Thinking of trying this game

[Grumpysmith 135]

You've entered the trial zone.  People want to see if you make it for a couple or more weeks before they will spend much effort on you.  Most new players only last a few days to a week.  Secondly, many won't invite you to a village until you buy premium time, showing you have commitment to the game. 

 

Regarding the trader.  Yeah, sadly the trader system is a mess, you do need exact change.  You will make some money through various activities like butchering, killing animals, etc.  There will be a drum roll and lights and you will get a notice in the event window saying you've had an inspiration.  Not all of these will give you money.  Another way is to activate an item you forage or butcher (as well as many other things) right click a token or trader and if they want it the will give you a few iron or so for it.  That way you can earn change to make up the difference.  If the trader has a few coins they will also make change.  Also, if you click at the top of the trader window, on the various columns it sorts them based on the column if I remember correctly.

 

And yes everyone is a spy, suspected spy or worse a griefer, especially f2p players.

 

And if you decide you don't like where you are, start a new toon come to epic/Affliction everyone there knows who I am.  I'll make sure you have a relatively safe place to live, while you figure out the game. Unlike most games, this game doesn't normally come to you, you have to go to it. It's a great game if your a self-starter, willing to learn, and can establish your own goals.    But, it is not a game you can play for free for very long, especially on epic.

 

 

[MaurizioAM 919]

trick for when you are using a trader, when you want to put back items you have to find a container to put items back into the trader.. any container works, its the only way to "put back" what you dont want to buy and not have to reset the whole trade.  I used to trade exact value in items for items i wanted on traders back in the day when i was new, it was quite exciting.  Things like pottery bowls work good and foraged items for trade value. If you get the exact value you can technically trade items for items. I used to have a few copper i would often times make up the difference which ends up making the exact value much much easier.

[Cista 428]

Forget the trader, forget epic, come to Xanadu and interact with real players   battling an npc is not at all what Wurm is about. Come help us finish the largest bridge ever built, something to tell your children in 10 years. 

[Wonka 438]

For a trader, have a few low value coins on hand (20i etc), then make sure what you demand is a bit more than what you offer, and make up the difference in iron.  Then trade again to get your iron back.

[Roccandil 959]

Thanks for the tips! Sorting inventory is very helpful, and I need to try the return item to container thing.

 

I've already bought a couple months of premium. Having fun on Epic for now, so I probably won't be leaving any time soon, and if I can find someone to team up with on Serenity, I likely will (someone already made me an offer, although they haven't been on in the past couple days).

[Roccandil 959]

So, time for a little rant.

 

I mentioned earlier that RNG can turn me off a game, and I'm enjoying Wurm and Epic, but the RNG is like a subtle poison. Every time I don't get a meditation tick, or am grinding something like mining with sleep bonus going, and I see action after action complete with no ticks, it's no fun. Every time I try to create something with all-or-nothing RNG on it, and I fail, it's no fun. I can accept being told I'm simply not skilled enough to make something, but turning crafting into a casino? Ugh!

 

Perhaps more importantly, from a business perspective the game is literally sending me subliminal messages that playing is a waste of time, and that I should spend my money elsewhere. And every time I get that message, a tick inside -me- goes up on a "waste of time and money" skill. Knowing myself, when that "skill" reaches a critical point, I'll move on from the game.

 

I realize it's too late to change Wurm, but I can't fathom why developers so often rely on the toxic crutch of all-or-nothing RNG. I've seen, for instance, suggestions to take the percent chance to get a tick, apply it to the skill gain, and make all actions get skill, just less of it so it balances out over time. And why not? Why not subliminally reinforce that every action is worth the player's time, and thus that players -should- be playing and spending money? Wouldn't that more fun for the players, and better for the devs? Am I missing something?

 

Anyhow, the good news is that I'm enjoying the game enough to stick with it, despite RNG. I just wish there didn't need to be a "despite".

 

[Cecci 1,609]

On 2017-09-07 at 7:29 AM, Cista said:

Forget the trader, forget epic, come to Xanadu and interact with real players   battling an npc is not at all what Wurm is about. Come help us finish the largest bridge ever built, something to tell your children in 10 years. 

