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Atlas

Wurm 2016

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Question for all, what would you like to see this year to increase the population of Wurm?

 

I dont think CC needs to reinvent the wheel or make some groundbreaking new innovation in MMO design. Just the opposite, in fact: i think CC should follow the industry and move to an entirely free to play business model.

 

Specifically:

Drop the monthly subscription and make the game 100% free to play with an in game shop to heavily monetize cosmetic items. Monetize deeds but reduce their price and reduce the cost of silver in the shop by 25%

 

Roll this out with a package overhaul of many other planned changes (ape popular WU mods) and for god-sakes change the name of the game to something else...Wurm is a worm in US English!

 

Go free to play--like every single *other* MMO in existence now--or cease to exist in 12 months. Go free to play and see the highest player count you've ever experienced, see a boom in the player economy and community health. Change your team to focus heavily on developing cosmetic art assets that you can monetize. Probably 30%+ of your small population of players are the fabled whales that other devs dream of and chase...You have left money on the table for years. Imagine if you monetized a custom Alliance tabard for Freedom players...just a start.

 

What do you think?

 

good luck CC!

 

 

 

Edited by Atlas
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TBH the best way for him to increase the player count going forward would be to move away from java. 

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3d caves, mount&blade fighting system, rework of priest & sorcery system, groups of mobs/npcs for better PvE experience...

 

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Dairuka, most of what that anonymous man said on that video I disagree with.I believe most of it is false.

 

Something to think about

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i prefer to pay a monthly fee

in f2p games, money is allways present in the game in the sense that you start to think in money. ooh 1E for this and 4E for that etc etc

i just want to play wurm, so sub payed and be done with it

 

so i say stay sub based please

 

also i thought we werent doing the doomg and gloom threads anymore....

"or cease to exit in 12 months" not happening!

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1 hour ago, elroth said:

i prefer to pay a monthly fee

in f2p games, money is allways present in the game in the sense that you start to think in money. ooh 1E for this and 4E for that etc etc

i just want to play wurm, so sub payed and be done with it

 

so i say stay sub based please

 

also i thought we werent doing the doomg and gloom threads anymore....

"or cease to exit in 12 months" not happening!

 

The Wurm currency "Silver" translates directly into Euros. I find myself thinking things like "who'd pay 19€ for a rare sailboat?" constantly. Just saying.

 

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Bugfixing. If I enter a game's forums and the bug section is bigger than the discussion section I walk away right then and there (I started playing back when the game wasn't so buggy, to answer those who wonder wtf I'm doing here).

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3 hours ago, demondan said:

Dairuka, most of what that anonymous man said on that video I disagree with.I believe most of it is false.

 

Something to think about

 

Demondan, most of what that not so anonymous man said on that video I agree with. I believe most of it is true.

 

It seems our opinions differ. I bid you good day, good sir.

 

Edited by Dairuka
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You mean this old game doesn't jive with the modern business model of tickle the youngins tinkles and pay to win? I'm shocked. People have been saying Wurm is about to die since I started and it has been a bit.

8 hours ago, Atlas said:

Drop the monthly subscription and make the game 100% free to play

That's called leaving money on the table.

 

8 hours ago, Atlas said:

with an in game shop to heavily monetize cosmetic items.

You need at least one quality of flashy, pretty, sexy, or quantity. Wurm has none of these things. Wurm works well with none of these things.
 

8 hours ago, Atlas said:

Monetize deeds

They cost silver. Silver can be purchased from the cash shop. Done. Monetized. You're welcome.

 

8 hours ago, Atlas said:

but reduce their price

Deeds are already cheaper than ever.

 

8 hours ago, Atlas said:

reduce the cost of silver in the shop by 25%

Pointless. The only way a cash shop price drop helps is if it is competitive with player sales after adjusting for the effect of new currency vs recycled and that is not a profitable rabbit hole to go down.

 

8 hours ago, Atlas said:

for god-sakes change the name of the game to something else...Wurm is a worm in US English!

