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  1. It was hard to read. I fixed it. Wurm Online has a lot of promise if it can evolve beyond what any game has ever been. That being just a game. I believe Wurm already has many of the components necessary to define what software looks like for professional gamers. It should not be marketed as a game. I'll get into why later. It should be marketed as Professional gamer software. First a bit about myself and why I am looking at Wurm Online as a serious investment of my time (10 years or more of my life) and money as much as I can muster to invest. I am a gen Xer (born in 76) my generation has built, supported and defined the video game industry and apparently we are not done. I have a wife and 3 kids. Im a contract laborer. I have always gamed when I can. SO in short, I am every mid aged Player. I am different from most of my fellow Americans in that I don't tolerate debt in my finances. On paper I am in poverty, in reality I have time, money and resources. I am part of a group of pioneers and visionaries that see that there is more to the term Professional Gamer than its sub category of Esports athlete. I don't Believe That RMT has to be a dirty phrase. Although other software is close, none as of yet have gotten it just right. I believe Wurm Online can be the software to take our generation past the stagnation that has become of the gaming industry. This is not an instant revalation, I have seen the opportunity cost in gaming for years (20+) and we have known the time would come when it no longer has to be that way. I will attempt to outline what successful professional gamer software looks like for the future. Why Wurm is Close to Perfect for it. And I'll try to give examples of what should change and why. Although I may give exact examples they are meant to be as a rough guide. I aspire to Professional gamer, I leave development and implementation to the professional management and Devs. Did I fail to mention this will be a lengthy read? Well, it will have to be, to fully encompass the vision. I said I would get back to why Wurm should not be Advertised as a Game. 1. games die in about 7 years. We are past that and we don't want it to die at all. 2. games are meant to be solely for fun. I'm sorry, while Wurm can be rewarding, its not what I would describe as fun. I grind in my RL when I have a job to do. I will not grind in a game. I will not "play a game" if it ceases to be fun. I will move on. This is why "games" die. Remember I believe I speak for most GenX gamers. We burn out faster on "games" because every new "game" is just a different skin on the same old genras. I have enough "achievements" in my life I don't need to grind for virtual ones. What I am looking for is a way to profit (even slightly) investing my time, money and years of gaming skills and knowledge in a program that can capitalize on my investments and commitment. We all know that that "games" we play are interesting and fun at first when they are new. Then over time it becomes an acceptable way to pass time. Eventually it becomes another commitment we feel we must keep up with because we already have so much time in it. But overall, we have our good days but mostly we have our days when it seems like just another day at the job. When you play a "game" your choosing to do what you love. When you play it to long, your choosing to love what you do or because of what you've already done. Now that we have looked at what Wurm or any other "Game" can not be or do. Lets take a look at what it can be. One profound difference. This program should be part "Game" part mutual fund investment software (as opposed to us mutually funding it). What would it look like if all the players of the software spent their money on shares of AB coding club and a gold backed crypto currency to trade in game, instead of premium over the years. Even if the management took care of this for us. I believe the king's coffers could have been a lot more robust. I believe the Program could have had the funds to stay in operation just on the interest of the fund. Its not unreasonable to expect this kind of investment to pay out a dividend. No more than its unreasonable to expect a payout from any investment in any mutual fund. You would be right to ask. "Why would I not just invest in any other mutual fund of my choosing instead?" The answer to that is because with our program you'll have to invest your time in with your money to get your dividend ( I should say larger than normal dividend). Many "professional gamers" wont be as professional as they believe they can be. Many will try few will succeed. We're talking about a 5 to 10 year commitment to the software. Not much different than the 30 year mortgage I took out as a young man at 23. I could not have imagined just how long a 30 year commitment of monthly payments was, and all that could go wrong in a 30 year time span. Very few pay one of those off, if they get close, they refinance, and even if they pay one off, they still lose, by paying more than double the original price for the house. A similar approach can be applied here, but not so savage. The software should use a gold backed crypto currency (something like Gcoin put out by Emergent Tech. holdings) and the software itself would be safer if placed on a block chain tech. So that's the heavy of how the financials of Wurm Online could look like. Now maybe we can move into some of the finer details. The Wurm software must be much closer to real life, its already close. We have to give time for our financial investments to work while we "play" and "develop". I must interject here that we the "players" and the "management" really are, all on the same team. We don't have software to work/play in if there are no devs to create it. And said software crumbles to dust with out People to live work and play there (what is happening now). Onward. "closer to real" a death must account for a heavier loss. I'd recommend 20% to 30% all skills loss. Again, I leave the real details up to the professionals here. Im trying to illustrate that's all. The reason is to cause the player to really consider the weight of a death as it would be a major impact on progress toward reaching profitability. Yes there is a free to play version, its called a tutorial area, and these players should never be allowed to move that character off that server until they "pay, premium, invest" what ever you want to call it. No more Alt chars. They are abused. 