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Ayes

Rifts Continue To Trash The Servers

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As per the post title, the Rifts of Wurm continue upon their random path of destruction on the servers. As a person who has played the game for many years and always over that time devoted some enjoyable game time to enhancing and improving the local areas around my deeds, I find this situation particularly disturbing to see these areas carelessly destroyed by these Rift "spawns".

 

Imagine yourself in this situation where you have built local roads for player access, removed abandoned left behinds and replanted the area with new trees for all to see and use once again. Also you might have seen other trees cut down with logs left behind and then discarded them and replanted those trees again. Over the years you then enjoyed strolling through these areas seeing the evidence of the care taken for the lands and these improvements made to it. Now randomly these areas are totally destroyed by killing off all the trees, turning the land to dirt (packed too?), making mounds and ditches here and there as well as distorting various paved roads into lumps or ditches.

 

I find one of the endearing and enduring things about this game is that you can transform these lands in positive ways. Particularly for me this is the heart of this "sandbox" style game, with many details added that enable players to do this. To think that the game Developers would either not realize this, or realize this and yet in spite of that destroy other players efforts and work to enhance the beauty of this game, is something that I find very disappointing and even hard to grasp in it's careless disregard of their efforts put forth. Even more than this, if other players were to take these steps of wandering the servers destroying areas in random locations this way it would obviously be seen as destructive and not tolerated. Yet the game Developers are doing exactly this.

 

Really, you game Developers need to give this situation some consideration from the perspective of the game concept and other players enhancement of the game environment. The game has never been about a plague slowly crawling across these lands eventually destroying everything not on deed. This is a recent aberration somehow considered necessary to enable more variations to mob conflicts and yet it has been done at the expense of random destruction of player improvements to these lands.

 

I realize that it is hard to admit to mistakes when they are done out a concept to improve some part of the game. When such a great conflict like this results in destructive results then stubbornness sets in an attempt to ignore the situation and not do anything further to resolve it. A simple solution could be to set these Rift areas to perhaps 4 fixed locations N/S/E/W on each server and just rotate them around for access convenience. These random locations lend no real mystery to finding them as the huge red beams clearly give them away for vast distances.

 

I would urge you Developers to give some further consideration to these random Rift spawns and the destruction of the improvements that other players have made to enhance the beauty and appeal of your game. Although we don't get paid for doing this the satisfaction derived is sufficient reward, until of course you carelessly destroy it all.

 

Happy Trails

=Ayes=

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First and second rift on Indy spawned not far behind my deed, so that area was damaged twice. Me with friends repaired worst spikes and holes and area healed itself more or less with time. Grass and trees are back, but terrain there is still corrupted. It is harder to hunt there, as you can easily stuck here and there.

 

I can't understand, why rift need to corrupt area around its spawn. Players can easily do some clearcut around, if they want better visibility. But event itself should do none damage.

While I think, rifts are rather good events, their destructive nature makes them evil.

Edited by Zakerak
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Like I said awhile back, rifts need to be in a contained special zone much like chaos has there HOTA.

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Instead of the long requested hunting server suggested by Xallo iirc with lots of player support behind it we got Rifts, that to some extent satisfies the craving the hunting server aimed to do... Except they don't even make sense with the overall feel of the game and they cause a terrible mess in every area where they're spawned. Players still have to travel to get to a rift (except when they end up in your backyard), so why not just give us the hunting server?

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i have perfect place at glasshollow just for rifts :D   but heh was never here jet,

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Admittedly, I have never been to a rift or seen their destruction first hand.  I tend to like remaining alive :lol:

 

Still, I can certainly appreciate Ayes' point.  Well delivered and measured as it is.

I also know of a few folks for whom the rifts have provided camaraderie, teamwork, organization, and most of all challenge.  It's nice to hear them excited about the game again.

3 hours ago, Ayes said:
Spoiler

 

As per the post title, the Rifts of Wurm continue upon their random path of destruction on the servers. As a person who has played the game for many years and always over that time devoted some enjoyable game time to enhancing and improving the local areas around my deeds, I find this situation particularly disturbing to see these areas carelessly destroyed by these Rift "spawns".

