Valrei International. 040

[platinumteef 2,198]

38 minutes ago, Nappy said:

The experience of DesolationV3 was actually the opposite. With all barriers removed for new player entry, including easy access to skilling and things like moon metals, many players described the experience as the best they ever had in Wurm PVP. Some of these players had spent years PVPing prior to this.

 

A new player could be battle ready in a couple of hours, had easy access to moon metals, drake and scale and if a battle was lost they could recover in typically less than an hour.

 

DesolationV3 had over 180 unique, non alt, PVP players with a 4 week average of 61 concurrent online players.

 

hows desov3 doing right now

[Roccandil 959]

4 hours ago, Moonpoppy said:

I'm so confused right now. I really don't get what your plan is?

 

Don't get me wrong - I'll be playing Epic after the update... PURELY because if I want to PvP in Wurm I have NO other choice! Epic in it's current state it shocking, Chaos is the same and Wurm Unlimited doesn't have a PvP scene at all!

 

Ok - Lets say you make some awesome changes to Epic, you add cool things, you fix broken mechanics (which is great).... New players STILL wont want to grind skills for 3-6months (even longer) when theres players out there with 50+ body stats and 90FS (plus more). The only market you are appealing to is returning Wurm players. I mean thats pretty obvious right (or am I missing something)?

 

I really don't understand why people can't figure out that Wurm PvP servers aren't perminant. They categorically cannot be perminant its not how a very time demanding, skill based game works. I'm really struggling to see the light at the end of the tunnel?

 

Let me try to explain my thoughts better... When a server thats PvP, has hardly any players on it other then the grindy hard-core veterans and the very small amount of account buyers... then it becomes PvE. At that point, you don't have a PvP server anymore.

 

Why are you so scared to just end the current "PvP" servers and start again? I'm sick of hearing about time and effort... about how much people have invested. I played Chaos for years, I played Epic for a couple of years and I've got nearly 2k hours on Unlimited. I've poured thousands of hours into this game like everyone else... and I would happily watch my account get wiped just so we can get some decent PvP again!! I mean does nobody else remember the Epic release?

 

Anyone who is reading this and thinks they deserve to keep their account and hard work. Imagine yourself as someone who has never played this game before and wants to get involved. You know its not even possible right now.

 

Let's say I'm a potential new player checking out the game, and I'm excited about what I'm reading, and I start creating an account, only to find it's several months into a world, with several months to go, and I'll be hopelessly behind with no chance to catch up.

 

Hurrah.

 

What do you think I and other potential customers are going to do? Wait? Pay a subscription fee to be behind for months? Or find another game?

Edited October 16, 2017 by Roccandil

[JakeRivers 2,921]

8 minutes ago, Roccandil said:

Let's say I'm a potential new player checking out the game, and I'm excited about what I'm reading, and I start creating an account, only to find it's several months into a world, with several months to go, and I'll be hopelessly behind with no chance to catch up.

 

Other than a game like wow, new players are always far behind the old vets playing, its the way it is.

 

 

[Mordraug 2,542]

There's just no pleasing epic... ever.... *chuckles* 

[Wimblonian 335]

Don't like the faster timers. The skillgain wouldn't be bad I guess. But it makes it too easy. Welcome to Wurm Online Unlimited everyone!

[Psalamon 201]

You guys on the PVP side need to hear us PVEr's out and yes we do have a vested interest, socially, financially and even our familes come into context as experienced by some of your players during the meta games. so we do matter if we have  let PVPers bring their accounts to the freedom side.. I thought we were trying to save EPIC not enable you another more lucrative market to profit off your built or bought accounts..the devs have setforth a plan for the freedomers to help you so lets get on the same page.. we aren't drowning, you are..

 

 

[Psalamon 201]

Wjhere is Desolution now ask the devs a lot of people were pissed that was cancelled when it was starting to get going good.. why and why balk at solutins you guys have not come up with a viable way to solve the problem other than transfer to our server.. the only reason there should be a transfer is to bolster a hurting server's numbers and if you insist on not playing fair from the start with the improved rulesets and and a shiny new map then at least allow us oyur accounts form freedumb to be transfered over.. we'll still be looking around like lost sheep those of us that try out EPIC because its such a different playstyle..  so lets please be realistic..

