So whats gonna happen?

[Propheteer 7,139]

On 5/10/2016 at 2:53 AM, Nappy said:

 

 

 

you forgot to mention that all of the features promised on epic were not there at launch.

 

:^

[MootRed 193]

2 hours ago, Alexgopen said:

Whats going to happen from here? It's a few steps:

-snip-

 

\o/ Wishing you luck, alex! 

[Nappy 1,369]

1 hour ago, Propheteer said:

 

you forgot to mention that all of the features promised on epic were not there at launch.

 

:^

 

Unfortunately I wasn't there at launch time so no idea what was promised versus what was received. If promises were made then they should have been kept (or not made in the first place).

 

I do know that more then 50 people joined Epic after I interviewed the Epic rulers last year and posted my series on PVP from a PVE perspective. For a variety of reasons 47 of those people rapidly left afterwards (usually in under 2 - 3 months).

 

Those people joined all kingdoms, JK, MR, HOTS, VD, Rome. Of the 47 people who left Epic not a single one mentioned poor PVP mechanics for why they left.

 

Most common reasons in order were (and not calling out any kingdom in particular - in most cases all kingdoms were mentioned for many of these):

 

- Constantly being attacked by an all powerful kingdom before they even had a chance to get skilled up enough to fight

- Scorched earth strategy practiced during raids so they always had to rebuild starting from nothing

- Constant accusations of being a spy alt and therefore not being allowed to join an actual group of fighters

- Nasty behavior on forums and in game

- A feeling of inattentive and/or biased support 

- No easy way to learn PVP, what skills, strategies, tactics etc since there are differences from fighting etc in PVE

- Constant fear of attack with no room to just explore and have fun - especially from super high end accounts in large groups that they couldn't hope to counter

- PVP was too hard core, they liked the fear of being killed or raided but they didn't want to have that fear every moment of every day (I interpreted this to mean perhaps a preference for home server play where they can have danger at a less intense level then Elevation)
- Elevation was way too big for the population size resulting in it taking way too long a time commitment to even have PVP

 

When I think back on that time, both the fact that so many came to try Epic and then that so many later left again rapidly, it makes me think that focusing only on game mechanics won't save Epic or Chaos or PVP in general. We also need to focus on what we want our community to be and how we can make that community somewhere that others would like to join. 

 

In my opinion fixing the global community aspect of Epic from forums right through to player behavior in game is a key factor in what will turn the numbers around. Ignore this change and I think success will be fleeting, even with the best mechanic changes in the world. 

 

Remember when people are unhappy they don't always say anything, often they simply disappear. How many people have left Epic in the last few years never to return?

 

~Nappy

[Propheteer 7,139]

1 hour ago, Nappy said:

- Constantly being attacked by an all powerful kingdom before they even had a chance to get skilled up enough to fight. Late game imbalance supplemented by hard limits on time (like meditation, valrei, being around long enough to get enough hotas for glimmer/addy armor for even more DR). Just neglect on the developers behalf to fix these issues when they are first reported after the features are in place and then reported again for every three months afterwards.

- Scorched earth strategy practiced during raids so they always had to rebuild starting from nothing This became an issue because the developers have made it increasingly easier to rebuild and defend as well as making deeds so cheap you can pay for five wardeeds with pocket change. When the old old old village forms were in the game, this NEVER happened. Before towercapping it only happened to one or two individuals, and after towercapping and even cheaper deeds it became commonplace. It started to get even more commonplace now that you can level dirtwalls to make it take much less time to destroy and rebuild. On top of all of this, capitol deeds abuse so many mechanics in their construction that it is very hard to raid within a day with everything you need beforehand AND outnumbering the defenders 7 to 1. It blatantly encourages people to cause as much damage as possible so they can finish the raid the next day.

- Constant accusations of being a spy alt and therefore not being allowed to join an actual group of fighters. This became an issue when people who abused alts stopped getting banned, and was further exasperated by stopping the banning and continuing to allow f2p alts with no form of policing it via game mechanics or staff intervention.

- Nasty behavior on forums and in game That is the standard, but something i've noticed is that it gets worse the less PvP there is and with a smaller population as the hardcore veteran groups usually just speak their mind or were brought up around being trolled by other kingdoms.

