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  1. Hello fellow Wurmians! As always there will be mixed topics to enjoy. But today I will also bring you some changes. Which I guess is still technically news.. But this is about changes in the news. So news about the news. And with that all clarified, i guess it is just time to Share some News! Bridges Focus The developers are going to be focusing more on the bridges now to once more kick this ongoing endeavor into a higher gear. There are still allot of functionality to consider when it comes to collisions. An example of this is the fact you were able to walk on the outside of bridges. I guess it is great for parkour but not really intentional in this case. More wall options! Last week we got to have a look at some nice new wall additions making there way into the game. This addition adds its own unique appeal making for great variation and possibility for creativity. Epic is being discussed As most of you probably know there has been a thread discussing the epic cluster, challenge and their futures. Already there is much useful feedback and it is currently under review. Nothing to drastic is being considered currently but there certainly is need for something to spur growth and activity. Reworking the permissions system So we talked about this a bit last week, but I wanted to share some further progress. So here we have work in progress of the new interface. All options have a mouseover text telling you some further details for clarification. The options in red also has a confirmation popup to make you pay extra attention due to the potential safety issues involved. RedBaron is leaving Wurm! So this would be the news about the news which I mentioned. I will be leaving the team for new endeavors effective pretty much after this newsletter. Due to financial reasons and me being the most recent employé, it is just how it goes. Will try and hang around to say goodbye to you all if you feel you want to talk. The most noticeable change for you would of course be the news as my other functions are less visible to the general community. But Weekly News will still remain if so in a slightly different format. I am not going to go all sentimental on you Wurmians, both staff and players, but I will say this. Thank you all for your hilarious commentary and lively banter. Thank you for all the support, great feedback and participation. You are a great community and fun individuals. I have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know you and sharing these last couple of years. And with that I will say Goodbye fellow Wurmians! Keep on Wurming!
  2. Hello Fellow Wurmians! Sorry for my absence Wurmians but it was just like in that certain movie. A series of unfortunate events. Though instead of Jim Carrey there was some Ninjas involved. But before I get too “Carreyd†away lets leave it at that. The Baron is back in business and happy to Share some News! Reworking the permissions system. Our developers are currently working on getting the permissions systems more user friendly. Some of it is currently live on the test server but still has some ways to go before implementation on live servers. But let me tell you about it as best I can. The aim is a standard interface for all items. A total of 4 general categories for permissions which are: trusted, friends, contacts and other. You can manage permissions upon interaction on an object basis (building, mine door, boat, cart etc). Add permissions to anyone in your trusted, friends or village category from object or on the fly. On the fly meaning you will be able to manage anything (you have manage permission on) remotely using a new menu available by right clicking the body icon or inventory. This includes your settlement as well. Then by simply right clicking an item in the menu you will be able to manage it. The permissions are available per item and will vary like it does now with some probable additions. So, anyone with “manage permissions†will be able to er.. manage permissions. It won't just be limited to the owner however. Though it is only the owner that will be able to rename or change ownership. Changing ownership will not be available on everything as an example the gates owner is determined from who places the lock. Ownership of a door is the same as the building its in All permissions will be player based but will also include the 'citizens, 'allies' and 'kingdom' where applicable. Updated tooth / tooth pile So this little addition is on its way in. It opens up a whole new world of possibilities, just imagine this. Upon receiving a critical hit to the mouth, you drop a pile of teeth on the ground. It certainly has limitless potential for the general immersion in the game. Challenge! Another round of challence has finished and a big round of applause for all participants! It has been a very interesting and different round which many will remember. We will announce winners in a more formal post later. Lod models for creatures. Our continued quest for making the game run more smoothly is now also including creatures in the game, making them less detailed models when viewed from afar. You probably remember my explanation about lod, level of detail. It is just a bit extra tricky when it comes to creatures from a developer perspective as there is also the animations to take into consideration. But as creatures are generally quite detailed in comparison to much of the other content it is an area which also needs to get addressed. New outer walls! New walls are in development and they are looking pretty sweet if you ask me. Just click any of the two images for a larger version Also the rock walls are getting some additions. Sneak peak at the new office! Our new office is quite fancy and roomy to say the least. We are still moving in so there is much space to fill with furniture and what not. Especially our kitchen, meeting room and hall. I will however show you the more productive parts of the establishment where we do our general Wurming activities. Main office area with some specimens of the rare Haradur and ErikN Lair of the Rolf Alright Wurmians I hope you have enjoyed this weeks post and the visit at our office! I will try my best to keep the Ninjas at bay for the sake of the news. Until next time friends, Keep on Wurming!
  3. Hello Fellow Wurmians! Welcome everyone and I hope you have your coffee and popcorn ready. It is a long post today with plenty of tasty morsels for everyone. I will focus on some new topics today but rest assured it does not mean we forgot bridges. Progress there is still good but nothing much new to talk about. So here we go, it is time to Share some News! Player Animations Screenshot from the test server with the new foraging animation. We are working on getting more player animations in game. To clarify this a bit it is mostly about performing different actions. So foraging and botanizing for example or pushing items, crafting etc. This makes for more lively interaction with each other and the environment. Giving more visual feedback and with that, hopefully, some further immersion. Several animation has already been completed and are being tweaked for implementation. The wise man says he has left clues throughout the land of Deliverance so only a true adventurer may find the ultimate treasure. Further he revealed that the hunt will originate from the city of Greendog and the clue will be made available on January 31. There will be rewards at the end and along the way for many, but only the first one to the end may claim the true treasure. Some of the rules and further information. The hunt is handled like a mission where you have to unlock and find clues to progress. None of the clues will require you to break any game rules and there will never be a need to break into any fenced area to get the next clue. You are not permitted to build fences or buildings in order to slow down fellow competitors or block them from clue locations. Doing so will lead to a disqualification and potentially a ban from Wurm for breaking the hunt rules. Equipped Tent Model Coming in an update soon There is now an equipped or rather “in hand†model of the tent. It might be a minor addition but holding an entire unfolded and stiff tent in your hands just looked a bit crazy. You know why this came about all of you campers at GW at each server release who keep ruining my fancy PR screenshots haha. Toolbelt Fixes and Updates There are some additional fixes going live soon which will help make the toolbelt better. So first of there was a bug fix where toolbelt arrangements was not saved correctly. Whilst we were at it we added small arrow buttons for next toolbelt and previous toolbelt preset. Click Image for Larger Version Challenge Round 2, Dominance! Yes, a new round of Challenge is being prepared and there are some real interesting change ups this time around. Again it will be geared towards Full Loot PvP because we want to see how large battles pan out. Also, we think that it will be a good way to attract new players. This round we want to give more incentives for kingdom cooperation. Empowering starting players in order to make them feel more at par with the veteran Wurm players. We have also made quite a lot of other changes based on the feedback from the forum. First off, this time we will feature our very first fully hand crafted island. As our earlier vision was we wanted to create a map with equal starting points and points of strategic interest and Cauldron is the result. In Cauldron each of the three kingdoms start with a single starter deed each on one of the individual offshoots of the island. This time challenge will run for 2 weeks. It is still going to be free premium! In the middle is the Hunt Of The Ancients (HOTA) zone which will have one single and important resource point with a bit longer intervals between spawns. The resource point will be guarded by buffed kingdom guards who are aggressive towards anyone threatening their loot. There will be no building or terraforming allowed in the hota zone. Between the starter deed and hota zone each kingdom has a “Battle Camp†which is a capture point. No building or terraforming is allowed here. This is a strategic asset as it will in the end determine which kingdom comes out as victorious. As long as your kingdom is in control of a battle camp, the kingdom receives points over time. It also means that the kingdom controlling two or more battle camps receive more points over time. There are also several new ways of attaining personal points for the overall Challenge competition and prize categories which will all be revealed a bit later. Most of the previous competition categories will have changed though. You will start with 70 fighting skill (which equals 90% of max skill), the possibility to ride horses from day one. You will also with each respawn get a choice of starting gear. For example: A High QL leather, Medium QL chain or low QL plate armor. Also which weapon or weapon with shield in medium quality. The starting gears can not be improved or recycled into crafting materials. If they are dropped or its wearer dies they are instantly destroyed. There will be no PMKs allowed for this round. Treasure chests will get spawned at random locations on the map containing valuable resources. The preliminary release date of Challenge round Dominance is set to Wednesday 11th of February. As you might remember though we are moving to a new office soon and the date might get pushed due to complications around that. Collisions There was some worries after last weeks post about the new collision system so I thought I might as well answer it here. With the updates I mentioned previously you will most likely still be able to look through cave walls and boats will still fit through your canals. The system will foremost be there to address the more severe bugs where you get stuck. Community Events! After a black dragon was found on Pristine it was lured to a safe location and trapped. A dangerous trek with many obstacles along the way but the sly Wurmians Lisabet and JDBooker prevailed. Being chased over both lands and seas, thrown and confused. Lisabet ran into a predesignated mine with the dragon hot on her tail whilst JDBooker sealed it in there by crafting a mine door. This meant time to gather the allies needed to take on this mighty beast. And a good opportunity to gather the community for an event! Word is that up to about 160 Wurmians showed up hoping to get a piece of the action. Click Image for Larger Version Once the dragon was released it ran straight out of the mine and into the waiting horde of Wurmians! There was a questionable attempt at trying to dominate the dragon but this Wurmian was dealt with by swift way of KOS command to the guards. The dragon, facing overwhelming odds from the mighty Wurmian horde, went down in 3 minutes and 12 seconds. An impressive event both in terms of pure Wurmian force, arrangement and attendance! From talented and creative Wurmian Valdor comes the first of its kind, a Wurm Girls calendar. Complete with images and information about the different girls it is a fun and good looking calendar. Just click the image above to get to his post where you can download it and check it out! And that was about all I got for the time being. Please do tell me if you liked having a bit of community news will you? And how about that new round of Challenge ey? I know it is getting me exited for another round, that is for sure. As always, it is lovely sharing some news with you. But for now, lets just Keep on Wurming! Shall we?