 

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=wurm

 

Spoiler

argothian_wurm_by_athayar-d6smiu1.jpg

 

Spoiler

Massacre-Wurm-MtG-Art.jpg

 

8 hours ago, Atlas said:

or cease to exist in 12 months.

Can I have your stuff?

 

8 hours ago, Atlas said:

Change your team to focus heavily on developing cosmetic art assets that you can monetize.

How exactly do you think development works? You do understand programmers generally aren't great at switching to modeling or sound design or texturing right? Some can do it, sure, but not as well as a good contract artist. Current devs, raise your hand if you would like to find a new job so your pay can go towards art contracts that won't be awarded to you. Anyone?

 

8 hours ago, Atlas said:

Probably 30%+ of your small population of players are the fabled whales that other devs dream of and chase

Ironic that those you are thinking of probably stand at the other extreme from whales. Those who would rather sell 20k bricks and maybe sell off a bit of excess silver than pay the shop.

 

8 hours ago, Atlas said:

You have left money on the table for years.

Oh wow you actually used the phrase and everything. Money on the table has more to do with missing gains due to correct effort but poor strategy. Pumping whales here would be a very poor course of action. You probably can't find a less receptive playerbase to it. If you like that kind of behavior, you want to be searching Google Play, not Wurm.

 

8 hours ago, Atlas said:

Imagine if you monetized a custom Alliance tabard for Freedom players

Literally the only thing you said of merit.

 

Why is this in the Town Square?

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8 hours ago, Josh said:

java

 

need i say more

 

^THIS

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Rolf's subtle decisions bear watching.  For example, he saw the WU community offer cash shop items for clay, tar, etc. as a way for players to help with server expenses and a way to make less desirable locations on maps more palatable.  He then followed that up by injecting game mechanics which would allow players to make them in-game.  That is an interesting decision because he could have added such items to the WO cash shop to bring in some revenue, but he didn't.

 

Regardless, with the introduction of WU, the current payment model for WO is not sustainable long-term in my opinion.  Deed upkeep has been mostly perfected now.  But premium is still too high when compared to what you get from other games and even from WU (free premium and no priest restrictions so you can play with a single toon).  I think the sweet spot is somewhere in the middle.

 

Edited by Eyesgood
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Nvm prlly get a ban lol.

Edited by Redd
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Personally i could see myself playing (And thus paying) more if things would get sped up a bit.

 

I would assume there are more people like me who treat wurm like a social online map editor with crafting and a few survival elements. And the glacial pace is allways what eventually makes me stop playing, often before finishing what i envisioned. Then i come back a year later or so and start over. So yeah, if it would take me only 6 months to build a project instead of 10 or more, that would greatly increase my staying/paying time.

 

That's just my 2 cents though.

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Move to Unreal or Unity -anything else is a waste of time and resources.

Once moved to a different platform, build an integrated modding infrastructure

Rebuild current low pop WO servers into WU servers and charge for CC hosted WU servers

Setup a WURM asset shop where anyone can develop content for WURM - See Unity asset shop for an example. CC should also develop and sell content here

Abandon WO alltogether and transition to a WU Architecture based on the new platform.

Monetize as needed

 

Edited by sunsvortex
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1 hour ago, sunsvortex said:

Move to Unreal or Unity -anything else is a waste of time and resources.

Once moved to a different platform, build an integrated modding infrastructure

Rebuild current low pop WO servers into WU servers and charge for CC hosted WU servers

Setup a WURM asset shop where anyone can develop content for WURM - See Unity asset shop for an example. CC should also develop and sell content here

Abandon WO alltogether and transition to a WU Architecture based on the new platform.

Monetize as needed

 

So Gmod. You want Gmod.

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I think Sun may be onto something here.  If WO merged into WU, then created a hard set of standards, that any other player hosted server could adopt, then allowed connectors from those servers, we would open the old WO world to the new model.

 

Player WU servers would have an option to use "classic Wurm" settings, insuring only approved mods, skills, etc were employed.  Certain GM functions would be turned off, preventing GM aided cheating.  Something along these lines, to allow player WU server's players to move between all the linked WU "classic" servers.

