve there won't give much bang for the buck. So I figured, how can we go about putting WO where the PC players are and words spread nowadays - on Steam? If someone searches for a type of game they'll get one hit per game instead so it's a democratic search of sorts. Free to play games are highly sought after and I think A LOT of people look for and try free to play MMOs there. Compared to finding us online and download our client via custom links and registration, on Steam we would work exactly like all other games. We would probably get a fairly stable stream of players who look for games like these and decide to try them out. I asked the other devs and while moderately to very positive they raised the same initial questions many of you will. So I thought I'll start with them and a couple of my answers and then we'll discuss the rest. Here goes: Q1) Would we be risking more fracturing of our player base? I think it would be best to start clean server/s for a couple of reasons and aim to keep it/them in a separate cluster a good while. One is that new players deserve the feeling of being a newbie among other newbies with fresh land. This means that I believe their experience and inclination to stick around could be hampered by encountering very experienced accounts and high quality items. As the servers mature we merge them into the main cluster. Exactly when this merge would take place would depend on how well the release goes. If we receive virtually no new players and it's basically a failure, the server would merge very quickly so fracturing wouldn't really happen. If, on the other hand thousands of players come we would have to consider more carefully when the right time to merge is. This would mean Wurm becomes more sustainable which surely must be good for everyone. If we are extremely lucky, we receive so many new players that we can merge earlier because the old accounts and items will be quickly dispersed among the new population (but then we're probably talking about tens of thousands of new players). Q2) Steam gets a bit fussy with real money transactions. Can we abide by Steam Guidelines? I don't see how we wouldn't abide by Steam guidelines. We aren't involved in RMT or account sales. Our players may be but that's not unusual for online games. We would look into what we can do with the Steam shop though so we support their systems. Q3) How about the code base? Won't another branch be too much to handle? We'll see about branches and code base. Basically the server shouldn't need a new branch as far as I can see. There will be new clients though but it sure must be worth it if we want to get thousands of new players. Q4) How about staffing the servers? Will there be enough volunteers around to help out? We don't know at this time. We can't require anyone to help out. Hopefully some will of course and perhaps some GM's might consider returning if they see Wurm on Steam. I'll be interested in pitching in as well at least around launch. It's also related to Q1: If it's a success there will probably be resources to staff the servers, if it's not the server will merge fairly quickly. The initial success of the game shouldn't be based on whether people get help from GM's really - the thrill of encountering Wurm should be the main attraction. I'm fairly sure there will be players to answer questions in chat channels though. When it comes to answering questions in the Steam forum, hopefully Retro can manage some there as well or we suggest they visit these forums. Depends on the pressure. Q5) Will we be able to deal with the added cost of infrastructure? I am fairly certain the amount of new players will be able to sustain the cost of at least one server. If we need more servers the revenue is good so then we should be safe from other perspectives as well. Q6) Would we release both Freedom and Epic servers? We'd start with a Freedom server and be ready to launch more. You will have to discuss moving the Epic server there but from what I gather it would help with some multi account issues and might be a good solution for that. Q7) What timeframe are we looking at? Well, we would want the client to feel really polished. There are quite a lot of improvements planned and from what I understand we're looking at around Q1-Q2 (let's say February to April sometime) next year. Okay so these are the initial thoughts I have. I am sure you have more so let's discuss more pros and cons!
  21. Hi everyone, Retrograde thought it would be a wise thing to make this a more formal announcement: As some of you have heard since I sent out an email to our current share holders, I have switched my ownership in Code Club for shares in Game Chest Group, a Swedish company listed on the stock market. They are focused on investing in game development and digital distribution, which is what Code Club is about. You can find their website at www.gamechestgroup.se. The reason I did this is basically risk management. With subscriber numbers and revenues going down I was happy that another company with more muscles was ready to step in and take over business. Since I have part ownership in Game Chest I now have indirect ownership and still strong interests in Code Club and I will be doing the same things as before in administration and being involved in various management decisions, while the team manages Wurm and runs the day-to-day business. Game Chest has a hands-off attitude and are happy to learn more about the game and our business for now even though I have to ask them about financial decisions from time to time. So yeah, everything's changed and yet not much really has. Cheers! Rolf
  22. Eir

    So sad to hear you pass and hard to fathom. I loved to receive the occasional email with recent news about your recent Wurm endevours, thoughts about cancer treatments and learning stuff like the Budwig Protocol. You were always so loving, caring and kept my hopes high although I sensed your struggles. Thanks for all you've done for Wurm and the community. Rest in Peace, Janice.
  23. Even though I've known this might come for several months things escalated so quickly in the end and left me shocked and very sad. I am grateful that we had time to discuss the statue design before things got too bad to log on to chat. Tich you were fun, quick witted, always helpful and benevolent when things were confused and stressed out and you managed to touch many of our hearts both personally and with all these ingame features you implemented. I miss you a lot. See you again when we are thrown back into the light, Tich!
  24. Am alive and kicking! Thanks! Learning new stuff for instance Unity because I suck at c++ although Unreal does seem to be better at certain things. Afraid you can't expect anything new in a good while though, so it's notsoon(tm) Have a nice weekend!
  25. Slow change of focus

    Thanks everyone! As Retro points out I'm still around! Cheers