Zakiah

That last one sounds a lot like what I was hoping they'd implement: https://forum.wurmonline.com/index.php?/topic/192106-corner-elevation-on-waystones/ (Don't know how to do the fancy insert-post-brief-in-message thing)

Don't add new servers. There is plenty of open land area. There are far more beneficial areas in which to spend time and money than new servers/clusters. For starters, stop directing new players to Cadence on NFI. Instead show all servers, separated by clusters to reinforce there is no travel between, and give statistics like land availability vs deeded land, player counts, etc. Let people figure out where they want to go by how they want to play and socialize rather than just pointing a "NEW SHINY SERVER" ticker toward Cadence. Then connect NFI and SFI. Many people left SFI to start over on NFI, and would gladly premium those SFI characters if they could use them on NFI. I have a character (this one) in that state; I do not plan to play on SFI enough to justify even Black Friday sub costs, so that is potential income that will never happen without a merge. Undoubtedly there are others in the same situation. Spend the time and money to unify the codebase. Yes there will be a period of uncertainty and maybe even upheaval; it will happen no matter how long you wait to connect the two, so rip off the bandage and get it over with. Not to mention this is a huge opportunity for a marketing push. I remember the Golden Valley tutorial. It walked you through creating your starting set of tools. It walked you through quite a number of game mechanics and concepts, including the idea of non-instant gratification. I don't have a detailed memory of the tutorial, but I remember that I loved it and it drew me into the game. Bring this tutorial back in some form. What we have now doesn't seem to teach anyone anything about the game, judging by the questions from new players. Again, another opportunity for a marketing push. Bring back the Jackal event, listening to player feedback on how to run it. The beauty here is that every so often it resets, so if one set of rules doesn't work well, tweak it a little for the next run. (Marketing push, anyone?) The main thing about this game is that it's very niche, and it's old with a complicated and involved UI. It's not instant gratification; quite the opposite really. It will never have a Minecraft level population because far more people have short attention spans and expect everything to be handed to them on a silver platter. And they don't want to take the time to understand complicated or involved game mechanics. Don't set your expectations to Minecraft levels. That being said, the game does need advertising so it CAN reach those people who fit the Wurm niche. There are many streamers who love the game and freely advertise for it; promote them in the media! Spend some money on marketing and spread the Wurm Online name to more locations, possibly hiring actual marketing and advertising services if those are not available in-house. Sure, you feel slimy all over after talking to them, but you can't deny a skilled advertiser's effectiveness.

Stick it on the server timers list: one timer to indicate when the rift will open and the event starts. If you don't want to see it, right-click it and hide it. I know that seeing the meditation timer ticking down has helped remind and encourage me to go do my meditation attempts. Perhaps in a similar manner, seeing the rifts in the timers might encourage more people to attend the events.

The majority of the NFI population is on Cadence. This is no surprise since the "tutorial", as it is, basically pushes new players toward Cadence. It is indeed difficult to find many spawns, but there are still open spaces where you can find all sorts of interesting critters. Living in the southwest, aside from the inevitable lack of wild horse and bison spawns, the only critters I almost never see are goblins. Donkeys are also becoming difficult to find; perhaps they may have become casualties to breeding programs as well. When I go to visit a friend on Melody, there are creatures everywhere. And this on top of that friend's penchant for attracting baddies :) It's so bad there are usually hungry critters waiting outside her gates for someone, anyone, to leave the deed :P I would assume Harmony is similar to Melody: with the majority of the population on Cadence, both Harmony and Melody have larger open areas suitable for hunting grounds; I often hear about people going to Harmony for hunting trips. Those servers would perhaps feel more familiar to SFI'ers than would Cadence. But Cadence is there if you want a steady community of people to socialize with. If you do go to Cadence, living in the middle of the map is tempting because it's closer to where anything will spawn and happen but it's crowded. Expect less available land and fewer spawns. The edges of the map have more of each, but you can spend 30-60 minutes or more traveling each way (on a good horse) to events that are not nearby.

