How can we get more people to play Wurm Online? [DEVS READ]

[joedobo 1,187]

It's going to be hard to advertising target potential players who would stay with Wurm. It's just so different then most anything out there (I've look around a lot). I do strongly believe that any ads should try and show people what Wurm actually is, NOT what the devs want it to be. Over the years I've seen many videos of PvP battles and quite fewer of the more common tasks -- building a road, a small village, imping (lol, ya boring but we do it a lot). I really like the brief time lapses of players making something.

 

I could be wrong but I think its a strength to have a game that is more laid back and casual. I suck royally at keyboard / mouse manipulation. For example, I briefly played Warframe. I had to play the first three levels 20 times each and never made it through level 3, quit. It seems kinda off to calling wurm "casual" because of all the skill grinding. I just know I can actually play Wurm unlike many I've tried before (again my lack of gamer skillz results in a not fun experience).

 

I also feel Wurm should better explain what "try for free" means. And also stop calling itself F2P (although, It may be the players who are doing the F2P part). I"m not sure how exactly to briefly summarize it. I just know people get upset and often demand more because of what they've experience in other "free" games. And instead of letting some community folks belittle and even sometimes insult these people when they ask for more perhaps Wurm should try to explain its "limited" free play a little better. If you look at the homepage there is nothing there and clicking the "free" link just launch the game. Now maybe the limited trial is explained on the turial area, idk.

[Lycanthropic 523]

I really wish people would stop making these claims before checking their facts. It's almost like they're part of the PvP patch making process.

 

So you are saying the development time it took to create Epic (home servers, centre server, now the new map), Challenge (server itself, new siege weapons, gift-code-redeem-system, rewards), Artifacts, Valrei-God-Chess, a fourth priest Libila (with new spells, do's and dont's), converting priests to champions, Valrei Agro's is on par with creating flowerpots, tapestries, dolphins, nebwie buffs, ...

 

 

I came over to Chaos to get a taste of some of the PvP unique stuff dev's made, and I like it, but I'm getting sick and tired of seeing remarks like yours, you look at the "near past" to argument your "opinion", try looking at the entire history of Wurm development to see where the focus is (and it doesnt really help if Rolf himself said numerous times that his vision of Wurm was a pvp game, you have only to look at the beginning of Wurm what chaotic scenario this thinking unleashed).

 

 

Personally I dont care what gets made for who, most of it ends up shared if you wait out long enough (altho siege weapons have no function other then astethics on freedom, and mission only being a karma generator, but its something, right?)

 

 

The features that enhance both PvE and PvP are released globaly anyways: multi story houses, bridges, wagons, ship transporters, crates, prospect-analyzing, unique agro spawns, ...

 

 

 

 

To get on topic:

 

Including my post here just now, and allot of other threads/posts on this forum, showcasing endless drama, ancient-discussions (like this PvE-PvP stuff) is what putting most players of.

 

When I try out a new game (online). I usually go through some sort of tutorial to get the basics going, then when I feel I need more info, I start looking at a wiki for basic knowledge. And after that, when I'm more experienced, I usually end up on the official forums of said games to search for some indepth builds/strategies/tips-and-tricks.

 

But if, takeing this forum for example, the TOWN SQUARE (basically the central discussion part of the forum) the first page looks like this:

• Name and shame

Scamming if not literally against the rules

hahaha unbelievable

wurm forum troll awards

start issuing warnings in forums

Where is the line between pvp and griefing?

...

 

Then it showcases a really "troubeld" community, not making a saint ot of me here, I'm part of that troubeling community, and I do my best to stay out of topics with the same-endless discussions. But its hard, really hard (just look at this post )

 

Freedom of speech, yup, no doubt, all game-related-topics should be allowed to discuss (within the forum rules offcourse).

Not sugar-coating it, yup, no doubt, we dont need forum mods to put up a rainbow curtain, hiding all the black bile.

 

But still, whenever I look at the forum, the thought crosses my mind "Do new players wanna be part of THIS community?"

It comes with the age of the Wurm players tho, most players are in the range of 25-45years old, making them adult enough (hopefully) to tackle real discussions and not just create topics "I luv Vynora the most, suck that Fo!"

