Making Wurm Feel More Alive

[Etherdrifter 2,517]

The week before last, I spent an hour or two each evening riding around Xanadu.  During that week, I saw less than 5 other players.  Most of the deeds I passed, I couldn't tell if they were active or not, and the world felt pretty empty and abandoned.  Odds are, judging from premium player accounts, I just logged in during times when no-one else was on.

From what I hear, this is not an unusual situation, and it's not a nice one.  So, below, are a couple of ideas for everyone to help make the world feel a little more active, even if they are not around!  (going to start work on these tomorrow evening for my home!)
 

• Leave a brightly dyed sign near your home with the days/times you are usually online (great for your imping business!)
• Leave a construction marker in your perimeter with "online recently" labelled on it, to let folks know that your deed is still active
• Leave cheap paper, cheap pens, and cheap ink in a cedar chest in your perimeter with your character name on it so visitors who pass by can easily leave a message either by post or in the chest.
• Working on a project out in the wild?  Why not drop a sign with the last active time you logged in for that project. (Also helps folks avoid undoing your hard work by thinking it is a ruin!)
• Passing by a new build?  Leave a small chest with a note of welcome by it. (because why not?)

 

These are just a couple of ideas we can all try and do to make the game world feel a little less empty, and they really just boil down to leaving a passive footprint that other players can easily see as activity.  The devs are putting a lot of work into making wurm a better game, maybe we can help too by making it a slightly better place.

If anyone else has suggestions, I'd love to hear em!

[Bloodscythe 2,225]

I particularly liked the idea of the paper pen ink idea, as well as the next one, of planting a work in progress dated sign if in the wild.  All the ideas are good it's just those really struck me as wow yah niceties.  I too have ridden around and had the same experience..felt a bit armageddonish like why am I even here, seems all have left type thing..then ennui sets in.

[Ayes 3,715]

Some nice ideas there Etherdrifter and I agree with the concept of leaving marks of recent activity. One can also pick flowers and drop a few around the deed where others pass through. I did this with some roses a few weeks back and they are still there, so seem to last quite a while before decaying away. Could also label these with some message too.

 

=Ayes=

[Berms 154]

- NPC's ... Why does no one talk about that?

We need NPC's in Wurm... just like The Elder Scrolls Oblivion, random NPC's who can have their own house, can do some chores.

 

- Each NPC can do chores ( about 3 chores?) , assigned by the player ( for example fishing, mining and woodcutting )

- The NPC does a fixed amount of jobs a day ( cutting 10 trees, 10x fishing, etc)

- The big villages which are mostly abandonend will feel alive again like this

- The empty houses could be housed by these NPC's 

- The NPC's could contribute to the village economy

- Big and best organized villages attract more NPC villagers 

 

Its such a waste of those big villages and alliances which are getting drained right now.

 

 

Edited April 26, 2019 by Berms

[atazs 965]

We don't need npcs, we need more players. How do we get more players? 

Spoiler

Advertising

 

[Berms 154]

11 hours ago, atazs said:

We don't need npcs, we need more players. How do we get more players? 

  Hide contents

Advertising

 

 

To achieve that, the game needs to start from basic, stop using Java , update graphics/mechanics OR lower the monthly price AND/OR let players be able to buy for 1 month instead of forcing me to buy for at least 2 months if not using PayPal.

Wurm Online's future is uncertain and no sane (new) player will invest in 2 or 3 months if you look at the server satistics and how many players are online ( average of 100 on Xanadu ).

 

WU destroyed WO,  all those people who wanted to see and experience the endgame without paying monthly are chased away from WO and towns are all empty now.

bad decisions that makes sure WO will never recover as it was.

[christopher 207]

if I saw a ad id have a heart attack lets paint the word wurm on every thing around the world n people will google to see what it is lol

[Berms 154]

1 hour ago, christopher said:

if I saw a ad id have a heart attack lets paint the word wurm on every thing around the world n people will google to see what it is lol

People will google and see that its overpriced, looks lik something out of 2000 era (eventhough the gameplay is great)  and will simply not even try downloading the client....

 

And what makes you think they will try WO instead of WU when they find out how empty and laggy the servers are, why would they even try / pay for WO ?

