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stephenferes

Why Wurm is better off being unknown?

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We've all been there. Talking to your friends about League Of Legends or Minecraft, when you decide to mention Wurm Online. You say the name, and your buddies just have this blank look on their face.

The reason? Wurm is not popular. Sure, over 1000 people play it, but that seeing that number after you type /who happens only once a week.

Sometimes, I wish I could just talk to my friends about Wurm and they know about it, and we have this hour long conversation about how hellhounds are some of the worst monsters out there.

I know this game is getting bigger, and I like that. The more players, the more people you can talk to in Local, right? However, imagine if Wurm became "too popular". Here is what might happen:

1. We'll have Minecraft players trying to grief us on Freedom.

2. When a five-year-old gets killed by a 50 fighting skill player, he's gonna whine about hacking.

3. Ever heard of Stampy Longhead or something? Imagine an adult with a high pitched voice talking about how cute octopuses are.

4. When they realize that Wurm takes time, and you can't punch trees.

5. Wurm Online Lego. Yeah, I don't see how that will work.

Yeah, I know that I probably sound like a Minecraft hater, but that's the way I see it happening.

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that's not why


 


 


the reason it should remain unknown is because it's in such a horribly broken and buggy state that most sane gamers would reject it immediately - I mean come on what kind of post-release full price game has memory leaks, horrible desync issues, over 1 sec. latency?


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I rarely talk about games I played for a limited time that didn't hook me, I think that's what you see with Wurm.

Over the years these has been a lot of feedback, unfortunately a lot of is was negative, at least on sites I visited outside the Wurm fan sites.

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As it is wurm is like a small European town filled with expatriates and diehards and it does have a certain charm, yeah.

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So basically everyone not playing Wurm is a massive trolling childish idiot.   Is that it OP?


 


You're painting with a pretty broad brush.


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I tend to agree. Teh more popular this game becomes, the less I'm going to like it. Why? Because there's a pattern with popular games. That pattern tends to be something I don't want in a game. Popular games have less consequences for bad choices. They're made to be playable by the most inept (or dumbest/laziest) players. They're generic. They're linear. They're more cartoony. Lots of voicovers. So I avoid it. That's why I started playing here and kept playing.


 


I think this game is paradoxically more enjoyable early on and gets less enjoyable with time. Early on it's more about survival. It's more tense. You're actively learning loads of things. Later you have a strong settled area and everything is just too safe. New things trickle in. The bulk of your time is spent repairing/imping/smithing in the same place.


 


Here're some things I liked about the game which aren't popular but nonetheless i like:


1) There was no in-game map when I started and even now it doesn't have GPS


2) No in-game radar which tells you where the creatures are


3) Slow travel times and different terrain movement, making being aware of the area you're in crucial to be optimal


4) First-person only; yes i think it's more immersive even though it's extremely unpopular


5) Thrown into the world with just some tools and you're not told exactly what to do and where/when


6) Ability to get trapped or lost and actually lose the stuff on your corpse; yes it's called consequences


7) An FFA PvP server where you can ultimately lose almost everything; again it's consequences


8) Early on, the wiki and tutorial made hte game feel homegrown; the opposite of big business clones


9) The graphics weren't cartoony


 


The biggest difference is this game didn't lead you by the collar with quests or one-way roads.


 


I'm also resigned in the knowledge this game will eventually be so mudflated and safe-ified I won't like it anymore. So whether I like it or not, it's going to do things I don't like. I've seen this with every MMO.


 


So ultimately I lose this tug of war.


 


I'm not saying Wurm Online is a great perfect game. I have many complaints and have made many posts about it. But because I have compaints doesn't mean I want this game to be a clone of WoW or Minecraft. We're all different and there's a small portion of players who don't wnat WoW or Minecraft or whatever is currently popular.


 


When it's all said and done, I enjoyed Wurm Online so much I cannot even choose the right words to translate it. So no matter what happens in the future with me and Wurm Online, I know I had a blast the past 3 years. If the next year or two is hostile and I never come back again, at least those first 3 years will be preserved in memory. Those first 3 years killed everyting I knew before. My first and favorite MMO's were EQ and UO. They pale in comparison.


