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salahahdin

Has anyone noticed we lost 800 players since the start of the year?

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2 hours ago, Thorakkanath said:

But I am sure there is a way to dismiss everything I have written here too :) I am sure of it, it is the Wurm way

 

Of course it is. That's a part of it's charm, in my opinion.  As a niche game that will (hopefully) always be a niche game, it does not attract the typical specimen of our species with their herd-mentality, march-in-step, group-think, jump-on-the-latest-most-visually-popular-bandwagon, everyone-should-be-the-same, peas-in-a-pod. (I could go on but I won't, lol)  

 

As a rule, I think niche games attract more free thinkers...those who point & laugh, scoff at the self-proclaimed-mainstream sheep.  So naturally we all have different opinions and aren't shy about saying so.  lol.  It leads to some bickering back and forth at times, but that's a healthy thing to my way of thinking as long as it doesn't get out of hand.  :)

Edited by Amadee
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2 hours ago, Niki said:

Twitch Streamers, lets face nowadays it's the norm to get people into a new game through Twitch. You want to advertise with the big Twitch people. Try to get a streamer into the genre and not on that just plays World of Warcraft all day.

In all honesty, I can't see this game performing well as a streamed game. It works great for timelapses and things like that. But having someone ramble on while watching a timer go along doesn't sound like a good stream to me personally

 

Quote

Help players in need, You know when you're a noob and get trapped in a enclosure trying to kill a brown bear for a mission and ran out stamina on a hill? Turns out you can't get helped because a staff member think your up to no good (true story.)

This is something the team does, if you do genuinely end up in an enclosure through something that's not your fault. The team will help you out. If you end up in there by accident, and proceed to pocket items from the area, you'll be left in there to find your own way out.

 

I wouldn't take the word of one person as something that happens all the time, when someone is unhappy with a service, they often won't tell the full truth.

 

Quote

Toxicity, Needs to be improved on, chat filters and stuff could help with that, having a age requirement to join maybe. Warning signs at tutorial when joining epic or chaos about some angry people that want to murder you and call you mean words. 

There's already a chat filter, and it's enabled by default. It's also customisable, there's a text folder you can edit to include things you wish to be filtered out. In addition to this, there's the hardworking Chat Moderation team who do keep an eye on chats, and will step in if people break the rules.

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25 minutes ago, Thorakkanath said:

Oh, and for almost 2 weeks there is a thread made by me in technical issues on the horrible performance with wurm on top-end systems.

 

I have a top end system - I run 4 Wurm clients on it with maxed out settings while I run FF XIV, SotA and a bunch of other low ressource using applications next to each other - no issues whatsoever.

Kinda curious what kind of system you have that it can not run Wurm properly. :/

 

 

And to remain on topic, it feels like people here ask for solutions right now on the spot not considering that the Wurm Team is rather small and ressources on their end have to be distributed accordingly which includes the finances, there are limits to everything.

I'm very surprised how much this small team got done the last year with the level of polish things were rolled out.

Yes there were issues, still things worked for most of it while games with a 30-40 people fulltime staff can not even reach that level of polish on a new release.

 

Some issues have been seemingly lingering since forever, but thats the big things like Xanadus lag issue and they said tons of times its not a simple thing to fix and they are working on it bit by bit as they get more clues to the cause and also optimizing future features to not add more lag.

 

I have been playing on Xanadu for long enough to surfacemine a mountain flat (that alone took 1 RL year of my time here) and theres the odd spike here and there but for me it has never been consistently.

It's not like every 5-10mins you lag for god knows how long, for me it's more like one or two 10-15 second spikes per gaming session (usualy ~10h long) and then my wagon does the spin and slide about thing for those few seconds, sure when it hits it is annoying but nothing unbearable (for me anyhow).

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5 minutes ago, Milkdrop said:

 

I have a top end system - I run 4 Wurm clients on it with maxed out settings while I run FF XIV, SotA and a bunch of other low ressource using applications next to each other - no issues whatsoever.

