Eyesgood

Before Wurm Online, I played Star Wars Galaxies. I still have my old install folder, so I recently stepped back into SWG playing SWG Legends. Wow, what a throwback, and it is as fun now as it was back then. 1200-1500 players a day make it lively. How many of you played SWG back in the day? If you miss it, I can tell you it is still available if you can scrounge up an old copy of the game.

To the powers that be... Gather all of the paid and volunteer developers and demand they sit down and watch and listen to this review. Seriously, Josh has really given some great, meaningful, practical advice. You really should take notes and select some can-do things from his review and create backlog items for them. Even if you devote 1 or 2 days a month to focus on suggestions like these, Wurm Online will become more and more approachable.

History bears out that Wurm lands initially open in isolation and then eventually open to all. The wall will come down eventually. It is inevitable.

The reasons for keeping a separation between NFI and SFI are now moot. ...and so I will say it once again, Wurmians Without Borders!

Do you think that code-base actually still exists?

Skins are a way to attract sales. That's all they are for. Developers develop things. I think they have a program, database script, or such that picks a random item from a fixed sub-set of game objects decided upon years ago. The picked item becomes the item someone focuses on to create a skin. The list doesn't change to allow for repeat variances. I would be surprised if there were an actual thought process that goes into picking the one for each month. Having a monthly Skin meeting would quickly get old, I think. Developers typically hate meetings. But running an .EXE to see what gets picked is interesting and fun. That would be my guess.

Everything feels so LTS lately.

Brilliant idea.

This may not be helpful, but years back on Chaos, I sold one for 50s. Different time. Different economy.

I would like to suggest the following as an alternative to the current Free-To-Play model. New characters get 40 hours of total playtime as a premium player with no skill-caps and no other restrictions (except PVP below). After 40 hours of total playtime, the account's skills are locked at 20 as per the current restrictions until premium time is purchased. To prevent abuse, new players under this plan would have skills locked at 20 when they travel to chaos or Epic, making this a PVE Free-To-Play idea. This will provide 2 things for a new player. It will give them the ability to taste what its like to be premium without the skill locks. It will also give incentive to subscribe since they will have potential investment in skills that will be above 20 already. I think it is a win-win for both new players and for Wurm Online. Discuss.

Wurmians Without Borders!

I didn't say I did play 13 years ago, I said "almost 13 years". I started playing Wurm in April 2009. And I most certainly was around when Rolf was involved. In fact, when I was on JKH, I got a PM from Rolf asking how I liked the changes made to ships at that time. I don't mind counter-opinions, but don't pretend to know something you do not. Make your point without personal poking.

My main concern with Wurm, and the impetus for my post, is the disconnectedness of the population. The reason there are now 16 servers is because the strategy of opening new servers in isolation has not worked to increase the overall population of the game. The opposite has happened. The economy is pretty much now dead because the game does not facilitate more convenient buying and selling mechanics even as more and more land has been opened up. At the minimum, merchants should be linked at the map level to make it easier to locate goods. At best, there ought to be an in-game market where you can search for goods and services across all maps. NFI opened up (again, another isolation scenario) and now there are just more islands with the same problems. I get it, let new players have a chance to gain skills to be competitive. Well, this concept of fairness to new players is moot if the game is not growing. My cry of "Wurmians Without Borders" is a genuine hope something will be done to bring players back into a collective unit. I have seen some pretty amazing actions that have been taken over the years that have netted great results. Shutting down the old servers and opening up Independence is one example. That day is still the most memorable to me in my almost 13 years in this game. Rolf shut down servers and made everyone move to new lands and it was a huge success! We saw growth into the many thousands of players after that. All I am saying is that Wurm Online needs to do something about the segmented population and the pains of commerce as a result. Wurm may not be dead, but it sure as heck feels dead. It needs more than coffee to stimulate the players. It needs to remove borders, open up better trade mechanics and offer more incentives to game play. my 2c.

Opinion incoming, and a suggestion or two which I know will never happen... I think NFI was a great idea, but I think it wasn't bold enough to really cause long-term growth. Opening up new worlds requiring new characters is great because the real meat of the Wurm experience is starting from nothing. However, NFI did what every other new map release has done -- it divided the Wurm player base, yet again. Personally, I think something more bold needs to happen to let Wurm Online experience an explosive re-birth. In my humble opinion, I think the entire Wurm universe needs to be catastrophically and completely destroyed to make way for a new Wurm Online universe. Here is what I suggest, though I know this will never happen in a million years: - Create two 16km maps (Independence sized): 1 Freedom ruleset map, 1 Chaos ruleset map. Create a third reset-focused 4km Jackal ruleset map. Three maps - that's it - no more, no less. Allow sailing and portals between Freedom and Chaos. Bring back Jackal exactly as it was. All maps accessible from Steam client or native client. - Allow existing players to keep nothing but their character name and coins. And by nothing, I mean not even skills. Yep, the Holy Grail of Wurm. Reset everything. No items, no gear, no skills, nothing.... but to be fair to those who purchased coins, the coin they can carry with them in their banks can go. Deeds could be disbanded to recover upkeep coins before the release. - Announce a date for the destruction of the current Wurm Online universe. - Announce a date for the rebirth of Wurm Online - The New Era, perhaps within a few hours or days. - Everyone starts over from scratch, except they keep their character names and coins. - New worlds with new characters to build. In short, a whole new skill-race for Wurm players, and a whole new opportunity for the next generation of Wurmians. Ok, you can start screaming at me now. Or, if you think this actually might just work, feel free to throw in your 2c worth.

Heard of it? Tried it? It's on sale on Steam.