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Takinshi

Forum text editor red font is too bright (Derailed ad post)

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Rather than necro-ing the two or so threads, one of my own included, I feel it is necessary to bring this up again. 

If you decide to read this or comment, please focus on conflict resolution rather than conflict dismissal

 


Snooping around the market like I regularly do, I found a post full of mid rate gear. I immediately though "no-one's going to buy any of this" and went to close the tab but that thought stopped me. I don't buy things unless they are top tier-ish or rare.. Same goes for almost all of the rest of the market.

Comparing with games like warcraft in regards to gear, you start low, slowly upgrading as you go. Even at the top you would upgrade bits and pieces at a time. On here, you have your starter gear you spawn with and jump to the top tier gear completely disregarding absolutely everything in between. Loading warcraft, starting at level 1 and jump to endgame gear while at level 1. Comparatively I'd be like level 40 on warcraft's scale but I'm almost maxxed out gear wise. I've only been around for a few months and I suck at games. lol.

Point being, I see this as a problem and solutions that come to mind would revolve around population. IF we had a significantly larger player base, the demand for higher quality would of course go up, but the demand for affordable lower quality would rise as well. 

 

Getting to the focus of this topic, having a larger player base would likely resolve the conflict present. Something I often do to make sure I am moving in the right direction to the "root" of the problem is to see what stems off of the solution. Occasionally it can be misleading and my focus could be heading the wrong direction. Attached is a random blank mind mapping diagram as I feel I am not sufficiently explaining myself.

Spoiler


2009725_orig.png

 

I am trying to head inwards with a solution that solves other problems that are not within my current attention. I feel that Advertisement is at the center of the conflict and resolving the lack of advertisement would also fix many other areas that wurm is hurting in. 

I've got a feeling that the dev staff doesn't care to look into suggestions unless they are easy so I would like to discuss this question openly to develop options that would be past the brainstorming phase. I've proposed this before but I would like to discuss how it could be created, refined and implemented:

 

User Advertisement.

 

If I were in charge of an MMO, I would try to rely on the inherent power of my current player-base to create leverage at advertising my game. Conventional advertisement is expensive and difficult to coordinate. Mainstream games often have the finances, organization and manpower to pull off conventional advertisement with success but I don't think I can consider wurm a mainstream game. I do feel steam was a good start.

 

What could I do to get my players to advertise the game for me and how could I improve its effectiveness?

What are other games doing?
What have you seen that you feel is effective?

What could be improved with the ideas we are proposing?

How could they be put into play?

How could we get the dev staff to hear us?

My brain is all frazzled as developing things like this takes a toll on ones focus so I'm going to end this post here and write my propositions later. As I said earlier, please refrain from conflict dismissal and focus heavily on conflict resolution.

Thank you for your time, 

シカゼ タキン

Edited by Takinshi

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I'll try reading this again later, but small words of advice: Please stop using custom fonts in every post you make. Trying so hard to stand out makes you look a little ostentatious (pun intended!) and the red text and italics in general impair readability and are generally considered a design faux pas for a reason.

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I've used this font scheme for over ten years now. That is not going to change any time soon. I'm often on IM so the whole forum folkway of always using the mundane font irritates the ###### out of me.

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+1 great idea

Edited by asdf
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I'm not trying to be an ass. It just causes your text to take more effort to read, which is especially grating when reading longer posts.

 

What "irritates the ##### out of [you]" is, in most places, considered normal etiquette. What makes sense in one context does not necessarily make sense in another, and large amounts of body text being in a low-contrast font color, and in italics, is generally considered poorly readable, relatively speaking. It'll help you get taken seriously to consider maybe changing this habit.

 

 

EDIT: haha god dammit asdf, you wonderful person.

Edited by Ostentatio
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I appreciate the concern but it is not needed. I'm well aware it is a folkway of forum dwellers. In regards to not being able to read it, once upon a time Taki was legally blind and unable to read 12 font without leaning in for it. It made it convenient as the default text in my community was arial 12 which anonymous are forced to use(usually trolls). Regulars would have their own selected font scheme which were often 14-16 which made effective for an incredibly rapid chat. Post something and in a few seconds, it will likely be 10 spaces up, no longer on the screen. Tis what happens when you grow up in legitimate isolation only with internet access as this began when I was eleven. Rather than attention seeking, this is comfortable to me and I self identify with 16, italicized georgia font. ###### up, right? XD

Alas, please refrain from continuing this discussion as it is derailing. Thank you for considering reading the post. ^w^

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I don't think player base will ever reach higher than 1500+ Daily online players. Considering the combat system is ****** horrible, the graphics are extreeemely outdated and the fact that everything takes a lifetime to do. Also not everyone has 15CAD/month to spare for a game that they don't always play. Unless the devs really start bringing the cards out and they start re-working all of these aspects, the servers will stay around the 1000-ish daily players. Sorry to break the bubble.

