SirMuttley

It's possible they use the word "login" because they cannot say "players" since many (most?) might be alts. I can see 7k logins, since the 200-400 population count would rotate throughout the day (not everyone stays logged in 24/7).

The devs could leverage some of the popularity of WU and try a pve server (disconnected from the freedom cluster) that mirrors some of the more popular rulesets, like slightly increased skill and action timers, no priest restrictions, free starter deed for 30 days, bounties for burying or burning corpses, or possibly allowing some of the popular qol mods.

iron trowel blade, iron chisel blade, and iron rake blade (all any coc) cod to SirMuttley. Thank you!

I am glad the bad experience didn't lead to you quitting the game. It's stories like these that further my resolve to never visit Chaos for any reason. What a PITA and full production just to visit the altar. Ugh.

I had a somewhat similar thing happen where my ship decided to take a holiday without me and left me at the border, treading water. I put in a ticket and pretty quickly a CM/GM found my naughty ship on the other server and teleported me to it. Saved my day and I really appreciate the timely assistance! Luckily I had not died so I didn't have anything to retrieve except for myself, but I am sure they would have helped me get that back as well.

Edge is Chrome without all the Google tracking, calling home, and telemetry built in (having been replaced by Microsoft tracking, calling home, and telemetry). FYI, the Google Chrome browser is built on Chromium, not the other way around.

I get it and I know why many, including myself, play WO *and pay for it*. Anyway, I've said my piece so I'll let ya'll bicker about how to run the company, offer stability, and put out new content with a majority of players being ftp.

It is interesting to note that WU servers offer almost everything being proposed to make wurm free players happy, and yet those populations are not exploding. Why? Free deeds? Check. Fast skill rate? Check? No riding restrictions? Check. QOL improvements? Check. No priest restrictions? Check. It's almost like there is no easy answer to this issue and simply pandering to free players isn't a silver bullet. Maybe allowing the "base" skills like carpentry, masonry, and farming to be uncapped and allowing 0 speed horse riding for free would help, then gate the "advanced" skills like shipbuilding, fine carp, and AH behind membership. Runescape, everyone's favorite ftp example, does this. Also, maybe changing the initial deed cost to 1s and 30 days upkeep will make it easier for new players although without a code change that "under 30 days upkeep" stuff will immediately got into effect. Many players I have known and experienced in the FTP games I have played are not committed to the games but are really just surfing their steam library looking for something to pass the time or are exploiters looking to min/max the rules, economy, and content. If the game fails, they just move on without a care in the world. Wurm being a long-term game isn't setup for instant gratification and as such will have a tough time drawing in steam library surfers, and it certainly isn't setup for free min/maxers exploiting the economy. This isn't to say Wurm is perfect, it isn't and does have many areas for tweaking but any change needs to carefully balance the existing game with new ideas. As a cautionary tale, think back to what Sony did to SWG as an example of what listening to the immediate gratification crowd can do when dealing with long-term crafters and an invested playerbase.

Runescape doesn't feature land "ownership" and terraforming. It's easy to pack millions of players on the same pixel when the land isn't being considered. Wurm could go ftp, and then charge for everything "extra" like recipes, special skills like shipbuilding, high end ores, etc. Gotta pay the devs somehow. I know several people, including myself, who HATE ftp games because everything is monetized and maximized for profit. What some people fail to realize is that it takes money to run a company, and free players don't contribute. They do complain about everything they can't have though. In the end, there has to be a balance between free and paid players, and an incentive to subscribe.

Not quite. I can only speak for myself but my major motivation for my sub over the past year is my skills. Taking skills out of the equation I most likely would have subbed once for found my deed and get the "never delete" flag on my character. It has been nice to get marks and sleep powder but I'm not sure what I have gotten from my prem status otherwise has been worth paying for. That said, maybe I an the outlier and not the base player.

