An Open Letter to Redbaron Johan

[NeoAnderson 242]

As far as I'm concerned, I would rather want Chaos be phased out, or moved to the epic cluster.

 

I don't really see the point of making the world round - where should the world expand once N and S of Xanadu is occupied?

 

The beauty of a round world is that it can grow indefinitely.

 

I have always intended to play, or even move to Chaos at some point. However, accessibility is such a huge problem right now, 

Most of the borders that can be reached through freedom presently are controlled by major kingdoms. Even Golden Landing is pretty difficult to reach for a simple hunting trip. The border itself is much to easy to camp/player hunt. 

 

The current set up is simply difficult to deal with. Bringing trade or new deed forms from other servers is an especially painful prospect. 

 

A round world also makes much more sense to me personally. It also gives us a shortcut (albeit dangerous) from P&R to the rest of Freedom, which I foresee as being another pain to get too for many reasons. As much as a 12 hour sailing vacation sounds like *sooo much fuunnn*, I think the potential trade of danger for a faster trip would be much appreciated all around. 

 

Agreed again on travel difficulties - good point¬

 

+1 to a globe

 

and when you move across borders question "which direction you want to sail" can pop up  like in tutorial area

 

 

Exactly, I'm sure the feature wouldn't be too hard to create as its probably already hard coded into the game.

[Battlepaw 585]

I rather a portal like epic portal but each kingdom can only have one:

http://forum.wurmonline.com/index.php?/topic/100694-kingdom-portal-for-freedom-chaos/

 

So territorial warfare won't lock in any kingdom. 

 

Or all borders of chaos to be open. South need love too.

If we have ship travel on all sides, territorial warfare would not only be unable to lock a kingdom down, it would give more freedom to where people can establish.  Portals are just a cheap excuse to ignore pvp on a pvp server, which kinda defeats the point.    It doesn't matter how they are implemented, its a lazy "quick fix" solution to a problem that can be solved, and still keep the concept of distance, and travel, and of course keep the risk factor constant with a better set of connections to the server.   

 

In terms of the actual mechanics of the connections, a round world is not only an idea solution, it has been suggested before. Right now wurm feels like an add-hoc set of daisy chained servers rather than a robust game with many different trade routes.   

 

Putting Chaos in a position where we offer a quick shortcut for distance, if your willing to risk your cargo and ship, also can give cheap thrills to the rest of the cluster, and give us a purpose beyond just an end-game outlet for players that need it.    

[Bittereinder 265]

Lol portals? This isn't Stargate SG-1.

 

Some advocate connecting P&R to Chaos, to save time and add new ways of entering Chaos, yet they defeat their own point by suggesting to add portals. Why connect P&R to Chaos if you want to have portals?

For many, it's a choice to live on Chaos permanently and to defend the interests of your kingdom.

 

E.g. It takes a lot of time to prepare for a siege. Why would attackers give away the 1-2-3 hours of advantage due to a suprise attack on a city when people can just teleport in?

Edited May 29, 2014 by Bittereinder

[NeoAnderson 242]

If we have ship travel on all sides, territorial warfare would not only be unable to lock a kingdom down, it would give more freedom to where people can establish.  Portals are just a cheap excuse to ignore pvp on a pvp server, which kinda defeats the point.    It doesn't matter how they are implemented, its a lazy "quick fix" solution to a problem that can be solved, and still keep the concept of distance, and travel, and of course keep the risk factor constant with a better set of connections to the server.   

 

In terms of the actual mechanics of the connections, a round world is not only an idea solution, it has been suggested before. Right now wurm feels like an add-hoc set of daisy chained servers rather than a robust game with many different trade routes.   

 

Putting Chaos in a position where we offer a quick shortcut for distance, if your willing to risk your cargo and ship, also can give cheap thrills to the rest of the cluster, and give us a purpose beyond just an end-game outlet for players that need it.    

 

 

Robust, established trade routes, with a risk option would really enhance gameplay and may add an interesting dynamic to the game. It's so easy to do and the impacts measurable, if people dont like it they dont have to use it. But give us that option!

 

Lol portals? This isn't Stargate SG-1.

 

Some advocate connecting P&R to Chaos, to save time and add new ways of entering Chaos, yet they defeat their own point by suggesting to add portals. Why connect P&R to Chaos if you want to have portals?

For many, it's a choice to live on Chaos permanently and to defend the interests of your kingdom.

