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Rolf

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I am currently enchanting a pile of rare tools.  I would like for Rolf to handle the selling process since by the time I finish them, the buyers will be spread out on a number of servers that I can not access  :ph34r:


How can this be a good thing for an existing player?


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It's certainly a big change, but personally I think it could do some real good for the online part of Wurm, as well as expand the reach of the game.


 


Wurm has always had a chronic issue with its steep difficulty curve - you get thrown in at the deep end after a short tutorial (tutorials are hard enough to get people to do as it is,) in a huge multiplayer environment with no guarantee that you'll start off on the right foot. I've played a number of other sandbox games with the same issue - but probably the best solution to this I've seen was one by Kerbal Space Program, which was to have an introductory "career" mode (that opens up the game far more slowly than traditional sandbox deep end,) revealing features gradually and making the game a lot harder to lose at earlier on.


 


It looks like the Adventure mode could be analogous to KSP's Career mode, giving new players a more scripted, gradual, and single-player introduction to the Wurm universe. That to me is hugely exciting - it works so well for KSP (a game about rocket science, aka very complicated) to have a dedicated introductory experience, and it could work very well for Wurm too. In essence, it's a way to con people into doing a tutorial while actually playing the game.


 


If successful, the increased revenue and overall buzz about the game will undoubtedly benefit the existing Wurm servers. More people will know of (and know how to play) the game, and we'd be able to take on more developers, while rolling out new features to both instances of the Wurm universe.


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While I certainly can see the concerns, I also see the opportunity to see some very interesting player-made servers - depending upon how useful the creation tools are.

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...

 

If successful, the increased revenue and overall buzz about the game will undoubtedly benefit the existing Wurm servers. ...

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There needs to be a clear and cut reason why people should prefer playing on official servers over private ones. As of now I cannot see that reason.

The established community is the only reason I see

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You know what sucks? Rolf decided to put this through STEAM. I won't use STEAM.


 


I am definitely a player that would love to host a private server with absolutely no PvP activites and I would make sure those who abused the "loopholes" got the boot off the server... a server where "no PvP activites" actually means no PvP activites (assuming that would be possible with how Rolf is doing this)....


 


But Rolf chose to use STEAM... I won't host a server there. Not ever.


 


I will remain playing on "regular" Wurm.


Edited by geode
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If successful, the increased revenue and overall buzz about the game will undoubtedly benefit the existing Wurm servers. More people will know of (and know how to play) the game, and we'd be able to take on more developers, while rolling out new features to both instances of the Wurm universe.

Well, for one thing, even if it is successful, what does this bring to us, players? Even now, we have 2 completely different playstyles, PvE and PvP, which both need completely different approach from the Devs. Currently it seems, another playstyle has been thrown into the mix, so instead PvE and PvP, soon there will be PvE/PvP/Unlimited.. each of them craving for developers attention. Let's face it, keeping balanced gameplay for everyone went just harder IMO.

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I am currently enchanting a pile of rare tools.  I would like for Rolf to handle the selling process since by the time I finish them, the buyers will be spread out on a number of servers that I can not access  :ph34r:

How can this be a good thing for an existing player?

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I'm sceptical that this will work out well. Let's consider some points:


 


- combat is very outdated compared to some of the competition on steam.


- modding is what ensures the longevity of games in this genre on steam, but modding isn't allowed.


- the world is mostly dead/empty, lacking npcs, npc villages, npc kingdoms, etc.


 


The modding point especially seems like a strong negative. Many games in this genre on steam have workshop integration, it's the modding which ensures the longevity of the game as modding generally ensures the creation of a huge amount of additional content. Add to that the generally dull and oldfashioned combat (on private servers there's nothing stopping you from having a more active combat system like in mount and blade, as the players on your private server likely mostly live in the same timezone, so latency isn't as big of an issue).


I feel that the crafting system alone will not be sufficient to carry this game on steam in the form of private servers. Without modding and better combat it will vanish into the background quickly.


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You don't get access to the "Wurm Online" server code which contains said cheat detection system. Like I said we removed it from the "Wurm Unlimited" server code.. We don't try to control how you mod the stuff we release on Steam. 

\o/

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Hmm, part of me actually thinks this could turn out as a good step.

What makes the current system so interesting? The people on all the servers. The history of the servers. The possibility to randomly meet someone you don't know. (or to get pvp because you meet someone you did not expect)

I think that only those people will leave that have no interest in a community (or the existing one). I imagine playing Wurm alone or in a very small group will very fast get boring.

So it could really work like a tutorial/easy mode for interested players, preparing them for what is waiting in a larger world.

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Cautiously optimistic over here.


 


It might do good things for Wurm in the long run.


But lets be honest, Steam will not be kind to Wurm.


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Well i am here mostly to have fun and play in the market buying and selling so there is no way i will be leaving the MMO and that will be the factor that brings in more players over from the steam version too i think. Sure you will have some that leave but in the end we will gain way more then we lose i am sure. 


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Driving 40 minutes into work this morning gave me some time to think about this decision and direction.  I asked myself, what is the draw that Wurm Online has for me?  Some words came to mind.  Discovery.  Accomplishment.  Non-linear game play (sandbox).  Satisfaction at reaching incredibly hard achievements (50, 70, 90, 100 skill titles).  Diversity of gameplay.  The community and it's creativity.  Ownership.  Control.