[SmeJack 5,796]

If freedom was being completely changed the way epic is would you want the option to leave and continue playing the game you enjoy, ignoring that accounts are bought and sold on freedom too cant this be about seeing someone continue to enjoy the game without wanting to watch them burn.

[Psalamon 201]

The real question for you is whats your time invested worth.. is it worth more than a hopefully functioning pvp server where people actually want to play at.. hell give them the power to transfer over to freedom using a viable conversion method  and wipe the Epic side.. start a new map with all the players that would return and all the players from freedom that want to try and all the newbs that this sale is attracting a lets do PVP hell freedom was getting boring an d I am not the only one who feels this way.. so You guys still have the character you invested in only now its on freedom we get all the players a new start would attract and all is hunky dory.... we don't lose anybody and we actually make use of this rare publicity we are getting.win win win.. ,,, what you guys think am I crazy?!??! Hell I think it could work...that would ,mean victories and losses for both side and the devs wouyld have concrete solution that both side could agree the onloy sticking point is the potential loss of income for the freedom barons but even those guys come and go its the nature of Wurm .. you can quit Wurm but Wurm NEVER quits you..

[Nappy 1,369]

6 hours ago, MrGARY said:

Just curious, if Deso was so good, why weren't there more rounds to keep going?

 

It was a single server with a single GM. When the typical Wurm PVP community problems occurred I eventually decided to stop funding the server in terms of both my time and my money.

[Moonpoppy 428]

9 hours ago, SmeJack said:

Of course you would happily watch it get wiped you let go of it a long time ago and it means nothing to you. I also know it is possible right now just not for those looking for instant gratification or those who set up in the path of a cannibal

 

Smeagain.. I played on that server for 2years, I even came back a year ago and played some more. I can't justify playing on a dead server like you and others can. That isn't a pvp server, when theres no pvp.

 

Yet again... nobody can come up with a justifiable answer to why you can't wipe the server's and do what any normal developers would do... Other then peoples time and effort.

 

The only people posting on these forums anymore are people who still play Epic/Chaos and therefore are defending any idea of a wipe. Get real, think logically and allow other people to play this game at a fair advantage. It's really not hard.

 

I mean if you're really so anal about your precious yet useless Epic characters then allow to transfer them over to Freedom. How anyone can call the Epic Cluster a PvP server right now is a joke.

Edited October 16, 2017 by Moonpoppy

[Moonpoppy 428]

7 hours ago, Roccandil said:

 

Let's say I'm a potential new player checking out the game, and I'm excited about what I'm reading, and I start creating an account, only to find it's several months into a world, with several months to go, and I'll be hopelessly behind with no chance to catch up.

 

Hurrah.

 

What do you think I and other potential customers are going to do? Wait? Pay a subscription fee to be behind for months? Or find another game?

 

Sorry you have confused me...

 

Firstly if that were they case (im not sure what the several months to go means) - Then in several months they would have ANOTHER chance to play unlike its current state now where EVERYONE new is playing catch-up.

Secondly - What do you think players are doing now? You really think new players are jumping into the game with open arms soaking up all the skills, loving every second? They literally quit within days or weeks when they realise the servers been open for 4 years (or however long its been) and that they simply cannot compete.

 

Your arguement is that if it was wiped then players wouldnt join half way through? My arguement is players won't join at all now. Kinda doesn't make sense dude.

 

And will people stop saying the Epic Curve aids new players... It really did a few months into epic, maybe upto a year.... But It really doesn't help anyone anymore when joe blogs has 50-70+ body stats and you have 25.

Edited October 16, 2017 by Moonpoppy

[bdew 2,462]

IMO the best solution would be to start a new epic cluster (with the new rules), and leave the current epic running on some old dusty VM for the dozen or so players that still play there and are so attached to their stuff they prefer to play on a dead cluster.

[Roccandil 959]

2 hours ago, Moonpoppy said:

 

Sorry you have confused me...

 

Firstly if that were they case (im not sure what the several months to go means) - Then in several months they would have ANOTHER chance to play unlike its current state now where EVERYONE new is playing catch-up.

