[Opinion] Why this game wont get big anytime soon

[Shrimpiie 3,665]

Star Wars Galaxies once faced the exact same challenge.

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.

These posts sum it all up 100%.

[Clatius 455]

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.

 

It's not wurm. It's WURM. It's not enternet. It's internet. Your post shows your age.

 

I've played lots of massive online games. I've even alpha and beta tested a few including a couple of the largest and most popular. WURM will never become a mega hit and for that I am eternally happy. It has a flavor and pace that twitch gamers will never embrace. I've played two of the biggest and most popular for about ten years each and will never go back to them. But I have and will always come back to WURM. So, as Golem said to his alter ego, "go away and never come back". 

 

erm, that's an opinion. 

Edited May 22, 2015 by Clatius

[Chakron 1,025]

Wurm is incredibly niche and I want it to stay that way forever. The small playerbase gains every year are perfect, keep it that way.

[Mordraug 2,542]

It's not only about keeping new ones but keeping the old ones too.

[4neofclubs 97]

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.

Spot on! I couldn't have said it better myself

[Outlaw 697]

Project Entropia / Entropia Universe had a Mentor program last time I played it. It worked really well and my mentor showed me all around the game, gave me advice and without him, I wouldn't have stuck around.

 

I think a program like that would work well within Wurm, as long as the mentors had some encouragement to actually help their newbies. Maybe some sort of titles or custom tabard, after helping X amount of newbies achieve a skill goal or finish building their first house/boat etc.

[Lostone 93]

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.

Compared to other games , Wurms look is far from dated.

Look at WOW , Wildstar , EQnext or wtv its called now.

There graphics are sub par compared to Wurms wen it comes to effects and looks.

 

Look at Bridges , for being rendered in a 2D compared to some from other games in 3D it looks dam good.

Let alone some of the mobs and plants , they have a real but not to real feal or look , other games look like Saturday cartoons.

 

And yes somethings are grindy , but thats the love of it , reminds me of the fun times i had playing Ultima Online be fore it was dubed down instant gratification.

 

Most players want everything now and on a silver platter , thats why games like WOW are so popular.

Take a brake and play at your speed , not what others think you should , if your borred try something for awhile.

[Pandalet 1,848]

There are so many things that Wurm does badly, it's somewhat amusing to see someone fixating on the one thing it does well.  While the grind could use a bit of balancing (meditation, I'm looking at you), the basic idea is sound.  I'm not going to muddy this with my opinion on what needs fixing (I've posted and spoken about this plenty of other places), but even if the retention rate were massively improved, it's seriously unlikely the infrastructure would cope - Xanadu is already creaking, from what I hear.  Wurm does not need to improve retention, so much as fix the many bugs and performance problems.  It's lucky that there's a loyal group of hard-core players who are prepared to keep supporting it as-is, but that's gift that should be used to fix the problems, not proof that everything is hunky-dory.

[Lightonfoot 58]

The sad fact is Wurm is a flawed game, but the parts which need to be fixed won't be. I can guarantee you, if anything gets "fixed", it will be of the cheapest sort. Anything which makes it faster and more convenient and doesn't require content additions. The rest will just be what Wurm has always been and it's niche.

 

It'll die. Just like all games do. And another one will come along which has a lot in common.

 

What do I think is hte real problem? It was alluded to in another post here. Below....

 

I'll bold what I think is important.

 

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?

 

What would I do if I were in Rolf's position? I'll keep my list of things short....

 

First I'd want to make it clearer to new players what things are important:

1) You neeed to make a house or tent

2) You should find other players to play with so you can leanr from them

3) You need to make some tools which you did not start with

4) You should learn how to make a row boat for travelling on the water

5) To replenish your stamina easy botanize/forage for edibles

6) Best nutrient food early on is to butcher for meat and cook it and then put in FSB

7) Make a bulk bin and FSB

8) At least make a bucket to store water in for smithing

9) Find an iron vein (these're actually not hard to find, but a player needs ot know this is important)

etc.....

 

New players need to know what's important and they need something easy on the eyes. I think many of us when we started we turn to other players to find these things out. We also combed the wiki. We lived a large part of our life in the wiki. The problem is getting info from other playres and combing the wiki isn't always the answer. Something which is more readily available could be supplied for at least some of these things. Even just a window that lists some important things to accomplish would help. As long as it's easier than the wiki or asking other players.