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Just slipping this in

 

 

 Rather than necro-ing the two or so threads, one of my own included, I feel it is necessary to bring this up again. If you decide to read this or comment, please focus on conflict resolution rather than conflict dismissal.  

 

Snooping around the market like I regularly do, I found a post full of mid rate gear. I immediately though "no-one's going to buy any of this" and went to close the tab but that thought stopped me. I don't buy things unless they are top tier-ish or rare.. Same goes for almost all of the rest of the market.

 

Comparing with games like warcraft in regards to gear, you start low, slowly upgrading as you go. Even at the top you would upgrade bits and pieces at a time.

On here, you have your starter gear you spawn with and jump to the top tier gear completely disregarding absolutely everything in between.

Loading warcraft, starting at level 1 and jump to endgame gear while at level 1. Comparatively I'd be like level 40 on warcraft's scale but I'm almost maxxed out gear wise. I've only been around for a few months and I suck at games. lol.

 

Point being, I see this as a problem and solutions that come to mind would revolve around population. IF we had a significantly larger player base, the demand for higher quality would of course go up, but the demand for affordable lower quality would rise as well.  

 

Getting to the focus of this topic, having a larger player base would likely resolve the conflict present. Something I often do to make sure I am moving in the right direction to the "root" of the problem is to see what stems off of the solution. Occasionally it can be misleading and my focus could be heading the wrong direction.

 

Attached is a random blank mind mapping diagram as I feel I am not sufficiently explaining myself.  

 

I am trying to head inwards with a solution that solves other problems that are not within my current attention. I feel that Advertisement is at the center of the conflict and resolving the lack of advertisement would also fix many other areas that wurm is hurting in.

I've got a feeling that the dev staff doesn't care to look into suggestions unless they are easy so I would like to discuss this question openly to develop options that would be past the brainstorming phase.

I've proposed this before but I would like to discuss how it could be created, refined and implemented:

  User Advertisement.

 

  If I were in charge of an MMO, I would try to rely on the inherent power of my current player-base to create leverage at advertising my game. Conventional advertisement is expensive and difficult to coordinate. Mainstream games often have the finances, organization and manpower to pull off conventional advertisement with success but I don't think I can consider wurm a mainstream game. I do feel steam was a good start.  

What could I do to get my players to advertise the game for me and how could I improve its effectiveness?

What are other games doing?

What have you seen that you feel is effective?

What could be improved with the ideas we are proposing?

How could they be put into play?

How could we get the dev staff to hear us?

 

My brain is all frazzled as developing things like this takes a toll on ones focus so I'm going to end this post here and write my propositions later. As I said earlier, please refrain from conflict dismissal and focus heavily on conflict resolution.

 

Thank you for your time, 

Edited by Archaed
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The reason, in my opinion, for mid-level gear not having much of a place in Wurm is that creating higher-level gear isn't really that hard for skilled characters to do, and the number of skilled characters in Wurm only really goes up, rarely down. Nobody's really going to pay for 50QL tools when there are people who can make those tools at 70+ QL with rather little effort. At really high skill levels, it's only at very high QL that tools actually wind up being significantly time-consuming, and this valuable.

 

I'm not sure of a better solution at this time, but a growing population certainly helps. However, I feel this only helps in the short term, as eventually the number of highly skilled characters will tend to go up in proportion.

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There are several key issues with it all.

 

1) lack of high levelled accounts exiting circulation. Most games don't allow character sales, so the market is very small and underground. With Wurm, they're allowed, meaning high levelled accounts are sold off when someone quits, rather than being taken out of the economy, of course then you also have the buyer needing to recoup costs.

2) no skill requirement. The reason "WoW' and other games have you upgrading as you go is due to level and skill requirements, the lack of this will always mean it's best to obtain the highest ql/enchant possible.

 

These are two things which won't really be changed easily, if at all sadly.