 

Probably far too hard to police something like this, but would be fantastically interesting to see it happen.

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If Free to Play isn't the industry Best Practice then someone please tell me why every other MMO has transitioned to this model? And certainly when an MMO experiences a rapid decline or collapse it *always* goes to a Free to Play model--and it *always* experiences both higher revenues AND higher populations. This isnt anything new now and is considered common knowledge both within and outside the industry. If Wurm went to a Free to Play model do you think the population would be further reduced? Would the population increase significantly? We are not talking about re-inventing the wheel or pioneering some new approach to running an MMO here...simply adopting an industry tried-and-true model for achieving maximum success (population and revenue) for an MMO. Teams of business executives and consultants have had this same review and decided to adopt this business plan many multitudes of times over, for many other MMOs...who thinks that CC should do something contrary to that and try to swim upstream, against the accepted state of the MMO industry; against the current of a pay-once WU? Anyone going to argue for that?

 

I agree with everyone that a long-term project of migrating Wurm over to a new engine is a good idea. However, something like that could take upwards of 2+ years and thousands of man hours of development. On the other hand, transitioning to a free to play model could be announced and accomplished within weeks.

 

Thoughts?

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58 minutes ago, Atlas said:

I agree with everyone that a long-term project of migrating Wurm over to a new engine is a good idea. However, something like that could take upwards of 2+ years and thousands of man hours of development. On the other hand, transitioning to a free to play model could be announced and accomplished within weeks.

 

Thoughts?

6 months to transition the code to Unity if that long. Its not like creating a new game, you all ready know what you want, you allready know what needs to be developed,you allready know how everything works, you have hundreds if not thousands of examples throughout the web on how to achieve anything that WURM allready does via Unity. The biggest issue is getting the client server model correct, and Unity makes this fairly easy. 6 months tops with 5 developers working on it, which is how many Rolf said he has currently working on WURM. If the devs go nuts and resist the move or unforseen issues arrise - then say 1 year to transition. No longer than 1 year to make this move under any set of circumstances. And I didnt even count the non paid devs, throw them in and easily 6 months given a concerted effort. Java skills  =  Java Script skills, C++  just buckle down and learn what you need to make it work. Worry about fully learning the language later and hire someone temp to help get past any sticky parts.

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Remove premium costs, create a cosmetic cash shop with items. Considering WU is a one time fee a lot of people are just going there to play. A fair cash shop with cosmetic items would solves a lot of problems even if people might hate the idea. You don't need a silly hat or a chicken outfit but some people would love that kind of thing.

 

Another idea is to keep the monthly cost maybe reduce it to 5e a month but make loyalty rewards better, right now why would anyone inactive want to be subscribed if you keep giving yellow potions out?

 

 

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3 minutes ago, Niki said:

You don't need a silly hat or a chicken outfit

 

I would totally spend 15$ on a chicken outfit, And another 5$ on a rubber chicken to smite my enemies with. 

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So those of you saying Java is the issue:

 

Can you give me some specific reasons? Are there limitations in Java that you know about and would like to bring to our attention?

 

I mean essentially Java builds code down into a byte code, which is similar to Assembly. The JVM acts as an intermediary between this byte code and the machine code for the architecture and operating system you are running. Java is also a managed language, as is C#. I suppose it *is* an easy thing to pick on, but I'd like some constructive feedback and serious talk. :)

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the thing about java is, there's no way you could switch to anything else, so there's not much point discussing that anyway

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The complaints about Java is 99% FUD. The modern JVMs are really really good at optimizing stuff. For spots where performance really matters it can very often achieve performance very close to hand written native C or assembly code.

 

The main problem is bad code (and trust me, i've been digging enough through WU code over the last few weeks)... and you can write bad code in any language.

 

Also as @asdf said - switching to a new language will be a full and complete rewrite of everything. The chances of this happening so far into a project's life (wurm is over 10 years old now!) are nil.

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