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  1. 114 points
    Hi, as this is my first official post as your Head Game Master (HGM), let me take a moment to thank Enki for his work over the very many years in this role, and to introduce myself. Most of you already know me, but for those that don't here is a look into who I am and how I got here: I started playing Wurm around 2004, joined the staff team in 2006 and have been a GM since 2010. Holding the Assistant Head Game Master position involved discussing the situations at hand, quite often behind the scenes, to help reach the decisions that needed to be made. I have always enjoyed interacting with the community, run Impalongs, and spawned numerous nasty stuff onto players at events. Not that I enjoyed seeing the death tab flash up, nooo, not at all As HGM I am in charge of overall moderation, GM complaints, and grievances. Please feel free to contact me if you have any concerns; this is usually best done via a Forum Personal Message to Pomona. We have such an amazing community here and I know we can keep the feeling of family and friends as we move into the next stage of Wurm growth. Also this seems like the perfect moment to say a massive thank you to the unsung heroes that work hard to make this game what it is: Wurm Staff teams. You truly are inspirational. Pomona Assistant Head Game Master (ok.. that is going to take a while to get used to)
  2. 90 points
    Hi everyone, I’m glad to finally be able to share with you all the work we have been doing to improve Wurm. This post contains both features that are going to be included in the game very soon, as well as some more longer term changes that we will release in the upcoming months. Rift Update As the rift changes have concluded testing, they will be included in an update planned for early September. If you missed the public testing period organized by Jaytoo, here’s a summary of the changes: Rift Colossus Four unfinished colossus, one for each god, will be placed around the rift before it starts. For each part added to the colossus, the builder will have a chance to get a rift point (to be spent for rift rewards) or a rift material. A finished colossus will grant different buffs, depending on which god it belongs to: Fo - one random wound healed every minute, Willowspine is applied to rift participants Magranon - Mass Stamina is applied to participants every minute, Frantic charge buff is also active for players in the rift area Vynora - Excel is applied to all rift participants Libila - Only fight skill will be lost on death, double rift creature spawns Rift Points Rift points will now be awarded proportionally according to damage dealt to the rift creatures Rift Rewards Functionality of the bracelet of inspiration has been changed - this item guarantees success on a Moment of Inspiration when improving items, while being worn. Upon creating a rare item the bracelet gets destroyed. Socketed rings now give different crafting and gathering bonuses depending on the gem used Artisan rings increase skill gain for a skill you select up front.. These can also be recharged with rift points when it’s close to being depleted. Shoulder pad functionalities have been changed, and their effects now are more varied, with some providing new buffs such as the Tank and Berserker affinities, respectively reducing and increasing the incoming and outcoming damage at once Soul stealer necklace functionality has been balanced, now triggering only on stronger enemies Included in this update are also functionality enhancements to rift items - all shoulder pads should now be able to be worn on either side, and many of the items will finally be improvable and repairable. Rifts will also no longer alter the terrain significantly, instead being limited to removing trees and grass around the site. More details of the implementation can be found in the public testing thread here and will also be available in the patch notes upon release. We think this update will make attending rifts more rewarding and worthwhile, as we hope to see the activity around these events increase. We’ll be monitoring the changes with the release, in case we still need to iron out the balance of it. Arrow bundles Arrow bundles will be added to the game with this upcoming update, with the intention of making archery more viable. These will allow you to combine multiple arrows into one item, so that you can improve and cast spells onto the bundle to affect all of the bundled arrows. You will be able to combine between 2 and 41 arrows into a bundle, depending on your Fletching skill. We’re still planning on more changes to archery in the future, as it’s not very fun to use bows right now, but this should make it much less of an annoyance to get decent arrows. Resource Nodes Coming soon to the public test servers, we will be introducing a complete replacement for the existing foraging, botanizing, and snow collecting systems. Currently, whether or not a tile can be foraged or botanized, or have snowballs collected from it, is completely invisible until you try to perform the action. On top of that, the results of foraging and botanizing are very random, selecting from mostly the same pool of items no matter what, making it difficult to search for anything specific, even if you know what the possible results are. Replacing all this will be a system where specific resource nodes, with visible graphics, can spawn on tiles randomly over time. You can then gather items from them similarly to how foraging currently works, destroying the resource node in the process. This will be an improvement over the current system in several ways: Foraging and botanizing resources being visible on tiles will make it easier to find what you're looking for, in addition to adding some much-needed visusal variety to the world. Each type of resource node will have its own list of items, so finding specific items should be easier. For instance, if you're looking for rock shards, you can keep an eye out for "rubble" nodes, or if you're looking for branches and sprouts, you might want to look for "undergrowth" nodes. Since there will be many types of nodes, the number of potential items has been greatly expanded. All items from the current foraging and botanizing systems will be available, in addition to many more. Types of resource nodes that can appear on a tile, and how likely they are, depends on many factors, including tile type, altitude, season, and more. This means that foraging and botanizing will be possible on nearly any type of tile, and that both geography and in-game time of year will have a much greater impact on gameplay. For example, you might find dune grasses on sand near the water, lichen growing on pavement, or even fungus growing in caves. Some uncommon tiles, such as enchanted tiles and mycelium, even have their own resource nodes that cannot be found anywhere else. Which items you find from a specific type of resource node, and how likely they are, can depend on similar factors. For example, as in the current system, woad is more common on steppe, but this also extends to certain plants being more common in certain seasons, near water, or several other factors. "Snow" resource nodes will not only accumulate during the winter, but also at high altitude. The minimum altitude for snow to gather will vary depending on time of year, so the tallest mountain peaks will always have some even in Summer, and some lower-altitude areas may only have any during Autumn and Winter. These altitude limits are determined on a per-server basis, so that every server should have roughly the same percentage of tiles above the snow line. Skill will matter more than it does now. Quality will be determined in a fairly similar way to how it is now, but the difficulty of foraging or botanizing is determined by the type of resource node, the type of tile, and the specific item gathered from it. Some special items may also require a certain amount of skill to gather at all, or may become more likely at higher skill. The current foraging and botanizing system has another problem: There is currently no way to know what possible items you might find when foraging or botanizing without looking it up on Wurmpedia or some other resource. To solve this, a "Lore" option has been added to both tiles and resource nodes themselves. When used on a tile, Lore will tell you what types of resource nodes might spawn there under current conditions, in order of how likely they are. When used on a resource node, you will instead receive a list of what items you could possibly harvest from it, also ordered by likelihood. Skill will also matter here, as some higher-difficulty items or resource nodes might be hidden from the Lore command with insufficient skill, but you will always be told when this happens. This should allow players to determine for themselves what they might be able to find and under what conditions, without needing to use the wiki or any other source. This feature also replaces the current random terrain decorations such as stones on dirt or ferns, which are a common point of new player confusion. Action changes The work on this has been going on for a long time now, and while the bulk of it is about making it easier and less bug prone for us to alter anything action-related and add new features, there are some gameplay things this work will immediately affect: Default action key functionality should now be possible to re-bind based on context, rather than be limited to the static target/action set it uses now New quickbar will replace the current quickbar, select bar and the toolbelt slots, creating a more streamlined way of interacting with the game world - with dedicated slots to insert tools and actions into, the quickbar is split into a tabbed top part and a common bottom area, all of which you should be able to arrange the way that suits your playstyle best Toolbelt will now act as a container that keeps items inside of it active at all times, allowing you to do more things without fumbling around with activating different items all the time - various systems in place will try to pick the item suited best to the action you’re trying to perform, but manually activated items will still be prioritized A visible action queue will be added to the UI, with the ability to change order of the queued actions and cancel any of them, rather than just the latest one When actions can’t be performed, rather than being hidden from display, they will now explain what is needed to be able to select that option in the context menu, such as suggesting the required tools. These changes require a rewrite of most action code in the game. Converting actions to this new system also gives us a chance to go back over everything, fixing long standing issues and making things run smoother - for example making flatten and level do what they say they will do. An added bonus of this conversion will mean that all actions will be bindable without them having to be approved manually by the dev team. Here's the original concept for the quickbar to further explain how it will work: The action changes are not yet ready for public testing, but it will be on the test server for everyone to try out well prior to release. Graphics and client improvements We have been working on an overhaul of the lighting model used in the client. This is going to introduce things such as environment reflections on metallic objects, moonlight and lamp shadows, and generally more believable visuals. In this case pictures tell a lot more than words, so here’s screenshots of things we’re ready to show off, including some before/after comparisons: The lighting changes are still a work in progress and should improve significantly before release - the reflections especially still require tweaking from the art side depending on the item. Client performance is something we consider a priority with all of this, so we’re making sure these new features don’t impact it significantly. If we include any heavier visual changes that do affect performance, these will be optional, to be toggled in the game settings. We have also identified some of the current performance issues and these should be addressed soon as well, improving frame rates and reducing stuttering across the board. We are also looking at upgrading our version of the Java runtime soon, which is likely to alleviate some of the issues players have been experiencing, mainly visual hitches and stuttering often caused by the Garbage Collector, which is significantly improved for real time low latency applications such as Wurm (or rather, games in general) in the newer Java versions. Development direction After these changes are out, we plan to continue on improving the new player experience and working on more quality of life improvements, as our main goal currently is to bring more players to the world of Wurm and keep them with us. With all that’s planned now, we aren’t actively working on large content expansions, but that’s not to say we have canned the previously planned work - features like the goblin camps have had work started on them and they are still coming soon after we’re done with our current plans. We’ll be including some smaller content additions in our various updates, such as new craftable decorative items that we nearly have ready for launch. That’s it from us for now. Despite the recent troubles around staff departures, the development team continues to work on the game, and we can’t wait to have these things out for you all to play with. As always, keep on Wurming!