 

E.g. It takes a lot of time to prepare for a siege. Why would attackers give away the 1-2-3 hours of advantage due to a suprise attack on a city when people can just teleport in?

 

Couldn't agree more, Portals would be hugely disruptive. 

[Ayes 3,715]

OP, I am going to point something out to you that perhaps you might not like to hear. You have made this post within Town Square so you should expect that PvE players who have no interest whatsoever in playing upon the Chaos server will respond here. Even if you don't expect this I will respond anyway, since anyone has just as much right to express their opinion on your OP as anyone else. If you want exclusion the Chaos forum is the place for it, otherwise non Chaos players might dare to speak up as well.

 

The reason I see Chaos as being placed off to the side of the other servers is because the PvE player base doesn't want to participate in pvp. If it were on route as a pass through to other servers it could then just be used to ambush PvE players passing through those waters. Not so subtle suggestions from pvp players have even been made to this effect, as a way to enable them to bring pvp to the PvE players. This then to me is a valid reason to keep Chaos in an off to the side position in relation to the other Freedom Isles PvE servers.

 

As for a globe sailing route to be established, this would be even more inconvenient that the current setup, since then players would have to pass through several servers to reach their destination. The way I saw Xanadu positioned in the latest Weekly Update with the blue arrows indicates to me that the other PvE servers are off to the sides of it with the ability to sail directly to it from each of those servers. This is a much better arrangement for them than the current one. Yes, Chaos is still off to the side where it will not interfere with PvE sailing travel. This is a good thing and where it should remain.

 

=Ayes=  

[Lithane 18]

Round world system is not ideal, it creates problems for further expansion, and we all know that that will happen, no point in saying we dont need it.

 

Having the option to choose multiple servers to cross to from a border would work better. but having limited choices on each border. Ie North of chaos could be Indi  or Xanadu, east Deli or Exo, West Pristine or Release, South Celebration etc. The same would happen for all servers of course. So exo would have multiple border options allowing for one server travel from all servers.

 

This is not probably the most practical layout from chaos, but is just to illustrate a method.

[Becket 843]

As I posted in Work and Progress week 22

Trying to decide is Chaos really full of weekend warriors or are they just looking for a faster route to hunt dragons?

Maybe I should do a poll.

[Sevenless 385]

From a PvE point of view I don't see a round world hurting anyone. I'm all for that concept. Further world expansion can continue north south so we end up with a grid of servers instead of lines.

Edited May 29, 2014 by Sevenless

[NeoAnderson 242]

OP, I am going to point something out to you that perhaps you might not like to hear. You have made this post within Town Square so you should expect that PvE players who have no interest whatsoever in playing upon the Chaos server will respond here. Even if you don't expect this I will respond anyway, since anyone has just as much right to express their opinion on your OP as anyone else. If you want exclusion the Chaos forum is the place for it, otherwise non Chaos players might dare to speak up as well.

 

The reason I see Chaos as being placed off to the side of the other servers is because the PvE player base doesn't want to participate in pvp. If it were on route as a pass through to other servers it could then just be used to ambush PvE players passing through those waters. Not so subtle suggestions from pvp players have even been made to this effect, as a way to enable them to bring pvp to the PvE players. This then to me is a valid reason to keep Chaos in an off to the side position in relation to the other Freedom Isles PvE servers.

 

As for a globe sailing route to be established, this would be even more inconvenient that the current setup, since then players would have to pass through several servers to reach their destination. The way I saw Xanadu positioned in the latest Weekly Update with the blue arrows indicates to me that the other PvE servers are off to the sides of it with the ability to sail directly to it from each of those servers. This is a much better arrangement for them than the current one. Yes, Chaos is still off to the side where it will not interfere with PvE sailing travel. This is a good thing and where it should remain.

 

=Ayes=  

 

Ayes,

 

Thank you for taking the time to engage with this post, much appreciated. My rationale behind posting it here was that this is the busiest part of the forum. Furthermore, there are many ‘weekend warriors’ who reside on the freedom cluster and arrive on Chaos periodically to lend a hand, I didn’t want to dismiss their opinion. It would also be useful to gage how PvE’ers would take this – I was expecting a response of your magnitude, and indeed you probably aptly represent many PvE sentiments.

