Etherdrifter

Priest restrictions are much better than they were a few years back, I say this as someone who has played solely as a Fo priest for a long long time (never converted to Nahjo). I only have an alt to store items and the rest I ask folks for help (I live with a crafter and it works for us). I remember a time when I couldn't make a gate, couldn't clear my caved in access tunnel, or even make a complex tool; hell I can remembe a time when I couldn't shoot a bow and also had nerfed body stat growth (that they NEVER did recompsense us for) The changes you mention would restrict priests more than they would liberate them I think; being able to improve cloth items and cut overaged/shrivled trees would definitely not balance out losing the ability to fish and mine; we'd be in a much worse place than before in that respect. I'd be happy just being able to cut trees to be quite frank, as the inability to cut wood means you have to travel with some everywhere if you want to camp/travel for a long period, which means you can't really travel light and are tethered to a large cart or reasonably sized boat at least. Now lets look at why priests make good alts... All spells are tied to faith, and faith is something best spammed with alts, or at a sermon group (rare as those are these days). If you gated priest spells behind a mixture of faith, other skills and channeling (for example, locking Heal behind 50 first aid and making healing spells give first aid ticks, or genesis behind 70 channeling and 50AH) you'd essentially make it more work to grind up a priest alt than reach out to an existing priest. However, this would reduce QoL since most really useful (non-enchant) priest spells are highly situational and generally require you to be at the location the magic is needed (priests spend a lot of time travelling); which means you'd be waiting for the priest to actually get there (or you'd need to live near one). Which really brings it to the last point; magic on wurm is VERY situational. Courier (once per deed), Genesis (when people are building up to 5-speeds), Lifetransfer (once per player), Humid Drizzle (if someone messes up their deed ratio, rarely more than once a year per deed), Charm (a collector of champions needed help with a champ bear), Light of Fo (events) and Summon Soul (events only) are the only spells people have requested me to cast in the past 3 years. In terms of usefulness that isn't a lot for helping other folks; there just isn't enough call for priestly magic for a player to main a priest without something on the side at the moment. That would change if trickier magic were useful to players in more than a passing way. However, that is very unlikely to come to pass any time soon as the crafters would likely break down and riot.

Alright, first things first... The new data! Next an important note, some of the cells in the spreadsheet borked last month, the summaries were off by a fair bit! The ACTUAL monthly numbers are summarised in the table below: Old New Total Aug 229.3692741 1332.756632 1562.125906 Sep 195.1305556 1031.752778 1226.883333 Oct 186.3627419 769.5721505 955.9348925 Nov 208.9932367 661.1175725 870.1108092 Dec 232.9855391 532.9116941 765.8972332 Jan 233.7135981 465.431696 699.1452941 Feb 236.1310818 407.5313225 643.6624042 Mar 222.7006779 348.7639084 571.4645863 As you can see, the new cluster has been in continual decline, stablility hasn't been approaching, but a slow and steady collapse has been underway. The attrition rate is around about 14% of players per month in the new cluster. At its current rate of delcine, if this doesn't slow down, we can extrapolate that the new cluster will have less players in it than the old cluster in about 3--4 months (though, this is an extrapolation and should be taken with a pinch of salt). The old cluster rallied previously till Feb, and declined in march, indeed, the early data for April suggests that it is continuing to decline further at a slow rate. It is fairly likely to dip below the 200 average again before the year's end and place itself in a critical condition. Looking at population overall (ignoring that many alts exist, and the possiblity of people multi-boxing on different servers) the general trend is downwards. The rate of loss being, on average, about 14% of the total population per month which gives a projected loss in population of 65% over the last 7 months. Both clusters are now in decline, which is somewhat alarming. That is not to say that decline is unexpected, it's generally normal for this month. The old cluster seems to be following traditional patterns, whereas the new cluster is just in absolute freefall. Overall, the news isn't that great for March, I wish I had better to report.

Ok... So I'm not a PvPer, never have been, never will. I had my fill in Salem. If you go play on PvP, you run a risk of losing progress on skills. It seems only fair to slightly increase skillgain to offset that risk. In terms of game design it does make sense to reward heightened risk.

This would be a nice little QoL change with 0 impact on server load. Needs doing.

There have been plans for reworks for years; like many of wurm's systems. Reworks rarely work out!