  4. Hello Fellow Wurmians! Welcome back, to this here my little news shack. Some pretty good stuff on the menu today. All of which id like to share in the usual way. Plenty to read and maybe some clues. So lets just Share some News! Bridges I first want to mention we are adding a new hold animation for range pole and pole positioning. And finally some positive news about bridges! There has been progress where we have added some fixes to movement between bridges and houses as well as movement on and off bridges. Our developers are hopeful this will resolve many of the earlier problems. So there might soon be an update on the test server where we will hold a new round of public testing. It is looking promising! Performance and Graphics Engine The performance issues we experienced has been stabilized for the moment and we are looking further into addressing some of the older issues. Going hand in hand with this endeavor is the work on our engine. Some of you might remember we have an expert consultant working on the broader overall performance, effectivity and quality of our graphics engine. None of his work has yet been implemented on live as it will be rolled out as a major update rather than increments. This is simply because of the fact that the changes are pretty major and connected to each other which means they would not be compatible with the old code. There is currently no estimated time for when we can expect his first major update and migrate to the new code. Book of Wisdom I have been adding some further entries to the Book of Wisdom interface which are going live with an update soon. I would like to ask you wurmians, especially those of you who are of the newer variation. What do you think of the book of wisdom and how would you like to change it to be as usable as possible? Would it in a more complete version be preferable to wurmpedia or is it better to get wurmpedia more updated? Tales of a treasure that will be the first of its kind has been heard from behind closed doors. An ancient text has been revealed which hints that its last known location is somewhere on the legendary Island of Deliverance. A wise man is rumored to be heading to the lands of Wurm. He is said to have new information which might lead to the treasure finally being found. Though his arrival date is still unknown, if winds be fair we shall soon know some of his secrets. Collision system Hand in hand with getting bridges working well is the development of the collision system. This is of course the system that decides which surfaces are solid and what you are able to pass through. It is very complex in a setting such as Wurm online but I am not going to go into too much detail on that at this time. What is truly worth mentioning here is the fact that it will address many of the older issues like for example getting stuck in walls after extreme maneuvers and clipping through caves etc. This and also the basis for introducing the new boats which needs this new system to work as intended. Custom maps Emil our art director, aka “Wox†has been working on creating custom maps. When I say maps, I mean the map which decides how the island which you play on looks like. In other words "World Building" as we say in game development. This was mostly sparked by our previous plans on making Challenge maps more like for example starcraft maps. In other words more plain leveled playing field with equal starting points and specifically placed points of strategic interest. This required a higher level of control then have had previously but his initial maps are looking pretty great actually. I do however not have any wip shots at the moment. Medieval Bling! Many have been enjoying the addition of necklaces and rings visibly showing on your player character. Seldom has Wurm been so fabulous. But why stop there? There is more additions heading into the game such as this sparkly necklace. Other than that, we are working on adding proper support for bracelets. So hey, just check them out first. They would need a new inventory equip slot to be combinable with current equipment. So after that and some final adjustments there will be even more bling. Never a bad thing! That is it for this weeks news Wurmians! Hang around and leave a comment. But after that it is surely about time you Keep on Wurming!
  5. Hello Fellow Wurmians! Welcome to a new year of Wurming! I am excited to be back and writing to you all. Much hopes and anticipation for this season of course. With good reason. There is as always much going on which I will let you in on as we progress. At the moment there is research going into performance, new focuses and milestones. Also the wrapping up of prizes and distribution from the first round of challenge. I will get talking in some further detail on the topics so Lets share some news! Challenge Let me just start of by congratulating the winners of round 1! We are doing our very best to finish the new distribution system which is able to handle redeemable unique codes you can activate once from any account. The system can be used for many purposes when it comes to distributing things in a convenient way so this will be a great addition to have. I will be posting a tutorial on how to use this as soon as it is finished! Also, the winners will get contacted at that time. We have some neat prizes which are awaiting distribution but we want them to be a surprise. So the winners will get the chance to show them off at their own leisure. Plenty was learned from the first round of Challenge and plenty was also the fun that was had. Tons of useful feedback has been provided and processed which will affect future decisions. I can confirm that a round 2 is being planned but there is currently no eta. Lastly, all deeds that had upkeep remaining and any currency you had will soon be available if you log in. Either in game or at the Wurm shop. We will notify you about this as soon as it is enabled. Bridges There was allot of people that took part in testing out the bridges on test server. Thanks to them we have much more to work with going forward with bridges. As always when we leave something for testing with the community they find much more ways to creatively break things then we would ever imagine. Which in this case is very good of course. Our developers are currently sweating over the feedback and trying to address as much as possible. But it is however still looking like this endeavor will take some time. Treasure hunts! The GM team are looking into starting up an old and fun tradition which is organized treasure hunts. This is something some of the old players might remember. Last time this was done by burying treasure then leaving the players with riddles and hints progressively until someone managed to find it. There is now also talk of doing mini missions using a feature called the mission ruler which could be interesting. This would however need some further testing before using on live servers. What do you think Wurmians? Are you up for some treasure hunting and do you have ideas on how to make it even more interesting? Help Chat I just wanted to shortly bring up the fact that Xanadu help chat channel has been merged with Pristine and Release for better coverage. A new function will also help the CAs and CMs see where the call comes from with a tag saying which sever the call was issued from. CodeClub starting a new year First of, generally we are all just getting back into things. Having meetings going over what needs to get prioritized. There is research and testing going on to see if we can start out by addressing some recent performance issues. With some of the new challenge prizes which are face masks we are also finishing support for that in game. So previously announced masks will be available to the general community for crafting soon. Also there are some interesting things happening in our work environment. We are currently sharing an office with several other companies. All of which has been expanding lately and the space is getting cramped. We managed to get an offer on our very own office overlooking the city center in a beautiful building. So for the first time in Wurm development, we are putting down a deed and claiming our very own slice of the town Motala. It is spacious and light on the contrary to our current bunker like abode. And the initial moving date is already set for the beginning of february. So yes, things are happening fast. There will be no downtime or interruptions from a player perspective. We might just be a bit more exhausted from exerting our bulging muscles moving gear during that time. But seeing as we are all in such great shape it should pose but a minor distraction. That was irony Wurmians. But most likely we will at least survive the ordeal. Okay Wurmians, let me just reiterate how nice it is to be back and see you all still here. Hope you are feeling exited for this new year of Wurm development and what it might bring. At least we are, and we are setting some lofty goals. So keep hanging out with us in the news posts and I will keep you involved! As long as you Keep on Wurming! Of course
  6. Hello Fellow Wurmians! Plenty of overtime, pizza and cola this week working on bridges and Challenge. Finally we had at least one release somewhat on time yesterday. Hey, it was still on the same day ok? It was a big sense of relief once Challenge was running and we could join in having fun. We are not forgetting about those of you awaiting bridges and I will get to that later in the post. So lets get to it and Share some News! Challenge After a bit of a rocky start with plenty of people waiting, trying their best to keep each other entertained on Golden Valley. This of course included plenty of trolling, joking and drama. Even if it became a bit dragged out there is just something about hanging out in an excited crowd waiting for something with anticipation. Click any of the images for a Larger Version After many resets and last minute fixes everyone was of and it was something to behold. Wurmians running of in every direction and the first kills within minutes of the server opening. It was obvious some had already teamed up in advance of the release and was more coordinated in taking on the enemy as a group. We developers was there as well and Rolf was probably one of the first people to get killed. Mind you, he has progressed quickly rewarded by his aggressive play style. So watch out, the next person to chop you down might just be the CEO! And me? Well, I took a bit more of a careful approach trembling from the overwhelming wrath of the approaching aggressive horde of crazed Wurmians. I managed to get myself a horse and raid plenty of hota spawn points though. All the while laughing at enemies trying to chase me by foot or mounted on cows. - This loot is mine! Hah! You can keep the scraps to feed your cow! I just love this video that was posted. It perfectly captures the feeling of playing yesterday. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e60ksVHo8z4 A special thanks to everyone who joined in and had fun with the release. We have an exciting month of gameplay ahead of us. And thank you all GMs and staff for helping out making the release possible. You can follow who is in the lead and what is going on statistically on the Leaderboards. So check that out by following this link: To the LeaderBoards! You can also find it by visiting wurmonline.com and selecting challenge stats in the dropdown menu of the game info category. Select Bar Hidden within everything else going on was the live release of the awaited Select Bar. I have tried it out whilst playing and it is pretty handy. Especially for me who do not use the default toolsets keybinds on the number keys. So I found that setting via the key bindings interface numeric 1 to 8 as selection bar shortcuts as pretty effective. Especially as soon as you remember the icons by heart. They are all pretty self explanatory but if you are uncertain you can just mouse over one to get an explanation. The interface is not automatically activated though so you have to go to the ingame menu and find the select bar option to start it. Bridges Just as I was talking about last week there are still some pivotal pieces of bridge coding that needed to get resolved before considering implementation. That unfortunately did not happen even if we were optimistic about it all the way up to the planned initial release date. We know what the problem is but the issue is that piece of code causing the problem is in turn tied in with many other aspects of game mechanics. So changing it is risky business. Which also means it needs to be done properly. What we are doing now to try and get bridges out sooner is breaking the release into parts. This so we can release the parts that are closer to fully functional and give the more complex aspects further development. So a first release and where we are feeling most confident at the moment is the: Land - Bridge - Land setup. So any: Building - Bridge - Land or Building - Bridge - Building would be released later. I also wanted to share some further progress on the art as we have had time to make some further additions by now. Click any of the images for a Larger Version So from what you can probably tell, these are the unfinished stages of the building progress of bridges. Pretty ironic during the circumstances of this post but non he less fitting! Bridges in Wurm, they look good even if they are not finished I think you can all agree. Now that Challenge is released we have obviously also freed up some more dev time which means we can have some more certain assessments soon. We would have liked to have released the Bridges to you by now but things like these are to be expected in game development. You are never done until you are done. But rest assured we are continuing development of bridges! I will keep you updated on the progress and thank you for your patience Wurmians. Masks We are keeping up work on masks so take a look at this creepy and cool version. Skull Mask As with the other earlier version it is going to be wearable only with certain headgear. Ok Wurmians this is me signing out for now. We are going to take things a bit slow on Friday to regain new strength after this crazy week. One thing is for certain though. This Challenge release has sparked new passion for Wurm in all of us. Something that is an invaluable asset all on its own when it comes to developing a game. So watch out this weekend because we will Keep on Wurming!