  3. 87 points
    Hey all! With Krister's post made, I wanted to take a moment to thank you all for the beautiful time I've had at the helm here. Stepping down was a hard decision, but it is ultimately the right one for me and Wurm Online. I'm not going away, though. No, I plan on sticking around and maybe fixing a few bugs or adding new and exciting ones! I mean features! New and exciting features! I'll also still be here to help with advice where needed. Wurm is poised to do great things in the coming months. I won't steal anyone's thunder, but I've never seen so many different initiatives being worked on at the same time before. Some will directly impact user experience, while others will drive new and exciting features in and out of the game. I'm proud of this team and what is being accomplished. So if it's going so well, why am I stepping down? Wurm deserves a full-time person in this position. Some of you may know that Wurm Online has always been a part-time job for me. When I stepped up into this role, it was always intended to be temporary, as I knew I could not split my time between my career and Wurm. With Wurm set to do so many great things, the last thing I wanted was to be a bottleneck in that process. With all that said, once again you all have my thanks. Between the community and the Wurm Team, I couldn't have asked for a better group of people to work with. Keep being awesome! Happy Wurming, Keenan
  4. 72 points
    Hi everyone, We’d like to update you today on how and what we’ve been doing in the last few months, as well as showcase our current plan for the near future of Wurm Online. First, we would like to brief you on how Wurm Online and Code Club AB have been doing. As indicated in Game Chest Group’s report (Link), our parent company has improved the quarterly revenue by +11,8% compared to Q4 2022. This means the company has finally turned a profit with new corporate leadership and the increased focus on Wurm Online. During the year the game has performed better, with more players and increased revenue due in large part to maintaining a stable premium player count and the newly introduced silver shop. We’re still learning how to use the shop to best provide you with extra cosmetic items, even if we, most definitely, missed the mark with pricing at times. Going forward we aim to get out more attractive offers as well as a release more free craftable items into the game, not limiting new decoratives it to shop skins. We have more active players than a year ago (close to 1000 more monthly unique logins), and that seems to be climbing steadily. That number is higher than you might think while playing the game, while we don’t have exact data on it, it seems in large part to be new players, who at this point often don’t stay in Wurm for long, which is something we’re actively trying to improve on. We currently have around 4550 premium accounts, which we consider a healthy number. Still, for us to grow the development team, we need to attract more players, something we think our plans laid out below can accomplish. Action rework We are in the process of finishing multiple major projects. The largest, action rework, is nearing completion and will be released onto our test servers very soon. This feature is partly an internal refactor of the code that handles many of the player actions. It adds plenty of quality of life features that will make Wurm better to play, including new toolbelt mechanics, where every item there is activated at the same time, and adds a new quickbar that replaces the old toolbelt UI. The new quickbar also includes the functionality of the current select bar. We’ve also added a visible action queue and new default action mechanics, where you can bind a lot of different actions to a single key easily. For pictures and examples of the changes you’ll encounter after the action rework goes live, see here: Public testing of this feature will follow shortly after we finish the UI part of the changes and we run it through some more intensive internal testing. Expect an announcement on this in the upcoming weeks. Client work Graphics rework and client optimization have both grown in scope and we’re looking at releasing that work on test servers sometime after the action rework goes live. Other than the previously announced lighting improvements, it now also includes a complete terrain overhaul. Terrain will not only look better, with all of the terrain textures being remastered in a higher resolution, but the performance should be drastically improved as well. These changes will reduce stuttering when walking around and will take up less memory, which, in turn, should allow you to run the game at higher quality settings without sacrificing performance - or you can just run a few more clients with alt accounts at once, if that’s your jam. New Haven Finally, I want to reveal one of our biggest recent development projects, a total revamp of the new player experience. Codenamed New Haven, this will be a starting island on which you land right after you complete the tutorial. The game rules of that area will be adjusted so it’s less dangerous and faster for new players to start on, giving them a better environment to learn on, before they dive into the real lands of Wurm. This may remind you of what Golden Valley once was, except a lot more friendly and guided than starting on GV was, back in the day. Players will be guided through their first hours in the game by an entirely new quest system, at first unique to that new server, providing small rewards for players performing certain tasks that showcase various mechanics that they need to learn in order to survive Wurm. We hope this will help newbies avoid getting overwhelmed with everything they can do, and instead being able to better understand the game a small piece at a time. While “quests” as you may know them from other games may feel out of place for the sandbox of Wurm, we believe this is the way to go for us to reduce the amount of new players leaving the game early on. This server will use new land protection mechanics in place of deeds, instead linked to fenced areas around houses, to both make it simpler for new players to understand and to mitigate the possibility of claiming large areas of land. The goal is for players to be able to play close to other players, while still having enough wild areas to explore. We will most likely extend this mechanic to work on all servers, to make off-deed living just a bit more viable. A large challenge of this project that we are yet to finalize, are other limitations so that players will be motivated to eventually move onto the regular Wurm servers. We also need to make it so they don’t feel like they’re leaving their hard work behind. We do have a few ideas for solving that, like being able to pack your house to move it to another location, but we’ll share the details with you once they are more fleshed out. The aim for this project is to lessen the drop out rate of new players. We hope new players will also be able to join the community early, as we are going to allow everyone to visit that server. Portals Together with New Haven, we’ll be introducing a new portal mechanic, allowing you to teleport from any server to any other server, as well as between starter deeds on the same server. We would like to not ever have to ask players to make new accounts if they want to change their playing server, as that often is what happens now, as well as allow everyone to play with their friends at any time, wherever their account is. Mind you, this does not mean a complete NFI-SFI merge, although we do intend on having almost everything, other than your items, transfer. That means your character, coins, skills, will now all cross between those two server clusters. Due to economic concerns, items are currently excluded from the transfers, but we have looked into skill statistics and found that at this point, the skill gap is not significant enough for us to have a reason to keep it separate. We hope this will make the new server transfers a more popular feature, since your skills will no longer be locked to the Freedom cluster you've been playing on, so it'll be easier for you to explore or move to any of the other islands. Upcoming months Shortly after we release all the previously mentioned work, we would like to focus on more content for all players to enjoy. A good bit of this will be things we already announced in the past, but priority changes came in the way. PvE content We plan on releasing this as an update soon after New Haven. It’ll include goblin camps, a new feature focusing on exploration and combat, as well as a building expansion, currently planned to include ceilings, docks, and new wall types. Character customization rework We’re in the initial planning phase of a character customization overhaul. This will address most of the complaints with the current player character visuals, while looking better and adding a lot more possible variations, including more detailed faces and new hairstyles. In-game auction house Another project being developed is an in-game auction house, which will handle both auction and WTS offers. It’s meant to facilitate trade between players - you’ll be able to sell and purchase items through a new UI window, currently planned to be accessible through any mailbox in the game. Longer term projects Most of our plans for the future will depend strongly on the outcome of the releases of changes described above, so we would like to avoid creating a definite roadmap for the entire year here. There’s just not much point in that right now, as we historically haven’t been great at following our own roadmaps, so our aim is to only promise what we’re sure we can deliver, and to bring you the things you’ve long waited for. Among previously mentioned changes you might be wondering what happened with, is the new account system and PvP work. The account system is something that is not currently the priority, but we likely will focus on finishing it in the later part of the year. Our developers are actively looking into PvP tweaks and balancing, but we have no progress ready to share yet in either of those projects. I hope you can forgive me for this post being so text-heavy, as these aren’t things we can easily show off right now, but you can expect more posts from us to pop up over time with details about each of these works. Thank you everyone for your continued support, and we can’t wait to have you try out what we’ve been working on! Happy Wurming! PS: This year's map dumps have just been released. Check them out here:
  5. 72 points
    I am thrilled to be able to reveal what I have been working on for a while now. Sometime last year I was watching an old movie when a fantastic idea crawled up to me. Time, unfortunately, was not on my side during 2022, so all I could do was put that idea on hold. However, with the help of the developers, I will finally get the chance to work on this grand idea. I still cannot believe it took me so long to notice this about our world of Wurm Online, but now it is just so glaring that I cannot get it out of my head. So many ideas and so many great games and events have just been sitting in the stranger corners of my mind. After a few conversations with the devs, one idea of mine clicked with them, and one of my bigger event plans crept towards the light. News of this idea and its parts had to be tightly kept under wraps. A new testing client was used to prevent anyone from finding out what I was up to. Pulling this off without anyone noticing has been a lot of fun for me as well. Raising the curtain on this too early had risks, as we had to do a lot of testing in secret, and we did not want to get peoples hopes up if we ran into any major roadblocks. It all worked as intended, so here we are now. Listening to me ramble on about my excitement is not what you are here for. Features and creatures are what you want to know about. Ordinarily, the developers would be revealing these things to you instead of me. Only this time, these features will be an intricate part of my plans which will span all isles. Let me get on with the show and tell before zombification sets in. Shall we 'dive' in... ? Using the Diving Platform is almost the same as using any raft, you will be able to anchor it in any body of water, but the ‘Dive to’ diving options will not be possible in shallow water depths. This will allow access to the underwater terrain for terrain modification, construction, and access to underwater caves, as well as several possible underwater diving levels reachable based on skill. Keep that third use in mind! The platform can be made using the same materials as a raft, plus one of several light source types, an extra wooden shaft, an extra rope, and an anchor. While the platform itself will have storage capacity like a raft, it will be more limited. You will understand why in a little bit. Diving from the Diving Platform will grant you a limited amount of time under water, you will have to watch your breath meter closely, but the amount of time you can remain underwater will be determined by your Body Stamina, Mind Logic, and a new set of 'Diving' skills. ‘Snorkeler’, ‘Freediver’, and ‘Deep Sea Diver’. At this time only Freediver and Deep Sea Diver will be the easiest to raise as there is more use for these skills than Snorkeler. As soon as you run out of breath, your health will immediately begin to suffer and you will need to reach the surface quickly or you shall die. The deeper you have descended, the more time it takes to get back to the surface. Your corpse will be at the surface for retrieval. Keep an eye on those sharks too! With the update that will bring these new features, sharks will now eat corpses after a while. This also goes for some animals on land including wolves, bears, and boars! I present to you, the Diving Bell! The Diving Bell has its roots in ancient times and combined with the Diving Platform it will open up a plethora of new possibilities. At this time the Diving Bell can be equipped on knarrs, and corbitas, and more importantly, the Diving Platform. Diving Bells have a place to add an internal light source, organized storage compartments, and three seats. The Diving Bell can be made using copper, iron, or steel sheets, with rivets, ribbons, and lead for the ballast weights. One Diving Bell provides access to a single tile on the ocean floor, but while you are descended, you may move the Diving Bell to any adjacent tile of the tile you originally descended to. This gives you the ability to harvest resources, dig, or mine within a 3x3 area per descent, as well as the ability to construct some upcoming underwater structures. Additionally, from the Diving Platform or a ship, you may choose which tile to descend to with each dive with the use of a spyglass. This way you do not have to relocate your Diving Platform or ship in order to change the destination of the Diving Bell when you descend. Diving Bells offer you a substantially longer amount of time that you can remain underwater than freediving from Diving Platforms allow. More than enough time for one person to mine out a cave entrance and the next tile in, but keep an eye on the air meter. It will look sort of like the compass on screen, but the design of the meter has not been finalized yet so I could not show you a picture of it at this time. Diving Bells support up to three occupants, the owner and two guests. They also function like tents and give you a place to respawn if needed, and to tie a creature to for transport. More on them in a later update. You can also log out in a Diving Bell while descended and log back in with the same amount of remaining air as you had when you logged out. Using Diving Bells and Free Diving from the platform gives us a new area of the world to interact with beyond just the bottom of the oceans. You can also 'Dive To' intermediate layers named for their depths where you can among other things, collect bigger fish, or build and harvest from sea farm zones, including shellfish, and more. A final quick word regarding the Diving Platform and Diving Bell on PvP. Do not let your rope get cut! You will not be able to ascend in time before drowning if diving to deeper levels. If you are using the Diving Bell when your line gets cut, then there is a chance for someone to come and attach a new line to it from a ship or diving platform above before your air runs out. This is all very exciting stuff and still in the early stages. The Diving Bell, Diving Platform, Sea Cages, and a few other items are ready to go once added to the main client, but other features and items will be added probably in the first quarter of next year. The reason for the delay is because the Developers wanted me to be able to open up my latest treasure hunt on time, so they focused on making adjustments to the oceans, caves, and making working platforms and Diving Bells, since we needed to be able to make underwater caves that you would not drown in as well as multiple dive depth layers. There will be new creatures added, a couple of new shark types, and some new sea creatures. Some will be dangerous, others not so much, but these will be a surprise for now. There will be a new type of cave bug and a couple of other creatures to facilitate my next surprise, though I was unable to convince the developers of the need for 'frogspiders' but those are the least significant bits in all of this. Yes! You heard right! I said Treasure Hunt! Last time, I let you stumble across the secret treasure hunt, but this time I am telling you there will be one. Or more! You will not be able to find any clues quickly, as they have not been activated yet. Someday someone will find and activate one and start the treasure hunt, or hunts, mentioned in this reveal. Happy Diving! Enki (Head Game Master) Wurm Online
  6. 71 points
    Dear Community, Expectations are high and I did not deliver on those. I would first like to apologize for the delay in my response. The website launch was less than satisfactory and I take the opportunity to thank you for your feedback and to say that I am sorry. It hurts me seeing the backlash the team has been subjected to. The team did not get the opportunity to add their input to the website before launch. And they took it upon themselves to update the website as soon as it was released, working united to change it. I am grateful for that and their passion to quickly address the feedback and concerns raised by the community. The quality assurance is my responsibility, and I did not uphold the quality you deserve. What happened? The website was launched with the intent of being adopted by the community to change and evolve with the game. I failed to communicate that vision and exactly why and how we envisioned the website and the team has had massive backlash because of it. The placeholder images and text needed to be communicated more clearly and that the website is a living organism that will grow, change and adapt. We showcase the game on the front page, with our Steam Launch trailer, featuring captures within the game as well as game updates with in-game images. The intention is not and never will be to sell the game for something that it is not. We won’t reach our target demographic if we do, and we will see a massive drop off as soon as they spawn with their new character. So we want to show off the game as is, not to embellish the game, rather to invoke a sense of what is possible. And by having the website be our own space, with player created content and a strong community, we can reach new players that stick around. The way I communicate… It has come to my attention that my communication appears stiff and formulaic, and that it’s just marketing talk. But it is the way I write and the tonality and language I choose to communicate with. My English, seeing as it’s not my birth language, may give a sense of rigidness, but it does not take away the fact that they are my own words. But trust me, my Swedish has the same tone. I am not well versed in forums or discussion boards and, having tried it, my desire to reply to everybody was a task I could not do without it affecting my work and the results were less than stellar. So, from now on, I will let Demona and the rest of the staff be the communicators. Next steps As you all know, we are currently working on updating the website after taking in the feedback from all of you and implementing changes as we speak. That’s how we grow and make it great. We have help from the community and the wonderful Malena/Katspurr who’s going over all the images. Having her onboard will ensure that the end product will meet the high expectations you have set. The team have joined together to add to and remove superlative text and correct the translations. In closing We now have the foundation to build upon, a new website built from the ground up to facilitate the features we want and that welcomes the community to make it their own. It can be so much more than just a business card on the internet. With all that said, I hope you can accept my apology and that we focus, not on what went wrong, rather focus on how to fix it… Because without all of you, it would be impossible. Thank you for taking the time to listen.
