Is Mining The Problem?

[JakeRivers 2,921]

23 minutes ago, ClericGunem said:

20x clay

 

No it is not what I meant, especially the clay requirement, that can be nearly as hard to find as iron.

[Slickshot 1,195]

The pissing match is real.

[ClericGunem 275]

8 minutes ago, Audrel said:

 

Access to clay. No cart if no iron. That means inventory carry, sometimes over large distances, with no strength, a herd of things wanting to eat you as you crawl home, better armor and weapon than before but still no fight skill to speak of. A 1x1 house with 4 walls will be more weight in clay for the shingles, mortar, and walls than a new player can carry without crawling like a snail. And chances are they die before they make it back home at half a kilometer per hour, log out, and never come back. The game is bleeding players. It's beyond about how hard you had it when you were new. It's to "we need a player base that stays to play and pay before Wurm Online goes the way of the dodo."

 

I was just saying you can without nails. i agree that logistics makes anything short of building almost next to clay difficult, but it is fallacious to say a house cannot be built without iron and that new players quit because they do not have easy access to iron and cannot build houses...  It is also a fallacy to say they quit because they do not have a cart...

 

Th subject of thread is mining, yes pita to get started totally cool once you have skill and tools.  I have yet to find a place that does not have a public mine or at least one person to tell someone there is a public mine and where, really dont think iron is the issue either.  maybe a touch on the action timer, but skilling too fast makes me uncomfortable as while people are new they still learning.  I do not want a 70 mining noob in my mines with a speed pick, just makes me uncomfortable, someone with 70 skill and speedpiick has usually learned how to not totally ruin a cave system.  A normal noob cannot not do much damage but breaking the wrong tile (perpendicular to another cave cause they are not paying attention) is three mag casts that i have to make locks for...   New player may do it once, a lot of work for a scewup, they learn not to waste the time to pay attention.  someone who can do this in 4 minutes may do it 3 or 4 times and think nothing of it since it is so fast.

[JakeRivers 2,921]

Some people don't get it, when you are new yes mining can be hard, but harder yet is finding the iron to build a simple house, unless you are near the side of a mountain with more than 30 tiles of exposed rock, there is no way you are going to rummage enough iron to just get started.

 

A new player may find a readily accessible mine with iron, but if that mine is filled with trolls, hell hounds, lava spiders and cave fiends he will not be doing any mining at all.

 

Just today a new player working on her new settlement set out in a rowboat to try and find a iron mine that was not filled with critters so she could get some iron to make nails. When I noticed her in local I asked what was up and she explained to me her predicament so I set her up with enough iron lumps to get started out with and she rowed back to her new settlement site.

 

I do think a log cabin type structure requiring logs (no iron) would be ideal, perhaps substitute dirt/grass for the chinking rather than clay, most pioneers had to settle for mud to use to chink the log walls, and used sod and more logs for the roof.

[Audrel 2,223]

It's a matter of semantics. There's many reasons a player might quit in his first day or days. I'm not trying to be stand-offish but there is a chain of events.

 

Iron and the lack of is about mining. It's not a fallacy to follow the chain of failure. It's a chain of events that starts with needing a nail that is not obtained. They can't even make a forge until someone gives them a chisel or they make one themselves, and left relying on a campfire. I was present when Xanadu opened. I was in the landrush. Trust me, when enough people can't access iron, there is chaos. 

 

“For the want of a nail the shoe was lost,
For the want of a shoe the horse was lost,
For the want of a horse the rider was lost,
For the want of a rider the battle was lost,
For the want of a battle the kingdom was lost,
And all for the want of a horseshoe-nail.”

― Benjamin Franklin

[HarrisonSolo 0]

I'm not sure mining ability and speed is the issue, although it's connected. The main issue is alternatives. Why not allow players to use low grade wooden peg-nails that decay faster instead of iron nails? Why not have a crude chisel of wood that breaks easily than a iron chisel, or a wooden trowel? I can use a wooden mallet instead of a iron hammer. The only fence you can build without iron nails for an enclosure that's worth a darn is a palisade. 

 

I'm  just thinking there are a lot of alternatives out there, let's use them and not stifle growth of the player base.

[JakeRivers 2,921]

[Audrel 2,223]

There are crude stone items for those in a pinch. I've had to use those too. Think noobie gear is bad? 

[Audrel 2,223]

7 minutes ago, JakeRivers said:

 

If only you could raise chickens on the roof!