Kinda curious what kind of system you have that it can not run Wurm properly. :/

 

 

And to remain on topic, it feels like people here ask for solutions right now on the spot not considering that the Wurm Team is rather small and ressources on their end have to be distributed accordingly which includes the finances, there are limits to everything.

I'm very surprised how much this small team got done the last year with the level of polish things were rolled out.

Yes there were issues, still things worked for most of it while games with a 30-40 people fulltime staff can not even reach that level of polish on a new release.

 

Some issues have been seemingly lingering since forever, but thats the big things like Xanadus lag issue and they said tons of times its not a simple thing to fix and they are working on it bit by bit as they get more clues to the cause and also optimizing future features to not add more lag.

 

I have been playing on Xanadu for long enough to surfacemine a mountain flat (that alone took 1 RL year of my time here) and theres the odd spike here and there but for me it has never been consistently.

It's not like every 5-10mins you lag for god knows how long, for me it's more like one or two 10-15 second spikes per gaming session (usualy ~10h long) and then my wagon does the spin and slide about thing for those few seconds, sure when it hits it is annoying but nothing unbearable (for me anyhow).

I have an I6700k and a gtx 980, and 16gb of ddr4 ram, and the game installed on a ssd and I can't run this game on maxed out settings never even gotten close to 60fps in max.

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Firestarter is 100% right on the twitch thing. I do not know why people who play this game think it has a mass appeal to a wide audience. We are NICHE 100% niche.

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9 minutes ago, Legios said:

I have an I6700k and a gtx 980, and 16gb of ddr4 ram, and the game installed on a ssd and I can't run this game on maxed out settings never even gotten close to 60fps in max.

i7-6700K as well, GTX 1080 ZOTAC AMP! Extreme Edition, 32GB of DDR4 RAM at 2400MHz, 1TB Samsung Pro SSD - zero issues here.

 

As I said, I run 4 Wurm clients (ok one is in the mines all day, the other 3 are overland though) and even other games like FF XIV or Shroud of the Avatar all simultanously spead over 3 screens on a 2560 x 1440 resolution next to discord, IRC, Skype and such low ressource junk.

 

The only Wurm issue I ever had is the wagon spinning when the odd lag strikes once or twice for a few seconds per day. :/

 

Well, kind of a derail happening - if polls would do any good I would like a poll where people can list their hardware and how the game behaves for them, but something tells me this would not be accurate enough in the end to tell a thing. ^^`

 

Edit:

Dang, I forgot one other Wurm issue!

When I start up the client my entire system is boged down each time, audio runs normal but anything visual - mouse curosr movements, videos that run, other games etc. is extrtemly slowed down or starts to skip frames... only for a few seconds before the Client switches to the login credentials window though.

But I never managed to track down why it does that. :/ (reported it long ago as well... with my new system it became a bit better as load times ended up being faster but never managed to get rid of it entirely, but to be fair.... as it only does it on a client startup, I did not feel to bothered by that - there is other bugs that probably deserve more attention than this.)

Edited by Milkdrop

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7 minutes ago, Milkdrop said:

i7-6700K as well, GTX 1080 ZOTAC AMP! Extreme Edition, 32GB of DDR4 RAM at 2400MHz, 1TB Samsung Pro SSD - zero issues here.

 

As I said, I run 4 Wurm clients (ok one is in the mines all day, the other 3 are overland though) and even other games like FF XIV or Shroud of the Avatar all simultanously spead over 3 screens on a 2560 x 1440 resolution next to discord, IRC, Skype and such low ressource junk.

 

The only Wurm issue I ever had is the wagon spinning when the odd lag strikes once or twice for a few seconds per day. :/

 

Well, kind of a derail happening - if polls would do any good I would like a poll where people can list their hardware and how the game behaves for them, but something tells me this would not be accurate enough in the end to tell a thing. ^^`

I have no issues running anything else,  especially multiples of anything, but for some reason Wurm just does not run well on my computer. Wurm Unlimited ran super smooth though, and to be fair I guess I haven't tried running the game on max for like 3 months, so will try again just to see if anything has changed.

