Sindusk

It's entirely impractical. The amount of technical engineering to make it happen is immense. You would need to merge several different databases with multiple tables having conflicting ID's for items, creatures, tiles, etc. All of them would need to be changed to avoid any conflicts. Then any references to those ID's would need to be updated to those new ID's. This is just the first technical issue that comes to mind and it's already immense. Actual development of such a system would take a lot of time, thought, and would likely come out with bugs that could cause devastating issues to players. Instead of forcing players to take a boat, an alternative option to allow teleportation from landmark to landmark cross-server would be more intuitive. If every home town had a cross-server teleporter that allowed players to take their vehicle (wagon, cart) with them, then it'd create far less stress on the player base. Because let's face it, getting on a boat to travel for an hour to get to an event on another server isn't fun. It's tedious. It's sacrificing good gameplay for the sake of realism.

Just take 4 of the 2k servers on freedom, combine them into a single 4k server. Now you have 3 less servers and nobody loses anything. Easy.

The problem you're encountering is likely the same one that many others experience in other games. The issue you're having is not related to Wurm. No game software should cause your computer to crash and restart. That level of severity is almost always due to hardware or drivers. If you're on an NVIDIA card, I recommend trying the following. Note that this is on Windows 10, but you should be able to find a similar button in a similar location on Windows 11. I've added images in spoilers to assist. 1) Navigate to your Windows Settings, and go to the "Power & Sleep" tab. From there, there is an "Additional power settings" button that will lead you to a new window. 2) This will bring you to your Power Options. Here, the most likely scenario is that you're currently on "Balanced" - the default setting when Windows is installed. Instead, change it to "High Performance" and the problem should be resolved. That should solve the problem where your computer resets when trying to launch Wurm, or any other game for that matter. You might be wondering why, so if you're interested, I'll leave a short explanation in the below spoiler.

Solving a problem is not binary. Not everything needs to be solved in one patch. Instead, you can make progress towards the solution and roll it out in smaller stages. Question is: Has that happened?

I forgot I made this thread 4 years ago. Money spent on gear/accounts is equivalent to what I phrased as "player strength" in the form, and I agree that it remains the largest issue for players attempting to participate in PvP for the first time.

I can tell you from the rewards posted here, there is no sense of "lottery" to win. This is outright required for this system to see success. As soon as maps start having a predetermined value without a jackpot lottery, there will only be a few people engaging with them. You'll instead have a system set up where players completely ignore the content and pass that burden onto a small group of players or even an individual that will game the system and trivialize it for profit. Assume every map is worth 5 silver. A player now makes offers on all maps for 4 silver 50 copper. That player has 20+ alts spread across the server with mailboxes nearby. When the player obtains a map, they mail it to the alt nearest the location. The claim the 5 silver worth of items inside the chest, since it's well known what the rough value a chest is worth. They profit 50 copper for minutes of time. Anyone who is not that player now has a choice: Sell the map and immediately cash it out for 4 silver 50 copper. Spend up to hours exploring the map and hunting for a reward of 50 copper. This is a valid argument to make, since engaging with the system now rewards 50 copper more than not doing so. It's very likely this will be how the meta of maps develop anyway. However, an average player is far more likely to engage with the content for the chance at "jackpot" instead of immediately selling it. The closest thing I can relate it to in-game is cooking. Most players are not willing to go through the encumbering system of cooking to create affinity food. Instead, they pass the tip someone who has set up the infrastructure for it. That's exactly what you'll be seeing with this system as well. So, no. If you get a sleep powder, players will not be running over the hills and far away to 'cash' the treasure map. They'll be selling it to the highest bidder and ignoring the system entirely.

Each map should reward some bone fragments. You put some amount of bone fragments together (100 maybe) and you get a rare bone. Some maps could contain supreme or fantastic bone fragments. These items would take minutes to add to the game and provide a much needed and stable reward that comes exclusively from the new exploration system. It fits thematically with the archaeology/treasure style of the content and ensures that there's always some value that people can appreciate in each chest. As it stands, nobody is going to open up a chest and be wowed by getting 3 sleep powders instead of 1, or 90ql iron instead of 60ql. Instead, imagine the reaction of anyone opening up a chest and finding a fantastic bone fragment. While it will be a rare occurrence that not everyone will experience, the possibility alone will provide enough reason for players to engage with the content. Credit to @Cipacadrinhofor mentioning the bone fragments idea first in this suggestion thread.