  7. 65 points
    Ho! Ho! Ho! Santa Claus is in a festive frenzy as the holiday season approaches, but disaster has struck his jolly abode - the North Pole's famed toy factory! The once meticulously organized machinery has gone haywire, leaving pipes, gears, and valves scattered all over the lands of Wurm. From 22nd December 2023 15:00 CET until 11th January 2024 12:00 CET, you can participate in the Christmas event. Help Santa by returning his factory parts. The event is divided into mission stages for the main prizes: First mission: return 3 gears Second mission: return 6 valves Third mission: return 9 pipes Any additional stage: return any of the event items (gear, valve or pipe) in increasing numbers, repeatable infinitely Gears, valves and pipes can be gathered from any resource node. You can also find them randomly by digging, mining and woodcutting. Return them directly to Santa (at spawn deeds) or to any Christmas tree. The reward for each completed stage is one of 3 new gift items. Large sled "A fairly large sled designed to be dragged by an animal." Works exactly as a large cart. It has the same crafting recipe, but can not be crafted. You will receive an unfinished large sled as mission reward, which you can finish building yourself. Statue of elf "An impish little creature wearing a funny hat. Is that... a gift in its gnarled hands?" It's made randomly out of any metal type, with a lower chance to be made out of moon metals. Merry wreath "A ring-shaped wreath crafted from fir branches, thoughtfully decorated with candles and shiny crimson red baubles." After the third mission, you will have a small chance to receive a gift from previous Christmas events instead: a yule goat, yule reindeer, lunchbox, saddle bags, snowman, bedroll, checker board or jewelry box skin. The mission items (gear, valve, pipe) are only collectable while the event is running and won't be removed at the end of the event. All three of them are made from unspecified metal and can be used for decoration afterwards. The pipe can also be equipped as a (rather useless) weapon and uses the clubs skill. In addition to the missions, you can also find gifts through archaeology again this year. There are 3 new items obtainable through archaeology during the event: a wooden bell, a wooden reindeer and a wooden comet. The archaeology gifts from previous Christmas events can be found at a lower rate as well: candy canes wooden snowflake wooden fir tree wooden star ornamental baubles yule goat figurine yule reindeer figurine Last but not least, you will receive a 10% bonus to skill gain and a 10% higher chance to gain affinities for the whole duration of the event. We wish you a wonderful Christmas time. Happy Holidays from the whole Wurm Online team!
  8. 55 points
    Since the launch of the Resource Nodes update, we have been paying attention to feedback and would like to address some concerns that have been raised, answer some questions, and announce some upcoming changes. Spirit Templars and Resource Nodes There has been significant negative feedback concerning the requirement to have a spirit templar hired at a settlement in order to disable resource node spawning. We know village aesthetics are important to many players, and some have expressed frustration that they need to hire a spirit templar they did not previously need to maintain theirs. We will be removing the requirement to have a spirit templar in order to disable resource node spawning on-deed. The feature to disable on-deed resource node spawning was a late addition to the Resource Nodes update, intended to give players a convenient option, and we felt that tying it to spirit templars was a reasonable way to make spirit templars more useful in a PvE environment. We saw this as an additional convenience feature of spirit templars, but given how this has been received, that requirement will be removed entirely. Foraging while riding Some players have found it inconvenient during testing to dismount from a horse (or disembark from a vehicle) every time they want to collect items from resource nodes, especially since resource nodes naturally involve more travel than the old foraging and botanizing mechanics. We will be removing the requirement to be on solid ground in order to collect from resource nodes. This will make foraging and botanizing more consistent with similar actions allowed from vehicles, such as harvesting fruit and picking sprouts. We also have plans to make the process of mounting, dismounting, and leading a horse more convenient with the upcoming actions rework, which is currently in development. This will result in much smoother gameplay when traveling while performing actions that require standing on solid ground. Snowballs Some players have reported difficulty in finding enough snowballs to fill their larders, given the scarcity of snow piles. We will be making a number of adjustments to improve the situation here: Snowball count per snow pile was increased during public testing, but we will be increasing it again in a more substantial fashion. We will be increasing the average quality level of snowballs found when collecting multiple from one snow pile, since the quality tends to drop off the higher the amount. This was also the case in the old system, but is felt more in the new system since you tend to get more snowballs per action. We will be granting food items in inventory a significant grace period before they begin to take damage from decay. This is similar to the grace period items outside the inventory have, but shorter. In other words, newly created food, including foraged items and snowballs, will have a significantly longer time in your inventory before they start decaying. This should give you a much longer time to get snowballs or foraged food back to your larder and bins. We will be making snowball collecting actions themselves slightly faster, lowering the amount of action time per snowball gathered. Hover Outlines We have received reports regarding the new hover outlines, citing concerns such as their thinness, difficulty in visibility, visual artifacts, or incorrect color. The change was implemented in the first place to support semi-transparent objects, such as the new resource nodes. This updated rendering method is also a lot more performant. Your concerns are taken seriously however, and we agree that more work is needed in this area. Therefore, additional efforts will be dedicated to improving the new outlines again.
  9. 55 points
    I am honored and saddened to bring the Wurm community the news of the passing of one of our own. Aaedean passed away tonight after a lengthily hospital stay following a heart attack this October. Many people have encountered him as he was very generous with his time, often helping at many community events as the master craftsman he was. Please use this post to recount stories of encounters with him and how he may have impacted your time in Wurm. In loving memory of Aaedean, A master craftsman whose hands shaped wonders, Smithing and carpentry were his canvas, His artistry a testament to boundless skill. Yet beyond the brilliance of his craft, Lies the legacy of a generous soul, A heart that gave abundantly, To friends, to kin, to community whole. Rest now, dear Aaedean, Your works immortalized in metal and wood, Your kindness a lasting echo, In the hearts you've touched, forever understood.
  10. 53 points
    To my great sadness, I learned yesterday that long time player and friend KellyT passed away suddenly last month, following an update from his family on Facebook. He was 28 years old. For those of you who are are also friends with Kelly on social media, you can leave your own respects on his Facebook wall, although I urge you to be respectful of his family's privacy and not press them for details about his passing before they feel ready to share that themselves. I first met KellyT all the way back in 2010, back when we played on Independence together at the village of Nyrada in the middle of the server, alongside his Mom and my friend Johnny. Being around the same age, we'd sit on Skype together as we played and chat about life, high school and how loud his refrigerator was. Due to the draconian and totalitarian rules of the Freedom servers, it was not yet possible for Kelly to take possession of boats that were wasted on their original owners. It was at the opening of the Epic cluster that his true legacy began. I did not immediately follow Kelly to the Horde of the Summoned, although it was hard to miss his impact once I arrived in Libila's one true kingdom. It must be stressed that KellyT was a pirate. KellyT bravely liberated watercraft from the disgusting Whitelighters who, in their ignorance of the true faith, were fundamentally unqualified to traverse the seven seas. He informed us of his noble quest through a variety of signage placed across the servers, and many a vessel could be found abandoned with KellyT's name inscribed upon its hull. I did not know KellyT's full adventures in Wurm, and I'm sure there are many great stories that others could share about their times with him. I am aware that Kelly's original account was not in good standing in Wurm Online, but that should not be allowed to detract from his heroic legacy of stealing boats. Regarding his nautical exploits, I want to share something his Mom wrote in tribute to him: I am not personally active in the game so I'm not sure what would be the best way to pay tribute to Kelly and his time in Wurm. You may find it fitting to write "KellyT is a pirate" or KellyT was a pirate" on a sign and place it in your harbour area, or some may prefer to come together to create a memorial site or colossus in tribute to him. I decided I wanted to put this sad news out here rather than spend too long writing out all my memories of KellyT, and I'd be grateful for any other funny and interesting stories people could share about their time ingame with the pirate himself. If people wish, I would be happy to pass on any condolences to his family in this difficult time. May KellyT, the eternal pirate, rest in peace.
  11. 52 points
    Dear Wurm Online Community, I am Krister Elmgren, CEO of Game Chest Group, and I'm excited to bring you news of important updates, leadership changes, and an all-new branding for our beloved Wurm Online. New Branding First off, we're thrilled to soon be revealing our brand-new branding for Wurm Online going live at the end of the month! We've been working hard to develop a fresh, vibrant, and memorable identity that truly reflects the spirit of this unique game and its fantastic community. We believe this new branding will further enhance your experience and provide a strong foundation as we continue to grow and evolve the game. Trader Contracts & Our New In-Game Shop We have been hard at work behind the scenes, and are proud to introduce an in-game shop, which you can access anywhere and at any time. This shop will feature a wider variety of in-game items, including new skins, timed discounts, and special events. Accessibility and convenience were key factors in this new development; now you can get what you need, when you need it. In light of this, the function of traders will be discontinued and the refunds will not be in place. However, the traders will remain in-game as a testament to the game's history, and any existing discounts tied to your deeds will still be applicable. As we progress, items available in the shop will also include those that offer discounts on deeds, fostering an even playing field for new players. Traders will remain available for purchase until July 17th, so seize the opportunity to invest in the future of your deeds with trader contracts while you still can. New Roles As we actively pursue the perfect fit for the Product Director position, I will be stepping into this role, managing all facets of Human Resources planning and execution. This role will strive to emulate and build upon Keenan’s significant contributions, continuing to supervise and lead Wurm Online and the team from a macroscopic perspective. The position is poised to foster deeper ties with our corporate entities while assuming responsibility for the triumphs of our dedicated teams. Samool is stepping up as Product Manager. His passion for the game and execution style makes an excellent fit for this role. We're confident that with Samools new role Wurm Online as a product will continue to grow and innovate. Samool will plan and execute development from a product perspective, opening up new avenues for growth. Willow/Pomona's ascension to the role of Head Game Master marks a significant milestone in her journey within the gaming industry. With her exceptional leadership capabilities and extensive experience, she is more than qualified to take on this crucial position. Throughout her tenure, Willow has consistently demonstrated a deep understanding of the game's intricacies and a genuine passion for fostering a vibrant and engaging gaming community. Under her leadership she will continue to foster a sense of camaraderie and excitement within the player base. Furthermore, Willow will also take the helm of the marketing and community team, showcasing her ability to connect with players beyond the game itself. Under her leadership, the marketing and community team will thrive, fostering a sense of camaraderie and excitement within the player base. Willow's appointment as Head Game Master is a testament to her admirable contributions and her inspiring leadership capabilities. Role Changes I want to take a moment to appreciate Enki, our Head Game Master, who's stepping into retirement. His dedication has truly shaped our game. Though we'll miss him in this role, we have an exciting new role for him that we will announce at a later date where Enki can continue to enrich our community with his creativity. Thank you, Enki, for all you've done and will continue to do. I'd like to acknowledge the significant contributions of Keenan, our volunteer Product Manager. His passion and expertise have been fundamental in leading our team. We're grateful for his dedication and invaluable input to Wurm Online. Keenan will be stepping down from his role but will continue to enrich our community. His many qualities that made him such an asset to our team will undoubtedly continue to shine in his ongoing involvement. I can’t thank him enough for all the hard work and guidance. Keenan continues being a large part of Wurm Online in a new Advisory role, ensuring the success of Wurm Online. Next Steps for Wurm Online We're poised to expand the world around Wurm Online. Our new website will not only host a marketplace to showcase the unique aspects of the game but also serve as a platform to broaden its lore and history. We want to make our game even better, and by raising the game's revenue through the new website, in-game shop, and marketing initiatives, we will be bringing more people on board to accelerate our development efforts. A key part of our new website will be a dedicated community page, showcasing player-generated content, statistics, high-scores, and more. We're also developing a character dashboard to manage all your accounts from one place and share your character stats(opt-in). This community hub will offer newcomers a glimpse into the vibrant world of Wurm Online. We want you to be a part of the official branding and are looking for volunteers to run our social media as well as for content creators. Despite being a newbie in the Wurm Online community, I am deeply committed to this game and its potential for growth. The unwavering dedication and creativity of this community continue to inspire us. Thank you for your continued support and for making Wurm Online the thriving game that it is today. Together, let's show the world what they've been missing and that even underdogs can bark! Best regards, Krister Elmgren, CEO Game Chest Group
  12. 51 points
    Hey everyone! Wurm has a new Community Manager, which is me (obviously). And as I don't want anyone to panic now, I'll give you a quick overview of myself so you know who you're dealing with. Here is my dating general profile: 25 years old, male (He/Him), from Germany Wurm player since 2012 (I started on Deliverance, spent most of my time on Epic though) Former Game Master for War Thunder & Crossout Wurm Unlimited modder Background in software & video game development Weird sense of humor Prefers cats over dogs My real name is Hannes (which sounds like "Hans" in english 🙃) If you are good at math, you probably just noticed that I was very young when I started playing the game. Only 13 years old to be exact. Wurm Online played an important role in my teenage years and always accompanied me while I was growing up. That's why this position means a lot to me. Officially, I am the link between you and the Wurm Online team, but personally, I think that the Community Manager for such a special game needs to be more than that. So from now on, I am not only here to keep you updated on everything about the game, it's development and the latest events, but also to listen to your feedback or possible concerns you might have. I'll also assist you with any questions or general requests related to the game, so please, never hesitate to contact me! You can message me here on the Wurm Online Forum or by email at army[at]wurmonline.com. I'm really looking forward to work with this unique community and I promise to give nothing but my best for all of you. I guess we will hear a lot more from each other very soon! - Army / Hannes (Community Manager)
  13. 51 points
    I've refrained from posting publicly because I don't want to cause drama. Seems like that ship has not only sailed, but is on fire out there somewhere. I just want to say that this community is one of the best I've seen, and you deserve so much more than what you're getting here. To the staff that read this, please know you are appreciated no matter what decisions you make. To the rest of us, please be gentle with the team right now. Patience and even kind words will go far for those who have decided to stay and support us. I'm going to keep hoping for the best here. I hope that Krister learns to listen to the community and let us all help grow Wurm. That's all I've ever asked for. Thanks for reading. "Be the change that you wish to see in the world." - Gandhi
  14. 51 points
    Very tacky, looks and feels like a mobile phone ad or something that'd autoplay in a website ad space back in the mid 2000's. It's filled with buzzwords and typical "hype" terms that mean nothing at all for this game. "Where choices matter"? What choices? What slope my tile is going to be? "Destiny waits for no one" what destiny? The game has 0 questline or story that matters. What destiny? Katspurr produced a trailer that much better shows what we have to offer, using elements that are much more realistic. This was made by someone who hasn't played and wants to mass market with a total bait and switch. This branding and graphic work looks poor too. It looks like it belongs on Android, with a cartoon style and colour scheme that reminds me of a Minecraft mod pack.
