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hairyharry

[Opinion] Why this game wont get big anytime soon

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Hey I'm a new player, so I made this account to say how I feel about this game.

Originally I heard of this game while talking with some of my gaming buddies in my ts channel. It sounded worth a try, so I bought a month of premium time time and started out in the freedom isles. I was very impressed by how the whole world was built by players. This made the world as a whole feel less like a game and more like an actual world. However, I quickly grew tired of the grind in this game, how long it takes to do even simple tasks, and how paying more money is an easy way to spend less time doing the boring stuff. After I came to this opinion, I went around in various gaming communities all over the net and asked people uf they have heard of this game. I expected people ot not know about wurm, but surprisingly, I noticed that tons of people knew about wurm, but they quit it soon after they started. Yes, I know that everyone who uses these forums loves the game for the way it is since they play it, but you have to realize that there is a MASSIVE amount of people that stopped playing this game for the very same reasons I have, but are not active in this forum so they aren't noticed much by this community. Wurm has a low player retention rate, and for every player that stays in wurm there are 10 that leave within the first two weeks. Maybe the devs should research what these people want more. If more of these people are satisfied, the game population could get into the millions easily...

The problem isn't advertising, its the game itself not being liked by most people trying it.

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You've said things that have been said many times before.


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Wurm is a niche game, we have no illusions about this. New player retention is very low, as the great length of time it takes to get anything done in Wurm isn't to most people's taste, as you said.


 


But that isn't to say advertising won't help. It won't change player retention, that's true, but if more people try it, some will stay.


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the game population could get into the millions easily...

 

Servers can barely handle a few 100s.. slow growth is needed, a steady increase...

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Servers can barely handle a few 100s.. slow growth is needed, a steady increase...

The servers would pay for themselves, as they do now.

Edited by hairyharry

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well as weird as it might seems to you, for most of us, the slow pace and that rewarding feeling we have when we achieve a road, a building, a new fortress or one of those new bridges is what keep us addicted to the game.


 


Yes, it's not for everyone, a faster paced version exist, it's called Minecraft and yes, it sold for millions to millions.


 


This doesn't means wurm must change as well, things are moving and evolving at wurm pace, and we like it anyway.


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Welcome to Wurm! Please stick around and catch the bug. This is a game that's hard to soften without breaking.


 


EDIT


 


Wurm has a strange inverse effect for me. Because it's so difficult to accomplish anything, I'm happier with less. Building my own little deed feels like arriving, and I'm more content to plunk along in this crazy game than to power level in any other MMO. Also ... there's something in Wurm's DNA that just matches up with mine. I'm a long-time PC gamer, and Wurm still feels like my 14-year-old self's greatest dream come true. Sure, it looks a little dated in 2015, but retro is back, baby.


Edited by Tipper
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Now I think its a good time to add the second part of this post, since a few of you loyal wurm whales provided some excelent examples.

What I'm saying is true, but the community right now is made up of people that like the game for what it is. The devs have to come up with a decision: either make the current community happy and stay a small niche game in a corner of the enternet, or listen to the massive amount of leavers and become the amazing game I know wurm can become.

Its all up to you Rolf.

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Almost everyone would like to see wurm grow larger and larger but the biggest issue about increasing the community is the land.  Wurm wouldn't be a fun game if you had land disputes with players every other day.  Also, the game is very difficult when you first start off, a better tutorial would be a great help to this issue.


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What I'm saying is true, but the community right now is made up of people that like the game for what it is. The devs have to come up with a decision: either make the current community happy and stay a small niche game in a corner of the enternet, or listen to the massive amount of leavers and become the amazing game I know wurm can become.

Its all up to you Rolf.

 

Yes, the decision has already been made a long time ago, it is just that some players both new and old do not realize it. This is why suggestions such as this are of little value since there is no intention to follow them. Those who leave the game only show who this type of slow advancement skilling system does not appeal to. There is no intention to retain these types of players. They weed themselves out.

 

Possibly this seems a harsh approach to some but the game creator has designed the game as he sees fit and deviates little from the core principles involved. It is clearly not designed for mass appeal, not through a lack of knowledge as to how to conform to that sector but being content with the type of player base that it does hold and attract.