Don't really care about the randomness of skill ticks, or the time wait/limits between skill attempts; if it changes, I'll adapt. If it doesn't change, neither do I have to change. However the distance between meditation locations is kinda backwards. It was even discussed on either GL or local server last night: if you are creating an atmosphere for meditation, you would set up items conducive to relaxation and contemplating, whether they be candles, lighting, mood music, or whatever. In Wurm, these places are called "special tiles", where you receive your questions. They are "set up" to be conducive to the type of meditation to which your character has become attuned. Any looks at Meditation would warrant addressing the location-based and distance requirements for skilling first and foremost, IMO.

Another option, two birds one stone, etc.: restrict Supreme bone fragments to Supreme+ maps, and Fantastic fragments to Fantastic maps. Since you would still have changes to get Rare fragments from Supreme+ maps (and Supremes from Fantastic maps), this places a big nerf on the number of Supreme+ fragment drops (you guys should be able to tell exact numbers between this and whatever change you made to tune appropriately) as well as beginning to provide a value for Supreme+ maps over the abundant Rare maps, making them more desirable. *shrugs* Dunno. Just one of those so-called "thoughts in the shower" :)

Is this related to the lag problems that we've been experiencing for a while now, as a way to let us know that you guys feel like you've hit the majority of the issues? (No sarcasm or trolling; I've been on a vacation from Wurm for a bit while you work on the lag and wanted to know if things are working again or if we have more fixes incoming)

You have to remember that any talk of uniques, dragons in particular and at least on NFI, will be a direct affront to those who control the majority of the kills; you are affecting their wallets and their ability to control. You will face strong opposition no matter how reasonable the suggestion. By removing the ability to control who has access to dragon slayings, you remove the separation of the "haves" and "have nots" castes of players. Suddenly, anyone can become a proud owner of a suit of dragon armour, not just the special few and the others who can afford it. Wearing dragon armour suddenly isn't as special when the common rabble can wear it. (A cluster merge would help spread resources around, and is good for other reasons, but the system wold still be broken) So be prepared for a significant amount of irrational thinking and discussion :) Once the goblin villages are tested and in place for some amount of time, it would be easy enough to expand that ground-work to include the rest of the uniques as described by the OP with Sheffy's modifications, which taken together is a fantastic way to adjust the current and broken unique system.

In EVE Online, you could open up the Market window and choose to search for goods in your current station, any station in your current solar system, or any station in any solar system in your current region. Anyone could list goods for sale at any location, and anyone could purchase items from anywhere the item could be seen. Translating this to a non-spaceship setting, perhaps these Trading Boards would list goods for sale from Merchants on the current deed, and from Merchants on deeds connected to the highway system up to a max distance from that Trading Board. Or perhaps the Merchant itself could be that "Trading Board". It could also list which Merchants had Wagoners and mailboxes available on the same deed. Then you could buy remotely and have it shipped to you automatically (for the Wagoner or postal fee). In EVE, the ability to list your products for sale at any station's market anywhere ultimately led to the creation of so-called Trade Hubs, which were a benefit for players because they could travel to those places and be likely to find what they wanted at a reasonably standard price as well as have a reasonably good chance of selling their own items. In Wurm, certain locations might become a little more popular as you may travel a little bit, depending on how far-reaching the Trade Board could find merchants. This is natural, and follows population norms: you live on the outskirts, you have fewer of your needs spoon-fed to you and have to provide for yourself, or "go into town" to find what you need. Random players listing items at Merchants they do not own, while nice, opens up a lot of other questions and concerns that would first need to be addressed, but at least allowing some indexing of information would increase the coverage of a system we already have in-game that might go some way in meeting the needs of those requesting an auction house. A way to list bulk items at a Merchant would be nice as well. With a Merchant and a Wagoner on-deed, it shouldn't be that much of a reach to enable the unloading of bulk goods for the Merchant to sell, though you'd think the Merchant would be able to handle that alone.

This sounds like a lot of fun! I understand the idea is to reduce the tendency toward mounted combat, and this is a great way to do it. But for those who will ultimately try to bring mounts, can you guys take a look at a long-standing oddity where we lose stamina while riding (mounts/carts/etc) ? But this sounds like a really fun occurrence, especially if the goblins hunker down and hide when attacked from range (and respond with their own ranged attacks!) rather than rush out one by one. It will mean some thought and effort might be needed, depending on how many of what spawns in the individual camps. Will siege weapons be effective against the goblin camp structures?

