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Hot food cooking is a pretty in-depth skill as it is now. There are many, many, many recipes and subskills involved. Currently, there are many food items produced by hot food cooking or another cooking skill, but, other than casseroles and meals, hardly any of them are ever made or consumed. I find this dissapointing. We have recipes ranging from cakes, to porridge, to delicious soups and tuna caseroles. What I would like to suggest is "cravings" (okay, maybe not the exactly right word, but I simply don't know the proper word so bear with me ) A craving would be much like a mission. It randomly appears and randomly goes away. For example, your character could suddenly get a craving for a blueberry jam sandwich, or some nice hot soup. It would appear with a message in event "your stomach grunts at you and you're really hungry for a <food item> now.". The food item would be a completely random item picked from the database. It would be great if the databse could even recognize ingredients, such as "nettle soup". If that's not doable, just any random food item would work - wether its a little herring or blueberry, or a strawberry cake or meal. Eating your craving item will not lower your nutrition, but it will fill your food bar by however amount you eat. Ontop of that, eating your craved food will also give you +20 KARMA. as it stands right now, karma is near impossible to gain on the freedom isles but doing a mission on epic gives you 1000(?) karma, so I don't think it's a huge thing to ask, just a little reward to make the immense food system in wurm more desirable. TL;DR version; Character can get cravings Eating craved item gives +20 karma No nerfs, only small bonus Hopefully makes more use of the depth of the cooking system.

So a funny line in global freedom chat ([14:58:28] <Duros> [22:58:17] The corpse of aged brown bear will not fit in the oven.) Sparked an idea. Why not have a new object, a Firepit with a Spit that allows you to cook an entire animal into a Feast. The feast could feed a lot of people, be a huge "meal" and would last for a lot longer than a meal does, but would be stationary. Great for villages. Then, one could use a carving or butcher knife to carve off a hunk and take it with them. One requirement would be the need to use herbs and salt.

This account is easily worth that price, i meen the skills, affinities, the items, the titles, can easily get around there. Sad to see you go rudie.

Juggernaut of an account, easily 300-350e *facepalm* can't believe I just said that.

Everything will be lined up and fixed, everything are work in progress. It's many different combinations that needs to be covered so better to do "a sketch" first so it is easy to adjust, then when all pieces are at place "just add color" .

I thought Queenie or Longshanks mother would be the oldest in Wurm. A lot of people think Posteh is young he is like 62!

Other games don't need me. I can go away for weeks, months, years, and the game is literally untouched by my absence. My homestead here actually needs me, or its walls crumble into rubble, its crops rot into mulch, its animals die of starvation and disappear back into soil, and in time the entire place that I created out of nothing, goes back to nothing. Only I can stop that from happening. There are some days now and then where logging in feels a bit like a chore, and I am REALLY not in the mood, but I know I will pay for any neglect so I log in anyway "just for five minutes, just to do the bare minimum and then log out." Eight hours later I find myself still ingame, happily humming away as I find more things to work on and putter around with. It's almost like an organic part of me at times. It's something I created and it's almost like a living and breathing place, a real place, because of me. No other game I have ever run into, has had anything even remotely like that. That's one reason I actually don't use enchanted grass, with a couple of tiles of rare exception -- because it feels like it would break a kind of close delicate personal bond I have with my homestead. The less your place needs you, the less you need it in return.

thats not true, on wild old people help new people (if they are nice ) and fight alongside them agains the enemie allience(kingdom in the past) its not that one side has all the skilled players and another side all the noobs...

A wife asks her husband, who is a software engineer: "Could you please go shopping for me and buy 1 carton of milk. And if they have eggs, get 6!" A short time later the husband comes back with 6 cartons of milk. The wife asks him why the hell did he buy 6 cartons of milk??? He: "They had eggs"

Know what would be neat? To re-name tower guards, perhaps the mayor of a town with a tower on deed, just for fun, and to help keep track of who you may have given weapons to.

I'm 15 now, started playing when I was 13... back then, I never imagined I'd go premium, let alone have a scale set, drake set, and a gold in the bank.... Wurm ftw!