Archaeology sickle, because then I'd have a fantastic runed golden sickle, and all the other druids would die of envy at the next tree hugging meet up!

Eh, could be interesting to see. No harm in watching it play out!

Let's address these a bit more carefully; you've attempted to counter the first point by muddying the definition of "alt", so let's go with a better term - "zerg" (using more than one toon to gain an advantage, generally implied to be at the detriment of other players). The current system encourages players to zerg hard, and that screams "poor design" (think of all those "not recommended, pay to win" reviews wurm has garnered). So, over the past 6 years, I have walked down most of Xanadu's roads; either for rifts, or to help folks out with free magic, or even just to explore. I have stumbled across one (1) unique in all that time. Maybe I just had bad luck, but let's face it, luck has nothing to do with it. It's all about knowing the spawn mechanics... At the moment, there are generous players hosting public slayings, but basing a mechanic upon the benevolence of your players is generally ill advised; and in the long run the current slaying mechanics are likely to have disenfranchised more players than they've ever helped retain.

Should have just spawned in 100 dragons in central Xanadu Sadly I missed this event, but that's just how it goes. Gratz to the winners!

I'll amble down and try to be of some use!

Going to give this one a bump, since it would make exploring more fun.

April fools, April fools everywhere! Jokes aside, this seems to be more a "we just realised how annoying some bugs are because a joke feature highlighted them" thread rather than one suggesting any form of novel or positive change to the game. Fix the bugs and there would be no problems. -1 from me

So let's assume this epic overhaul was put in place, a 30:50 cap on regular freedom and unbounded on epic. I've just capped out on freedom on a skill that really matters to me. Now I could move over to epic and continue on skilling there as per normal for free at a slower pace, or I could drop 5x my deed cost for premium and stick on the freedom cluster. Anyone who is making that early game choice is going to say "start on epic", because dense population isn't something they would be thinking of. They would be thinking "when I cap out, what do I do". Your creative players are really a social type, are they going to gravitate to a server where everyone sees their works, or one where there is more space for that work? The former seems more likely given their motivation. The logic suggests you'd end up with freedom where it currently is (maybe thinned out even more), or worse off. Then again, let's ask the real question, would everyone ending up on the same two servers really be a bad thing? Probably not.

Now this is an interesting one! The first is a universally positive idea (specific "class paths" in the journal) and would help give players at mid skill levels a reason to keep on going. The only ramification I can see is that it could also widen the gap between newbies and the old guard. The second change would be an active nerf to me in combat, but I can see the need for this is PvP. Remember though, if a new system is added AI for the mobs will also be needed for PvE. The last one I have really mixed feelings on; if implemented it would essentially sunset freedom. The lack of limitations for free players would make it the new de-facto cluster (freedom's 20 cap cannot compete), and the unbound skills would make it the logical place for older players to go. But, on the other hand, it would definitely generate two densely populated servers, and I can see no way of doing this using the existing freedom setup. It would essentially be a wurm reboot, with all the good and bad that entails.

Adding to what was said above - one can think of Wurm as the result of many partly implemented systems. Each time a "passion project" is abandoned, it rarely (if ever) gets picked up again. The steam gamble left them with two audiences to satisfy, neither of which could sustain the game if the other left. At the moment Dev direction seems to be in making changes (to satisfy the new crowd) while keeping things the same (to avoid upsetting the old crowd). Of course, if you try to please everyone no-one ends up happy!

I'm going to disagree here; I think it might not be the worst idea in the world since all it is is npcs with a message box and a mission, both of which are systems we have already. It would not be hard to implement a series of missions, the trouble is what missions would get people into wurm without being un-wurmish. We all do; especially those who think they already know everything. Jabs aside, wurm's current situation (longer timers=more skills and low QL tools are best for high level skilling) is a very "unique" (avoiding dev bashing there) design decision. I can see the logic (gives every player a hand in the economy and balanced skillgain) but the reality is it fails to do this. People game timers by hopping off buildings, and create alts for mandatorialy low QL items. Now this is an interesting one, since a lot of games go free to play as one last cash grab, so it's hard to find reliable figures. HOWEVER, a lot of negative reviews on steam were due to the fact that the game is not "free to play" as advertised and a lot slated the game for hiding this from players (and not to go against the crowd, but wurm is EXPENSIVE compared to a lot of games on the market). If wurm upped land upkeep to match lost revenue from premium, it would be hard to predict what would happen since a lot of existing wurmians are hermits (the only kind of player really left). However, if wurm kept premium but expanded the free game; that I would be willing to bet would expand player numbers to a much higher sustainable level.

