Ban character selling/sharing

[zeeph 37]

We got Chars in Wurm that got sold multiple times and also trained by more ppl than only the actual owner alone.

Actually there are some highend god like chars that will stay for the eternity in wurm ,because if someone quits he will sell his char again because of the high money worth.

If with the exisiting intention to make pvp more easy accessible for new players means, that we should spend 1,5k $ to be on par with a highend char, then trading characters for money should remain in wurm.

Its for me completly ok if someone actually was working for his skills, but this is pay to win.

 

[Wilczan 2,048]

5 minutes ago, zeeph said:

We got Chars in Wurm that got sold multiple times and also trained by more ppl than only the actual owner alone.

But actual owner is a person who owns it, not the person who created it.

 

Banning won't do anything, couse people still gonna sell/buy characters, just not through wurm forums.

 

And IP checking fails in era of proxy, besides player always can say that he moved to other area/country and devs cannot confirm that in any way.

Edited December 14, 2018 by Wilczan

[Oblivionnreaver 5,175]

spending 1.5k won't suddenly make you good at pvp, the people you see destroying others with god-tier accounts also have years of experience backing it up, the difference between 50 and 70 body strength is laughable for how many hundreds of hours you'd spend grinding

then there's the buying accounts to sell items on the market, which is about the biggest waste of time i've ever heard, that side of the game buying accounts doesn't really matter much either

 

but that doesn't really matter, it's too late to ban account sales, everyone's already boought accounts, all you'd do is stop people from buying new accs to catch up so meh

Edited December 14, 2018 by Oblivionnreaver

[Enuf 116]

I've brought accounts/mostly gold in nearly every game I've played for one reason or another it's mostly against the rules. Did that stop me? Did I ever get banned? No and no.

 

Changing this rule just gives staff a bigger headache than is needed. I've always liked that we can do it "legally" here.

[AJBlack 482]

-1 

 

Wurm is a game that's amazing because you are ALLOWED and ENCOURAGED to trade anything an everything you have. Take that away, it just won't be the same anymore. 

Someone has got to be able to take a lengthy break from the game and sell their character, or return and buy a new one if they don't want to start from scratch.

The game's system with priests is perfect for buying and selling characters. 

This change would take something very valuable away from the game, in my humble opinion.

 

IMMEDIATE EDIT: Please note that I have not ever bought or sold a character.

Edited December 14, 2018 by AJBlack

[kochinac 1,395]

I agree that letting accounts die when their creators quit would make much more interesting and healthier game environment but banning account shares and sales seems like futule task unfortunately

[Beanbag 239]

I would've supported this 100% years ago. Now it's basically too late for it to have a positive effect - all it would do is keep people who don't want to start from scratch away from the game and there already are so few newcomers. 

[Nordlys 1,428]

In theory, if all accounts only are online when its the person who created the account who is playing, it would be a good thing.

 

Thats only in theory tho. Its difficult for AAA-studios to cope with a black market, and it would be almost impossible for a low-budget company.

 

Disallowing it would only create more problems, i think.

 

A solution would rather be to penalize ownership change ingame. Loss of skills or something. How that would be possible, i dont know.. ?

[Roccandil 959]

Would be better to subtly devalue high-end accounts by making it easier to catch up, but I doubt that would be popular.

 

One way, for instance, would be to give all new toons X percentage of the average skills of the top Y active toons.

[Ayes 3,715]

Nothing positive can come from an attempt to ban account sales, much less the sharing of them between others. This would be a waste of development time to attempt to put some sort of system into effect to combat this practice which is now ingrained into the game through years of being an acceptable practice. Notice I used the word "attempt" several times as I see no way this could be effectively done with any significant effect.

 

Beyond that why even do something like this. So people that have some money to spend will shortcut their own accomplishments within the game by this method. That is their loss as their focus is obviously not upon reaching those past goals by their own efforts which the purchased character now has. Yes, it is obviously "pay-to-win" if their focus is upon those end goals that the character can achieve through no past efforts of their own. Nothing can be done to change one's general mindset so this is the option that these types of players will pursue.

 

To me the game is a journey to enjoy along the way. I can recall all my characters accomplishments along this journey because I achieved them myself. This is where I find satisfaction and I care little if others buy their way past all the things I have experienced to get to where I am now. This doesn't reduce my experience in the slightest so I can't really justify withholding account selling/sharing from others who see some value in it. For me buying a character would be pointless and of no value since I will have missed all those moments to get to that stage within the game. Because of this I would never sell my characters either. No way anyone will walk within their shoes down these winding roads into the mists of time to experience the lifting of the veil to a new days dawning just beyond.

 

Travel your own road or not. The choice is yours.....

 

=Ayes=

[kochinac 1,395]

Well tbh we can also have wurmagedon once again. Everyone starts from scratch, that would solve the problem for the next 5+ years at least... But that would also not be so popular for understandable reasons

Also I am against devalue of older characters by allowing new people to catch up quickly(and this already happened a lot with all qol updates but let say it's not that dramatic and it's tolerable balance so far), that would be huge slap in the face to people who dedicated years to this game , some of that old god like characters people complain belong to original creators, and someone who has invested 10 years in Wurm has every right to be god in my eyes.

i guess you can just enjoy the freedom Wurm offers as all solutions look like shitty fails that will do someone injustice

[necroe 696]

Definitely -1

 

As much as not allowing accounts to be sold from the get go would have been a wonderful idea, it was not done.