And 9/11 jokes are just plane wrong.

Hey all, wondered if we could get a tooltip to tell us when an Animal is in need of grooming? could be achieved once you reach a certain AH skill, like 30 or 50 etc. Also while we're on AH, it's one of my favourite things in game and I would love to see some kind of food and water troughs in game. I know most players keep them in fields or grass pens but it could be that they use the troughs as first preference and if its empty/not there they graze on the land? With food troughs we could either have it like a container where oats, rye, apples, corn could be dropped in to feed them or have new cooking recipes mixing them ingredients to make horse/cattle feed. If this was put in the game you could even make feed bags out of cloth to attach to animals for long journeys etc...

You can groom animals once per hour. SO I don't know that a hover tool would really be needed. Showing the time till delivery on a pregnant horse might be useful. or Gender on Hover

+1

I started with 13 ;D My borther played it with 9

At times Rolf's lack of insight into what makes his game attractive to players astonishes me. The only problem I have with his pvp *vision* is that he seeks to unleash that type of player onto those who have no desire to participate in it. That type of player who would get joy out of destroying others hard work I have no respect for. It is all well and good for them to participate in that pvp on servers where it is made know from the start that this is what you are participating in; but to release these type of players into a PvE world bent upon the destruction of it is a betrayal of the game developer to the PvE playerbase that that type of server (PvE) was designed for. It is no wonder to me that players left en masse when he choose to make this reckless decision. As I see it, this is really a problem with Rolf and his Nordic raider type of mindset, that if he reverts to will eventually destroy this game. pvp players make up only a small percentage of the playerbase and after all their *victums* have left the game (if unleashed upon the PvE population), even they will gradually dwindle away as has been shown to happen upon Wild and the newly *enhanced* Epic servers. Perhaps over time Rolf has developed a more reasonable mindset and realized that he can have his *fun* messing about with the pvp side of the game while the PvE playerbase's funds help support this, if he refrains from introducing destructive elements (pvp and otherwise) into the PvE side of the game. Time will tell..... =Ayes=

I voted for a Clydesdale, often referred to here in the UK as a 'shire 'horse. They were working horses mainly,but having said that I would like to see the Fresian and maybe the thoughrorbread.Seeing as traits in the game is random, [although based on one's A.H skill, a mix of bodies to signify that would be welcome.

We have a water layer, below which everything is water. I don't see that having a snow layer, above which everything is snow, would be too hard.

What is the reason santa is so jolly? He knows where all the bad girls live

Add a snow line in, which, like the waterline, is universal height across the whole server? +1

Hello to you as well. Goodluck with your question.

Pryath is brought up a lot..it's one account. And based on the Bank Account Rudie has and my experience with him, crafting isn't much of a problem. So can we maybe, no matter how politely put, leave the debates unsaid..

This is indeed a a good place man!! If wasn't ruling my own town i'd join you for sure +1

Now Xallo retires to Mexico to live "The Life" lol Great auction.. congrats to the buyers and seller

Hey, the limit is only during build time. You can remove the walls afterwards to create all sorts of designs. Maximum flexibility (within the deadline limitations) is something we're aiming for Oh and metal floors gonna be really really hard to make.

Children... Don't make me pull this car over!

I think we're looking at this the wrong way. Instead of the current view of breeds we should have body types akin to what was qualified in the middle ages. That would give the game 4-5 body types: Destrier: These were the war horses used by knights. Would be a big muscular horse, fit for battle, would be given to horses with a predominance of combat related traits (Like Tough bugger and Fight fiercely). Palfrey: These were the ultimate ridding horses used by nobles. Would be a less muscular body type, similar to the Tenesse Walking horse, would go for speed traits (although admitedly these horses were't used to gallop real fast, but for long travel (which is where we use speed traited horses...) Draft Horse: These were the Work Horses used for carts and such. Body type is closer to the Clydsdale. (probably be attached to traits like carry more, strong body, strong legs). Unbred/Wild Horse: I'd give these a round up look like the Friesian or the Fjord Horse. Skinny/diseased type: For horses with a prevelance of bad traits. Would look like a skinny horse, bad legs and such. Of course this is just a rough idea, it could also be done by creating a "Normal" model (the wild horse) then adding different parts according to the trait(s) (something like having equipment showing) but this would be too specific and would deny one of the advantages of having high AH - seeing the traits, because if specific changes would be shown with different body parts, would be easy to infer the trait set. I prefer the overall change and leaving the specific set be checked by examining the horse. Of course this option also carries with it a heavier code change to specify wich traits influence which body type, and how its wheighed.