- A feeling of inattentive and/or biased support. Yep. I have seen players die to a bug, lose skills, items, whatever it is and not be reimbursed and then have someone else in a different kingdom be reimbursed for the same thing in the same scenario simply because they worded the ticket differently. I have also seen game-breaking scenarios where staff members refuse to do anything that results in a massive loss of gear, time, effort and skill from ONE side of players. (you know, such as the games terrible performance in raids resulting in 50-60 people crashing 4-5 times every 10 seconds to the point where those who were raiding either die or log out until its better and be killed when they log in because they can't move otherwise.)

- No easy way to learn PVP, what skills, strategies, tactics etc since there are differences from fighting etc in PVE. Very true, I don't know how to get around this as when i played when i was most active, it was commonplace for a change to be made that really changed the meta without even being posted on patch notes. You add that in with a spiderweb of features that all effect another feature, it's hard for players to really educate other players about it outside of the basics. For most people they just have to experience it, and getting that experience is something that takes time and a lot of death and investment which really isn't that encouraging.

- Constant fear of attack with no room to just explore and have fun - especially from super high end accounts in large groups that they couldn't hope to counter. A prime result of poor balance resulting in the inability for new players to ever be on par with a group of vets, as well as hard limits on time to be able to compete because of features such as meditation (which only exist to further exaggerate the strength of an already strong account, especially when combined with valrei items.)

- PVP was too hard core, they liked the fear of being killed or raided but they didn't want to have that fear every moment of every day (I interpreted this to mean perhaps a preference for home server play where they can have danger at a less intense level then Elevation) Easily understandable, although i'm not sure this is too much of a problem as that also attracts some players.
- Elevation was way too big for the population size resulting in it taking way too long a time commitment to even have PVP. Basically a result of all the other things.

 

~Nappy

 

i basically agree with all of that, and yeah I don't know any new players who quit over poor PvP mechanics, that seems to really be hitting the veterans more than anything.

 

I know when I was Rome we made a PMK quit because two people left our kingdom and stole a bunch of stuff and joined that other PMK, so we asked around and they said they didn't have it but a few people said they did. So we raided, and after knocking into bascially everything on deed we managed to find our stuff at the loss of those players. It sucks ass when that happens, and it also sucks when noobs are killed often because the other experienced players don't ever take a real risk because everything in the game is built around encouraging them not to and built around helping the defenders.

 

I also know it's very hard to get started in the game. When we founded Rome we had a lot of new players in our PMK, and these players had all the support systems in place with abundant gear, projects, experienced players to help them and even then a lot of them just dropped off over time.

 

 

Edited May 12, 2016 by Propheteer

[Zekezor 3,188]

5 hours ago, Propheteer said:

I also know it's very hard to get started in the game. When we founded Rome we had a lot of new players in our PMK, and these players had all the support systems in place with abundant gear, projects, experienced players to help them and even then a lot of them just dropped off over time.

Being spoonfeed everything removes the sense of a challenge and isnt always a positive thing. Joining "the best" rather than the underdogs tend to aid in removing enjoyment aswell for some.

Also when joining a well established kingdom every skill is "available" on someones account and at high level, which removes the incentive for a newb to grind their stuff high since noone needs their stuff.

Thus, some quit.

 

Not to forget that there is also inherent flaws in bringing newbies into certain types of combat.

Bringing a very poor account on a normal sailboat for instance is a tremendous liability for everyone on it.

A person who cant ride a hellhorse going on land along with a rare geared hellhorse group is also generally a negative impact for the group.

[AlphaMaleAD 10]

7 hours ago, Propheteer said:

 

i basically agree with all of that, and yeah I don't know any new players who quit over poor PvP mechanics, that seems to really be hitting the veterans more than anything.

 

I know when I was Rome we made a PMK quit because two people left our kingdom and stole a bunch of stuff and joined that other PMK, so we asked around and they said they didn't have it but a few people said they did. So we raided, and after knocking into bascially everything on deed we managed to find our stuff at the loss of those players. It sucks ass when that happens, and it also sucks when noobs are killed often because the other experienced players don't ever take a real risk because everything in the game is built around encouraging them not to and built around helping the defenders.

 

I also know it's very hard to get started in the game. When we founded Rome we had a lot of new players in our PMK, and these players had all the support systems in place with abundant gear, projects, experienced players to help them and even then a lot of them just dropped off over time.

