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Neville

The Wurm Online Market Overall

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On ‎3‎/‎22‎/‎2018 at 9:27 AM, rixk said:

Code Club sells silver, every silver in game originates from CC store.

Every time I read someone making this claim I know that they either do not understand the several different ways silver enters the game, or that they are just using this simplification to mislead others to make some point.

 

The biggest RL money making "opportunity" (abuse) in the game was through the purchase of Traders and draining them for coins. The amount of silver that could be make from this system was so excessive that players purchased these Traders just for the purpose of paying all their game expenses for deeds (some huge), premium and then selling off the excess for RL conversion to undisclosed income. Where did all this "excess" silver come from then, Wurm Shop silver purchases? No, it came from a portion of Wurm's *total income profits* which included Premuim payments, deed upkeep, mailing fees, Trader sales and other misc I may have overlooked. Then to support Trader draining Wurm allocated a certain percentage of deed upkeep to be allowed to be drained through them by maintaining a certain ratio with them in turn for receiving coins (silver).

 

So here is the trick to this claim in quotes above. Yes, indirectly this Trader drained silver came from the Wurm Shop payments but NOT from silver purchased there exclusively. It is based upon an arbitrary percentage of deed upkeep decided upon by Code Club/Wurm Online (Rolf maybe?). Anything really could be used to base this Trader coin drain limit upon, even if it were exclusively silver purchases but that is not the point. The point is that this silver that was being sold definitely was NOT coming from silver purchased from the Wurm Shop. It was in effect a giveaway of a portion of Wurm's *profits* to those who would purchase a Trader for 50silver.

 

Eventually this Trader draining abundance of coins was reduced by allocating a portion of it to Token sales, forage/botanizing, burying corpses, etc to allocate this profit giveaway distribution on a more even player opportunity to obtain these coins. Nevertheless, these coins/silver are NOT entering the game through Wurm Shop silver purchases as I have already pointed out to make this clear. So when players obtain an abundance of this silver through any means and sell it to other players they are undercutting Wurm Online's ability to sell that silver to players, as they are charging a cheaper rate for it. Since Wurm Online enables the ability to do this, it seems self defeating in reducing a major portion of its game income.

 

No, all this silver being sold by players is not silver purchased from the Wurm Shop. That is simplified nonsense. A shallow and misleading way to view Wurm silver sales, the "economy" and the effect this has upon the Wurm profit structure. For those who endorse this you should realize whose interests they are really looking out for. The continuation and growth of Wurm Online? I think not.

 

Happy Trails,

=Ayes=

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1 hour ago, Ayes said:

You explained your point of view and motivation for playing the game very well. I found it held my attention as I read through all of it. Although I of course don't find any attraction to it, I think it points out and enforces my position taken in my post that you quoted.

 

Most other online games with huge player populations offer no ability to make RL cash conversion substitutes by design and yet they are hugely successful in terms of game profitability through the number of players that they attract to them. Wurm has been one of the few games that do offer this opportunity that encourages this play for profit potential, whether it be used for in game expenses or external RL cash conversions. As this potential has been diminished and balanced out over a wider player population it becomes less satisfactory for those such as yourself who focus upon it.

 

My contention is that there is much more to the game than that money making potential and this is the direction that the game should take, which places much less importance upon it (making silver). The end benefit is that it turns the game more in the direction of the conventional enjoyment aspects of playing the game such as most other game developers follow. In turn this makes the game less expensive to play for everyone, except of course those who focus their game play upon making profits at other players expense.

 

Yet most other online MMO's have a successful and alluring in game trade system which supports an in game "economy" not tied into RL cash substitutes and without any ability to make RL profits huge amounts of players still play these online games with seeming enjoyment of participation in this "market economy". To me this points out the fact that for the continued success and draw of new players to Wurm Online, that this RL money making ability is not necessary and is just an additional lure to draw and retain players. In the end the detrimental effects of increased player costs due to these play for RL profit motivation structures do not outweigh its benefits. Rather it draws the type of players to it who will attempt to retain and expand further their opportunities to make RL cash equivalents. For them good, as you have pointed out, for the rest not so. Therein is the conflict.

 

=Ayes=

I get what you say. However I must disagree with most "like/ in other games". Wurm isn't like most other games. You are absolutely right, that in other games trading is as much entertaining as here, even without RL currencies. But first, there's pretty much none games, where grinding takes so long and requires so much from a player. Other games are "easier" in terms of requirements to do something. Mostly I'm talking about time. This is first thing, which gives players right to value their time with RL currency, which is allowed by game rules. And this is right of players, to be concern about it. If something isn't disallowed, is allowed, and if it is, then this is the part of a game like any other stuff, that must be taken into consideration of next decisions. 