 

Imagine yourself in this situation where you have built local roads for player access, removed abandoned left behinds and replanted the area with new trees for all to see and use once again. Also you might have seen other trees cut down with logs left behind and then discarded them and replanted those trees again. Over the years you then enjoyed strolling through these areas seeing the evidence of the care taken for the lands and these improvements made to it. Now randomly these areas are totally destroyed by killing off all the trees, turning the land to dirt (packed too?), making mounds and ditches here and there as well as distorting various paved roads into lumps or ditches.

 

I find one of the endearing and enduring things about this game is that you can transform these lands in positive ways. Particularly for me this is the heart of this "sandbox" style game, with many details added that enable players to do this. To think that the game Developers would either not realize this, or realize this and yet in spite of that destroy other players efforts and work to enhance the beauty of this game, is something that I find very disappointing and even hard to grasp in it's careless disregard of their efforts put forth. Even more than this, if other players were to take these steps of wandering the servers destroying areas in random locations this way it would obviously be seen as destructive and not tolerated. Yet the game Developers are doing exactly this.

 

Really, you game Developers need to give this situation some consideration from the perspective of the game concept and other players enhancement of the game environment. The game has never been about a plague slowly crawling across these lands eventually destroying everything not on deed. This is a recent aberration somehow considered necessary to enable more variations to mob conflicts and yet it has been done at the expense of random destruction of player improvements to these lands.

 

I realize that it is hard to admit to mistakes when they are done out a concept to improve some part of the game. When such a great conflict like this results in destructive results then stubbornness sets in an attempt to ignore the situation and not do anything further to resolve it. A simple solution could be to set these Rift areas to perhaps 4 fixed locations N/S/E/W on each server and just rotate them around for access convenience. These random locations lend no real mystery to finding them as the huge red beams clearly give them away for vast distances.

 

I would urge you Developers to give some further consideration to these random Rift spawns and the destruction of the improvements that other players have made to enhance the beauty and appeal of your game. Although we don't get paid for doing this the satisfaction derived is sufficient reward, until of course you carelessly destroy it all.

 

 

Happy Trails

=Ayes=

 

One problem with giving them specific and set locations is there will just be deeds set down in those areas simply because of the rifts.  This would (far as I understand) take away the organizational and logistical aspect of Rifts.  I think the randomness contributes a lot in that regard, and the sense of community the effort creates is a valuable experience for people who partake.

 

1 hour ago, Aeris said:

Instead of the long requested hunting server suggested by Xallo

Spoiler

iirc with lots of player support behind it we got Rifts, that to some extent satisfies the craving the hunting server aimed to do... Except they don't even make sense with the overall feel of the game and they cause a terrible mess in every area where they're spawned. Players still have to travel to get to a rift (except when they end up in your backyard)

, so why not just give us the hunting server?

I remember Xallo's post about the hunting server long ago, and was fully behind it at the time as well.  I would still support that, with the limitations that make sense to preserve its wilderness and challenge.

 

Perhaps one idea is to get a hunting server up and running.  Put it in competition with rifts, and see if the number of people participating in rifts is still worthy of any inconvenience they may cause.  With any luck, the hunting server would be a juicy enough lure to make rifts less desirable to those who enjoy them.

 

****************************************************

Other potential options:

  1. Limit rifts to some servers, and not others?  People can choose, but then people are already settled so not sure.
  2. Provide some kind of reward/incentive for the clean-up crew?  No idea what reward would seem appropriate.  However, while I wouldn't personally motivate to go put my life at risk, I would motivate to join others for post-rift cleanup and beautification.  I'm sure a sense of community and team-effort could be developed around that just as around rifts themselves.
  3. Edit: Put rifts on the hunting server, and cut local rifts down to 1/4th? Or maybe just 0.25?
Edited by Reylaark
deep thoughts

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Either make Rifts no longer damage the area around them or add a hunting server and move all the rifts there. Such a server can probably occasionally be reset with new terain, etc. This keeps it fresh and prevents unnecessary damage to the existing servers.

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Rifts have pre determined spawn points its just random which its going to be. As far as land destruction, with tree/bush increased  growth rate it only takes a few weeks for the wild to grow back. Player destruction of the  area is the biggest problem.

 

I for one would like to see more of these kinds of events as it encourages community gathering and its just all around fun.

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Although I have never attended one of these, I fully understand the enjoyment the hunter types get.

 

Thus as a non attendee, I was not aware of the massive damage they do, terraforming the landscape in a destructive manner when it opens.