 

All of my friends liked the gameplay mechanics and the ideas behind it, but the outdated graphics, massive lag, overpriced monthly payments and the empty servers scared them all away from even trying it.

I think most of Wurmians are being too optimistic and dont realise that Wurm could be dead sooner than you expected.

In the end it will be a pathetic sight of  a couple die-hard oldskool Wurmians trying to keep the game afloat.

Edited April 27, 2019 by Berms

[atazs 965]

It's not as simple as "stop using java" as you think it is. Especially when only a handful of devs working on this game actually get paid, as the rest are volunteers in an already patheticly small team 

Edited April 27, 2019 by atazs

[armyskin 930]

wurm is overpriced?

[Ratlin 79]

1 hour ago, Berms said:

People will google and see that its overpriced, looks lik something out of 2000 era (eventhough the gameplay is great)  and will simply not even try downloading the client....

So Stardew Valley then ..... yes Wurm O/U is a niche product, niche products still need to "advertise", just because it's not your friends "cup of tea" doesn't mean that advertising well be ineffective it just means we need to target that advertising to those people that this game will appeal to.

 

Niche products arn't bad, not every product needs to be altered to suit the broadest possible market and they are quite the polar opposite of advertising in that Adverts arn't good, they do need to be targeted to a specific audience to be effective, we just need to work out the who and how.

Edited April 27, 2019 by Ratlin

[Sila 339]

18 hours ago, atazs said:

We don't need npcs, we need more players. How do we get more players? 

  Hide contents

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[Ayes 3,715]

On 4/26/2019 at 11:12 AM, Berms said:

NPC's ... Why does no one talk about that?

They have, in the Suggestions & Ideas forum area.

 

=Ayes=

[Eyesgood 2,121]

22 hours ago, armyskin said:

wurm is overpriced?

 

It is, but most won't admit it.

[armyskin 930]

$7.50 per month is less than a pack of cigarettes i didnt know that was where the line was drawn. What do other games cost per month?

[Wilczan 2,048]

48 minutes ago, armyskin said:

$7.50 per month is less than a pack of cigarettes i didnt know that was where the line was drawn. What do other games cost per month?

Exactly, especially that players can earn silver in-game and then can use it to extend prem or just sell for real currency.

[FranktheTank 1,901]

I still say automated trading and mail as made the game was less social than if you had people trading with one another the way the game was intended.

[tamat 265]

On 4/26/2019 at 6:57 PM, atazs said:

We don't need npcs, we need more players. How do we get more players? 

  Hide contents

Advertising

 

wurm problems, is a niche game and is hard keep players, and that will not fix with adversting

 

[Finnn 3,302]

15 minutes ago, tamat said:

Quote

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wurm problems, is a niche game and is hard keep players, and that will not fix with adversting

True.. but.. think of all small annoying things.. that wont be game-breaking to change into something more entertaining... that wont annoy people and stab them with boredom.. game will be a lot more appealing to a broader audience.. (probably)

 

As for OP, I don't think it's your business to know who does what. You dont have to track everybody's business.

Unless others like to show what they do by placing signs, that probably means it's not planned to be a blog/vlog/SIGNog... project

 

Doesn't village board work the same as 'guest book' where people could write messages back to the person who placed the sign, usually that's the mayor.
Suggested alternative with small chest, notes etc... is TOO MUCH effort to track and restock low ql paper and pens, dye... container for ink etc(decay)... and it only takes 1 random passing person/nub to take it all and move on 'stealing it'.

 

If the village board is reworked to have different name; sign(icon) and option to be village or project information board... that's a lot more useful.

Such could be even used at events slayings/impalongs/etc.. so people could write their wishings and thanks to hosts, etc...

[Shrimpiie 3,665]

6 hours ago, Eyesgood said:

It is, but most won't admit it.

Except it's not.

 

I've posted this countless times but people seem to like to just gloss right over the facts.

Here is the breakdown:

 

2 months of premium time is 16e, which is $17.86.

Meaning that a month is 8e, or $8.93.

Say you are on a bi-weekly pay schedule, that puts you on 4e/$4.47 per paycheck, or 2e/$2.23 a week.

 

Skip your morning coffee a couple times a month, and you have plenty to pay for the premium cost.