Which has it charm every now and then, because you can really throw out opinions that way and defend them.

 

 

In my 6 years grinding away in Wurm, I've met lots and lots of beautifull people in this game (some who became really good friends), and only a few really corrupt ones, but the corrupt ones always seem to float to the surface and can taint the total-experience (based of how bad the run-in with said induvidials was).

 

Only advice I could give new players is to ignore the global chat/freedom chat and forum for a month or so, just settle with a few friends somewhere, discover the game and have fun, find out if the grinding suits you, if the ability to alter the terrain to shape your dreams is enough to make you stay.

 

Play in the freedom-server-sandbox for a while, grow in skill to finally take out some of the harder agros out there. Make contacts with neighbours (friendly "hello's", "how-do-you-do"), establish a network of friendly players, some might advise to check out PvP, if that suits your needs, try it, why not, you can only gain experience.

 

Sure, you might run into some rotten apples, but remember, that for every rotten one, there are 50 good ones (and on PvP, the communities are really tight, and you can experience allot of support from fellow faction-members). Dont let those rotten ones discourage you from playing, there is always a big amount of players willing to help you out if things go sour (inlcuding GM's, yes).

 

 

And last but not least, this isnt the kind of Online game where you just jump into the action, a spider will kill you if you try to exterminate it as a freshly arrived newbie, the huge dimensions of a server cant be explored easily without the help of a horse or ship.

 

 

Final Conclusion:

 

This should somehowe be made clear to beginning players, small bullet-point "tips and tricks" (not just "rules"), what to expect of Wurm-not-your-typical-mmo (not even close to Runescape or Minecraft), give them the idea, that they can really, REALLY grow out to be a very unique player here and forever shape parts of the landscape with the various terraforming.

 

Really make them see that they can leave an almost everlasting mark in this game. That they are not just another "Lvl 90 Dwarf with XSetarmor and Yweapon", this is a game where you can be known as the "best weaponsmith", the "craziest miner", the "godliest priest",...

[Uberknot 327]

Yeah I would say a little more focus on the PvE rewards side of things might help some.  PvP has been given a ton of things recently I think they have more than enough incentive to play there now.  Take a few months to develop some rewards and quests and other things like that would help bring in players to Freedom.

Edited April 18, 2015 by Uberknot

[LorenaMontana 3,008]

Holy just reading thru this topic but this Mordraug dude hahahaha

[Mordraug 2,542]

[Ecrir 887]

I think a part of the issue is the game's monitization system, and thus how much the game costs. The monitization system is frankly one which is outdated, the game is effectively p2p and p2p games have been losing ground too f2p games for almost a decade now, if not longer, yet Wurm became even more expensive on the p2p side... Wurm needs to truly embrace f2p, improve and add upon the existing micro transactions (items sold by traders), remove the skill cap, etc. Premium could for example give other benefits, like faster skill gain, a monthly silver income, and/or faster sleep bonus generation while sleeping. Sounds a bit p2w? Sure, but as you can just pay for multiple accounts right now, which is effectively more skill gain and sleep bonus anyway, I don't see that being any different from Wurm right now.

[Eobersig 1,006]

What Wurm needs most is focus - and yes, also professionalism.

 

With Wurm Rolf has one (if not the) best sandbox multi-player game in his hands. Yet as player I get the impression that on Mondays he's trying to make Wurm more like LoL or WoT or something, on Tuesdays he tries to make it like Minecraft and on Wednesdays he tries to make it like the Sims. All over the place! And then there's no time left to do what he should do: improving the game he has instead of trying to change it.

 

Play to your strengths instead, accept the game you have, don't try to make it into something else. Stick to the formula and improve from there. Fix the bugs, fix the unfinished features, fix the client bugs, polish the darn thing.

 

[Tsetse 87]

I think a part of the issue is the game's monitization system, and thus how much the game costs. The monitization system is frankly one which is outdated, the game is effectively p2p and p2p games have been losing ground too f2p games for almost a decade now, if not longer, yet Wurm became even more expensive on the p2p side... Wurm needs to truly embrace f2p, improve and add upon the existing micro transactions (items sold by traders), remove the skill cap, etc. Premium could for example give other benefits, like faster skill gain, a monthly silver income, and/or faster sleep bonus generation while sleeping. Sounds a bit p2w? Sure, but as you can just pay for multiple accounts right now, which is effectively more skill gain and sleep bonus anyway, I don't see that being any different from Wurm right now.