 

It is already an amazing game that advances progressively through the years, as anyone can attest to who remains throughout them.

 

Happy Trails

=Ayes=

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i prefer a slow grow and millions of player would ruin the game imo


the pop can double that would be fine. but i want wildenest right now on inde with only around 100 people online at a time (i dont know the total amount of active player) a lot of area  feel crowded for me at least  i like vast open space without anybody living around


Edited by BlGpapa
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Try out life is feudal. Has some similarities with the skilling and it's faster paced.

Personally, it makes me want to play Wurm lol

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You literally require a mental disease of some sort to play wurm for a long time.


 


Trust me.


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Or, a happy medium could be reached. a Xanadu sized server ( or maybe half sized), where everything is super fast.


Including fauna growth, mob respawn, skill gain, etc. That would put to rest all the assumptions


of if it would be succesful or not, depending on how it does. Everything else has been tried, from


opening new servers in freedom to challenge server.


 


imo freedom ( with Chaos) has its niche playerbase, and so does epic. But aiming for a bigger playerbase


doesnt necesarily have to ruin it for us masochists, adhd, and ocd people. A bigger income for code club


doesnt need to be slow paced, or altogether shunned.  Theres a chance Wurm can become more


popular without pushing us ( who like it how it is now) out.


 


And with a bigger income, maybe they can hire people for debugging and other stuff that need attention.


 


anyways, like someone said, all this has been said before already.

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The biggest problem with wurm is that it offers harsh newbie experience. Low success chances, awfully long timers, low ql structures that need to be repaired in less than a week and everything wants to eat you. Unfortunately most newbies will never learn that this isn't how the game actually works and that this 30 second timer to nail a plank or mine some stone can be reduced to less than 5 (maybe even 4) seconds with the right tools and right skills. One of the reasons why I liked the idea of Challenge is that it offered every player to have a look at how wurm feels after you invest on skills and tools.


 


At the moment newbies are thrown into a rather difficult situation and are asked to spend money without having any idea that "things can get much better/easier later". The complexity (which is a part of its charm for most of us) makes things even worse for them. As a result most people will try it and leave immediately.


Edited by Anothernoob
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That is just common sense I think. The grind has always been Wurm's biggest downfall, the game sounds way better in theory when you think of everything that you can do and what the PvP is like etc but then you get in game and find that the majority of the gameplay is staring at a cooldown bar all day long.


 


but you can't really take it away, it is an integral part of the game design. Getting high quality equipment, making a great looking village, doing PvP - all these things just wouldn't be anywhere near as satisfying if the game wasn't so slow.


 


I've always thought this is the reason Notch left Wurm tbh. He realized the that Wurm was fundamentally flawed and I feel like Minecraft was basically his attempt at developing a similar style of game with none of the grind. He was obviously right on the money, it is clear as day that gamers love this style of open world sandbox game but Minecraft is a much more popular implementation of it.


Edited by MightySheep

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Hey I'm a new player, so I made this account to say how I feel about this game.

However, I quickly grew tired of the grind in this game, how long it takes to do even simple tasks, and how paying more money is an easy way to spend less time doing the boring stuff.

 

.. and for every player that stays in wurm there are 10 that leave within the first two weeks.

The problem isn't advertising, its the game itself not being liked by most people trying it.

 

1. The grind in this game, the hard-to-achieve results are what keep people here for years; in an easy-peasy game, you join, you maximize whatever is to be maximized in 3-6 months of playing, you move to another game.

In wurm, it takes years to maximize what is important, and that's why it matters for each and every player spending countless hours grinding, and when he's done grinding, starts grinding again.

 

2. Let me reword that for you: for every 10 players that leave within the first two weeks, there is one player who stays for the next 10 years.

 

3. The problem isn't advertising, the problem are the people trying it, very impatient, used to go fast through everything (with or without using macros and/or bots); a game which doesn't offer you a reason to play it after 6 months because you already got "everything" is not worth it.

