Tinkerer

Yes, I have a deed on Independence. And yeah it took a good long while to build all the walls and buildings on it, but it was all done bit by bit, a couple of house walls at a time (after the first small building) There was no immediate need to have all the buidings completed. I tended to just do it two walls at a time because that meant just one trip to the mine with a small cart - turning the shards into bricks whilst there and just carting the bricks back. This gave me the time for all the other odd jobs that needed doing around the place. I wouldn't call the creation of a first house a 'grind' Especially as its wooden and usually 'quality' is not a consideration. During the process they will also gain valuable skills - woodcutting, carpentry, maybe some digging (as well as a litle bit of mining, blacksmithing and locksmithing) Having a little house to call home at the end of that is a little bonus.

Hope you didn't get the wrong idea about my first post - I could see many of the potential benefits, and only the one initial drawback. As for visiting the cool places, very true,, and no doubt they would be quicker/easier to get to as well.. rather than not going to see something because its 8hrs+ of sailing away...

Certainly an intriguing notion. However, my first concern is a social one. There's something nice about wandering around, getting lost and walking past other deeds and admiring their layout and handiwork. Going through other people's portals just to look at their deeds is something you would have to go out of your way to do. You wouldn't walk passed the farmers tending to their on-deed fields or animal breeders grooming their herds. The most you'ld come across would be the occasional hunter-gatherer or player searching for PvP opportunities. Walking past other deeds also helps to define the land and give a sense of direction. Just seeing lots of player portals that all look the same would not have the same effect. There would be no "Wow this place is HUGE.. upkeep must be a pretty penny or two" or "Hmm.. didn't I just go passed this place? Must be going round in circles...."

I remember also digging down in the hope of finding rock on my deed. I dug down somewhere in the region of 240-280 deep in the centre over a couple of 3x3 areas but sadly just ended up hitting water instead. How high up are you from sea level? might be worth finding a mag priest to at least check there is rock to find.

Reaver: Yeah, a building can take a good long while, but getting the materials I don't think is so bad really. Mining a ceiling for quick shards, and turning them into bricks is pretty quick. Mixing mortar is pretty quick and easy too and getting a couple of sand likewise. Clay is more tedious, but the real drag is the long action timer and stamina drain on the 20 actions to build the final wall. Thats the a.f.k. part of the process for me at least. Still, its not something you have to do often and once done, its done particularly if on-deed. On a PvP server I'm sure it becomes much more of an issue though. Boats take ages, yes. But again, they last almost forever too. And the length of time it takes means that they are worth something in the marketplace. However, the recent post about corracles could be interesting - possibly providing a much quicker 'boat' that decays quicker, and isn't particularly great, but is good enough for temporary use might be a nice addition. I still remember the feeling of satisfaction after I made my first rowing boat back on GV - and the required deforrestation involved (back when items were lost on failures) it took countless trees for each keel section. Yet that sense of achievement at the end made the whole thing worthwhile. It's probably a couple of years old now, but I still have and still use that boat and am reminded of the effort every time I get in it. As for the grind-factor. Sure if you care about getting high skills, then yes it takes a lot of repetitive play and grinding but its more of a choice than forced. There's only a couple I've ever grinded on (masonry to 30 to build a stone house, and a few to 15 to avoid constant examining: farming/digging etc) other than that I just let them go up as I go about my daily business without paying them much attention. I tend to rarely even bother to use my sleep bonus unless I'm close to a skill-level threshold. But to me this is where things split from PvE to PvP. In a PvE environment, the skills are less important unless you want to be highly skilled in an area to make in-game profit from producing and selling. In the PvP environment it becomes much more important (especially fighting skills) in order to compete - hence the skill curve of Epic. In the end I guess its down to play style. There are players who in mmo's will rush through content and grind on the best rewarding areas simply to get to the top level and then farm for the best gear, others will simply take there time and enjoy the experience of getting there. Problem is once you get there, then what? The content has run out. If you had everything maxed in Wurm - what would your next goal be? If everyone hit 100 in some skills without all the blood sweat and tears, would it actually mean as much - or even anything? Maybe I'm just one of the few exceptions of players, but as an example in WoW I did take a couple of characters up to max level, but then re-rolled new ones and kept doing so once I hit about level 40. I found the challenge of having lower skills, fewer abilities and the wealth of 'levelling content' far more fun and interesting than the 'end-game'. Partly the same reason as I enjoy playing on GV, The skill cap restrictions gives the game added challenge. Things are more tedious to make but it is more rewarding - especially learning how to get around some of the restrictions or coping with them.