 

I agree, they need to remove the 20 skill cap and instead allow 400-500 total skill points as in Ultima Online. That way you can have a profession and good body skills and still be f2p. When youre starting to get capped you will pay to continue playing. Skill cap could be raised buying skill books from a trader or have them be crafted by players from rare items made from an improved PVE experience. There should also be a way to buy larger bank space.

 

There could also be unique resources on the different islands, or unique monsters that cause regular invasion events. The drops could be items that change the model of other items. Then its still a crafting based game with PVE for adding flavor and variety. There were some who thought Xanadu would be a PVE hunting area. I think that would have been a good idea to add a portal to a PVE map accesible from all islands that had castles, caves and mines created to be fun to hunt and explore. The rewards should always be flavor items or shoulder pads, capes, robes and clothes though, not uber items that makes crafting useless.

[Arronicus 636]

 

To get on topic:

 

Including my post here just now, and allot of other threads/posts on this forum, showcasing endless drama, ancient-discussions (like this PvE-PvP stuff) is what putting most players of.

 

...

 

But if, takeing this forum for example, the TOWN SQUARE (basically the central discussion part of the forum) the first page looks like this:

• Name and shame
• Scamming if not literally against the rules
• hahaha unbelievable
• wurm forum troll awards
• start issuing warnings in forums
• Where is the line between pvp and griefing?
• ...

 

Then it showcases a really "troubeld" community, not making a saint ot of me here, I'm part of that troubeling community, and I do my best to stay out of topics with the same-endless discussions. But its hard, really hard (just look at this post )

 

Freedom of speech, yup, no doubt, all game-related-topics should be allowed to discuss (within the forum rules offcourse).

Not sugar-coating it, yup, no doubt, we dont need forum mods to put up a rainbow curtain, hiding all the black bile.

 

But still, whenever I look at the forum, the thought crosses my mind "Do new players wanna be part of THIS community?"

It comes with the age of the Wurm players tho, most players are in the range of 25-45years old, making them adult enough (hopefully) to tackle real discussions and not just create topics "I luv Vynora the most, suck that Fo!"

Which has it charm every now and then, because you can really throw out opinions that way and defend them.

 

Honestly, I didn't really think much of it, but I completely have to agree that the town-square section of the forums is a mess that is going to drive off newer players. If I joined a game and I saw those sorts of threads being the main threads, of course I wouldn't play wurm, I'd play something that wasn't populated by a bunch of overly dramatic teenagers. Name and shame? Forum troll awards? It really, REALLY looks like my high school website's forum did. 

Town square isn't the way it is because of the age of players, this is not a reflection of maturity, but rather a reflection of a void of interesting content between players, immaturity,and mostly a lack of sorting/moderating on topic discussion (I'm not saying that threads need to be banned or deleted, but forum troll awards belongs in off topic, not town square. Start issuing warnings belongs in a support/rule discussion section, and so on. Yes, I understand it is a volunteer initiative to do this, yes, I am willing to help)

As for the people discussing wurm going f2p:

If I could reach through my computer and strangle you with my bare hands, I would. I dearly truly would. 400-500 skillpoint cap would mean I could shift some of my characters to f2p and wurm would get less revenue. Many people would take full advantage of this, those who only played to pvp would be able to have very strong f2p pvp characters with no good reason to sub. As for banks, you already can pay for more bank space, it's a golden chest. I think the large one costs 40s. It fits Wurm far better than increasing token bank storage would. Honestly though, f2p have it good. They don't need more and more benefits. If you like the game, SUPPORT it, subscribe.

Edited April 19, 2015 by Arronicus

[LorenaMontana 3,008]

Ur bashing this game in many of ur posts and seem mad as most of the time, ur also bashing the pvp community all the time and think the pve community needs more priviliges then the pvp community. Imo we all deserve the same treatment, and we are all the same wurmians.

U are also aware of the fact that wurm many years ago was pvp only right? So the pvp community back then helped a shitload on how the game is now.