Edited by Evening
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It's just not so easy to come up with an answer to what can be improved to make your everyday actions in the game more engaging without taking away some of the unique feel of the game. Just making it all free to play, lower timers, quicker skill gain, etc, will just appeal to the masses who want to experience the game for a month to have it under their belt of game experience (and it has been tried with Challenge, recently). There's a huge mass of gamers out there just hopping from one game to the next, and the industry seems bent on getting the most money out of them while they pass through. I think the Wurm community loathes the idea of having this group run through this game, perhaps even being catered for by the developers in the short term, and leaving their mark permanently without contributing long-term.


 


IMO the Wurm gameplay needs to be addressed, but intelligently. I've heard from so many players that they actually afk their way through their Wurm days, watching videos in another window or multiboxing to an extent that they feel more engaged. If this is the case it's a clear indication that the game is not engaging enough, even for its veterans.


 


At the core I blame the game design of a numerical QL system, where your sense of progress is measured in fractions of numbers without much tangible benefit. Either you do the same thing you did when you were a noob (smithing a sword, for example), just at a higher QL, or you finally can make something new after being locked out of a game feature for several months (advanced masonry or fine carpentry work). The way to higher skill is through repetitive basic tasks, instead of experimentation and inspiration.


 


What this game does so wonderfully in animal breeding (different traits) it fails to do in every other aspect of crafting. What if items also had traits, and would gain or lose them depending on QL and crafting process? Using different improvement techniques or ingredients would make the item lean towards certain traits. A low QL ship you bought might not be the same as that high QL vehicle, but fundamentally flawed (cannot keep a straight line if travelling against the wind, for example, something one might not be bothered with too much or find greatly annoying).


 


I wouldn't mind seeing another skill gain boost system other than hoarding sleep bonus and depending on Vynora's enchants and spells. Let people choose an apprenticeship path at the beginning of the game and have a boost in one skill of their choice until level 50 (when they get the skill title). This would be great if people wanted to start a village as a group and specialize in different skills. This boost can be shifted to another skill using a paid item from a trader. Let people get inspiration from studying other (higher QL) crafters' work. This game really needs to support getting out of your deed/home and about and having a community, rather than penalize you for being away from your crafting workshop or praying altar for a few hours.


 


This game has grown on the foundations of a solid crafting system, but many areas could be fleshed out a lot more or could be readdressed to give a fuller experience. Cooking and baking could move away from generic meals and include various preparation and cooking stages and result in different kinds of dishes. Ropemaking could include knotwork to make use of ropes in pulleys (we do have multistory, with a lot of between-story magic going on at the moment), in climbing or to tie a vehicle to another. It would be fun if climbing involved more the use of ropes and iron spikes and such rather than building fences. A QL 5 horse statue should look stunted when compared to a QL 70 one, perhaps there is a way the model can be distorted a little at low QL to get that effect? So the gist is: more tangible steps on the way, and more intelligent mechanics where they still rely on a totally generic core.


 


Anyway, enough rambling, have you got any ideas from your analysis?


Edited by Marshlander
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When I read these type of posts I always think they are the same ones the cry where is the end game content when they are running around in God mode in 3 months.

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Now I think its a good time to add the second part of this post, since a few of you loyal wurm whales provided some excelent examples.

What I'm saying is true, but the community right now is made up of people that like the game for what it is. The devs have to come up with a decision: either make the current community happy and stay a small niche game in a corner of the enternet, or listen to the massive amount of leavers and become the amazing game I know wurm can become.

Its all up to you Rolf.

 

Wurm is an amazing game, just not one you enjoy.

As others have said, the slow pace is what makes Wurm, Wurm. No other MMO has done player housing or player owned land so well. If it was 10x faster to build a shack, the game world would be littered with them. The way it is currently, building in Wurm is an achievement and something you can look at when you're done and appreciate.

Not every game has to be the next WoW. Rolf has his own vision for Wurm...something that gets lost very quickly once you try to just appeal to as many people as possible. (The usual MMO business model)

 

That's not to say Wurm is perfect...far from it. There is just no need for it to change completely from what it has been for 10 years.

Edited by Outlaw
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I have to say many people in here are right on the money.   The issue isn't advertising, hell its the player retention.    I play almost every new sandbox that comes out, and I'd say that about 1 in 5 people I play with have either heard of Wurm or have played it and quit at some point.     Most that have quit do so within the first few weeks.   


