Etherdrifter

It's closer to 1+ hours there, 1+ hour back on Xanadu; which doesn't help improve things! Only the great rifting community on Xanadu kept me turning up; but nearly 4 hours for a single event? By the end I'm definitely just slogging it out and waiting for the end. Here's a fun thought; instead of making rifts harder by adding more damage sponges, how about adding in some extra critter variants that either ignore certain armour types, or even disable enchants within a short radius? Mechanics that would challenge established players (who rely on their uber-gear) while still not massively disadvantaging newer ones. Critters designed to take down endgame armour would definitely spice things up. Drop wave 4 for a special spawn - a giant one-off boss with decent loot that only spawns if a certain number of players in local have over a certain undisclosed participation threshold.

Again, you've missed my point; I am not making accusations. I am repeating what I have heard as the reason behind people not bothering to make suggestions. Do I personally believe them? I always follow the data, and the evidence makes no pertinent suggestion at this time. I'm not going to discuss data science with you, because you've demonstrated beyond a doubt to me you don't understand the field. Sorry to say it, but I don't think we're going to agree on that topic. So lets stop derailing a rather good thread exploring ideas, and carry on trying to both help out a game we enjoy. I agree here; some more dangerous creatures that spawn a fixed distance from spawn towns (and won't roam there) would be a welcome addition. More creatures you need a group to slay that give lesser rewards (a material lying between drake/scale and conventional ones) might be an option to try (a variant of leather or cloth since metals are already easy to find rare variants of). Though, I will say, as a free player I was really disappointed by how useless archery was without sinking a lot of time and effort into making arrows and skilling up. A better curve for archery hit/damage, and some form of automatic arrow recovery/bulk improvement would really help make it viable on PvE.

Instead, how about you get your back down, stop trying to use outrage as a counter to anything you don't like to hear, and actually listen to what is being said. I've offered a rather controversial fact, but this has come from years of hearing people say it. It is, whether you like it or not, a factor in why no-one is bothering to make suggestions. If you don't feel it is, I'd be happy to back down in view of superior data.

I think this is the crux of things; because the calls for change used to be on the suggestions forum. The fact that people are creating threads like this are a symptom of a deeper issue; they've suggested everything they can, been politely told "this is not the way we want to go", so now they're waiting for things to get better because no idea seems good enough unless it somehow gets implemented in a way that makes the game worse. [Disclaimer, I am not saying this is the case, merely that this is how people feel] - There is also a lingering feeling among some of the player base that some people's suggestions are listened to much more carefully, regardless of the merit of such suggestions. The fact I had to issue a disclaimer also says a lot about the state of things too

Sorry to break it to you, but that's where we are already.

You beat me to it!

Well, I called it so clearly negativity was the right path? Remarks at your expense aside; I wasn't alone in my "negative" speculation, though I am quite happy to admit that things worked out better than I predicted. I must confess, I'm a little irked by the "everything is buttercups and rainbows" folks because they seem to be holding onto that idea out of mad desparation. It's ok to admit things didn't go as planned and that mistakes were made. You can't learn from things you aren't willing to admit failed. The most common theme in negative reviews I see is about the subscription; in general you can go for micropay or subscription. The only time both is going to work out for you is if you've designed an amazing skinner box. Wurm, thankfully, isn't there yet (though the introduction of extra RNG might take it there unwillingly). However, that does not change the fact that either you charge people for their characters or you charge them for their land; doing both is just a recipe for... well where we are now. Something needs to change on this front, but it isn't going to. It is something I harp on about, but Wurm's priest system needs a drastic overhaul, either by getting rid of it (as is popular on WU), or by really fleshing it out so playing a priest is something you do full time, and not in an alt-box. Most people have priest alts either because they want to be an island (there are always those people on games), or because there aren't enough priest players around to easily get hold of casts. Priests need crafters to imp and repair, crafters need priests for casts - it's an untapped player synergy at the moment. At the moment, time spent travelling that isn't taking me to an event, is dead time. When I used to travel a lot on wurm, I was reading for my thesis, I wasn't playing the game, the game was just "loading" while I worked. I was not gaining skill, I was building an ever bigger chore for myself (the further you travel from home, the longer you have to get back home to everything), and I'm not likely to find anything beyond a pretty view (definitely worth it in the old days when people built things, but now the roads are dead, no so much) or death (which is just an even larger chore). Flesh out travel, make it tie in to skills; give people who are travelling a lot the ability to skill at the same rate as those staying at home and you're on for a winner. The exploration update might help fix this, but it's going to need some solid content to do that. There is a lot to like about wurm; but there is also a lot that is just waiting for the right tweak to make it *fit*.

Given how many of us predicted Steam's release wouldn't positively impact player numbers in the long run, and given how right that was, I think the next phase of planned growth is now under a lot of debate. Jackal is a reasonable path to keep the older players engaged, but it isn't going to draw in new ones. Overall, the numbers speak for themselves, wurm isn't declining, it is relatively stable now (it's sitting at about 1/5 the player numbers it was during the steam boom). If wurm wants to start growing, it needs to see why steam failed to make it a big player in the mmo world.