 

So I have to agree, the wanton damage to the ground is perhaps something that needs to be removed as a feature of the Rifts.  To many folks, who have put in long hours to try an make this sand box more enjoyable for all, I  can see it would cause a lot of pain and heart ache to see their good works, undone randomly.

 

Respectfully submitted,

Hughmongus

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6 hours ago, Aeris said:

Instead of the long requested hunting server suggested by Xallo iirc with lots of player support behind it we got Rifts, that to some extent satisfies the craving the hunting server aimed to do... Except they don't even make sense with the overall feel of the game and they cause a terrible mess in every area where they're spawned. Players still have to travel to get to a rift (except when they end up in your backyard), so why not just give us the hunting server?

 

Instead of monsters coming out of the rift and causing mayhem on the islands, it should act like a portal to the "island" or whatever, and must be closed from the inside. Once closed it will kick everyone out back to the spot they spawned on so people / rifts do not have to destroy the land. 

 

This would open up a new island the devs can play with and theme ( lava and red mist etc? ) no deeds allowed to placed on etc.

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If I was boss...

Rifts would spawn at a single designated public spot for each server and any player, for a given server, could use a portal on said player's deed to instantly travel to the battle grounds.

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One feels that you're being a little inconsistent:  (:P)

Spoiler
On 02/01/2017 at 5:13 PM, Ayes said:

Players thoughts on Wurm's "success" or the way in which it should progress forward are of little relevance to effect those topics. Merely wishful thinking on a sunny day, dreaming away. The one who determines this is the person or group who controls the ability to make these decisions. In this case it is Rolf who has plainly made known that he has no desire to attract masses of players to the game but rather just to perpetuate it according to his own seemingly modest standards. This I find to be an admirable quality in that he is of the staunch character to resist player pressure or discontent and continue on enjoying what he has been doing to progress the game in its own slow and meandering way for years.

 

As Rolf has now taken a much less active role no doubt those now in control will pursue a somewhat different approach and pace of change but I don't foresee anything much different than to continue along the same path of the tortoise. Really, give it up on your own grandiose ideas of what the game should be or do and just enjoy it for what it is, for all you do is frustrate yourselves in the process.

 

Happy Trails (for 2017)

=Ayes=

 

But in all seriousness:

 

Attempting to lock it in certain positions just means you'll end up with those areas becoming major deed hotspots (and horrible eyesores as those deeds decay).  It also shafts anyone who lives far away REALLY hard.

 

Shifting them over to a hunting server would be great for folks who live on the coast, not so great for everyone else.

 

 

A far simpler solution would be thus: 

 

When a rift area is chosen it is already terraforming locked so simply take a "copy" of that terrain (all you are doing is storing a height map for a pretty small section of the map), when the rift closes use this "copy" to it restores that terrain steadily over the period of an hour (terraforming remaining forbidden until this time has passed, the timespan is to prevent any undue lag being caused).

 

There is still the matter of the mass plantlife slaughter, but then again players do FAR worse over the course of a few hours than any rift ever does on that score.  A bit of magic for priests to spread a little nature might go a long way ;)

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One feels that you're being a little inconsistent:  (:P)

Spoiler
On 02/01/2017 at 5:13 PM, Ayes said:

Players thoughts on Wurm's "success" or the way in which it should progress forward are of little relevance to effect those topics. Merely wishful thinking on a sunny day, dreaming away. The one who determines this is the person or group who controls the ability to make these decisions. In this case it is Rolf who has plainly made known that he has no desire to attract masses of players to the game but rather just to perpetuate it according to his own seemingly modest standards. This I find to be an admirable quality in that he is of the staunch character to resist player pressure or discontent and continue on enjoying what he has been doing to progress the game in its own slow and meandering way for years.

 

As Rolf has now taken a much less active role no doubt those now in control will pursue a somewhat different approach and pace of change but I don't foresee anything much different than to continue along the same path of the tortoise. Really, give it up on your own grandiose ideas of what the game should be or do and just enjoy it for what it is, for all you do is frustrate yourselves in the process.

 

Happy Trails (for 2017)

=Ayes=

 

But in all seriousness:

 

Attempting to lock it in certain positions just means you'll end up with those areas becoming major deed hotspots (and horrible eyesores as those deeds decay).  It also shafts anyone who lives far away REALLY hard.

 

Shifting them over to a hunting server would be great for folks who live on the coast, not so great for everyone else.

