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Why This Rolf?

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This news makes me so sad.  I see a mass exodus of casual WO players forsaking WO for WU.  I see many Steam players buying the game, getting excited about playing, but becoming spoiled with insta-everything and trying WO only to leave after a month because they can't handle the grind.  I also see motivation to continue playing WO tanking for many, many, many players because they can buy WU and not have to worry about decay, deed upkeep, monthly fees, griefers, etc.  


 


Why not just release the game to Steam to bring in more players to your existing WO and leave it at that?


 


Rolf, can you please open up to your players and tell us your motivations behind this decision so at least we can understand what you are trying to do with this?


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Probably knows the game is pretty much dead so he tries to grab as much money as possible before going down with a bang.

Ssh, no one tell him that players have two weeks to refund a game they buy through steam.

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Copied from the other topic, but these are my thoughts:
 

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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It's all a business and no one can blame Rolf for trying to make a lot of money for himself and his family.


And this goes down to 2 options:


 


1) He makes a fortune with WU and WO goes down the cliff.


 


2) WU is a flop and nothing happened here.


 


After many years of enjoying Rolf creation I can only wish him the best. He deserves it.


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He makes a fortune with WU and he can give some on WO, hire more employees. Maybe. :)


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Personally I think it's awesome, finally Wurm gets exposure it deserves.  I don't see any negative in Rolf's decision.


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Why do this Rolf?

Keep WO that is where you have your fans, and then there relly like your game.
Get more new players in WO, do like EVE, make it on Steam, but as the game is, not as WU.

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He makes a fortune with WU and he can give some on WO, hire more employees. Maybe. :)

or... he just divides current devs into the 2 projects (like he already is and has done in the past for challenge) and takes extra vacations with the money.

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Personally I think it's awesome, finally Wurm gets exposure it deserves.  I don't see any negative in Rolf's decision.

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or... he just divides current devs into the 2 projects (like he already is and has done in the past for challenge) and takes extra vacations with the money.

 

 

why are you attaking rolf so much...if you dont like it,just leave,leave everything behind and just go your way and look for another game!

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Personally I think it's awesome, finally Wurm gets exposure it deserves.  I don't see any negative in Rolf's decision.

 

This. The MMO has a lot of appealing traits that WU will never have, simply by being an MMO. ;)

 

To name a few:

  • Hundreds of people in the same world

And sculpted by just as many players

Hundreds of people to trade with

people to show off your creations to besides friends

people to form villages with

Existing villages to join

Some people have mentioned that in WU you could set your skills to 100 and skip the grind, but what's left once you have 100 skills? Twiddle your thumbs and 1-hit mobs?

That applies to every other shortcut you might take in WU too.

 

IMO its better to see WU as a sort of playground. WO will attract at least a few hundred WU players after they're done messing about. :)

Edited by syncaidius
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Exactly my point Syn, new players will try WU, get excited, play awhile and then start to explore other venues such as this server, for the outline you posted and hopefully stay. The double edged sword here is that when they do come, I think many will leave due to the long grind that they aren't used too.


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Exactly my point Syn, new players will try WU, get excited, play awhile and then start to explore other venues such as this server, for the outline you posted and hopefully stay. The double edged sword here is that when they do come, I think many will leave due to the long grind that they aren't used too.

 

Many who come to Wurm end up leaving for such reasons even now, the game has a horrid early player retention, that's nothing new. WU won't change that, but it might increase the amount of players whom actually come to Wurm, thus also increasing the amount of players that stay.

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I've been playing on different characters since early January of 2013. Easily spent tens of hundreds of dollars. All worth it with all my amazing adventures, friendly communities, and battles full of adrenaline. Not only is our player base spread upon 12 servers, but now that we can make our own?


 


May Wurm Online rest in peace.


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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.

SO the answer is to create private servers because the game is too hard and let people play those and somehow magically they will want to play the MMO version. well lets analyze this for a moment.

 

They have moved towards marketing to a very young playerbase who have absolutely no interest in a slow paced grind game that takes way too long to do anything. These kids have no interest whatsoever in a game like WURM. Ill use my own son as an example, he will not paly wurm at all because it takes too long to do anything. Now he might very well enjoy WU because it can be much faster paced. Great, excellent for WU, but disastrous for the MMO. As they will still market to the younger  must have it now, no patience crowd, if we look far enough down the road, which is not a very long look, it means that there is an increasingly greater rationale to shut down the MMO entirely...or the MMO version will not be able to support any realistic population because they will still be focusing marketing to a group that has no interest whatsoever in making things harder on themselves.

 

There is no positive spin on this decision from an MMO point of view - It is wholly destructive to the MMO version.

 

While it may be great from a CC point of view, in that they will have the option to close the MMO version, still make money from WU and loose all the overhead and hassle of trying to keep the MMO alive, for those that still cling to and enjoy an MMO experience, it looks like a death knell, and they would be correct. Oh and if WU doesnt work then they can fall back on the MMO version and hope to do something else.

 

The only positive on this is that CC will have options, not so much the players. One could argue, yeah we will be able to MOD it. LMFAO, the devs cant even get it right most of the time. The code is, by thier own admission, "difficult" so I wouldnt get your hopes up on any modders being able to do anything other than complain about how things are so fubarred and demanding changes to the code so that they can have some hope in getting it modded.

 

But ok lets say that CC says yeah ok lets get some stuff for modders going....what happens to the MMO version?....redheaded stepchild....more rationales for shutting it down. Less dev time spent on it, less players and on and on and on and on.

 

Again there is no positive spin on this from an MMO point of view. Do not ask for whom the bell tolls....it tolls for thee.

