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[Factional Fight] Episode 15: A Year in Review and A Look to the Future

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I just started the video but as far as updates go I prefer the little updates each update seems to come with some trouble too. They can stop at any time and make a news letter with a group of past updates for marketing any player that has not been playing will not know that the updates have been live for months.  

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Will Puzzle Castle survive the bashing party ? Tune in next time to find out !

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A special episode today! We convinced Budda and Retrograde to stick around after recording the skill reveal episode and answer some of our burning questions about Wurm! Hope you enjoy.

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Great questions and very interesting and informative answers guys! I was absolutely delighted to hear that putting items on tables is "on the list". I'm not fussy about the "when", just super happy that it's coming at some point! 

 

As for "helping players too much". Oh my gosh, I couldn't agree more!! This is one of my pet peeves.

 

When I first started Wurm, "too helpful people" was one of my problems actually. I'm very much a "I want to discover/learn/do this myself" kinda gal and for someone to help or to explain things, completely defeats the purpose of the game for me. This is EXACTLY why I don't live near other people and why I've never wanted to be part of a village. Don't get me wrong, of course I appreciate the good intentions of people who want to help. Of course it warms a newbies heart and makes one feel welcome! But guys! Think about what Wurm is at it's very core: all about setting goals for yourself, learning how to achieve those goals, failing a few times along the way and then FINALLY becoming victorious, with your own sweat, blood and tears! If you are helped along the way, it completely waters down the feeling of achievement! 

 

Sometimes people wanting to help are also doing so out of selfish reasons without even realizing it themselves. For example, when I first started the game, I built a little 1x1 house on the first day after walking around for 7 hours trying to find the perfect spot (little did I understand at that point that you can terraform anything to be anything *grins*). A month later, I had built my first boat and was ready to go out to find the perfect spot to create my first deed. I found an island with an abandoned area and made my first deed there. Before long I realized I had some neighbors living on the other side of the island. A very friendly couple who had lived on the island for years and had already fully built their deed to completion ages ago. So when I arrived, it was exciting for them to have a neighbor they could get to know and help. They graciously offered their help and wanted to give me all sorts of knick knacks to make my life easier, tools, food, armor etc. I thanked them for being so nice, but also firmly told them that the best way they could help me is by not helping me. That I want to do everything from scratch, the hard way, by myself.

 

At first they seemed to understand and respect this, but the closer we became as neighbors and friends - and the more affection they started feeling for me, the less they obeyed my wishes and would do things like drop by when I wasn't around and leave chests full of goodies, or help in other ways, then later say "Oops, I must have dropped it there". Being cute about it. And as endearing as it was in one way, it was at the same time highly, highly annoying. I had to keep reminding them why I don't want help of any kind. 

 

In the end, the endearment turned to full time annoyance as I started to ponder their behavior. I realized that I had become their new project. Their new purpose. A fresh reason to use all of those high skills they had and craft things for me, They had already completed everything they wanted to do in the game, so they were bored out of their skulls by the time I arrived at the island. And I realized that what at first seemed like selfless acts, were in fact selfish acts. I was their "entertainment", whether I liked it or not. And how I was feeling was of less importance. In the end, I decided to move away and sought out the most remote and empty place I could find. It was such a relief when I got away, it felt like I could finally start playing the game for real. 

 

So for all of you wurmians out there who want to help newbies: when you feel compelled to help new players, make sure it's for the right reasons. If you truly want to "help" newbies, instead of slathering them with free stuff, explaining everything to them or assisting them, how about instead offering them work via small tasks and missions that give a sensible reward that will help them get started, but will not steal away from their sense of discovery, learning and conquering challenges. 

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Should the skill system be changed? 

Except for meditation (which I totally agree on), no. I enjoy the game -exactly- the way it is now, and here is why:

 

The push and pull of emotion with each action:

Sometimes you get "stuck in a rut" where there is hardly any skill gain, but oh so rewarding when it picks up again. If I were guaranteed skill each and every time, I'd actually just stop watching the skill window altogether

 

Usability and satisfaction:

If skill gain were guaranteed each time but only the numerical AMOUNT varied, this would force the player to read the amount each time to gain that satisfaction. The way it is now, you don't really need to care about the amount (although you stare at it when you're just about to reach a milestone), all you need is to see the new line of green text appear in the window. Seeing a whole sentance appear vs watching for number changes is so much more satisfying and less tedious. 