 

as for player advertisements, that's what the referral system was intended to do, Wurm isnt like other games and cannot rely on the same methods

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Thanks Archaed for letting me read the text from OP and not go blind...

 

Now on to the topic: it's true that all gear wurm market has is either high tier or top tier, there's just no low or mid. Not only it holds new players from spending their precious rare 1-5c coins, but it also greatly restricts them from making their own silvers on market, because they either need to make thousands of planks which kills the fun immediately or start the game with grinding any crafting skill to 70 and trying to compete with dozens of those who sell the same 70ql stuff spending 10x less time to make it at their 90-ish skills.

 

Now that we have cheap cod cost, it does actually make sense to sell 30-50ql gear for few coppers, but i don't see anybody doing that... Maybe an ingame easy-to-use auction house could help solving this.

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Now for the 895th time, because someone makes a thread about advertisement every other week: Wurm gets enough new people that try the game. Wurm's problem is not getting people to try the game, Wurm's problem is getting people to stay in the game. No amount of advertisements and funny text colours can change that.

 

As to the question of gear and economy: I had seen decent demand for low to medium level gear on my local merchant near a starter town. I had priced it accordingly, so that a new player finding a 20 copper coin could buy himself a weapon, shield or armour piece. Of course the (totally overpowered) new starter gear has killed all that low-ql gear trade by now. Sadly it also has taken away much from the sense of achievement the game could provide to new players.

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Okay first off I want to say your Color Choice of Red on this Creamy background really hurts the eye's to read not the font or the size of the font.... I found that I needed to highlight your text to make it readable!

 

Secondly your Position that everyone skips to End game gear sounds very not like the game I play!  I assume your on Freedom???

 

Because I purposely sell,

 

70QL instead of 90QL

With 70 Power casts instead of 90 Power casts on my merchant!

 

And I do so for 50-80 copper and they move.....  My 90QL 90 Power stuff sits there!!!

 

So I am not experiencing your market, but then again I live on Epic not Freedom....  And your pricing over there makes me cringe!

 

Now as for the Main Point of your post?  Advertising, honestly I think you have a point.... After Star Wars Galaxies Imploded and Ultima Online created Trammel, I found myself floundering around threw games for years I have been waiting searching and hoping for a Good Sandbox MMO like Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies were.....  I played Darkfall and Mortal Online, Eve you name it but I never really knew what wurm was.  Honestly I kept seeing the name in threads and lists but Wurm = Lemmings or something in my mind....  I figured it was some game where birds run off cliff's....  Seriously I think Wurm was out for 6-7 Years before I finally realized that it was a Sandbox MMO.....

 

So I agree that Wurm does have a marketing problem.  However it doesn't exactly have the money for marketing either!  So its a catch22....  But ultimately Wurm is not a Sandbox Game for everyone, its Action Timers and the amount of grind involved is going to turn away far more players then those that stay and for that matter its a niche Sandbox....  Even if its currently the best Sandbox out, "I keep my fingers crossed that someone will release the Sandbox MMO that makes me forget all about wurm"  Ultima Online and SWG I sunk my life into those games without a second thought....  But Post time period after those games has been me spending my time wondering what game I am going to play today, or looking and reading about new MMO's I have been constantly searching for years, waiting and I am begining to think I am likely going to die before the next great sandbox game that totally encaptures me ever arrives!  Until then I have wurm, its the game I keep coming back to because it has most of the features I want.....  Its almost the game I am dreaming about....  Its the game I have settled with for years as a placeholder if you will.....

 

So in a way its sad that the best Sandbox = Wurm  and that Wurm is an aquired taste.....  But I cross my fingers that someday the best Sandbox out will taste like Bacon!!!  Like it use to be in 1997.....

 

 

 

 

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Thanks for the repost, Archaed - made it a whole lot easier.

 

I'll echo Eobersig - the advertisement problem is far less pressing than the retention one.  We should be looking at how to make Wurm more appealing to stay playing, not how to get more people to try it.  Once retention is better, then it's time to look at getting more people in.

 

There is a market for mid-range gear, it's just a lot smaller because a) there are many more people who can make it (increasing supply) and b )  if you're going to spend some cash anyway, you may as well spend slightly more for a much better thing.  With 95+ BS, making a 70ql item is pretty much as quick and easy as making a 50ql one.  This reflects in prices: a 70ql BS tool might go for around 20c, 80ql for 50c, 90ql for 1s; at 20c, it's barely worth the effort of grinding the skill, getting the raw mats (or grinding another skill), getting out of bed, etc.