Edited by Legios

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"hey guys i think the game is dying is there a problem we should be discussing"

*everyone including staff starts screaming and ignoring reality*

okay thanks that what i thought

Edited by salahahdin
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Retrograde be like...

 

silk-fabric-poster-print-font-b-frame-b-

 

Bend the knees, retro! Come on! I got my money on you!

 

Must be rough waking up and seeing a thread like this. You must roll your eyes a lot.

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5 hours ago, Niki said:

 

Money is a problem? Simple ways to advertise without a budget:

Create a media team, Get fans that already play to make inspirational videos to post on YouTube or send to high subscriber YouTube channels that specialize in getting the word out (not talking about Massively Overpowered with only 2,400 subscribers.) Try harder please PR team.

Use Reddit, Post the website on some subreddits, use game play footage on there regularly. This isn't done really I check Reddit all the time. The potential growth is expected.

Hire more PR, I think expecting one guy to do all the work isn't fair, might be worth expanding soon.

Twitch Streamers, lets face nowadays it's the norm to get people into a new game through Twitch. You want to advertise with the big Twitch people. Try to get a streamer into the genre and not on that just plays World of Warcraft all day.

Steam Release, adding WO next to WU seems a logical choice - and before you say the steam crowd have cooties or whatever is just immature, so don't quote me saying that shenanigans! Don't build a wall to keep them out of your sandbox.

Promotional Incentives, this is my favorite because it gets the money and should be used more often. Use the money into google analytics and more advertising.

Cash Shop, use that money for more ad space.

 

Player retention: 

TUTORIAL, Clearly the highest thing on the agenda for them.

UI, Again obviously.

Discord, IRC is the way of the past... it's also a chore to force your player base to setup, so they can ask a question and get ignored by the DEV! Getting in touch with your player base and answering questions will really helps with player retention, some people have brought up bad customer service; well I'll be honest that's not exactly incorrect. 

Listen to your players, Some of us have industry experience, while we might sound ungrateful once in awhile it's because we feel neglected. Don't forget to feed us every now and then.

Fix bugs, This game has a lot of bugs and it drives people away and takes years to fix. Unacceptable. Can't figure something out? Ask the community or ask for outside help. Being passive about isn't fair to your players.

Help players in need, You know when you're a noob and get trapped in a enclosure trying to kill a brown bear for a mission and ran out stamina on a hill? Turns out you can't get helped because a staff member think your up to no good (true story.)

Toxicity, Needs to be improved on, chat filters and stuff could help with that, having a age requirement to join maybe. Warning signs at tutorial when joining epic or chaos about some angry people that want to murder you and call you mean words. 

Lag, Xanadu lag is here to stay you say? Unacceptable but what can we do? Warning signs when joining Xanadu about lag at least.

This game is too hard to pick up, This game can take months or years for a new player to master, this can go back to the tutorial. Teaching them how to terraform, cut a tree or even build a house would help. Golden Valley is fairly large so make use of the space, educating them on keybind use with already default keybindings is helpful. The status bar is for clickers. Don't burn them out though. You should give them some faster timers then they would have after the tutorial.

Newbie Tools, As previously said on another thread I think it would be nice if they started out with a few enchanted tools so they don't feel the need to replace everything instantly.

How to make money, We need more options for new people to earn money instead of foraging coins and selling bulk trying to buy that enchanted chisel so they can make another 5k stone bricks to buy another tool! This clearly leads to them quitting after the first 1k brick grind and it's not fun! (True story, I've had many a noob disappear from my deed.)

 

This is just some stuff you can do. Thanks.

 

What I was thinking but said thoughtfully and with intelligence 

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4 hours ago, Niki said:

I don't remember a thread asking for embarking bug feedback.

 

And that's a big part of the problem.  There's many threads with devs asking for help reproducing the embark bug.  I used the search and found some pretty easily.  In one thread, Alectrys is asking on their behalf.  Keenan has addressed the inability to reproduce the problem in threads that didn't even start out talking about the embark bug.  He's expressed his own frustration in making attempts at reproducing it, enough times that I remember it.