  7. Hello Fellow Wurmians! Weekly news, fresh from the press and delivered straight to you all wherever it might find you. How about it, you ready for some more info on our current hot topics? Maybe even a surprise or two thrown into the mix? I hope so because it is time to Share some News! Challenge The Map This week I wanted to bring you the initial draft of the Challenge Map to see what you think about it. So check it out! Click the Image for a Larger Version This first map is 8x8 km large so it is not a very big map. The thought here is to have a center where there will be an intimate struggle for the highly valuable resources that will spawn in the HOTA zone. The other larger spawn points spawns more bulk materials but are also of high strategic value. The far base is a good option to mass a larger army to strike back if enemies are pushing the forward base to hard. The main setting for the scenario is the battle between Mol Rehan and Jenn-Kellon as they are situated on the mainland. Horde of the Summoned is expected to act more like pirates fighting to gain ground and counteracting the others territorial control but what their final role looks like will be interesting to see. On the topic of priests, Hots will have a slight advantage as they will have BL close to their far base whilst White light will be placed on an island of the coast which will hopefully add some further drama. Ballista So we talked a bit about the ballista last week but now we got this nice work in progress picture to show! Click the Image for a Larger Version The function is as following. It is operated in much the same way as the catapults where you first winch them into a loaded state. Then secondly, take aim and fire. It can be loaded on a cart and unloaded at a strategic point to lay down some high armor piercing fire upon the enemy. Bridges Click the Image for a Larger Version This bridge right here is as you can see the wooden bridge. It is both the version with the one tile width and the second with maximum width of two tiles. We have found several new bugs which has been and is being addressed thanks to the test team who is doing a great job. There is still some problems mainly with specific situational collisions between player and different geometry in relation to bridges. There are lively debates about the topics daily now as the release draws near. Trees, Grass and Planting. Grass now grow under trees. You can trim the grass under trees to a lawn to stop it from growing. Animals can not however graze on the grass under trees. When you plant a sprout it will now always be in the center of a tile. The reason and thought behind this is that when planting, you can now do it neatly and organized way. So if you for example want to create a nice alley of trees in a perfect row leading up to your deed, you can do that now. Neat rows of grape bushes outside your winery? No problem. All trees does still replant themselves in the same random fashion as now however. Did I mention this is currently on the live servers? Well at least now I did. Beauty of battle Animation tweaking is going well and on the more general side we have now seen to it that the insta jumping between animations on creatures animations is solved. This is currently live and implemented in the game. It will however still require some further tweaking as this can be a bit misleading in the way that the creatures does more attacks than is shown with animations. That takes me to the next topic which is the more in depth tweaking which is being done on a more individual level of the creatures which gives them a better variation and balance in their attack patterns. There are now several creatures who has received this treatment on the test server and it is looking and feeling much better. Masks Click the Image for a Larger Version So here is a bit of a surprise huh? The masks will at least initially be a purely social item. The first mask is a plain white mask which kinda gives me a bit of a mime/ emo vibe really. Which if you ask me is pretty freaky on both accounts so lets just call it a creepy mask. What you wear on your head decides the visibility of the masks as some already cower to much of your face. So it will in other words be wearable with certain headgear which is pretty cool. Probably it will be dyeable to provide further variations. There will be more masks later with different themes. So how about it Wurmians? I would love to see you speculate on the challenge map and what type of tactics could be used. What do you think the scenario will be when keeping in mind what I have told you about the mechanics from last weeks posts? All of us from the dev team will be playing it from launch and I am suspecting you are going to be slapping us around quite a bit to be honest. But that is a later issue, for now lets just Keep on Wurming!
  8. Get Ready for the Challenge! Launching Mid to Late day central european time of December 10. Challenge is going live! New mechanics, nice prizes and features in this first round of creative chaos. Join and take part in what is promising to be a first ever and unique experience of Wurm! So lets share what is going into this round and get planning. How to Join? For the first round of challenge, everyone needs to start a new account to teleport there from the start/ tutorial zone. Challenge will be a separate cluster easily found from the portal map when it goes live. We will at a later point have time to create portals from the other clusters. Maps Click Images for High Resolution Two very high resolution maps for you to get a good lay of the land and the second for resources and strategy. Deed functionality and Reimbursement Draining Tokens is possible so you need to take care and defend your deed during the month. There will be deed stake items active which can be crafted without cost ingame to start deeds. When at the end of the month deeds are automatically disbanded you will receive a normal disband compensation as well as remaining upkeep. Upkeep for the time spent will be gone as well as the tile cost. Protected land is a resource which helps in winning. Note: Guards will weaker against enemy players in order to encourage players to defend settlements. They will however fight with full strength against same kingdom players in order to prevent Griefing. Traders Traders will be limited to start towns just as on Xanadu. They will sell less items in order to avoid griefing when the server is reset/ started. Skills To begin with, you start with 20 in almost all skills. Skillgain is when compared to epics skill curve at least 20 times faster. Focus will probably shift to obtaining resources more then spending a lot of time using them simply for skillgain. Skillgain now benefits from better ql tools and weapons. The starting level of characters will probably be increased the closer we are to the 1 month finish. This so that people getting in later will have a fair chance to get up to speed with some effort. Actions & Timers Most of the previously time consuming actions has become much quicker. Siege mechanics Want to marvel at the new siege weapons and defenses in a bigger version? Just go ahead and click them! Ballista Handles much like the catapult in its operation. You are able to push, rotate and move it if loaded on a wagon. Comparatively it has high armor piercing projectiles and is loaded with ballista darts. Trebuchet Behaves like the catapult but has a much higher damage. You are able to push and rotate it but it can not be loaded on wagons. So the placement of these will be crucial. What mainly sets it apart from the catapult is that you do not winch it to fire. Instead you open it to provide a counter weight which weight determines the range of fire. You use rock shards or any other type of ore shards as the materials of counterweight. Spike barriers Stationary obstacles which are placed in the same way as walls. They are very material efficient and easily crafted. They will not stop movement but you receive damage when standing on the same tile. Magic Turret Magic Turrets defends any location against enemy kingdoms. There will be several versions of this tower with different elemental attacks such as acid, fire etc which will have different benefits against different armors. The turret is not going to be able to take much damage but it adds a new level of strategy to your defenses. It has a range of 4 tiles There is a required spacing between turrets of about 8 tiles They have to be planted in order to function properly, but even if planted they will currently not work in caves. Archery Tower The archery tower has similar functionality as the magic turret but instead shoots ordinary arrows. It will aesthetically have similarities with the ordinary guard tower but will instead be made of wood and is therefore much easier to destroy. There is also going to be a limitation on how close they can be built in proximity to each other. Siege Shield In its functionality very similar to a moveable wall. It can be pushed forward between tile borders and is rotatable to change direction while advancing on enemy lines. It defends those behind it whilst still giving you the ability to fire arrows at enemies. This makes makes an offensive force more versatile when attacking a heavily defended position both in terms of enemy players and defensive turrets. They have no functionality and can be walked through in caves since there are no fences there. Repairing As actions are faster, repairing would also be faster. But to promote attacking bases and smart defensive base building, repairing has been nerfed. This so that a defending party will not be able to simply defend by repairing a Wall against an attacking force. When a wall is destroyed, rubble will fall in its place on the tile border. You can walk over the rubble but it stops anyone from building there before it is destroyed. Penalty of Death The penalty from dying is as before a slight hit on your current skills and your items will be dropped with your body. Competitions Categories and Prizes Most overall points Title “Master/Mistress of The Challenge†20 Silver Coins to character of choice Gold Challenge Statue Face Mask of The Challenge 2 months premium on character of choice Most Unique Achievements accomplished Title “Lord/Lady of The Isles†20 Silver Coins to character of choice Gold Challenge Statue, Face Mask of The Isles 2 months premium on character of choice Most Battle Points Title “Blood Ravager†20 Silver Coins to character of choice Silver Challenge Statue, Ravager Face Mask 2 months premium on character of choice Most Personal Achievements accomplished Title “Selfie†10 Silver Coins to character of choice Silver Challenge Statue, Pale Face Mask 2 months premium on character of choice Most items looted from resource points Title “Pit Slayer†10 Silver Coins to character of choice Bronze Challenge Statue Horned Helmet of Gold 2 months premium on character of choice Player with most HOTA points Title “Guardian of the Hunt†10 Silver Coins to character of choice Bronze Challenge Statue Plumed Helm of The Hunt 2 months premium on character of choice Most Unique player kills Title “Shadow Assassin†10 Silver Coins to character of choice Marble Challenge Statue Face Mask of the Shadow 2 months premium on character of choice Most Karma gained Title “Future Warden†10 Silver Coins to character of choice Marble Challenge Statue Face Mask of the Enlightened 2 months premium on character of choice Ruler with most land Title “Emperor Emeritus†10 Silver Coins to character of choice Marble Challenge Statue Embellished Staff of the Land 2 months premium on character of choice Village with most HOTA wins (Mayor receives prize to share) Titles “Pack of the Huntâ€, 20x HOTA Necklaces Items such as weapons and masks will not be overpowered but of equivalent strength as similar mid-high-range types. These will probably be handed out as prizes in subsequent Challenges as winner prizes as well. Leader Boards Scores and points will be recorded at all times and summed up in Leader Boards. The Link will be provided to you a while into the experience. Scores can then be followed live from our Web Site. Priests On this first round of Challenge there will presently be no changes to priests. There might still be some last minute changes to balance out the favor gain. Already there is plenty of buzz going around and rumors of huge battles planned. Plenty of old player have reported back to try this new game mode. We will ourself be fighting and building the battlefield to share the experience. So! May the best Wurmians Win!
  9. Hello Fellow Wurmians! Welcome to yet another weekly update. The end of this year is drawing close and so is the release date. We are working as hard as we can to bring you as much as possible in this next release. So let me tell you what is going on and Share some News! New Music! The very talented Musician and Producer Tom E Morrison has completed yet another album of awesome music for Wurm! It is his third installment in the series and it is called Battle & Adventure. A very powerful and inspiring album featuring epic, dramatic, classic themes with live traditional instruments in perfect balance with more modern influences, edits and a lounge vibe. By far my favorite out of the three. I highly recommend that you check it out and listen to it out of the game to explore and enjoy it to the fullest. You can as with his other albums find it on Spotify, Itunes and Amazon.com Bridges Click Image for a Larger Version We are still working hard getting all the kinks taken care of. Most problems we have found by now are fixed which is great. There is however one crucial piece remaining which will be the deciding factor of when bridges are released and it has to do with checking movement correctly. We have now also added icons for bridge parts so they can be shown in the crafting interface. Challenge We are progressing steadily on Challenge and things are really starting to get interesting. First let me speak a bit about the resource spawn points. The spawn points which we have touched upon earlier is divided in two different types. The large on for bulk materials and smaller ones in the hota zone which yields less but are more frequent and with strategically important materials. We have made some particle effects which will trigger regularly and trickle down for the ones in the middle which are the smaller but more frequent resource spawns. There is also a larger one which is for the less frequent but with larger yields. This particle effect will be triggered and stay in effect for 30 minutes in advance of the big spawn so people can get prepared and start heading there. Both of the effects will be visible from a very long distance and finnish in a sound effect which can be heard from far away. Secondly there will be new sounds for all the siege and defensive weapons which I am currently working on. Most of them are already done and it is adding plenty of drama to the feeling of interacting with the objects. The new Trebuchet! Click Image for a Larger Version Third there is plenty of tweaking going into all the new weapons for them to function as well as possible for the first round of Challenge. The fourth thing I want to mention is that we are going to add a bit of drama to the ending of the first round of Challenge to, so to say “Go out in a blazeâ€. What I mean is there will be effects and events triggering that will leave no room for interpretation other than the fact that the end is drawing near. New Tapestry! This lovely new Tapestry will get added to the game thanks to Faeldray who contributed it in the competition a couple of weeks back. Thanks again to everyone who took part in the competition! Planting As you all have probably seen already. We listened to your feedback and added keybinds for several planting actions. Also added was the option both to plant centered and natural which will give you a more random result. Gardeners and foresters everywhere rejoice! Beauty of battle This time it has been me working on this area. I have updated all the combat sounds having to do with fighting, dodging, defending, shields and bashing etc. So you can expect them to go live with an update very soon. Still to come are of course plenty of the creatures which are going to be work in progress for quite some time. Alright Wurmians that is all for this week. The team is heading out today for our annual Christmas dinner with Rolf at the head of the table. We will be raising our glasses for you, thankful for the fact that you Keep on Wurming!
