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Mishia

How can we get more people to play Wurm Online? [DEVS READ]

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I keep asking myself how we can get the smaller servers (and not just Xanadu) more populated...


Is is that Wurm Online needs more advertising?


In my opinion, yes - there has not been a lot of advertising recently that I know of, which means that the player count is staying mostly the same.


 


Compared to a year and a half ago, when Celebration was hitting a max of around 100 players daily - the player count has dropped dramatically, I know Xanadu has been added and all... but everyone that goes there seems to leave and never come back; it's like a black hole.


 


As well as this, other games alike Wurm are being made - is this where players are going to also?


Do you agree with me? Please let me know below! :-)


Edited by Mishia
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I'm glad wurm isn't overpopulated like most other mmo's yes it turns in more profits for the game company but it lowers the gaming experience in my opinion,   i prefer the small community of wurm, where  you can get to know people in a way.


 


to sum it up-  more people = more chaos/madness.


 


ps: those who stay usually stay forever, it's a unique game that  you either love or hate.


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A lot did leave the older servers to move to Xanadu.


 


Also a lot of people have let alts lose premium over the past year or so, resulting in what looks like a reduced player count when really its just a reduced alt count for a lot of it too.


More advertising would be nice...dunno how or where to advertise though. It's a niche game...flooding wurm with a bunch of people who aren't interested or get the wrong idea of what to expect isn't going to help and will just waste avertising costs and server usage.


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cele was never 100players


 


Advertising = costs money.


 


If you present just one solution [the most obvious one], there's no value in this thread, except 'we need more players' and that is obvious.

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Ircc increased advertising has been discussed before and the usual answer from Rolf is he plans to increase marketing when he feels things are quote Ready unquote.

The last time I recall this being mentioned was when multistory went live. Bridges going live would likely be a huge step in this direction also.

However, no idea what the next large feature push will be after bridges (and a more-than-likely vacation for the devs).

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cele was never 100players

 

Advertising = costs money.

 

If you present just one solution [the most obvious one], there's no value in this thread, except 'we need more players' and that is obvious.

Wrong. 

 

Logging started 2013-12-08

[19:34:40] 101 other players are online. You are on Celebration (1313 totally in Wurm).

 

Logging started 2013-12-29

[21:04:00] 109 other players are online. You are on Celebration (1315 totally in Wurm).

 

Logging started 2013-12-29

[21:04:45] 106 other players are online. You are on Celebration (1308 totally in Wurm).

 

 

Edited by Mishia
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We've had huge influxes of players in the past, like when Bashur played.


All we ended up with was a bunch of people thinking it would be minecraft MMO.


 


Advertising isn't enough.


 


You need advertising directed at the right type of people. Which in Wurm's case, is probably hard to do.


 


Those dates you posted mishia are just a few months after the price hike. After that, a lot of people lets alts/priests etc go f2p. Then Xanadu came out.


A drop from 1300 to 1000 online at once isn't that bad considering.


 


1300x5 = 6500


1000x8 = 8000


 


Just going by online figures at once, revenue actually went up even though people 'quit'.


Edited by Outlaw

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so you want mega lag not only on xanadu but on the rest of the old cluster as well? at the current state wurm cant handle alot more people. i remember when bashur and his tribe swarmed the tutorial area. a disaster.. not saying anything else to that.. but they first need to get things fixed before they invite more people.


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Coming from a player who has played Wurm for six years, here is my opinion on the low pop count and the reasons for it in order of greatest to smallest impact on population.


 


1.  Wurm is too expensive to play.  You pay for your toon.  You pay for your priest alt.  You pay to place deeds.  You pay to upkeep deeds.  You pay other players for items.  You pay, you pay, and you pay.  


2.  Wurm is pay to win.  The skill grind is awesome.  But, with that comes the realization that you will never reach end game without A - LIVING in Wurm 24/7 or B - buying someone else's high-skilled toon.  Those players with tons of money will buy the elite toons and thus reach that goal years before and leverage that toon to make money.  CodeClub does not benefit from these player to player transactions, but I still consider this pay to win.