That you guys are making visible efforts to show us that you're listening, even though you likely we already and we just couldn't see it, is awesome! With rare exceptions, more communication is usually better. The updating roadmap will be a truly amazing feedback mechanism! However I have to echo many of the concerns others have posted, primarily the additional site and registration, and the lack of downvotes. The additional site has been detailed sufficiently, considering that the communication is moving the wrong way in that instance: away from the active player population and more toward the armchair forum warriors. The move should be toward implementing suggestions and discussion of suggestions in the game itself to make it easier for more to participate. I do want to talk more about the voting. Really, having only a single choice (of popularity) won't tell you guys anything except how popular a thing or submitter is. And if that vote tally is visible (sorry, haven't and probably won't register), it just leads more toward popularity contests and peer pressure. For one, the vote should be hidden. No non-dev (not even GMs) should know how well an idea is faring once it gets to the voting stage. And as long as what we each decide remains anonymous, you are more likely to get genuine feedback. And instead of having a single popularity choice, have multiple choices: - I don't have any preference for or against this proposal - I really like this idea and it should be implemented as described - I support this idea overall even though I don't like some parts of it - I really don't like this idea and it probably couldn't be changed to make me support it - I can't support this idea as is, but it could be changed in ways that would make me support it - I don't wish to vote at this time Each of those options gives important information about the proposal under consideration. The last option would allow revisiting the proposal at a later time to cast a vote. If there are a number of votes about wanting changes, that's a sign the discussion might not really have been over about this. The "no" votes are just as important as the "yes" votes, as already mentioned multiple times. Obviously, this community has people who will vote negatively just to shoot down any idea but their own, but as long as the devs (and only the devs) can see who votes for what, they can quickly identify and ignore the trolls. Unfortunately, you won't be able to let a mindless uptick counting bot determine what is next on the agenda.

And while we're talking tile height/slope limits, can we have the max height of a cave tile bumped up to 300 or whatever the max surface limit is?

I personally see this as being great for pairing up those who need or want some work done with those who are looking for work, for jobs that aren't especially complex and can be described and quantified easily. It will make it easier for "need/create/gather X items" but not "need help mining veins in tunnel project", for example. Trade chat meets this need only when Player A is online and watching for Player B's announcement of work needed, and is interested at that moment to do it. Generally spamming it a few times might be enough to get it to happen, I suppose. Anyone suggesting that the forums are sufficient should hearken back to the many, many times people bemoan the fact that very few read the forums. Players looking for things to do could go to their village's noticeboard to see who needs things done. Then they pick one, as you should only be able to pick one at a time, and start working on it. On the noticeboard, the task is marked as accepted, shows a time limit for completion, and displays percent completed as the task objectives are being completed. The task creator alone is told who has accepted the task and has a very limited period of time to reject tasks from that person. Abuse on either end will settle themselves out over time. Details to still be determined about delivery, but let's assume the task is 1000 bricks. Contact your local wagoner, who understands what the task system is all about, and tell him you would like to deliver the items for your chosen task. The task is marked as "in delivery", and when the wagoner feels like it, it gets delivered to the recipient and marked "delivered". Something delivered via mail would also fit right into the task system, as the mail imps would also understand what's going on. Payment is then managed (by the task system), whether via mail or via wagoner. It won't answer every need. But it'll streamline a nice fat chunk of them.

That's not an update to the posts in this thread. That post is over a month old.

Just wondering if there is any further update? Have you guys been able to profile the code to find out where it's spending the most time during the lag events, or if nothing else, have informational debugging statements been able to tell you what's going wrong? From the recent public dragon slaying event on Harmony, the lag felt like it did before the most recent changes. It made me think one sticky point would be all of the "local" calculations among the hundreds of constantly moving and chatting players, so there is probably room for improvement there. Maybe it's something else entirely, who knows. Player position updates were exceedingly slow for the server to acknowledge, and I harvested a fruit tree while visually several hundred tiles away from it, just because I stopped there for a moment and gave it a whirl. Any other progress or thoughts/ideas yet?

