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Kianga

Wood-textures in Wurm in general

Wood-textures Poll  

154 members have voted

  1. 1. How do you feel about wood-textures going

    • Fine with me
      31
    • I'm okay with it ONLY if it makes a real difference for performance
      21
    • I want to keep my choices even if it makes a real difference for performance
      34
    • I don't think keeping choices makes any worthwhile difference in performance, and want to keep them or see more of them, not less
      47
    • I want to keep wood-texture choices, and not through shaders (which many have to keep off)
      23
    • I don't care about choices, but make all wood everywhere in game look the same
      2
    • I want to keep my choices, but if they must go then at least make all wood everywhere in game look the same
      18
    • I don't care about wood-texture choices at all
      12


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Just to get a clear picture on how the players feel about seeing wood-texture choices throughout the whole game slowly being taken out.


(You can check more then one box)


Edited by Kianga
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Fine with me.


Not that i stare whole day at bsb/fsb and look at the wood type...


Edited by Sin

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I don't like it, but I could live with it, if they then would at least stick to one wood type, so different furniture would actually match. Instead it seems like we are loosing our old wood types, but instead getting one new one for each type of furniture they add (slightly exaggerated, but not by much).


 


(if it really makes that much of a difference, shouldn't we have started seeing a difference by now with all the old ones we have lost already?)


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The issue with this is that having multiple textures for every wooden object in the game has a huge effect on performance.


This ends up meaning we might make decisions between adding additional textures for an item, or adding a new item at all.


 


The various wooden changes via shader that has been planned for a while lets us get around this performance hit cleanly, which also means we can have more items in game giving less of a performance hit, less work for the art team where they don't have to create 10 different textures for every wooden item in the game, and opens the door for more customization where _every_ item in the game that is classed as a wooden item will get the updated looks all at once, (not to mention opens the door for other item types - various metals for example - getting the same treatment of updated looks with minimal performance hits).


 


It really is a good thing for everybody, it just means there may be a short transitional period where you lose the current customization options from certain wooden items that have it - in turn it lets you get the customization on ALL wooden items when the new shader system is implemented.


  • Like 19

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Questions with that are though if many of the players then will have the generic look for everything forever (because they can't turn on GLSL) - and if we can expect this next week or next year or in 3 years (or never because something doesn't work out so the whole shader-thing gets scrapped or changed). Plus I guess  the question: how can we not see any significant performance-issue when we enter a room with 50 different items in 50 different wood-textures, while you say it *does* make such a large difference?


 


And I have to say 'ermmm' to 'it just means there may be a short transitional period where you lose the current customization options' (looking at the many many months, probably several years allready that we are  allready in that 'short period'), sorry.


Edited by Kianga
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It has already been a year since they started removing woodtypes and promising shaders (and now the promise has been changed to a maybe according to Vox). What is it with Wurm and removing things in anticipation of an update, instead of waiting and remove with the update?


 


Examples:


 


Woodtypes and shaders.


 


Olive yield nerf 15 months ago: "But we are aiming to increase it for all trees later on when we have implemented more things to do with the fruits and nuts."


 


Recently they removed harvest keybind working to cut grass in anticipation of... something new.


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It has already been a year since they started removing woodtypes and promising shaders (and now the promise has been changed to a maybe according to Vox). What is it with Wurm and removing things in anticipation of an update, instead of waiting and remove with the update?

I don't get how "not wasting time making textures that will be obsolete" is removing woodtypes.

Its not like they went and removed all the old textures.

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I like the different wood textures we can use to make things. I derive enjoyment from having these choices. I don't want to see them removed. I also doubt the claims that all these wood textures are the root cause of bad performance and must be removed.... I don't believe for a second doing this will help with the lag we see when 20 player characters are in local. It will increase performance but not much.


 


I think the issues with bad performance is the game software itself being written in JAVA. That's what needs to be changed. Wurm needs to be re-coded in a programming language that's designed for PC Online Gaming. Writing Wurm in JAVA was a great experiment and all but it's time for CodeClub to get serious in it's presentation of this online game. The Devs can remove all the extra textures in the game and make it a boring sterile interface but I think Wurm should be much more than that. I see the removal to improve performance by removing textures as akin to a cat chasing it's own tail, but this time it won't be fun to watch.


 


Keep on telling me you're removing wood textures to fix the problem... and I will tell you you're fixing the problem the wrong way and using the wrong tools. It's your game Rolf and Devs. You will do what you want to of course.... but some of us are here for because of these extra textures that allow us choices in how we do things, and now you are removing choices. We'll see a year or so from now once everything has been homogenized whether or not removing textures was a good decision.


Edited by geode
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need to mention that glsl shader also cause twisted textures problems for many people and even for people with computers where the glsl shaders work that also screws up the dye so most people has it off all the time.