Hi, I can't but sign here. Talking about a V1.0 in the current state is quite overconfident, IMHO. The game still is full of: - nasty bugs (invisible hitched horses, vanishing ships entering a cave canal, etc.), - crazy mistakes made once and never corrected (spider gives more FS then a troll, shark-in-a-satchel etc.), - and the well known "Wogic" ("Wurm logic", we all can give hundreds of examples). "Making the game more attractive to players" would, IMHO, require to work in this area at first. Winning new players with a V1.0, multi-story houses and char customization might work, but how long until they'll run in horror again, frightened by the dreaded "Wogic", and by all these bugs and inconsistencies? I understand, Hussars, that it doesn't fit your idea with the thread, and I respect this. Nevertheless, one of the most important answers to the question in the thread title would be what Kajmir wrote some posts ago: I kindly ask for thinking about if this couldn't be set at the top or the end of your list - after all, this is what covers quite a lot of your list anyways, and might make a great "tl;dr". Have a good time, and thank you for your work! PS: Would I have the money to drop a serious coin into a wishing well, my wish would be: "Please, Rolf, halt any development of new features now, and unite all forces you can get your hands on for "The Epic hunt of Bugs, Inconsistencies and Wogic" â„¢! No mercy, show 'em your cold steel, whack 'em into oblivion! They must get eradicated from the soils of Wurm - soon enough new ones will come requiring your time! Make PvP/PvE code split & char customization then, and after having debugged it, release the V1.0, with the promise of multi-story houses coming in V1.1. And with a proper PvP and fighting system soon after. Please, pretty please!" OT here, right? SCNR, just ignore ;-)))

I presume there's a scale set in the tiny item dump - my old eyes aren't up to such small pictures but looking at the skils and the price I guess there must be. What ql is it?

I'm sorry but i really think that the only troll here is the seller.

Any changes to Wurm would keep the good things we have now while improving on the not-so-good things

Meh, same old. He's always changing his mind and tweaking or *fixing* things anyway. Don't know about the rest of you but I'm so tired of hearing this date or that is going to be the big one, where everything comes together, that it's fatigued any excitement. I thought Epic was to be the vision come to light anyway? Having a set development plan is something any project should have regardless, it's not groundbreaking. Fix bugs, improve the visuals, don't screw over your players and we'll be fine. Yes I'm in a cynical mood.

Wurm is a hidden jewel because of it's sandbox. It will never be a good PVP game. Let's face it, if you want to pvp or have that kind of feel there's alot of other games for that. The jewel of this game is the sandbox element and he has to stick with that.

OMG! Not in IRC please!! I see several reasons why IRC is exactly the wrong place to discuss this sort of thing. First of all alot, dare I say most, of us don't go into irc. Second, in irc you are not only limited to the players who go there but also to the players who are currently online. Third, I'm assuming that some purposed changes will be complicated & ppl need time to put some thought into how they think they will effect the game rather than just giving Rolf some knee jerk reaction to it. Fourth, on a hot topic irc will be filled with ppl typing, and no one reading, and be moving so fast that no one will benefit from the conversation. I'm glad that Rolf wants to discuss this but rather than doing it in irc I'd suggest that he use the forums & place notices, with a link, on the log in screen to encourage ALL players to participate or at least be aware of what's going on.

If you extrapolate from past sales, I'd say this priest would be worth 150e, tops.