 

 

I would like to add that I remember in particular Rome actually being very understanding when we were first building up that PMK as well. There were 'hey welcome to epic' level raids that got people motivated, had a bit of fun, but left our horses and items in tact. That is the type of pvp I think people enjoy seeing, and I know I didn't mind that level of getting beat in pvp at all.

I had to leave wurm before any other drama occurred so can't comment on that.

I feel that a lot of players are actually really interested in fostering a healthy pvp community, but there are some things that are out of their control due to mechanics (SOTG and higher end metal being so rare that the old players gather it up to compete with other older players which makes sense because they need to for their own survival) but then when they are against new guys there is just no easy mechanic for new players to cope with that.

[akaedis 429]

11 hours ago, Alexgopen said:

Whats going to happen from here? It's a few steps:

1. I'll finish writing anticheat for Wurm Unlimited probably in about a week or two if I'm not busy

2. WU servers will have the ability to enforce fair play by restricting client mods and people will be drawn to pvp on WU

3. Servers will make use of various mods to fix the things that we see as broken (and a lot of these mods already exist)

4. Well run servers will become popular and pvpers will largely flock to those rather than the slowly developed WO

5. Everybody will have a great time and Rolf will shut down epic and chaos

That is to say that during the mere week or two this will take there won't really be any status updates from me. I will be ensuring to work on my own time when not busy with class, as well as doing so at my own pace, leisure and ability. I'll also be taking feedback from a few select modders who I am familiar with.

This will be an overnight fix, and will greatly inhibit players' ability to cheat on PVP WU servers.  I like the idea of a fair WU and I will spend the time improving the security of the anticheat to ensure that it achieves the desired outcome.

A project like this isn't that difficult and doesn't take much time.  It's a simple writing of native libraries, checking the validity of the client against known accepted versions, securely reporting to the server, and testing its implementation. My goal is to provide an even playing field in PvP on WU servers, so that hosts can focus on keeping it balanced, functional, and most importantly, fun.

 

Yo mind tossing in the WU trader exploit patch & Steam Login patches too? Those are quite annoying to encounter on smaller servers. (I don't read patch notes but i doubt WO Dev team has even bothered to attempt to add them to WU patches)

 

Also i don't suppose your gonna release the source? Would be greatly appreciated if you did~

[Alexgopen 2,376]

2 hours ago, akaedis said:

 

Yo mind tossing in the WU trader exploit patch & Steam Login patches too? Those are quite annoying to encounter on smaller servers. (I don't read patch notes but i doubt WO Dev team has even bothered to attempt to add them to WU patches)

 

Also i don't suppose your gonna release the source? Would be greatly appreciated if you did~

 

I feel as if patches for specific bugs should have their own specific mods, rather than lumping them all into one. 

 

Also if I released the source people would easily be able to make their own version of it as a means of bypassing it.  It will be using native libraries so if cheaters want to get around it by making their own, it will be more difficult to do so because decompiling/disassembling c binaries doesn't yield such nice readable code as Java does.  This also means I need to make a version for each Windows/Linux/Mac in each 32 and 64 bit. I'll have the mod choose the correct library so clients/hosts won't need to worry about it.  If at some point I stop developing it, I'll turn over the source to some other WU modder who would take over for me.

[akaedis 429]

On 12/05/2016 at 3:05 PM, Alexgopen said:

 

I feel as if patches for specific bugs should have their own specific mods, rather than lumping them all into one. 

 

Also if I released the source people would easily be able to make their own version of it as a means of bypassing it.  It will be using native libraries so if cheaters want to get around it by making their own, it will be more difficult to do so because decompiling/disassembling c binaries doesn't yield such nice readable code as Java does.  This also means I need to make a version for each Windows/Linux/Mac in each 32 and 64 bit. I'll have the mod choose the correct library so clients/hosts won't need to worry about it.  If at some point I stop developing it, I'll turn over the source to some other WU modder who would take over for me.

 

Well releasing them individually would be ideal however as you said, It can be de-compiled and bypassed. But if there lumped in with yours, They may not find the patch at all. Preferably they get bundled in with the actual game but that doesn't look like its gonna happen imo. 

[Pinchaloaf 341]

The game is running on four flat tires through quicksand and someone has pissed in the gas tank. Sorry, but the days of having hope while the devs and "PR" make empty promises ain't cutting the mustard anymore.