Secondly, Wurm isn't like any other games, because it allows you to trade RL money. And this is absolutely rare thing in gaming industry. You have to know, that this is very important, because such rare possibility could be a main reason to play a game for many players. I was trying to lure into Wurm many people. And most of them weren't even interested till they heard about RL trading. Even if they didn't want to try it anyway, it was like "omg, rly?" for them.
And we can't just discard these players, because they're introducing to the game as much as any others. 

Also I'm not sure if Wurm is really that enjoyable as "any other game" like you said. If it would be the same, than more people would really play it and enjoy it. But no, this game is totally different. And directed to niche players. Comparing to any other new or even older games, Wurm isn't technically that enjoyable. Everything's looks... ok, but let's face a fact, that mobile games in my Smartphone looks 10x better. Just add to it awful UI (to me it's not important, but to the most...), not intuitional, isn't really user friendly, and time. Time spent on pretty much watching action bars, because we can't really see a real animations. It's enjoyable for us, but not "for most players in any other games."

Finally, unlike "other games", Wurm isn't really cheap. I'm playing for example WoT, R6S, PUBG, I played Diablo2 and WoW, and few others. I'll compare it to the WoT for example in payment terms. There I can pay like 10€ for month of premium. Or about 80-100€ for year subscription. I can also buy premium vehicles for 10-50€ and I have them forever. But if i don't want to spend money I don't really have to buy anything. And except premium vehicles (which might be also won from time to time), i can get everything. In Wurm without paying 8€ monthly i can't do as much as players who pay. Also i have to pay for my deed. You can of course say, that i can join existing deed. Sure, but in case if I'd like to have my own, I have to pay for it. And sure, some people are satisfied with 1s/monthly place. But I have few deeds that costs me like 12-15s monthly. So now i have to pay 20s monthly to enjoy the game as I like to. Others might pay even more to enjoy the game as they want to. So for many of us, that's at least double the price of "any other game". If we imagine, that RL money market is banned, and we can get silvers only from Wurm's shop, then we have to pay even more. Where in any other game I have to pay usually 8-12€ monthly and I'm fine to do everything. So in my opinion, possibility of making RL money out of game is very important and isn't "just because". It has it's substantiation. And is as much important as creating new stuff to the game. And should be the same important like everything else in making decisions and taking care of it. 

So.... I agree with you about other games. But in my opinion Wurm isn't like them, and your comparision isn't quite right in reality. 

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The second day after I started the game (day two) my benefactor drove me to Xanadu from Independence. I wanted to go at it alone and get to know the game without normal help. After premming up and selling my referral, I had a grand total of 8.5s +1 silver since I purchased 1 month and 1 silver pack for 10e. My deed costed me nearly that much. After planting it I was left with about 10 copper (tiles purchased).

 

I distinctively remember starting with a fence. I needed an area to sow my potatoes I found on an abandoned fsb which I took with me on my backpack. I saved some to cook myself some food to survive.  After playing several hours, I was hungry so I cooked myself some meals with the help of some CA person. Thats when I found out it was useless since about 5 meals didnt even make a dent on the food bar.

 

My first purchase ever was a meal. After being asked 10c for my meal, the person found out how new I was. He sent me two meals for 3 copper to hook me up. That lasted me a few days. My next purchase was sheets to make my first bed. I had no cotton and no skill. After that I was pennyless.

 

My source of income became selling bodies to the deed token. 10i a piece. I scrounged enough money to buy myself some last minute necesities, but as a skill-less newbie I had literally access to nothing. After a few days of getting nowhere I bought 10 silver from the cash shop, which ended up dwindling into the market. 

 

But what if I had no rl money to spend on silver? What if I was your average player that pays for subscription and just play the game? Everytime someone says the game should be nerfed here and there to make the market suitable for a newbie, I remember myself subsisting on 10ql tools and having a hard time imping them to maybe 20. How many times I wanted to quit. 

 

Unless you can find a way for people to sell 20ql blank tools, the market is not for newer people. It just isnt. You need at least 70 in any skill to make a tool someone might even look at buying blank. You need at least 70 channeling to enchant. Anything anyone will pay for reliably. Its not a new players market. It will never be. The only way to introduce new players to it is by making it more affordable, and most people wouldn't let that happen because of their profits. Players come in, try it, and quit because the competition is months/years ahead for both buying and selling.