I know we're in an age of awarding everyone for mediocrity, but really, a dozen noobs would not impact the progress of the event compared to a dozen skilled and equipped veteran fighters. If you removed those dozen noobs from the fight, you probably wouldn't even notice them missing. But if you remove those dozen skilled and equipped veteran fighters, the event might not even succeed. My mediocre skills and equipment should not net me the same rewards as those more skilled and better equipped. And maybe that's part of the problem too... considering you need only minimal effort to achieve all the rewards, maybe there are many who otherwise would be best suited to complete the event are just jumping in long enough to get their "credit", rather than being forced to earn their credit. Perhaps that is part of the reason the rifts would take so long, if people are running around tagging everything instead of actually killing things. The rest of us who don't (or didn't) understand how to farm the most points were the ones trying to kill things were the least suited for it. But if that group of noobs can barely be noticed in the event's completion, why should they receive the same credit as the skilled and equipped veterans, the ones you could not complete the event without (assuming everyone puts in the effort)? Let the promise of more and better rewards be a reason to improve or apply yourself. Otherwise, why bother? I hadn't considered this, since I'm usually one of the ones hanging out near a node in the hopes that I am able to get something from it before it disappears, considering my aforementioned mediocre skills and equipment. Perhaps some bonus should be given to those actually working the event to reflect their efforts on the part of closing the rift, such as a head-start in the ability to harvest nodes before the rest of us unwashed masses can? Maybe something else? Who knows.

I haven't participated in a rift event lately thanks mostly to the lag issue, but I do remember what they were like. Disclaimer, I don't really understand the mechanics at all: for all I understand about them, you fight critters until they stop spawning. I have no clue what the burning hearts mechanic is all about. So take these musings with a grain of salt :) The first wave seems to come and go in the blink of an eye, such that you barely knew it was there. The second wave is a little better but not by much. The third wave felt nice, but the fourth wave dragged on, and on, and on, and on. when the Warmaster finally appeared, he also took forever compared to absolutely everything else. Increasing the reward for the Warmaster is definitely a positive step, regardless of any other change. I don't know what the specific rewards are for the individual critters you fight, but a puppy shouldn't be worth the same as an ogre mage; if they are, that should be adjusted as well. However, from the sound of things, everything was just worth 1 point? Hard disagree with that decision, but it's not mine to make :) As far as participation rewards, what people have been describing sounds really wonky: spastic targeting to reap the most benefits? That sounds weird and not-at-all straightforward. Just keep track of the total hp of critters spawned and the total hp of players lost and reward players based on how much damage and healing they do ... with limits to prevent abuse and heal-farming. To adjust the rifts so they "feel right", I would suggest combining the old-first wave with the old-second wave while adding a few more spawns, maybe buff the old-third wave a touch, and then slash the old-fourth wave at least by half or more; that one was really the problem wave. Let each wave have one or two "harder" critters to kill, to signal it's the end of the wave. Aside from the already-mentioned Warmaster, the creature difficulties seemed fine to me. And really, Warmaster is fine as long as his reward scales with his difficulty. Also, it feels like rifts stay suck in the various timezones for a long time because of how the base + random spawn timers work. With smaller, shorter rifts, having them a bit more often would be nice as well. If they bounced around the time zones more, everyone would have more of a chance to participate. Maybe cut a day or two plus 8-10 hours off of the base respawn time? It feels like I'm among the minority who actually enjoy the rifts and think that overall, they're really fun. My primary gripes are the travel times and the time zones; a shorter fourth wave would be amazing as well. But even without any changes, if the lag permitted and timezones lined up, I would be at more of them.