  10. Hello Fellow Wurmians! This is the day. What day? Thursday? Yes, but it is also the day to reveal the secret project. I have been smiling at the threads trying to guess at what it might be. But I will hold you in suspense no longer. It is time to Share some News! Challenge - Build the Battlefield A server with a new action packed, competitive version of Wurm! Challenge is a very different platform where we will host competitive games with different themes and goals. Each challenge ends in a Scoreboard of all participants, winners of prizes and a total reset of both World and Skills. So each challenge we start will be unique and everyone starts with the same stats. The only thing you keep between rounds is titles earned, any remaining currency you have and what you are refunded from deeds etc. We will announce that, prizes and competitive categories later. The aim with this very new take on Wurm is to have a place for those who want as little grind as possible and focus on fun and competitive play. Keeping this in mind let me list some of the core features in the initial Challenge. New Raid functionality which will include things like more siege weapons, defensive turrets and expanded functionality for the guard towers. Ultra fast skilling even on failed actions. Super short timers. No repair for walls and fences while in combat. Strategic Resource spawn points which gives the kingdom that controls them an abundance of building and crafting materials. The first challenge will last one month and we’ll see how it feels Initially we will make this available for you free of charge so everyone can try it out. So every account will be premium on the challenge server. It is completely separate from all other servers but we will try to enable you to teleport there. It would work pretty much like the separation between epic and freedom, separate skills and inventory. So either you create a new account specifically for the challenge server or play with your main but with nothing other then your name and look transfered. To clarify, your character would only be wiped regularly on the challenge server. Once you go back to your original server you will still have the same stats and inventory as when you left. Unaffected by the transfer in either direction. Currency would be transferable between the servers with your account and any refunds etc you get on Challenge can be carried back. If you have premium time on you account it will however stay on the same timer even if Challenge is on free premium. Follow this Link to discuss Challenge more in depth. Initial Release Date of Challenge and Bridges! We are releasing Challenge and Bridges at the same time, along with some other things. The plan is to release them both within a month from now!! Get hyped Wurmians! Skill Tracker You will with the next client update be able to use the skill tracker in pretty much the same way as the toolbelt. So basically you can save several presets for which skills you want to track. Then just load them as you change your activities. Convenient! Medieval Bling Wox contacted two interesting medieval craftsmen/ jewelers originally from Iceland but nowadays working out of the USA. They agreed we could use their jewelry as models and textures in Wurm online and Wox is already working on making this possible. The idea is to implement them in the way that you wear them on the outside of your armor or clothing so it is visual and appealing. Also so no one will miss your obvious upgrade in status and fashion sensibility. Primarily we are focusing on necklaces, bracelets and rings. Check out the very talented medieval craftsmen/ jewelers here! http://www.urweg.com/ The Beauty of Battle Animations Some of you might have noticed that our creatures have a bit of “twitch†to them at times. What I mean is that in certain cases they instantly change in between animations when finishing an attack and are already in the middle of the next one. This causes the creature to snap to the middle of the next animation. You might think this is because at times they get overly excited. And who wouldn't with a tasty Wurmian on the menu? But no, it is a matter of code. So this is what we are looking into, but not only that. We are also trying to see to it that we get a more even spread in what types of attacks are used. Therefore we would get more variety in the creatures behavior. Fighting Proximity So this is another one of those things to make fighting a bit more enjoyable. It has to do with the so called hitboxes. To shortly explain that, think of your skin as your personal hitbox. It is the proximity that determines when a hit comes in contact with your body. This in games is usually a bit more simplified and we mostly use a an outer box around creatures to measure your range of attack. This is then compared to optimal distance of attack which in turn affects your effectivity. The problem currently is that the system does not always scale in an optimal way. For those of you who have fought big foes like Spawn of Uttacha know this first hand. You even know it intimately, because the fact is that you actually need to be inside the creature to achieve the optimal fighting distance. Intimacy is all well but seriously, how about some personal space! That is why our coder that needs the most personal space at the office is on the case. ErikN, we humbly put our trust in your boundary issues. Floor rotation As we all know about the Wurm community, why have it one way when you can have the other? Therefore it is always at the heart of us devs to see to it that you may have a choice. At least for the most part. So we are working on enabling floor rotation for ladder openings and floors in general so you get that added control over your layout. Pretty neat huh? Tapestry Competition It is time for another competition! So after last weeks reveal of the tapestries we had many suggestions for new motifs. But the best suggestion of them all was to have a competition between you Wurmians, you know how I love to make you work a bit. The theme is as you might suspect to paint a new Tapestry motif or pattern. You do not need to focus on anything other than the painting itself, in other words do not paint the painting on a tapestry. What you want to paint is entirely up to you but we will of course be looking for the most suitable one for the game. Because the winning contribution will be added to the game! Competition starts today and we will choose a winner which will be announced in the weekly update 2 weeks from now so week 48. So make sure your contribution is in at the latest Wednesday 26th of November. Follow this Link to get to the competition submissions page. This is for real Wurmians, can you believe it? Bridges is almost within your grasp and the countdown is short! And Challenge? It will be so exciting! Not only for players but for us as developers to be creative with setting up different challenges. There is so much potential in this! I need a moment to compose myself, sorry. Ok, I remember. There is only one thing left to say Keep on Wurming!
  11. Hello Fellow Wurmians! Another weekly update closer to the exciting release. We have now set a release date we are aiming for. 10th of December! It is getting so very close and everyone is hard at work. So let us dive right into it and Share some News! Bridges Click Image for Larger Version Most things are starting to fall into place for the bridges and we now have a test team working closely with devs putting everything thoroughly to the test. Bugs are being addressed as we find them but functionality right now is looking very promising. Both in terms of building bridges between points in the landscape, buildings and from buildings to land. This was announced earlier but I can now confirm that stone and wooden bridges will still be able to be built several tiles wide. Currently they are set at a maximum of Rope 1, Wood 2, Rock 3 tiles width. Restrictions are being put in place so that they can not be used in griefing purposes or unforeseen pvp exploits. Click Images for Larger Versions Challenge Today I want to share some of the things currently worked on for the Challenge launch. I do not have work in progress shots of quite everything yet but I think you will enjoy it non the less. Bear in mind that this is all work in progress and implementation and details may change. Magic Turret Click Image for Larger Version The Magic Turret is as its name implies a magical defensive structure. It will defend your land and structures against other kingdoms. There will be several versions of this tower with different elemental attacks such as acid, fire etc which will have different benefits against different armors. The turret is not going to be able to take much damage but it adds a new level of strategy to your defenses. Archery Tower The archery tower also has similar functionality like the magic turret but instead shoots ordinary arrows. It will aesthetically have similarities with the ordinary guard tower but will instead be made of wood and is therefore much easier to destroy. There is also going to be a limitation on how close they can be built in proximity to each other. Spike Barrier Click Image for Larger Version The spike barrier is a new type of fence which will not have collisions so you can pass through it. It will however give damage to those who come to close. Siege Shield Click Image for Larger Version This is in its functionality very similar to a moveable wall. It clips to tile borders but is rotatable and pushable to aim an advance on enemy lines. It defends those behind it whilst still giving you the ability to fire arrows at enemies. This makes makes an offensive force more versatile when attacking a heavily defended position both in terms of enemy players. Trebuchet A structure with functionality much like the catapults but with much greater damage. It is a stationary structure so it will have to be built at a strategic position. The trebuchet needs to be controlled by a player to fire. Ballista A fearsome weapon with high armor penetration which can be used both for offense and defence. Its placement will be stationary but it is movable by carts to set up a new line of fire. The ballista will need to be controlled by a player to fire. Beauty of Battle ErikN has been progressing steadily this last week with solving the issue of proximity to targets and played animations. He knows how it needs to be tweaked and it is now a matter of going through all the creatures to implement it. Statuettes As promised, the other statuettes are getting a makeover as well. Well needed and pleasing to the eye! That will be all for this week Wurmians. I hope you are getting as excited as I am! And you know what to do until next time right? Keep on Wurming!
  12. Hello Fellow Wurmians! There are several sneaky things going on behind the curtains of the backstage area. There is a steady sound of "clickety clackety" resonating in Motala. People raise their heads in passing, wondering. Is it a chisel hacking away at some unknown ore, steadily shaping it from an abstract into a masterpiece? A dawn of recognition. It is indeed Rolf and his team of coders letting their fingers dance upon their keyboards, heads bowed in deep concentration. Or is it in respect to some mysterious machine god? A manifestation and possession of the elusive Wurm? Only they know. And what this intricate dance will lead to is soon to be revealed. But for now, let me indulge you in the things on display and Share some News! Bridges Click image for a Larger Version We are continuing working on bridges, adding and testing functionality. Our main points of interest currently is collision detection which of course is pivotal to the bridges implementation and functionality. There is allot to take into consideration with many situations that make for very specific circumstances. Also, we are working on adding the functionality for continuing work on bridges via the crafting interface. This is proving to be a bit of a challenge though as the bridges are not as pre set in terms of how much material each piece takes to complete. For example there is calculations taking place concerning how big a bridge support is to determine its height and with that material requirement. So there is a need to add some further dynamic updating to the crafting interface before it will work as intended. Sound Sound Falloff With the new focus on sound we have also been taking some time looking at the system behind it. One of the most noticeable things we addressed is the sound falloff. The distance and falloff of sound will now be more natural and the difference is mainly that it will be much shorter. So comparatively it is much easier to judge the distance of a sound whilst at the same time limiting sound cluttering from far away sources. Creatures I have been testing what possibilities we have with the current systems and got some added functionality compliments of our lovely coder Haradur. So let me tell what type of sound you can expect from creatures in the future. First of they will have an idle sound triggered by the special idle animations so they will only be triggered sporadically. This will only be true for non farm animals. They will have attack sounds for the different type of attacks. Additionally some are getting aggressive sounds which will be triggered by the fight stance that is activated when a creature spots you and give chase. These aggressive sounds will also fill the silence in between attacks where the creature goes back into ready stance. Updated Get hit sounds. Updated death sounds. New interior items live Like I said in last weeks post the new items went live with the update. So some of you might already have them crafted and incorporated on your deed. Please feel free to share some screens in the comments so we can check it out! Check out the posts from week 44 and 43 if you are unsure what has been added. Just search your crafting recipes for their names and you will find everything you need to get crafting. Tapestry Click image for a Larger Version New decorative items heading your way once more! These tapestries are a bit special however as they are partly meant to be pushed into walls. This is not as weird as it sounds as they are created for this purpose and will collide with our collision detection perfectly. Perfectly meaning when the stand holding it disappears into the wall and only reveals itself as a wall mount holding the tapestry. Genius in its own simplicity and something that will truly lively up walls in the homes of many Wurmians humble abodes. They will be available in 6 different motifs and you see some more of them below. Click image for a Larger Version Vynora and Fo God Statuette Update Click image for a Larger Version An update to the somewhat forgotten old statuettes from the dawn of Wurm creation. If you check out the comparison below, I think you will understand what I mean. Definitely No need for a larger version Alright Wurmians, that is all for this weeks news! Hope you liked this update, I have as always enjoyed sharing it with you all. I have so much anticipation for revealing some of the new things going on! Soon there will be something revealed I am pretty sure no one expects. Anyhow, you know what to do until next time right? Keep on Wurming!