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It really is a good thing for everybody, it just means there may be a short transitional period where you lose the current customization options from certain wooden items that have it - in turn it lets you get the customization on ALL wooden items when the new shader system is implemented.

Well how long will this take we waited for bridges for years is it going to be the same on this? 

 

@OP I don't mind waiting for this new shader system as long as the placeholder wood textures we are getting at least match.

Edited by Kegan

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I don't get how "not wasting time making textures that will be obsolete" is removing woodtypes.

Its not like they went and removed all the old textures.

 

No time is wasted, by waiting to implement the new models until the new shader system is implemented.

 

And what do you mean by they didn't remove all the old textures, you mean to stress ALL? They are not all gone, no, but they are gradually being removed. Also without getting a new model (trash heap?). It is not being done to save/waste time, but to enhance performance.

 

And for performance enhancing, I run 3 instances on medium to high settings, on a Frankenstein build, and I have no problems whatsoever in areas that have lots of buildings, lots of different furniture, or lots of creatures (300+ on deed), but only when there are 140 players in local when the neighbour hosts a dragon kill. I think they are barking up the wrong tree with these performance enhancements, that is all. Of course, I have no issues since I have shaders disabled, which is where they want to add the different wood options...great :(

 

The issue with this is that having multiple textures for every wooden object in the game has a huge effect on performance.

This ends up meaning we might make decisions between adding additional textures for an item, or adding a new item at all.

 

The various wooden changes via shader that has been planned for a while lets us get around this performance hit cleanly, which also means we can have more items in game giving less of a performance hit, less work for the art team where they don't have to create 10 different textures for every wooden item in the game, and opens the door for more customization where _every_ item in the game that is classed as a wooden item will get the updated looks all at once, (not to mention opens the door for other item types - various metals for example - getting the same treatment of updated looks with minimal performance hits).

 

It really is a good thing for everybody, it just means there may be a short transitional period where you lose the current customization options from certain wooden items that have it - in turn it lets you get the customization on ALL wooden items when the new shader system is implemented.

 

Define "short transitional period" please. Especially since "The various wooden changes via shader that has been planned for a while"  was planned over a year ago, when new trees were added without new wood textures, but then the last official statement about it, that I can find, came from Rolf in the Q&A session in Dec last year, where he was absolutely noncommital on the issue, saying there were issues with more draw calls, and "we'll see".  And Wox just posted in the FSB thread that "In the future I hope we can implement some clever material shaders to handle things like wood types and dying items in much more efficient way" And after this "short" transitional period (which has already started, but the end is only a possible hope?), the customization will be left to only those who don't have shader issues.

 

Are you ignoring/forgetting/unaware that the common solution to the most common problems reported in your tech session (but rarely responded to by actual staff) is to turn shaders off? And that is just the issues before you add wood textures to the shaders...

 

If 10 different woodypes is a problem, then why don't you have the players vote on which 2 or 3 to keep - or even just 1, instead of creating new ones, where none of them match the existing wood types, or even match each other? If it has to be new, for enchanced performance, then why don't use one of the old wood types as "inspiration" at least when it comes to colour and grain? Why a new and different one for each item that is being updated? Isn't that a waste of development time?

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The shader system for the woodtypes has been on hold for the past year waiting on another large project to be completed, which is due soon.


 


We're hoping this project will, if not fix a lot of shader issues, allow us to start fixing them more easily - but we can only do so to a point, after which point it becomes a hardware problem due to setups not supporting GLSL shaders whatsoever, or having bad drivers for them as some players already know.


 


We are looking to support those setups as we always have, but we're not going to gimp features of the client for the majority of players for the small percentage that can't or won't use shaders, in the same way that the client still runs on older hardware, but it may not look as good as newer setups.


 


The shaders change is a long term plan that will hopefully make the client better now, but also better for the foreseeable future - keeping with the old way of multiple textures for every item simply isn't feasible.


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Just get the new wooden type shaders in before christmas and I'm ok with removing the textures.


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The shader system for the woodtypes has been on hold for the past year waiting on another large project to be completed, which is due soon.

 

Would it have killed anyone to have mentioned this earlier? That's great, I'm glad it's in progress still, and coming soon. That makes putting up with the texture removal on something as fundamental as an FSB easier to stomach.

 

Is there a rough ETA on when the project is likely to be ready? 

 

We can be extremely forgiving and understanding when we're talked to and have things explained to us! =)

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I obviously don't expect you to support dinosaur builds, but when looking for new PCs, if I were to consider Wurming as important when choosing specs, it is near impossible to do so, as there is no recommended specs, and the shader problems seem to span across so many different graphic cards, that I can't see what to upgrade to. In the common issues and fixes thread, it is even recommend to turn off GLSL on certain high end systems (which ones?), so it is not just an outdated hardware problem. If I wait to upgrade until you have gotten most of these issues fixed, how long do I have to wait to upgrade?