Edited by Lightonfoot
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Sorry for being aggressive. I know many people don't like Wurm Online as it's. I don't want to start a fight with you. I"m just trying to tell you that just because you don't enjoy XYZ, doesn't mean others don't. And just because only 500 people might like it doesn't mean it has to be removed - if the game can do fine with 500 people and it fits within the plan.


 


And you know the things I like, especially slow travel and first person and lack of information about things (unless you actively look), is really just about consequences. Like if you take a wrong turn and you die and lose 30 minutes. How much does that really add to the game? For me it's everything, but for others it can easily be seen as a negative. So I understand many or most players want a quicker less risky game and ther'es nothing really wrong with that. Hey maybe the reason I like these things is a mental disorder. So be it. But I definitely don't want to take the games away from you that you enjoy. If you're playing on a minecraft server; great! Have fun. I honestly wish you the best. If you just came from WoW and love that game; great! I could like that game if I tried. I don't want to change WoW.


 


There're loads of sandbox games coming up. There're loads even as I write this. They all offer something a little different from the others. Maybe instead of just focusing all your hate on Wurm Online you should look at them. I didn't know about Wurm Online until maybe 2009 or 2010. I didn't actually play it until 2012. I had to look and I had to take the jump.


 


Here're some but not an exhaustive list (and no this is not meant to be offensive or mean; i'm trying to help):


http://store.steampowered.com/app/324080/


https://goblinworks.com/pathfinder-online/


http://www.xsyon.com/content.php


http://7daystodie.com/


http://albiononline.com/


http://playrust.com/about/


http://planetexplorers.pathea.net/about/


http://minecraft.dk/mcserverlist/server/?id=1819


http://www.mortalonline.com/


http://www.perpetuum-online.com/


http://shoresofhazeron.com/


http://www.therepopulation.com/


https://www.h1z1.com/home


http://lifeisfeudal.com/


http://www.deepworldgame.com/


https://www.linkrealms.com/


https://www.elitedangerous.com/


http://gamersfirst.com/apb/


http://www.trionworlds.com/archeage/en/game/


http://www.faceofmankind.com/


http://play-earthrise.com/


http://www.gamersfirst.com/fallenearth/


http://immunegame.com/


 


....a few of those are in alpha or beta stages.


 


An old player-run UO server (Richard Garriot, one of the creators of UO, visited last year):


http://www.uosecondage.com/news.aspx


 


This one is dead but damn it look(ed) interesting:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StarQuest_Online


Edited by Lightonfoot
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Really very simple. If you don't like WURM then go away cuz you obviously don't belong. It's fine as it is and most bugs will get fixed...eventually.


 


If you like WURM welcome to Oz where everything is possible if you just take the time. Thank you Rolf and company for this buggy piece of wonderment. Yeah, I get crabby and negative sometimes but I still like the world you guys make. Nothing like it on the planet.


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....a few of those are in alpha or beta stages.

 

 

 

Many of those are games I've seen on Steam as early access. You usually have to pay to play their alpha or beta game.  :lol:

 

The vast majority or nothing like WURM. Well, actually none of them are. 

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I've found that most people I talk to have heard about Wurm and have even tried it, it just wasn't for them. It's a very peculiar game. I'd be interested in the trial account conversion rate. Has to be less than 2%

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that's not why

the reason it should remain unknown is because it's in such a horribly broken and buggy state that most sane gamers would reject it immediately - I mean come on what kind of post-release full price game has memory leaks, horrible desync issues, over 1 sec. latency?

I like Wurm for every one of these reasons. There's something very special and unique about this game that I have found nowhere else. And...maybe I'm not "sane"...?

I'd take one comitted and mature player over 10 temporary and all-over-the-place type of players any day.

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I'd love to see a community like 4chan raid wurm. That would be hilarious.


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that's not why

 

 

the reason it should remain unknown is because it's in such a horribly broken and buggy state that most sane gamers would reject it immediately - I mean come on what kind of post-release full price game has memory leaks, horrible desync issues, over 1 sec. latency?

oh like 50 most likely 60% of all games released since the internet reached the point where updating software is a simple as breathing

look at ea for a great example at games that have memory leaks heck 1 of their browser based games that has been out for over a few years now still has a memory leak resulting in 2-3gb used after leaving it on for a few hours and dont get me started on their actual "proper" triple a "quality" games they release

compared to most big games wurm is doing a great job at it even if there are times i wish there was a proper full blown team with a great head dev to guide them along behind wurm to fix things up and optimize it before rolf co. continues working on it but they still do it better then most other games out there

oh also be happy we dont have hitbox issues and weird combat where we gotta swing our camera around and our entire player character to hit someone with a sword and still miss as the hitbox of the enemy is 5 meters away due to a desync issue(remind you of a few games?)