Love this idea. It can create a new market for crafters, a new market for priests, another sink for gems, and another use for paper. However I can see how it might be argued that this wouldn't fit Priest spells, as they are granted by fickle deities and how much they like you (Favour) vs some internal concept of "magical essence" or "mana" or even Wurm's Karma. Maybe let gameplay win out over "realism" in this case? Create a blank spell scroll by using a gem on a paper or parchment. The resulting ql is the highest difficulty spell that can be stored on the scroll. So to get a Scroll of Summoning, you have to fork out some high ql mats to end up with a blank scroll of at least 80 ql; not so great a chore nowadays with Treasure Hunting. If you have a ql 70 blank scroll, the strongest CoC you'll be able to store in that scroll is 70 regardless of how good is your Channeling skill. Scrolls shouldn't be improvable. At this stage, you might have: Blank Spell Scroll, ql 73.91 Then you cast your spell on the blank scroll to initialize it and define what kind of scroll it will be. Your channeling level at the time of initializing the scroll is stored as well. You can try to recast the spell to improve what is stored in the scroll, but each cast attempt should have a chance to shatter the scroll. It also requires full amount of Faith for each cast. At this stage, you might have: Uncharged [0/50] Scroll of Wind of Ages [67], ql 73.91 Wind of Ages [67] has been stored in this scroll but the scroll still needs to be charged [0/50] before it can be used. Wind of Ages is a difficulty 60 spell, and the Channeling strength of the scroll is 51. Then you use Vessel on the scroll to fill it with the required favour. Could even scale the amount that gets stored based on skill checks of channeling skill vs Vessel difficulty and scroll ql. For example, my Mag priest is Faith 82-ish, but only Channeling 40-ish. Vessel is a difficulty 70 spell. If I wanted to create a Scroll of Summoning, I'd need to fill the scroll with 100 Favour; but my poor Channeling skill vs Vessel difficulty (70) and scroll ql (80+) means I'll be filling it for quite some time for the one-time use. Because of the cost of the Vessel spell itself, a Scroll of Summoning would not be filled in one cast unless priests are linked. At this stage, you might have: Partially Charged [9/50] Scroll of Wind of Ages [67], ql 73.91 Partially Charged [29/50] Scroll of Wind of Ages [67], ql 73.91 Partially Charged [43/50] Scroll of Wind of Ages [67], ql 73.91 The final scroll might look something like: Scroll of Wind of Ages [67], ql 73.91 Wind of Ages [67] has been stored in this scroll and is ready to be released onto a designated target. Wind of Ages is a difficulty 60 spell, and the Channeling strength of the scroll is 51. Using the scroll should be as simple as activating the scroll, click target and "Use" from the shortcut menu, or right-click target and "Use". It should take some amount of time, but not necessarily as long as it takes to cast the spell. So, you'd use a .Shatter Orb for an instant cast (penning uniques?), a Scroll of Strongwall for a quicker cast (general use), instead of sitting for the full 3 minute cast on a priest. The player using the scroll need not have any skill or faith or favour at all. All of that was front-loaded by the priest. Some spells, like Rites, would be considered to be too powerful to store in any physical material. Perhaps any spell that uses more than 100 Favour would fall into this category. A damaged scroll might increase chance of failure/shattering or might only reduce the quality of the cast. Note, it will not be possible to have the Benediction-level 100+ enchants stored in scrolls, as the max ql and thus max enchant level is 100. There will still be an opportunity for priests to cast these maximum level enchants and not be replaced by scrolls. Rare+ scrolls should reduce the difficulty and chances of failures. Naturally, also, a higher level enchant would replace a lower-level enchant if the scroll use is successful. Same shatter potential should apply as with in-person casting.