 

[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bg92QpjRcJk

Edited by sunsvortex
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Copied from the other topic, but these are my thoughts:

 

 

If the existing servers want to exist... i think Code club should revieuw the premium and silver cost in the game currently. No one is going to stay if they can find a better server for a less amount of money spending every month.

 

Since wurm is very expensive.

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Personally I think it's awesome, finally Wurm gets exposure it deserves.  I don't see any negative in Rolf's decision.

 

I couldn't agree more, anyone that doesn't like it and thinks this will destroy WO.  Probably built a fallout shelter for Y2K, then nothing happened, so they updated it for Dec 2012.  Oh, nothing happened then either...

 

Sounding like they'll be in their shelters for the release of WU as well.

 

TL;DR

 

Doomsdayers always have another doomsday around the corner to latch on to and will always say the end of the world is coming.

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SO the answer is to create private servers because the game is too hard and let people play those and somehow magically they will want to play the MMO version. well lets analyze this for a moment.

They have moved towards marketing to a very young playerbase who have absolutely no interest in a slow paced grind game that takes way too long to do anything. These kids have no interest whatsoever in a game like WURM. Ill use my own son as an example, he will not paly wurm at all because it takes too long to do anything. Now he might very well enjoy WU because it can be much faster paced. Great, excellent for WU, but disastrous for the MMO. As they will still market to the younger must have it now, no patience crowd, if we look far enough down the road, which is not a very long look, it means that there is an increasingly greater rationale to shut down the MMO entirely...or the MMO version will not be able to support any realistic population because they will still be focusing marketing to a group that has no interest whatsoever in making things harder on themselves.

There is no positive spin on this decision from an MMO point of view - It is wholly destructive to the MMO version.

While it may be great from a CC point of view, in that they will have the option to close the MMO version, still make money from WU and loose all the overhead and hassle of trying to keep the MMO alive, for those that still cling to and enjoy an MMO experience, it looks like a death knell, and they would be correct. Oh and if WU doesnt work then they can fall back on the MMO version and hope to do something else.

The only positive on this is that CC will have options, not so much the players. One could argue, yeah we will be able to MOD it. LMFAO, the devs cant even get it right most of the time. The code is, by thier own admission, "difficult" so I wouldnt get your hopes up on any modders being able to do anything other than complain about how things are so fubarred and demanding changes to the code so that they can have some hope in getting it modded.

But ok lets say that CC says yeah ok lets get some stuff for modders going....what happens to the MMO version?....redheaded stepchild....more rationales for shutting it down. Less dev time spent on it, less players and on and on and on and on.

Again there is no positive spin on this from an MMO point of view. Do not ask for whom the bell tolls....it tolls for thee.

[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bg92QpjRcJk

This.

All the people who support the idea that WU will help the mmo are wrong.

Why would anyone who starts to play WU with instant everything,no waiting, no patience required come to the mmo and play? Your answer will be because they will get curious and excited and want to check it out. Sure they will and I'm not arguing that. But as soon as they see what a grind the real game is they will run like hell right back to WU. Do you really believe they will come here to a slow grind after they started this game in instant gratification? Its not going to happen folks.

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when i first played minecraft it was over ten years ago. i downloaded a copy from the pirate bay (because i was sick of paying money for games that sucked) even though it was a measly $5. After playing it for hours i wanted to play with others so i purchased the full version and joined a server. I feel like WU may be like that. people may enjoy playing alone but if they are like me they enjoy community and will find a server with one. Either a private or one hosted by code Club.


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This.

All the people who support the idea that WU will help the mmo are wrong.

Why would anyone who starts to play WU with instant everything,no waiting, no patience required come to the mmo and play? Your answer will be because they will get curious and excited and want to check it out. Sure they will and I'm not arguing that. But as soon as they see what a grind the real game is they will run like hell right back to WU. Do you really believe they will come here to a slow grind after they started this game in instant gratification? Its not going to happen folks.

 

If this was true, how does Wurm have a player base at all?

 

There are plenty of instant gratification games out there, yet wurm still has a player base. ;)

 

As for targeting a young audience, that is debatable. Not everyone on steam is "young". None of the 44 people on my FL are below the age of 24. I'm sure plenty of steam users in WO have friends around their own age too (or much older/younger).

 

Saying that absolutely nobody at all will be interested in WO when coming from WU is nothing but unfounded speculation at the moment. We'll only know which way its going to go once WU is released.

 

 

If the existing servers want to exist... i think Code club should revieuw the premium and silver cost in the game currently. No one is going to stay if they can find a better server for a less amount of money spending every month.

 

Since wurm is very expensive.

 

Really? I thought it was about the same price as most other MMOs. Around €8/month (€16 for 2 months).

 

EDIT: I decided to check a few MMO prices. Wurm is actually cheaper than a lot of them. :)

Edited by syncaidius
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Until WU is released nobody even knows how it will affect WO. Personally I'm excited about WU and am eagerly awaiting the release, but even if I wasn't, there just isn't a way to know what will happen. Maybe it will bring in more people, maybe not. Who knows. But it seems Rolf needs to move forward with this game in one way or another, so that's what he's doing.


 


Don't say it's doomsday until doomsday actually happens, because right now, we just don't know.


 


The way I see it, the people who want to play in a community already do, and they will keep doing so. The people who don't want to play in a community already don't, living as hermits as far away as they can from other players, and when those people understandably leave for WU to have a better experience, nobody will even notice that they're gone in the first place.


 


Not to mention that maybe some of the players who have quit WO in the past might just have moved to WU if that had been around back then -- and some may even come back to play WU this time. I don't see anything bad about that.


Edited by Sia
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