1 char per person, valid authorized credit card account or account verified through the crypto currency provider. The amount players should have to invest to "play" is going to be determined by what the management deems to be a reasonable dividend to payout. (2 cents per quarter and 5000 usd are both absurd) Id recommend getting data on the average income of the "target client" world wide, and find a target dividend to pay out. Find the required player investment needed to meet that goal while estimating the performance of the mutual fund on the low side of error. Mob loot (on the gold) should work alot like a casino slot machine system but reversed. Payouts are around 95% to 99% with the house making 1 to 5%. So players would see 1 to 5% Unless they are paying somehow for the hunt. (in Entropia they pay for ammo for exp.) No one Should want to slay mobs for the sole profit of gold. It should be more profitable to do something else. There are other reasons to hunt, food other resources ect and then there is just the fun if you feel like risking your life. Professional soldiers should be paid a wage or have a contract to protect the towns paid out of "government or kings funds". Get rid of the Guard npcs. These Professionals could also serve as C.A. and or chat moderators. These "jobs" would always go to the most qualified by skills and and the lowest bidder where skills are equal. Mobs should be stronger overall and more likely to cause death. Lower to normal skilled fighters should feel heavily inclined to fight with another for the assurance of avoiding death. Every player character should have a permanent "time of death". Around 10yrs real time or reaching 100 in any skill ect. That character has to die of old age. The player must reset and create anew with skills at 0, with another "round" of investing. If they managed to be in that long they will have made a profit from the last 10 yrs. and will be able to afford to ante up again. IDK maybe you want to let them keep their gear into the next life. But if that decision is made, then it must be known how soon that character will reach "profitability" and how much total profit will be taken from the fund if they succeed. Every player should be able to choose a profession and products to manufacture based solely on what they like. The profitability potential should be the same for all necessary items in the software. The base prices can be different but need to work out to be the same when it comes to gold in pocket. For expl. one product produces twice as fast but sells for half the value ect. Yes there should be a "free market capitalist system" but it should be backed by a base price system where all essential goods to the game can be produced for a guaranteed minimal profit after 5 to 10 years in the program. Or maybe its better to say after reaching skills of 70 to 100. Again comparing to real life. This is going to sound steep at first. But a char should need to "work" on average 8hrs per day just to keep the character alive. Maybe early on they must work/grind 10hrs/dy. as they skill toward midlife they can survive on 6hrs/dy. This has to do with the profitability window that limits how much a player can actually make progress in. We must remember we are dealing with professional gamers here. They have the potential to put in an average max of roughly 16 hrs per day and sleep for 8 without it affecting their health too much. That however can not be sustained. That's why im going to say it. Don't fight the use of Macro tools, let them be used, infact encourage it. There should be a sleep/debt system. Every player should be forced off of the software for 8 hrs before being allowed to be back on for another 16. This should not be a hard 8 and 16 rule, its just used to allow averages. maybe 56hrs off and 112 on per wk. for example. We want to limit the ability of macro production but with out limiting the players choice of when to use those hours. With the player having to be off for rest for 8, grinding for 8 to survive, that leaves an 8 hr. window to skill further and or to make profitable goods and services if the chars skill levels are high enough to produce something worth selling. A note here, after a player puts in 8 hrs to stay alive its going to get increasingly difficult to keep going, and it should. The use of macro will help alleviate that, but the player does have to pay attention. That "bot" is subject to death by mob, and there should be functions within the software that bring a random event that check the players efforts. A tree will fall on "tree chopper bot" if they don't move within certain time for expl. And then there is the fact that Some People on some days, might not want to grind 16hrs. (even if it is macroed) They may just want to put in their 8 and do something fun in the game. Maybe hunt with a partner or chat. A lot like people do in RL, they do the time at the job and play a few hours. Maybe they just want to actually spend a little time with some real life people. Now with all that considered how many people are going to think they can maintain that commitment for 5 to 10 years? How many actually will? There are some that do. But there are many more who think they can and wont. Shizit happens, a death in the family, a vaction with no int. connetion , a heart attack, the list goes on and on. And