I suppose, sure. Though in my opinion the pacing is generally good but I think both Durr and I were referring to speeding things up slightly for new players to 'get started' quicker, not everyone for everything overall. As for other links, Farmerbob had another good summary thread for simple fixes and changes which has drifted down to page 10 of this forum. http://forum.wurmonline.com/index.php?/topic/54920-simple-fixes-changes-thread/

Ah.. yeah, thats quite different to what I thought you initially meant. However, the only problem with that is when that time limit is up.. everything would seem painfully slow by comparison. It's a bit like when I go back to GV after doing a whole load of terraforming with this character. The action timers are horribly noticable. There is (I believe) already a buff that affects creation that prevents making unfinished items (so you don't run into the problem of needing a mallet to finish the mallet etc) but this could be expanded somewhat to include a 'beginners luck' buff that increases the chance of attaching items etc - so that failures are less common and thus overall speed is increased. It would perhaps not be so noticable when it stopped being in effect. It could even 'gradually decay' (Full effect for first 12hrs, half effect for the next 12hrs, then normal) As for mixed materials - that makes me think of torches - and hardly anyone makes them because its so much trouble to find and acquire all the materials. Its easier to just plough through failures while making a lantern.

Hehe character creator would be a pretty sweet addition. As for the 'protection' I think that was more in relation to allowing a new deed to at least have some protected time to build some walls and basic defences, rather than have a completely undefended token drained before the even some basic walls were erected.

Reaver: You can't really compare the two, but I agree, it's not really the graphics - more because of the animations. Characters all look the same and have stiff movements, animals 'slide' across the ground with slight leg movement... however, this is slowly improving and evolving which is good news on the whole. Durr: With regard to speed, I think that is actually part of the draw of Wurm. It is not instantly gratifying, and you have a much greater sense of accomplishment from the process. Speed everything up and you just speed up the rate people get bored from having done everything the game has to offer.

+1 I agree. The lamp change already added extra chores. Having to keep checking the oil in the barrel for decay and then decanting a little to readd simly to remove the decay and lower the quality is just another pointless task - even if it doesn't take long, just remembering to do it is annoying enough. Having just checked mine again, it is already at 35dmg since I last put some in.

I don't like the idea that they should be interchangable, however as for regaining favour while logged off, I can't think of any reason why that shouldn't be the case. Even if it was just at a 'flat rate' rather than any exponential effect (which would be much harder to calculate or would require addition database updates while you were offline). The 'flat-rate' could be higher if logged out in a bed. +1 to favour regen -1 to SB <-> favour exchangability.

This was very much the first thing I thought of too - with regard to what *could* work in wurm. Though not 'exactly' but merely 'similar' Full 'real-time' interaction isn't really a viable option for Wurm given the emphasis that Wurm has on skills and also the issues of player latency and lag. Also, Age Of Conan has no 'auto attack move', something that I think Wurm would still need. All the additional interaction options would merely queue up over this in the way that special moves, focus, shield bash etc. do, and when the queue is empty, it returns to the basic attack again. (Otherwise you introduce bigger advantages for players with lower latency) All these additional ‘regular’ moves would be added to a queue and with different execution timers (an expansion on swing-timers) and depending upon your last action, a ‘positional recovery timer’ (also dependant upon weapon type) Think about actually swinging a heavy two-handed maul... after a strong low swing from right to left and the momentum involved with that it is not immediately possible to suddenly perform a quick downwards strike on the right without a pause to recover position, however performing an upwards swing from the left would be much quicker to execute as a second move as your maul is already in the starting position for that move. Hence, for the observant, it might be easier to predict what attack your opponent might try next and you can attempt to either block it, or counter attack. (This element of reaction and prediction however does require low latency) A player could ever define their own attack patterns should they prefer, instead of constantly queuing the same order each fight - but this would be less effective against common opponents who might 'learn' your pattern and counter it. Again, this adds more strategy to combat rather than it being purely numeric. With increased character animation then a player has the chance to guess what might come next without being required to concentrate on the wall of text combat window. It also becomes far more interesting to watch happen. With visible weapons and armour, one can also better predict what fighting style he might expect from the player. With expansion on the current ‘swing-timer’ to affect different moves and a ‘positional recovery’ between some attack moves, this might help make more weapons more viable and introduces more variation in fighting style. As it stands being purely numeric, I'd actually guess there is very little variation in what weapons are used in PvP at a higher level. (but yes, that is an assumption as I haven't experienced that).

