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Erevorn

Letter to the Devs / Suggestion for the future

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Or just spread the info that in wurm you can trade accounts for irl money and that someone on the epic sold account for above 3000 euros. That would couse invasion of kids, who would like to earn rl money on Wurm.

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27 minutes ago, Wilczan said:

Or just spread the info that in wurm you can trade accounts for irl money and that someone on the epic sold account for above 3000 euros. That would couse invasion of kids, who would like to earn rl money on Wurm.

 

IIIIIIII THINK we'd rather have the ones who are willing to SPEND money on Wurm..... so I stick to my Trump idea =P 

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The problem was the mentality of the development over the years.

 

I mean no offence, but for example when /v/ from 4chan flocked to wurm several years ago wurms player count went crazy high, so high that the entire game couldn't handle it. The JK home server which was where you spawned upon first login back then crashed and was under way too much pressure.

 

Alot of the 4chan group really loved wurm, and wanted to stay. What Rolf should have done was put extra money into servers so that the game could handle more and more people to try and keep as many of them as he could. Instead he lowered the player limit so that fewer people could be logged in at any one time...

Wurm has also made a hell of a lot of money over the years, remember this game has had pay to play for 10 years... and activity has been pretty consistent and even risen dramatically over those years. I can't be bothered and dont have the figures to do the maths, but however much money wurm made over that time doesnt seem to have been reinvested into the game very much at all. I've no idea how much is costs to maintain the game and all services attached to it either.

 

It'd be interesting to see how much wurm made over that time, and I'd bet most of that went into the bank rather than back into the game.

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1 minute ago, Mordraug said:

 

IIIIIIII THINK we'd rather have the ones who are willing to SPEND money on Wurm..... so I stick to my Trump idea =P 

 

Agreed. Focus on mid-30's. People with awful unfulfilling jobs, who need an outlet for creativity with a fantasy feel to it.

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59 minutes ago, Madt said:

Alot of the 4chan group really loved wurm, and wanted to stay. What Rolf should have done was put extra money into servers so that the game could handle more and more people to try and keep as many of them as he could. Instead he lowered the player limit so that fewer people could be logged in at any one time...

 

You are very right, but it's pointless to remind us of the past. All I know people have been trying to make it happen again, it didn't work. Increasing the servers capacity would be a bullseye back then but now it's too late and the staff needs to rethink the strategy. Going with small steps isn't always the way, sometimes you have to take a leap to reach a higher shelf.

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I dont want to be the negative guy in the thread, but... even if Wurm would advertise everywhere, and got a huge influx of players. How many of those would stay in the long run?

 

And its not a problem of having a toxic comunity, or a poor tutorial.  The game itself is not built to be a popular success, its a niche game, a subgenre for a hardcore playerbase.

 

Maybe its better to focus on certain demographics, than going out on a Mc-Donalds-type global campaign.

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41 minutes ago, Rathgar said:

Maybe its better to focus on certain demographics, than going out on a Mc-Donalds-type global campaign.

 

I think it's common sense with this type of game. You're not gonna go and give out leaflets to the homeless if you want to sell windows right? I think an ad company would keep that in mind. It should even.

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You guys are trying to fix an open wound with a band-aid. The fact of the matter is that not many new players are willing to stay after a month or two of being prem. People join up, it's fun for a couple of months while they are building up their deed and once they are finished BOOM boredom. What's there after building your place up? GRINDING!! Then this is were Wurm starts being a chore, gotta log on to tend my farm, breed some animals, grind some mining to get better quality iron, grind blacksmithing to grind other skills. Then comes the days when you stop logging in daily and start logging in during the weekends for an hour or two before you know it your upkeep is running out and so is your prem and you noticed your mining and blacksmithing are only in the 30's and just stop logging in completely.

 

Moral of the story figure out player retention before advertising or else you'll just get bad publicity when new players tell their tales of the endless grind that Wurm is and turn off other potential players.

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2 hours ago, Dairuka said:

 

Agreed. Focus on mid-30's. People with awful unfulfilling jobs, who need an outlet for creativity with a fantasy feel to it.

 

AND JUST WHAT EXACTLY ARE YOU TRYING TO SAY W........... *sigh* 

 

I need to start sending my resume to breweries >_<

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4 minutes ago, Mordraug said:

AND JUST WHAT EXACTLY ARE YOU TRYING TO SAY W........... *sigh* 

 

I need to start sending my resume to breweries >_<

 

2 hours ago, Mordraug said:

Just have Rolf publically says that he endorses Trump, let the media do the rest.

 

I'm very highly educated. I know demographics, I have the best demographics.

 

Edited by Dairuka
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I have a cross country flight today, and will pick up a bag of taters (precious) as my carry on.  Just need them to open the door for me....what are those masks for anyway...

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36 minutes ago, Onyr said:

I have a cross country flight today, and will pick up a bag of taters (precious) as my carry on.  Just need them to open the door for me....what are those masks for anyway...

I'm best with the  baby potatoes, they have amazing aerodynamics

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8 hours ago, Sila said:

well way you do till now is not good...  

 

i wana see ads on facebook, youtube, twitter, everywhere...

 

 

it cost but belive me   everything will make profit.

One word - *Targeted ads*.. show a sandbox to a wow/lol/cod/3xA title player -> rip money.

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Get rid of tutorial all together.

 

Problem with the tutorial system is this.  When a new player gets there, there's no one to answer questions.  How do I ...    When they finish, they have 90 percent of those questions answered by, you got it, Other players either in local, village, global, freedom or CA Help.

 

Need to do a mentor system, link an new player with an old player, give benefits to both.  that would encourage old players to become more involved with new players, promote community feelings, village recruitment and honestly get the new players more vested in the game with them seeing how freindly fun and easy wurm can actually be if given the chance to be taught how to play.