  13. Hello Fellow Wurmians! How nice to see you visiting my weekly news post again. With the bridge update last week it is safe to say there was some added attention. I do not have very much to add to the topic today but there is some further information on current testing. But I can tell you are itching for some good news. Well, I will not be one to disappoint so let me Share some News! Bridges Click Image for larger Version We are currently doing in house testing concerning having the bridges connect between houses and also from house to ground. As I mentioned last week on the topic this is very complex and have to be thoroughly tested before we feel confident it will not get bugged or abused. So far there has been no show stopper so to say, so we keep developing and are feeling optimistic! We are feeling much the same way about other functionality which was discussed way back when I first touched upon the topic. Do you remember what we talked about? Want me to make a specific post reiterating that information maybe? Updates to older Models Wox has gone over some of the models and given them a bit of optimization as well as smaller updates to their appearance. So the Stool, Chair, Arm chair, Large table, Round table, Square table will look more robust and have new textures. Wool Crafting We are working on getting the tools of the trade available for the Wurmians. I have heard from reliable sources that there has been some serious hoarding of wool going on in the lands of Wurm. With the bulk storage bins threatening to explode and the price of wool dropping by the minute. Merchants and sheep herders in outrage. Sheep losing confidence in self worth. This can not be allowed to continue. So: The spinning wheel now has an animation and will most likely be going live with the next update! With the spinning wheel you can refine your wool into yarn. And what is next you ask? Well start hoarding yarn instead of course. Not to worry! We are very close to being able to add the first of the new craftable Wool items. I showed you one of them last week. But have a look at some more that are currently work in progress! Wool Caps and Hats Sound I have taken some time lately to start working on sound effects for creatures in the lands of Wurm. A well needed update to be sure. My plan is to give the creatures much more presence in the environment by giving them for example characteristic idle sounds. This is so that you should be able get the added advantage of identifying creatures by hearing them nearby, instead of just plainly spotting them. Secondly will be the interaction with creatures where I am focusing mainly on combat. How far this can be stretched is yet to be determined. What I mean with that is how I will try to overlay different sounds between animations to give an overall fluent audio visual coherence with the creatures movement and character. Yeah this might all sound like mumbo jumbo to you but I think you can all relate to how powerful the impact of well implemented sound can be in a game. I will be making some exceptions which has been learned from earlier feedback where we had idle sounds from farm animals. As we all know, you can not have one without the other.. And the more the merrier. Which with this reasoning only leads to one conclusion. Big herds. Big herds results in many sounds. Constant sounds. Repeating sounds… This has been known to lead Wurmians into a craze, decimating herds just for the sweet sound of silence. So we will if anything make an idle sound extremely sparse and random on them to spare you the experience. New Interior update coming your way! So some surprise additions in our ongoing mission for well furnished housing in Wurm. Mind you that these items will most likely go live with the next update. So check out these real nice additions that will soon be craftable for one and all. That is, if you have the skills for it! Marble Table Indeed a well needed update to make further use of Marble. And a nice one at that. Imagine heaving that up the stairs. Round Marble Table A smaller and rounded version which is more easily placed. Just what has been missing from your medieval lounge corner of the living room? Cupboard An ornate wooden cupboard with a real nice finnish. It comes with an opening animation and also works as storage. Lounge Chair Fun fact, the lounge chair was a personal request from Rolf himself. So this is a priority piece of furniture Wurmians, make no mistake! We Swedes need our lounging and so does the game. Once more this turned out to be quite a content heavy update. I am a bit amazed with all the things going on right now. So much being added all the time and still more planned for the bigger upcoming update. I can not see much reason why anyone would not Keep on Wurming!
  14. Hello fellow Wurmians! Haha I do not even think I will bother with writing much here. If you are not already scrolling past this to get to, yes.. Bridges! But that is not all, lots of juicy news for one and all so lets Share some News! Bridges! Click image for larger version! Indeed! I have been holding out on you Wurmians I know, sorry about that. I have been hearing the weekly echoes and moans about bridges all this time but now finally, lets start talking about them again. After all that earlier hype, we hit some real complex barriers which took allot of development time to overcome. And before we brought it up again, we wanted to feel confident the project was proven to work within reasonable parameters and getting close to finished. And yes, we are now confident that bridges will be done and ready for implementation soon. So as you can see from the picture, you are now able to travel over the bridges which from a development standpoint is huge. It is very complex to say the least to get correct collisions to be generated along with player creations in a persistent sandbox environment. Hence why so few if any have done it before. Can you think of a game that has this functionality? I really can not recall a single game where you can do this. I think almost all of the coders on Wurm crew has been involved in this project to some extent. We are currently nailing down the final limitations and functionality of the bridges. So we are not going to much into details and answers before that. But as an example we are exploring the possibility of having them connected directly to buildings and to a different level of a building. A very interesting prospect but something that of course poses unique challenges on its own. The plan is to get them in with a bigger update. What will be in this update you say? Well, that is still on the down low but rest assured I will be letting you in on it as soon as possible. But it is seriously looking to become a neat package! Is christmas is coming early this year Wurmians? Digging for treasure! Digging now holds a chance to reward you with Rare Bones & Emeralds. You will only have the chance of finding anything if you are really digging so no: Digging - dropping - digging - dropping... No sir that will not do! Anybody, even non premium accounts have the chance of finding Emeralds. Only premium accounts however have the chance of finding Rare Bones. For those who do not know: Emeralds are used for storing favor for future “magic†usage. It also catches a fair price on the market. Rare Bones are used in crafting to increase the rarity of items. Wool Hats Click image for larger version! Aah so comfy and warm. And don't you just look striking when wearing it? The wool hats, a first look at this craftable item which will of course be related to the commodity wool obtained from sheep. Armor level will be the same as cloth. Sheep Cage! The only safe and cool way to keep your best sheep. Judging by the size of a sheep, this cage and its mount will be about the height of a 4 story house! What better way could there be to show of the pride of your herd? Did I get you there? I am only trolling you dear Wurmians. Bird Cage So this is more feasible you think? Yeah probably. This is a new decorative item and the bird inside will be animated. Currently we have a hen populating it but I think it looks good. Keep in mind this is work in progress. Check it out! Click image for larger version! Black Sheep And talking about sheep, here you have our black sheep in all its glory. Soon in a herd near you! Lounge Chaise You must reach a high level of fabulous and fine carpentry before even attempting to craft this. Let alone pulling of one of these on your deed. So as you are probably guessing, keeping this and the cage in mind. There are more interior items being worked on as we speak! So yet another weekly update draws to an end. Do you realize I have been keeping these going for about a year now? And it feels like the pace has only been increasing with Wurm development. I am certain we are going to get tons of bridge questions again so remember what I said. We really can not get into too much detail about its final implementation. But it is so exciting! Finally! Bridges! Keep on Wurming!
  15. >https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxnoDqeBex8 Welcome to the Pilot Episode of Wurm World News. The show about the Wurmians! If you want to view it in higher resolution just press the youtube icon and follow the video over to youtube. I am exited to hear what you think about this new show and feedback. I already know I could be a better actor hehe but hey I am working on it ok? What would you want to see in a future video? Also, if you want more of WWN please subscribe to our youtube channel, like and share the video. Please show your support for Stormray, creator of "Wurm Online - BlackLight Epic News". Who has lent us his great voice for the Newspring segment. Thank you for your time Wurmians!
  16. Hello Fellow Wurmians! Ah yes, this is the Weekly News. Hot spicy tidbits of information about Wurm development you always knew you needed. This is that special place to talk and share in harmony. So many opportunities to eat popcorn. And the cherry on top, it is brought to you buy this ranting Swede calling himself RedBaron. Are you not sold on this lovely concept? Wait, do not answer. It is probably better I just: Share some News! Xanadu Update Special Creature Spawns and Cap on Xanadu Following up once more on our progress to address the on many occasions reported sparsity of creatures. We did some changes earlier to try and address this but to no major effect. As you all probably know Xanadu already has a total creature population much bigger than any other servers. But as it is even vaster in size, they tend to get a bit spread out. So, we have already increased the creature cap by one step and after not seeing any significant changes in performance we will now increase it one step further. From the initial 200 000 cap to a new total of 300 000 creatures. Resources With the restart and update of Xanadu there will also be an overhaul and respawn of the resource spread. None of the already discovered resources will change so your current mines are fine. But basically allot more variety and less clustering of resources across the map. So bring out the shovels and pick axes! It is a good time to go out in hunt of new venues once more! Money distribution. This is straight from release notes but I will reiterate it once more. There is now a chance that certain actions yield a bonus rare coin if there is money left in the pool. The SELL function at traders and tokens, slaying creatures (domestic animals such as horses have double chance), and finding stuff when Botanizing or Foraging are the current ones. This should make for better and more fun money distribution. Lod We are continuing work on our Level of Detail models. By now you are probably aware of what this means, otherwise just check out the news post from week 35. What you might not know however is that we have also started to implement the system bit by bit. So if you have not already noticed the change it is a good sign. But before we start seeing any more noticeable effects on performance there are still many models to work on. What is interesting right now is that both walls and fences are being added into the system. Seeing as how much detail can go into buildings and at what distance you can view them, I think this will be great. Icons Indeed, this lovely task is still going strong as well. Even our young intern Stefan is starting to show signs of fatigue over this huge endeavor. He is starting to latch out in desperation, trying to vent his frustrations and gain more outlets for his creative spirit. Wox of course just shoots him an assertive art director glance, which is a highly scrutinizing thing to experience. This and energizing pauses to crack ironic comments has kept him going thus far. Also, I am of course doing my part, giving him pep talks each time passing. So I clench my fist and loudly exclaim -“Yeees! More Icons! You can do it!†Whilst looking wide eyed and utterly sincere. Memo to self, work on human resource skills. Help me out Wurmians, can Stefan get some more creative Pep talks? Portcullis There is some more versions of the portcullis coming your way. For simplicity's sake lets start from the left shall we? Ok, so as you see the first model on the left is a StoneWall Portcullis intended for use as an entrance in buildings. The inset wheels will spin as the metal bars animate upwards and downwards. Then we have the next version which gives the entrance an appearance of being two stories high. In reality, this top part will be a new wall type called Barred Wall as seen one step to the right. So you build and plan for it separately. What this also means is that you can use it anywhere to maybe break up the pattern of an otherwise plain stone wall. But as always, we will only know its true potential when in the hands of creative Wurmians! Both the StoneWall Portcullis and Barred Wall will be available with and without wooden trim. Then on the far right we have a wood version of the portcullis also intended for use with buildings. This version however does not animate the door straight upwards but rather pivot and fold inwards and upwards. A very vivid description I know. Sorry? It does not paint a clear enough picture for you? I will get you some more work in progress once we have them implemented on the test server. Plain StoneWall Types So by now you probably know you can make the plain stonewall ingame and also change a trimmed one into this new wall type with plyers. Just wanted to make sure you also know that house door, double door and arched walls of the stone variety is also available and convertible to plain. Please share some highlights of how you have used these plain walls around your deed! We all love fancy screenshots hehe. New Bone Altar Just click image for a Larger Version! Finally the Bone altar is intimidating and imposes the the fear it rightly deserves! A long post this week Wurmians I know. Hopefully a few of you kept with me all the way to the end hehe. I would like to take this opportunity to thank those who checked out our Wurm World News. And if you have not, what are you waiting for just click here! So rest assured, there will be an episode 2 as soon I have the time. But now lets round this post up so you can finally Keep on Wurming!