Changes I would like to see and changes that would likely have better results for attracting new players or converting PvE to PvP are two pretty different lists. The former would include more in the ways of bug fixes and functionality that is currently severely missing or lacking (e.g. the much mentioned ability to raise rock, or fixing lighting - especially underground). However, the OP was about the latter. I would definitely agree with the 'update notes' and providing better information about changes - and these should be integrated into the launcher. (again though, this is more geared to existing players) Much has already changed over the last couple of years to ease new players into the game. Some of which has removed a lot of the fun (more hard-core) challenge from exisiting players - for instance crafting failure system, better tutorial, and even the increased skill gain elements of Epic. Graphic models have also radically improved over the last year making it a much more appealing and beautiful environment. Visible armour will be another such boost for attracting newer players. Multi-storey buildings is something more aimed at existing players not at the new players and while it would add more diversity to the landscape, I can't see a whole lot of functional benefit from it. The combat system however is one thing that really needs improvement. But the best solution? Hell if I know what that is. Full real-time interaction reduces the impact of the skills system which is fundamental to wurm and has huge implementation problems when it comes to issues like lag and player latency. But some middle ground can surely be reached. Something that limits the "wall of text" and increases the player input. Sure, higher skill gives more 'special moves' that increase interaction, but that does nothing to encourage the lower skilled newer players. They see none of this and may well give up on combat a long time before getting anywhere near that. Pretty much any change to the existing combat system would give it more appeal to me. Hussars' idea of giving players some 'limited and diminishing' protection when first joining/deeding would certainly be another thing that would make me more willing to try that out. But I feel it would be difficult to strike a good balance. A new deed with several active villagers could build up some defences pretty quickly compared to a single player without so much available game time. But the idea itself does provide a better feeling of security. Security is a fairly fixed concept presently. Either you choose freedom for full security, Homeservers for limited security or you jump into the centre with none. If it was designed more to do with 'villagers play time' (or some other mechanic) rather than simply location, I think this would end up helping to increase the amount of PvP between players and would also help with retention of newer players.

Hadn't considered the other deed-based permissions, but yeah adding those aspects in (well.. lets call them 'token' permissions - whether deed or raid) would allow for quite a bit of extra leeway to balance defence/attack. And if you went the added route of 'limiting' what can be done to someones deed (again from a permissions perspective - like as you say terraforming) without a raid token, then it would add a bit of extra defence against the random ganks (no raid token), but make you potentially weaker against organised raids (with raid token planted).

Hehe awesome. Guess the light tokens don't work to the '100 item' limit. How many tiles radius was that? A little hard to tell where in the distance the actual source is - given the insane glow. 10 tiles? more?

Just a quick thought, but the benefit of planting a raid token early could by increased having it affect bashing bonus - somewhat akin to how a deed would for villagers (though not necessarily the same values/bonus). Perhaps bashing without the raid token might need to be reduced slightly to compensate for it or it might make it too easy otherwise. I'm not sure how long bashing currently takes or if it really shouldn't be messed with - just throwing it out there as a idea as you're currently thinking about the raid tokens.

So a group of hardcore gank squads could still stroll in, level and loot everything and then plonk down a raid token at the end once they have swung the outcome completely to their favour for the final blow (albeit with a small wait after plonking the raid token and draining the deed)? Apart from that, the idea certainly seems like a step in a good direction.

Well the GTs currently do not offer any additional perk (other than some safety) like lighting lamps. I wasn't stating that it would happen.. simply expressing a concern that this change might lead to that. I think there have been other better suggestions relating to off-deed lamps

Yeah, I found a source fountain not far from me. They don't seem to refiill very often though - and only with about 0.01kg (enough for one sip giving 10 karma) However, a few days later, this fountain had vanished and one reappeared in a different (still fairly local) position. As they can't actually be moved by a player that suggests they randomly move around - like animal spwn points/special fishing spots/etc. There is a duration attached to the 'karma' spell effect but that doesn't simply reset it to 0 but seems to just deduct a percentage of current karma. Even so.. it took about a two weeks for me to reach about 60 karma. I do not intend to bother wasting time trying to get that up to 500. Overall I just put up with the change. It's a hassle I didn't particularly want, but now that the duration has been increased, it is something I can put up with. The decay of the oil in the barrel is much faster than the rate it gets used by the templars. Always lit/fuelled lamps off deep did always strike me as a bit of a bug, but it was nice not to have one more chore on the list. They still had to be repaired every so often, especially those off-deed, so they never really were 'forever lamps'.