 

Should high level tools yield higher amounts of skill?

I agree with you guys, of course a low level duller rustier item is going to make you work harder and thus get more skilled.

 

More realistic:

Like you guys say, it's how it works in the real world as well

 

Balancing game play:

Wurm is already hard enough as it is for a new player! A lot of people give up from the start because it's so hard. Imagine if they tried to get anything done with low level tools? Impossible! It needs to be easy and fast for a new player to "get started" in the game and to quickly get some sense of accomplishment. Exactly how the first levels of other MMOs are super easy so that by the time you're level 10 for instance in WoW, you've already INVESTED enough to keep on going. Imagine if new WoW players were plonked straight into a level 50 zone. Nope.

 

Challenge for veterans:

While on the surface, it would seem that we should reward hard work with things getting easier, the joy in that would be short lived. In the end, veterans who have no challenge left at all. Like any good game, the farther you get, the harder it should get.

 

Ruining prestige:

If things get easier the more you progress, there would be absolutely no prestige in becoming a grand master smith or carpenter. You'd have grand masters a dime a dozen. No, we need to keep it hard so there is something to actually be proud of when you accomplish those hard challenges in the "end game". 

Edited by Malena
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About videos vs pure audio podcasts: I don't know how others feel, but at least for me it's the videos I want. Your guys "podcasts" are so much more than that. Even though there would be nothing else to see visually in the video other than you walking around in a mine or staring at a wall as you build it, the VALUE in your video is the comforting cozy feeling of you guys PLAYING the game while you chit chat. Because you have to remember, that for most of us - we are playing wurm on one computer screen while we "watch" your videos on another screen. So it feels like you're playing along side us, even though we know logically that it was filmed at a different time and that you're not actually there right this minute. This cozyness factor is especially precious to someone like me who lives their life pretty much a hermit in Wurm. I live on the far stretches of Xanadu where I see another name in local perhaps once a day as someone sails by. And don't get me wrong, this is exactly the way I like it. I want my solitude and peace. But at the same time, I really enjoy the "company" that your guys videos give me. It makes me feel cozy and warm to play Wurm knowing that there is someone out there, just as passionate about the game, working on their own grand schemes. That's the best way to describe it really. And besides, even in the videos where you're not so much teaching as just chattering, I usually still learn something new from the visuals I see. So, I hope you never switch to mere audio podcasts. However if you were to take the audio footage and in ADDITION make audio podcasts from them, sure, why not. 

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On ‎10‎/‎19‎/‎2017 at 8:31 PM, Malena said:

When I first started Wurm, "too helpful people" was one of my problems actually. I'm very much a "I want to discover/learn/do this myself" kinda gal and for someone to help or to explain things, completely defeats the purpose of the game for me. This is EXACTLY why I don't live near other people and why I've never wanted to be part of a village. Don't get me wrong, of course I appreciate the good intentions of people who want to help. Of course it warms a newbies heart and makes one feel welcome! But guys! Think about what Wurm is at it's very core: all about setting goals for yourself, learning how to achieve those goals, failing a few times along the way and then FINALLY becoming victorious, with your own sweat, blood and tears! If you are helped along the way, it completely waters down the feeling of achievement! 

 

Although I am very much like you in wanting to depend upon myself for my Wurm achievements, accomplishments and discoveries, I think that this type of independence is within the minority of players. Especially in newer players where they seem hardly able to learn anything on their own through available sources independent of players within the game, or those who will gladly take any well intended handouts from others. When new players seem to ask for too much "help" I am all the less inclined to provide them any. Yet for those less pushy or needy I am more aware to respond with some sort of assistance.

 

It is a fine line to walk without going too far in either direction, I find; but I think the more independent type of individual can understand this dilemma, well described within your post. Not that I loose any sleep over the situation. Mistakes are always made and the best that can be hoped for is to make fewer of them in the future. Six of one, half dozen of the other.