Not worth 300e, sorry : /

Just saying, my priest is considerably better than this priest and it is worth a little more than half of what your asking for and as for the gear, I wouldn't let those count towards the price. This is an opinion as I sold/bought a number of Wurm toons. This is definitely not worth 300e. Tone down the price to get a chance to sell it and rid yourself of trolls.

Throughout all the horrible nerfs and changes, terrible lag, and what not, the main reason I'm playing this game is because I've met not only some of my closest friends here, but my best friend as well, and I enjoy playing with them

I am just some kind of masochist.

i cant wait to attend, sad to hear it will be your last.

Glad I am getting the intelligent and mature people to respond.

Frankly I think alot of the suggestions given here might be fine for Epic or Chaos but would be awful for the Freedom servers since they stray to far away from the sandbox. With high FS, good gear, and lots of play time it's all well and good for me to say that I'd like mobs to present more of a challenge but that would be a totally selfish view. It totally ignores what a hardship that would be for newer players & also for those players who simply have no interest in fighting anything, ever. As much as Rolf might cringe at the idea servers like Indy attract & keep players because of the sandbox aspects of the game. Suggesting that mobs should be allowed to destroy what players have worked to build is so contrary to the whole sandbox concept that IMO it isn't even worth discussing. A few thoughts: More player or GM run events. The impalong is great & the treasure hunt Darkmalice put on a few months back on Indy was a stroke of genius. I've been toying with the idea of putting on a point to point race or perhaps a Wurm triathalon, run, sail, & ride, but the task seems rather daunting to me. The ability to customize more things in game. Every village DOES pretty much look like every other village and it gets boring both to look at and to build. The dye system could use a good kick in the pants IMO. A container that actually holds enough to dye a ship would be a practical addition & for goodness sake can I dye my boat without also dying the sails? Dye a wall without also dying the door?The range of colors we can make is also pretty limited. Make titles mean something. Reaching a milestone in a skill like 50, 70, 90 should offer you something besides bragging rights. Perhaps having the title, when worn, convey more skill gains, or shorter timers. Also, add new items into the game that ONLY show up as an option after you've reached a certain skill lvl. Say a new type of stone wall that can only be built by someone with lvl 50 in masonry & perhaps something like a fancier house wall that can only be done with lvl 70, & maybe a whole new type of building that can only be done by a lvl 90 mason. Make some now pretty useless skills more worthwhile. Taming & cloth tailoring spring to mind here. Taming has been nerfed to the point where once you have enough skill to tame your deer for breeding there is no point in leveling the skill any farther. (I tamed a deer my first day in game.) Cloth armour? What the heck is it good for? Gardening? With skill in that shouldn't I be able to grow more things than someone without any skill? Shouldn't my roses, for example, be larger & fancier than a noobs? More challenge, yes. Rather than coming from mobs though I think it should come from the map & the weather. Should I really be able to grow a willow on top of a mountain or farm bumper crops right next to the sea? Should I be able to farm or log or mine at all during the winter? What if I had to gather my resources, whatever that might be, during the appropriate season & did my crafting during the winter months? What if travel was slower during the winter & game harder to find? Should I really be able to find iron and zinc in the same region, right next to each other in the same mine? Since I just recently got the ocean front deed of my dreams it pains me to say this but I don't think I should be able to get 6 crops off each farm tile or have every ore type in my mine when I live right next to the sea. When you have the ability to get each and every resource easily from a single location it not only eliminates the need for travel but also for any trade in resources. Wurm is crazy hard in some respects but overly easy in this one I think. Some degree of realism injected into the maps would shake up the game and force players to plan ahead for survival. It would also open up a whole new market for raw resources rather than just the market for finished products that we have now. This one is sure to get me flamed but....stop the sale of accounts. As it stands now there is player turn over in the game but few high skilled accounts leaving the game. This just makes the economy stagnant since newer players feel that there is no competing with toons who have uber skills & an established name in the marketplace. Why grind skills or stay in the game at all if you have no hope of ever being able to sell anything? We also have players who are making and selling accounts for the sole purpose of making real life money. How can that be right or good for the game? In short toss some more toys in the sandbox for us to play with but do it in such a way that we have to earn the right to get to play with the new shineys. The degree of player customization tied to in game achiements perhaps? hmmm....