[JakeRivers 2,921]

Just now, Audrel said:

There are crude stone items for those in a pinch. I've had to use those too. Think noobie gear is bad? 

 

Trapped in a mine one night, while waiting for help decided to try and mine my way out, no pick though, but mine had a bsb of rockshards, logs and forges. Started out with crude pick axe, then mined enough iron to make a anvil, then made a iron pick axe, then mined more iron to imp up the pick axe. 

 

Was halfway through mining out the first wall when a gm showed up and ported me out of the mine.

[Aum 771]

22 hours ago, Retrograde said:

Certainly an interesting thought. I have found that the search for iron, while logical, does take some time, especially starting out and not using a public min. The need to mine down half a dozen tiles with about 10 or so minutes spent on every tile can be frustrating.

 

Iron is also completely necessary for starting out, in nails, tools and all sorts of things, so we're not really looking at grinding mining, as that comes later.

 

What are some ideas to make mining less of a roadblock in new player experiences? Promote rummaging for iron rock a bit easier/more abundant? Or something else?

 

I am no fan of mining thats for sure, i think in 3 years my mining is at 45. mostly from surface mining.

definitely increase the amount of lump you get from an iron rock. to 1 full kg or atleast 0.5 and increase the amount of times a tile can be rummaged to 10 or something.

possibly let it yield a bit of mining skill upto 30?

that would improve the new player experience and allow you to get a small and large anvil, make whatever tools/materials you need for whatever you want to build without having to instantly put yourself in a cave for days or spend arduous hours rummaging to much with little rock around. (meaning you could also dig for a rock tile to rummage on if there is no rock around. once quality is an issue you should be well equipped by that point to tackle a mine.

just a thought anyways

 

 

 

 

[HarrisonSolo 0]

1 hour ago, Audrel said:

There are crude stone items for those in a pinch. I've had to use those too. Think noobie gear is bad? 

What crude stone items are you referring to?

[Audrel 2,223]

1 minute ago, HarrisonSolo said:

What crude stone items are you referring to?

 

http://www.wurmpedia.com/index.php/Crude_pickaxe

 

Made from forage items. Caveman stuff. 

[HarrisonSolo 0]

12 minutes ago, Audrel said:

 

http://www.wurmpedia.com/index.php/Crude_pickaxe

 

Made from forage items. Caveman stuff. 

Is there a crude stone chisel or a crude trowel? Yeah.

[Audrel 2,223]

26 minutes ago, HarrisonSolo said:

Is there a crude stone chisel or a crude trowel? Yeah.

 

No. A crude chisel would wear out fast but would be handy. You can use your hand if needed to spread mortar. But...

[Malvado 37]

I used to mine back in Beta and even then I allways felt it sucked, the only thing that kept med enjoying it was in fact that I used several "tools" to automine and watched Youtube instead while my ton mined in the background.

Some people I knew mined on their own without the use of tools , but honestly the whole click , wait , click , wait was abusive and should have been fixed a long time ago.

 

If you want a game that people enjoys you could simply put remove things like that and just allow your charater to auto - mine a tile without any skill loss or problems (so you don't have to watch stamina drops to 0 etc ) , that would fix several problems like :

 

1 : You can have a progress bar showing you when you get the next "rock shard" or how much it will take to mine down the current tile.

2 : Damage meters on tools and other GUI options could help miners to decide when to take a break (eat , drink and fix equipment ).

3 : 3d Visuals of you actually mining down the current tile would add to the game inmersion and could easily also be made in a way that you will only see what your miner is seeing (to avoid abuse of it).

 

Other problems for new players are that many of them comes from Minecraft where mining is super fast and are not limited by the bad implementation of the underground section of the game that Notch made years ago, so honestly that part has to totally change (which will probably kill Wurm onlines underground worlds when done) , but that could also make the game a lot better by actually making the game go deeper underground and higher above ground. A good programmer could probably put up a good code that would not destroy the game. If done correctly the world would not be divided and would work a lot better than what it does now. 

 

So yes, mining is a problem and should probably be looked at so that both veterans and newbies can enjoy it again.

[joedobo 1,187]

- Make it easier for players to sell things like bulk nails, iron lumps, locks. How to achieve this? First we need a system to answer Who, has what, for how much, and where? Second let us put a bulk bundle of items on a merchant. 500 small nails as a single bulk object would weigh 100kg and take up less space than a satchel. 

- Attach 1ql locks to carts, boats, house doors, and gates when created. The player doesn't have to attach on, provide one or metal for one.