The elephant in the room seems to be the proposed skill bonuses for Vyn sites. The game keeps track of our participation in rift events and rewards participants accordingly. So it's not unthinkable that the game could keep track of participation in Holy Site events and reward participants accordingly. That said, Vyn having 10% bonus for every skill does seem powerful, even when you consider that she offers little else for followers (priests have the enormous profit opportunity of the most popular enchants). It's a discussion for another time, but I wouldn't mind seeing some of the skill bonus distributed among the gods that more closely align to those skills (Nature for Fo, Mining for Mag, and so on, much the way that Characteristic bonuses are distributed). It makes no sense for Vyn to offer skill bonus to destroying pavement within her domain, for example. Perhaps, as Holy Sites are new, consideration could be given to this idea. Based on your participation level, you are awarded a buff that grants you a boon in skill gain for skills related specifically to that god. Instead of the buff being a timed buff, it is a usage buff: it only decays as you use it, and when it fully decays, the buff is gone. (Those "pulse" events could add "strength" to the buff) Or perhaps participants gain skill ticks at the conclusion of the event in specific related skills, the magnitudes of which are scaled against participation level and some hidden balance constant. You shouldn't need to be present at the end, though that could also grant a bonus and thus provide incentive to stay for the entire duration if possible. Vyn is the god of knowledge, so perhaps her skill benefits could be slightly larger than the other gods. If skill benefits are as they are now for Vyn followers and grant a bonus to everything, then everyone (followers and non-followers) needs to be equal and receive the skill bonus else Vyn does indeed tip into that overpowered zone once Holy Sites are added. However, if skill benefits are awarded based on skills related to the specific god, then there is justification for making it follower-only for the skill gain benefits, or maybe give non-followers a reduced effect. Let your choices matter, with everyone benefiting in some way but not in others. Specific skill buffs, plus a new look at the skill bonus distribution for simply being a follower would provide incentive to follow specific gods for specific reasons, instead of all non-priests just following Vyn for the 10% bonus. My main is a Vyn follower, though my interests and activities would otherwise line up more with Mag benefits; that Vyn bonus is just too good to pass up. Having some generic Holy Site types, applicable to all gods, would work as well as having a few deity-specific Holy Site types. Skill gains could be one of the generic types.

If the idea of gifting karma to another player is deemed acceptable, then don't tie it to priesthood. Make it something anyone and everyone can do. Even if it's something as mundane as walking up to the nearest settlement token, using the Karma system to purchase a Karma Gift Token for a 10% (or whatever) premium above the token amount, and giving the token to the recipient. No-drop/no-mail or not, death-kept or not, whatever. Non-premium players can acquire and spend karma, so they should be able to gift karma as well.

Hey, are there any updates on this? While the game is technically playable and sometimes is even lag-free, the lag is becoming less and less pleasant to the point that other games are starting to look more appealing at times. It's certainly causing me to wait on premium subscription decisions, which makes me a little sad.

Just bumped into this recently at the end of a sermon group. One member of the group needed 0.03 Faith to reach 100. According to the wiki, you only need 4 valid listeners to receive Faith, though this seems not to be the case. Having 6 listeners to reset the prayer counter was not needed, just enough listeners to gain faith. But because the is no way whatsoever for the prospective Preacher to determine the number of valid listeners before giving the sermon and hoping, we can't really say for certain if the listeners were indeed valid even though they didn't so much as sneeze (which probably changes alignment). But this person tried multiple times with 4 listeners, wasting a day of effort on this. Not only does a player need to know whether he or she is a valid listener for a sermon, but the priest needs to know how many valid listeners will hear the sermon either before starting, or as the beginning message: You brandish yadda yadda to 5 listening players. This will give the priest a chance to cancel before wasting the cooldown.

I didn't care what specifically was done in the faith-hopping situation or which stance was ultimately going to be taken, just so long as something was done. That said, I'm satisfied with the 30 Faith requirement for rites and am very happy something was done to end the growing drama. I can't speak to crossing into Chaos and resetting your Faith to 0, but it should return to its original value once you cross back into Freedom. That's just a really, really harsh and unfair penalty. And I've already posted about deity colossi. The god (or none) that you worship doesn't prevent you from placing a brick in a certain place relative to other bricks. There should be NO restriction on the actual physical construction of an item. What should "finish" a deity colossus should be the faith of a devoted follower, priest, or (when they existed) champion. Whether that is through a right-click action available to follower and above, or by a priestly blessing, I don't particularly care .. although making it available to followers would be more accessible.

Yeah, prior to about 9:10 PM EDT, things were fine. Then all of a sudden it was like slamming into a brick wall. Tonight isn't as bad as last night, but it hits close at times. Of note, approx. 8:45 PM EDT, there was a massive disconnect at Buske's Cove in the north of Cadence, with 20+ accounts all disconnecting simultaneously. Didn't affect another account I was running in the southwest.

Yeah, it was a brief and enjoyable conversation with an idea that sounded fun. The idea that smelters primarily find their use in clearing out veins makes sense, and I'm personally just now learning how useful that is, and for this to be truly useful it would end up replacing smelters. Unless there was a reason to use a 100% smelt spell instead of some other commonly used spell, giving it a trade-off to make smelters optional but still useful if you didn't want to take that trade-off. Dunno.