  15. 50 points
    Tired of the wreaths? Let's deck the halls with tales of glory!!!! Did y'all know we could do this?! I decided I wanted the horse in a different pose....
  16. 50 points
    Hello everyone, rather than rattle the cage of "why is VEN dead? There's a major influx of streamers and it doesn't exist!" I got the brilliant idea from Jelly in GL chat to make the MEN - Madnath Entertainment Network. Here, you'll find a list of the currently active streamers across Twitch and YouTube that stream Wurm. I cannot manually post when they go live, so please be sure to give them a follow if you manage to catch them and enjoy their content. Wurm playerbase has often yelled and screamed about the idea of more advertising, even though we've seen many times that traditional advertising hasn't worked out for this game. Streaming the game is a very real and valuable way to advertise the game and get it out there. Some of our current streamers stream other games too, and the viewers they pull in from those games, often tune in to their Wurm streams in order to get more of the streamer and some get curious enough to try the game! Please don't turn this post into a debate about the value of Twitch or our streamers, this isn't the place for it. I want to do what little I can to support our streamers and get the word out there. These will be marked as either a streamer or a content creator. Streamer = streams Wurm live, and may have VOD to watch at a later date Content Creator = Prerecorded content, uploaded online. Absurdides https://www.twitch.tv/absurdides (English streamer) Alexeykiller https://www.twitch.tv/alexeykiller (Stream marked as Russian) Bearclaws_ https://www.twitch.tv/bearclaws_ (Stream marked as English) CraftyJoe https://www.youtube.com/@craftyjoe (English content creator) Upload schedule: Tuesdays and Fridays 12:00 PST DestionGaming https://www.twitch.tv/destiongaming (English streamer) Dr3amt https://www.twitch.tv/dr3amt (English streamer) Dracaa https://www.twitch.tv/dracaa (English streamer) Dragoncatzipt https://www.twitch.tv/dragoncatzipt (English streamer) Fabricant https://www.twitch.tv/fabricant (English streamer, fart warning) FactionalFight https://www.twitch.tv/factionalfight (English streamer) Fainne https://www.twitch.tv/fainne13 (English streamer) GafferBoffin https://www.twitch.tv/gafferboffin (English streamer) Gerbold https://www.twitch.tv/trufel_brain/ (Polish streamer) Grumblykins https://www.twitch.tv/grumblykins (English streamer) Hamtad https://www.twitch.tv/hamtad (English streamer) Schedule: Monday/Wednesday/Friday 12PM - 4PM (Pacific Standard Time) Jack_Dryden https://www.twitch.tv/jack_dryden (English streamer) JosuhaCalvert https://www.twitch.tv/josuhacalvert (English streamer) KatsPurr https://www.twitch.tv/katspurr (English streamer, variety streamer) Kaufecake https://www.youtube.com/@Kaufecake/featured (English streamer) Kichi Endo https://www.youtube.com/@Kichiendo (English content creator) Last_to_Fall https://www.twitch.tv/last_to_fall (English streamer) Michio_Kepler https://www.twitch.tv/michio_kepler (English streamer) NamasCrazyGrl https://www.twitch.tv/namascrazygrl (English streamer) Playtime https://www.youtube.com/@playtimewithsorrow9374 (English streamer) QueenAzylis https://www.twitch.tv/queenazylis (English streamer) Quzar https://www.youtube.com/@quzar5369 (English content creator) ScarredVulcan (English streamer) https://www.twitch.tv/scarredvulcan SouthLP https://www.twitch.tv/south_lp (Russian streamer) https://www.youtube.com/@SouthLP Treecork https://www.twitch.tv/treecork (English streamer) Valiance_Streaming https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCI4JY3eEnhy4bLcoX6diKxA (English content creator) Xagru https://www.twitch.tv/xagru (English and Polish streamer) https://www.youtube.com/@Xagru Zuelatek https://www.twitch.tv/zuelatek (English streamer) "What the heck Madnath, I'm not on the list!" If you're missing, please let me know! Either drop a message below or PM me on the forum or ingame! I've only tried to include streamers with some level of consistency for streams in order to not clutter the list, however not everyone has VODs on their Twitch profile. This list is compiled from my knowledge and a streamer tracking website, so I don't expect the list to be full. Nobody has eyes in the back of their head, so if you're missing, please just tell me. I'm more than happy to add anyone who streams Wurm or makes content elsewhere and I hope this list does something to show we've got an active streamer and content creator community that really needs some proper VEN style support. I can't offer much in the way of actual support ingame, but if you're an SFI streamer I can maybe see about imping your weapons for you to help keep you safe in the wilderness. I also want to take a moment to just say this isn't a slight towards staff for VEN being on the backburner. A system like that times a lot of time to tweak to get right for all parties, and so long as it does remain something they're reviewing, I'm happy to wait. But with such a large influx of streamers, I think it's important to do what we can until its ready.
  17. 49 points
    We are running a Black Friday sale this year again! From November 23rd 23:59 CET until November 27th 6:00 CET, all premium time and silver coin offers on our web shop and Steam shop are 30% off. In addition to that, we prepared something special for the ingame silver shop. From November 23rd 23:59 CET until December 2nd 6:00 CET, the following is available in the silver shop: A rerun of the 10 most favoured old skins, available for 5 silver coins each Various discounts on other items, including sleep powder The new "maple leaf necklace" item, redeemable for free for any player with an active premium account (claimable until December 7th 6:00 CET) So don't miss out on these limited-time offers and don't forget to claim your free item through the ingame silver shop! - The Wurm Online Team
  18. 48 points
    "Under the veil of the eerie moonlight, when malevolent spirits emerge from the shadows, we gather once more to invoke the time-tested tradition of cleansing." Sharpen your weapons and slip into your armors, polish your trowels and prepare your chisels - it's time to push the evil forces back into oblivion! From October 27th 2023 (00:00 CEST) until November 5th 2023 (23:59 CET) it's Halloween time in Wurm. Besides a 20% skill gain bonus and a 20% increased chance to gain an affinity, you also have the chance to find new special Halloween items: "Skjaldi the Scarecrow" (archeology item) "Autumn wreath" (archeology item) (placeable on walls!) "Black-winged shoulderpads" (creature drop) That's not scary enough yet? Boo! There is still more! You can also find the items from the previous years at a lower rate: "Sigvard the Skeleton" (archeology item) "Flaming skull candle" (archeology item) "Pet bat cage" (archeology item) "Statue of Pumpkin Terror" (archeology item) "Pumpkin shoulder pad" (creature drop) "Troll mask" (creature drop) "Skull mask" (creature drop) "Deception mask" (creature drop) "Plague mask" (creature drop) "Faceless mask" (creature drop) "Minion mask" (creature drop) "Witch hat" (creature drop) "Black bear helm" (creature drop) And that's still not all! We are also running a sleep powder sale during Halloween time. Use this opportunity together with the 20% skill gain and affinity chance increase to grind until you look like a spooky skeleton yourself! (Just joking of course, please don't do that... or?) We hope you'll enjoy this special time in Wurm. Happy Halloween from the whole Wurm Online team!