Secondly - What do you think players are doing now? You really think new players are jumping into the game with open arms soaking up all the skills, loving every second? They literally quit within days or weeks when they realise the servers been open for 4 years (or however long its been) and that they simply cannot compete.

 

Your arguement is that if it was wiped then players wouldnt join half way through? My arguement is players won't join at all now. Kinda doesn't make sense dude.

 

And will people stop saying the Epic Curve aids new players... It really did a few months into epic, maybe upto a year.... But It really doesn't help anyone anymore when joe blogs has 50-70+ body stats and you have 25.

 

The problem is obvious: over the years the PVP server gets stratified, with a top tier no new player can touch. The design purpose of Epic is to solve that by making it easy for new players to close the gap. The currently announced changes are attempting to improve that implementation (and no top tier players should be surprised; that should be a known and assumed risk for playing on Epic).

 

As far as I can tell, however, you're stating that the only way to ever close the gap between newbies and the top tier is a full server wipe. I am thus pointing out a business case why relying on server wipes is not necessarily in the developers' best interest. If the known server wipe cycle is one year, and a potential new player/customer comes in at month 7, are they really going to want to start a new char that's 7 months and thus hopelessly behind? Will they wait 5 months for a new server? Or are they going to find a different game?

 

Note that some games relying on wipes solve this by having multiple PVP servers running with wipe times staggered, so that, say, a new player can always find a server that started within the last month. Of course, Wurm PVP doesn't have the population to support ten PVP servers, hence the Epic solution, which, if successfully implemented, would mean that a potential new player/customer would never feel like they'd be hopelessly behind.

[Brew 116]

Even before the changes, I got a brand new account on epic to see what the fuss was.  Glad I came,  map wipe or not, merge or not, no changes even I still would play here vs anything attached to freedom.    Side note, anything is dead when you play alone.

[Bittereinder 265]

@Retrograde

 

Then can't you just remove Chaos and Epic and create a new server (cluster) that allows you to keep your skills when going to the new server and keeping them when teleporting back to Freedom Isles?

 

We all understand that pvp mechanics have an impact on Freedom Isles, but a big part of the community plays or has played both PVE and PVP.

 

I grinded 1 character and I would never want to grind a character again.

[Moonpoppy 428]

1 hour ago, Roccandil said:

 

The problem is obvious: over the years the PVP server gets stratified, with a top tier no new player can touch. The design purpose of Epic is to solve that by making it easy for new players to close the gap. The currently announced changes are attempting to improve that implementation (and no top tier players should be surprised; that should be a known and assumed risk for playing on Epic).

 

As far as I can tell, however, you're stating that the only way to ever close the gap between newbies and the top tier is a full server wipe. I am thus pointing out a business case why relying on server wipes is not necessarily in the developers' best interest. If the known server wipe cycle is one year, and a potential new player/customer comes in at month 7, are they really going to want to start a new char that's 7 months and thus hopelessly behind? Will they wait 5 months for a new server? Or are they going to find a different game?

 

Note that some games relying on wipes solve this by having multiple PVP servers running with wipe times staggered, so that, say, a new player can always find a server that started within the last month. Of course, Wurm PVP doesn't have the population to support ten PVP servers, hence the Epic solution, which, if successfully implemented, would mean that a potential new player/customer would never feel like they'd be hopelessly behind.

 

You assume I want a wipe every year? Nobody wants that... I dont want that! Were talking when the population drops off and your left with 20 players like the cycle that happened after 2/3 years on Epic.

"closing the gap" - also known as de-vauling what players have already worked for? I mean its literally the same as wiping the cluster. You make it easier for new players, that isn't Wurm or its mechanics! It's meant to be hard, this game is meant to be tough.... but it should also allow for every now and again, players to start fresh together.

 

Have you ever played Haven and Hearth? Its extremely close to Wurm as far as Sandbox games go... Without going into huge detail;

Every 1-3 years they review there population count and make a decision on when they should wipe the world and start again. They are on World 10 and they have thousands of players floking to the game every single time they wipe it! People grind there skills up, PvP just like in Wurm. Many drop off and dont play (just like in Wurm), but the core groups stick around until even they have had enough. Then you are left with the few who just play to keep going.