 

Yes I understand the PvE player base may want to steer clear of PvP at all costs. However, as mentioned above there are a growing number of hybrid players. Besides, travelling through those waters would be a choice, a calculated convince risk. Chaos would be ‘off to the side’ as you eloquently put it, it would just be off to BOTH sides and thus still on the cusp of an engaging world, rather than relegated and forgotten about.

 

As for the globe inconvenience – as the server cant support a persistent world I hardly think this is valid. Yes they would have to pass through several servers, but so does any celebration server dweller? Would you think its fair on them too? All I am asking is for Chaos to be globalised in the same way every other map has on this cluster. We may have a small population, but why jeopardise that. If there wasn’t space for PvP on the Freedom Cluster then take it off! But as it sits here, all I ask, is that it is fairly integrated into the world.

 

Let the players chose whether they utilise its waters – but at least give them an option. 

Edited May 29, 2014 by NeoAnderson

[Emoo 4,357]

+1

 

In general I feel that Chaos as a PvP server would be more balanced for all kingdoms if every border had a connection to other servers; currently only JK and MR have easy access to Freedom; it would promote additional kingdoms sprouting up on Chaos if the northern border (Ebonaura) and southern border (Black Legion) had connections to Freedom also; it would also discourage the current meta where most 'strong' villages are either relocating or settling on the eastern coast of Chaos (spreading the population out makes for better PvP as you don't have a huge response squad up in your face immediately)

 

 

 

 

This pretty much sums up my views on the issue.

 

+1

[Guest Docterchese]

+1 for making the world round, -1 to it actually being a problem to Chaos though. If people want to travel then they will... and IMO the difficulty of travelling huge distances is just another part of Wurm, maybe some inn & ship changes would help to make it easier though. (Such as more writ options allowing inns and rented rooms to be feasible and show inns on the in-game map. Just one idea for solving what could be a problem.)

[NeoAnderson 242]

+1 for making the world round, -1 to it actually being a problem to Chaos though. If people want to travel then they will... and IMO the difficulty of travelling huge distances is just another part of Wurm, maybe some inn & ship changes would help to make it easier though. (Such as more writ options allowing inns and rented rooms to be feasible and show inns on the in-game map. Just one idea for solving what could be a problem.)

 

You're welcome to stay at my inn on chaos any time - prices are DEAD cheap

 

Still think the distances will be daunting to new players - starving off any palpable growth stream. 

 

Thanks for your insight

[Sosa 18]

I agree on the round world idea, perhaps Xanadu in the middle, cele/deli top(north) or whatever combination, exodus + indy bottom (south), chaos to the left (west) and P&R to the right (east)..

 

This way all the pve servers can connect pretty easily to one another, the except might be P&R having to travel further to reach the eastern side of Xanadu without crossing into Chaos..

 

 

I don't want Chaos to be excluded but there's a very definitive line between those who want to engage in pvp and those who don't.

 

Should be kept that way.

[NeoAnderson 242]

I agree on the round world idea, perhaps Xanadu in the middle, cele/deli top(north) or whatever combination, exodus + indy bottom (south), chaos to the left (west) and P&R to the right (east)..

 

This way all the pve servers can connect pretty easily to one another, the except might be P&R having to travel further to reach the eastern side of Xanadu without crossing into Chaos..

 

 

I don't want Chaos to be excluded but there's a very definitive line between those who want to engage in pvp and those who don't.

 

Should be kept that way.

 

Thanks for your input - much appreciated.

 

The lines can be kept between the players, this just free's up choice - current map  wouldn't need reorganising, just a link placed East of PR and West of Chaos.

[Battlepaw 585]

Ayes,

 

Thank you for taking the time to engage with this post, much appreciated. My rationale behind posting it here was that this is the busiest part of the forum. Furthermore, there are many ‘weekend warriors’ who reside on the freedom cluster and arrive on Chaos periodically to lend a hand, I didn’t want to dismiss their opinion. It would also be useful to gage how PvE’ers would take this – I was expecting a response of your magnitude, and indeed you probably aptly represent many PvE sentiments.

 

Yes I understand the PvE player base may want to steer clear of PvP at all costs. However, as mentioned above there are a growing number of hybrid players. Besides, travelling through those waters would be a choice, a calculated convince risk. Chaos would be ‘off to the side’ as you eloquently put it, it would just be off to BOTH sides and thus still on the cusp of an engaging world, rather than relegated and forgotten about.