Yeah, granted there are several 'generic responses' but imagine how many keybinds you would need.. and you'ld probably end up needing a clipboard to remember what they all were. However, if it were to be implemented, I'd suggest it as a CA only ability. Having non CA's just keybinding 'RTFM' style text would not improve the game in any way.

Sugar coat it all you like, but you are being rude and have been. But it wouldn't be purely about Epic. Code changes can have impacts beyond PvP and Epic, In the same way that some PvP players like to jump into more Freedom-centric topics for possible fears that a change might impact them. Not only that, but you didn't even respect the rest of the Wurm community with the idea of a well rounded council - some from Epic, some who might play Epic, some who used to play Epic, some from Freedom. But no.. you take the elitist path that only current Epic players are worthy - and you even insunated that the home servers were an irritation to you. Knock yourself out if that's your petty style. It's not something I do either unless I feel it would have impact on the rest of the game and other servers. In fact this is probably the only one I have given a -1 in, but there could be another I have forgotten about. 'We'? perhaps others did, you never quite seemed to though. And again, you see that is part of the problem.. not only are you unwilling to accept input or even listen to anyone from outside your little group, but you resort to base insults in the process. It's hardly a wonder that the numbers are diminishing. Did you ever stop to consider it might be players like yourself acting as the cause instead of Rolf's changes? I would like Epic to be better. I would like combat to be more interesting and not just a wall of text. I would like to see a lot of things improved - but because I am not on Epic I am not allowed a voice? Perhaps because none of the PvP player suggestions are balanced enough or strong enough to get majority support? Reducing the number of deciding people won't make a bad idea any better.. you'll just segregate the community further. Or perhaps because, like you, no one is willing to listen to outside ideas that might encourage more new players into the fray of battle? I'll sign off now though and leave you to your little world. Later on when you've calmed down a bit, I suggest you re-read you OP and your early responses and perhaps you might understand why I even entered into this thread. I don't really intend to waste any more of my time trying to explain what I think I have said a few times but has obviously fallen on deaf ears.

Oh I'm wide awake - don't worry about me... You can show whatever graphs you want but it's you who seems to be incapable of reading. I know Epic is failing, and Wild failed before that. Yes changes need to be made to many areas of the game including Epic. But your arrogance in thinking that your 'Epic Council' will fix what Rolf and the other devs can't is just astounding. The majority dislikes or is bored with it, but you want the minority to choose and control the changes.... Change, yes. This change? No.

I'm objecting to your arrogance and ignorance of all those who are not in your 'leet' group. Now show a graph of the total population of wurm and the small percentage of the playerbase you think you would represent. I'm not saying changes don't need to be made.. they do. But I do not believe you and yours or even this 'council' idea would provide any help in that direction.

I'm not saying that 'this game rules' or that it is fine just the way it is. I just have far more faith in the rest of the current dev team than I do in a small handful of PvPers like you. The simple fact is that the majority of the playerbase does not like the PvP side of things that exists in the game. So leaving it to people who already do like it is ignoring the voice of the majority, elitist and self-defeating.

So you'ld take an idea and knock it around amongst a small group in private to your own liking... (Even this which you requoted does not mention taking them to Rolf) Now you're saying Rolf can't do it on his own and needs to delegate control - i.e. to a council like yours And again.. asking for more power to control the server... I didn't see anything claiming to acta as a 'voice of the forums' or simply bringing suggestions forward to Rolf. Though perhaps cutting odd words here and there I could make a sentence from your post that does twist your context to say something similar. The closest you came was suggesting that Rolf couldn't read or wouldn't want to read 5+ pages of a thread. Why should 8 people (or less) choose which are 'better' suggestions? (but of course as you already said people the opinions of those on home-servers are only important on suggestions that are not invasive to your play style)