 

All the while, it's made very clear.  If they could find a way to reliably reproduce the issue, they can solve it.

It was said over and over, to the point where someone like me, who has never once since 2012 ever seen the embark bug... knew perfectly well about devs asking for help reproducing the issue and that being what held them back.  It was fixed within days of getting a reliable way to reproduce it, just as they always said it would be.

 

An obvious problem if you play the game?  Super, then why didn't you explain how to reproduce it in the original post of your thread?  Why did no one step forward before?

Some of the people in your thread snidely suggesting the devs should have asked for help... were themselves commenting in older threads where devs were asking for help.  *facepalm*  Were they contributing anything helpful?  Nope, not at all.  Do they ever?

 

Yet here we are, you don't remember ever seeing something about it.  You say players "should be fed."  Right.  Trouble is, some people refuse to remember or acknowledge when they are.  Devs don't listen to players?  Nonsense.

 

Some people are stuck in the negative.

 

The Wurm way @Thorakkanath?  Okay, let's see.  To me, the "Wurm way" is people taking time to step in and help when they can, or at least try.  That's what's great about the Wurm Community and it's happened so many times over the years. 

You and I have nearly identical systems.  Mine runs flawlessly, yours chokes.  You choose to blame the devs.  That's your way.  In your shoes, I'd ask for help too, but I'd ultimately decide that if the game runs smoothly on other systems, the game's not the problem.  Something in my system is causing the issue, which means it's entirely within my power to fix it, one way or another.

 

Trust me, Code Club's policy is to coddle and cajole players like some people in this very thread that do nothing but insult the devs.  Some players even go as far as claim they shouldn't have to contribute, because they're customers. 

How ridiculous is that?  I'm lost in the woods, but since I'm a tax-payer, I shouldn't have to do squat and shall demand I be rescued.

That's their way, and not even close to the Wurm way.  The Wurm way is you roll up your sleeves and get to work.  If a rescue happens, awesome.  If it doesn't, you'll get yourself out of the woods... or just settle down in a three room lean-to with a hot bowl of squirrel stew and a local coyote for conversation.

 

The Dev staff actually spends a great deal of energy engaging with their players.  They're forever having to explain any minute change to a cohort of players foaming at the mouth, stomping their feet, and throwing tantrums.

And then?  They have to sit here and read that they never listen to players...

implied-facepalm-implied-facepalm-demoti

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6 hours ago, Reylaark said:

 

And that's a big part of the problem.  There's many threads with devs asking for help reproducing the embark bug.  I used the search and found some pretty easily.  In one thread, Alectrys is asking on their behalf.  Keenan has addressed the inability to reproduce the problem in threads that didn't even start out talking about the embark bug.  He's expressed his own frustration in making attempts at reproducing it, enough times that I remember it.

 

All the while, it's made very clear.  If they could find a way to reliably reproduce the issue, they can solve it.

It was said over and over, to the point where someone like me, who has never once since 2012 ever seen the embark bug... knew perfectly well about devs asking for help reproducing the issue and that being what held them back.  It was fixed within days of getting a reliable way to reproduce it, just as they always said it would be.

 

An obvious problem if you play the game?  Super, then why didn't you explain how to reproduce it in the original post of your thread?  Why did no one step forward before?

Some of the people in your thread snidely suggesting the devs should have asked for help... were themselves commenting in older threads where devs were asking for help.  *facepalm*  Were they contributing anything helpful?  Nope, not at all.  Do they ever?

 

Yet here we are, you don't remember ever seeing something about it.  You say players "should be fed."  Right.  Trouble is, some people refuse to remember or acknowledge when they are.  Devs don't listen to players?  Nonsense.

 

Some people are stuck in the negative.

 

The Wurm way @Thorakkanath?  Okay, let's see.  To me, the "Wurm way" is people taking time to step in and help when they can, or at least try.  That's what's great about the Wurm Community and it's happened so many times over the years. 