Then they wipe the world and start again.

 

Nobody is saying months like Challenge, nobody is saying 1 year or even 2.

Edited October 16, 2017 by Moonpoppy

[Roccandil 959]

1 hour ago, Moonpoppy said:

 

I assume I want a wipe every year? Nobody wants that... I dont want that! Were talking when the population drops off and your left with 20 players like the cycle that happened after 2/3 years on Epic.

"closing the gap" - also known as de-vauling what players have already worked for? I mean its literally the same as wiping the cluster. You make it easier for new players, that isn't Wurm or its mechanics! It's meant to be hard, this game is meant to be tough.... but it should also allow for every now and again, players to start fresh together.

 

Have you ever played Haven and Hearth? Its extremely close to Wurm as far as Sandbox games go... Without going into huge detail;

Every 1-3 years they review there population count and make a decision on when they should wipe the world and start again. They are on World 10 and they have thousands of players floking to the game every single time they wipe it! People grind there skills up, PvP just like in Wurm. Many drop off and dont play (just like in Wurm), but the core groups stick around until even they have had enough. Then you are left with the few who just play to keep going.

Then they wipe the world and start again.

 

Nobody is saying months like Challenge, nobody is saying 1 year or even 2.

 

Evidently the developers think Epic should be about new players closing the gap. I didn't come up with that. I suppose this is as good a time as any to revisit the reason for Epic's existence, but I get the impression that the developers are invested in Epic, and aren't going to change direction so fundamentally.

 

Diminishing returns is also a clear principle of Wurm. Grinding the first 70% of a skill takes 30% of the time, and the last 30% takes 70% of the time (simply for example, not intended to be actual Wurm numbers ). As far as I can tell, the announced changes are simply adjusting that effect to allow new players to more quickly, but not completely, close the gap, by shifting the diminishing returns to a smaller region, such that (again for example), the first 95% takes 5% of the time, while the last 5% takes 95% of the time.

 

So, I don't see the idea of quicker initial progression as being unWurm.

 

The tricky balancing act is to make it such that players who complete that final, lengthy grind of diminishing returns are not then so much better than those entering that grind that it's worthless for anyone else to participate in PVP, while at the same time not making the PVP effect of that final grind completely valueless.

 

Is that possible? The developers seem intent on finding out.

 

While I'm thinking about it, I'll add that it should be possible to make the full progression to top tier take just as long as it does now, while making the first 95% (for example) much quicker. That could both solve the problem of new players catching up while not devaluing the top-tier accounts (at least so much), since developing an equal account would take just as long (the time would just be spent later in the progression).
 

Oh, and a multi-year world reboot cycle (as opposed to something shorter) simply exacerbates the issue of new players catching up. Maybe it works for Haven/Hearth, but it sounds like they have a larger player base, and can afford it.

 

 

Edited October 16, 2017 by Roccandil

[polarbear 283]

make chaos a freedom/ limited pvp server then? Rest in peace my old friend. 

[Evilvision 301]

When Freedom and Wild was separated years ago I chose to take my main toon to Freedom as 99% of the players I was with stopped playing and I didn't want to get stuck on Wild alone. They started playing again and all their toons was on Wild. I started a new one to play with them since the servers were separated(before they added the 10 silver one way transfer fee). A lot or regrinding. Then later Epic comes out and I start another one. More regrinding. My epic toon has suffered the most because there are just some skills i can not bring myself to regrind yet one more time.

 

Despite the skill merge being very very attractive to me (the ability to bring a 9 year old toons skill across [14:51:11] You have played 819 days, 6 hours and 45 minutes.) I think they should just keep the skills separated. Epic players went into this knowing they would never be part of the Freedom cluster and the Freedom cluster knew it would never be part of Epic. No need to change now.

 

Are we going to nerf stamina when transferring to Epic? or will we boost Epic players stamina up based on some formula of what they should have? I cant see anything going wrong with that in Wurm. I am sure no one will have a advantage over another. .

 

Epic should have been reset after each scenario as it was originally designed to be but never happened so people got all comfy grinding skills and now its too late.  Sadly the challenge servers were what Epic was promised to be but they are no where to be found.