Thanks for the marketing, sweetie

[Cista 428]

Regarding RNG to make something in crafting, it is really necessary to have it there. Some things are very hard to make for a player at the stage that player is at. This gives you intelligent choices, for example if you have just 10% chance of making a mailbox or bits for a large cart, this is where you maybe try and get your neighbour to do it, gaining a new friend in the process.  

Edited September 26, 2017 by Cista

[Wulfgar 1,115]

I hate games with no RNG, they are boring and predictable and that turns me off.

I wonder how you survive in the real world where everything is random.

[Yiraia 427]

5 hours ago, Wulfgar said:

I hate games with no RNG, they are boring and predictable and that turns me off.

I wonder how you survive in the real world where everything is random.

RNG is the lazy way to go about games though. Its much more fun when you actually have to participate in the action than just let numbers decide. Like when hes talking about meditation, the skill tick is just random. If after meditating ,and you are following the path of hate, you get a message like "Burn the corpse of 3 bears." Then it would be more "fun." You go out to search for 3 bears, kill them, and use a steel and flint to burn them. Meditate again and poof, get a nice big tick and wait another 5 hours to do again. That is way more fun than waiting 30 minutes to meditate 4-5 times, and then waiting a few more hours. Real world is random but you still have some control.

 

6 hours ago, Cista said:

Regarding RNG to make something in crafting, it is really necessary to have it there. Some things are very hard to make for a player at the stage that player is at. This gives you intelligent choices, for example if you have just 10% chance of making a mailbox or bits for a large cart, this is where you maybe try and get your neighbour to do it, gaining a new friend in the process.  

Not "necessary" just the chosen way. Ever seen dead by daylight?

Spoiler

Would be cool if the more skilled you were, the slider would be slower. and the less skilled you are, the faster the slider. Maybe even make the space to hit smaller or larger. But nah, we just let numbers decide and click until we get it.

[Ascorbic 265]

What game doesn't have RNG?

[Yiraia 427]

21 minutes ago, Ascorbic said:

What game doesn't have RNG?

Nearly all games have RNG. However, there's a point where RNG plays too much of a factor, and you are simply putting a coin in a slot machine for amusement.

[Roccandil 959]

The real world isn't truly random (if it were, science and technology would be impossible); it's "simply" very complicated. (One definition of insanity is doing the same thing multiple times, expecting different outcomes: that's RNG.)

 

Chess is perhaps the quintessential example of a game -without- RNG, and it's neither boring nor predictable. That's because its relatively simple rules provide emergent gameplay. Go would be another example. A more modern example would be Hero Academy, where the only RNG, as I recall, was the order in which you got your heroes/items.

 

I'm not entirely against RNG; I think the game I've played that did it best was Heroes of Might & Magic. RNG wasn't all-or-nothing, most combat wasn't about whether or not you hit or missed, but how much damage you did/took. The range of RNG's effect was smaller (and that also allowed a couple magic spells: Bless to always do max damage, and Curse to always do min damage).

 

It's all-or-nothing RNG that really turns me off; you either lose everything or win it all. That's just gambling, and I reckon I'm not one of those people who gets turned on by gambling.

Edited September 26, 2017 by Roccandil

[Wulfgar 1,115]

13 minutes ago, Roccandil said:

It's all-or-nothing RNG that really turns me off; you either lose everything or win it all. That's just gambling, and I reckon I'm not one of those people who gets turned on by gambling.

 

You are lucky you started playing down now where the game has been dumbed down a lot, and that trend most likely will continue.

Back in the good old days we would actually lose crafting materials upon failure, so a new player could go through a forest before he could make a mast with 10% creation chance for example.

 

I am not sure you understand the concept of random though, if you believe that the world isn't truly random. Are you religious by any chance? Creationist?

 

Intelligent life evolved on earth by pure chance, a chance that is so low that it is in fact possible that it didn't or won't occur in the entire universe again.

 

 

[Kadmint 528]

By the way, when you were talking about ticks... Sure, meditation ticks are pain.  But have you noticed that even if you don't acquire a full skill tick when doing other skills, like mining, you actually gain a little bit of that skill and every 3-5 time you gain the actual tick since the counter is filled and recognized as full tick. So not completely RNG, I'd say med ticks and hitting rares/supremes/fantastics is pure RNG.