  19. 44 points
    Cadence Rollercoaster Derby On August 31st and 32nd I will be hosting 8 races on the newly constructed Rollercoaster Derby track at Sonata on Cadence. Anyone on NFI can easily participate, and anyone on SFI may participate, but yes you will need an account on NFI as I am not going to port or portal people across clusters. But fear not! The prizes may be bestowed upon any account of the winners choice! We will have a Donkey Dash, a Horse Hop, a Bovine Boogie, and yes, possibly, a Crocodile Crawl! All animals will be provided! You do not need to bring your own! Do not try to bring gear or other speed boosters, or caffeinated hay. The schedule is for 8 races, 4 for anyone, and 4 for those with the skill to lead and ride a horse. Estimated Times in GMT+0 24 hour / 12 hour format Race #1 13:00 / 01:00 PM - Donkey Dash - Race #2 14:00 / 02:00 PM - Horse Hop - Race #3 17:00 / 05:00 PM - Donkey Dash - Race #4 18:00 / 06:00 PM - Crocodile Crawl (Horse Hop if not enough Dundee's in attendance) - Race #5 21:00 / 09:00 PM - Bovine Boogie - Race #6 22:00 / 10:00 PM - Crocodile Crawl (Horse Hop if not enough Dundee's in attendance) - Race #7 24:00 / 00:00 AM - Donkey Dash - Race #8 01:00 / 01:00 AM - Horse Hop- Prizes for each race: 1st place = Gold Trophy + 1 month premium + 10 silvers 2nd place = Silver Trophy + 3 weeks premium + 5 silvers 3rd place = Bronze Trophy + 2 weeks premium + 3 silvers All participants will receive a participation "ribbon" Food and Drink will be provided. How to attend! Look for the little access road marked with a subtle little display on the highway heading north of the center of Sonata. Follow the gravel path through the woods and over the spectator bridge and through more woods until you reach the Indiana Jones bridge. From there simply cross the bridge and take a hop skip, skip and jump over the dale(whatever that is) until you find the under track tunnel. Pass through the tunnel and finally make a left at the entrance sign on to the spectator grounds. *note: there are several spectator bridges over the race track spread around Sonata. Who will be atop the podium! note: The timetables above is an estimate as delays may be encountered! I will try my best to stick to the schedule. I will post any updates here. /Enki ====================================================================================== Hello everyone! I am building an event aimed to be held toward the latter part of August. This hopefully will be the first of many different events I will build and host in Wurm Online as an "in game content creator"..... yeah we will think of a title for me.... For this month I would like to devote my effort towards building a functional multifaceted race track with the current mission system. I plan to build on Cadence on the northern cluster this time, but do not worry for those on the southern cluster, I gotta start somewhere, and I am planning at least one more race track on the southern isles, and maybe up to 3 more, two on each cluster. The plan is to have different race types on the same course while the course itself changes to keep it from being a simple oval course. The mission logistics for a race track seem simple, but there are a few things I must solve that can really only be understood by use. This post will be updated with more information as I design the course and the container mission. At this time I am planning on hosting 8 races on one event day towards the end of the month. Currently the plan is for 4 horse races, and 4 donkey races. A few minutes ago an idea has emerged to split the 4 horse races up into 2 horse races and 2 crocodile races. The other set could be donkeys and cows. The primary reason for the different races is to be able to include both new and old people to give all a chance to win some useful and nice rewards. The rewards are still in flux as well but I have been given the go ahead to work with my intention of giving each 1st place winner a named gold trophy item such as a small anvil. Second place of each race will get a silver anvil, and third place will get a bronze anvil. For all I know I may hand out gold silver and bronze corn or something. But that is not all! I can't be held to it just yet, but I will likely be awarding premium, silvers, and sleep powders as well top the winners of each race! I hope this will draw a large crowd and we can have some fun on Cadence at the Encore deed. I am posting this now for several reasons. I want to draw as big a crowd as possible, and I want to give you time to prepare to participate when I set a date later this month. Ideas to improve the race and information about issues with particular rideables are welcomed here so that I can plan accordingly. So lets start planning for some fun times ahead! /Enki (no title) Complication #0001 I just heard about this, and I will need to get together with Mrwicksters and support his work and not impede it. update #0002 maybe I should consider moving to SFI for this month? update #0003 Well... I have good news and bad news... The good news is, I have consulted with MrWickster and my plans can coexist with his and I aim to hold my event after his impalong. I intend to be at his impalong and will bring a bag of donated items. Granted those items will still be in use by their respective owners, but I am sure we can come to some arrangement on getting them to part with them. The bad news is that after a discussion with Tomatoes I now have a number of more ideas to implement in my race track to make things far more interesting! update #0004 Behold! The first section of track is laid! https://i.imgur.com/31ZoOzn.jpg This evening I have completed a segment of the above ground portion of the race track and with the aid of Kiaan I was able to get an observation bridge placed across it. Now then, I need to name this race track at Sonata? Any ideas? update #0005 Another section of the race track has been placed with the help of Mrwickster! https://i.imgur.com/QOZadcO.jpg I can't really show much of it as the race mission will make changes to the course to increase the challenge. Anyway, so far so good! update #0006 Another section done and the track is about 50% complete. With the help of Jacalini, Mrwickster and Starmoon, I have a large section of the sky lanes in place. Even Husky managed to solve an issue I was having when I realized I was building instant death traps while intentionally not intending to when he recommended I use Camilla hedges. So far it is looking very good! https://i.imgur.com/IUjcCVc.png I have yet to decide the final layout of the end races, but I will give everyone plenty of heads up. update #0007 Alright I have a major update! To give as much advanced notice as possible I will hold the inaugural race day on August 31st. I'll get a precise time available posted soon. My plan at this time is to provide basic horses donkeys and whatever we race. Anyone may come and participate. Prizes for each race: 1st place = Gold Trophy + 1 month premium + 10 silvers 2nd place = Silver Trophy + 3 weeks premium + 5 silvers 3rd place = Bronze Trophy + 2 weeks premium + 3 silvers All participants will receive a participation "ribbon" I am planning on food and drinks, perhaps some quizzes and stuff between races. Planning on 8 races and they shall be spaced out throughout the day to cover a wide range of time zones. All winners may choose which avatar they wish their prizes bestowed upon. Will previous race winners be allowed to participate in more than one race? maybe... I have a few tricks up my sleeve regarding them, but I will discuss it with Pomona beforea final decision is made. /Enki update #0008 With the help of Jacalina I completed the track circuits and I am now focusing on details and the track progress missions. Do note that the mission system I am using is not the same as the valrei mission system, and my missions and quests do not reward valrei rewards. /Enki update #0009 TIMETABLES!!!! = see top! /Enki
  20. 41 points
    Hey everyone! We are currently working on a bigger update for the whole action system. One of the new features contained in that update is an easy way to bind multiple actions to a default key. Today we want to give you a preview of its planned implementation and would love to hear your feedback about it. The default action key At the moment the actions which are available for the default action key bind are limited to a static list. This update will change that. The default action can change based on the current context, enabling a range of actions to be started with a single key. It is influenced by the circumstances, such as the currently active item, the target in the world, or whether you are currently embarked on a vehicle. An example (while being grounded): You are targeting a tile with a tree on the ground. Having a hatchet activated will make the default action key start a cut down action, while having a shovel activated will start a dig action. Customization The default action will be more customizable. In the right-click menu there is a new button for it, called "Edit default action". When clicking the button, valid actions will begin to flash. When one is clicked, it will set that action as the new default action for your currently active item on the target you right-clicked. You can remove it again by repeating the same steps. For example: Choosing "Cut down" on a birch tree with an active hatchet will make the "Cut down" action the default action for all birch trees. The process can be repeated again to remove the default action. Advanced combinations As there are multiple possible actions for most targets (depending on the circumstances), we'll have to support complex combinations while keeping things for you as easy as possible. The current default actions will have a separate color in the right-click menu so you can identify them more easily. While in edit mode, hovering a valid action will give you a tooltip that you can right-click it for further customization. The advanced customization options will let you choose what active item the default action allows from the following list: Any of the same type as the active item (any hatchet for example) Only the active item Any (or none) active item Any item that matches any checked types of the currently active item (a hatchet has the "tool" and "weapon" types for example) The same options are available for the target of the action: Any of the same type (any birch tree for example) Only the current target Any target that matches any checked types of the current target (a birch tree has the "any surface tile", "tree tile" and "diggable tile" types for example) The final available option is your current mounted status, with a choice between "Anytime", "While mounted" and "While not mounted". This is to allow slightly more complex interactions like "Embark" and "Disembark", as they need to differ depending on your current state. Multiple defaults Multiple defaults for the same active item/target pair can be saved at the same time. Some sorting rules are applied to choose which action is used at the time. This will let you set a general default action for a pair, and then a different default action for a more specific pairing. When setting a new default action for a pair, any other actions with higher priority for that pair will be removed to make the newly set default the highest priority. For example: You have the "Embark" action set as default using any item on any vehicle and also have the "Open" action set as default for a single wagon that you use only for storage. These two default actions will be sorted so the action with the more specific details (the single wagon) has a higher priority, making "Open" the default action for your wagon in that case, while keeping the "Embark" action default for all other vehicles. Please keep in mind that anything shown here is still in development and subject to change. We want to keep you updated on our latest development work and ideas so we can discuss them with you in advance. We are working on bringing this feature (along with more changes related to the Actions Update) to the test server soon. But for now, let us know what you think about the planned changes! Questions are also welcome. I'll try to collect and answer them right down below.
  21. 41 points
    2024 is the Year of the Dragon! According to the Chinese Zodiac, those born in the year of the dragon: Attract abundance Are generally happy people Tend to be popular Are Gregarious and clever Are Compassionate but direct Tend to overthink Are Good at carpentry Give out black scale to all premium characters in local I possibly made up one or two of those! Come on down to Bruce's Flying Circus, where we'll be celebrating the Year of the Dragon with our very own Black Dragon! Surely this will be their year! /servertime: Sun Jan 07 21:00:00 CET 2024 Discord timecode: <t:1704657600:F>, which is <t:1704657600:R> Timer: Thanks to Crimsonearth for donating the dragon and making this slaying possible!
  22. 41 points
    Thank you for your post, Krister. Over the last week, I’ve shared with you comments, videos, and feedback I’ve received from the team and community, and it makes me happy to see ownership taken and a plan put forward to address that feedback. I feel that Malena’s talent will greatly enhance the website. I’d also like to thank Samool and the rest of the dev team for all their hard work organizing the feedback and helping formulate that plan and get the ball rolling. I believe this goes far toward helping us move forward and for Wurm to succeed. I’d also like to give a big thank you to the community and the team. Your feedback helps drive us to do better, and that helps us make Wurm better for everyone. Wurm is special to me because of its charm and depth and because it has helped me grow as a person over the years. While I may be taking a step back for now, I look forward to inviting more people to leave their mark on our world and community. Wurm is waiting. Be safe, Keenan
  23. 41 points
    Hello, and welcome to another issue of the Valrei International! This issue is to let you guys know what we are up to and some of the changes we are making and new things we are working on. As mentioned in our Road Map post, a lot of the focus this year will be on bug fixes and new player retention. We have quite a few changes planned to help make understanding Wurm a bit easier for new and old players alike. You can check out the Road Map post if you missed it here: A Touch of Clarity One of the things we have been overhauling is providing clarification on some of the messages players might see in their Event tab. Some messages, while fun, don’t really hint at what a problem might be and can be frustrating for some players who don’t know where to look to find the information they need on how to fix something. Whether mining, crossing borders without a plotted course, or trying to terraform the lands around you… things haven’t always been clear when an issue arises and we’ve been at work fixing this to make things a bit less frustrating and to let players know what needs to be done (or if something cannot be done). Some examples of this involving common problems will follow, but please keep in mind that these messages may change before going live. “You see dark shadows moving beneath the waves”, seen while trying to sail across a border with no course plotted and no server bordering your current server there. This message will now be: “You see dark shadows moving beneath the waves. There is nothing in this direction.” “Some corners can’t be modified”, encountered when flattening/leveling when you aren’t able and covering quite a few situations. This general message will now clarify what the issue is, such as “You cannot continue to flatten here: You would need to chop down the cherry tree first.” or “This land is protected by the gods”. These are only a few examples of many messages that are being changed, or added when there were none. A more complete list of these changes will be made available as these changes go live. In the next update we will have dozens of these messages going in, with others coming in a bit later in a few different batches. Time for a Change Another change coming along with the previously mentioned message rework is more clarification on timed things such as meditations and faith gain. You may notice a handy expansion of the Timers UI window: These new timers will automatically track your cooldowns for many things you use every day. For those who prefer keeping track of things in Event, there will also be changes to messages involving these skills which will now show you how much time you have left until you can gain more skill, and include the amount of times left in the day you can do so. These messages will account for the skillgain cooldown, daily limits, and the daily reset. Some examples are: When meditating you’ll see: “You can gain skill from meditating again in <amount of time>, and can gain skill <number> more time(s) today until you need to take a break.” When you reach your maximum number of prayer skill gains in a day, your event tab will say “You have reached your maximum Faith gains from prayer for the day. You can gain Faith from praying again in <amount of time>.” Introducing the Large Pantry Cupboard! I think you all know what this is... Those of you who spend your days working huge farms or cooking up some tasty Wurmian delights will probably be very excited to see that we will be releasing a new storage option much like the Bulk Container Unit but for food storage bins! Along with this addition, we’ve done a bit of work on the Quality Lock screen, so you can be sure you’re always sorting your items into the proper shelves and don’t risk mixing items that you don’t want to mix. Update on Previously Mentioned Announcements We wanted to give everyone an update on where some highly anticipated features are currently sitting in the development cycles. Monthly skin reruns are currently delayed to allow us to deliver it in a much more polished way. This process is coming along nicely and we will have more to share in the next issue of the Valrei International scheduled for June. Goblin camps ended up turning into a much larger project than initially planned. While we still absolutely plan to deliver it when it's ready, we did not want this update keeping us from working on other things and slowing development in other areas. Adding Player Kingdoms to Defiance also had hit the back burner a bit but we have some developers helping pick those up so we should finally have a sure date on those soon. Thanks for checking out this issue of the Valrei International! We are hard at work on a whole load of other QoL updates and fixes alongside these teasers, so look for more great changes and additions in the coming months. Make sure to check out some of the fun community events happening soon! Lame Horse Fair and Limpalong May 12th-14th on Cadence (NFI Only) Kick summer off in style with the hosts of the Lame Horse Fair! Heathen Trading Co. Summer Solstice Bash June 20th-23rd on Cadence (NFI Only) Celebrate the Summer Solstice with an event-filled Impalong on the Northern Isles! Friendship Bay Summer Impalong July 20th - 25th on Pristine (SFI Only) Southern Wurmians can also celebrate the summer with friends during the 6th annual Friendship Bay Summer Impalong!
  24. 41 points
    So wanted to give everyone a bit of a quick update here. We have decided in the end to keep traders and their discounts going forward, we will have a post this week with the new details but wanted to give everyone a heads up as I know people where very anxiously waiting for our answer about this.
  25. 40 points
    Nodes have popped up all over my market deed, making it look untidy. It's a public market deed, so customers will be wondering what all the mess is, or trying to click on them. At the moment, nodes are a novelty, so deed owners may not have had time to realise that this means extra maintenance they will have to do on their deeds, which is never finished - because as soon as they clear away the nodes, more nodes will just spawn again! The settlement management > settings option to remove nodes from your village requires 1 spirit guard to be hired Effectively this is expecting deed owners to *pay more* just to keep their deeds the same as they were before the update. This strikes as a cash grab with deed owners penalised. Please remove the need for a spirit templar to keep the deed node free - we shouldn't have to pay to keep our deeds clean of clutter. UPDATE: RESOLVED Templar Requirement to be Removed: Thank you for listening Devs! This thread may now be closed.