 


This is why I spend countless hours with new players when I have the chance and take them hunting, about every couple of days or so and do everything I can to keep them interested.  This is because if I don't they burn out on the newbie grind early on.  It's not so much how long everything takes to do but, how much of a pain it is to do it.   The failure rate in particular early on is needlessly brutal.  A simple buff that lasts their first 48 hours and evens out the RNG penalty on things such as row boats, components, and wooden house walls etc would be a step in the right direction.     


 


The crafting window is a a boon to new players, and I'm glad the devs instituted it.  But they do need to go farther, new players need to get the idea that the things they do are not based on short term gain.  They need to understand from the very first that this is a game of long-term accomplishment.   


 


In addition to that, getting them to a player that can help them out and tutor them is vitally important.    The majority of gamers will not accept the grind early on until they understand things need not be so much a pain in the butt.     Once they understand how to make their lives easier, and that a few buddies or a village will be there for them it really makes or breaks their experience.    


 


The option to "sponsor" a new player would be awesome, players could apply for it at the tutorial spawn on GV and it would put them in contact with someone looking for new players.  It could be broken between PvE and PvP server recruitment.    


 


On the subject of Chaos...


 


Also... do not let new players spawn on Chaos, and remove all the Freedom isles spawn points, there are a million reasons the current setup does not work but the biggest problem is how the server functions, in that PMKs control the land and not set kingdoms much less that stupid default Freedom Isles kingdom.


 


Chaos itself was evolved from wild, where a player could spawn there within a set kingdom and find a place somewhere in that kingdom and start playing.    This has never been the case since PMKs were encouraged to form and dominate the server.    I personally prefer the new PMK setup but it is never a good idea to toss a new player that does not understand the server into a spawn point surrounded on all sides by a paranoid kingdom, no matter what PMK you are talking about.   Some of the spawn points don't even have anywhere for new players to build, and it not only sours new players to Chaos, it drives away players that may have wanted to start with PvP but can't understand the way things work on Chaos.   There are very little references to the norm of how things work in the wiki, an nothing is told to new players that first spawn before they enter the portal.    


 


If they want to spawn on Chaos, they should be able to apply to a kingdom, and the leader should be able to accept their invite, and have them teleport to that PMK's capital, then they can accept a village invite and go from there.     That way they arn't thrown to the wolves so to speak.     (or nogumps)  :D


Edited by Battlepaw
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 The option to "sponsor" a new player would be awesome, players could apply for it at the tutorial spawn on GV and it would put them in contact with someone looking for new players.  It could be broken between PvE and PvP server recruitment.    

 

I like the idea of having veteran players sponsor or look out for newer players.  AC1 used to have a system of patrons & vassals, where more experienced players would in effect "adopt" a newer player, make sure they had gear needed, help run them through the more difficult quests, teach them about the game. It was a real relationship where an invitation was made and accepted that bound the two together in a pact (which could later be dissolved by either party). In AC1, a tradeoff for this was to have a very small part of the new player's EXP "trickle up" to their patron. It was a two way relationship, with neither side really taking advantage of the other but instead both benefiting from the relationship. It worked so well that "j00 need a patron?" became an inside joke as new players were innundated with offers from older players to help them learn the game. 

 

A somewhat similar system in Wurm could be a master-apprentice relationship, where an older player adopts the role of teaching a new player about the game and a very tiny portion of that new player's XP would get applied to their guide's skill (sort of a weak sleep bonus). Another similar sort of relationship might be that of a page-squire-knight,  The senior partner has to protect, provide for and instruct the new player, and do what they can to see that the new player is able to adjust to the game. The more successful they are at helping the new player adjust, the more rewarded they are without the new player ever becoming a "serf-slave".  They are invested in the new player's success, without ever taking advantage of the new player. There would have to be srtong protections to make sure new players were not somehow used as free labor.

 

I don;t know how it would work in Wurm and I am sure it would need to be carefully scrutinized for abuse and exploiting. but the idea itself is rather  attractive.

Edited by Brash_Endeavors
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Honestly I'd probably stop playing if Wurm got crazy popular in a short amount of time. Assuming of course the servers don't blow up first.

I like the fact that the player base is small. You really start to get to know the people in your neighborhood (so to speak).

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