Going to bump this, has anyone spotted a source spring with more than a tiny sip in it?

You missed out "removing some of the more insane priest restrictions"

Now this is a good argument; though I'd say that WU differs from WO in one key prospect - WU is not free whereas WO is. This does make a huge difference in terms of potential playerbase since to get into WO no initial investment of any kind is required, whereas for WU a smallish initial investment is needed. For my partner One would not want to make premium play to go extinct; however there is a need for more life in the game world. Runescape is often used as an example, but in runescape skilling has a much more social component. A guy is sitting there skilling his melee on cows, a guy is gathering the leather for his crafting, another is gathering bones for prayer, and another is gathering meat for cooking. These interactions are possible because free to play runescape is a LOT smaller than wurm online, and resources have a smaller impact upon the game world. However, that does not mean that wurm can't learn from this. Gating certain skills behind premium would definitely help, but creating a much stronger interlinking network of requirements between skills would also help. Introducing components that require moderate skills to create that are used in useful constructs would be a good example here - so to create a large chest with noticeably extra capaciaty one must use "fine brackets" which require 50 blacksmithing to attempt to create; but also can only be created from materials whose quality is over 40 (failure results in a regular bracket).

Logic: If a world feels empty, and one has gone there for a social gaming experience, it tends to remain empty. The evidence above suggests that it's quite true too. The idea of "the premium player paying for the free one" is just marketing masking as an ego stroke for the customer.