  26. 40 points
    Hi everyone, This is MommaT, KellyT's mom. The tales you are relating about Kelly has warmed my heart and brought back so many wonderful memories. He was truly a character, even in his real life. He absolutely loved life and loved people. If you knew him well, you knew you had a friend for life. I never heard him say anything negative about anyone his entire life. He trusted and liked just about every person he met. We had gone thru a bad patch, but after he became sober, we had become best friends. I had had his Hare account for a couple years, just handing it back to him within past 2 years. To the new owner, please take care of it, in honor of KellyT. He was 14 when he came across this game and he got me playing it. He frustrated me so much when he wouldn't follow the rules, lol. I knew one day he would lose his original account, KellyT, lol. He didn't tell me for months because he knew I would tell him, "I told you so." He was stupidly fearless in the game sometimes, but I now appreciate that about him! I loved him more than life and your tales are helping me and warming my heart. Thanks to all of you at Wurmonline! A truly one of a kind game we enjoyed together for years!
  27. 39 points
    I just wanted to make an additional comment here. I've spent a lot of time talking with Krister about this very topic. While the goal is to grow revenue for Wurm Online, the plan is to do so by improving the game and its associated web presence so that we can market something we are proud of. We all agree that the path forward is not to squeeze money out of our community, but to grow that community.
  28. 38 points
    Hey everyone! It's been a while since the last issue of Valrei International. The past few months have been pretty bumpy for the team and the community as a whole, resulting in many things getting piled up. We have a lot to talk about today. So let's get started... Before addressing any new topics or feedback, I'd like to remind you of the recent rift update again first. Many aspects of Rifts have been reworked and improved. Samool has put together an overview already, which you can find here. The implementation details can be found in the public testing thread here. In addition to that, rift scout camps will be made active again on the Nothern Freedom Isles next week. For balancing reasons they have been disabled since the update launch, and we think that the time has come to turn them back on now. As some of you already noticed, a short video about the rift update was released on the official Wurm Online Instagram (and TikTok) page. To avoid any confusion about this quite different new direction, I'd like to briefly explain some things about it. The general main goal at the moment is to bring more people into the game and to make them stay. In order to achieve that goal, we have to improve on marketing. Fortunately, our parent company is helping us on that end now and has started working on partnering up with content creators, such as CraftyJoe. In harmony with these efforts, we will create a new content creator affiliate program for the game, named "Wurm Online TV", effectively replacing the "Valrei Entertainment Network" program. Its exact execution is yet to be announced. However, I can already tell you that we will work more closely with content creators. For example, it's planned that we integrate them further into our official channels, such as featuring them regularly on the new website. This new approach should widen Wurm's target audience a bit and hopefully attract possible new players who never heard about the game before. This topic is still quite controversial, and I know that the situation in the past months was anything but ideal. That's why I'm very happy to announce that the website was finally updated. Feel free to take a look for yourself at wurmonline.com. Even though the website is launched and represents the game much better now than before, I'd like to mention again that it's still not completely finished. We have web developers in our parent company working on it, and we will keep making changes to it in the future as necessary. It should evolve together with the game and its community after all, so changes and more improvements are expected. Many of you probably know WurmNode.com, a very useful, community-driven website, created by @Drogos. He recently reached out to us, worried that he might be unable to continue his work on it due to lack of motivation, caused by the current development direction and missing cooperation. As missing the site would be a huge loss to the whole community, we quickly found a solution and started collaborating with him. From now on we are working together with him to help improve the website, for example by decreasing the maintenance effort or by implementing new features it can make use of. In this regard, I'd also like to mention again that you can always reach out to us about such things. If you are actively developing your own Wurm related tool and need some assistance from our side, please let us know! We might be able to spare some resources to help make the development of your project a bit easier. In case you want to follow the latest developments around WurmNode, check out its forum thread. You can find it in the Toolbelt section of the forum, together with many more useful tools and software. We hope that the whole community benefits from this, and are excited about the new features Drogos is working on! This is my first news post as Community Manager, therefore I want to inform you about my plans and goals during my tenure. I know that the current situation seems bad. There are so many open ends and problems right now. Announcements of announcements never being made, empty promises, and too much silence from the staff team, resulting in bitterness, mistrust and toxicity. I was well aware of it when I agreed to take this position, so I am here now, prepared to turn the ship around. Let me outline a few things to give you a better understanding of how I plan to work: - Talk, talk, TALK! Communication is key. The idea of being reserved and distant in this position is absurd to me. Yet I will avoid expressing my personal opinion, as I'm primarily representing the staff team and the company. - Keep it simple, clear and easy to understand. Long, complex corporate talk won't convince anybody. This community is smarter than that. - Be open and honest. Sometimes decisions won't turn out as initially planned. This can be clearly communicated, especially the reasoning behind them. - Stay involved. Read chat and Discord messages and follow hot forum topics closely. See problems before they emerge and solve them right away if possible. - Remain calm. I don't mind toxic people or explicit language. However, I won't tolerate any attacks towards other community or staff members. If you need to vent about something, tell me privately. Otherwise, the normal rules apply. - Show full commitment. In some rare cases it might be necessary for me to go an extra mile for the players. I'm not afraid to poke other staff members with community concerns if they are truly reasonable. Pulling this off my way won't always be easy for sure, especially that last part. But if I can get hold of things in the coming weeks, I think it's possible. Please don't expect any miracles though, as I can't always address all of your concerns quickly. I also won't always have answers on everything, but I'll try my best and hope that you'll give me a chance to prove myself and the way I want to make this work. As a first measure to restore your faith into the team, I will add a Q&A section below, containing answers to the most common questions which were left unanswered. I've collected some common questions on Discord and the forum in the past week, and will try to answer them clearly. The bold text is a question, the text below is the answer. Krister announced that he wants to share the financial situation of the game. It's been months without any update on this matter already. What's going on? To make it short: it won't happen anymore. After some internal discussions about everything that happened, Krister decided to leave community interactions up to the team, especially as we have a dedicated Community Manager for this from now on. If you are still interested in the financial situation of the company, feel free to check out the website of our parent company, the Game Chest Group. Financial reports of Swedish companies are usually available to the public, so you might find the info you are looking for in the press releases section there already. Be aware that they are mostly in Swedish though. What's the status on Defiance PMKs? They were announced ages ago already! Have they been given up on? I can confirm that Defiance PMKs will come in the near future. It's still actively being worked on, but sadly I don't have a specific launch date for you just yet. What about other roadmap features, such as goblin camps? Are they abandoned now? The focus has currently shifted towards improving new player retention, pausing active work on large content expansions. The initial plans were not entirely abandoned however, only postponed for now. Samool has already posted a statement in this regard: What about smaller content updates? Smaller content updates will keep coming as part of the ongoing development effort. To quote Samool again: What will happen to the Valrei Entertainment Network? See the "Marketing Changes" section above. The VEN program will be replaced with "Wurm Online TV", with the Community Manager being in charge of it. The details of execution are yet to be announced. And that's it for this issue. I hope I could address most of your frequently asked questions. If not, don't worry. I'll be around on the forums and Discord from now on to keep you updated. Thanks for reading, I wish you an enjoyable time in Wurm! :3
  29. 37 points
    Dear Wurm Online Community, The last weeks have been wild for me and I want to share some words with you all. I initially joined the game in 2012 and became a forum member a year later. Along the way, I encountered some fantastic individuals, people I still consider friends despite not having played together in years. Some of them even served on the GM and dev teams for an extended period, and I always admired their dedication. The volunteers, who work tirelessly to keep the game running, deserve immense credit, even if it means they face stress or worse in their real lives. It's undeniable that this game wouldn't be where it is today without them. While every community has a few bad apples (and I will not name them in this post), I am convinced that they - unfortunately - are in every community. After nearly ten years on the staff team, with over half of that time as a GM, I've recently been removed from the team. I have been fired because another staff member has shared internal information I made a screenshot of and sent it to them. The management expects me to tell them who I have shared it with but all my access to our internal platforms has been removed (and I told them that) and it has been over four months since it happened so I don't even remember it. I do not know what I should do and since I have not heard anything back from them in over two weeks I guess they are done with me as well. It's perplexing to be accused of serious offenses without being given an opportunity to defend myself. It would be foolish of me to throw away everything I've invested in this role without cause. I understand that they have the authority to remove anyone without explanation, but this situation feels peculiar. Many are aware of a past incident where the team forums were leaked, and I want to make it clear that I had no involvement in that. Unfortunately, I fear this case will be swept under the rug, based on how past staff removal cases have been handled. With little hope for a positive resolution as my case has been looked into for a few months without even considering to ask me, I've decided to end it here. As a passionate PvP player, I hope that steps will be taken to address the longstanding issues we've been dealing with for quite some time now. Dear Discord Team, I hope you will continue your work as good as I have seen it since the server got created. Unfortunately the Discord bot I have created myself will come with my sudden removal. But since there has been great effort for the last few months to make a new bot to replace my work I assume you already back to full business! Dear @Astarte, @Nicrolis, @Belisama, @Brokkr, @Enki, Epiphron, @Maximusi, @Idony, @Njorunand@Ohana, carry on your voluntary work as GMs as you did in the past and we have a good future. I know many people do not know what is going on behind the scenes but as someone that does know I can say that I respect you all and wish you all the best for the future. Dear @Ausimus, thank you for all the changes you have made possible. You're a great dev and I had a lot of fun with you back in the days on Chaos. Dear @fencejumper, keep doing what you are doing. You have the right moral compass and are an excellent GM. Keep forming the Discord mods as you did in the past. If you ever struggle with anything do not hesitate to let me know! That's a wrap! Thank you, everyone, for taking the time to read, whether it matters to you or not. Perhaps our paths will cross again. Having devoted numerous hours to the game as a volunteer, seeing everything crumble has left me in disarray, so I'll need some time to come to terms with it. I am available on Discord (Capi) if any of you folks want to talk to me in the future! So long, Capi
  30. 37 points
    Unique spawns as they currently are, are pretty predictable and swing between easily farmed by even one or two dedicated players checking frequent spots on the potential spawn timers on 8x8 servers, to you might not even see one playing for a decade on xanadu. A full rework probably isn't in the books and out of the scope of current development but a list of some of the changes that i think would improve it 1. Move spawn timers off the 6 hours from uptime. Currently 1/300 chance per unique every 6 hours to spawn. between two people on alternate timezones, very easy to check all the common spawn points at server reboot and then every six hours after. instead, lower the chance and time between checks, 1/1800 every hour or 1/3600 every half hour or hell 1/6480000 every second for fun would make it harder to monopolize and increase chance of players stumbling upon them naturally 2. Remove spawn lockout after one spawned, lower spawn chance to compensate. Currently uniques cannot spawn for 14 days after one spawns. with the 1/300 every 6 hours 14 days after last one spawned this means uniques spawn every 20-21 days on average. This ends up creating a feedback loop for the finder of the unique, if they're checking every 6 hours, they can narrow down the spawn time of the unique, know exactly when the next one can start spawning again, and do not waste time searching when there can't be unique spawns, whereas everyone else not privy to this information will be wasting time trying to find them. Remove the lockout timer and lower the spawn chance so that while the amount of uniques isn't higher or lower, there won't be a large difference in difficulty finding between people who found the previous unique and those who didn't. 3. Redo the "Cannot spawn within 40 tiles of a deed" mechanic. As it is, this mechanic effectively locks spawns into very predictable spots. Rifts have similar spawn requirements and are usually only ever found in two or three locations per 8x8 map for comparison, so with what was listed in the previous two points you can just search these locations every 6 hours, 14 days after the last one spawned and find the vast majority of the uniques that spawn on the server. This also makes uniques basically only ever spawn in the centre of the map away from rivers/lakes, as most of the shoreline has at least one deed per local. This is hard to fix on a 8x8 server, but letting them spawn anywhere outside of a deed and prevent targeting people inside deeds/prevent idle bashing walls would help make it less predictable while avoiding the whole "dragon spawned on me and wiped my deed out". 4. Scale spawns based on server size. Currently, all servers have the same spawn chance, leading people who live on smaller servers to have a disproportionate chance to find uniques compared to those living on larger servers, who both have multiple times more landmass to cover and more people on the server who could find the unique before them. Larger servers should have higher spawn chances to account for this, and potentially higher population servers also have higher unique spawn rates. 5. Remove Hatchlings from the unique pool, and add them to other content. Drake hide and Dragon scale both enter the game at roughly the same rate (roughly 1.1 set per drake/dragon on average), but drake is only slightly better than other common armours available (often worse than chain depending on what you're fighting), and scale heavily outperforms all other armour. In terms of progression it makes little sense that the intermediate of commonly available armour and endgame armour is as rare as the endgame armour while barely beating out the common armour. They should be removed from the unique spawning pool, loot per each one lowered (but still increased amount dropped per month compared to now) and rare bone changed to a potential rare bone fragment to one of the killers and made slightly weaker so that they're roughly comparable with rift warmasters or sea serpents and instead added to other content. Possible suggestions would be - Rare but not current unique spawn rare in the wild, maybe similar to rift camps, Difficulty 7 kill mobs/traitor missions potentially spawning one, Difficult treasure maps occasionally spawning one (or perhaps having a hatchling egg) alongside the treasure casket - Chance to spawn alongside rift warmaster in rifts, increased chance with the libila colossus built - Killing strong mobs/champion mobs having a small chance to draw them out, increasing the longer it's been since one spawned. Probably a harder one of the lot to balance, but moving them to other content adds more mid-game combat content to the game and makes drake hide more of an accessible mid-game armour choice instead of a "scale was too expensive". 6. Add non-unique ways to get tomes. Tomes are largely a cosmetic thing on pve, and absurdly strong on pvp to the point that a weak toon with tomes is better than a strong toon without them. Due to how many were spawned from personal goals, this leads to a pretty big imbalance from people in the past being able to buy every single tome in the game for cheaper than what you can currently buy some of the more expensive tomes for, so pvp players can be massively outmatched, and pve collectors can be left with incomplete collections that are prohibitively expensive to finish. Both groups would benefit from non-unique ways to get tomes, and tome fragments which were added for epic valrei scenarios would be a great way to add them to other content, especially considering that no matter the changes you do to uniques, many would prefer a non-competitive way to get them. Missions to keep true to the history of tome fragments, killing mobs, archaeology, and treasure maps i feel would all be great ways of finding them, but they should be very rare drops to not add an absurd amount of them to the game, and encourage trading. 7. Enable reveal creatures/pendulums hitting after a certain time of being alive. Something (especially on larger, more mountainous servers) that is a bit of a problem is uniques can end up in some pretty remote places, and the uniques aren't equally easy to find. A dragon is going to be a pretty obvious silhouette when you're looking up a mountain and run someone down eventually, but a goblin leader or troll king can easily be glanced over and walk so slowly that even someone riding a donkey rides right past before they've gotten attacked. If a unique hasn't been tagged by going underground or getting in combat with someone, it should eventually be able to be located via pendulum or reveal creatures. maybe a week or two to give residents of the server a chance to stumble into them naturally. PVP servers could have them up instantly, as there's not really much drama between searchers when they can just kill each other, and makes them into potential pvp.