 

Personally, I don't see the market being weighted to high ql / enchant being a problem; I really like that 70ql is low-effort enough for me to make that I can hand out the odd free 70ql tool to passing newbies or impalongs without feeling like I'm having to give up significant game time to do it.

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I would say even adding pre paid game cards at stores like Walmart, Target, Best Buy, Etc where other gamers often swing by to grab Stuff like WwoW cards, Or Perfect World, etc, if they see a this  new Wurm Online Card etc or custom amount loadable card they can use in the Shop.

 

It would

 

A) Have Free Advertisement as a shelf item and then Word of Mouth from there.

 B) B ) make a little cash for graphic, Game mechanics and other improvements needed 

 

Quick easy method and it has worked for other games as a marketing strategy for years 

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I presume you are lumping enchants in there as "top tier" as 1-10ql steel hatchet with 90coc is worth more than 90ql iron hatchet with 90coc, but then new players *are* buying mid-grade enchantments, e.g. 60ql rope tool with say 60coc is extremely useflu for 20ish skill in ropemaking (swag, cannot rem what it was for my last character to grind ropemaking) and a hell of lot cheaper than 90coc on same tool.  As Ostentatio says the skill base does increase over time as it does in any game with a long presence, which will always shift a market, which usually means secondary attributes (e.g. enchants), uniqueness (e.g. drake), rarity (e.g. um rarity), and perfection (e.g. 99.99999ql).

 

In addition, while a 1ql 90coc pick may be useful some of us it is useless to new players and probably average players (if the latter group exists as mediocrity tends to mean they get bored).  A new player will develop faster with mid-grade equipment than with very high or very low ql and once they get upper levels the ql means two different things, 1-10ql for example for skilling, 90ql for speed and quality mats.  Therefore there is a use for mid-grade equipment, but the part you are missing is that in general the players themselves make their own mid-grade equipment. It takes maybe two days to get 40 in blacksmith, why would someone buy a 40-50ql pick unless it was special, i.e. steel or enchanted or both

 

So your initial "premise" which was was able to read thanks to Archaed lacks some substance.  In addition, it does not sufficiently follow to support your argument.  ("no use for midgrade equipment" -> ("need more new players" -> "need more advertisement")) is a long ways off from a sound argument when you actually account for mid grade equipment as i note among other augments that invalidate the premise.  ("need more new players" -> "need more advertisement") is sound though

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Ah, high level crafting being stupidly easy isn't something I had insight on.  

 
 

That is totally true Archaed. High end accounts generally end up being another player on them. I feel that if we had a large playerbase, the demand for good accounts would be high which would thin out the account selling market making them more valuable. At the same time, I'm concerned that gold farmers would jump allover wurm at this point. Some of those bastards automacro systems are brutally hard to identify. Alas, that's a problem for MMOs that have massive population and not a concern as it is now. 
 
In regards to skill requirement, that's a totally interesting perspective to me. I've never considered skill requirement on wurm. It would probably be a massive nerf and would really suck if they implemented something like that at this point, unless it was something such as the closer QL tool to your skill, the more effective you use it. Give me a divine carving knife having no experience with woodwork, my carvings would be as ###### as using a crude tool would be. Lol, it would be faster though but that might lead to more mistakes. I don't really want to dabble into the depths of this topic... haha. Scary! 
 
The [referral system], bracketed because it's an item at this point, is generally used to reduce the expense of premming a new account. I find the name referral system as misleading as it is more a gift you can sell rather than a tool to credit those that introduced you to wurm.  
 
In regards to zigozag's content, I totally ###### agree. XD That idea of an ingame auction house sounds amazing but it would take a lot of speculation. I'd love that but I would probably be rich off of wurm and no longer play the game.. SWTOR... I was one of the richest players on the server I was on by level 15 with every endgame item I could want that isn't bind on pickup. Yeah, I was ###### loaded but that completely killed the game for me. T_T AH's can be dangerous.. haha. I'm unsure if it would or would not be good for wurm.  
 
Those that I have responded to, thank you kindly for your genuine input. I really appreciate you. 
 