  17. Hello Fellow Wurmians! Another great week at the office with sneaky stuff going on in the background. I have been keeping myself very busy with producing a new show about you Wurmians. It is keeping within the fiction of the game and is basically about your history, stories and life in Wurm Online. Told from a documentary and storytelling perspective it is professionally voiced and edited. I am pretty exited about it and hopefully I will be able to post it tomorrow! Well enough about me there is more to talk about so lets, Share some News! The new Affliction The launch of Affliction went smooth and was well received. I have seen the Black lighters hard at work these last days and I am happy to see new life sparking out of the scarred ashes of the old Affliction. Affliction deserves it and Libila demands it! I had a little talk with Rolf about the new map to ask what his thoughts were as he was playing with his godlike tools of world creation. When Rolf was creating the map he was thinking strategically about things like having great plains, suitable for bigger settlements or cities. Then breaking it up with jagged mountains and challenging terrain making it harder in places to traverse. Many beaches and places that are inviting for settlers. The rivers and delta like formations in the terrain was also something Rolf put extra effort into. His thought was to make interesting traveling paths for seafarers. Also giving the new Affliction a distinct look and iconic places to explore. He also mentioned that he was careful to see to it that the island had a fair availability of clay tiles. All Icons! Oh, all these Icons.. This I feel will probably be Art Director Wox early demise. After finishing all the icons for the new and soon to come Select Bar he felt there was no longer any excuses putting of this task. The task of reworking each single icon and add the missing ones, in the entire game. A well needed update to be sure, but let me tell you. The task list for this is a total of around 800 icons! I can literally see one gray hair being formed for each icon finished. Luckily for Wox, our talented art intern Stefan is also going at the task with his young vigor. One added bonus, but added time to the task is the fact that whilst doing the icons Wox opens all the 3d models related to the icons he is creating. And being the kind of guy he is, he cant help but performing some optimization and quick graphic updates to them. I have already seen him reworking the rose bush and bulking up the table models. I think it is safe to say that we will be depending on Stefan's energy to speed up this endeavor. Because optimizing and reworking 800 3d models.. I think that would take some time. Sheep and Wool Crafting Many have been happy with the arrival of the sheep. But collecting them, breeding and harvesting will take you only so far. Where is the new crafting? Not to fear. We have some progress in the area and I will share this with you as it is. So first of there is the nearly finished: Spinning Wheel. Cinderella approvedâ„¢ To put it simply: Fluffy wool goes in and voila! Yarn comes out. Next item on the list is the first planned craftable item which is a wool cap. I have heard whispers that using paint in combination with the crafting process might yield some colorful results. No work in progress picture available at this time. Last on the list is the fact that I can reveal there will also be a: Lamb. Also, a black sheep! They will bully the other sheep. Nah, just kidding. They will however add to the variation of your heard! Community and Work Competition Ok, I have finally found some worthy winners of the competition. Thank you everyone that has been participating even though this time around there was a bit less contributions. I picked based on who most closely followed the specifications and instructions for this contest. The winners will be contacted later to discuss delivery of the promised prize. But now, check out the winning contributions! Zekezor - New Ground silakka - Digging In (Still need to submit participants to be viable for prize) Xsamuraizx - Homstead Alright Wurmians, I am afraid that is all I have time for this week. Make sure to look out for the new video I will be posting! I will be requesting some feedback on it as well to make it as interesting as possible for you. Also tips on what you think the next episode should center around. But for now Keep on Wurming!
  18. Hello Fellow Wurmians! Welcome to a delightful week with a gorgeous theme. It is time to get your hands on all the new fabulous medieval interior items you have been waiting for. There will be both previously announced items and some surprises! With the update going live the new spell balances which has received lots of feedback and testing these last couple of weeks are also going in. These will likely receive further updates. Open Fireplace A decorative open fireplace which provides light and warmth to those nearby. Skill Requirement: Masonry 35. Use Mortar on Stone Brick to start. Ingredients 10 Stone Bricks 10 Mortar 2 Planks Small Wooden Bed Table A small wooden bed table on four round legs featuring some intricate wooden carvings. Skill Requirement: Fine Carpentry 25. Use Shaft on Plank to start. Ingredients 4 Planks 4 Shafts 1 Small Nails Canopy Bed An inviting canopy bed, fit for a king. Skill Requirement: Fine Carpentry 65. Use Headboard on Bed Frame to start. Ingredients 1 HeadBoard 1 Bed Frame 1 Foot Board 10 Planks 8 Sheets 8 Fur 2 Large Nails 2 Small Nails Wooden Bench A comfortable wooden bench with wrought-iron decorations. Skill Requirement: Fine Carpentry 35. Use Small Nails on Plank to start. Ingredients 8 Planks 4 Small Nails 4 Shafts 2 Ribbons Wardrobe A large wardrobe with wooden inlays. Skill Requirement: Fine Carpentry 55. Use Large Nails on Plank to start. Ingredients 12 Planks 4 Shafts 4 Large Nails 2 Small Nails Wooden Coffer A wooden coffer. Simple yet beautifully decorated. Skill Requirement: Fine Carpentry 24. Use Small Nails on Plank to start. Ingredients 6 Planks 3 Small Nails Royal Throne A Royal Throne fit for a King. Skill Requirement: Fine Carpentry 70. Use Large Nails on Plank to start. Ingredients 8 Planks 2 Shafts 4 Large Nails 6 Small Nails Washing Bowl An earthen washing bowl on a tripod made from brass. Skill Requirement: 30 Blacksmithing. Use Brass Lump on Small Anvil to start. Ingredients Small Anvil Brass Lump 3 Brass Ribbon Pottery Bowl Small Tripod Table A small round table on three legs. Skill Requirement: 40 Fine Carpentry. Use Shaft on Plank to start. Ingredients 2 Planks 2 Shafts 2 Small Nails Small / Medium / Large colorful carpet This carpet adds a nice patch of color to any house or castle. Skill Requirement: Cloth Tailoring. For Small 20, Medium 30, Large 40. Use string of cloth on floor loom to start. Ingredients 3 / 4 / 5 Kg string of cloth depending on size. High and Low bookshelf Simply looking at this collection of wisdom makes you feel more clever. High bookshelf Skill Requirement: 35 Fine Carpentry. Use Large Nails on Plank to start. Ingredients 8 Planks 2 Shafts 4 Large Nails Low bookshelf Skill Requirement: 25 Fine Carpentry. Use Large Nails on Plank to start. Ingredients 4 Planks 1 Shaft 2 Large Nails High Chair, Fine High Chair and Pauper High Chair A comfy looking chair which invites you to rest High Chair Skill Requirement: 50 Fine Carpentry. Use Small Nails on Plank to start. Ingredients 3 Planks 2 Small Nails 2 Ribbon Fine High Chair Skill Requirement: 60 Fine Carpentry. Use Small Nails on Plank to start. Ingredients 3 Planks 2 Small Nails 2 Square piece of cloth Pauper High Chair Skill Requirement: 40 Fine Carpentry. Use Small Nails on Plank to start. Ingredients 2 Planks 3 Shaft 2 Small Nails Interior Decoration Competition! During the following week we will have a running competition where you can post screenshots in this competition thread: Interior Decoration Competition The competition is to create and incorporate some of the new interior items at your deed. We will be looking at overall feel, theme and creativity of the room. There needs to be at least 4 visible different new items in the screenshot. We will at the end of the week select our 3 favorite screenshots which will be awarded exclusive Wurm Merchandise! Also you have the chance to get your screenshot featured at the screenshots section of our homepage for all to see. The merchandise is a selection between a Juggernaut of Magranon or Manifestation of Fo pendant! The pendants are crafted by the talented jeweler Kryn. You might know him as Krinos78 at the forums or Atazoth ingame. You can read more about the creation of the pendants and check out his store at this address: http://www.kryn.nl/ That is all for this special feature Wurmians and I hope you enjoyed it! I am hoping for many creative contributions to the competition. I know at least I will be fabulizing my deed these coming days! But do not worry I will not try to steal your thunder, the competition is yours So lets all hurry and Keep on Wurming!
  19. Hello Fellow Wurmians! So many threads to weave into this weeks news hehe. Both feedback request a new competition and good news. I am thinking this will be an appreciated one so lets just Share some News! Sheep! >http://vimeo.com/104020104 The amazing sheep is about to be added. I can say with some certainty it will be in within a week. We are implementing them first simply as a farm creature where you can start collecting them and harvesting wool to stockpile. Later there will of course come new options on how to use this material. But for now let us all rejoice in this soon to come fluffy addition to the game! PvP Changes We are looking for a new round of constructive feedback to further tweak PvP balance. I know plenty of you have left feedback in the thread created 8th of September when some changes was made. But much has happened since then and the changes has started to become more properly tested. So if you have commented earlier in the light of recent changes, you can edit it to repost in the new thread so it follows the new criteria I will mention there. PvP Changes Feedback submissions. Select Bar We are currently tweaking the details to make code and art come together in a minimalistic and functional interface. A small progress bar was included underneath the general interface. (not in the picture) The progress bar was first tested as placed behind the text but was concluded to be to obstructive for readability. There is also an ongoing investigation into the situations for dynamically updating the interface with new information. In other words when state changes occur. I touched on this last week with the example of a mining action resulting in an opening and the interface then needs to change to the corresponding actions relating to the now new selected item. This same type of state changes occur all the time in Wurm with different things and they all need their set of triggers and rules to function correctly with the interface. 79 Icons for different actions has been produced so far. I say that already makes for one impressive amount of ways you can possibly interact with the game. Indoor View Distance. This one is short, simple but oh so sweet. You will now have the same view distance you have outdoors, indoors. In other words, items will not disappear at the far end of a large room. Bear in mind though that this is only true whilst indoors. When you are outside looking in, the same restrictions as before with short view distance is still the same. This is of course to save on performance. Particularly in cities due to the ridiculous amount of stuff that tend to accumulate inside Wurmians residences over time. LOD - Level of Detail Continuing the quest to translate all models into simpler shapes to be viewed from afar. Given the amount of models we have I think we can safely presume this will be an ongoing endeavor for quite some time. In the end it will be worth it though when we reap the well needed benefits of less detail having to be displayed without perceivable quality or view distance loss. A new Affliction This is a reiteration of the confirmed date on which the affliction server will go down to get a new chance at glory. The date is October 8th. Better be prepared! Boats New general code for handling collisions will soon be added. This will not currently change anything noticeably for you. But the boats will benefit from this and it also changes the grounds for how they would be implemented. So rather than implementing them twice, now and once the new code gets in. We will need to have some patience and wait for this new code to not waste valuable dev time. So for now they are put on a temporary hold. Beer hat, no sorry it is a Bear hat! This fresh from our art director Wox. I do not have much information about it yet but my highly educated guess is you would need at least one bear to craft this item. Community and Work competition! This week we are having another competition where we want you to really work for it so to say. Okay so this time it is pretty straight forward, we want to see community projects in action! As many people doing as visual and appealing teamwork as possible in a nice screenshot. If the project you are doing and the environment is beautiful it will of course be to your advantage. Like last time there will be three winning submissions but you now also need to name all the people in the shot participating in the project. Remember, it is not just about the amount of people, it is about the overall quality of the screenshot. As this is a community project we need to reward it as such. So each winning contribution will get a total of 30 SleepPowders to share amongst the team collaborating on the project. Also the chance of getting featured on Wurms promotional page! Click this text to go to the Submissions Page! So lovely with these competitions which I always thoroughly enjoy. There is just so many creative players in this community, so once more I will be waiting in anticipation! Whilst I do that you should probably Keep on Wurming!