I would not want to punish players who spent tons on accounts now in order to appease a very small group of people who have something against it.

As well for account sharing... While I realize some people have something against it... In reality this is one of, if not the most grindy game out there if you do not allow people to share accounts to in order to not have to grind every skill in the game to support themselves or in an attempt to make people buy everything you would truly end up with a nightmarish situation for PVP at very least and possibly some PVE.

 

I am not an account buyer or seller myself.

Edited December 16, 2018 by necroe

[Amadee 1,543]

1 hour ago, Ayes said:

Nothing positive can come from an attempt to ban account sales, much less the sharing of them between others. This would be a waste of development time to attempt to put some sort of system into effect to combat this practice which is now ingrained into the game through years of being an acceptable practice. Notice I used the word "attempt" several times as I see no way this could be effectively done with any significant effect.

 

Beyond that why even do something like this. So people that have some money to spend will shortcut their own accomplishments within the game by this method. That is their loss as their focus is obviously not upon reaching those past goals by their own efforts which the purchased character now has. Yes, it is obviously "pay-to-win" if their focus is upon those end goals that the character can achieve through no past efforts of their own. Nothing can be done to change one's general mindset so this is the option that these types of players will pursue.

 

To me the game is a journey to enjoy along the way. I can recall all my characters accomplishments along this journey because I achieved them myself. This is where I find satisfaction and I care little if others buy their way past all the things I have experienced to get to where I am now. This doesn't reduce my experience in the slightest so I can't really justify withholding account selling/sharing from others who see some value in it. For me buying a character would be pointless and of no value since I will have missed all those moments to get to that stage within the game. Because of this I would never sell my characters either. No way anyone will walk within their shoes down these winding roads into the mists of time to experience the lifting of the veil to a new days dawning just beyond.

 

Travel your own road or not. The choice is yours.....

 

=Ayes=

 

^^^ My sentiments exactly.

 

And I would add that I have always disliked account sales.  I dislike not knowing who I'm talking to when speaking with a character in game, with exceptions of course.  I also dislike the irony of those who buy high end accounts to skip the journey altogether, protesting any ideas to make the journey any easier for others or they look down their noses at those who play on WU servers that are a bit faster.  They pay lip service to how people shouldn't be lazy and should have frustrating hurdles to overcome every step of the way, and then they go buy themselves an account with all that done for them.  Perish the thought that others should be able to easily catch up on their own without paying through the nose for it.  lol.

 

But none of that diminishes my own game. I play the way I like and they can play as they like. I've never been one to be overly concerned about what my neighbor (or person on the other side of the server) is doing or how they're doing it anyway, as long as it doesn't directly affect me.  Not to mention that the Genie is already out of the bottle.  Account sales are a thing in nearly every game I've ever played.  No way to stop it, even if they wanted to try. 

 

 

Edited December 14, 2018 by Amadee

[Mordraug 2,542]

A better request would be "implement good suggestions whether they affect the silver/account sellers or not".

[armyskin 930]

2 hours ago, Roccandil said:

 

One way, for instance, would be to give all new toons X percentage of the average skills of the top Y active toons.

The word to describe this is communism.

[Roccandil 959]

1 hour ago, armyskin said:

The word to describe this is communism.

 

Interesting perspective! Communism, however, is ostensibly about equal distribution; my suggestion is simply to give new toons a boost of maybe 10% of the average skills of the top 1000 accounts (and that may be low), and I'm not suggesting reducing the top accounts.

 

To be honest, for the lore justification I was thinking more about tech proliferation, which is more of a capitalistic thing. The rich are early adopters of expensive tech, but if it's good stuff, capitalism makes it as inexpensive and widely available as possible.

 

(And I've watched this happen firsthand: I remember when an external -floppy- drive array cost $5000.  )

Edited December 14, 2018 by Roccandil

[Etherdrifter 2,518]

+1

Account selling is usually banned in mmorpgs for one main reason, it hurts the "achiever" player base and it also hurts  the "killer" player base.

 

A game where account selling is not only tolerated, but actively encouraged in the community, is going to put off players of those types.

[Roccandil 959]

As I've said elsewhere, there are two Wurms:

 

1) The Wurm you can play when you have the capabilities granted by high-level skills;

2) The Wurm you have to play to get those capabilities.

 

This topic is evidence of how many people are willing to pay (bigly) to skip #2 to play #1 (and on WO, not WU, at that). Sure, some people like playing #2, but I get the impression those people are already playing Wurm, and don't represent -potential- players.

 

So, instead of forcing everyone else to play the game the same way (yes, let's exclude customers!  ), I'd rather we tapped into the potential playerbase of people who hate grinding to get capabilities, but really enjoy the gameplay when they have them.

 

Very likely many can't afford to buy accounts, and simply aren't playing, and as such, they may represent Wurm's biggest market-share expansion opportunity.