 

 

A far simpler solution would be thus: 

 

When a rift area is chosen it is already terraforming locked so simply take a "copy" of that terrain (all you are doing is storing a height map for a pretty small section of the map), when the rift closes use this "copy" to it restores that terrain steadily over the period of an hour (terraforming remaining forbidden until this time has passed, the timespan is to prevent any undue lag being caused).

 

There is still the matter of the mass plantlife slaughter, but then again players do FAR worse over the course of a few hours than any rift ever does on that score.  A bit of magic for priests to spread a little nature might go a long way ;)

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1 hour ago, Bramson said:

 

Instead of monsters coming out of the rift and causing mayhem on the islands, it should act like a portal to the "island" or whatever, and must be closed from the inside. Once closed it will kick everyone out back to the spot they spawned on so people / rifts do not have to destroy the land. 

 

This would open up a new island the devs can play with and theme ( lava and red mist etc? ) no deeds allowed to placed on etc.

 

I was thinking about this.

This is a great idea too, for instanced events and such, I don't see why it's not used more often.

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Given it's a slight edge of spikes less than 20 slope, what damage are we talking here?

 

grass tiles turning to dirt heals rather quickly, I'm unsure of what this "trashing" is, do you have screenshots of the sites?

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sandbox

 

just a bit of work after the event, not really a big deal and the alien tree's rocks get removed right after now too

 

all thats left is some strange terrain

 

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If it's as Retro says and the slopes are no more than 20, then surely this is in fact a solution to the long-standing complaint that old deed sites remain unnaturally flat forever? Surely we can't have it both ways... (or maybe it's different people complaining in each direction).

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The nonsense about it trashing the server is just nonsense. The rifts make a few dirt tiles and poof some trees. They grow back within a week.

 

For those that dont read all the posts, rifts have stationary  spawn points so no worries about server wide epic destruction... or lack thereof.

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I gotta say the people whining about rifts seem a bit pedantic.  It's one of the more exciting, fresh, and innovative features of the game.  

 

Okay, so, how about implementing a rule that rifts will never occur within X tiles of a current deed or its perimeter.... that will keep your carefully terraformed garden safe. Beyond that, though... it's WURM.  Come on.  Where's your sense of adventure?  

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My bigger problem with the Rifts is that it seems to have become just another thing for the 'elitists' to hang out at, and acquire benefits from. There's been about 5 rifts since I came back, and none have been remotely near my location, and on Xanadu that means hours of travel. I haven't bothered to attend any of them because of this.

I'd heard they create the stuff to make runes, but that now people just harvest all those materials right after the rift is shut so that's probably what's causing more of the destruction to the land..as people try and snag it all to go make runes to give themselves more bonuses to be ahead of everyone else, and don't leave any there for people who pass by later to acquire some rift materials for runes.

This just adds to the 'us vs them' mentality and isn't likely to build community. It's more likely to separate the community even farther, as you get more 'haves' and more 'have-not' folk who get even farther behind/aren't getting these fanciful rune boosts to their gear/vehicles/etc. I've already had a few people telling me to go get some rune on my gathering tools because it's so useful and makes skilling past a certain point pointless...as it gives you top end benefits with less than max skill. It leads to the 'Why even bother to skill it up?'...which will lead to the 'Why am I funding this game?' question next.

I came back to the game because the team was starting to explore new options, and had started to listen again...where for awhile, it was like our comments were falling on deaf ears. This should not be something that a select few can attend regularly and achieve bonuses from. If you want it to function as a community builder, make it so the community as a whole can participate/gain from it.

Currently, it is causing havoc in certain areas/destroying people's areas they might have worked hard on, and is unable to be attended by people who are too far away and have too much travel time ahead of them. Start to address these issues maybe?

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Terrain is not really affected by rifts.. before the rift resources could be gathered there would have been a little mess, but now.. nature will take over the area pretty fast, logs will decay.. and grass will grow back..

 

I don't see why anyone would think it's an elitist thing also, it's open to everyone, no skill requirement, you just have to be there and tag some of the creatures, and then just wait for it to close to get the loot..

I completely agree with @Corsan on the distance though.. on xanadu it takes so much time to go to the rift area, usually 2-3 hours of travel one way.. but i guess that also depends on your location, since most rifts are center'ish, if you move to a more central position you could get there in a matter of minutes.. or you could do what i do.. and go to the other islands for rifts.. because sail time + walking to rift is still faster than going to the xanadu ones..