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oh like 50 most likely 60% of all games released since the internet reached the point where updating software is a simple as breathing

look at ea for a great example at games that have memory leaks heck 1 of their browser based games that has been out for over a few years now still has a memory leak resulting in 2-3gb used after leaving it on for a few hours and dont get me started on their actual "proper" triple a "quality" games they release

compared to most big games wurm is doing a great job at it even if there are times i wish there was a proper full blown team with a great head dev to guide them along behind wurm to fix things up and optimize it before rolf co. continues working on it but they still do it better then most other games out there

oh also be happy we dont have hitbox issues and weird combat where we gotta swing our camera around and our entire player character to hit someone with a sword and still miss as the hitbox of the enemy is 5 meters away due to a desync issue(remind you of a few games?)

 

it's really sad that people in this thread are flat out admitting that it's ok for a game to be buggy because other games are or whatever other reason - it shows the ###### that developers have trained us to believe, that every game is extremely buggy and it's ok (it's not ok, release a finished product or go make something that doesn't need to be finished like sun visors / unfinished hats)

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Personally its more a lack of brand recognition. There has not been a really heavy advertising campaign.

Most of its word of mouth from the players who have played it, player reviews on some indie mmo sites and the like, handful of mentions and articles in PC Gamer, and so on.

Unsure offhand when Rolf will feel like kicking the advertising into high gear. There's been some discussion in the past off and on about it; though, usual response was he didn't feel the game and its hardware were quite in a state where he felt comfortable doing so.

EDIT: Far as bugs go, feel free to point out one mmo (aside from single player games) that isn't constantly in need of bug patches and minor content, aside from dealing with adding whole new content. Then the inevitable bugs from that.

Edited by Klaa
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it's really sad that people in this thread are flat out admitting that it's ok for a game to be buggy because other games are or whatever other reason - it shows the ###### that developers have trained us to believe, that every game is extremely buggy and it's ok (it's not ok, release a finished product or go make something that doesn't need to be finished like sun visors / unfinished hats)

oh i wasnt saying that its okay to release a game at all im saying its not im just saying that now days devs have gotten used to the whole "oh we will patch that in the next wave of patches lets just finish the game as the producers want it done asap" mentality compared to the 90's where you released a game and thats it and the next bunch of patching comes with an expansion of sorts

for me personally i rather wait a year extra to get a game that has nearly no bugs or no big ones left at all then play a game that causes me to crash or lag out

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Wurm is not unknown, if anything it is just lesser known and this may actually be to its benefit, since the servers seem to only have the capacity to function without excessive lag with this lesser amount of players upon them. So in this respect I would agree that Wurm is better off within its lesser known realm.


 


One of the few things I never worry about or concern myself with is attracting new players to the game, or even retaining them, mainly because this is not my problem. I leave this up to Rolf and Co. to figure out. The future of the game is simply not my responsibility. I just pay to play and enjoy my time within it pretty much carefree, since even if I do experience some things within the game that I don't agree with, I really can do nothing to change them anyway.


 


Doesn't mean I won't comment about them though. So not to get anyone's hopes up on me remaining silent for the duration.


 


Happy Trails


=Ayes=


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People keep thinking that if Rolf made more money, the game would develop into their idea of what a mainstream AAA game should be like and have more players. Can we get that out of our heads? Yes it's easily scalable, however, it is not a mass appeal game.

Wurm is not and will probably never be a mainstream game. It's a niche game.  It's for certain types of people while still giving enough freedom to entertain many different playstyles? Grinder, merchant, crafter, gatherer, casual, pvp, pve, land baron, RP'ers, adventurers, sailers, farmers, ranchers, etc.....

We have had over a hundred new players come join our village in the past year including about 10 of my own family and gamer friends. Today, about two dozen are still playing. None of my family or gamer coworkers are still playing. Too slow and grindy they tell me. These are the people that mainstream games will appeal to.