Nice ideas, however if they implemented the skillcap change I think we would see a vast dropoff in subs and with that a large decrease in operating budget. I'm not sure a few whales can keep the lights on and pay devs to continue to work the code. Deed costs could use some tweaking, but lowering it too much would just lead to servers with less or no desirable land available to noobs, which defeats the purpose. Changing the 3 month to 1 month may be a good idea though. It seems that Marks is a way to reward players for subbing, so moving those to the shop completely subverts that and removes any loyalty type items. Not a bad thing to discuss, but then something else will need to be implemented to reward players for subbing (and then we would eventually see these same complaints about those rewards).

That is good to hear. Maybe it is just lag on my end then. In my case, the mob would attack a direction and I would play the mini game and hit the block button like I am supposed to.. then it would hit me back and change direction on the next turn, rinse and repeat. I barely got the opportunity to do anything other than get hit on several mobs across about an hour or so of running around. It's possible this change just isn't "for me" and my internet. Edit: I'll give it a few more days to see if my internet changes but if not I'll move on to another game or WU. Bummer cause I am in the process of setting up a nice little place on Deli. Edit2: So I ran around for a bit and this evening seems much better timing wise, so the horrid experience this morning must have been lag. That said, fighting is certainly is more "work" and not something I will look forward to in the future.

I suspect it might be my lag? Thing is, they changed it so unless you react immediately to the attack and block you get hammered. Not lag friendly at all

Yay, twitch combat in Wurm... Not. Maybe it is just my internet lag, but the new system is less then enjoyable for me. I'm spending all my time trying to block the quickly changing attacks and getting pretty beat up in the process, all while attempting to get a shot in myself. Focus and special moves? Never gonna happen for me . An adolescents spider took me down 25% and took a min or 2 to fight. Ugh. Granted I only have 70FS wearing enchanted 70QL plate so maybe that's the reason. It's possible the revamp is for bored high-end players or pvpers and not me. Anyway, after a morning having to dodge low end mobs, my adventuring days may be over it seems.

My guess is that the tile is protected by the highway/catseyes?

+1, and I like these restrictions. Without some time locking and cost, I could see folks "walking" their deeds across the map.

I'd like a Full Plate Set 50QL please, COD to Sirmuttlee. Thank you!

I think the core issue with the "free to play" debate is that there seems to be a percent of players (mostly Steam) that want and expect a totally free game where they can play forever at the same level as those who do pay. Basic entitlement stuff here. Thing is, how does the game pay for servers and staff if there is no income? Wurm *is* free to play for as long as a players wants it to be, that is an undeniable fact. One can try to split hairs about personal progression, the market, being "valuable", etc but the fact is a player can login and stay logged in for as long as they like without paying a dime.

Knowing that the mayor could just randomly take my stuff on a whim would certainly make me think twice about being a villager on anyone else's deed.

Maybe. When I read "more interactive and rewarding" and I see so many responses to this and other topics that seem to indicate a portion on the (pvp) playerbase wants twitch style gaming I'm not sure what this entails. Time will tell.

In my opinion, which may not be shared widely, I think a *great* improvement to combat would be to simply create better gui indicators of what we already have so that one doesn't need to study the scrolling log while trying to fight.

Got it... so autofight *or* twitch game... unlike the medium now. Note that I have never stated I didn't think fighting needed to be addressed, I said I hope they don't turn it into a twitchy number mashing fighting game. I see which side you fall under. Time will tell what the devs do and if the changes increase or decrease enjoyment in the game, so I'll bow out of the convo now.

I think you are forgetting players who don't autofight, but don't want twitchy/first-person combat shooter either. But then what do I know, I've only been playing about a year and have no interest in a wurm twitchy shooter type game.

So everyone that doesn't enjoy twitch games is afk auto fighting? Really? Edit: *Or folks with bad ping times are just afk autofighting?.

Depends on if we *must* respond to the triggers in a short time in order to not get slaughtered by a cow. If we do then those of us with poor internet connections or no desire to be twitchy will suffer and will probably lose interest in the game. Time will tell.