 

And I think I'd also change the items in crafting so players with low skill are more competitive. For example, I might cap more items at lower skill levels, so low skill players produce them just as well as veterans. The goal should be to make new players in villages feel valuable. They're not peasants. They're village citizens.

 

I also think some players are better at creating goals for themselves. Many of us which have stayed with the game are this way. Some of the players who left early needed more goals supplied to them by the game. I know this doesn't work well in a sandbox. We're supposed to make our own goals. But what if it's not popular?

 

See that's the thing though. Wurm is niche. That means there're many things which won't be popular.

 

EDIT: Look at the crafting system. EVERYONE must use it, essentially. Imagine how that'd pass in other MMO's? Most MMO's don't require you to craft. This one does. The fact Wurm requires us to makes me wonder if this is perhaps one of the biggest things which makes it niche.

Edited May 23, 2015 by Lightonfoot

[Ulviirala 431]

[...]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[...]

[...]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[...]

To answer the two quoted parts seperately...

Nowadays I would say, a player needs to get comfortable with the pace of the game. Also, I do realise that high QL items and enchants are desirable, but many people look at them as absolutely necessary to do even the tiniest thing in Wurm. I find that mindset destructive, though it is achievable with monetary investments.

Nowadays I would also say, I reeeeeaaaally really really really don't want millions of idiots in a world like Wurm, alongside Rust or the new cash-grab Reign of Kings. That comes to mind when I read what you, and many other people before you, have said there. I can't help it. Seeing aforementioned games destroyed my soul. Unfinished and shitty (imho) games with a very large audience, very large sales, sporting popular features that have long been established in Wurm, but implemented differently, and not with the philosophy of Wurm in mind. It's a whole other philosophy, one that I don't enjoy, and therefore strongly dislike these games. Although they do retain some of Wurm's tedium. No, no, no... thanks, but thanks no.

I can agree that Wurm can and should be made better. But better is such a loose term, and very subjective, too.

You could say that the tedium to do many things, is a natural protection from the game towards do-no-gooders. Living up to being a "life simulator" as it has been referred to some time ago by Notch or Rolf. But of course, with enough force, you can overcome that nature of the game, and be destructive still.

Edited May 23, 2015 by Ulviirala

[Brynden 69]

Project Entropia / Entropia Universe had a Mentor program last time I played it. It worked really well and my mentor showed me all around the game, gave me advice and without him, I wouldn't have stuck around.

 

I think a program like that would work well within Wurm, as long as the mentors had some encouragement to actually help their newbies. Maybe some sort of titles or custom tabard, after helping X amount of newbies achieve a skill goal or finish building their first house/boat etc.

i think the problem with this wouldnt be that veterans wont want to do it,but that everybody will offer to do it and then theyll need to decide who is and isnt qualified somehow.

[rixk 830]

Project Entropia / Entropia Universe had a Mentor program last time I played it. It worked really well and my mentor showed me all around the game, gave me advice and without him, I wouldn't have stuck around.

 

I think a program like that would work well within Wurm, as long as the mentors had some encouragement to actually help their newbies. Maybe some sort of titles or custom tabard, after helping X amount of newbies achieve a skill goal or finish building their first house/boat etc.

I don't know how about now, but 6-7 years back in Entropia the mentor system had its "dark" side too. As there were rewards involved, some people were hanging at the place, where new players spawned and spammed mentoring offers on them. When you accepted, you never heard of your mentor again. But when you reached the requirement to pass the mentoring program, the mentor(who didn't do a thing) got the reward for it.

[Lightonfoot 58]

I don't know how about now, but 6-7 years back in Entropia the mentor system had its "dark" side too. As there were rewards involved, some people were hanging at the place, where new players spawned and spammed mentoring offers on them. When you accepted, you never heard of your mentor again. But when you reached the requirement to pass the mentoring program, the mentor(who didn't do a thing) got the reward for it.

 

EU was a p2w scam or a clunky game at best if you had the moiney.

 

No fair comparison. Good mentor system is like night and day too. I doubt the system in EU was good.

 

Somehow it doesn't feel right though. I think a mentor system doesn't fit Wurm ONline somehow. Shouldn't it occur more naturally, like when a new player joins a village of other players and forms relationships? Aren't the other players who help the new player mentors, if not in title then in deed? It's deeds that matter anyway.

