Etherdrifter

Something to keep in mind; the numbers logged are an UPPER LIMIT to the number of players online at a time; the real number is likely to be much lower (around half on the old cluster if we take a conservative estimate based on the survey I ran a while back, though that survey was far from ideal). Your actual player population online on average is more realistically somewhere between 100 and 150 (100 being half, 150 being a GENEROUS extrapolation).

Well folks, its that time again, and likely to be the last time in a while (moving for a new job and I'll be leaving a lot of equipment behind). First, the star of the show, the data! Next, onwards to the (likely final) monthly report I'll be writing! After this, you're on your own with the data and I'll only be sending it out to folks who request it. 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 01/07/2021 1 174.25 262 0 235.0833 320 1 204.6667 320 -16.7083 -48.7083 -32.7083 02/07/2021 121 187.1667 259 194 277.4167 351 121 232.2917 351 12.91667 42.33333 27.625 03/07/2021 142 209.2917 287 201 295.1667 441 142 252.2292 441 22.125 17.75 19.9375 04/07/2021 131 230.7917 430 184 289.3333 406 131 260.0625 430 21.5 -5.83333 7.833333 05/07/2021 133 207.9167 297 198 277.9583 392 133 242.9375 392 -22.875 -11.375 -17.125 06/07/2021 110 179.7917 259 184 278.375 371 110 229.0833 371 -28.125 0.416667 -13.8542 1 197.1667 430 0 276.7321 441 07/07/2021 131 186.4167 268 167 257.75 333 131 222.0833 333 6.625 -20.625 -7 08/07/2021 15 163.4167 259 41 249.375 329 15 206.3958 329 -23 -8.375 -15.6875 09/07/2021 122 187.8333 281 179 270.0417 375 122 228.9375 375 24.41667 20.66667 22.54167 10/07/2021 145 217.4167 354 200 286.2917 369 145 251.8542 369 29.58333 16.25 22.91667 11/07/2021 161 246.75 346 245 307.0417 404 161 276.8958 404 29.33333 20.75 25.04167 12/07/2021 137 192.9583 258 164 266.7917 375 137 229.875 375 -53.7917 -40.25 -47.0208 13/07/2021 119 196.75 265 163 260.4583 335 119 228.6042 335 3.791667 -6.33333 -1.27083 15 198.7917 354 41 271.1071 404 14/07/2021 1 188.8333 300 0 241.0417 333 1 214.9375 333 -7.91667 -19.4167 -13.6667 15/07/2021 125 200.75 292 175 258.5417 349 125 229.6458 349 11.91667 17.5 14.70833 16/07/2021 120 206.625 291 172 268 357 120 237.3125 357 5.875 9.458333 7.666667 17/07/2021 113 232.6957 418 194 281 374 113 256.8478 418 26.07065 13 19.53533 18/07/2021 154 265.5 548 199 299.6667 421 154 282.5833 548 32.80435 18.66667 25.73551 19/07/2021 149 230.375 297 190 290.9167 384 149 260.6458 384 -35.125 -8.75 -21.9375 20/07/2021 151 216.1667 297 182 266.25 329 151 241.2083 329 -14.2083 -24.6667 -19.4375 1 220.1351 548 0 272.2024 421 21/07/2021 126 211.4167 285 169 251.875 352 126 231.6458 352 -4.75 -14.375 -9.5625 22/07/2021 132 208.875 284 156 235.75 341 132 222.3125 341 -2.54167 -16.125 -9.33333 23/07/2021 130 216.5833 305 196 262.6667 331 130 239.625 331 7.708333 26.91667 17.3125 24/07/2021 145 249.5833 347 190 289.2917 394 145 269.4375 394 33 26.625 29.8125 25/07/2021 175 262.2609 381 199 286.913 399 175 274.587 399 12.67754 -2.37862 5.149457 26/07/2021 123 212.6667 324 194 263 347 123 237.8333 347 -49.5942 -23.913 -36.7536 27/07/2021 123 213.25 309 182 255.9167 338 123 234.5833 338 0.583333 -7.08333 -3.25 123 224.948 381 156 263.6304 399 28/07/2021 118 213.1667 293 170 239.5 322 118 226.3333 322 -0.08333 -16.4167 -8.25 29/07/2021 1 195.5 266 8 240.9583 343 1 218.2292 343 -17.6667 1.458333 -8.10417 30/07/2021 129 215.8333 302 188 265.75 413 129 240.7917 413 20.33333 24.79167 22.5625 31/07/2021 151 254.1667 482 206 277.875 366 151 266.0208 482 38.33333 12.125 25.22917 212.0967 480.6772 268.5805 % Increase/Decrease 2.383869 -8.67197 Let's begin with the obvious; the Friendship Bay Summer Impalong was running between July 20th - 25th; which gives reasonable grounds to argue that (for the old cluster) the population was somewhat inflated between these dates. I've not really got enough data on impalongs to figure out if they have a statistical impact on the monthly summary. That being said; the old cluster's population is up by 2%, not too notable a gain (5 extra players on average per day), but still a gain. Looking at the breakdown of the data, the week before, and