 

As for the globe inconvenience – as the server cant support a persistent world I hardly think this is valid. Yes they would have to pass through several servers, but so does any celebration server dweller? Would you think its fair on them too? All I am asking is for Chaos to be globalised in the same way every other map has on this cluster. We may have a small population, but why jeopardise that. If there wasn’t space for PvP on the Freedom Cluster then take it off! But as it sits here, all I ask, is that it is fairly integrated into the world.

 

Let the players chose whether they utilise its waters – but at least give them an option. 

 

Heh so the idea is to sweep Chaos under the rug? Or put the big bad pvpers in a corner because we "might" pirate ships?  Heck its a certainty that players who come here for no risk want to keep it that way in every shape or form, just as its an established fact that they don't represent all of the gaming community.   If they did, games like Rust, DayZ, and the like wouldn't be immensely popular, much less a vibrant pvp community across many games that have pve sandbox environments such has Minecraft, and Xsyon.    

 

Wurm is right now a small niche game, made up of a small community.  As it stands the development goal is to get a large community started though advertisement and mass access, something that we have needed for a long time.   When that happens people who don't fit in with the PvE gamer proportion of that influx need somewhere to go just as readily, and giving Chaos a decent role to play in the cluster goes a long way to promoting that.  We also contribute a high amount of income, and from what I've experience, we have a higher proportion of players that pay for their sub with euros rather than silver.  What you are saying is that we are a third wheel in a design that as I see, it is an essential part of Wurm's survival as a contender sandbox game when you have others out there with much better PvP systems, and heck in some cases PvE systems.   

 

When you cross the border, being jumped for your cargo/ship doesn't just happen instantly you can sail back if someone is camping, but the way I see it, if you can choose one of many routes through Chaos, as well as bypass it altogether, you have an immense advantage over any pirate that would even consider wasting his time trying to wait for a quarry that can just turn around and escape anyways, or head for any one of the nearest borders.   

 

In fact what makes it risky right now to sail through chaos is the fact that there is a predictable border, and the sailing points are well known, heck and even then, its very rare I see someone get pirated.   

Edited May 29, 2014 by Battlepaw

[Kegan 3,926]

I don't see a problem with chaos being east of P&R i think he has to leave the north and south of Xanadu open for future large servers if we need them and there is space on P&R side for at least one small server before they have to rethink the whole system. 

Edited May 29, 2014 by Kegan

[Proximo 402]

Seems like you Chaos players are never happy.  Judging from your posts, it sounds like the absolute WORST server to ever decided to play on, ever.

 

So why be a glutton for punishment?  Just move already.

[Schiann 994]

As I posted in Work and Progress week 22

Trying to decide is Chaos really full of weekend warriors or are they just looking for a faster route to hunt dragons?

Maybe I should do a poll.

You know me, Becket, and I'm sort of one of the "weekend warriors" (although my "weekends" tend to turn into weeks).  Just from my personal circle of friends, I can attest that there are a lot who split their time between Chaos and the other servers, and don't care about dragons.

 

Anyway, for me, the issue is less about inconvenience or fairness to Chaos-based players sailing over to Freedom (especially since most of the part-time carebears have bases near the Chaos border already) but rather the newer players who will surely be dropped by default on the other side of the world, and sort of get scrod if they decide they'd like to give Chaos a go.  Then, there's sailing trade between servers, which is already so time-consuming it puts many off... There just has to be a better way.  

 

Connecting Chaos to the east side of P&R would give the folks living over there the same access to Chaos as the folks on the older server, as well as providing an alternative - albeit risky - route for travel.  I would never suggest forcing people to sail across Chaos to get from one PvE server to another, but giving folks the additional option seems fair to me.

[Schiann 994]

Perhaps adding an additional stop-gap to border crossings between a PvE and PvP server?  I know it's been suggested before, to add a popup that says something like "HEY! You're about to cross over to a PvP server.  Are you sure you want to do this?"

[NeoAnderson 242]

You know me, Becket, and I'm sort of one of the "weekend warriors" (although my "weekends" tend to turn into weeks).  Just from my personal circle of friends, I can attest that there are a lot who split their time between Chaos and the other servers, and don't care about dragons.

 

Anyway, for me, the issue is less about inconvenience or fairness to Chaos-based players sailing over to Freedom (especially since most of the part-time carebears have bases near the Chaos border already) but rather the newer players who will surely be dropped by default on the other side of the world, and sort of get scrod if they decide they'd like to give Chaos a go.  Then, there's sailing trade between servers, which is already so time-consuming it puts many off... There just has to be a better way.  

