Etherdrifter

A lot of the time, you see archaeology players wandering around with satchels to hold their finds. This is nice and all, but maybe there is a better way... Two items modelled on the alchemy table - A container with a set number of sub-containers (drawers) that can be labelled. These drawers ONLY allow archaeology fragments to be stored; no other items. The items within these containers do not take decay hits, the container itself being the only thing that decays. A large archaeology chest with 20 such drawers and a small one with 5 such drawers - both matching the bulk of the item in terms of space taken and following the same rules as their template items. Extended crafting recipe ("compartments" made using jewellery smithing) with final crafting being made using fine carpentry (30 for small, 50 for large)) The aim here is to create a nice mid-late game item that lets archaeologists travel around and keep all their shards, rather than just leaving mountains of unwanted brick/stone shards lying around.

Pretty much what what it says in the title. What are your finds, and was it a fountain or a spring?

0.02 for a found spring is a bit of a joke, given that source gems give 0.03 and can be found much more easily. Source salt is also more useful as it has potion making as an option. If the value above really is possible, it really upping if you want to "reward" exploration. For "mined springs", 0.3 would be the same as 10 source gems, and this seems reasonable as a minimum given the rarity. For "spawned fountains" (if they use the same amounts), make it a "function" of server size (0.5 - Release Sized, 4 - Indie sized, 8- Xanadu sized) .

+1 from me It's not something *essential* to know; you could find it via trial and error. However, this would be a nice convenience you could pay a priest to have.

As far as I know it's just a stub item; has no real use.

Ekcin is attempting to sound intelligent and is really just saying "you can prove anything you like with a false premise" which really just boils down to "I think you're wrong and want to intimidate my audience with verbose language because I have no solid counter-argument". Averages with small samples often go awry, but with large samples averages can be quite informative. One should certainly be careful with averages (that is what we actually teach about them), but to dismiss them entirely would be folly. It is good practice to report ALL data, not just the bits you cherry pick; any study that does not provide all data (including values later removed in the analysis) is already on dodgy moral ground. Feel free to calculate some new averages with those values omitted; I've given you the data to do so. Though, at the same time, you'd also probably want to ignore values near slayings due to the "alt count" you mentioned. Xanadu is not wurm's only server; trying to do that form of comparison neglects the impact of shrinking population upon group location (for example, players clustering together is easier on smaller servers). You could argue that Xanadu's population is higher than it was this time last year, I can show you some logs where it was over 500 on its own and argue it has still dropped in the long run. And you have seen my comment upon that. I look forward to the day there is enough evidence for us both to agree

I suspect I'd be doing the Wurm community a greater disservice by burying my head in the sand and singing "it's ok, the game still has a higher population than it did during its beta years". The data on display here is only from the set I have pulled using a script; I have another 6 years of data showing steady decline pulled from my login logs. Releasing Wurm on Steam was a gamble; you don't get a second steam player influx, so things had to be right. It was a great gamble because it wagered a lot of development time and alienating existing players by adding new servers in the hopes of a large and stable influx of new players. The data is currently demonstrating that said gamble has failed, much to the chagrin of the "everything is great" crowd.

Picture the scene.... You've come back to wurm after a long break. Your deed is gone, everything in it is gone; you friends list is empty, or almost empty; your horses are dead or stolen; your cart is either heavily decayed or gone. You might have a boat lying around, but everything in it rotted away. You've got 20 skill in everything, except stats, and those are capped at 30. You're probably going to die very shortly if you lived somewhere remote, within the first 20 mins of returning usually. Do you stick around? I'm going to guess most people wouldn't; and here I think is a big issue in wurm's design. The re-entry barrier. So, here are a couple of ideas on how to get over this: 1. Give every player a PvE server a free summon corpse good for 1 month after rejoining (granted if a deed you own has dropped after existing for more than 2 months, and if you have been inactive for over a month) and no death penalty during the first 24 hours of logging in after a period of inactivity. 2. 24 hours of free premium time if the account has been inactive for over 2 months 3. Link skillcap to amount of premium paid in the past. +1 to the cap for every 1 month of premium a player has paid. These three ideas are quick and easy fixes for long-term absence. (3) also rewards long term subscribers.

Only priest spells. First aid doesn't give points, which is just silly really!