[Niki 2,278]

Ban account sales, MWGA!

[Wargasm 1,928]

This should have been done 5 years ago.  Because it was not, it is too late to implement this.  Do it now and say goodbye to 1/3 of the already dead population.

[Nordlys 1,428]

4 hours ago, Wargasm said:

Do it now and say goodbye to 1/3 of the already dead population.

First id have to mention that i dont know if im against or for buying/selling. I really havent given it much thought. 

 

That said, if you see this from a philosophical perspective - if you remove the 1/3 of the population, add a feature of some sort, and then gain another portion of population - is that so bad?

Edited December 15, 2018 by Nordlys

[Roccandil 959]

Banning account selling will tend to increase the ossification of the existing Freedom player base: good luck keeping anyone new once they understand they're years behind with no (legal) way to catch up.

 

I get the impression a new player workflow often looks something like this:

 

- Give Wurm a try

- Have fun surviving and getting started

- Hit the grind, get bored

- Buy an account to skip (some of) the grind

- Keep having fun (and paying premium) for a while longer

 

Despite the low pop, I've seen that multiple times on Epic, where it's far easier to catch up than Freedom. Banning that would put Wurm into legacy support mode: only the existing playerbase would matter. Might as well disable new accounts at that point.

 

The bottom line is that for many people, the grind sucks. Fix that, get more players.

Edited December 16, 2018 by Roccandil

[Mataleao 104]

On 12/14/2018 at 7:44 PM, AJBlack said:

...Wurm is a game that's amazing because you are ALLOWED and ENCOURAGED to trade anything an everything you have...

 

I share this sentiment. As for the real life trading of characters, while I am no participant to this, I find it fascinating that a player can sell a character, quit the game, then return sometime later and rebuy said character. That persistence lends a uniqueness to Wurm Online. This is another aspect of the freedom that we enjoy in this venerable antique. As has been said numerous times by others, choose how you play and let others do the same. Less restrictions, not more.

 

 

On 12/14/2018 at 11:17 PM, kochinac said:

...tbh we can also have wurmagedon once again...

 

If and only if we have true Wurm Online v2. Otherwise, wts yellow vests, ql70 pitchforks and torches.

 

 

8 hours ago, Roccandil said:

...I'd rather we tapped into the potential playerbase of people who hate grinding to get capabilities, but really enjoy the gameplay when they have them...

 

While I understand your sentiment, I do not think that, for lack of a better word, dumbing down WO is a true fix for issue. The way WO is right now makes us value each and every progress and success. Every 0.000001 skill point, every plank successfully attached, every missed rare roll while imping your moonmetal paraphernalia, every rare potato harvested... Real value instead of instant gratification. This whittles away 8 out of every 10 new player, but the hardy 2 are likely to stay long term instead of being mere tourists who wander around digging up random spots, chopping down trees, messing about until they either get killed or decide that they have had enough,  that WO is truly not for them and proceed to log off, never to return. For those players who hate the grind but enjoy the gameplay, while I can sympathise with them, I can imagine how things might be if we cater to their taste: partially built, unfinished shacks and deeds and uncompleted terraforming projects everywhere, to say the least. WO does not appeal to the casual insta-crowd, and that is fine.

 

 

3 hours ago, Nordlys said:

...That said, if you see this from a philosophical perspective - if you remove the 1/3 of the population, add a feature of some sort, and then gain another portion of population - is that so bad?...

 

That would be bad if the portion of population gained are short term players. We would have lost proven and loyal long-term supporters and gained casuals with no staying power.

 

 

[Roccandil 959]

45 minutes ago, Mataleao said:

While I understand your sentiment, I do not think that, for lack of a better word, dumbing down WO is a true fix for issue. The way WO is right now makes us value each and every progress and success. Every 0.000001 skill point, every plank successfully attached, every missed rare roll while imping your moonmetal paraphernalia, every rare potato harvested... Real value instead of instant gratification.

 

...

 

WO does not appeal to the casual insta-crowd, and that is fine.

 

Grinding isn't real gameplay; it's uniform, thoughtless, repetitive clicking. That's it. It's already a dumbed-down filler, an excuse for gameplay.

 

Ironically, Wurm's real gameplay is good enough that the grind is unnecessary. I know this because I'm largely past the (necessary) skillgrind on Epic, and the building/terraforming capability I have now is reason enough to play the game.

 

Massive building projects is Wurm's real gameplay, not the grind. Even giving every new player insta-100 in everything couldn't touch that.

 

Another way to look at it is this: if Wurm were left with zero gameplay if the grind were eliminated, what is Wurm really? An addiction for a handful of odd personalities who like to see numbers slowly increase?

 

But I think Wurm is more than that; the grind is not Wurm, not to me. It's simply something to be endured to play the real game.

 

And I conclude that most people who try Wurm never get to experience the real Wurm that exists on the other side of the grind.

[Oblivionnreaver 5,175]

3 minutes ago, Roccandil said:

An addiction for a handful of odd personalities who like to see numbers slowly increase?

ya that's a pretty accurate description chief

Edited December 16, 2018 by Oblivionnreaver