 
 

 
 

 
 
Steering the topic a bit, I'd like to focus on what we could do to create/improve wurm's advertisement system. I'll lead off with one of my proposals which would need more speculation if considered seriously. 

 
 

Once upon a time, Taki was a SRGM for a blizlike(same as retail, slightly buggy) warcraft private server. Our admin built a program?? that generates a referral code under your name and it leads to account creation giving genuine credit to those that refer. If that user plays regularly, you are recognized having genuinely invited someone to the server. If said player donates to the server, you are also recognized as inviting someone who supports the server. You'd be rewarded with in game tokens for aesthetic goodies and whatnot but nothing you could trade or get an upper edge with. 
 
This promoted players themselves to loosely advertise the server on their own through whatever social medium they use. I've always been on various IM communities with 800-3k inbound daily so finding people interested in the server wasn't difficult. Disclaimer: I only shared link via pm. None of that chat spam advert bs.  

 
 

--------------------------------------------------------- 

^ Unposted lastnight. Had to suddenly leave the compy. lol. 
 
In regards to Eobersig, I failed to find a sufficient thread in regards to how we can work on advertisement. Of course the problem is people don't STAY in the game. The reason I am focusing on people to try the game is because that is something realistically within reach of my influence. Devs are the ones that need to un-###### the game and I don't feel I have a position to assist in that endeavor. I really appreciate your insight in regards to your starter town merchant.  
 
In regards to sulfurblade, I'll change the background of my posts to white as this is what I normally have. If it's still difficult, I'll shift to black. Otherwise it's high contrast people find difficult (Tried and it only backdrops text leaving that cream ###### inbetween sentences. I'mna dig around to make coding that will backdrop the entire post rather than surrounding text). Your portrayal of the epic market is pretty interesting and thank you greatly for focusing on the primary element of my topic: Advertisement. I was in the same boat in regards to never hearing about wurm even though it would be my type of game in highschool, lol. It totally takes a certain breed of person to put up with wurm. I'm also in the same boat in regards to wurm as a placeholder. The deliverance community is a strong element keeping me here but people make a masterwork game, make a ton of cash and then go to stagnancy while focusing arbitrarily on small details. One day...  
 
 Vortexxx. Prepaid gamecards wouldn't be expensive to develop. Getting the contract out there may be but that would loosely advertise the game as well as help kiddos without a card to buy prem and whatnot. Unfortunately that's an executive decision and out of the community's control. I hope they take up on this kind of thing. 
 
 

In regards to ClericGunem, I see where you're coming from. When I played on epic, as a newbie I grinded up my tools to 50ish pretty quickly and religiously obsessed over having my signature on everything I made, lol. All in all though, equipment mechanics are not what I am aiming to focus on. 'Tis something that brought my attention to advertisement which looms over a bunch of other issues. Thank you for the clarification. 

 
 

All in all, I'm looking for a way to utilize the playerbase that is within the communities control. We can tell the devs all day fix this, make that but the decision is made by them arbitrarily. I'm seeking something that WE can develop that is relatively plug and play that is worth catching their attention

Edited by Takinshi

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Dude, i was going to respond but i developed a mild headache halfway through reading that, seriously.  if you won't take your posts seriously and have some common courtesy toward perspective readers then don't expect anyone to take it seriously

Edited by ClericGunem

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That font blends with the background a bit much, make it darker at least...

 

Quote

If I were in charge of an MMO, I would try to rely on the inherent power of my current player-base to create leverage at advertising my game.

Yeah... anytime I tell people about Wurm, I make it sound like it's not worth their time...

Edited by KyleBooze

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One of my friends sent me a picture of his massive HD backlit monitor. I use an Alienware laptop monitor, regular HDTV and some crappy but pretty samsung monitor. That is definitely not the brightness that I see, lol. The only red font that wurm has is max contrast for some reason. Going to try this color for awhile. Give feedback on this one real quick so I can determine alterations.

Edited by Takinshi

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2 hours ago, Takinshi said:

Give feedback

 

Considering you're posting this for everyone else to read and not you to read, just use the default text so we can read it fine and nobody complains

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8 minutes ago, MrGARY said:

just use the default text so we can read it fine and nobody complains

image_thumb1.png
 

Soo binary.. I've been obstinant and unco-operative. I'm trying to land in the middle, not flip flop on extremes. I'm asking for legitimate feedback on the font color so I can stop blasting people with bright monitors and can get back on topic.

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