 

 

 

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Ah the first days in the Wurm Economy. Very nice post, I almost shed a tear :)

 

My story

 

My first was close to that too. Fortunatelly for me, the neighbor used to provide free high quality meals in a barrel outside his deed cause the center of Independence was packed with newbs like me. At start I needed clay for my oven as I was told to become a cook cause it supposedly was very rewarding job. So I needed clay. I got my clay (he had it fenced so we couldn't access it) in exchange for coding help with a side project of his. I offered more coding help to give me a rake and two horses for my cart but once he figured out I had gone premium he asked me for my one silver and my referal which I stupidly gave away for two non-traited horses. 

 

Job 1: Light cargo delivery with sailboat.

 

When I figured out I was pretty much useless in wurm economy and that it would take a very long time to actually get the skills to compete with the established skillers, I decided to sail the seas and deliver goods around. Since I had no money to buy a knarr and a sailboat I decided to invest real money in it. I got 15 silver, which back then was 15 euro I believe. Back then, there used to be a ship building company or something, actually very few builders could make big ships so I had to wait in line for a boat or, as one of the master ship builders told me, I could think of some other type of deal. I ended up bribing to cut in line and get my first Knarr in 5 days before the orders of his other customers. It cost me 17 silver to get the knarr back then since the bribe was also included which meant I had to put another five euro in the game. 

 

After I purchased my boats I quickly found out I could not move a knarr around due to skill requirements. So I had to wait till I had the right skills. I started doing sailboat delivery orders around Independence's inner sea and when I got comfortable moving in and out of canals in all Independence. As side project I grinded the mind logic required for commanding a knarr and the body strength required to move it around. After learning all Indepndence I started doing sailboat item orders across servers since back then CoD was still a bit pricey especially if you had to move multiple items. It was good money and it became even better when I took on delivery jobs in Chaos. I remember delivering 2000 arrows to a guy in Kyara, spooky places.

 

Job 2: Sea taxi

 

Another good money making business was ferrying alt accounts of people across servers for sermons. For about two months I lived in the sea, no deed, no nothing. I'd hang by random people's deed for grinding and then hop on my boat for another transport.

 

Job 3: Brokering goods

 

Another one was checking the local market for items and transporting them to people that needed them across the servers. I'd buy the item myself from my stock of silver and then resell it to people that didn't have access to the market. 

 

Job 4: Reselling goods

 

A guy I once met, he had a merchant in Freedom Market and he would check all other merchants for underpriced goods. He'd then buy them and list them for sale on his merchant for a slightly higher price. It worked good actually and he paid me to do the checks for him when I got familiar with the market :P

 

Job 5: Tricking GMs into moving other people's boats (Don't try this at home).

 

There used to be this scenario. People wanted to expand their deed in sea. But some random guy would have his boat parked there and quit the game so the deed owner was agitated on a boat being in waters he wanted to transform into land and build on. The GMs were usually declining requests to move the boats of a stranger in sea even if the water was now under the deed area of another. So what we did was terraform the area and fill it with dirt. Then the guy that had the deed would fence the boat. That's where my part would come. I would pretend to be the cousin of the boat owner and the cousin had to go offline for like 2 months because his parents had him grounded from wurm. I'd start a fight and insult the deed owner. He'd call the GM. I'd complain that the deed owner fenced my cousins boat intentionally. The GM would then proceed to move the boat out to solve the dispute in a beneficial way for both parties since both were paying customers. I usually requested 10c for this service. I found customers by checking twitter for new deeds popping up and if they were around waters I'd suggest the owner this sort of trade.

 

Job 6: Salvaging deeds.

 

Twitter is an amazing tool. It gives two powerful messages. When a deed is created, when a deed is disbanded. A new deed is usually built on top of land that has been under partial reconstruction. The new owner has not all his things secured correctly. He might leave an open cart outside the deed and go to sleep to continue working the next day. Or forgot to move some materials inside deed and so on. When new deeds would pop up, I'd sail there if no transport job was open and check if I could get something. The same would work with deeds disbanding. This was a bit tricker. Since there are others doing the same, looting disbanded deeds, I could not always go there first. So what I did was write down the house walls quality and damage and the deed disband date. I'd get a rough estimation of when the house walls go down and I'd be the first one to get into the house a month later to get the good fat loot that first-day salvaging crews could not get ( can't catapult the house in freedom hehe).

 

Job 7: Heavy cargo transportation.