My experience of Wurm. My first experience in Wurm was to explore Freedom Mines. It was vast, complex, very crude, and ugly. It was pretty awesome! The first item I created was a sickle. I loved that sickle, and it stayed with me for at least a year. The first creature spawn I saw was a croc lair. The first mob to chase me down and kill me was a spider. The first person to be my friend and take me in was Tritus. He was a bit of my mentor. He polished my yolk when I couldn't figure out how the heck to finish that yolk. I was very scared everyone was trying to steal from me, cause it happened so often. The first time I used tracking was to find who made off with my locked large cart. The first person to steal my large cart was ***. The first person to steal my horses was ****. The first person to give me a farming start with vegetables was Leaf. I was astounded by his generosity. It was a very generous amount, of ten each of 4 different types. I made my first boat. Things I have done unwittingly that caused many new players to quit: I gave a new player tools. I gave a new player a safe place to live before they knew what safe meant. Given them a ride on my cart to my deed. (Instead, now I make them find it using the map and walking on their own.) Entertain a player who is demanding. Things I have done that caused players to stay: Built a guard tower, which had my name on it in a new player zone. This alone has gotten many players to stay. Caught someone destroying a house I had to save me a spot I was preparing to deed on Inde. Instead of getting mad, I gave them full access to the house, let them finish building the 2x1, and told them they could live there and do as they pleased. I answered questions, they spent two months building a sailboat, and sailed away. Told a person how to make something for themselves. Gave established poor new players a spot to live without fear of theft, on my deed. Ride around on my horse saying "Hi" to anyone I meet. Offering light help while I ride around. I will not make something for a player, but I will help them if they are stuck in a situation, just so they can continue. Wear a fancy title while standing at spawn. Chat with just about anyone who wants to chat. Although, I am notorious for not responding in village chat for ages. Purchased materials from players who are selling such. It makes them feel happy that they were capable of making a sale and becoming useful to the society. Let them help me make something of a grand project, such as a boat or guard tower. Used translate.google.com to chat with people I couldn't otherwise chat with. Things I have done that both caused players to stay and players to quit: Created a Christmas present hunt for each of my villagers. Gave riddles and clues to the next clue, until they found their present. One villager loved his hunt! Another villager became captivated with his riddle, which upon solving his riddle he felt completed and a sense of winning. A week later he never logged in again. Inform a new inhabitant of my deed that they can do what ever they want, that I will not choose a job for them. This allows a player to develop what they like about Wurm and will help them feel like Wurm is 'their' sandbox game. On the other hand, some people want to be told what to do. And those players beg to make me stuff, but then quit since I am not demanding at all. Its hard for me to want to tell someone to start making me hundreds of sails, bed sheets, rugs, cloth squares, etc. In conclusion, it is my opinion that if I ever 'give' a brand new player something that they did not earn, I have killed the entire aspect of the game for them. Players who learn the game by making most of their stuff or earning by way of trade or barter 'stay'.

Like I said, it needs fleshing out so it's not quite a bleak as you've described. Off the top of my head, you could receive warning that at some point on whatever day of the week between this time and that time, your village could come under siege by blah blah or whatever. This gives you time to prepare, muster the troops, reinforce defences. It doesn't have to be completely random or completely brutal and Im not suggesting you get bent over a barrel every time you log off for a day or two - just that the potential exists for it to happen if you're careless. Oh, and it's not Hermit players that I disapprove of, it's the mentality by a lot of hermits that because they live by themselves things like bashing creatures and the need to gather olives to fuel their lamps somehow makes life too hard for them. Take away bashing creatures and resource gathering to fuel lamps and it makes life too easy for communities. That's my issue. That's why things in general should be balanced for both loners and communities.