Anything further payed into the game, such as the incredibly cheap deeds, which the smallest is 4.21s to place with a 1s/month upkeep, can quite easily be earned ingame, regardless of how low the economy is by this point.

 

So enough of this "Wurm is overpriced" stuff, because it is simply not true, and never has been.

[atazs 965]

I fully agree. Wurm is not overpriced for what it is, and never has been. You can already pay premium with ingame currency without spending real money. You can also play the game however long you want to for free.

Then there is also Unlimited that is one time buy, and you can get it for less than 10 dollars from deals and bundles if you know where to look. 

 

The whole "wurm is a niche game, advertising won't work" is just plain stupid. Even a temporarily player boost is good for the game. And how do you know that every single person who tries this game won't stay? If 10 people out of 100 stays for longer than a month, then it's already working. 

[Lordbeerus 77]

Wurm has a unique set of features that require a community to function. As players get older, they tend to naturally quit games. That exodus of players has to be countered by the influx of new players. If that's not happening, community oriented features can't function. We get no trade, empty towns and maps, no pvp etc. Maybe advertisement would help, I don't know. But we clearly are losing players at a rate faster than the rate we are converting new ones. 

 

Pricing is not an issue, never was. Complaining about prem cost is the result of low population. Low population -> low activity -> less wars, less projects --> less ingame jobs --> more difficult for non-paying premium people to make silver to pay their premium.

 

If there's one BIG issue with WO, that's WU. Sharing the unobfuscated jar files with the public was a terrible idea. Rolf essentially gave (or sold) away his creation to the masses in where, there certainly would be much smarter and creative individuals who'd leech on his updates and apply their customizations to create a more attractive product. As a result, stealing away players from WO into WU. 

[PWreset 66]

16 hours ago, Lordbeerus said:

 

 

If there's one BIG issue with WO, that's WU. Sharing the unobfuscated jar files with the public was a terrible idea. Rolf essentially gave (or sold) away his creation to the masses in where, there certainly would be much smarter and creative individuals who'd leech on his updates and apply their customizations to create a more attractive product. As a result, stealing away players from WO into WU. 

 

Maybe also generations changed too much. during study I had a lot of time. Now with family and kids I don't. WO feels very unrewarding because it's time just flies by and the less you are active the more you kinda lose. WU helps to cater to those people because they can decide how fast Wurmtime passes. The ingame duties for a deep experience is pretty much "No Lifing" in Wurm, and always was. Bu living a pretty casual gamer Life in Wurm is pretty soon boring. So it loses it's appeal to play it and even pay for it as well.

I think it's fine by the price, given you have time to play it.

 

But the new gamer generation is more fortnite action and Mobile App gamers.

I wonder what would happen if we could have Wurm as some sort of mobile app. But the GUI to make it work for the inventory would be a pretty strange thing. Yet even Ark managed to be an App. The graphics would be nice enough for a mobile game and it could keep hordes of the kids entertained .

 

But atm, WU is basically the only Wurm I can timewise even afford. So WU saved my Wurmian Life instead of killing it entirely.

[Griffith181 0]

Part of the reduction in the community is how many people from WO seem to be in Life is Feudal.  

LIF is almost a clone of this game but includes siege warfare (in select areas) for people who enjoy some pvp.   Our Guild over in LIF are all from here or ARK survival. 

[Griffith181 0]

On 4/28/2019 at 1:42 PM, Shrimpiie said:

Except it's not.

 

I've posted this countless times but people seem to like to just gloss right over the facts.

Here is the breakdown:

 

2 months of premium time is 16e, which is $17.86.

Meaning that a month is 8e, or $8.93.

Say you are on a bi-weekly pay schedule, that puts you on 4e/$4.47 per paycheck, or 2e/$2.23 a week.

 

Skip your morning coffee a couple times a month, and you have plenty to pay for the premium cost.

Anything further payed into the game, such as the incredibly cheap deeds, which the smallest is 4.21s to place with a 1s/month upkeep, can quite easily be earned ingame, regardless of how low the economy is by this point.

 

So enough of this "Wurm is overpriced" stuff, because it is simply not true, and never has been.

I have to agree, this game is far from overpriced.