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Wurmhole

Wurm 3.0 - New Skill system & servers

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The wall of text:

 

Every other MMO I've played has major tweaking to their skills along the way and each time they do, they hit the reset button, so that the players can reallocate their skills and all be on an even playing field.  In Wurm, for some reason, any time there is a loop hole in skilling, the first people that discover it get to skill up rapidly and then keep those skills forever.  The other issue I have with the Wurm system is I see a lot of account trades happen solely because someone got tired of playing their character, based on the skilling choices they made last year or the year before.  It results in people just leaving the game, if they don't feel comfortable making account trades.

 

This game really is tailor made for about 300 people  that love the skill system the way it is now, but not for the 1 billion other gamers out there.  As a result, it can't ever grow.  When bridges were added, it brought lots of old players back to the game.  When Xan was added, it brought lots of old players back to the game.  The only new addition to Wurm that really brought significant new players was the private servers with an upgraded skilling system.

 

So I say, let's tweak it even more.  Let's figure out a way to bring more players to the game.  That has to be the goal right?  I can't imagine a game company just focused on the retention of a very small legacy player base, but it sure seems that Code Club is doing exactly that.  Especially when most of the developers are also part of that legacy player base.  How do you decide to make good changes to the game, when those good changes are going to negatively impact your character and many of your closest friends in the game?  I know I'd have a difficult time with it.

 

I think the only way you can make a major change to the game is to make a new game, while leaving the old game intact.  It worked with WU.  Nobody was forced to leave WO, but people did.  Why?  Because they LOVE Wurm and were finally given a better choice than what classic Wurm had to offer.  The people that stayed were disappointed and predicted the end of Wurm, but it didn't end.  There are far more players today than before WU launched (both versions of Wurm combined).  It gives people more choice to fit their play style and that is a good thing.

 

What could the new new, new Wurm look like?  It certainly isn't going to be a new graphics engine, with a fully 3d world - Code Club doesn't have the time or resources for that.  But it does have the ability to make smaller changes, to alter the way the skilling/leveling works in this game.  They have Epic, Classic Wurm and WU, which all have different skilling mechanics.  So far, the one that works best for me is WU, where you are rewarded for your actions and not forced to constantly gimp yourself and your crafts, just to get a successful skill tick.

 

So for Wurm 3.0, I suggest a new cluster of 4 small servers.  On each island, make several large areas of protected biomes - call them "King's Parks", which can't be built on, teraformed or have any trees chopped down.  Sprouting, harvesting, foraging, botanizing and cutting grass is all ok.  These parks will really help protect the natural resources, beauty and spawning zones for the server.

 

For the skill system, create a master experience bar.  Every skill-able action you perform ticks a point into the master experience bar and also raises the appropriate skills for what you were doing.  Skills will progress mush like they do on WU.  If your tools are higher QL and have speedy enchants, your actions are faster, thus your skills will gain faster.  None of the WO mechanics of let's get that plastic hammer from my son's toy tool set, then cut off my leg, to reduce the size of my stam bar, then it will take me a really long time to hammer in that nail, to get max exp for the action crap...

 

The next step is to create skill trees.  We have parent and sub skills now, which are sort of a tree, but we need to group them into 3 or 4 trees, which will be leveraged later when a skill redistribution happens.  I think the trees should be Fighting, Crafting, Gathering, for simplicity.  Each tree will maintain it's own experience bar.  So now we have a master Exp bar and 3 Tree Exp bars.  For those that like to compare skills to their friends, these will be a great way to go, much like the STP number from Niarja.  More importantly, when skill imbalances happen, Code Club can do either a full skill wipe, or specific tree skill wipes.  Players then reallocate exp points to the skills they want.

 

Characteristic skills will automatically be adjusted, based on where skill points are allocated.  You can't make a priest with only faith and channel have a really high strength.

 

Players will also get paid resets.  Purchase from trader or maybe even deed tokens.  Pay to reset any tree, as often as you want.  For the full reset of all Exp, it would only be when Code Club requires it for re-balancing and every 6-12 months of unbroken paid subscription. 

 

I think the flexibility this gives the players will really appeal to those that want to try many of the different skills at higher levels, but simply will never have the time to skill up everything to high enough levels.  Many other successful games allow you to reallocate skill points, eliminating the frustration of not being able to play a different role, without having to spend the next year training up for it.  We live in a world of instant gratification, so when that is the norm, it is extremely hard to succeed by offering a game that has a 10 year plan for character development.  Who the heck wants to make that kind of commitment to a game?  One in a million it seems, because that is about how many people have played WO for more than a month.