  31. 37 points
  32. 37 points
    Hey everyone! We want to implement an image gallery on the new website so visitors can get a better idea of what they could get into. And while purposely taken screenshots by the team (such as on the Steam store page) may look good and professional to new players, we would also like to highlight the important role of the Wurm community on the website. That's why I'm inviting all of you to participate in the official Website Screenshot Contest 2023! Use your chance to show off your village, your animals, your character, your pets, some beautiful place you like or anything else that makes Wurm special for you. Show some of it, show everything - it's totally up to you! I will review your entries together with the whole development team to select the most outstanding works for a prize. In addition to that, everyone has the chance to get their screenshot featured on the website, whether they win a prize or not. As we want to cover as many aspects of the game as possible, the entries are split into 4 categories: Nature & Landscape Mountains, rivers, forests, ... Animal wildlife, on land or at sea Life in Wurm, Villages & Constructs Small villages or farms Bigger towns or cities Special buildings or themed constructs PvE Community Community events (rifts, unique slayings, impalongs, ...) Activities with friends PvP Community War deeds/fortified villages PvP combat (skirmishes, sieges, ...) Kingdom focus (artifacts, war banners, religion/mycelium, guard towers/territory control, ...) We will select the 3 most outstanding screenshots in every category and declare them as winner. You can submit one screenshot for every category, so 4 in total. To give everyone a chance to win however, you can only win in a single category. The prizes are: 15 silver coins + 45 days of premium time for 1st places 10 silver coins + 30 days of premium time for 2nd places 5 silver coins + 15 days of premium time for 3rd places The winners will be contacted by us through a private message on this forum. Your prize can be redeemed on an account of your choice, it's not possible to split it however. (silver coins and premium time will be issued together) Please submit your original screenshots in this dedicated submission thread until 23:59 UTC on Sunday, the 15th October 2023. It's highly recommended to turn up the graphic settings before taking your screenshot. You may only submit screenshots originally created by you. Also keep in mind that your creation has to follow the game rules. Obscene or insulting entries will get you disqualified. With submitting your screenshot you understand and agree that it might get featured on the forum and/or on the games website or social media pages. The winners will be announced here and in the next issue of Valrei International. Good luck everyone! Edit 24.10.2023: The winners have been selected and the prizes were issued. Please check out this post below.
  33. 37 points
    I really hope that this misconception goes away sometimes soon. You can see how easy it is to add a creature by viewing how it's done in mods for Wurm Unlimited. It is, quite literally, just a bunch of numbers and strings that you put together and Wurm will spit back a creature at you. Creating a creature as a mod takes maybe 30 minutes to just type in all the info for the creature and adjust the parameters of how it operates. Here's an example of an enlarged and transparent version of a hell horse: https://github.com/Sindusk/wyvernmods/blob/master/src/main/java/mod/sin/creatures/Charger.java This is a rideable, hitchable, larger version of a hell horse which took maybe 30 minutes to create. Here's a screenshot of someone riding one: Excluding the visuals: Adding a new creature takes about 30 minutes. Adding a new spell during the priest rework took a few hours. When I finished refactoring it and streamlining the spell creation process, it only took a few minutes to add the spell then whatever time it took to implement the effect. Adding a new item takes minutes if you're using placeholder models and icons. Many of the suggestions made on the forums here would be outrageously simple to implement. Picking out some from the first page, adding a setting to disable the visual and audio cue for rares would just be a couple menu options added to the UI setting a flag, then checking that flag when a rare event occurs - few hours probably. Pre-generated ruins to loot is probably the most time consuming one, but by hooking it into the archaeology system which already is capable of generating "fake" deeds that have decayed, you might be able to pull off a prototype in a week or two. This QoL thread has some really low hanging fruit. For example, making mailboxes loadable is like 2 minutes. There's a couple bugs with it but enough mods have done it that they're pretty well known and the fixes are available. This feature was already done on many WU servers. Making black bears rideable would take 5-10 minutes. You add a vehicle behavior to them and a mount spot, test it until it looks right, and you're done. So no, it's not because it's hard to do. It's because it's not being done. There could be many reasons for that; I would personally guess comes down to philosophy. One that I disagreed with heavily, tried to change, failed, and moved on.
  34. 36 points
    Valentine's Day is around the corner, and to make this day even more enchanting, we've prepared a special small chest skin for you! The skin can be redeemed in the ingame silver store by any player with an active premium account for free from 14th February 2024, 00:00 CET until 21st February 2024, 23:59 CET. Everlasting Love Chest "A beautifully crafted wooden chest, symbolizing eternal love. Open its lid to reveal a felt-lined compartment, perfect for storing cherished mementos and love notes." To all the lovebirds in our community, we wish you endless fun and joy as you adventure together! - The Wurm Online Team
  35. 36 points
    Tonight we were streaming and I was pointed to this thread. So we had a look at the webpage live on stream and I gave my first impressions. As many of you have suggested in this thread and as we discussed in the stream, it almost felt like a lot of the placeholder images were AI generated and very out of place, misrepresenting what Wurm actually looks like. When I was wrapping up my reaction, I was saying that there is nothing wrong with making a game look a bit prettier than it actually is in marketing material. Gaming companies do it all the time. (think about WoW trailers for instance) But I was suggesting that what the Wurm team should do is use original Wurm Online screenshots and instead generate "prettier versions of them using " the "img to img" tools. At the end of the day, it's nice to install a "fantasy" into a players brain and then let them try to create something as close as possible to that fantasy which is totally possible with the samples below. After the stream I was curious to see how that might actually look and tried some quick examples using Stable Diffusion. Here's one that I generated and scaled up since it was so pretty. Here are GIF animations at 1.5 second intervals showing the before & after of how this could look. GIFs only support 256 colors, so the images are a bit rasterized I'm afraid.
  36. 35 points
    Hey everyone! I thought I would take a moment to give a little update on how things are going behind the scenes. Firstly, I would like to thank everyone for their patience while we get back up after the recent events. Admittedly, we were knocked off our feet by the event that occurred, with losing such a large number of staff. This will take time to rectify and push on forward. I do understand all your concerns and worries, but we will be working our hardest to get back into a position where your faith in us can return. So, news from me Our latest recruitment post was a huge success! Resulting in one of the highest ever responses, which was amazing to see. Thank you to all the people who applied. We are still going through the application process, so if you have not heard back yet, do not think that you have not been successful. We will be contacting everyone once we have any information for you. If you would still like to apply, please check the forums to see if the team you're looking for are still accepting applications. https://forum.wurmonline.com/index.php?/topic/190931-wurm-online-staff-applications/ We are also still accepting applications for the Community Manager position. Please send those applications to me at pomona@wurmonline.com Congratulations to all our new recruits (please be gentle with them) and a massive thanks to those that received promotions into the lead positions. Brattygirl has been promoted to Lead Forum Moderator, Fencejumper has been promoted to Lead Discord Moderator and Oluffus has been promoted to Lead Wurmpedia Manager. Your time and commitment is very much appreciated. Events Enki is currently working on an event. Check it out here at https://forum.wurmonline.com/index.php?/topic/198106-riders-start-your-crocodiles-update-0006/ Development News I often drop in on the Devs, and can assure you all that they are always busy working away on numerous things. They all speak some funny language that I have no idea what it means, but I quickly get out of the Dev office before they find me more work to do I have been informed that there will be an update on all Dev department stuff coming your way soon though. That is about all from me for now. Stay safe out there! Pomona
  37. 34 points
    Hey everyone, the map dumps for 2024 are here! As usual, you can find them together with the map dumps from previous years in the Google Drive folder: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B6J_aGQ6URL8UURFN2VadWxtSWs In case you don't know what map dumps are, let me explain: A map dump is a full render of a server map, giving you a good overview of the topography and terrain. Every tile in the game world is represented by a single pixel in the final image. They come in 3 different versions: a classic one to give you a general overview of the server, a terrain version without any depth and a topographic version with contour lines. We usually release them for all servers at once every year so you can track your own (or others) building progress or so you can use them in community projects, such as server deed maps or map tools. You may also use them for navigation or to plan your next exploration trip to a landmark or terraforming project that looks interesting to you. We hope this makes your traveling in Wurm safer and easier or helps you finding some inspiration!