  20. Hello Fellow Wurmians! Welcome once more to a bit of quality time with Me and the Devs. As always there is a good mix of things but today there is the added excitement of even more stuff being added! We are up to a good pace now I think you can agree, adding stuff right and left. Oh yeah, did I mention the sheep will be going live now? I see you are already aching to scroll down and have a look so lets just Share some News! Portcullis Wox has previously shown you the early work in progress of the new gate type Portcullis. It quickly became quite popular and he has now progressed further. It certainly is an impressive and sturdy gate, currently only intended for use with fences. So we put together a short video for you to appreciate it fully with sound effects and animation. Enjoy! >https://vimeo.com/107818289 Select Bar The icons have been added to the interface. Only a few dynamic update situations remaining to take into account. At least from what we can currently tell. So progress on the bar is looking good but it probably will get added at a later time with a larger update. Trimless Walls Just click the image for a larger version. As promised here is a work in progress shot of the highly anticipated trimless walls. A new tasty bit of news is that we are also making the door, double door and arches available in trimless versions! Big Creature Update We have finished working on the last bit of code for the creatures previously announced. They will be added at the same time as the sheep which will be in with the next update! Let me first present our previously unannounced creature. Seal Cub Once more we are trying to push the limits for cuteness overload. This little cub will of course try to keep close to its kin for protection as it is quite easy prey. Here is a list of all the creatures going live with the update. Just click any of the images for a larger version! Epic Legendary Titles All level 100 legendary titles that was previously only available on freedom will with the next update be activated on the epic cluster. How many of you PvP Wurmians have a level 100 skill? Community and Work competition We have received a lot of feedback saying projects are in motion but the time to plan was to short. So I am adding an extra week of time for you to finish your contributions to the competition. Do not forget there is 30 sleep powders to share amongst the people participating in each winning contribution. Reminder 2 to current and soon to be participants. List the people in the pictures so they also get credit for the shot and are viable for sharing the sleeping powder! Click this link to go to the competition post! Oh that little seal cub, I am dreading what the Wurmians will do to it. Can we not get a "Don't club the Cub" group going to save this poor soul from Wurmian wrath? I fear it might be much to ask. Though I know art director Saroman has given it some special features to at least make it extra hard on your conscience. Like that would stop you right? Also, thanks to everyone participating in the contest, I am hoping to see more! But now it is time to Keep on Clubbing Wurming!
  21. Hello fellow Wurmians! It has been an exciting week at the office with allot of energy and visitors contributing to that fact. We are happy to have our Germany based Graphic artist Roman visiting here in Motala. He is currently laboring merrily on his crappy laptop trying to keep up with us big boys and our big toys. Let me tell you more whilst I Share some News! Tich visiting the Motala office. Many of you probably know about our very talented developer Tich who is helping out developing tools, features and resolving bugs. Basically a bit of everything. Tich is also a veteran player of Wurm and the architect behind impressive projects like RockCliff Cathedral on Independence. Usually Tich is working out of UK but for this week is visiting our office in Motala to kick some collaborative projects into the next gear. We still want to keep the details for ourselves a little bit longer but there are some real nice projects going on in the background. Select Bar The select bar is the latest addition we are working on to make interacting with the game more intuitive. Let me first explain the concept. You will have 8 slots in this interface which will be bound by default to the numeric keys. (The previous default for those keys which are the tool belt presets is changed to holding down shift + a numeric key.) They can all be rebound to fit your specific layout so do not worry. The slots in the select bar are dynamic keybinds which update to represent the most common actions used with a selected item or in relation to an active tool. All actions are represented by easily understood and memorable Icons which if needed are explained when hovering mouse over them. As an example: You select a rock tile by left clicking it. The select bar is updated and shows you the different options you have. You open your inventory and activate your pickaxe. The interface is now updated with the actions related to pickaxe on rock. You now see the icon for tunnel in the first slot and press the number 1 key on the keyboard. You character starts hacking away at the rock. Every time you press 1 you que additional actions. What do you say Wurmians, can we have some feedback and suggestions concerning this new interface? (Like I could stop you hehe) Affliction A vote took place after a much supported request where only premium accounts on Affliction that are members of the Hots kingdom could participate. The vote was for a new and bigger Affliction map and it passed with 89% favoring the suggestion. It will not get any clearer then that so we at code club will cater to this and make it so. Inhabitants get at least 2 Weeks of notice and a so called free disband of their deeds. So start preparing Black Lighters! Load up them boats because Affliction will go down only to rise again! I will give you a specific date well in advance of this. Host issues We have been experiencing some problems with our host in Germany where all of a sudden there is performance issues and data loss that goes on for some time. Currently we are recording network data to get further information to provide to Hetzner. We have already identified this is something happening in their core network and within their infrastructure. Currently we can not say how we will resolve this as it is pretty much out of our hands if they themselves do not address the issue. That is if we do not want to start tailoring our servers around this issue to try and compensate for their shortcomings. Or for that matter migrate to another host again which is of course not optimal. I will get back to you once I have further information on the matter. Trellises Click Image for larger version Yes, the trellises that was not released with all the other content which was created mainly in relation to the new tutorial area is about to be added. They became quite popular as people wanted to lively up the walls of their housing, so we get reminders from time to time not to forget them. We also expanded a bit upon the concept so there will be another version of the trellis. Some of you might already have found the ivy seedlings which was added earlier and this was in preparation for this new version. These will be needed to craft the new ivy trellis along with some shafts and a nail or two. So there will be both Ivy and grape trellises available sometime next week. Sheep and Wool crafting. We are continuing our work on the marvelous sheep and currently we are making a spinning jenny for processing of the wool to turn it into yarn. You will then use the yarn with a floor loom to make cloth which in turn will give you some new alternatives to craft. These will be disclosed later as we progress. Trimless Walls Another version of the stone brick wall without the wooden trims that is between the wall parts horizontally. The thought here being that firstly it makes for more variation and secondly a more clean unified look for larger exterior walls of multi story houses or castles. It also has a smaller castle like window. I will hit you with some in progress shots of this very soon. Interior decoration contest! We have selected the winners for the competition and it was not easy. So first of I would just like to thank everyone who has contributed, I am always amazed to see what you all do with the things available. I gathered all the devs around my desk and we discussed and viewed everything critically. Finally we had agreed on three participants which was the most original and aesthetically pleasing to us. So without any further ado I bring you the winners! DOE - The Library Click Image for larger version Kegan - Cosy Bedroom Click Image for larger version Nicrolis - Throneroom Click Image for larger version All of the winners will be contacted through PM and we will discuss your choice of pendants and details. A big congratulations to the winners and thank you all for participating from us here at the office! Christmas Impalong! A special mention goes out today in preparation for the very popular Christmas Impalong. You can discuss it here: http://forum.wurmonline.com/index.php?/topic/110481-christmas-impalong-discussion-freedom-isles/ And place you submission here: http://forum.wurmonline.com/index.php?/topic/110477-christmas-impalong-submissions-freedom-isles/ I hope I can participate this year and catch you all in action! Alright Wurmians, that will be all for this weeks news. It is exciting to see a new branch of crafting starting to take shape. I have high hopes it will become quite popular with some of the further craftable items we have in mind. Other then that I will thank you for another great week and remind you to Keep on Wurming!
  22. Hello Fellow Wurmians! How are you all feeling today? Blessed? Corrupt? You are welcome in our community all the same. We have a nice mix of things to talk about today. I will balance that by ranting less here and more whilst we Share some News! Corrupt When Libila priests casts bless, any grazing animals turn corrupted. This means that they will stop eating grass and instead eat mycelium, a much needed addition to the dwellers in the black light. There are some interesting side notes to this as you have a counter. That is of course the bless from any white light priests which would make it an ordinary grass eater once more. You could for example sneak up on that pesky BL neighbor of yours and bless his animals. They would then starve until it is noticed and bless is recast. This would of course work the other way around so you better keep an eye on those animals! Balancing Aggressive Spells We have managed to go through the huge thread with tons of great feedback from the Wurmians, thank you for helping out! The coding for the first round of testing is now done and is going on the testserver for evaluation. We are focusing mainly on the PvP offensive spells where nuking a single player or spamming area of effects on groups needs to be balanced. The issue originally as many know is collecting big amounts of favor in gems before a battle then using it as “instant magic potions†giving you unlimited uses of spells. Much will easily be resolved with balanced cooldowns but for nuking there will also be a gradual resistance building up in the person being attacked by the same type of attack. As an example, a group with priests of the same faith cast a single target nuke attack on the same target. He would with the first attack gain a resistance of say 70% fire which makes the next fire attack less punishing. You lose the resistance gradually over time as long as you do not keep getting hit with the same attack or die. As I said, this will be the first round of testing and might very well be subject to change. But it will be exciting to see if this changes up gameplay a bit, making it more dynamic. Average Quality in Bulk Bins. A more correct calculation of the average quality in bulk bins is being implemented. You should not perceive any major differences other than when adding new items to the bin, the overall quality will not be as easily affected by smaller additions. It is now a more logical matter of the quality divided over quantity. If you are like me, not an expert on bulk bins and why this is of any major importance, lets simplify it one step further. When you put items in a bulk storage bin instead of for example dropping them, they are treated differently. They are so to say merged into a single representation of the bulk item you are storing. That means that even if you have varying quality on the items you put in, they are merged into a single item volume with a single quality. The quality of the merged item is then based on the average quality of the items you put in it in relation to the total volume. Does it make sense yet? Close enough. The new Boats Getting the new collisions to work is proving to be a challenge. Progress is slow but steady and I can see Haradurs brows sunken in concentration throughout the days at the office. But if you all come together and post a message here to boost Haradurs morale, I am sure he will be able find another gear and energy for this task. Come on mate you can do it! The new Interiors The fabulous new interiors I have been promoting for a long time have now received all the code needed for implementation. We are currently going through them all looking for any and all anomalies associated with the crafting and use of them. You can expect them to go live some time next week! I will post a special update to remind you of what the assets are in next week. Communication, the Dev way. If you are thinking internal communication is always easy, I wanted to give you a bit of an example of how talking to the devs usually goes. Where are we at with the thing? One says this, one says that. But that was dependent upon the other thing. Who was it that did that? I do not know. Wait, actually I did another thing and that changes this and that depends on the next thing. Which thing? The one where we have the original thing, this and the other stuff. Aaah yes… So where are we at with the next thing? (Start reading from line 2 again and repeat) That was all for this week Wurmians! And do not forget to cheer Haradur on for the new boats! I am looking forward to finally seeing the new interiors in your hands and how they will be used. They will do much in the way of variation and personalization on deeds which for me is a big part of what I enjoy doing in Wurm. And as always Keep on Wurming!