 

This would also be a great time to introduce new account management.  One master account and multiple character slots.  I'd love unlimited character slots, since I have 60 alts, but that probably needs to be reigned in, to prevent alt sprawl (especially with boss hunts).  So maybe 5 character slots max per account.  It isn't like anyone will suffer, since we would all be creating new accounts and new alts.  We should also be able to manage deed upkeep through account management.  Nice Web Interface to cover it all in one place.  If I could check my deeds and keep them paid, right from the web, I'd be frickin happy.

 

So the summary:

 - New 4 server cluster

 - lots of protected bioms (parks)

 - Skilling like WU

 - Experience bars: Master and three skill trees - Fight, Craft, Gather

 - Skill reset options for trees and for all (some paid, some as rewards and some as required for re-balancing)

 - New Web account management system with multi-character slots & deed management.

 

This does not have a PvP solution, but the best way I can think of to add PvP to the idea would be Epic style - Add in a portal that takes you to the PvP server, where your PvP Experience is earned.  Probably with a 10x rate gain over the PvE server. I'll let those that really understand the PvP needs figure all that out, but it MUST not intertwine with the PvE servers in any way.  No bringing PvP rewards to PvE.  What happens in PvP stays in PvP.

 

The PvE servers are will be set up with everything protected and secured from the start.  New players should not be worrying about everything being looted from their unsecured camp site on day one.  Drop a tent to secure a perimeter from theft.  All permissions should be set for lock down, for everything, unless the player specifically changes it to an unsafe mode.  I think we are close to that already, which is good and appreciated, but adding in the tent security perimeter could be a nice touch for the new players.  May or may not be something we remove after a player passes a certain number of days of play time. Could get used in griefing, so needs consideration.

 

Remember, much like with WU, if people leave classic Wurm to play this new Wurm, it isn't a bad thing.  How can it be bad, if people are going to play something that fits their play style better?  Do we want to try stuffing square pegs in the round hole that is WO today?  Let anyone that wants to keep on the old classic Wurm, stay right here.  Give people that like the awesome sandbox, but not the broken skill system, another alternative.

 

At one point, I'd suggested Code Club open up their own WU server cluster, but I know that won't work, with the ability to Mod clients.  It also doesn't address the skill reset needs, which is the core component to make this work.

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I read about half way through. 

Dude just stop being lazy and host a WU server 

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^What soil said. Go make it in WU and if it becomes popular enough, im sure some WO Dev will approach you for the rights to it. 

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In fairness to Wurmhole, there are certain things he mentions that couldn't be accomplished in WU.  At least, I don't think so.  The revised skill trees, as one example.

 

I think the account management overhaul is coming at some point.  Pretty sure I've seen that mentioned.  Haven't kept up with it so not sure if that includes the way we manage alts or not.

 

I don't personally see the skill tree as broken though.  Maybe if I was more concerned with competing with other people, but that's never really been what Wurm was about for me.

 

True that this game is niche, and might appeal to a smaller set of players than many games released today.  Those games have a very short shelf life though.  Those companies just move on to the next 6-month wonder.

 

For all the things Wurm may not be, it is also many things other games are not and couldn't really begin to approach.  Whole bunch of them have tried and failed.

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yeah, I have a WU server, but it is only open to a select few.  I wanted to get a real sense for it and there are a ton of things I already like better than WO.  But like Reylaark says, some things just can't be done in WU.  The revised skill system and locked down clients are key.  Think of my idea as a hybrid of WO and WU. 

 

Many people will never consider investing their time in a player hosted server.  What if the host just gets bored, or mom takes away their allowance?  But if it is an official Code Club hosted cluster and in a controlled setting, to drastically reduce client cheats, then people step up to invest time.

 

I've been watching various powerful client mods get released and several server hosters in WU are begging for them to get blocked, or at least provide a way for the server admins to prevent clients with those mods from logging in.  They work hard to set up these awesome worlds, with a measure of fairness to all, then crafty mods show up that break it, or simply force everyone to use the mod to even the playing field again, which may break the master plan for the server in the first place.

 

I think WU proves that there are significantly more people interested in alternate play styles of Wurm, than the original WO.  Creating new servers, setting up protected parks and adjusting the skill system would be much less work than creating bridges or cooking 2.0.  Heck, I'd volunteer my time to custom design the servers, so it is just hosting, revamp skill system and then the Web account management piece, which is already in the works.

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There are some nice ideas here (a web based interface to manage deeds especially, make it easy for folks to pay the rent!) but I just don't think those notions will really fix the reason why wurm's player numbers are dropping.

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I didn't finish reading it all either. :P

 

Maybe they can bring back the Challenge server ideas.

 

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