 

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5 hours ago, Dairuka said:

Unless you're creating a Tutorial where players actually get to play, build, grind, and craft things in a safe, temporary, Golden Valley like instance

 

If there was a server like that, I'd certainly be glad to log into some kind of "helper alt" and go on there if cries for help were heard in some chat channel.

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I believe the thread is free to be shut down as the staff is not interested in mere mortal's pieces of advice on any other subject than potato aerodynamics. Hope they got it all figured out already.

 

Thanks for leaving relpies.

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36 minutes ago, Stormblade said:

Get rid of tutorial all together.

 

Problem with the tutorial system is this.  When a new player gets there, there's no one to answer questions.  How do I ...    When they finish, they have 90 percent of those questions answered by, you got it, Other players either in local, village, global, freedom or CA Help.

That is incorrect, there is a dedicated CA help channel that is accessed by all staff ingame for GV

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I plan to run the Tut with an alt, for practice for our GV CA channel.  Once folks get the activate, click mechanics, most things flow easily.

 

I ran a new player deed for a few years called Lemosa Docks, and then Lemosa Homestead. New players are a ton of fun to be around.  We used small lots, usually 8x8, that had a notch missing that got filled by a 2x2 house.  Everyone had a secure locked backyard that way for animals and farm.  Tons left after a week or two, but many stayed on to be long term players, still friends to this day.  The 'give everything' approach didn't work well, when they find out how long it takes to move on.  The 'build anything you want here' approach worked very well.  Either they leave after a day or two, or a week, or they stayed on.

 

There was always someone there to answer questions, explain mechanics, and hunt together.  This seemed to really help them. 

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4 hours ago, lolmaster said:

Moral of the story figure out player retention before advertising or else you'll just get bad publicity when new players tell their tales of the endless grind that Wurm is and turn off other potential players.

 

And that is the crux indeed, Wurm does not need advertising because new people join the game every day anyway. The problem is that few of them stay and pay. No amount of advertising can change that, only a better game environment and better game mechanics can solve that problem.

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The only problem with a game like wurm and advertising, is that you can advertise to 100,000 people, spend a huge amount and get maybe 10 players.

 

Wurm is not a game with a lot of mass appeal, honestly it is pretty niche, Wurm Unlimited was an excellent indicator of how the general public views the game, large amounts bought it, many more returned, the remainder stopped playing, with only a handful playing still.

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Before I go on, please note this is my opinion of what I've seen over the years, and just feedback I have - thanks.

 

I do think the DEVs are unable to see what the players are seeing, thing is that's one of the problems. I think maybe they are just so passionate about the game and don't see any issues that the players do because most of there planning is private and discussed among them. The lack of information spread to us is also very limited, I shouldn't even say limited we hardly get anything. I do understand that marketing can, and probably will be continued to be a private affair for the higher ups to discuss, but sometimes it's nice to give your players some information as well.

 

A lot of us are also passionate about this game, even though we might not always sound like we are. We do want Wurm Online to succeed at the end of the day, we want new players to play with as well. There is always a plan and a fix though, thing is, that is all we ever hear from you guys. I do suggest you take player feedback more often. Please don't rule out the possibility that we might have a better idea on how advertising should go, and some of us may even work in the gaming industry and know a few tricks. Few ideas I always say are promotional incentives, release WO on steam, more google analytics.

 

 

Edited by Niki
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a blanket "advertise moar!" is not really helpful, and nor is "fix this!"

 

I don't see why we should be informed of the higher up discussions, we're players, not share holders, we play, we give suggestions and feedback, and we get given information about what the devs are working on gamewise to keep us interested. That's it.

 

Quite often player feedback is "make this easier" which doesn't always work, surface mining like digging would make lots of people happy, but it would also destroy the balance of the game, these servers have been around for almost a decade in some cases, time investment is a huge part of the sense of achievement in Wurm, which can be completely put off by sped up gameplay. WU losing players is a large part of that, it's fun, addictive, but you hit that cap sooner and you're left wondering "now what?"

 

I highly doubt analytics aren't used by the way, they're not going to share them publicly though.

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21 hours ago, Dairuka said:

Maybe even automatically throwing every new player into a "Newbie" alliance when they join a new server, where established players who want to create a tutorial village can add their villages to give new players different places to spawn beyond the presets.

 

 

I really like this idea. Back on 2012, when I got my first touch to Wurm, was on Pristine. There was this deed called Wurm Academy near Blossom and I got shortly informed that this is the village that can help you getting started and provided meals, security and several other stuff. You could use the services even though you had your own little starter house outside the village. Of course this kind of idea needs more thought put in it, as only in Xanadu we have seven spawning points. Would there be enough active and willing players to establish newbie village at the spawn point? Or should spawn points need to take a look at and maybe revamped?

 

EDIT: Also, there are these kind of villages around already (i.e. Amish Estates). However, they are a little apart from the spawning points and might be not so easy for newbie to find.

Edited by Kadmint

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I feel sorry for the poor sole that has to try and find a way to identify a potential wurm player and deliver a targeted add to them.

* No twitch style FPS gamers. (imo, this is a good thing as I'm unskilled at button pushing)

* No NPC style RPG gamers. 

* Very little content for RTS folks.

 

What I like about Wurm:

* Most of the content is available to everyone (only a small portion, for the most part, is elite exclusive).

* There is so much to do, after 8 or 9 years and countless hours playing I till got lots to do. Although, point click and wait may not be for everyone.

* There mostly aren't any skill cap. I disliked how in Ultima Online I had to meta-game that character system so my 7 toons could do every skill in the game. It is far better just letting one toon do it all.

* The persistent world. It's neet taking a trip and traveling on a road I build a year or so ago.

 

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