  23. Hello Fellow Wurmians! How about we dive a bit deeper into the development today my friends? A look into some interesting but more technical aspects about our everyday work which will give you an understanding of the complex problems and solutions you face in game development. Are you already zooning out? No? Great! Then grab your popcorn and lets Share some News! Creature Spawns Many of you have noticed and reported that there seems to be an uneven spread of the creatures and their spawns. We have been looking into this and have not been able to identify anything out of the ordinary code wise in the complex functions running the creatures spawns and behaviors. It is a very interesting area as it is in essence a small digital ecosystem in itself. To explain further, all creatures have certain different preferences as to what area they spawn in. For example the seal will want to spawn at a tile that is over water but has a rock tile under water next to it. Then there is a random function connected to this which is searching the map for such tiles and there is a kind of dice roll for: -will it spawn? Yes/No. Also, some creatures have the same preferences which will also result in a dice roll deciding which creature will spawn at this specific tile. At last a roll for: What traits will it have? Multiply this with the amount of creatures there is in wurm, combine it with different sets of behaviors and It adds up. In the end you have yourself a self governing system with both pre set and many random events. Much like in real ecosystems. To be able to address the reported problems one would need to have a godlike overview of a land in Wurm and all of its creations. Where do they spawn, where do they move and do they stop or cluster? Basically, can we find patterns and what can be learned. Because only once you can recreate a behavior, you can change a behavior. Server Programmer Erik is the one fronting the endeavor of how to more closely monitor the reported inconsistencies in our digital fauna. He has created a new tool which can do all of the things I mentioned above and gives us a graphical representations of an entire island, its basic geometry and each single creature inhabiting it. When rendered in a sequence over time, we can put that into an animation and follow the migrations and behavior of creatures on an entire server. This is Erik's private test server which is the same size as Black Light home server 4x4km. Click image for a larger version Each single dot represents one or more creatures placed on the same 1 tile. Grey to light Grey: Low to high rock Green to light Green: Low to high ground Blue to light Blue: Deep to shallow water Hot Pink: Lava Red: Horses Yellow: Creatures Light Pink: Sea Creatures Boats We have not updated you for a while on the progress of the new Boat models. They have not been forgotten and right now we are working on the collisions for them. You might have noticed the fact that boats clip through the ground and stops about when it reaches the feet of the commander. That is because up to this point the character has been used as the point of reference for collision and that is about to change. The collision checker is being moved to the boat itself which will help prevent several issues but also make the boat behave more realistically. So thank you for keeping patient for a little while longer, we are getting close now. Lod Lod is short for Level of Detail and what it means in a game is basically to gradually increase the complexity level of an object the closer you get to it. Our coders and graphic artists are working closely together on this as it is dependent on both departments for it to be successful. To give you an example, seeing an object from afar does not give you much detail because of the limitation of your sight. Therefore it could be represented by a very simple shape closely resembling what it actually is purely with silhouette and volume. As you move closer you will be able to perceive more detail in the shape and geometry and the object increase its complexity to cater to that. I think you get where I am going with this, so let me shortly tell you how that translates into what we are doing. Three to four different levels of complexity for most models and textures in game. Coding to make the transition between them as good as possible. What it means to you? It means a significant performance increase due to the fact that your computer does not need to handle nearly as much complex objects and high resolution textures at any given time. This without decreasing view distance or the perceived detail. Sounds like a win win to me! Click image for a larger version Click image for a larger version In these pictures you can see how complexity is gradually decreased with a factor of more then 50% per iteration. This is represented other than what you can see, by the number of Tris which can be viewed in the statistics under respective iteration. The "tris" or triangles are basically a measure of how many separate pieces of geometry a 3d object is broken up into. Dolphin Continuing on our sea-quest I present to you the latest addition to our lively creatures, the Dolphin. The model and animation is done which means it is awaiting its data and implementation. Several of the creatures I revealed earlier has now received their data and statistics which means they will probably be going live with the next update. You can see which with the next set of release notes once the update happens. Alright Wurmians that is about all I have to say for today. Thank you for staying with us yet another week as we all love having you with us as we progress. I hope you have enjoyed this update and let us know what you think in the comments. So until next time Keep on Wurming!
  24. Hello Fellow Wurmians! We are all back at the office again after an inspirational experience in Cologne Germany attending the Game Developper Convention and GamesCon. As always we renewed our motivation and Rolf is flexing envigorated management muscles to further spur the team for this season of Wurm development. So why not kick this off with something you have all been waiting and hoping for? I can hardly refrain myself from spilling the beans here and now so lets just Share some News! Sheep! >http://vimeo.com/104020104 Yes, the sheep whom some of you by now might think of as a creature of mythical proportions given its history in this community. For those of you who are a bit new to the game I can tell you that it was requested and revealed a long time ago and has been a recurring question bordering on obsessive on a weekly basis ever since. Finally it is getting the attention well deserved and our developers are now working actively at getting the sheep implemented in the game. As in most cases in Wurm development it is not just about the sheep itself, but also what it brings in terms of craftable materials. In this case wool obviously. The wool itself will spark the creation of a new crafting tree where you will have yourself some whopping woolly surprises to look forward to as assets are being created and revealed. Venture any guesses or wishes for items anyone? Can I get a unified hooray for the sheep? Suggestions from the Community We have had some great suggestions propagated to us from the community as of lately, firstly the fences in arched walls which will go live with the update to the servers today! Some updates on how they will function: On ground floor it only works on outside walls.High fences (and gates) are not available as the model would poke into the floor above.Fences and Gates are not part of the writ, so they are covered by deed settings (assuming on deed), e.g. if not on deed you will need keys for the gates.When you destroy the building any fences/gates on ground floor remain.Bashing will either be on fences or walls, not both at the same time.Catapults damage both fences and walls. A special thanks goes out to the Wurmians who took part in the testing of this feature and providing us with all the great feedback.PlayerA uses the console command: /addfriend PlayerBRemote Friend Request This is one for the social Wurmians out there, but even those hermits on the hill tops might want someone to chat with, be it from afar. This will take care of it all! It will also go live with todays update. Here follows the explanation: PlayerB then gets a message saying that PlayerA want to be friends and use /addfriend PlayerA to allow it.When PlayerB does /addfriend PlayerA, they get added to the friends list on both players.There are some conditions needing to be fulfilled for this to be successful however You can not: Be waiting for another friends response.Have PlayerB on ignoreYour friend also need to fill the following requirements: Have to be Online.Can not be waiting for another 'friend' (or waiting to reply to another friend)Can not be ignoring PlayerAPlayerB has 5 minutes to respond - if he does not send a response during this time a message is sent back to PlayerA saying “PlayerB is Unavailableâ€. You also both need to have PMs enabled(on by default) under profile which you find by right clicking the body icon in the bottom left corner of the character interface. Between kingdoms, you both have to have x-kingdom enabled in profile (on by default). Between servers, you both have to have x-server enabled in profile (on by default). Keybinds Interface The Interface I mentioned in the last update is also done! You can find it as a new tab under the game settings. Enjoy! More interior! We are continuing to build and finish our library of new medieval interior assets for more variations in and on your deeds. This time with a truly royal contribution to the arsenal with: Throne and Rug Everyone deserves a royal respite after a day of grinding right? These are of course crafted individually but goes well as a set I would say. Thank you for your patience in awaiting these new goodies, we will start implementing them as soon as possible. Alright Wurmians I hope you have enjoyed this weeks update! There is so much in the making at the moment and we have one tightly packed time schedule on all departments. This is one season that will contain a lot of surprises and excitement for both developers and Wurmians alike. So you better Keep on Wurming!
  25. Hello Fellow Wurmians! The Baron is back! As many of you know, I have been on parental leave for some time now. I can proudly announce that in true Wurm style I have been grinding my skills. So diaper changing and pampering is up to 70 by now. I am thankful for being able to have the time to spend with my family this first crucial and magical time of a new life. But it is great to be back at the office and there is certainly an atmosphere of enthusiasm amongst the team for this season of Wurm development. I have only been back this past week and already there is so much going on and ideas circulating. Also, looking back at what has been going on since I left I can honestly tell you I will not be able to fit it all in one news post! I do not know if you have heard this before but the Wurm dev team usually kicks of a season by going to Germany and attending the Game Developer Convention and Gamescom. This always gets us extremely motivated and full of new inspiration for this crazy game we all love. So next week we will be doing our best combining business and pleasure! But onto the news, I have selected some highlights and surprises for this week. Those of you waiting on updates about some previous topics can expect them a bit later on. As you can already see I am ranting on as always but seriously, it is time once more to Share some News! New player animations in development. These new animations are mostly focused on giving more visual cues on what you and others are doing. To name some examples pushing and pulling objects, hammering and general crafting actions. This is important to increase the immersion but also to make interactions with the world more interesting. Fences in arched walls Click Image for a larger version. You should soon be able to build fences within arched walls! They should work on all levels of a building but only on the outside wall on the ground floor. This will result in much more building combinations and variety for your creativity. All fences will be available for this except the tallest ones that are not suitable aesthetically. Before going live though, Tich who is the one developing this feature has requested some further feedback and testing. So if you feel up for testing this new feature just follow this link where you will find more information and can leave feedback. Just follow this Link Keybindings Interface This is something that has been requested time and again. So our developers took you up on it and finally we are close to this going live! It is already performing well on the test server where this screenshot was taken. There is as always still things on the wish list concerning further functionality, but I think we can all agree that it is a great addition! What is Tortoise Crafting? Remember this guy? Why not turn him into something useful! By butchering this creature you have the chance of finding a tortoise shell. Combine it with some leather straps and small nails, voila! You have yourself a fancy: Tortoise Shield! It will use the same skill as a small wooden shield and will be available to craft as soon as we start spawning the Tortoises. Whales Click Image for a larger version. We are continuing our sea theme to populate the vast waters of Wurm. This time we are going big with the Blue Whale which will also have an effect for the characteristic action of blowing water. Given what the devs are doing with the revolutionary turtle crafting, what do you think we can expect from Whale crafting? More Medieval Interior! Bookshelves Highchairs We have been working for some time now on building a new arsenal for the medieval interior decorators out there and these are the latest additions. As you might know there are already several assets which are now only awaiting the code to make them craftable. What this means is basically setting up how much of and which crafting ingredients are needed. That is also the stage where we decide upon their description, usability, durability and difficulty to craft. Alright Wurmians, it is a bit of a special feeling to be here again, hovering my mouse pointer over the Post New Topic button. Once more thinking about how you will react and how much more there always is to share about the development and story of this game. I can not help but think that this season is going to be a great one and I can hardly wait to start telling you why. So I hope I will manage to get you at least half as excited as I am. But I think you are, because obviously you Keep on Wurming!