No, it should be a completely new cluster. We wouldn't want the new rabble to mix in with the existing player base!

Player growth is stagnated until they develop some basic marketing and communication skills. They can make small tweaks and changes, but the best case scenario would improve player retention which leads to a slight growth in concurrent players. If they want significant player growth, it will require a successful marketing campaign alongside a sizable update. Preferably one that benefits new players entering the game for the first time. Communication is so lacking that we have no idea what they're aiming to accomplish anymore. Is player population growth actually something they're aiming for?

It would be better as a mod for Wurm Unlimited.

Unfortunately not. The friends list is saved to each individual player. The player "Sindusk" would have friend A, B, and C attached. If I go to another server, the friends list comes with that data. When the friends list gets updated (such as a new removal or addition), the server where the request came from would find what server I'm located on (via the login server, which tracks every player's current server), then send the relevant command to update the friends list for me. Alliances and villages are not so simple. Each alliance is heavily server-bound. Just because you're in an alliance on one server, doesn't mean you're in that same alliance on another. This means if an alliance changes while you are off-server, you have no information about what actually happened there. You can be kicked from an alliance while off-server, and you wouldn't know about it until after you return. You don't get a message saying "X alliance has removed your deed on Y server" or any indication whatsoever. It's only when you return to the server that contains that alliance that those messages are sent and everything syncs back up. In order to manage cross-server alliances or villages would require a fundamental rework of how that data is stored and managed. You cannot attach alliances to a single player, since it is used by more than one. In order to do it properly, you would need to synchronize the data across all servers. If you are in an alliance on one server, and that alliance kicks a deed, then you would need to synchronize that change to every server and have them run relevant checks to ensure all the proper players have their clients aware of the change. This means that, as Archaed said, servers would "need to know it all, and that's a recipe for an absolute disaster." This is very accurate, since every server would need to know about every alliance, every deed, every player within that deed, every branded animal that is allocated under that deed, the permissions set by that deed, and so much more... about every other server within the cluster. While on the surface it seems simple to just say "make it so I can chat with alliance members when on other servers" the actual task is "rework the entire server alliance/deed infrastructure so that we can have cross server interaction." Doing anything short of that would be a subpar implementation where bugs would crop up and the functionality would be limited. What happens when a deed is added to an alliance when members are off server? What if a deed kicks a member? What if roles within the alliance changes (such as capital deed) and then the deed that used to be the capital is removed while the mayor is off-server the whole time? These questions and more would need to be accounted for in a system that would require consistent maintenance with any new features moving forward. In the end, it's simply not worth it.

Testing would be far more successful if done as events rather than "it's just there now." Set a date, time, and duration for the test. Load it up on the test server and have GM's around to spawn in the required items or test different configurations. Wurm's strongest attribute is it's community, and the best way to leverage that is to get people together in the same place with a common goal.

Not a bad option, though it just covers up the root of the problem. In this scenario, you would just have 2 paths. One would be PoK, the other would be [insert second best path here]. The problem is that PoK feels like a required choice. This method doesn't solve the problem, it simply covers it up by giving everyone the required choice alongside another option, pushing the balance concerns down to the next most powerful path.

The change mentioned - setting all path level 11 abilities to the 25% skill gain bonus of PoK - would take about 10 minutes to implement for Defiance specifically. That's what's being recommended. Fixing broken mechanics "properly" and solving the underlying problems with them takes a lot of time. That's being recommended against. I don't think anyone is asking for a miracle. They're asking for 10 minutes of time for a game they pay $10 a month to play. If the development team does not want to implement the PoK bonus to all paths on Defiance, all they have to do is say so and explain why. I figure that would also take about 10 minutes.

It would need to be scaled back to 0% then. I would take 0.1% DR over 25% skill gain on Defiance. Because I'd just have 25% skill gain on the PvE side anyways and skill there (current problem).

I don't see any issues with your configuration, so the maps should in theory be working properly. I'd recommend taking a look at what the console outputs when a map is attempting to be generated and go from there. I don't really support my mods anymore, but they're all licensed under MIT (and I've just added the license to the repositories missing it), so they can be freely modified and redistributed by anyone.