I.e. shatter risk is not circumvented?

Pretty much this; it's rather like me mailing my tools to a smith to have them imped, rather than the smith having to travel to my place to imp my tools.

More data for those that want it! Only point of note, as of January the old cluster had more players, on average, online than the new cluster.

Going to bump this one; it was a little controversial during the time of its original writing but I think now it might be seen a little more favourably. Also, with regards to PvP balance; just stop scrolls from functioning at all on a PvP server.

Time for a bump I think!

Finally, some genuinely good news!

This would be the crux of the matter (one may infer this from the treatment of priests over the years). I know a few people who play on both clusters, and I very much doubt they would keep both sets of toons premiumed up if a merge were to happen.

There is precedent you know? An official poll was held asking player opinion on the matter for the Release/Pristine merge. Of course, this was also back when wurm's population was much much higher, and the results were less liable to be skewed by a vocal minority on the forums.

Lack of players is definitely a huge contribution; a lot of the friendlier forumers have also been driven off over the years which doesn't help. As the number of players has dropped, so has the number of "social" types (https://mud.co.uk/richard/hcds.htm); with this decline you end up with a world full of achievers (the explorers are still around, but they're mostly out exploring!), and in wurm achievement is measured in silent, efficient grind. If you want a truely social experience on wurm I can suggest one route (and it isn't going to be popular). Let your premium drop, move to the area near newbie town on indie, make a small deed and start recruiting fellow free folks. Free players *need* to rely on one another (you can't take down most critters without help, can't easily move goods, can't breed super fast horses that let you dodge all enemies), they're often much more social (most are not there for the grind), and they're also genuinely different people (their projects are defined by their skill limitations). The best part is, if you decide to take a break and come back, you won't need to re-sub! If you're interested, there is a short guide I wrote here : (https://forum.wurmonline.com/index.php?/topic/175220-free-play-life-as-one-of-the-free-folk/)

The changes to bookshelves and archaeology journals are nice. The rest... The issue is it is focused on people who grind, who also log on for very little time. On their own, those are likely large demographics, but the number of people who fall into both categories is probably quite low. It's a nice mechanic, but nerfing it in this way seems counter-productive.

1. I already have a job thanks (Software QA is not something I do for free!). 2. Testing is to find bugs, your opinion on how it "feels" is unlikely to be taken on board unless you're VERY lucky, or if an angry mob forms. 3. Time spent testing is premium time wasted (we're already paying for the privilege of the main game itself, and that clock does not stop while testing). 4. I'd only be inclined to test features I'd use/those with the potential to impact my game time, and wurm hasn't added any of those in years.

Ether - Aether - Empty - Without substance Drifter - Wanderer - Travelling person Pretty much just a pun on an "empty wanderer" as in "another anonymous person on the net"

Technically I have, however the Pi is on the other side of the country from me. Once I get back to visit my family I'll pull the data and upload it for all to see; real life is just a little too busy at the moment to make the trip easily!

@Bloodreina Feel free to write a script that pulls that data daily and logs it. It would, indeed, be an interesting secondary data point to track. However, I have seen deeds abandoned for years that still have upkeep (24 silver = 2 years upkeep for smaller deeds). Meanwhile, the same amount of silver would only last 2.4 months of premium time. This suggests the hypothesis that you'd only notice a pattern over extremely long periods of time... I can still remember a time when travelling Xanadu's southern roads was an adventure in meeting new people; those suggesting changes likely remember those times as well. The wurm of today is an empty place compared to back then, indeed it is why even we have dwindled away...

I was once largely player A/B, though late game forced some player C onto me (a day or so of it every few months). I hated being player C when I figured out how badly unintuitive the mechanics were, and how worthless the results were (high skill, but nothing gained doing it). I easily hit 70 in skills playing as player A over a period of years (very much years, not months); I used B/C to push a couple of skills over 80, but getting over 70 as player A is impossible unless your desired activities align with the optimal grind method. Honestly, I only lasted as long as I did because I stuck to largerly player A and enjoyed the game; if I'd ground as a player C or even overmuch as a player B I'd have left years ago. I ran out of things to do about a month ago, and most new content doesn't feel geared towards my player type (which is fine, it's a very niche type and isn't a profitable one to create content for) so I trasitioned to player category D (unable to skill further; in my case becasue I let my premium drop and have no intent to renew).

Alas, I think you're quite right there, and that's rather the "deathknell" for me as far as a premium wurm experience is considered.

Hrm... A device I cannot imp (so likely would be unable to use), that would cause absolute havock to my home (I live up a mountain we hedged in to keep critters from wandering off) But... It would enrich the game world by giving crafters an endgame form of travel similar in potency to summon soul... +1 from me, sometimes what we want needs to be put aside for the good of us all. Simple solution to walled in area issue - make it so that if you land on a deed you do not have permissions for, it teleports you to the nearest perimeter instead ("a sudden gust of wind blows you N/S/E/W")