 

I think new players should be more valuable to villages. I wonder how different this game would be if all of the limitations on speed/quality/access which were tied to numerical skill were removed? So while a skill would increase to denote the length of time a player has invested in that skill, it would not have impact on anything. So a carpenter with 0 skill would produce as equally well and as fast as a 100 skill carpenter.

 

Given that were the case, players would still have to learn everything and accumulate resources and explore, but the numbers would no longer matter. When I invite a villager, I only have to teach them and ensure they have the tools and reosurces. They can almost immediately match my efficiency. Of course, players who value the numeric progression would not like this, but it'd sure even the playing field.

 

This would not mean building things would be instant. But it would change things. For example, everyone could build stone houses right from the start. The only reason for building a wooden house is it's faster. Same for boats. Everyone could build the biggest, but if all they want is something now, they make a rowing or sailing boat. But of course if everbody built stone houses or only the biggest boats then wooden houses and rowing boats would be a waste. There would be much less division between players based on /playtime. HOwever, there would still be limitations on the speed of building, otherwise the server map would be filled with things overnight and nothing would ever stay the same for more thna a heartbeat. I for one would hate a map which changes too quickly. I actually like inertia. It's very much welcome knowledge that when I visit a place months from now it won't be dramatically different.

Edited May 23, 2015 by Lightonfoot

[Wulfrock 290]

Hi there

 

Just wanted to say hello and figured this was a good thread to start in, me and my wife started playing Wurm 10 days ago, and we love it, we will be staying here for a very long time, we enjoy the slow aspect of things and how long they take, gives us a good sense of accomplishment.

 

This may sound silly, but we found making our fishing rods, catching fish, foraging for vegetables and berries, cutting down a tree, making a campfire, making bowls to cook in, then finally making some casseroles to eat was simply amazing and immersive, made us feel like we were part of something great, and we felt was a fabulous achievement

 

We hope to meet some more nice people within the game at some point.

 

Valiance and Kaylie

[AAetius 133]

There is less grind on Epic.

 

Become a Mighty Black Lighter.

Edited May 23, 2015 by AAetius

[Lotus1 315]

This game caters to a specific population. The op is evidently not part of that population.

 

If the grind of Wurm gets taken out, then it's an entirely new game and not Wurm at all. The grind helps shape this game's identity. While it may be merely an opinion, a game should not be changed just because it doesn't cater to the majority of the gaming community.

 

When you have a niche market established and a loyal fan-base, it is poor business practice to change your product to cater to a different fan-base.

[Omar 479]

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.

 

^ This.

ppl that say they like the grind probably forget about how painfully slow everything is at the start.

 

More players would pay for more land and servers, saying it would be bad for the game is plain dumb.

[Uno 2]

The grind alone isn't the key issue but rather the lack of a cap on skills is. With a cap it wouldn't take ages for a new player on Chaos to mean anything more than an NPC and most importantly it would force players to band together (an improvement especially on Free Isles servers) which should be the #1 goal of any multiplayer game, in the absence of which a game quickly becomes boring.

[Crasset 78]

99% of the MMOs out there are centered around combat. Wurm is in the 1% that isn't. Most people come into this game with the expectation that combat is mandatory and everything else is optional (skilling if you use runescape terms).

 

So basically:

 

- Combat is cringeworthy. You just go stand next to a mob and roll dice at eachother. It has no depth, fun factor or learning curve whatsoever.

- New players are punished for trying combat. Even the weakest mobs will take 50% of their HP and force them to waste 10 minutes after each fight foraging for cotton and then healing each individual wound with a 15 second action timer which will also fail half of the time. You spend 10% of your playtime on actual combat and 90% on the maintenance that is required afterwards.

- Choice of equipment is very basic.

- Combat isn't rewarding enough. It's nearly impossible to make any money through it at lower levels unless you get lucky with a rare coin.

- Monster drop tables are very basic and predictable. None of the un-rare monsters have a chance to drop anything rare that would make them worth hunting for. You are guaranteed to get garbage. Rare coins are a step in the right direction but it would have made much more sense to put actual practical loot onto the droptables, instead of just plain money.

 

The game is doing itself a disservice by attempting to be hyperrealistic when it comes to combat, because it forces people who enjoy combat into doing skilling (a niche activity in most games).

[Spolmit 627]

Wurm is a success. It has been around for many years now and in that time other games have come and gone and indeed others have never made it.

In almost four years of playing, I have seen the developers improve the experience on a regular basis. Yes, some things still cause anguish but I see a dedicated team who genuinely do their best for the players.