[Moonpoppy 428]

1 hour ago, Evilvision said:

When Freedom and Wild was separated years ago I chose to take my main toon to Freedom as 99% of the players I was with stopped playing and I didn't want to get stuck on Wild alone. They started playing again and all their toons was on Wild. I started a new one to play with them since the servers were separated(before they added the 10 silver one way transfer fee). A lot or regrinding. Then later Epic comes out and I start another one. More regrinding. My epic toon has suffered the most because there are just some skills i can not bring myself to regrind yet one more time.

 

Despite the skill merge being very very attractive to me (the ability to bring a 9 year old toons skill across [14:51:11] You have played 819 days, 6 hours and 45 minutes.) I think they should just keep the skills separated. Epic players went into this knowing they would never be part of the Freedom cluster and the Freedom cluster knew it would never be part of Epic. No need to change now.

 

Are we going to nerf stamina when transferring to Epic? or will we boost Epic players stamina up based on some formula of what they should have? I cant see anything going wrong with that in Wurm. I am sure no one will have a advantage over another. .

 

Epic should have been reset after each scenario as it was originally designed to be but never happened so people got all comfy grinding skills and now its too late.  Sadly the challenge servers were what Epic was promised to be but they are no where to be found.

 

+1

 

The fact that 9 year old accounts will be able to transfer over is another issue which I don't even want to think about. Yet you think making the "gap closer" for new players. It's laughable the logic which has been applied here.

[MrGARY 12,421]

1 hour ago, Evilvision said:

or will we boost Epic players stamina up based on some formula of what they should have?

 

this was already done. it wasn't the most fair update but there was no way to make it properly fair which is just real world experience telling us that skill adjustments simply are not going to be fair

[Moonpoppy 428]

3 minutes ago, MrGARY said:

 

this was already done. it wasn't the most fair update but there was no way to make it properly fair which is just real world experience telling us that skill adjustments simply are not going to be fair

 

He makes a valid point though? I mean nobody can look into the future and know 4 years down the line this change would happen. It's funny because someone replied saying Epic players have had chance to take advantage of the faster timers etc. I get that but most quit because they didn't want to play on a dead PvP server because they weren't PvE'ers!

 

I mean Epic players stats compared to Freedom on numbers and skills is not even comparable (those who uploaded to Niarja). That alone is going to cause economy, PvP and various other issues.

Edited October 16, 2017 by Moonpoppy

[Roccandil 959]

48 minutes ago, Moonpoppy said:

 

+1

 

The fact that 9 year old accounts will be able to transfer over is another issue which I don't even want to think about. Yet you think making the "gap closer" for new players. It's laughable the logic which has been applied here.

 

The developers are mixing two major changes: Freedom transfers (which seems dicey to me), and closing the gap for new players (which I like), in an evident attempt to increase Epic's population. That will almost certainly succeed in the short term.

 

Long-term, though, can those changes really make things worse than they are now? How much is there to lose on Epic? For all the heartburn, I haven't seen anyone explain why Epic's future gameplay, with the rules as they are now, is worth keeping. I mean, is it? I'm not inherently opposed to the idea; I just haven't seen anyone describe why.

 

I do feel like many of you are trying to protect the past more than the future, which I at least partly understand. If these changes don't work in the long term, though, then more drastic changes would likely be in order, and maybe we -would- see an Epic reboot.

 

This, though, is an attempt to fix Epic without ditching everything people have done to this point, and I like that (and closing the gap doesn't have to mean making it easier for new players to get to where the top accounts have gotten, it can simply mean making it easier to get close).

Edited October 16, 2017 by Roccandil

[Zephyr40k 17]

Soooo.... 

 

Played WURM for like ten years, with the occasional year-long break.  Played EPIC since it first started.  I liked the idea of being a mainly PVE-er who was tough enough to survive in a PVP environment.  But then 'survival' on Epic got too easy, as there was simply no PVP, since there were no other players.  I got really bored of playing by myself on an empty server.  

 

Pretty much anything that might bring more people to Epic is worth trying, as otherwise Epic is pretty pointless by now.  

 

So, here we are, a week later.... are the population levels in Epic any better?