 

Time to stop checking in and seeing if the game is making progress enough for a return.

[bdew 2,462]

On 5/12/2016 at 11:05 PM, Alexgopen said:

native libraries

 

Native libraries, without sources... what could possibly go wrong

[Alexgopen 2,376]

18 hours ago, bdew said:

 

Native libraries, without sources... what could possibly go wrong

 

You don't have to use it if you don't want to, it's completely your choice.

 

Releasing the source for it however would let cheaters know exactly how it works, and thus how to beat it. 

 

I realize this is still possible by disassembling it and making the changes you want, but most people don't have much experience with assembly language.  It would still be better than what we have now, which is ~nothing~

 

anyways it's probably gonna take a bit longer for me than the "two weeks if not busy", because my summer courses have kept dumping homework on me. if you think you can do better, go for it, then i wont have to

Edited May 17, 2016 by Alexgopen

[KyleBooze 451]

On 4/20/2016 at 6:27 PM, LorenaMontana said:

Do we get a transfer to freedom with our characters soon?

 Can't you guys just walk back through a portal or something?

[AlphaMaleAD 10]

54 minutes ago, KyleBooze said:

 Can't you guys just walk back through a portal or something?

And throw away years of gametime, sure! 

[Sobotnik 365]

I think the biggest thing is just that Wurms time has passed.

 

It's been years upon years and this game has been running on fumes for at least half that time, maintained ad hoc and always unreliable. Gamebreaking bugs can take literal years to fix while other improvements and additions to the game can take just as long or never even come at all. The basic core of Wurm hasn't really changed much and in many ways is basically still the same buggy, grindy, frustrating game that it always has been. This time, people are just finally deciding to give up for good because they've had enough.

 

Now its 2016. A whole multitude of new games with new genres have come out - many of them borrowing many of the concepts from Wurm and often improving on or casualizing them in the process. Wurms fundamental flaw is that it hasn't really kept up and now its been left in the dust. Of course a lot of people deny this, but when basically you have to invest weeks and months of time into the game to get anything worthwhile out of it you shouldn't be surprised that when a game that's less frustrating to play comes along people are going to jump ship. A lot of Wurm is very non-intuitive and difficult to learn which is why its always remained such a small and core specialist thing. But it's been years now - people are fed up and I think Wurm Ultimate coming out was the straw that broke the camels back. About 1/3 of all characters have depremed in the past few months and some servers have collapsed entirely. Not only is population down, but so is trade, deed numbers, construction, purchases, structure maintenance and erection, pvp, item creation... the list goes on. Activity in every single area on every server is in a nosedive. Some servers are completely desolate now.

 

 

[Alexgopen 2,376]

19 hours ago, Sobotnik said:

desolat[ion]e now.

 

 

[LorenaMontana 3,008]

On 17-5-2016 at 10:24 PM, KyleBooze said:

 Can't you guys just walk back through a portal or something?

Haha it was just an example i gave, its not i really want it

 

I just wanted some answers and putted some "u never know what happens scenario's" in. 

[ownerpure5 322]

Come to desolation its an awesome pvp server m8.

[polarbear 284]

Chaos ppl: "epic is dead"

Epic ppl: "chaos is dead"

I digress and am staying optimistic. I only joined the game last November, I got 9.5 years to go on my toon, till I'm happy. 

What to do you may ask. CALM DOWN, do the same thing everyone has done the past 10 years. Play the game, stay positive, and be optimistic that the game will get better. 

 

(most games last maybe a year, at the 5 year mark the main creator says " well I'm in for the long run now!" , at ten years I think Rolf is at the point of absolute no return, and It is a life of his. ) 

[changer 459]

On 2016-05-18 at 3:09 AM, Sobotnik said:

I think the biggest thing is just that Wurms time has passed.

 

It's been years upon years and this game has been running on fumes for at least half that time, maintained ad hoc and always unreliable. Gamebreaking bugs can take literal years to fix while other improvements and additions to the game can take just as long or never even come at all. The basic core of Wurm hasn't really changed much and in many ways is basically still the same buggy, grindy, frustrating game that it always has been. This time, people are just finally deciding to give up for good because they've had enough.