 


And when you have to reduce 10 different textures down to 1, in a game where looks matter (PvE side), would it really have been such a terrible idea to ask the players, which of the current looks they prefer? I have my own preferences, but I really don't care which one we would've ended up with, as long as it all matched. I want matching furniture! *throws tantrum* 


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This game is all about the variation of what you can build and do. Personally I would rather just wait until the devs read up some learning material on how to implement whatever shaders they are talking about to make it possible to have a variety of texture flavours than to reduce them to just one choice now.


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The explanations that Budda has provided for the removal of the different wood type textures make a lot of sense to me and no doubt he is well acquainted with these detrimental effects upon game performance. With this in mind I am all for it being done as per the Devs schedule. Another of the game aspects that I need not concern myself with, since it will be fine tuned over time to improve the enjoyment of the game for all.


 


=Ayes=


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There is a few things here I don't quite understand and obvious questions regarding the implementation. Nothing here is a rage and/or hate post, just genuine questions that confuse me just a bit.


 


A week and a half ago I built a large structure choosing wood colors  to match my decor. This included many FsB's in a wood type that had to be sought after in my area. To my knowledge the only post that mentions the imminent change to FsB's was just posted the other day?  Why in the world were we not told about this imminent change months ago to minimize Implementation damage of player base time and resources? 


 


Already implemented items "new items excluded" but rather items the player base has already bought/built or integrated into there daily lives. Why is there no vote system or opinion system in place to let the Devs know how a change on this scale would effect there player base?  "I hope you all can forgive me for this."   <- that's absolutely unacceptable.


 


I can totally agree on a "wood type" system that would increase performance and still maintain options based on what were accustom to. However, why are we pulling the cart before the horse? would that system not be the priority here long before updating any graphics on already existing in game items? should this system not be ready to go and on the test server long before any real world applications are applied?


 


I totally agree with bug fixes always, Always. However I have a large deed with hundreds of BsB's and FsB's on site and absolutely no lag. I realize I am not "everyone" but would it not seem more productive to invest time in problems that are indeed effecting "everyone", Memory leaks, Server side stability, Misaligned walls, objects sticking threw floors, just to name a few?


 


All in all i think the changes I am seeing here in Wurm are great. The implementation of said changes, not so much.

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I like the wood textures and would prefer to see a type of wood texture on/off option placed on the client side.  Perhaps utilizing a system of texture packs that are controlled solely on the client side.  Texture codes on items that go back to the servers should not place an undue burden on server or database performance.  


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The issue with this is that having multiple textures for every wooden object in the game has a huge effect on performance.

This ends up meaning we might make decisions between adding additional textures for an item, or adding a new item at all.

 

The various wooden changes via shader that has been planned for a while lets us get around this performance hit cleanly, which also means we can have more items in game giving less of a performance hit, less work for the art team where they don't have to create 10 different textures for every wooden item in the game, and opens the door for more customization where _every_ item in the game that is classed as a wooden item will get the updated looks all at once, (not to mention opens the door for other item types - various metals for example - getting the same treatment of updated looks with minimal performance hits).

 

It really is a good thing for everybody, it just means there may be a short transitional period where you lose the current customization options from certain wooden items that have it - in turn it lets you get the customization on ALL wooden items when the new shader system is implemented.

 

I voted the 2nd option (okay if it matters) after reading this, but with a caveat. If the game has to get a little worse so that in the long run it gets better, two of the things that have to be worked out to satisfaction is the use of dyes and some conformity in the textures and colors used on new wood items. Dyed items still look like icons viewed through a colored lens and not like an object intentionally painted. And for matching, so manu fences and furniture items look nothing at all like the others making some very hard to use and mitigating creative options.

 

A midground that the staff might want to consider: instead of scrapping from ten to one, perhaps you could short for a reduction from ten to three. The three being, not wood types, but shades of brown used to represent wood. Give us a pale, a medium and a dark; along with a means to change between them.

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Question regarding the possible implementation of a shader-based wood system:


 


Would this only affect the color, or the texture as well? I'll like this possibility a lot more if there's a difference in how the wood looks beyond a simple dye job, like BSBs etc. currently do. If that's the case, shaders seem like an extremely attractive option, seeing as how they could be applied to all wooden items with little work beyond their initial creation.


Edited by Ostentatio

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I was a big fan of individual textures for each wood type, but I completely understand that was not going to be feasible moving forward.


After looking at Wox's fine work with the FSB I believe we'll be just fine without them. We'll miss them for a bit, but I'm sure we'll get used to it.


 


Question: Would maintaining individual wood types for ships be an option or would they also need to go?


 


Edit: Yes I am fully aware that ships don't have wood textures on test, but that's still test. (Not Live)


I'm giving them a chance to say "Yes, keeping wood textures for ships is the least we can do!" ;)


Edited by Tuanta

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