 

Happy Trails

=Ayes=

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4 minutes ago, Ayes said:

It is a fine line to walk without going too far in either direction, I find; but I think the more independent type of individual can understand this dilemma, well described within your post. Not that I loose any sleep over the situation. Mistakes are always made and the best that can be hoped for is to make fewer of them in the future. Six of one, half dozen of the other.

 

Yup, and don't get me wrong - I have absolutely nothing against folks requesting help or providing it for that matter. What I do have an issue with is helpers who are too pushy with their help. 

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I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE Adams halloween idea about trick-or-treating to various starter towns or deeds!

 

It would be amazing to have both ways implemented, starter towns could have a ghostly NPC that grants a little bit of sleep bonus, whilst deed tokens could give "candies" - a form of non-perishable food that you could take on excursions. And if there were no way to create candies like that through cooking, it would balance things out.  

 

PS: Oh my gosh, the game is just looking achingly beautiful! Aaahhhhhh! 

 

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Thanks for the mention guys, glad you enjoyed the post and learned something new from it :D

 

(also you pulled a Retrograde and called me a guy at one point in your episode hehe!)

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Some opinions on the topics of the last two videos:

From Wurm Online | A Road to the Labyrinth [Bonus 13]

 

New skills:

I agree on both of your points: Yes oh yes! I would LOVE if we could write and read books, I really miss that aspect from UO. And you know, after playing that game for many years and out of all of the treasures and cool loot I had accumilated in the game worth millions and millions in UO money, you know what items in my chests were the most valuable in the end? MY BOOKS! Books that had been written for me and given as gifts. When I lost all my stuff due to a bug (and stopped playing after that), it was the loss of the books I felt most devastated by. And yes, naturally you could put books into book cases there as well. The way it showed visually was that the bookcase could have two states with two representing textures: empty or containing books. A practical and optimized way to do it. Here are some screenies: 

 

bookcase.gif   academic-bookcase.gif

 

 

Love Letters

See the little red books in the pouch below? By double clicking those open (I guess in Wurm it would be right click and "read"), the book would open up as below. Books were used for many many purposes in the game. People would make tutorial guides, write histories of places and people, write novels, use them as "letters" to give to others. In the case below, it was a romantic gift saying something along the lines of "here is the key to my heart" and then there's a little copper key in the pouch. 

katsienna_key_to_heart_01.jpg

 

Labels and Descriptions

Or else in the case of this public aquarium, the little books on the tables had names, latin names and descriptions of all the fish (that I just invented myself). So immersive and fun!

tausta.jpg

 

Public Library

And yes, you could copy books as well, so before I opened a public library, I went around to all the other libraries in UO (I was certainly not the first person to make a library!) and copied novels and guides from the books I read there and ended up with quite a nice collection!

tausta.jpg

 

Guestbook or "leave your order"

Or in the case of this shop we had. See that book with a pen placed on top of it? That was a guestbook for visitors. Some books were the kind that anyone could write in freely, others were only writable by the owner. In our case, we could set the permissions. Then the book on the floor was so customers could leave orders.

oldshop.jpg 

 

User manuals and Tutorial books

Or how about this manual on how to use the public sauna I built?

manual.jpg

 

Some user manuals were taken from "historic famous NPCs" from the ultima games and were already pre printed and planted in the game, they could not be overwritten.

 

AksiQ4S.jpg

 

Fiction, non fiction and Biographies etc

fH8Ktb8.png

 

Smut!!!

And how about dirty magazines using ASCII code "pictures"? 

 

playboy.jpg

 

And these were just SOME of the many uses players had for books. So if Wurm devs just hear books and think: "Meh", think again!

 

However I do agree with Adam's point as well. Instead of new skills, shouldn't we try to expand upon on already existing ones? 

 

In the case of books, you saw above just how many player to player interaction possibilities they offer, so why put that behind a skill and restrict the very thing that would promote players interacting. No, I wouldn't attach any skill to that what so ever. Perhaps papyrusmakers could also make books however, and those books could be sold for anyone to write into.

 

Glassmaking

About glassmaking, I somehow doubt we can have anything such as glass in Wurm, the game does not seem to support anything that has very much transparency (probably due to performance issues).

 

Village progression

Love that idea!

 

Diving under the water

I totally agree!! I even mention this in one my first Wurm videos about my deed. I think I said something along the lines of wishing I could dive underwater and grab clams from the seabed or something like that. 