 

Issues that should be dealt with though: 

I made a few tests last rift, and i played like a bi@tch, and only tagged creatures once and moved along to the next one..  I was the first fighter on the list (after a healer). I did that just to test if it's actually true that damage dealt does not matter, because before i used to focus up to supernatural and wreck them with my huge axe, and was somewhere in the top 10, but never top 3.. I won't do that from now on, because once you get to phenomenal the loot is the same (or so i hear), but the way points are calculated is definitely not right.. the damage dealt should matter, not playing tag with already aggro'd creatures and waiting for someone else to kill them..

 

The way rift resources are gathered is not very well balanced either.. When rifts are ready to be closed we position close to one of the resources so we can start gathering right away.. this is not fair to the one that actually closes the rift for example.. Or to other people that want to gather them and don't know the "rules" of it.. Resources should be split between players based on participation.. so if the area has 20 "veins" (trees, crystals, stones), each have 10 resources inside, that means 200 that needs to be split among each player present.. This way the first will be able to mine let's say 15-20 resources, and the last one 1-2.. All this done with cooldown so that if nobody picks them up, you can gather again after 10 min or so..


 

Edited by faty

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11 hours ago, Retrograde said:

Given it's a slight edge of spikes less than 20 slope, what damage are we talking here?

 

grass tiles turning to dirt heals rather quickly, I'm unsure of what this "trashing" is, do you have screenshots of the sites?

 

The rift site I visited looked like a butt afterwards. But for me that's not the problem, the problem is that a feature was added because of some dev territory piss rather than because the game needed it. Players requested a hunting server and got a portal that spits out Egyptian gods instead.

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First of all, @Corsan, you literally have zero clue about rifts do you? The only point that is even remotely valid in your post is the distance you have to travel on Xanadu.

And even that is not a real big issue unless you live in the centre of Xan, if you live at the ouside of Xan, you can hop to any (smaller) server you want to go do a rift there. Distances on deli/exo/release/pristine/cele are hardly a problem, only thing when you go on another server is that you have to find a horse somewhere.

 

I've been to the last one on inde this week, after not going for many months. (I did the very first 4 rifts on inde that appeared when rifts got live, then went on a rift-break, materials werent even introduced when I did those 4 first rifts, and only got 1 shoulderpad out of them).

And its hardly an elitist gathering at all, we all took down the waves of agros that spawned, and at the last wave the hearts got sacced to close it so we could start mining resources.

The closure of the last wave is a bit weird like @Faty said, if I hadnt burned that last heart, people would probably still be waiting next to their crystal/wood/stone-nodes.

 

I was curious I must say, because it was the first rift I did where I could gather resources, so I was prepared to rush like crazy, but it turned out I didnt need to. I went around slowly (even wasted 30sec on a crystalnode, because I selected "bash" instead of "prospect", I didnt know you had to "prospect" to get crystals of it) and ended up with 10 stone, 5 crystals and 3 wood. There wasnt a single bit of cursing in local, everybody just went around the rift area wacking at the nodes.

 

And about the "destruction" of the rift area, I admit, the very first rifts I went to, really messed up the terrain with spikes, but that got tweaked along the way together with loot distribution and what not.

The rift this week on Inde hardly did any damage at all, a few bumps of 20ish slopes and that was it. Almost all trees were cleared offcourse, but those grow back anyways (there is even some tundra created by all the freezing spells rift agros throw around).

Usually only stuff around is allot of logs (because people sometimes clear out the area a bit to pack the perimeter of the rift thats about to spawn) and maybe a few altars closeby (where healers could sac).

 

Even the corpses get cleared to by the players, allot of meat to be gained from butchering and even rare coins from burying them (I got a few last rift from burying, so its worth it to grab your shovel).

 

 

 

So yeah, rifts do virtualy no damage anymore (on inde, havent been to other servers, but the "rift-terraform-code probably is the same for all servers). They even make those abandoned terraformed areas a bit more natural again by adding a bit of 10-20 slopes.

And yeah, if you visit directly after a rift, it looks not as pretty because you have dirt, tree stumps and piles of logs everywhere, but nothing a week or 2 irl can solve naturally.

Edited by Lycanthropic
some typos
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