Lemme give u one piece of advice son: stop bashing wurm everywhere and stop the pvp vs pve ######, better take a break and come back when ur common sense is back on a normal level, if this is possible in ur case.

But If u wanna respond with a Japanese cartoon picture that's fine too.

[Mordraug 2,542]

Ur bashing this game in many of ur posts and seem mad as ###### most of the time, ur also bashing the pvp community all the time and think the pve community needs more priviliges then the pvp community. Imo we all deserve the same treatment, and we are all the same wurmians.

 

 

You just said it yourself: "deserve the same treatment"

 

 

U are also aware of the fact that wurm many years ago was pvp only right? So the pvp community back then helped a shitload on how the game is now.

 

10 years ago?  Things have changed "a little" since.  I also remember reading on Wurm almost imploding the time Rolf decided to make the whole thing PvP.

 

 

Lemme give u one piece of advice son: stop bashing wurm everywhere and stop the pvp vs pve ######, better take a break and come back when ur common sense is back on a normal level, if this is possible in ur case.

But If u wanna respond with a Japanese cartoon picture that's fine too.

 

Here's a piece of advice for you:  learn to type like an adult before calling people "son".  Just brings out the troll in you when you type like yet one more Kesha fan.   As for "stop the pve vs pvp ######", we can't even reset our own goddamn stuck templars at the token because, as is tradition, "it'll ruin pvp!!!111oneone".  My dollar is worth the same as your dollar, fyi.

 

And by all means: advocate once again for a player (me in this case) to take my money elsewhere for a while/permanently.  Yeeeeeah..... typical "if you don't like it leave" which leads to less and less money for Wurm, cheap hosts that lag to hell and beyond, less devs, etc...  Right after accusing me of "always bashing Wurm".  At least I'm trying to get people to stay, not leave the second we disagree.

 

I'll help you start:  "Your friends said you're invited to visit the ruins of the ancient city of Ur".

Edited April 19, 2015 by Mordraug

[evilcherry 9]

I agree, they need to remove the 20 skill cap and instead allow 400-500 total skill points as in Ultima Online. That way you can have a profession and good body skills and still be f2p. When youre starting to get capped you will pay to continue playing. Skill cap could be raised buying skill books from a trader or have them be crafted by players from rare items made from an improved PVE experience. There should also be a way to buy larger bank space.

 

There could also be unique resources on the different islands, or unique monsters that cause regular invasion events. The drops could be items that change the model of other items. Then its still a crafting based game with PVE for adding flavor and variety. There were some who thought Xanadu would be a PVE hunting area. I think that would have been a good idea to add a portal to a PVE map accesible from all islands that had castles, caves and mines created to be fun to hunt and explore. The rewards should always be flavor items or shoulder pads, capes, robes and clothes though, not uber items that makes crafting useless.

 

I think it boils down to a few points like:

 

0. One should accept that developing a game for 1000 players and 100000 players costs practically the same. MMOs are really expensive, not in terms of hardware, but in terms of coding needed. If you can get more players without sacrificing too much of your values, you should. I mean, if Guild Wars 2 can survive on B2P, hardware cost is never the limit.

 

0.9. If you can, move to a more modern development environment. Unity is your best bet as it seems to have the best track record on balancing fast-tracking development and performance.

 

1. Accept the fact that F2P (or P2W) is king. F2P players should be useful, they should be able to build a house, do some terraforming, and survive bears, but more advanced enemies like trolls should be out of reach.

 

2. Skill grinds is so yesterday. Players should be useful in one way or another within the first 24 hours of play; and certainly in most of the basic ways after 3 months of casual play.

 

3. Multi clients should be phased out. I would rather allow 3 toons per premium account, and allow some generous linked storage.

 

4. Align premium with current P2W trends. You should give premiums an increased cap, faster skillgains, faster action bars, and/or some monetary rebates. If people need to break the freebie wall, they will pay, but not before they enjoyed the game.

[Baloo 709]

Well put, EvilCherry, well put.

[Mishia 74]

Anything else?

[Oberrill 8]

All it has taken is a few hours of playing and reading some forum posts to convince me to quit the game. The price to fully play this game is really high. It is way beyond what it is worth. Considering the cost of premium, I have to wonder what is being done with the money. Wurm costs as much or more than MMOs that actually have development. A game that has been around this long and that has no quests to write and build, "towns" that feature "inns" that are just large, empty rooms, "traders" that cannot trade due to lack of money, etc., should not be this expensive.