Well, here is the data I have so far (so from last month and part of this month). Prepping to move all my teaching online, so a little short of time for analysis this month! Well, it's time for my end of year summary for wurm; and honestly I wish I could offer something more conclusive. OLD NEW TOTAL GROWTH OLD NEW Date O-Min O-Avg O-Max N-Min N-Avg M-Max Min Average Max O-Growth N-Growth T-Growth Weekly Min Weekly Ave Weekly Max Weekly Min Weekly Ave Weekly Max 01/12/2020 135 221.9167 322 453 636.5833 863 135 429.25 863 -2.875 4.375 0.75 107 232.1211 377 1.121433 659.7324 0.859072 02/12/2020 120 203.625 304 408 620.7917 824 120 412.2083 824 -18.2917 -15.7917 -17.0417 03/12/2020 125 209.0417 305 430 607.2083 803 125 408.125 803 5.416667 -13.5833 -4.08333 04/12/2020 154 221.75 324 401 614.7083 881 154 418.2292 881 12.70833 7.5 10.10417 05/12/2020 171 267.4167 399 444 672.0417 969 171 469.7292 969 45.66667 57.33333 51.5 06/12/2020 193 271.0833 387 451 672.7083 872 193 471.8958 872 3.666667 0.666667 2.166667 07/12/2020 126 229.0833 312 418 596.625 804 126 412.8542 804 -42 -76.0833 -59.0417 08/12/2020 27 202.2727 306 114 547.9545 749 27 375.1136 749 -26.8106 -48.6705 -37.7405 120 229.1818 399 618.8626 09/12/2020 137 211.2917 290 382 567.0417 752 137 389.1667 752 9.018939 19.08712 14.05303 10/12/2020 141 205.0417 294 382 530 661 141 367.5208 661 -6.25 -37.0417 -21.6458 11/12/2020 138 211.625 327 358 517.3333 679 138 364.4792 679 6.583333 -12.6667 -3.04167 12/12/2020 170 262.75 384 354 561.9167 779 170 412.3333 779 51.125 44.58333 47.85417 13/12/2020 154 257.9167 343 377 566.1667 769 154 412.0417 769 -4.83333 4.25 -0.29167 14/12/2020 134 224 330 327 505.375 664 134 364.6875 664 -33.9167 -60.7917 -47.3542 15/12/2020 149 222.7917 333 344 489.3333 617 149 356.0625 617 -1.20833 -16.0417 -8.625 27 227.9167 384 533.881 16/12/2020 149 213.0417 305 310 476.375 629 149 344.7083 629 -9.75 -12.9583 -11.3542 17/12/2020 13 196.6957 297 65 438.3913 611 13 317.5435 611 -16.346 -37.9837 -27.1649 18/12/2020 132 227.4167 357 327 474.625 641 132 351.0208 641 30.72101 36.2337 33.47736 19/12/2020 148 254.125 344 254 504.125 743 148 379.125 743 26.70833 29.5 28.10417 20/12/2020 170 266.25 354 369 551.4167 749 170 408.8333 749 12.125 47.29167 29.70833 21/12/2020 147 232.4583 323 343 505.1667 666 147 368.8125 666 -33.7917 -46.25 -40.0208 22/12/2020 140 224.625 326 342 497.7083 659 140 361.1667 659 -7.83333 -7.45833 -7.64583 13 230.6589 357 492.544 23/12/2020 126 225.4583 359 239 480.5833 684 126 353.0208 684 0.833333 -17.125 -8.14583 24/12/2020 84 230.1667 302 186 489.9583 673 84 360.0625 673 4.708333 9.375 7.041667 25/12/2020 149 223.6667 287 296 451.0417 565 149 337.3542 565 -6.5 -38.9167 -22.7083 26/12/2020 153 280.6667 517 341 511.3333 678 153 396 678 57 60.29167 58.64583 27/12/2020 160 285.125 558 351 533.75 718 160 409.4375 718 4.458333 22.41667 13.4375 28/12/2020 147 247.625 340 281 488.0417 672 147 367.8333 672 -37.5 -45.7083 -41.6042 29/12/2020 1 206.9167 353 0 427.25 653 1 317.0833 653 -40.7083 -60.7917 -50.75 84 242.8036 558 483.1369 30/12/2020 32 234.9583 361 91 499.2917 617 32 367.125 617 28.04167 72.04167 50.04167 31/12/2020 169 251.75 335 317 485.4167 606 169 368.5833 606 16.79167 -13.875 1.458333 Monthly AVG 232.9855 532.9117 Increase/Decrease 11.47994 -19.3923 The old cluster, as can be seen, has grown in average population from last month; which makes sense if you look at where the main spikes are (26th and 27th, the days most people are off). Overall, the old cluster is still growing somewhat; though that is to be expected at this time of year: if we look at the data from last year (an average of 275, up by 4% from the previous month); one could attribute this growth to holiday periods, community events (such as impalongs) and possibly even christmas gifts. However, this is only a hypothesis. As to some reason for the old cluster's real longer term growth; it may well be players returning to the old cluster after having worn out their new start on the new cluster. Though, there is no evidence to support this, though the rapid decline in the new cluster certainly suggests it. Overall, there are no grounds to expect this growth to continue, though it is a welcome surprise since (according to my hypothesis) the low population should have caused a rapid acceleration in the decline of the old cluster. We're still a lot worse off than this time last year, but it could be worse. The new cluster... Well to be blunt, it is in freefall; and has been for some time. One gets the impression that the great gamble on the new cluster has somewhat failed; especially given that one would expect growth at this time!

Actually a non-premium character might well be a paying customer in the form of silver purchases for a deed. However, even if this were not the case, this statement makes a stark assumption - free players add nothing to the game. I'll disagree based on a well known model; i.e. Bartel's player types. Specifically, social players being drawn to games with a high population. There will always be a larger pool of possible free players compared to paying players, and thus to establish social critical mass (something wurm lacks as it is in cluster collapse at the moment) it needs more free players. Sitting there and saying they should move in for the good of the business is rather like saying you should let someone bleed out so they're easier to carry to hospital.

Going to bump this one; it's been a while since it saw the light of day and as my collection of tokens has grown I'd really like an alternative XD

Going to bump this one for the new year; mostly because I think this is something that needs implementing. Why? Because the ONLY explenation to not implement this is that you wanted people to grind new priest alts, or reward people who cheesed the system using championing/epic.

Happy new year people of wurm. Suggested new years resolution: Sacrifice an acorn to appease Fo

Travel 2 hours to reach rift, fight 3 hours, travel 2 hours back. 7 hour day right there unless someone ports you in. Healing is expensive in terms of materials, but it's nice to help folks. I just wish mundane healing gave some kind of credit rather than only magical healing doing so. If you're applying cotton to the wounds of other people INSIDE the rift area, you're helping. Want a nice way of avoiding issues? Make it only count if someone has a different IP.