You and I have nearly identical systems.  Mine runs flawlessly, yours chokes.  You choose to blame the devs.  That's your way.  In your shoes, I'd ask for help too, but I'd ultimately decide that if the game runs smoothly on other systems, the game's not the problem.  Something in my system is causing the issue, which means it's entirely within my power to fix it, one way or another.

 

Trust me, Code Club's policy is to coddle and cajole players like some people in this very thread that do nothing but insult the devs.  Some players even go as far as claim they shouldn't have to contribute, because they're customers. 

How ridiculous is that?  I'm lost in the woods, but since I'm a tax-payer, I shouldn't have to do squat and shall demand I be rescued.

That's their way, and not even close to the Wurm way.  The Wurm way is you roll up your sleeves and get to work.  If a rescue happens, awesome.  If it doesn't, you'll get yourself out of the woods... or just settle down in a three room lean-to with a hot bowl of squirrel stew and a local coyote for conversation.

 

The Dev staff actually spends a great deal of energy engaging with their players.  They're forever having to explain any minute change to a cohort of players foaming at the mouth, stomping their feet, and throwing tantrums.

And then?  They have to sit here and read that they never listen to players...

implied-facepalm-implied-facepalm-demoti

I should of commented with everything I knew about the issue, you're absolutely right. Thing is I assumed the DEVs played the game enough to know the tips and tricks and knew about how to work around the issue by logging out. It happened so much for me I just assumed it happened to everyone. I think some more effort on their part should of been made apparent, you can't rely on the player to do your job unless you ask; especially something so obvious. Not to be rude but lets keep the embarking stuff out of this thread, it's fixed we should move on.

 

Don't take everything I said out of context either. Thanks.

Edited by Niki
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20 minutes ago, Niki said:

Not to be rude but lets keep the embarking stuff out of this thread, it's fixed we should move on.

 

 

Quote

People need a voice. A voice get's things done remember my thread about embarking? 

 

I'm sorry, but you were the one who initially brought up the embarking bug.

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I have played many mmos: Final Fantasy XI, Final Fantasy XIV, WoW, Guild Wars II, EVE Online, Everquest, ESO, SWTOR, and more. All of them brand names. Most of them with huge fan bases, huge communities, their own culture, extensive budgets and so on. 

 

However, it was in Wurm the first time I had a one on one conversation with a GM, and a one on one conversation with a developer. Over 20 years gaming and this is the only place I have ever seen a dev hold a public and intelligent discussion with a player. I dont know what world you guys came from, but few if any games out there have devs involved in the community half as much as Budda does here with us. Its not a common occurence, yet here its the norm.

 

...and yet people say they are not involved and they dont listen to the players? Give me a break. Go back to WoW and see if they listen to you there 

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Could care less about GM involvement, more concerned with the facts.

 

I am additionally concerned with there being no "summer bump" this time around, which usually happens end of may.

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Umm.. so with everyone saying that the team needs to advertise. . . why don't the ones concerned with Population issues advertise themselves?
Tell a friend, blog, write reviews of what you ENJOY about it (dont complain, that doesnt make positive influence).
Make videos, stream, etc.
That is one of the ways I heard about it. Was from other actual players.
And it was very helpful as I hone the style I wish to play.
I enjoy danger, high risk and high reward, so PVP servers seem to be more my fancy.
But for those who just like to build and socialize the PVE servers look beautiful.
I personally think there should be more pop on the PVP as it seems to create an even more unique atmosphere.
PVE seems more for the casual or don't wish to be bothered players imo. (no offense builders love to you all ;))
I've played many many many sandbox games, including medieval themed ones
I have worked with other dev teams and staffed servers for games like Wurm.
But, Wurm is very unique and I have been nothing but impressed with it.
The ultimate factor I have been amazed with is the community. The ones who appear to be quite helpful.
That is much appreciated. As for the naysayers, I feel perhaps you got a little burned out?
Or perhaps you are expecting something trendy like FPS sandbox?


In short, for all those that have persevered and have worked diligently to make this game what it is (past and present), I thank you.
It's been quite the beautiful experience and I will continue to explore and adventure this glorious and unique world that is Wurm.