 

Anyway back to main story. Finally I managed to command my knarr. I got my first big-cargo transport project which I failed hard since I managed to stuck my boat in a canal that was too narrow and too bugged for a knarr to move in and out. It took the GM 6 days to respond and fix my issue but since I was moving veggies if I remember correctly, the product got decay and I had to pay the securities to my customer. Things went good but just sailing around although rewarding it got boring after some months so I eventually settled down. (It didn't last for long though as I moved to chaos pretty soon and never came back :P )

 

The moral of the story

 

There are always creative ways to make money in wurm but the right changes should be made to enable creativity to enter back into the game. The last four to five years the game has been moving away from diversity of options and into a very predictable gameplay style that favors instant gratification. To be honest, I enjoyed the game much much much more when I was a noob and was making my first steps in such a competitive market-trade scenario. Wish these days would come back :(

Edited by Psychelock
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You still end up having almost no recourse than to buying silver, however. 1s/1e. 15 euros werent enough back then for you to get your knarr. 15e. For a knarr. Thats more than two months of premium. Get what I mean?

 

Now that same Knarr costs 8s. You can probably get them for 7s. I believe it is a very unhealthy economy when players have to recur to buying silver just to get basic items for their trade. When allowed by developers, RMT should be a crutch, not a necesity. Thats a good example of why prices dropping are a good thing.

 

If either of us didn't have the financial ability to buy silver, we would had been screwed. Sure, once you are set up you can make money easy, but getting there is the hard part.

Edited by Angelklaine

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True. And that's why not many can afford to get into the game's competitive side.

In a game that's over 10 years old, one has to buy himself the bridge that closes the gap between old players and new ones.

Sad but that's the reality.

 

But if you wanna look at the bright side, I pay 7 euro per day, every day, to play one hour of tennis at the local tennis club. Talk about overpriced hobbies .... :P

Edited by Psychelock

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I pay about 25usd for lunch daily... Not even a hobby.

 

Fml. 

 

Anyone wants to play RL economy? 

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I pay 100$ a month to come read this for internet... have fun ! :blink:

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14 hours ago, Angelklaine said:

I pay about 25usd for lunch daily... Not even a hobby.

 

Fml. 

 

Anyone wants to play RL economy? 

Damn, why so high?  I take my lunch to work everyday, so it doesn't cost me much, but even when I used to go grab a bite for lunch I still spent something like $6 a day.  Do you live in an expensive area, or tend to go to restaurants for lunch?

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28 minutes ago, Slickshot said:

Damn, why so high?  I take my lunch to work everyday, so it doesn't cost me much, but even when I used to go grab a bite for lunch I still spent something like $6 a day.  Do you live in an expensive area, or tend to go to restaurants for lunch?

Miami is expensive. But yes. Restaurants. Its all I can get from where I work.

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6 minutes ago, Angelklaine said:

Miami is expensive. But yes. Restaurants. Its all I can get from where I work.

Have you thought about packing a lunch to work?  It's a little annoying to pack a lunch in the morning, but it definitely saves on money.  On a side note I have family that lives in Miami.  My sister-in-law's husband (kind of my brother-in-law I guess?) delivers fresh caught fish to various neighborhoods in Miami.

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1 hour ago, Slickshot said:

Have you thought about packing a lunch to work?  It's a little annoying to pack a lunch in the morning, but it definitely saves on money.  On a side note I have family that lives in Miami.  My sister-in-law's husband (kind of my brother-in-law I guess?) delivers fresh caught fish to various neighborhoods in Miami.

Wish I could. But with my type of job it doesn't work out. Its great for the economy though! That one is doing well :D

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23 hours ago, Angelklaine said:

Miami is expensive. But yes. Restaurants. Its all I can get from where I work.

miami_vice.jpg

I knew it, I knew it all along...

Take it easy with them ferraris man, and the boat, it's always rigged to explode, just fyi.

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*cough cough* sorry man, cant hear you. I'm face deep in sleep powders. *Choking sounds*

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1 hour ago, Angelklaine said:

*cough cough* sorry man, cant hear you. I'm face deep in sleep powders. *Choking sounds*

"sleep powders"

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On 3/23/2018 at 5:08 PM, Psychelock said:

 

A new deed is usually built on top of land that has been under partial reconstruction. The new owner has not all his things secured correctly. He might leave an open cart outside the deed and go to sleep to continue working the next day. Or forgot to move some materials inside deed and so on. When new deeds would pop up, I'd sail there if no transport job was open and check if I could get something. 

If I’m understanding this right.. you intentionally follower Twitter deeds to go try and loot NEW deeds.. because new owners / players may not have perms set correctly?

 

am I the only one who read that thinking this dude is scum? 