  38. 33 points
    I have unfortunate news in regards to the departure of several valuable team members. Darklords, Keenan, Pandalet, and Demona are no longer with us as staff, although they will continue to be members of our community as players. Each of them has left for different reasons, and I want to say I respect all the time, hard work, and dedication they have dedicated to help make Wurm where it is today With personnel changes, here are some positive news: Lead Forum Moderator Asst Lead Forum Moderator Brattygirlsback has been promoted to Lead Forum Moderator. In the time they have worked together, Brattygirlsback has learned much from Pandalet, and we look forward to seeing her in her new role. During these difficult times I have been getting great insights from the team and have been getting great feedback and ways forward. These will take time to incorporate but will show immensely helpful in taking Wurm to the next level. Open positions We have, prior to this, opened up our doors to new recruits to join our team. We can not ignore the fact that we have had volunteers of great calibre that have been overlooked. For anyone in that position, please reach out so we can rectify our mistakes and get you on the team. We are looking to expand the volunteer staff, and wish for anybody who is interested to apply. Details can be found here: https://forum.wurmonline.com/index.php?/topic/197859-growing-a-team-how-to-apply-for-staff-positions/&tab=comments#comment-1963788 Here are some updates The New Website We have been working with Malena/Katspurr to get the new images up, her work will shape the updates and better reflect the game from a visual perspective. You have seen her work in the past and she is a great resource and we are looking forward to the relaunch. When can we get it out? Soon, but before we go live, I would like to share it with all of you. We’ll share a non-public preview site to get all your insights and make changes according to the community's wishes. The text and working has been changed to better reflect the valuable feedback we have received from you, and I hope we can further improve it with your help. I propose that we do it during the end of next week, get the site to you and transform it further. One thing I learned to do, thanks for keeping an open mind and giving me the chance to rectify it. Enki We have been working on setting him up with work to get his content out, hopefully he can start with this shortly and get out something next month. New Players We have a new project at the planning stage, and will begin sharing more with the community when we have a clear outline. We are looking to update the first hours in the game with a more modern approach to tutorials and have our newbies working together. The hope is to get players to see what is possible and get them prepared for what is to come. We will begin development during September. End game content In parallel with the development of the new player experience we will develop a way to track “quests”. I will need your help here, to make the ideas into reality. We will start a post with the outlines and collect your insights and share our work. Graphics and client development We are poised to do work on our client to update our graphics as well as code optimization to increase stability and offer a smoother experience, starting development in August. This is something we see would benefit new and current players. PVP We haven't forgotten about PvP, but with our limited resources and current team size, it is not realistic to deliver any significant updates/changes to it this year. After we have revised the beginners experience and graphics updates we can shift the focus back to it. We will begin talks with the PVP community, there are a lot of ideas, like merging islands to name only one. These changes have huge implications and are big undertakings, but with your help we can plan it out. We would also benefit from someone from your side to be the voice of the collective, I hope this is something we can set up. Finances I would like to share our financial situation with you, to give you all an outline of current status and our goals for the future. This could be in the form you chose is best suited, I will accommodate the wishes of the team and the community. In closing The biggest insight I have gained is that Wurm Online is not run by a single person, and it has never been that way. It is a community driven project and I do not intend to change that, even though I made mistakes and we have lost valuable people my goal is to share our victories and burdens with you. There will be backlash and I see every departure as my failing, be it financially as well as personally. Wurm Online is yours, you created it, it is not mine and never will be, However my job is to secure the well-being of our team and to make sure we have the finances to be able to not only keep Wurm Online live and well, but to further improve and add content to it. We will share more, and we will invite more feedback and team members. I can see the harm in keeping a locked door, as it is not only distributive to you but we are losing so much insight doing things without involving our community. The thing that makes this all possible. Even if our new management style will take some time to adjust and show results I am confident that we can work past our grievances and create more content at a quicker rate. With all that said, for anyone that has left, my door is open and please don’t hesitate to reach out to me. You are always part of Wurm. Edit: I have removed a section about Wurm Unlimited as it was included by mistake, without consulting the dev team first. We currently do not plan on updating Wurm Unlimited with new content. I apologize for not including this edit note initially.
  39. 33 points
    Hi guys, just popping by to give you guys an update. This next week or so we (the dev team along with help from Malena/Katspurr) will be working on the website replacing images and text to align it much closer to something we feel represents the game we all love. For now, this thread is going to be locked, since a lot of it is just the same thing over and over and breeding arguments and negativity. Happy Wurming everyone!
  40. 32 points
    As the title says, is the game worth playing 2024 for new players or old players to come back to? I made a 11min video on the topic which while it doesn't dig deep into any particular aspect I think I touch on the biggest facets regarding the question. What are other folks thoughts? How does Wurm stack up against other MMO's and Sandbox titles in 2024?
  41. 32 points
    We asked for the option to uncover wagons as a quality of life change, because it's difficult to see while driving a covered wagon. Now uncovered wagons have just been added to the silver shop as a skin, which means it will cost 15s to permanently change your wagon to the uncovered model. That means you have to choose if your wagon will always be covered or uncovered, or pay 15s for a new skin each time you want to change it, which is obviously ridiculous. What we asked for was a toggle, so we could uncover the wagon while driving just to make it easier to see. Maybe we want to leave it covered the rest of the time as a display. This is a feature we've wanted so badly, and to see it implemented like this actually has me feeling ready to quit Wurm entirely. Not out of rage, but because it just isn't fun anymore. What other desperately wished for QoL items will be added to the shop next? Decorative skins that should have been craftable items were already pushing me to the limit, but now we're getting QoL features in there too. What are my "premium" subscriptions paying for, if they don't let me access everything the game has to offer? I guess this Black Friday, instead of spending 10s on this wagon skin, I'll probably just skip buying the 1g and year of premium per character that I normally would. In the past I would have argued against someone doing this and said we need to keep supporting the game financially so they don't have to rely on the silver shop, but that doesn't feel valid anymore. Now, especially with the cheesy new graphics on the site etc, it feels like my money is just devoured by some greedy corporation instead of supporting a small dev team making a unique game. It breaks my heart. I love Wurm so much despite its flaws, but I just don't enjoy my time here when things are like this. Well, that's my rant. I just couldn't believe when I saw this, and I had to say something. I gave them the benefit of the doubt and held on for a long time when things were starting to look sketchy, and I'm so disappointed. I sincerely hope things will turn around for Wurm someday
  42. 32 points
    After months and months of hunting, slicing and dicing it is finally over. Somewhere in chaos finally got the last tick after 15 days murdering meat in different places [19:42:55] Butchering increased by 0,000008 to 100,000000. Big ty to the people helping me getting meat and cheering me to push this goal to the end! Now finally can chill and enjoy the game again ^^
  43. 32 points
    Tiger butchered with permission from Ehizellbob, check out her work at https://sophieleighart.com/ This Saturday the 29th is International Tiger Day, so we're recognizing that dragons don't change their fiery, murderous stripes And neither do we Come along and get some red scale, potions of the ropemaker, and all those other lovely Red Dragon drops! Location: Bruce's Flying Circus, N13 /servertime: Sat Jul 29 21:00:00 CEST 2023 Discord code: <t:1690657200:F> Timer:
  44. 32 points
    Rebranding? Sounds great. If you need a server programmer capable of handling large overhauls, I'm available.
  45. 31 points
    Opening Soon: the Jurassic Park Experience! Ladies and gentlemen, a remarkable feat in science has been achieved! Some months ago, one of our excavation team unearthed a peculiar (some may say strange) bone! Tests on the marrow revealed the bone to be a perfectly preserved fossil - the DNA so intact that we have been able to recreate the dinosaur it belonged to! And my, what a beauty this one is: Clever girl! Soon we'll have her doing tricks at the Circus! We have decided, despite the protests of those pesky "health and safety regulators," to present this violent killing machine - this venerable black dinosaur hatchling - to the public! Nothing can go wrong! Since this event will take place during Halloween, it appears that one person who pets the dinosaur, at random, will have a chance to be given a Halloween cosmetic item with the dinosaur's signature! There will also be bloods that create oil of the armoursmith, a commemorative bone so you can make your own dinosaurs at home, and more! Come one, come all, to Bruce's Flying Circus, N13 (we're on the highway network!) Please pay careful attention to the times, due to recent daylight savings changes /servertime: Sun Nov 05 21:00:00 CET 2023 discord timecode: <t:1699214400:F> timer:
  46. 30 points
    Army let me start off by saying that I have the utmost respect for anyone that has the bravery, courage and tenacity for taking on the role of being a Community Manager for Wurm. I can't even imagine how stressful and how hard the job must be! Unfortunately, part of the job is also dealing with negative feedback, not only towards the game itself, but also feedback directed towards yourself. This is one of those moments where I'd like to offer some food for thought. I'd like you to try and imagine how your words may "sound" to old VEN members who spent countless hours over many years creating content and streaming Wurm. To spell it out, some people might read your words as old VEN members being just random creators carelessly picked up from the streets without any screening process and who went on to create content without quality in mind. And that they were lacking in having unique personalities. Of course, none of the above is true. First of all, the creator of VEN: Archaed aka Retrograde definitely had a process in ensuring we had quality creators in VEN. And even after the whole team was gathered, he had to make some REALLY tough calls to ensure that the program continued in a positive and helpful light and to make sure everyone feels safe and comfortable being part of VEN. Everyone had very unique personalities and their own flair in how they created content for Wurm. The amazing tutorials and newbie help that Factional Fight offered, the hilarious antics and humor of Fabricant, Kichi's amazing timelapses, Michio's wonderful love of the game, Gaffer's amazing rift streams, Josuha Calvert's serene and relaxing exploration streams, Macoofer's inspirational crafting and building streams and his many interesting experiments, Dracaa's legendary impalong streams, Drongo's Wurm Wednesdays, Undead Dan's PvP streams, Nacciwa's wonderful underground city streams and I'm sure there are so many names I'm forgetting since it's been a while. It was a wonderful collection of many different types of players! I fully know and understand that you probably never meant your choice of words to sound that way and never meant any harm or ill intent towards old VEN members - that it was merely a thoughtless moment. I can understand that it must be extremely challenging and exhausting to have to think about every word you say to the community and that sometimes things can slip through. But as much as I can empathize and sympathize, these words still left a bad taste in my mouth as a person who streamed with VEN from the early days on. Archaed aka Retrograde did all these things for the VEN program. We had dev streams with sneak peaks, we had key giveaways, we were featured on social media etc etc. It's absolutely fantastic that the goal is to get "bigger and better". But please let's do it in a way that doesn't unintentionally devalue the efforts Retro and all the streamers put in for all those years. PS: I for one am really excited about the resource nodes and I'm SO RELIEVED to hear it's not going to be "Wurm TV" after all. For me personally, the very core of why I love Wurm is because it's MEDIEVAL. There is nothing at all medieval about the word "tv".
  47. 30 points
    ignoring the fact that this is even worse of a bandaid solution (if transferring characters is fine why would you not just do a full merge?) it just adds more uncertainty to state it like that. are skills transferring 1-1 and it's meaningless to improve your skills/buy prem during black friday if you have another higher skilled toon on the other cluster and you're not announcing it until the sales over? are all these skins we're buying during the sale going to be stuck on one cluster, or will items go through? will banks/meditation/faith cross? i'm not trying to be overly negative but more and more recently it seems like recent changes and directions for the future are completely disconnected with the community, followed by apology posts for being so disconnected. like i've seen plenty of people both for and against full merges but i've never once heard of someone thinking a third epic portal is the right idea lol. forums are the more vocal users and aren't really representative of the entire game community so you should really reintroduce polling changes, it's already built in the game via /poll and successful in other games, OSRS probably being the most relevant due to the similarities in time investment. even something simple like requiring prem to vote, throwing in recent suggestion threads/ideas the devs throw out and polls with >70% yes votes get considered by devs would be a major improvement over what goes on now
  48. 30 points
    Krister a couple of days ago made his post here: Within this post he mentioned that he would like to share Wurm's financial situation with us all in the form he believes to be best suited. I think this is extremely admirable to offer this information to the community and I think would go a long way to help us all understand the current state of the game. I would like to requested that Krister releases the past two years of full P&L Financials for Code Club AB along with any interim financials for the current year. Along with this, I would love to see the business plan that covers exposures, risk mitigation and projections which is informing decision making. Thanks!
  49. 30 points
    [16:05:55] <Stanlee> Yes! Yes! Stronger... smarter... FASTER! [16:05:59] You start to cast 'Wind of Ages' on the venerable Red dragon hatchling [16:06:19] The venerable Red dragon hatchling emits a strong deep sound of resonance, then shatters! [16:07:45] <Stanlee> Well, nuts [16:08:01] You get five red dragon hatchling fragments Some time later [17:01:25] You start to carefully piece together the fragments. [17:01:29] You add a little bit more to the red dragon hatchling fragment [89/255]. Some more time later [17:55:51] You start to carefully piece together the fragments. [17:55:57] You successfully recreate a red dragon hatchling from the fragments. Okay, that took a while, but it's here. Mostly intact. Hopefully applying some weapons won't, say, break it down a lot more into tiny pieces of hide and blood and bone distributed all over local. Anyway, Slaying is at Bruce's Flying Circus, Release N13 /servertime Sun Apr 23 21:00:00 CEST 2023 Discord timer: <t:1682276400:F>
  50. 29 points
    Hey all, we recently locked a thread and hid comments in our patch notes post for Easter. We did so intentionally as we feel the overall conduct in that thread does not represent Wurm as a whole. As patch notes are more newsworthy, keeping those posts on-topic and reserved for important information regarding the patch is essential. Going forward, the patch notes will be posted in a read-only forum; a new forum section will be provided to discuss recent changes, which any registered user may post. This keeps the patch notes clean and easy to browse and allows splitting different discussions into individual threads to avoid one particular topic in a set of changes overwhelming all the others. Suggestions and Bugs will continue to go in their respective forum sections. We feel this change will make it easier for people to see important information related to patches, while also still giving people a place to comment. We do not want to silence feedback, but as this is a public forum, we, as a community, should be aware of our image. Criticism is welcome, so long as it is civil and constructive. Please use the new forum and tell us what you liked or disliked about a change. This thread is going to be locked, but feel free to post comments about this change in the new forum, once it opens. Edit: The new forum has been created: https://forum.wurmonline.com/index.php?/forum/488-patch-notes-discussion/ Thank you, Keenan
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