 

Troll Huts, camps or small villages that spawn randomly and can be taken down 

I love that idea!

 

From Wurm Online | Tis the Holiday Season! [Ep. 14]

 

Will people use Saddlebags?

Hell yeah I will! I never enjoyed travelling with a cart or wagon, I always felt so vulnerable when doing so since they move so slowly. So whenever I'm venturing farther than the border of my deed, I only travel by horseback or by boat. So for me, the saddlebags are like a dream come true.

 

Brian remember that for you guys, 1. you're veterans of the game with high skills and good gear. 2. You're already completely comfortable with the game and know all it's ins and outs. 3. you guys are most often traveling together (at least that's what we see in the videos) so you can always work together to deal with mobs. So essentially, venturing out into the wilderness and defending yourselves against mobs is easy peasy and causes you no stress. But do you remember how scary and intimidating it is when you're a newbie? Remember how it feels to go out alone? Hell, even though I've been playing for many years already, I'm ALWAYS scared to go out adventuring, still to this day. Mainly because all of my wurm time goes to building and crafting and rarely to killing stuff. So I don't have sufficient fighting skills,  I also don't own any good armor or weapons nor do I have the skills to craft them. So while you guys can whack a troll down with a blindfold, for me if I see a troll, I run away screaming. 

 

Different Wood Types

As cool as it is that there are different wood types and as much as I'd like to see them returned if it were done in a smart way, this feature is not without problems

  • The obvious one: smart use of the devs time + amount of textures we can have in the game.
  • The visual aspect of wood types has always been a very "wishlisty" kind of feature for me. While I REALLY appreciate that different wood types having different functionalities, the visual differences have been kind of "meh". Maybe because the old textures were so darned ugly and I was kind of relieved when the new beautiful "standard" texture replaced those.
  • Personally, I feel that there are so many other visual things that I'd much rather see devs working on and taking up resources texture wise than this.
  • The thing with wood types is that for you to truly enjoy their possibilities, you need to know beforehand what each woodtype looks like on that specific item. What helps even less is that they didn't seem to have a very consistent or standard style and always seem to look kind of different on different items. (For instance cherry might look great on a boat, but like crap on a barrel) And if you're a newbie to the game and happen to pick a wood type that is mega ugly, it might be disheartening to choose the wrong one. Imagine just finishing your first boat after slaving away on it for days or even weeks, and then you add that last ingredient and boom! The boat looks like crap. I only say this because this is something I experienced a few times when I was still a noob.
  • Once they replaced the textures with one standard one, it was kind of a relief since making a wooden item was not a case of doing my homework each time to hunt out the visual differences of the various wood types anymore. I could just make the item in peace and knew it would look good.
  • Unless they make this affect every single wooden item in the game, it will also be distressful to not be quite sure which items will be affected by "the last wooden ingredient added" and which not. 

I guess it's a bit late to give these opinions, so if we assume by default that they are coming for sure, where to draw the line on which items get the treatment, which don't?

My opinion is that by no means should all items have it. Instead, draw the line on the "vanity" and "personalization" aspect. So if the item is something that gives "showing off" value (carts, boats, wagons, wooden shields, wooden types etc) then by all means, allow the choice of wood type. But if it's something mundane like bsbs, crates or furniture, or something that is hidden from public view most of the time, then no wood types and instead just make sure that the standard wood chosen for that item looks nice.   

 

Hitching Posts

Yes, this is still valid for the visual and immersion aspect. And functionality-wise, it would still be super useful for those players who don't own deeds, but would like ride to someone's deed, dismount and explore the place. And it would just look SO cool. Especially since Wurm always looks so dead due to lack of NPCs strolling around, so seeing horses hitched in towns would give some "life" to the place.

 

PS: Ultima Online will be going free-to-play this spring, you guys should go check it out. 

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Thanks for the posts!! Melena, the more I see of UO the more I see the similarities between it and Wurm. I may just have to give it a try when it goes free to play. That book system would be perfect in Wurm. It will give the players a very open ended system that would bolster role playing and community.

 

Anyway, I have been slacking on keeping this thread up to date. The OP will be updated with the most recent couple of videos.

 

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