I am not sure what hermits have to do with the topic at hand, other than you make clear you disapprove of such. I'm a hermit but I don't think someone who has a village with three or four villagers is really in any different position here. The majority of time, there is going to be no one on any particular deed. The majority of time, these raids would have no interaction with the players. Either you are a helpless victim to something you never had any chance to react to, or you are a live participant to an event that -- for good or for bad -- causes a sense of urgency and reaction. Whether there is only one of you, or an alliance with 50 people, you are actually interacting somehow. Which as far as I can tell is the only point to having such a "feature". There is no adrenaline to coming back and finding someone trashed your place while you were gone, and you have perhaps lost things not possible to replace. It really doesn't matter if 10 people live there, or just one. There is no fear, no excitement, no sense of something happening. At this stage we might as well allow also people to lockpick your stuff and bash your fences while you are gone, and have everything be PvP again, and bring back also the mine tunneling mobs as well. Passive Helpless Victim does not equal Excitement. This is why I think such raids -- if we have them at all -- should not be on unattended deeds. No one is running around in a panic saying whatdoido, whatdoido ... It's not something you will still remember three years later and tell stories about, if it is just some unseen thing that trashed your stuff while you were on vacation.

The problem with raiding creatures is the same as raiding players: You log off, someone stumbles on your deed, you log in and the enemy is gone, but so is your deed. There is no challenge whatsoever, you just lost everything and there is nothing you could do.

I used to play this game awhile ago, we're talking about 3 years ago. I've been keeping up with the games progress because I really do have a desire to play sandbox games, but I've had a hard to really getting into one. I think that one of the reasons I quit Wurm was because I could never be unique in terms of character appearance. There was no customization with the exception of choosing whether you were male or female. This is one of the reasons, and for a sandbox gamer it might seem shallow, but not being able to identify with your character in any means except for extreme roleplaying (which I dislike to do) sort of broke the experience for me in the manner I've mentioned. One thing that also stopped me from playing this game was the ceiling complex that others have discussed in this thread. For me, the game sort of went like this: - Log in completely clueless surrounded by a myriad of things to do (most people you don't want to play a game like this clear out now because they want the aforementioned pig mounts and big yellow checkmark) - Figure out the basic mechanics of the game - Build a shack on mud - See someone else's huge village and fancy things and get jealous - Get together with some friends and build one of your own - Kill most of the monster types in the game - Become completely self sufficient It is after this point that the game hits a ceiling, as it feels that there is nothing more to be done. There is no reward for continuing as you are already self sufficient, also there is no point in interacting with other villages because there is nothing that you really need from them. After a week of this, the game starts to feel more like a job because you are playing more and more because your walls need to be improved and your house needs to be repaired. Now you have accomplished everything and there are no in-game goals to accomplish. After this happens, the player will generally leave, except the few who play that remain faithful to the developers and or the project they have built. Then you have a situation where the game is in a sort of "limbo". In other words: S = Subscriber count. P = the players that are the exception to the rule, who remain faithful to the game. N = The amount of new players. L = The amount of leaving players. S = P + (N-L), where L=N and for short periods of time L>N or L<N Which basically means your player base generally stays the same and the games success is in the aforementioned "limbo" state. The major problem with Wurm is that there is no type of serious gameplay after you establish your village. There is no goals; nothing that you can really set yourself apart to do. The novelty of building your house and town wears off relatively fast, and there is nothing left to hold you in place. Adding aesthetics like customization characters and armor models/real animations would help immensely, but ultimately more post village material needs to be added to the game in order for it to be able to hold on to subscribers. This is the same reason that themepark mmos die, they are fun until you hit the maximum level, then the fun dies out. World of Warcraft is so successful because the developers have added tones of endgame content and have really built the game around it. There is a lot of discussion about people leaving because they get frustrated early. These people are not true sandbox fans. The problem at hand, I believe, is not that people get frustrated at the start of the game, but more so after they've established themselves, because there is a lack of things to do. This is just my opinion, take it or leave it, I think I have several valid points here.