 

Edit, med ticks have some increasing effect by using correct meditation rug and sufficient ql for certain level. Or that's what they say...  

Edited September 26, 2017 by Kadmint

[Roccandil 959]

22 minutes ago, Wulfgar said:

 

You are lucky you started playing down now where the game has been dumbed down a lot, and that trend most likely will continue.

Back in the good old days we would actually lose crafting materials upon failure, so a new player could go through a forest before he could make a mast with 10% creation chance for example.

 

I am not sure you understand the concept of random though, if you believe that the world isn't truly random. Are you religious by any chance? Creationist?

 

Intelligent life evolved on earth by pure chance, a chance that is so low that it is in fact possible that it didn't or won't occur in the entire universe again.

 

 

 

I'm not sure I should touch this one, but if nothing else, I'm reminded of a short story I read a long time ago, about a father who lost his daughter to poison, and wished that the poison had not acted as poison. He got a dream in which he saw a universe where nothing could be counted on: what was poison one day would be food the next, and no physical laws ever stayed the same. He woke up very thankful that the universe was consistent.

 

Our ignorance doesn't make the universe random.

[Hailene 362]

3 minutes ago, Roccandil said:

no physical laws ever stayed the same. He woke up very thankful that the universe was consistent.

 

If we're going that philosophical here..

 

Wurm is the same. The rules don't "change". In mining, for example, you get a skill tick if the result lands somewhere between 1.01-39.99 QL (ignoring caps by your mining skill and the vein QL). That's consistent.

 

Wurm is a computer program. There's no real way for it to be truly random (and in your example, nothing in the universe is truly random).

[Wulfgar 1,115]

21 minutes ago, Roccandil said:

Our ignorance doesn't make the universe random.

 

Ignorance is no excuse for poor logic.

Because some things are constant, doesn't mean that most things aren't random.

But from your reply I can gather that you are religious, so no point in continuing this discussion.

 

[Roccandil 959]

 

11 minutes ago, Hailene said:

 

If we're going that philosophical here..

 

Wurm is the same. The rules don't "change". In mining, for example, you get a skill tick if the result lands somewhere between 1.01-39.99 QL (ignoring caps by your mining skill and the vein QL). That's consistent.

 

Wurm is a computer program. There's no real way for it to be truly random (and in your example, nothing in the universe is truly random).

 

However we define RNG, Wurm provides wildly different outcomes for doing the same thing, and in so doing, provides constant, if subtle, feedback to the player that they are wasting their time and money. I've eventually left other games for that reason, notably Path of Exile; I finally listened to the game.

 

I realize that gambling mechanics attract some people, but that seems like a dodgy business reason to include them.

[Roccandil 959]

3 minutes ago, Wulfgar said:

 

Ignorance is no excuse for poor logic.

Because some things are constant, doesn't mean that most things aren't random.

But from your reply I can gather that you are religious, so no point in continuing this discussion.

 

 

It's axiomatic that the laws of the universe are constant. If they weren't, then science would be pointless. (Research would continually be rendered irrelevant by law-shifts.)

 

I find it odd you think that's evidence of religion.

[Wulfgar 1,115]

An interesting read http://www.hawking.org.uk/does-god-play-dice.html

 

Not sure why you are so damn fixated on laws of the universe? They are not really relevant at all.

 

Believing that nothing happens by chance (randomness) is usually what religions want you to believe. 

 

 

 

 

[Ascorbic 265]

8 minutes ago, Roccandil said:

 

It's axiomatic that the laws of the universe are constant. If they weren't, then science would be pointless. (Research would continually be rendered irrelevant by law-shifts.)

 

I find it odd you think that's evidence of religion.

 

If this were true, we would know how the weather would be till the end of time.  Just because we placed laws on the universe doesn't mean they actually exist.  Science is the pursuit of knowledge through repetition but often results are still random they use statistics to find the most likely result.  But this is a pointless argument.