during, the impalong are primarily responsible here (up from 198 to 220 which is a sharp leap for the old cluster!). This might have been people transporting alts for sermoning, or it might have been new players travelling to the event, or returning players getting things imped up and socialising. Nailing down the exact cause is difficult, but one cannot argue with the data and I think the old cluster has stabilised into a regular heartbeat with upturns for events and downturns elsewhere. At this point, no lasting improvement has been seen, but no significant decline; one feels this is about as good as the old cluster is likely to get (and after looking at the data for almost a year, it is certainly suggesting it). The new cluster is a rather different story, again the population has resumed its drop, though here we must again consider the impalong (people might have been playing their old toons, which would explain some of this drop); though, looking at last months total average population (501.2417) vs this months (480.6772) then we can see that there has still been a decline in overall average players online which seems to suggest that there have been some losses in one of the clusters. Earlier this month, I also took a look at medians, and those lined up reasonably well with the means, so I am now reasonably certain that this data is an accurate representation of the average number of players online at a given time, at least on a monthly scale (dragons and server shutdowns are not having too much of an impact). More importantly, is this data really an accurate representation of wurm's population? Well, every player logged over the month could be a different player (extremely unlikely), or it could be they are all the same player (also extremely unlikely); we can be certain that this number if inflated by alts (on the old cluster, by a multiple of about 2 according to the priests and alt survey, though this was only moderately reliable and should be taken with a grain of salt). It certainly gives an indication of how the population is moving; if the population of the game rose or dropped significantly, we would likely see a very noticeable change in population values. For example, one can definitely infer a mass exodus from the new cluster after the steam launch (expected and backed up by steam player figures) but one would be harder pressed to infer a mass exodus from the old cluster. Alright, now for the bit that is pure opinion (and given that I won't be around much after this, I can get some things out in the clear), so feel free to ignore this part if you want to stick to only the facts. Wurm is in decline, it has been for years, and the naysayers are just burying their heads in the sand. The dev team has become unusually quiet, and given that, even when it was under the normally loquacious retrograde, communication ground to a halt, one can perhaps assume that this isn't entirely their choice. The evidence suggests that the big content updates for this year haven't had the impacted hoped for, and this isn't entirely the developer's fault:- it is VERY hard to predict how well a change will go down, especially overhauling a system. It wasn't helped by ignoring community feedback on the feature, but then we've often accused them of kneejerking poorly thought out changes into the game. Looking at the amount of RNG added recently, one wonders if development direction is really being guided by the same vision as it was a few years ago. To put it bluntly; wurm is now owned by a gambling company, and one should view its intentions in much the same way. In essence, wurm is now a game about hope. One hopes that the developers are working on solutions to the problems created, and that the game is still more of a passion project as it is a cash cow to be milked till it runs dry. We hope things will get better, an that our world won't be left an empty ghost town, with nothing but paved spots marking projects invested with love. There is no evidence to support this, one must go entirely upon hope. Let us talk of another game of hope: red or black, where will the ball land ladies and gents, and where are you going to put your money?