I'm sure there are plenty of newer players who don't want their deeds raided either but most of the objections to any kind of added risk to freedom does come from the older player base and to an extent I can appreciate their concerns about it. However, pandering to the older, established player base isn't going to make it any easier to attract and retain new players - and that's where the money is. Rolf is trapped in a situation where his game is both kept afloat and made stagnant by the same vocal old guard players that resist change. From a commercial standpoint, it makes more sense for Rolf to look at his potential player base and what will attract and retain them instead of what keeps the old players who don't want things to change too much happy. Make a game appealing enough for new players to invest in and stick with and you don't need to continually make concessions to those who resist change. Sure, you may alienate and drive them off in the process, but better that then have the game held back because some people may get may not like things getting shaken up to a point where they have to adjust and adapt. A deed is a safe haven? Mostly yes. But it should never be 100% safe. Without risk there's no sense of achievement and new players want to feel like the time they invest in a game is worth while. Sometimes that should mean your stuff is put at risk. Sometimes that means you have to fight to protect what's yours. Victory is always sweeter when it's hard fought. Defeat gives you a reason to pick yourself up and fight back. Bottom line (again, my opinion) Wurm needs more danger, everywhere. It needs more challenges thrown at the player, village, community at large. It doesn't need more player created distraction (although that's awesome too) it needs more environmental ones. Right now, Freedom isn't really PVE. The environment is largely inert and unable to challenge a player. It's too boring to keep all but the most stubborn players, and we've already met them. We are them. I'm not suggesting peoples homes should be raided by players on Freedom and all their gear stolen, but the environment should be able to kick us in the ass and force us to work to keep it at bay from time to time. Maybe a village constantly under threat of mob attack has penalties to it's productivity or increased upkeep cost or something as well as having to manually repair damaged buildings and walls when the dangerous npc population reaches a certain threshold and needs culling? Maybe make these random, server wide events that encourage players to band together to help drive off rampaging Trolls in a certain area? Think of it like a weekly Dragon slaying or something, but without any huge rewards. I dunno, it's just needs more exciting stuff going on for the new/newer players to get excited about. Older players may not want the potential added hassle, but the game needs it desperately. Wurm isn't ever going to be successful if it's development is being hindered by it's own player base. For the sake of the game we have to stop resisting change and encourage developments that will attract new players. We just have to make sure along the way it doesn't get dumbed down. Incidently, I'm not strictly having a pop at old players who want to protect their time investments, I'm more annoyed with the general consensus that changes that make things a bit harder/realistic or more dangerous are bad and I am especially irked at how those who shout the loudest are usually the only ones Rolf ever hears. Maybe I should drop a gold into the wishing well and ask for my own private audience ...

It's usually not enough long term for leaders to give people tasks to keep them interested. They soon tired of it and crave new things and with a larger village with different experience levels it's hard to magic up large projects that will keep them all busy and eager. Personally, I think the biggest failing with Wurm in general is the lack of environmental challenge. It's fine for the creative and leadership types to come up with projects for themselves or their villagers, but the environment challenging you is a far more potent lure for new players and those looking for something else to do once they have built their homes. Life on Freedom is easy after you get over that initial learning curve. Easy and boring for most players. Theres no real threats out there. Popular opinion dictates that people don't want the wildlife to impact on their day to day gameplay, but that's counter productive for a game that wants to attract and retain new players. Who wants to play it 100% safe all the time? People crave challenge and challenges you give yourself or are assigned by a village leader are nowhere near as effective at keeping people interested than say combating a real environmental threat that could bring ruin to your village. Obviously this is an ongoing argument for another thread but picture this if you will. What's more likely to keep newer players interested in your village? Build a new canal or Colossus or defend against raiding goblins or trolls that have amassed on your deeds borders and threaten to overwhelm your guards and break down your fences? How about another objective - keep the numbers of said goblins or trolls down to prevent them massing in the first place? Things like this give people a reason to be active and keep logging in. These are the things that will keep new players, even if the old players who don't need convincing that Wurm is awesome disagree strongly with any kind of "harmful" change. Rolf needs to think about the needs and wants of his future player base, not the old.