I feel that Wurm is almost familial in the way that other games can never be. People know one another for good and for bad and there is a real sense of community and ownership.

There will always be players who try out Wurm and decide that it is not for them and I respect their decision. I however am one of the many who really do love Wurm and would hate to see the basic concept change- it would be like losing a trusted friend.

[Hula_Girl 266]

It takes a lot of time to get things done, true. But there is no hurry. Sure, you can't have fun over weekend building two miniature cities and massive cavern maze, but you can have fun over weekend building a small farm.

 

And I really, really hope that Wurm will stay slow the way it is.

[Pandalet 1,848]

99% of the MMOs out there are centered around combat. Wurm is in the 1% that isn't. Most people come into this game with the expectation that combat is mandatory and everything else is optional (skilling if you use runescape terms).

 

So basically:

 

- Combat is cringeworthy. You just go stand next to a mob and roll dice at eachother. It has no depth, fun factor or learning curve whatsoever.

- New players are punished for trying combat. Even the weakest mobs will take 50% of their HP and force them to waste 10 minutes after each fight foraging for cotton and then healing each individual wound with a 15 second action timer which will also fail half of the time. You spend 10% of your playtime on actual combat and 90% on the maintenance that is required afterwards.

- Choice of equipment is very basic.

- Combat isn't rewarding enough. It's nearly impossible to make any money through it at lower levels unless you get lucky with a rare coin.

- Monster drop tables are very basic and predictable. None of the un-rare monsters have a chance to drop anything rare that would make them worth hunting for. You are guaranteed to get garbage. Rare coins are a step in the right direction but it would have made much more sense to put actual practical loot onto the droptables, instead of just plain money.

 

The game is doing itself a disservice by attempting to be hyperrealistic when it comes to combat, because it forces people who enjoy combat into doing skilling (a niche activity in most games).

 

While combat could probably be better, I disagree with most of the above.  I like that Wurm isn't completely centred around combat!  Combat is something you do from time to time, but I'd much rather be making stuff than killing stuff.  Not getting turned over by every passing rat or cat requires as little investment as 5s (reasonable set of leather armour plus a weapon) - a newbie who's just premiumed has more than that in readily saleable stuff (referral, 2s, 2 sleep powders).  When I started, I basically hung around in the perimeter of a starter town that had plenty of guards I could run to when stuff came off the mountain at me[1] while I figured out how stuff worked.

 

The initial learning curve is a bit steep, but it's not insurmountable, and you don't need to read the whole wiki.  There's a really good 'getting started' guide, linked obviously from the main page, which fills in a lot of the bits the tutorial misses.

 

[1] - This is my primary problem with the new-look Sloping Sands on Release, whichever GM redid it: it looks cool, but the perimeter wall means newbies can't run for the safety of the town anymore, unless they're in exactly the right place, or they have to run the long way around via a gate.  Keep the inner town keep (which looks great), but ditch the stone wall all around the town.

[Nomadikhan 2,199]

Wurm isn't for everyone and that's exactly the reason I like it.

[Clatius 455]

I think I know what the problem with harryhairy is. You actually have to work to get things done. To make a bridge you have to dig the clay, make the mortar, mine the rocks, make the bricks, put it all together one brick at a time. Dig the approach to the bridge. But before you can do that you have to make the tools to mine and dig but to do that you have to find and mine and dig the materials to make the tools to make the stuff to make the bridge. He wants to slam it all up in two minutes like all the other games he and his buddies play. I like it that everything a person does can be produced by the person doing it. It can take a long time to complete what you are doing and it can all be gone in a flash because it's nothing more than a bunch of magnetic charges on a disk someplace but it does give a sense of accomplishment. 

 

If you play this game long enough you can, by yourself, do some really neat stuff in a short (WURM wise) time. My digging is so high I can dig like an army of moles. My masonary is so high I can make 76ql walls out of garbage. My woodcutting and carpentry is so high I can whack down trees so fast I can be my own lumber company. Patience is the key. 

Edited May 23, 2015 by Clatius

[JudusX 199]

The attraction for me is that you can't cheat or pay to win. Think back on the first game you played that you cheated on to win. Now how often did you play it after you cheated?

WURM makes you feel good about accomplishing things knowing that you took the time and effort to win the honest way.

Games today offer the fast and easy way out. What's the point in spending hundreds of dollars on a game just to take the game play out?