~Riddles "Hi, I'm new here."

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7 hours ago, Legios said:

I have an I6700k and a gtx 980, and 16gb of ddr4 ram, and the game installed on a ssd and I can't run this game on maxed out settings never even gotten close to 60fps in max.

 

Have you tried the unstable client. On my computer it runs way better than the stable client. I can mow put all setings to max and get a consistent 80fps. Not to mention the game looks beautiful with the new renderer. All previous issues i have had with the unstable client have been resolved. Give it a try and see for yourself.

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12 hours ago, milksteak said:

(we all know a ton of people left because of rolf)

i remember rolf - what did he do wrong?

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Wurm is a long term game that gets occasional spikes of players every now and then. Special premium-only events and new maps are the two main things that tend to cause spikes. If you look at the actual long term graph of premium players from the last 13 months, you can see the current numbers are just about the normal numbers that we have for most of a year, ignoring the two spikes for the anniversary last year and Christmas. (This is also ignoring the regular ~3k+ players we have on WU currently).

 

paying-year.png

 

Spikes are fun, but they usually tend to be made up of a bit of alts, as opposed to all new players. New players are where our current efforts are focused and we have a huge potential market that already find this game, sign up for an account and briefly log in on GV before logging off and not coming back. We firmly believe this is because of three main things - the quality of the tutorial, the quality of the UI, and the very first things you see when you first login. This is why all of these things are our major focus for this year, because fixing (or just improving) these will cause more of those players to stick around for longer, maybe actually complete the tutorial and know what the game is about, then head off to the main servers to play properly.

 

All of this is based off data that we have and use to see where we can improve things. Other ideas brought up in this thread are great and may cause a slight increase over time, or small spikes every now and then - but fixing this glaring issue that we see through the data we have is the thing we're focusing on for now.

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2 minutes ago, Budda said:

Wurm is a long term game that gets occasional spikes of players every now and then. Special premium-only events and new maps are the two main things that tend to cause spikes. If you look at the actual long term graph of premium players from the last 13 months, you can see the current numbers are just about the normal numbers that we have for most of a year, ignoring the two spikes for the anniversary last year and Christmas. (This is also ignoring the regular ~3k+ players we have on WU currently).

 

paying-year.png

 

Spikes are fun, but they usually tend to be made up of a bit of alts, as opposed to all new players. New players are where our current efforts are focused and we have a huge potential market that already find this game, sign up for an account and briefly log in on GV before logging off and not coming back. We firmly believe this is because of three main things - the quality of the tutorial, the quality of the UI, and the very first things you see when you first login. This is why all of these things are our major focus for this year, because fixing (or just improving) these will cause more of those players to stick around for longer, maybe actually complete the tutorial and know what the game is about, then head off to the main servers to play properly.

 

All of this is based off data that we have and use to see where we can improve things. Other ideas brought up in this thread are great and may cause a slight increase over time, or small spikes every now and then - but fixing this glaring issue that we see through the data we have is the thing we're focusing on for now.

 

From a business viewpoint that graph show's the company having zero growth, which in the long term is a bad thing.

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Just now, JakeRivers said:

 

From a business viewpoint that graph show's the company having zero growth, which in the long term is a bad thing.

 

Which is the reason we're working on the things I just talked about. We already have a large influx of new accounts, most of them just don't stick around. Getting even a small portion of those to stick around with these changes will cause a larger long term growth.

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So now we're blaming the current "regime" for things that happened 4 years ago?  Yeah, you need another ban.

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54 minutes ago, Wargasm said:

So now we're blaming the current "regime" for things that happened 4 years ago?  Yeah, you need another ban.

That's asinine. He's construing the graph out 4 years prior, it's not like the game has changed in any meaningful way in 4 years. What else can I expect tho. 

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2 hours ago, Wargasm said:

So now we're blaming the current "regime" for things that happened 4 years ago?  Yeah, you need another ban.

Who made you the moral authority on what can be said about any regime past of present? Need another ban? Seriously?

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Can we rename this thread to "Don't bother wasting your time reading this"?

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