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39 minutes ago, Xor said:

If I’m understanding this right.. you intentionally follower Twitter deeds to go try and loot NEW deeds.. because new owners / players may not have perms set correctly?

 

am I the only one who read that thinking this dude is scum? 

Yeah I was tilting my head sideways a bit at that. lol  Panned it as a perfectly cool, viable living, too. lol

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Wouldnt it be better/more profitable to go after disbanded deeds? I mean, you can go after new deeds hoping to meet a complete noob who screwed his permissions, given deeds block everyone's access by default and wont let you loot them. And if you are new and screwed up permissions, those amazing 16ql blank tools wont be much of a bounty.

 

In my opinion, disbanded deeds are up for grabs.by anyone. 

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20 minutes ago, Angelklaine said:

Wouldnt it be better/more profitable to go after disbanded deeds? I mean, you can go after new deeds hoping to meet a complete noob who screwed his permissions, given deeds block everyone's access by default and wont let you loot them. And if you are new and screwed up permissions, those amazing 16ql blank tools wont be much of a bounty.

 

In my opinion, disbanded deeds are up for grabs.by anyone. 

Your logic is sound. Which is why it seems like such a trash thing to do. Lol

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When you have enough finite resources.(can make as much stuff want) Player max level cap that never really can be lowered.

The market was bound to fail long term.

 

P.s How many of you really use the smelting pot to make new high/low QL lumps for imping or making goods. compared to mining ore.

 

Easy way to fix it would be to reduce the veins in the world alot!, along with the amount of ore in a vein. Especially high QL veins. Nerf it all. :) Delete all the lumps in the worlds by a percentage. If you make it rare enough people wont just simply throw away item on the ground to let it decay. They will have to pick it up and smelt if they want ot make anything. 

 

Yes a lot wont like this idea, but it would bring back the market in the long run. 

 

 

 

tenor.gif?itemid=9854676

Edited by gorgian

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My first experience in Wurm Economy was on Golden Valley, there I sold wine for things, and bartered with other folks.

 

I also tried to implement a Golden Valley wide currency based on golden and silver rings maybe by certain individuals so the signature showed up only for them out of a designated "Reserve" needless to say it did not go well.

 

I only ever really bought and sold accounts, mostly bought. I do not like real world trading really at all. 

 

I suppose I have technically benefited from it, but that doesn't make it a good thing. I made deals with friends, I did not just hop on the forums and buy an account.

 

and 

Gorgian is right, the economy was bound to fail, everyone had to have known that. Everyone wants to do everything, every village is practically self sufficient and does not need to leave their "Trade Node". They offer products, but its the same other people can make.

 

Another huge problem is global trade practice, the idea of mailing out anything to anyone, and wagon trains.

 

I think wurm works best off limited local markets of cooperation, regional and server wide trade nodes instead of just global ship anywhere markets.

 

It is a medieval game at the end of the day, yet we have what is essentially "amazon" sending packages everywhere.

 

I will have to look for my long winded post on regional economic benefits over global trade.

Edited by FranktheTank

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Someone else already mentioned that the problem for newer players is that they cant sell anything because their skills are not high enough and unless they buy silver they are not going to be able to buy a lot.

the longer this game goes on the more high skilled players are around and the more competition there will be to a shrinking audience.

 

you want to save this game then make getting silver easier, make the game cheaper ( or maybe just for the first year). Focus on new player experience and new player retention. there are a lot of changes we could do to help that along, like iron plate.

the markets can only survive if they growing amount of people that can make high end stuff has an increasing population to sell it too.

 

also i think selling and buying silver ( apart from buying it from codeclub) should be stopped, it doesn't help. though i doubt they can stop it now  without getting a huge amount of people to quit, because people are too invested.

 

just my 2 cents.

 

 

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How to fix Wurm Online economic slump:

 

make prem cheaper or allow accounts to have links (one priest, one main) 10 euro a month

create ad campaign to get people playing again for promotional incentives

fix outstanding issues like UI, tutorial - once fixed do another promotion

fix bugs (obviously)

add cash shop selling hats

create better incentives to pay for prem (loyalty reward update)

remove shatter from the game / or allow the ability to disenchant rares to make metallic dust which can be crafted into metallic liquid

create more content that's interesting

add chicken coops

 

 

 

 

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Truth is, that without new players boom, fixing economy seing it's actual state, is beyond repairation. (A few players that comes every month isn't nearly enough)

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33 minutes ago, Alkhadias said:

Truth is, that without new players boom, fixing economy seing it's actual state, is beyond repairation. (A few players that comes every month isn't nearly enough)

accurate.

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