3.  Wurm's cryptic and sometimes non-existent documentation (release notes not detailed enough, wiki has incomplete/inaccurate information, raw calculations) makes Wurm too intimidating for new players to wrap their heads around it. 


4.  The solution to everything:  Create a new map, which is a solution to nothing.


5.  Bugs take a back seat to features.  This is exactly opposite of sound development practices.  Bugs always make the top of the backlog list in most dev environments.


6.  The game engine is nigh obsolete and should be replaced.  It is a good thing that you cannot see your "car"-toon standing in the beautiful and breathtaking scenery of Wurm.   The environment is awesome but the player avatars not so much.  This lends to poor PVP/fighting experiences.


7.  Advertisting is nill as in nothing as in nada as in how many times do you see Wurm listed in "Top 10" youtube videos for sandbox, crafting, etc. etc.  When did you see a Wurm banner on your favorite MMO site?


 


I love Wurm but when I stare at this list I hate Wurm.


Edited by Eyesgood
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He needs to fix it before he advertises it.


 


The average newbie quits on the first day, often within the first hour. The lucky ones make it through "Hell Week" (then quit). Then you're left with a very small amount of newbies who know absolutely nothing about the game. Nathan Tosiek help them if they join a PvP server (they really just need to look at recruitment threads, but they don't know that.


 


He needs to:


 


> improve the newbie experience (obvious reasons)


> split the code (so the PvP vs. PvE whining finally ends and the experience is better on both sides)


> police alts (it's not that hard to decide what is or isn't an alt; newbies are often mistaken for alts because they don't know to check recruitment thread or PM people on PvP servers)


> balance PvP (so people stay longer instead of quitting at the plateau or when he fails/refuses to balance broken mechanics)


> fix bugs before adding new features (obvious reasons; the new features always create new bugs that won't get fixed)


> fix Valrei (the selling point of Epic is still broken after almost four years)


 


..and I saved the best for last...


 


> DOCUMENT THE FEATURES OF THE GAME!


 


Newbies don't have a snowball's chance in hell because they rely solely on older players and the wiki (written by the former) for information, and veteran players (especially in PvP) aren't exactly willing to give people the information they need to use features properly (at least in the players' eyes, because we have no idea what is proper or intended due to lack of documentation).


 


At that point, he should advertise. 


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Coming from a player who has played Wurm for six years, here is my opinion on the low pop count and the reasons for it in order of greatest to smallest impact on population.

 

1.  Wurm is too expensive to play.  You pay for your toon.  You pay for your priest alt.  You pay to place deeds.  You pay to upkeep deeds.  You pay other players for items.  You pay, you pay, and you pay.  

2.  Wurm is pay to win.  The skill grind is awesome.  But, with that comes the realization that you will never reach end game without a) LIVING in Wurm 24/7 or B) buying someone else's high-skilled toon.  Those players with tons of money will buy the elite toons and thus reach that goal years before and leverage that toon to make money.  CodeClub does not benefit from these player to player transactions, but I still consider this pay to win.

3.  Wurm's cryptic and sometimes non-existent documentation (release notes not detailed enough, wiki has incomplete/inaccurate information, raw calculations) makes Wurm too intimidating for new players to wrap their heads around it. 

4.  The solution to everything:  Create a new map, which is a solution to nothing.

5.  Bugs take a back seat to features.  This is exactly opposite of sound development practices.  Bugs always make the top of the backlog list in most dev environments.

6.  The game engine is nigh obsolete and should be replaced.  It is a good thing that you cannot see your "car"-toon standing in the beautiful and breathtaking scenery of Wurm.   The environment is awesome but the player avatars not so much.  This lends to poor PVP/fighting experiences.

7.  Advertisting is nill as in nothing as in nada as in how many times do you see Wurm listed in "Top 10" youtube videos for sandbox, crafting, etc. etc.

 

I love Wurm but when I stare at this list I hate Wurm.

Would like this - but I have reached max today ;)

EDIT: 400th post \o/

Edited by Mishia

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The Last time we had massive amount of influx was Pristine Release.....New Land without Old accounts.