 

 There are many amateurish aspects to Wurm. I am not going to list them, but I noticed several poor design points in the first hour of playing. Wurm to me seems either to be a hobby or else the man in charge is purposely trying to drive away almost everyone who tries the game. Most MMOs try hard to hold onto even their trollish players. I have no idea what Wurm is trying to do.

[KunAlt 844]

All it has taken is a few hours of playing and reading some forum posts to convince me to quit the game. The price to fully play this game is really high. It is way beyond what it is worth. Considering the cost of premium, I have to wonder what is being done with the money. Wurm costs as much or more than MMOs that actually have development. A game that has been around this long and that has no quests to write and build, "towns" that feature "inns" that are just large, empty rooms, "traders" that cannot trade due to lack of money, etc., should not be this expensive.

 

 There are many amateurish aspects to Wurm. I am not going to list them, but I noticed several poor design points in the first hour of playing. Wurm to me seems either to be a hobby or else the man in charge is purposely trying to drive away almost everyone who tries the game. Most MMOs try hard to hold onto even their trollish players. I have no idea what Wurm is trying to do.

 

Wurm is a world of true freedom, so yes, there is no quest, there is no npcs willing to but limitless trash items with trash currency, you need to make your own adventure, you need to make your own trade oportunity and you need to trade with actual people instead of npc's, You can't relay on some predetermined class or build to guide your avatar, you need to decide by yourself how, wen and what your path is.

 

I think if you trow away some of the concepts you carry over from theme parks games and give Wurm an honest try, you will end enjoying it as much as we do.

 

my 2i

[Sanrina 29]

I think after reading though this whole post that evilcherry is pretty much spot on.  If the game were to improve I think that would about cover it.  just one small thing that is just personal to me is I think surface mining for higher level mining skill should be easier to do less fails for higher levels.   Surface mining is just crazy even at 66 mining takes weeks to do a small area.  Thanks Sanrina

[wipeout 1,355]

 

1. Accept the fact that F2P (or P2W) is king. F2P players should be useful, they should be able to build a house, do some terraforming, and survive bears, but more advanced enemies like trolls should be out of reach.

 

2. Skill grinds is so yesterday. Players should be useful in one way or another within the first 24 hours of play; and certainly in most of the basic ways after 3 months of casual play.

 

3. Multi clients should be phased out. I would rather allow 3 toons per premium account, and allow some generous linked storage.

 

4. Align premium with current P2W trends. You should give premiums an increased cap, faster skillgains, faster action bars, and/or some monetary rebates. If people need to break the freebie wall, they will pay, but not before they enjoyed the game.

1. can be done currently pretty much

2. the skill grind is what  makes wurm worthwhile for a lot of people(imagine wurm at the speed of minecraft >.>)

3.the ability to run more then 1 client at once is in my personal opinion something i prefer to having 3-5 toons per account unless you can login more then once from said account onto a different toon then ya bundle them together for easy 1 username/password to access 3-5 characters(each with their own passwords after selecting to make things more secure)

4.knowing rolf he would go to the insane and be like "oh faster skill gains when prem um im sure 200% will be fine and lets add in 500% event weekends and make action bars be half the speed as normal" >.> honestly i hope that never happens really i rather just have that prem increases caps unlocks certain prem only things(example future maps) or discount on upkeep or if not mayor of a town getting a bonus to stats(eg gaining rares more often or able to improve to above your skill a bit easier) things like that but stuff like faster skill gains or action bars well we got woa and coc or botd for that.

then again its just my personal opinion on those points

[Brunwulf 470]

I played this game back when we stood ontop horses like we were in the circus.

It never bothered me and if someone I knew made a comment I told them "gameplay over graphics".

I like that they are improving the graphics and that they're still retro in a sense.

I think now they need to fix the bugs and this summer should hopefully be a good step in that direction.

[Tipper 260]

If you're looking for things to dislike about Wurm, there are plenty. I play it because of what it gets right, stuff that almost no other game has.

Edited June 22, 2015 by Tipper