 

Is the game a success? Who are we to say that the game is not successful?  If Rolf meets his yearly personal goals for the game and income, then it is a success no matter what you or I think. Maybe he doesn't want a game that has the resources to grow too large too fast which brings on it's own set of problems.

 

Was Notch happy with minecrafts success? He took the money and is now doing what he loves, making a small niche game again. Towards the end, I don't think he was happy with what minecraft had become in some respects. You could say that Notch took some of the ideas from Wurm and went out and made a more mainstream game. Something I think the majority here would not want to see happen to Wurm. The compromises that would have to made would make it something totally unlike the game we have today.

 

I like to think that Rolf is committed to his vision and is not letting the pressure to go large pressure him into compromising the vision. Sure that vision has changed over time. But being small fits in well with my own preference of lean business practices.

 

There are those who would even presume to know better than Rolf how to make more money from his game or how to maximize profits. He has insights into the game that we will never have. Or that more resources would allow him to hire more developers. More resources and more developers do not equal a better game. How many game flops from the large game publishers have we seen over the years?

 

If Wurm were mainstream, if it were as popular as Wow or some other big time game, would it be better for the game?  The lag problems lead me to believe that we don't have the backend infrastructure or network to be able to support a much larger community without seriously looking at that first. Personally, I'd host on some other main stream hosting company with the backbone to support the game. We don't know the numbers to make that call. I can't even attend a unique slaying because I'll be disconnecting so much it wouldn't be worth the aggravation and I have a good connection, many don't.  I do wish we had more players however.

Be thankful instead that we don't have gold farmers constantly spamming us in game or on the forums. Silver tied to the euro is a good incentive for gold farmers to come to this game but thankfully, the number of players we have would not make it profitable for them so they have stayed away so far.

 

So yes, I think Wurm is better off remaining relatively unknown. So long as Rolf makes enough to pay the bills and meet his own personal goals, and allow the game to continue, then that is enough.

Edited by Fineal
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1. We'll have Minecraft players trying to grief us on Freedom.

2. When a five-year-old gets killed by a 50 fighting skill player, he's gonna whine about hacking.

3. Ever heard of Stampy Longhead or something? Imagine an adult with a high pitched voice talking about how cute octopuses are.

4. When they realize that Wurm takes time, and you can't punch trees.

5. Wurm Online Lego. Yeah, I don't see how that will work.

Yeah, I know that I probably sound like a Minecraft hater, but that's the way I see it happening.

1. The ones just here to grief will either not even make it through the tutorial, or realize how much effort it is just to even disrupt the dirt a bit, let alone doing any real damage, and will quit trying. The difficulty and time sink of wurm protects us from this. 

2. We already have this in Wurm. =<70 FS characters get killed by people with 90+ fightskill and already scream and cry. And yet we live. 

3. Minecraft has tons of very annoying youtubers. While a bit annoying, they would draw more attention to wurm, meaning more revenue, meaning more dev hours (or more terrible music, I guess?) You however will never actually hear them unless you're on voice with them. If you are, just mute them. This is in no way a valid reason to keep wurm small imo.

4. They'll do like the rest do. Quickly quit, and we won't hear from them again. The same as happens now with most new players.

5. Wurm Online Lego: Honestly not sure how a spinoff of wurm would make wurm any less fun to play. 

Why Wurm would be better off being well known: 

1. More people for us on the less populated servers to play with; especially on the pvp home servers, the frequency of running into other players is rare, to where Wurm often feels like you are playing alone, doubly so if you aren't EU timezone. More people, more community, more interactions.

2. More revenue for the game. More revenue, more development, better server upgrades, better game security (future financial security). AAA game? Of course not. But improved? Definitely. 

3. Less awkward explanations/lying when someone asks what online games you play. Otherwise we make somethign up, tell them a game we play less than Wurm, or make the foolish attempt of trying to explain why Wurm is fun.

4. More strange characters. Sure, sometimes the oddballs can be annoying, frustrating, or just make you scratch your head, but they also make Wurm a more interesting experience, with more funny memories to laugh about after.

5. More ruins. More people playing wurm = more buildings = more ruins once some of those people quit = more exploration and salvaging for the rest of us. 

Edited by Arronicus

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