With your settings, the new change should have no effect. With that in mind, using the older version should have no differences. If the new version is somehow causing issues, you can safely return back to the prior version without any problems.

Priests will always be "alts" unless priest restrictions are removed entirely. Problem there is that everyone would be priests (see WU), which is also undesirable. It's up to the player to decide whether they want to interact with everything (and thus use alts), or if they are satisfied with a single playstyle - priest or not. As it stands, the magic portion of the game is "functional" and I doubt that it's even being considered for improvement in the near future, despite how simple it is to create new spells. In regards to not receiving new content in a long time, you can say the same thing about almost any aspect of the game. There haven't been new weapons in an extremely long time. Warhammers are still unavailable to PvE players in spite of taking up a slot on the skill list.

Definitely a positive step in the right direction. However, as a minor criticism of the most recent patch, it was released on a Thursday. There's a reason that most major MMO's patch early in the week (Tuesday is the most common). This allows any issues with the patch to be resolved during the middle of the week, when most working people are occupied. Having hotfixes and downtimes during a Friday - or worse, during the weekend - is generally bad practice. In addition to what you're currently doing, I'd recommend aiming major patch days for either a Monday or Tuesday.

Ether makes post with numbers, I make pretty graphs from it.

Rebrand the server from "Epic" to "Test" and use it for testing new features in an accelerated environment instead of releasing them buggy and broken.

Not a single line in the original post was committal. Read the language carefully. Does pending mean it's locked in? Or does it mean that it could potentially be changed and removed from the update? Planning to release, not going to release. Update might not happen this month. Looking at getting, not getting. There's no assurance that a new community manager will be coming and that communication issues will be resolved. Try to keep you updated. Not going to keep you all updated. This is the only committed language in the post. VR starting development is the only statement that carries weight. Everything else is just well crafted hot air.

Ease of use comes first. You build depth on top of easy to use features. If you do it in the reverse, you end up with a complex system that only a select few understand, ending up "niche" in style. In the case of Wurm, many features are built with significant depth, but are difficult to use. Combat is a great example of this, where there are so many micromechanics and calculations that determine the result of a battle. Instead, what we end up with is people standing in front of a creature because actually managing those micromechanics is too tedious or unrewarding to make it worthwhile. Present a clean foundation, then build on it. Don't build on a haphazard foundation. You wouldn't build a deed without terraforming first. The same should happen for features in the game. Terraform, then build.

Update to Treasure Hunting: TreasureHunting v2.2 (Download) Fixed a bug with treasure map distance calculations. (Credit to Tyoda in this pull request) The pull request happened about a year ago, but I didn't notice it until it was closed and re-opened. Whoops. Anyway, it solves a bug where distances were always shorter than intended except at a perfect diagonal. It would use the minimum value between the X distance and Y distance, sometimes becoming zero in worst case scenarios. For example, if the player is at 10, 10 and the map would generate at 20, 10, it would assume the distance is zero (because the Y distance is 10, ignoring the X completely). This method was used to determine the distance a treasure map was to generate away from a player when one was made. The relevant configuration options are minTreasureDistance and maxTreasureDistance which were compared to the result. Essentially, this update resolves a problem where it was not using those configuration settings properly. Special thanks to Tydoa for not only fixing the bug and putting in the pull request, but also for generating the release which is now available.

It's because of ancient history from 5+ years ago. People got into bad habits from bad situations and haven't been able to break those awful habits ever since. Source: Sparta was a settlement on Chaos in 2014 which was raided. When that was first mentioned (2 years ago), I had no idea what Sparta was nor any of the "fallout" that was mentioned. In fact, the only story of it online comes from an obscure Life is Feudal forum thread talking about Wurm. Posted by Arowhun in that thread: Of course, players who were directly involved with the event at the time have much stronger opinions of the events that unfolded... However, that's ancient history. It was 7 years ago. Discord didn't even exist in 2014. These communication policies are old and spoiled. The fact that they haven't been revised and improved is mindboggling. They should stop using ancient history as a foundation for how they communicate, and instead use more recent history like the past year since Steam launch.