 

Now its 2016. A whole multitude of new games with new genres have come out - many of them borrowing many of the concepts from Wurm and often improving on or casualizing them in the process. Wurms fundamental flaw is that it hasn't really kept up and now its been left in the dust. Of course a lot of people deny this, but when basically you have to invest weeks and months of time into the game to get anything worthwhile out of it you shouldn't be surprised that when a game that's less frustrating to play comes along people are going to jump ship. A lot of Wurm is very non-intuitive and difficult to learn which is why its always remained such a small and core specialist thing. But it's been years now - people are fed up and I think Wurm Ultimate coming out was the straw that broke the camels back. About 1/3 of all characters have depremed in the past few months and some servers have collapsed entirely. Not only is population down, but so is trade, deed numbers, construction, purchases, structure maintenance and erection, pvp, item creation... the list goes on. Activity in every single area on every server is in a nosedive. Some servers are completely desolate now.

 

 

It's got a lot to do with the natural flaw of wurm, especially wurm pvp: time, the farther away you get from the start/restart of the server, the more dug in will the players be in terms of skills, items, infrastructure, deeds etc, it would be hard to be efficient in current epic if you were to go up against veteran pvpers, it would be even harder on chaos where the infrastructure and skills has progressed even further, and when the fort has been built, it's hard to budge, staleness occurs where players leave due to nothing ever happening, players leave further when more players leave and then it's just an evil circle as it will just become more stale and stale. 

 

From personal experience, epic was at its best in both population and pvp when stuff happened daily, new updates that actually mattered, huge fights, raids, daily territorial changes, it declined every year though, didn't play much in 2011-2012 when it started but in 2013 when 1.0 came out there were 200-300 people online at once on jkh alone, there were absolutely huge fights every other week, usually a big raid every month aswell, the 2 dsc raids that failed, the EC raid, the deed raid, that shitty jk mountain deed, the huge hota fight(s) where there were 50-60 players overall, 2014 followed a similar pattern even though the fights were less frequent, they weren't as big and it was mostly just jk vs bl. 2015 declined heavily and there really were only 3-4 big fights over the entire year where it was a full on fight, 2016 has been absolutely ######. The game felt alive, now it doesn't.

 

imo rolf should have went with his original idea for epic, resets every 2-3 years to remove the staleness while at the same time gives the players time enough to battle it out, cycle the accounts from each reset to freedom or some alternate cluster so to incentivize players to play as there will be a production of the time spent that the players have created in the end, find a sweet time that balanced between staleness and development

 

freely giving away the monopoly on wurm didn't help the staleness either

Edited May 19, 2016 by changer

[Dairuka 888]

21 hours ago, polarbear said:

Chaos ppl: "epic is dead"

Epic ppl: "chaos is dead" 

 

Freedom ppl: "You're both right." *Goes back to grinding*

[Sobotnik 365]

58 minutes ago, Dairuka said:

 

Freedom ppl: "You're both right." *Goes back to grinding*

 

Even Freedom is in the death knells. The population of Xanadu halved, all of the other servers are haemorraging players and deeds are decaying everywhere. At this point, why even bother there? Everywhere you go in wurm no matter the server, everything is regressing back into the primeval state

[Elktazahjr 131]

On 19-5-2016 at 1:31 AM, Sobotnik said:

 

Even Freedom is in the death knells. The population of Xanadu halved, all of the other servers are haemorraging players and deeds are decaying everywhere. At this point, why even bother there? Everywhere you go in wurm no matter the server, everything is regressing back into the primeval state

mainly because the devs are too scared to touch any feature because most of the veterans will bite back; wonder how long until they release that the veterans mean nothing anymore. Just look at the playerbase for gods sake. I know some short sighted people but this is the first and probably last time that I will ever see a whole company being this short sighted. The release of WU never ceases to baffle me. I'm enjoying WU right now, great for me, but you just shot yourself in the foot. Total revenue you got from me, since october 2015? 20 dollars. Enjoy those 20 dollars?

[Meldichoir 242]

So we are currently left with PvP stalemate due to a population of stubborn veterans who are ready to quit... and make way for some new blood? If the old guys are bored then they must be out of ideas. Some new faction will establish itself, once they abandon the prescribed meta and rely on their ingenuity.

[Sobotnik 365]

Wurm Online has no future

 

Ultimate has a few more years left in it at least, but Wurm Online died the moment Ultimate was announced.