[Wulfgar 1,115]

19 minutes ago, Roccandil said:

 

 

However we define RNG, Wurm provides wildly different outcomes for doing the same thing,

 

Guess you are not a sports fan either. The outcome of a sports match is usually decided by a series of random events (unless match fixing is involved). You can do certain things to affect the random outcome of these events, like practicing, same as you can affect the randomness of Wurm. Wurm is more like rolling a dice though, after enough rolls you are guaranteed the same outcome, randomness just makes the journey more interesting to most people.

[Roccandil 959]

34 minutes ago, Ascorbic said:

 

If this were true, we would know how the weather would be till the end of time.  Just because we placed laws on the universe doesn't mean they actually exist.  Science is the pursuit of knowledge through repetition but often results are still random they use statistics to find the most likely result.  But this is a pointless argument.

 

Weather is enormously complicated, but that hardly means that "under the hood" it's truly random. Statistics are simply a tool we use when we can't see exactly what's going on. I was struck by this when reverse-engineering an old computer game for which I didn't have the source; I was using research principles to figure out the original code and duplicate its outcomes, instead of being able to simply view the code. (Thankfully, it was a fairly simple system with few variables.)

 

32 minutes ago, Wulfgar said:

 

Guess you are not a sports fan either. The outcome of a sports match is usually decided by a series of random events (unless match fixing is involved). You can do certain things to affect the random outcome of these events, like practicing, same as you can affect the randomness of Wurm. Wurm is more like rolling a dice though, after enough rolls you are guaranteed the same outcome, randomness just makes the journey more interesting to most people.

 

We must have differing definitions of random. Seems like you're using "random" as a catch-all to describes the varying outcomes of systems too complex to define.

 

In the frame of reference of computer games, however, I use random to describe doing exactly the same thing, but getting different outcomes. Granted, in the real world doing exactly the same thing is very hard, which is one reason why science is hard. Within the context of a game, though, doing exactly the same thing is easy.

 

The practical effect is a gambling mechanic, which is certainly enjoyed by some, but not by all. Justifying gambling, however, with the complexity of real-world systems is to me a crutch. I would rather see gaming systems that more faithfully modelled the emergent complexity of the real-world.

 

For example (using skills not in Wurm):

 

- If your Dodge skill is greater than the enemy Hit skill, they miss;

- If you're being attacked by multiple enemies, your Dodge skill is reduced by a specific amount per enemy;

- If you've been wounded, your Dodge skill is reduced;

- If you're scared, your Dodge skill is reduced;

- If you're on unfavorable terrain, your Dodge skill is reduced;

- If you're wearing heavy armor, your Dodge skill is reduced;

 

And so on. My goal would be more deterministic systems, yet complex enough to still provide varied outcomes (or more precisely, emergent outcomes).

 

An example of what I mean by emergent is a simple game I wrote (again, duplicating the mechanics of an old game) with a world grid populated by monsters and obstacles, where one monster always follows its right hand, and another always follows its left. Very simple, deterministic rules, but varied obstacle and starting monster locations could provide very beautiful, interesting patterns of movement behaviour I couldn't possibly have predicted.

 

(Yes, I would like to make a non-RNG game like this, and I've actually started coding, but that's a huge project I don't expect to finish, especially not when there are "almost-games" like Wurm to play. )

Edited September 26, 2017 by Roccandil

[Stormblade 617]

First, ignore what wulf has to say ( or at least take it with a grain of salt ) otherwise you'll pull your hair out, get frustrated and quit.  He does have a lot to offer as far as experience, but like I said, most of what he says, take with a grain of salt or in other words take what you need and leave the rest.

 

As far as RNG goes on creating, i found wurm to be the best one ever.  EQ RNG fail, you loose your items or half of them, Poof, gone.  WoW no RNG on creating at all, hit a button go afk for 30 minutes ( boring as ###### )  .. Wurm, RNG you have a Chance to succeed on creating something.  Higher the skill, higher quality mats, higher quality tools all improve over time and increases your chance.  After a while, yeah it goes towards the boring side, but at least you see all those days weeks years of hard work paying off.

 

this is not a Gimme game.  If you're used to quick rewards, wurm don't have that.  RNG plays a part, but the biggest part is your dedication to your project, work, whatever you're doing atm.  That is where the pay off comes.