- Wood pegs act as a substitute for small and large nails.

- A large extension of possible tool creation materials. Add new materials to make heads/blades, handles, and tool-shafts (different then wooden shafts and can only be used to make tools). Here are some potential tool part creation materials: bones (new butcher item from ALL ANIMALS), rock, wood, ceramic, gems, a magical field stabilized into a tool creation part. For example: carving knife.  It's made from a shimmering magic blade and troll bone handle. This system could be very cool if there were benefits and negatives to each material.

[Biervampyr 97]

just an idea,why not make it similiar to fishing/leveling so you get a long timer and it will mine till it runs out of stamina and once every some seconds you drop a rockshard. newbs still need to mine longer than old players becouse they get the rockshards faster out of the rocktile...of course just an idea. it will still be tedious to mine but now you can really easy watch a movei XD

[rixk 830]

I don't think mining needs to be changed.. yes, I am using the same: "we all did it".. yes, we did it, we all felt achievement, when we got something done. Why do you want to take away sense of achievement from new players?

 

Here are no quests, depending on what you need the game creates challenges for you. And finding iron is first challenge. And when someone doesn't bother to find iron, they probably didn't get in the game enough to really want that iron. So I think that no matter how easy you make the game for such people, it doesn't matter.. they will very likely leave anyway.

[Maximillian 155]

I loved mining when I was a noob started to get bored with it around 50skill because the mystery in mining was lost. If there was more to find while mining on the rare occasion it would certainly help a lot in keeping it interesting. Now days I'm 90+ mining and enjoy it once in a while.

[Klaa 4,872]

I love mining; however, it could be better... oh so much better.

 

On 1/7/2016 at 10:43 AM, Warlander said:

It is (obviously) one of most repetitive actions, but... Is there any better possible alternative other than altering timers/actions needed?

 

I think that some big mining changes could change this state - stuff like multilevel mining and building below ground are long awaited features and would surely bring more life into "underground" living. I wouldn't complain about smaller tiles (like 1/2 of current ones) as well (so for example you can walk in 1/2 tile tunnel, but to drive cart you need to make it wider, veins shapes could be more natural as well, more details in shaping would be possible this way as well).

 

[thekraken 270]

On 1/7/2016 at 3:03 PM, Retrograde said:

Certainly an interesting thought. I have found that the search for iron, while logical, does take some time, especially starting out and not using a public min. The need to mine down half a dozen tiles with about 10 or so minutes spent on every tile can be frustrating.

 

Iron is also completely necessary for starting out, in nails, tools and all sorts of things, so we're not really looking at grinding mining, as that comes later.

 

What are some ideas to make mining less of a roadblock in new player experiences? Promote rummaging for iron rock a bit easier/more abundant? Or something else?

 

 

Maybe have some sort of above ground iron source that is capped at like 20 and doesn't provide any skillgain over 20. I'm thinking the like the model for a boulder or a source spring, and have this at starer deeds.

[Jorr 1]

Im still fairly new (less than 3 months) and didn't find mining to be any deteriant to me staying. Do find the need to use low qua picks for skill gain when mining rock i need to make fences/walls weird, but thats a different topic. I do not think youll keep players that find mining "to difficult" at the start regardless if you make it easier.

 

Adding more to rumaging possibly would be a good idea thou, as this would be a good option, to get those first few iron things you need to get rolling.

 

Think the biggest problem to retention in this game is the tutorial. There is no "hands on" stuff you do. Most from what im seeing just skip it, then are totally lost when they hit the mainlands. Think it go a long way towards player retention to add things to the tutorial they "do" such as "heres how you mine and smelt" "heres how you make a anvil and nails" boom they have the stuff they need to start off well once out of the tutorial. and also  lot better understanding of how to "do" stuff in game.

Edited January 12, 2016 by Jorr

[Simyaci 392]

If they try to settle in one of the old servers, they might also face the problem of not being able to find any iron, gold and silver veins. Even servers with many abandoned areas (which has been abandoned for a very very long time) have only few veins in a huge area. The vein respawns through random cave ins must be awfully slow

[Yiraia 427]

If availability of Iron is an issue to plenty of people then why not have it so they can rummage through rock shards as well? It can be an alternative to gaining prospecting skill rather than the grind of prospecting tiles for no benefits except skill. The higher the skill, the better the chance of getting an iron rock out of it. Of course the rock would be consumed and it the chance would be decently low at first.

Edited January 13, 2016 by Yiraia