I can see the idea here, and it is an interesting one, however... 1. What happens if/when you die on this server? Do you just spawn on water? 2. How does this tie in with defiance; would you be able to take defiance gear to SFI? If so, what happens when you return to NFI? 3. This server is going to get HEAVILY cluttered with boats over time; what kind of cleanup is there going to be? If those problems were solved... Why not just sell an item for 50--100 silver on trader called "safe passage certificate" that allows on trip across the map without being attacked for everyone on the ship. Those who want to risk PvP can do so, but those who don't have to pay the fee!

They don't give feedback on the forums to people who have been around for years (longer than some staff in certain cases). Let's be realistic here; they should but it's not going to happen.

That's your opinion, and you're entitled to it, my opinion differs. It'd be interesting to see if this change of policy could have impacted population numbers and might explain months where population drops are larger than normal (bot sweep carried out on X, 15 casualties; RMT ring caught on Y, 5 casualties).

Well, there is no harm in it is there? It won't negatively impact the player base; just because you don't want to know (will others knowing really impact you?) doesn't mean others shouldn't. Perma-bans are usually announced after all!

+1 In general, wurm's high end furniture needs an overhaul to make it somewhat more useful/desirable.

If it's a quick fix, sure; no harm in it. It removes some diversity, but offending the Tumblr crowd is generally ill advised. If it's a difficult fix, then maybe put it on the pile; the game has many more pressing issues to resolve. When you have a lot of angry people, that anger finds its way to earth itself.

I'll direct you back to the population data thread where you've still failed to respond to anyone's feedback with an argument supported by the data (or, indeed, offered some data of your own to the contrary). You can talk about grading data science when you have demonstrated some actual proficiency in it. Snark aside, the year in review pretty much sums up a lot of sentiment I've heard from people who just quit over the year.

I was going to save this for my 1 year summary (coming next month to mark a full year of population data collection) but... The number of currently premiumed accounts is very likely to drop off a cliff around black friday when all those cheap 1 year subs drop. 3 years ago, I could travel and see 3--5 people on the road, pass through, or by, at least 40--50 deeds on my trips to rifts. 2 years ago I maybe saw 1--2 people beyond in an afternoon of travel. I'd still see deeds though, but I also saw a fair few ruins too! 1 year ago I saw no-one on a lot of trips (3--5 hours driving around highways on Xanadu); though I still passed through a lot of deeds. Though, the ruins outnumbered them. Last month I went out driving; very few deeds, no people, just an empty and still world. There aren't even any ruins, just paved patches that have not changed in years. Xanadu, at least, is a ghost town server. A lot of folks have moved to smaller servers to compensate, but those that do quickly fade into inactivity. Overall, we're where the "gloomy naysayers" said we'd be. So far up a creek that we've forgotten what the paddle even looks like. Short of a miracle, my paper is likely to be titled "Player population trends in a declining MMO", and I'm very very sad about that.

I remember vwhen this was the norm; and given the massive speed nerf to travel, it is reasonable for it to become the norm again I would say. Either that or add in a fo spell to reverse aging (like you should have done instead of locking it behind a rune).

Wurm's current healing system is really good for healing yourself, but really bad for healing others; this would make things a bit more usable and a bit more inline with other rpgs. Maybe give 2 actions with cotton: First Aid (randomly applies cotton to a wound - Unlocks at 30 first aid) Triage (applies cotton to the most grevious wound - Unlocks at 60 first aid) and 1 action with healing covers: Treat (applies the cover to the most potent wound that it will heal - Unlocks at 70 first aid)

We don't do that here.

Currently tracking is almost entirely useless on PvE servers, and I don't think it would get much use on PvP ones either. A common complaint on steam was the lack of mobs on the new cluster, and in some areas on the old cluster they can be hard to find too so... Mechanic: "Flushed Out" Any animal with the "Flushed Out" modifier will be unable to breed, will despawn once there are no players within 70 tiles of them (or if they have been around for more than 30 mins). Each player may only have one "flushed out" creature in existance at a time (attempting to "hunt" for another creature while one is still around despawns the current one). "Flushed Out" creature corpses work a little different when butchering (butchered products go straight to a pile on the floor and the corpse vanishes); the corpses of hunted animals decay away in 5 minutes to avoid clutter. New actions: Right click a tile - > Tracking ->... Tracking 15 - Rat Hunt Usable once per (60 - (Tracking/2)) minutes, spawns a "flushed out giant rat" within (51-(Tracking/2)) tiles of the user (only functions off deed and will only spawn offdeed, the mob will remain stationary unless "spooked"). This can be hunted as per normal for food, and is particularly weak to hunting arrows (they inflict (tracking skill/10)x the normal damage). This rat is non-hostile and will not aggro (essentially an easy way for newer players to get a pelt); for free players the cooldown is always 1 hour to avoid server crashing spawn amounts. Tracking 30 - Pheasant hunt Usable once per (60 - (Tracking/3)) minutes, spawns a "flushed out pheasant" within (40-(Tracking/3)) tiles of the user (only functions off deed and will only spawn offdeed, the mob will remain stationary unless "spooked"). This can be hunted as per normal for food, and is particularly weak to hunting arrows (they inflict (tracking skill/10)x the normal damage) Tracking 60 - Deer Hunt Usable once per (60 - (Tracking/6)) minutes, spawns a "flushed out deer" within (60-(Tracking/6)) tiles of the user (only functions off deed and will only spawn offdeed, the mob will remain stationary unless "spooked"). This can be hunted as per normal for food/materials, and is particularly weak to hunting arrows (they inflict (tracking skill/10)x the normal damage)

You vastly underestimate how much I dislike certain people. Jokes aside, this kind of spawn mechanic is a little too haphazard; might make a nice mob for nights when all three moons align though...