 


we had a lot of news and interviews going on around MMO sites.


Edited by Uberknot
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Retain the f2p that starts playing Wurm. Meaning improve the f2p experience, letting them have their own culture that's worth sticking around for, sometimes premming or moving to continuous premmage but not moving on.  GV had sustainable f2p. Despite the widespread degradation of the average playing conditions, the community and Wurm itself was worth logging in for. Recreate f2p communities on applicable servers (give concessions) and first time players will find their peers. That sounds pretty straightforward, the ability to ride horses might be the only concession needed to stop them moving on (full armour set worn =  +1.1 bc). A player moving on from Wurm is a lot worse than giving f2p some breaks, just the mounting change alone would allow enough respite from mobs to integrate where they would, do ingame work for prem and become as viable as anyone.


 


Most here use other forums. Put "Play Wurm Online" in your sigs... Easy. 


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I think the F2P balance is about right.  You can get a good feel for the game, explore, do the basic stuff, but to really play it, you need premium.  I'm undecided on letting F2P chars ride horses - you can already ride cows as a non-prem, so you do have some options.


 


For me, the biggest barriers to entry are the lack of good documentation and the long-term push for features over bug-fixes. 


 


A good comparison in terms of documentation is Dwarf Fortress - the game docs are also player-maintained wiki, and it's a similarly complicated game with a steep learning curve (actually, DF is probably more complicated than Wurm).  However, the author doesn't actively work to keep game mechanics out of public knowledge - where it's felt that knowing things in advance might 'spoil the surprise', the wiki gives you the option of not seeing that information if you prefer not to.  Release notes should be detailed and should actually show what a change did, not just 'something changed'.  Ninja changes just shouldn't happen.


 


In terms of fixing broken stuff, too many bugs persist so long that they become disguised features.  I don't play on Xanadu, for example, but I hear constant moaning about how bad the lag is over there - this should be a priority to fix, as I'm pretty sure Wurm loses players over this sort of thing!  It's hard to imagine any serious advertising push when the game can't handle the players its already got.  While I'm as excited as anyone to see bridges live, given the number of major new features that have landed (sometimes leaving a crater) over the last year, I have to ask whether some of that dev time couldn't have been better spent sorting out some of the existing stuff.


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I just wrote a really long post, then lost it.. It was probably too long to read anyway.

 

I started playing Wurm again today. I made it about an hour before I gave up. Trying to escape 4 trolls, a spider and a mountain lion pretty much did me in. My home server is Release, when I logged in, there were 29 other people online. There isn't enough population to control the animal/monster population. It doesn't matter where you go, you really can't survive in that. Especially not alone. But you can't find anyone because you can't get 20 tiles without being chased by something into something else and ultimately losing all your stuff. 

 

I honestly don't mind combat, but it is almost impossible to kill something as a noob or even as a mid-level player if you don't have any gear. You are better off starting a new toon if you are coming back, because at least then you get a tent, some gear and buffs. If you are coming back, you get nothing and good luck!

 

If you want to attract new and old players like me, I would suggest reducing the animal population a bit. Create a server that caters to newbies and more casual players. Maybe have a tiered continent setup where the mobs are manageable to start off, then once you hit 40 (just throwing out a number), if you want to continue skilling up, you will have to move to a more difficult continent. Create portals to each continent to allow intercontinental trade.
 

I love Wurm, I really do. However the difficulty level of the game is a double-edged sword. It is what keeps the old timers playing. It is also what stops the rest of us from playing. The game continually gets better, the UI is remarkably different and much better than when I first started playing. It still doesn't address the crux of the problem though.

 

Take this as you will, but any search in these forums will point out much the same issue. 

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A dev that doesn't tell his own playerbase to quit if they don't like something would be a huge step forward.

other than that, I may be wrong here but it feels like the whole dev team doesn't give a single damn about this game at all, as long as a little bit of money keeps flowing in.

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I just wrote a really long post, then lost it.. It was probably too long to read anyway.