 

Connecting Chaos to the east side of P&R would give the folks living over there the same access to Chaos as the folks on the older server, as well as providing an alternative - albeit risky - route for travel.  I would never suggest forcing people to sail across Chaos to get from one PvE server to another, but giving folks the additional option seems fair to me.

 

Very well put Schiann!

 

I myself am I weekend/week/month..end warrior!  

 

And you've hit the the nail on the head, its a question of choice.

 

Agreed with the warning message too - again wont be hard to implement.

[Sosa 18]

I still think those who WANT to pvp will get to chaos regardless of where it is and the idea of having Chaos as a 'risky shortcut' for pvers wanting to deliver across borders isn't a good idea, we should all live in harmony together and at the same time, out of each others way

 

round world +1

 

Chaos being in the way of other servers -1

 

Chaos being readily accessible to/from all servers +1 

 

Now how ^ that is done will be left to those smarter than myself xD

[Schiann 994]

Once upon a time, I was a subscriber to the idea that the persistence and patience with all the frustrating and time-consuming things in Wurm were necessary, and that anyone who "REALLY WANTS" to do do something will do it, no matter how long it takes.  Then I got a full time job.

 

Now, I know there are plenty of people in Wurm who work full time and manage to play (I know some of you play AT work, even ).  But how many are able to play in dedicated 6-8+ hour stretches?  Because that's how long it takes to sail across 4 of the 8x8 servers.  That is a looooong time to do nothing, in any game.

[NeoAnderson 242]

Once upon a time, I was a subscriber to the idea that the persistence and patience with all the frustrating and time-consuming things in Wurm were necessary, and that anyone who "REALLY WANTS" to do do something will do it, no matter how long it takes.  Then I got a full time job.

 

Now, I know there are plenty of people in Wurm who work full time and manage to play (I know some of you play AT work, even ).  But how many are able to play in dedicated 6-8+ hour stretches?  Because that's how long it takes to sail across 4 of the 8x8 servers.  That is a looooong time to do nothing, in any game.

 

I miss those days too

[KanePT 699]

From a non-pvper:

 

As someone who enjoys "casual" PvP in most games i play (except wurm) i'd say the way the servers are connected are the least of the problems with PvP. And although i agree that a round world is better, i also think the "old" connection that made people from the southernmost servers have to risk going into chaos for a faster journey to inde was bad, so this new one (and even as being someone living in the west coast of exo - so having to cross my server all the way east still sux) will provide a welcome alternative.

 

As i see it you're fretting about the wrong issues. Most people that enjoy PvP elsewhere and that avoid PvP in Wurm (me, for one) do it for an abundance of reasons and none has to do with location. After all if you're going to live IN chaos where you have to depart from to get there is irrelevant. What this feels like is more a cry of frustration from people that wanted to try and hijack passers-by from PvE or maybe people that have established trade posts to sell HotA and other Chaos-exclusive items (kingdom Wagons, towers and banners) on west coast areas, which are now fringe given that the new "center" will be on the east of current freedom servers.

 

If you want PvP to attact people then there's need to fix the Pay to Win armory situation (something the PR person already said they wouldn't), you need to balance attack and defense on deeds, so that all the risk is on defense and barely no risk is put on attack. I mean if an attacking raid party goes in with their spare plate and unenchanted weapons, if the defenders are mostly offline they can steal whatever is left in the deed (and with the help of a dev can be even the rare P2W armors) and even drain the upkeep from the token, taking currency and valuable items, from the deed. Not to mention the deed is left with the task of repairing raid damage. If the raiders lose with substandard items, they can replace them in a couple hours at worse.

 

Recently there's also the looming memory of dev interference, not to mention with a mostly volunteer staff which mostly has ties or is active in PvP, you can't expect fair PvP.

[conmcb25 378]

It's basically pointless to live on the east side of Pristine and Release. They have to go all the way, through all servers to go to Chaos. The same logic goes for those who live on the west side of Chaos, the have to go through all servers to reach Pristine or Release. Even those who live at the east coast of Xanadu have to cross their entire lenght of a massively big server to go to Chaos.

 

Chaos => Deliverance => Xanadu

Chaos => Pristine/Release => Xanadu

 

Same distance!

 

Make the world 'round'!

 

 

I live on the East side of Release and I dont have an issue with the connection.

 

If people want to PvP then they will PvP. They will find a way.