that's why the dividends will be higher for those who can go the distance. All the funds collected from every player should be put into the investment fund, ideally a mix of safe gold backed crypto for use in the game and useable in RL once transferred to the players account. And some more aggressive stocks, ideally in the companies that we are investing our time in. But the payouts should only go to those that go the distance in the "game". And that is the major difference between this and any other mutual fund. Idk how it works for sure I have not been in Wurm very long. But most raw materials should have to be Shipped from one Island/server to another. And PvP zones should be right in the path of these trade routes, forcing players to have to choose to go around or take the chance of passing through. Yes, this means cannons on those beautiful ships and crews to fire them. Your going to have factions (some pirate) trying to control those shipping lanes. Remember time is money now, but the cost of death can set your skills back 25%. Yeah you need to have the chars be able to starve to death and even from dehydration. That is a major component of the time spent on surviving. It has to be. You have to survive before you can thrive. There should be a government or the king whatever. This is to administer taxes??, pay government employees, guards ect. To fund public works projects, tournaments. issue deeds ect. Stance and advertising. Nothing less than full transparency will do as many RMT "games" have given RMT a bad wrap. A direct formulae should be laid out for the potential player as what to expect. For example, X money invested + X time invested = X return on investment. The Potential investor/player needs to see how they will fail, and (end on a positive note) how the program can work for them. They also need to see how the "Company" will succeed. The health of the company is important to any investor. All currencies are faith based to some degree. A gold backed currency instills the highest level of faith in an otherwise uncertain player/investors mind. Wurm Online should be Advertised not as a game, but as Professional Gamer software and (an investing tool?) For Professional Gamers (don't under estimate the power of this statement). Who can maintain a 7 to 10 year commitment. There should be some really cool T shirts for every player to wear 7 days a week like a uniform. Priced as low as possible. This is just great advertising. I'll even give ya something to put on the first few Tshirts. 1. (on top front) WURM ONLINE (in middle) come see my WURM (dwn arrow) 2. I make more than you playing with my WURM ONLINE! 3. (pic of one eyed Wurm) Text "Willy the one eyed wonder WURM". 4. Your game is tough, But my WURM is Harder! Maybe you guys have some better ones you can add to the list. Another Good feature with the Gcoin crypto currency you can elect to receive gold bullion instead of digitalized coin. I would like to see a Wurm 1oz 24k gold ring offered as an option too. and maybe something like a replica of it for chars in the software. Or maybe as a reward after 10 years in. I'm pretty sure once word gets around that Wurm is real and does what other "games" can not. Advertising wont be much of a problem. But when other companies see how well this is working out, they'll be all over it. Especially for their older dying titles. Great graphics, a fresh look and even innovative game play can help sell a game early on, but it wont keep it alive. Only a sound financial plan, a dedicated player base and vision to see where its going can keep it alive. You can love your "game" all you want but those of us who have lived know "it takes more than love". It also takes commitment and willingness to change to make a thing work. I realize that someone at the onset of this journey would say "7 to 10" years is to much of a commitment to ask. But some of you are already there and have done it. I've done it in other "games" Well I think I've covered most of my thoughts about the issue as well as the years of combined insights about the subject in general. I hope that a lot of the specific examples and numbers are not taken as hard rules. They are just meant to illustrate the guiding ideas behind them. And note I did not say anything about how this "RMT" program would give any one person an advantage over another. It wont. It can not be "pay to win". It must be "pay to get paid" and play to get paid. And that is how we all win. (erm, except the quitters and those without the discipline to see it through.) It may sound arrogant, but its safe to say Wurm must change or it will go down the path that all "games" are destined to go down. I don't believe that has to be the case. It just needs some fresh outside perspective. Feel free to add, please do. Bring your own ideas and we GenX Wurmians can change the gaming industry at least one more time before we pass the torch.
  2. Firstly, by going out publicly stating that you have an anti-cheat mod on a PvP server, you are now attracting a whole new class of ######s. To a malicious guest, an environment where everyone is walking around with a false sense of security is hard to beat. In fact, it's very attractive. Thus, a group of individuals wanting to go in and "wtfpwn some newbs" will happily spend thirty minutes to instrument install() to work with another directory. They're not out to ruin your server, they're after a bit of fun -- and having the (disallowed) edge is fun (to some). What you will have now is an escalation which will inevitably end up with passing code to the client. This means you are now allowing servers to execute arbitrary code on a user's machine. That's ... not good and you should probably be very clear with your users if you do this. With the above in mind, I'll end with a friendly piece of advice: if you get a tight-knit group of experienced PvPers on your server in the near future, get rid of them.