 


If I personally had my own server I would lose:  discovery, accomplishment, satisfaction at reaching achievements that are now potentially instant, diversity, community creativity.  If I lost all of that, ownership and control would mean nothing to me.  


 


So, while I am starting to understand Rolf's motivations for broadening the Wurm horizons with new opportunities, I think those of us who play WO as a non-GM player need to make a conscience decision on what we will do with WU because WU will RUIN the WO experience for many of us.  


 


I guess Rolf is just giving his players options that he hopes will broaden the exposure of his game.  So, fellow Wurmian.  Will you be a player in WO, a GM in WU, or a player in WU with your closest friends?


Those will soon be our choices to make.

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so wait, how does THIS benefit vanilla Wurm?

Ideally more $ for development, more players to kill ';..;'

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I wish someone would layout how in reality WU will bring players into WO. From a simple game play point of view, a person buys WU and starts to play it on a private server. The odds of that server having the same settings as WO is going to be very slim. So now they are able to grind up skills, make items and build houses faster and easier then in WO. After a while they decide to try WO and find that it is truly a grind, after a little while they decide to leave the game, for the same reason that people are not retained right now....The grind. Grinding is not for everyone.


 


It is like giving someone the option in real life to fly for 1 hour to a location, then have them try another service that takes 12 hours and expect them to continue using the 12 hour service when the 1 hour service remains. 


 


I recently saw here on the forums someone post how long it took to get their last point needed for 100 carpentry........53 hours with sleep bonus to get one tick........there is no way someone is going to go from playing a game of near instant results, to grinding for days and months and years for that same skill, on a private server that may be shut down at any time at the whim of the host.


 


Unless the hope is that the shear number of people trying WO because of WU will cause some to stick around, I don't see how retaining these new people will be any different then now, as nothing with WO is being changed to encourage the majority of new people to remain.


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Ideally more $ for development, more players to kill ';..;'

 

More development for vanilla Wurm or the new standalone Wurm?

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More development for vanilla Wurm or the new standalone Wurm?

for WurmOnline (WO)

 

@ gnomegates, yea thats the big issue im thinking about, that it draws new players away from WO and then when they try WO it takes so long at the start to build anything that they hate it.

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Driving 40 minutes into work this morning gave me some time to think about this decision and direction.  I asked myself, what is the draw that Wurm Online has for me?  Some words came to mind.  Discovery.  Accomplishment.  Non-linear game play (sandbox).  Satisfaction at reaching incredibly hard achievements (50, 70, 90, 100 skill titles).  Diversity of gameplay.  The community and it's creativity.  Ownership.  Control.

 

If I personally had my own server I would lose:  discovery, accomplishment, satisfaction at reaching achievements that are now potentially instant, diversity, community creativity.  If I lost all of that, ownership and control would mean nothing to me.  

 

So, while I am starting to understand Rolf's motivations for broadening the Wurm horizons with new opportunities, I think those of us who play WO as a non-GM player need to make a conscience decision on what we will do with WU because WU will RUIN the WO experience for many of us.  

 

I guess Rolf is just giving his players options that he hopes will broaden the exposure of his game.  So, fellow Wurmian.  Will you be a player in WO, a GM in WU, or a player in WU with your closest friends?

Those will soon be our choices to make.

Excellent post, it hits the nail on the head.

 

For all those who've tried WO and bounced this can be a good thing, a means to pick up their coin and maybe create a path for them into WO so better survival for Codeclub.

 

Will I try WU or switch from WO?   hell no, I'm invested in this game I've played for many years and see no reason to change, WU offers me nothing which I'm cool with.

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I would just like to say that it's really awesome a couple of you people are already posting on the Steam page for Unlimited about how crap Wurm is, although you say you have played it for years on there, and you would not touch Wurm Unlimited. You are against or don't want a stand-alone version so you will go rip the MMO version apart ON STEAM where potential new players will see your scathing reviews and not buy into either the MMO or Stand-alone? THEN you will come here and complain that this move is going to kill the game? It's pretty obvious Code Club is trying to get some revenue coming in. So your answer is to quash that before he even has a chance to test it and see if it gets him some income?


 


<Sarcasm> That's just an awesome way to "save the game from certain doom." </Sarcasm>

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I don't think most understand that you dictate what you can do on these servers, you can set the skill gains, you set up literally everything in the game for you server to play on.


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I have very mixed feelings on all of this. My gut instinct and first reaction was :o:huh::angry::( all rolled into one. Yes it would be lovely to promote Wurm to new potential players, my server Pristine has felt pretty empty since Xan and just seems to be so deadly quiet the majority of the time now. But somehow I just don't see that changing because of the people who play on Steam. (I saw one of my pics from my deed from the screenshots thread on the Steam promo page for WU, felt such a bizarre mixture of pride and betrayal)


 


I hope to be proven wrong and that this decision will work out to be a good one for the original game, my 'home on the internet' as Rolf promised, and I hope the game will become stronger and stronger over time. But only time will tell. Best of luck with this Rolf, and all of us who love Wurm as well.


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I just want to state this publically - this is NOT the reason I'm not on the team anymore.

 

Sorry to see you off the team, whatever the reason.

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