Alrighty, so there is a lot going on; I was hoping for some more conclusive data before I posted anything new but with exam prep starting for my students its going to be tricky to post reliable so... First, the new data so far: And below the monthly summary! 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 01/02/2021 119 209.9167 352 213 443.2083 626 119 326.5625 626 -91.1667 -57.0417 -74.1042 02/02/2021 146 213.25 287 302 431.4167 600 146 322.3333 600 3.333333 -11.7917 -4.22917 1 238.0476 531 449.256 03/02/2021 145 217.75 319 287 440.5 620 145 329.125 620 4.5 9.083333 6.791667 04/02/2021 0 209.2083 323 0 398.8333 558 0 304.0208 558 -8.54167 -41.6667 -25.1042 05/02/2021 156 230 309 274 434.56 605 156 332.28 605 20.79167 35.72667 28.25917 06/02/2021 160 261.6667 388 331 500.8333 697 160 381.25 697 31.66667 66.27333 48.97 07/02/2021 174 285.25 405 367 514.1667 672 174 399.7083 672 23.58333 13.33333 18.45833 08/02/2021 142 240.1667 334 271 433.6667 592 142 336.9167 592 -45.0833 -80.5 -62.7917 09/02/2021 163 232.9167 319 325 434.0833 582 163 333.5 582 -7.25 0.416667 -3.41667 0 239.5655 405 450.949 10/02/2021 153 235.9583 349 244 404.625 524 153 320.2917 524 3.041667 -29.4583 -13.2083 11/02/2021 1 210.8333 318 0 378.2917 565 1 294.5625 565 -25.125 -26.3333 -25.7292 12/02/2021 147 231.9583 339 293 420.625 556 147 326.2917 556 21.125 42.33333 31.72917 13/02/2021 166 274.6667 481 311 443.375 562 166 359.0208 562 42.70833 22.75 32.72917 14/02/2021 195 273.875 382 298 433.25 576 195 353.5625 576 -0.79167 -10.125 -5.45833 15/02/2021 150 227.5 347 288 396.5 521 150 312 521 -46.375 -36.75 -41.5625 16/02/2021 165 239.087 340 271 393.6087 515 165 316.3478 515 11.58696 -2.8913 4.347826 1 241.9827 481 410.0393 17/02/2021 153 236.8333 350 264 384.2917 504 153 310.5625 504 -2.25362 -9.31703 -5.78533 18/02/2021 1 223.6667 318 0 347.125 484 1 285.3958 484 -13.1667 -37.1667 -25.1667 19/02/2021 152 254.9167 350 254 388.875 512 152 321.8958 512 31.25 41.75 36.5 20/02/2021 149 280.875 410 239 402.9583 554 149 341.9167 554 25.95833 14.08333 20.02083 21/02/2021 168 258.8333 363 306 424.625 551 168 341.7292 551 -22.0417 21.66667 -0.1875 22/02/2021 131 221.5833 327 252 395.1667 561 131 308.375 561 -37.25 -29.4583 -33.3542 23/02/2021 131 211.8333 329 242 353.5833 492 131 282.7083 492 -9.75 -41.5833 -25.6667 1 241.2202 410 385.2321 24/02/2021 130 210.4583 337 234 362.375 497 130 286.4167 497 -1.375 8.791667 3.708333 25/02/2021 108 193.4167 306 192 331.5833 460 108 262.5 460 -17.0417 -30.7917 -23.9167 26/02/2021 122 215.6667 301 229 347.5 462 122 281.5833 462 22.25 15.91667 19.08333 Monthly 27/02/2021 142 244.3333 367 229 375.6667 519 142 310 519 28.66667 28.16667 28.41667 Old Total New 28/02/2021 152 265.25 496 294 395.5833 496 152 330.4167 496 20.91667 19.91667 20.41667 236.1311 674.0846 437.9536 1.010344 0.940962 % Increase/Decrease 1.034379 -5.9038 So, as we can see; the monthly population is still dropping in total on average; the old cluster is roughly stable, which is a sign of stable health. Normally a decline occurs during this period, so the evidence now suggests the old cluster has stabilised in this rather ill state. The old cluster, I would say, is no longer at a critical point, provided nothing tips the balance it may remain stable or slowly drop. The new cluster is also reaching a stable point, the decline this month is much less noted (13% vs 6%) and here too stability is apparently approaching Overall the game's health is still in decline though, its lifeblood still bleeding out. However, the evidence suggests that wurm is now nearly reaching population equillibrium; influx is now matching outgoing if both clusters are taken together. This may change in the next month, as the data indicates that the population of both clusters are still declining (averages are 223 and 227 for the last 2 complete weeks in the old cluster, and 364 and 353 in the new cluster). This decline is somewhat expected though, and may not indicate anything amiss. At current, wurm's population is about the same as the top 2 pay-to-play MUDs on http://mudstats.com/Browse; which is quite interesting in and of itself given how much of wurm's genus is that of the MUD! Getting reliable MMO data from commercial games is difficult, but compared to many other titles Wurm definitely feels rather like a "Ghost Town MMORPG" (though, that term isn't actually formally defined (which invites a paper to provide a solid set of criteria!), I will settle for the notion that one can log on for over an hour without seeing another player) at the moment on some of the larger servers. Something interesting unrelated to the data is that I'm hearing a lot about people moving to smaller servers for community; whether this is just because my sample is skiewed or because we are genuinely seeing a "cluster collapse" effect (smaller alliances/guilds fall apart and move towards one large server-wide alliance/guild) remains to be seen...

Back in 2014, quite a few years ago now, I found this place. I've lived there ever since.

This is an old one, but really needs fixing. Planting hedges by water does not always work correctly. If the tile NE of the hedge is submerged it will not let you plant; even if the border itself is not submerged. This leads to some VERY strange behaviour!

Ok so what are the possible reasons for not implementing this? 1. It would be hard to balance -But that's not our problem, it's hard to balance but it could be balanced. I mean it's not as if existing systems are not already horribly broken, and have been for years. 2. Epic is dead, why bother -It's dead right now yes, and lets be honest here, it will stay dead until something is done with it. You've got some dead servers that need life, that is reason enough. 3. Skilling on PvP will become the new meta -No, this is where you do your job properly with (1) 4. This would be hard to implement -No... Every time you get a skill tick on epic you just grant a skilltick on freedom with a reduced size based on the difference in probability of obtaining that skilltick. I've got to admit, I doubt I'd every play on epic (so this would be of no use to me); however there isn't really a good reason not to do this.

Pretty much what it says on the box; the option to lay down slate/marble/sandstone gravel. Shard+Packed Ground = New gravel It shouldn't be too much of a hassel art wise (you could just pallet shift existing gravel if you wanted to be lazy).