rixk

There are now more gods on epic than regular players? But grats to Gary.

No fix for number of banners on tile? still only 1 banner per tile.

It was in 2013..

I know perfectly well, what the drill is. Player numbers go in waves. Well timed expansions keep the trend positive. Rolf managed to pull it off actually too, with the releasing of new servers. He released server, it became full.. when the numbers started to drop, he released another one.. until he took too big bite.. Xanadu, it was too big to be filled with people, so it was hard to "sell" another server, when numbers started to drop. All the talk about how big percentage of playerbase is alts is pointless.. thing is.. the premium numbers are following downwards trend for two years now. There have been few bumps - mainly because of free stuff, which was given out during last years anniversary and xmas times. The texture packs, which have been released recently with big fanfare, haven't had basically any effect on numbers. Just an example about prem numbers.. They are reaching 2011 levels(it was bit under 2.5k back then). But back then was only Freedom and Wild. So think, how many players were per server back then and how many now. My point about player numbers never was financial.. I know Wurm can survive at low numbers. But in current state of things Wurm is becoming more and more single player game. The problem is, that each server needs to have a certain number of players, that critical mass, which makes it alive. Right now we have so many servers, but when a new player logs in game, its emptyness.. deeds here and there.. but noone in sight. Another problem is, that there can be even 10 new players log in at the same time. But because there are so many servers and spawn points, chances are very slim, that they meet. Which rules out a possibility for them to team up and go out on survival trip(or whatever adventure) together. That is why I say there are too many servers and sensible thing is to close down some. Yes, it is not as easy as said.. but that is what causes problems.. Epic is beyond saving imo, because their numbers have fallen too low, makes more sense to focus on other PvP option, which Chaos provides.

Both styles go "dodo".. only 2700 prem players now in Wurm, another 10% premiums gone in last couple of months. PvE simply has longer bench, but it is bleeding the same way.

Neither is running the servers as ghost towns.. especially on PvP servers, you can't go there like: "I want to have awesome PvP, but I don't want to have people around me".

Closing servers isn't only a financial decision. For example(just random numbers to show what I mean), when game has 1000 players, who are spread out between 10 servers.. That makes 100 players per server, which is means it can take a while to find someone. When game has 1 server for all 1000 players, it means populaion is 10 times denser and there are more people to play with.

No reason to close them for sure right now(although, in very long run its only sensible thing to do). But about reworking epic.. is there anyone from the devs, who thinks, that Epic can be revived? Personally I doubt it, as even die hard Epic players don't believe that any more. So why dump even more hours into lost cause. At current state the service should be kept as is, with no more support(updates etc).. This lets the team focus on one thing. In current state it would make sense to move Valrei features into Chaos server, which would encourage even the remaining Epic players to move to Chaos(instead of current goal, try to split up the pvp playerbase once again). This would also mean, that Epic player-gods, who don't techincally have anything to do with Freedom cluster, can be removed. But Valrei features on Chaos means, that there players from our own cluster have a chance to ascend.

Animal transport and being able to take them to another server.. good move

Pretty pointless work on Epic. We have WU, WO freedom(ill include chaos here, although that is also somewhat different than regular PvE players), WO epic. All are simply stealing players from each other.. That is what WU taught us, yet devs didn't learn a lesson. Instead of developing and focusing on ONE game, they STILL are actively trying to split up rather small (and smaller by every day) playerbase even more. Basically players have solved the "dead Epic" problem by themselves. Most have moved to chaos, others to PvE servers. This is what should be encouraged by the devs, not trying to guide them back to epic and recreating the problem again.

There is no saltwater in wurm(as said already), or you wouldn't be able to drink it.

Exactly.. The discussion should revolve around that issue, not whether stealing is good or bad on chaos. We have had several methods suggested how to solve it. 1. Completely detach Chaos from PvE servers.. as Spellcast mentioned, that has been done in the past, it affected Chaos population badly. So this is not good option. 2. Limited access to Chaos through portals or whatever.. Your character is transferred to Chaos/back with current skillset, but no items. That sounds like something, which addresses the problem. 3. I'll add also Rolfs attempt to find a solution.. Enable PvP on PvE servers. Well, that didn't turn out so well. One more thing to add: Of course this is also a bit off, that giving permission to people to repair your buildings in case of a raid will make all your stuff vulnerable. In the past there were strongwalled mine vaults. That was another extreme. I think the right way should be somewhere in the middle. But one thing is clear, that security of deed and security of items should be completely separated.

Please don't put PvP servers into the same category as PvE. In PvE players don't have tools to deal with situations like this, while in PvP they do. Infact situations like that generate content for players in sandbox games: Your stuff gets stolen, you go and hunt the thief down, or die trying(thats very simplified look ofc). Which of course takes us to the problem, the thief can take stolen goods to safety. But THAT is the problem, not the fact, that theft could happen. All the talk about honorable/cowardly, monetary value.. thats pointless argument. If you gank someone 5vs1 for example, or wait, until everyone goes to sleep, then raid a deed.. It is same cowardly action, as taking someones stuff from their vault.. and the monetary losses are still the same for that person.

All I am saying, is that while theft itself is the same everywhere. The level of "pain tolerance" should be higher on PvP servers. Some things, which shouldn't be available on PvE servers, should be possible in full loot PvP environments. Which means, you can't enforce same rulesets on those two completely different mindsets. With this I agree tho, that Enki intervened, he simply was too harsh on Chaos.

Everyone in Wurm focuses on prevention. This is only one stage. We have tools to prevent bad things to happen.. this minimizes the risks, but it is inevitable, that theft happens. Without those prevention tools there would just be more. What the Wurm is lacking, is tools to handle the situation AFTER the inevitable has happened. Like in real life, we have also tools to prevent theft - locks, security cams. Using wurm logic we would not need police. Yet theft happens and keeps police busy.