 

I started playing Wurm again today. I made it about an hour before I gave up. Trying to escape 4 trolls, a spider and a mountain lion pretty much did me in. My home server is Release, when I logged in, there were 29 other people online. There isn't enough population to control the animal/monster population. It doesn't matter where you go, you really can't survive in that. Especially not alone. But you can't find anyone because you can't get 20 tiles without being chased by something into something else and ultimately losing all your stuff. 

 

I honestly don't mind combat, but it is almost impossible to kill something as a noob or even as a mid-level player if you don't have any gear. You are better off starting a new toon if you are coming back, because at least then you get a tent, some gear and buffs. If you are coming back, you get nothing and good luck!

 

If you want to attract new and old players like me, I would suggest reducing the animal population a bit. Create a server that caters to newbies and more casual players. Maybe have a tiered continent setup where the mobs are manageable to start off, then once you hit 40 (just throwing out a number), if you want to continue skilling up, you will have to move to a more difficult continent. Create portals to each continent to allow intercontinental trade.

 

I love Wurm, I really do. However the difficulty level of the game is a double-edged sword. It is what keeps the old timers playing. It is also what stops the rest of us from playing. The game continually gets better, the UI is remarkably different and much better than when I first started playing. It still doesn't address the crux of the problem though.

 

Take this as you will, but any search in these forums will point out much the same issue. 

Newspring island on Xanadu has hardly any mobs. u can run around for weeks before finding something besides a seal. It's a good starting point.

Other than that, i guess i agree.

Edited by froggy25

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Newbie island after the tutorial.


 


Skills don't go past 10 while there, you got 100 hours of gameplay time to chill there with nothing tougher than a wolf, fast growing trees, iron, some water for fishing basically.  Few wild horses.


 


Ample signs with basics like "trees take a couple weeks to regrow on wurm, not 10 minutes, be civilized" for life on the "live servers".


 


Clear explanations handy that that server gets reset once a month to respawn resources/clean terraforms.


 


Stories about spiders at the spawn deed.


 


NO DEEDING THERE.


 


You only get the normal newbie tools when you hit live servers, anything you created there is gone.  Can't withdraw silver from tokens (basically protect newbies against disintegrating silver on that server).


 


I'm sure at least one Wurmian would love to be the "newbie GM" overseeing the place, every so often cleaning up a pitfall made in ignorance by a supernoobynewbie to protect the wandering rest.... y'know.


 


Yes, I'd rather see them suffer too but.... sometimes sacrifices must be made in the name of player retention and truth be told, it's easier to integrate new people into the community if they've had some basic education about the life of wurmians.  Also players who start at a server with greenish trolls near spawn village (Hello Sloping Sands!!) who WOULD have stayed had it been just spiders leave thinking he found a way more punishing game than what Wurm actually is after you settle.......


 


 All of which translates into revenue both for CC and for crafters *griiin*.


 


(Yes, and option to skip newbie island when running past the tutorial to spawn an alt)


Edited by Mordraug
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too start off, we need a dev that actually listens to the players.....


 


*cough* new ele map hate *cough*


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> DOCUMENT THE FEATURES OF THE GAME!

 

Communication to the player/user

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Wurm fighting animations should not be shown to the outise world. People see that and are instantly turned off from the game.

Mordraug is right. Need a starter world for f2p that caters to the starting experience. Maybe have volunteer staff living on the starter island, running around to assist the new players to start the community feeling from day one.

The main reason I didn't quit when I first started, was bumping into a mentoring group that offered tons of advice and a safe haven when I had nothing.

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Nope, not my responsibility to get more people to play Wurm or change certain aspects of the game to do so. Anything stated here by others they can do nothing about either. I see little (any?) content that isn't well known already by the powers that be and has not already been proposed by players before.


 


Simply put, I feel no responsibility to attract new players to the game. Not my problem and I am not going to make it so. If I were employed in a position where this were my responsibility, then it would make sense to me focus on this since I would be in the position to do something about it. Therefore I leave it up to those who are.


 


=Ayes=


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