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HexD

Hi, my name is NexD

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"I've come from a future to tell you, that's the you that is right now, the you at this very moment of your being is having, have and/or haved a decision to make. This decision will, would and/or has change, changing and/or changed the course of this timelines trajectory. Let me start by stating in my time, Wurm not only survives but thrives. It's the most complex simulation platform in existence, users use augmented VR to live out their fantasies and explore Worlds thought impossible and interact on levels beyond your current understanding. A basic example people of this timeline will understand is the old/new movie called "Ready player one". Technology of your timeline is not there yet and for fear of creating problems I can't say anymore on when it will be but I can tell you how Wurm, with a few adjustments began it's journey into becoming the best game it can, could and/or will be."


Ok.. So I wanted to start with how I wanted it to end, by adding some Roleplay features.

I know Roleplay is a bit a joke to some or a scary prospect a loved one brings up in the bedroom but I think it depends on the manner in which its undertaken. RP'ers range from extremely serious method actors embodying their characters all the way to those that want to momentarily escape their bubbles and have a giggle expressing themselves. Personally I've never been heavy into RP but have had some mild experience with it and have had a lots of enjoyable encounters being creatively silly. Recently I commented in a thread on Wurms forums which discussed ways to revive Wurms population and I said the only way would be to remake it from scratch and I still retain that to be true. However, I also commented on how games today are largely successful based on their ability to draw a crowd of viewers via streamers playing it. In it's current state Wurm is fairly boring to watch, we have some talented streamers whom make it enjoyable to watch with their content and personalities but for the most part it's pretty bad for streaming. This is where role play comes into effect, gaming role play servers are more common than you'd think and some have huge success and even more so now with platforms such as Twitch making role play characters into mini celebrities. I've never been a stream watcher as I'd rather play a game than watch someone else play it but lately I've been watching role players play GTA 5 on a particular server known as 'NoPixel'. I have laughed, proper belly laughs, more in the last week or so than I have in the last 15 years combined all because of the creativity of a small group of streamers who between the top 10 on NoPixel bring in easily 50,000 viewers consistently. This is possible one because of the role players and two, most importantly in my opinion because of the tools provided to the role players to make use of. Things like VoIP, animations covering an array of emotions and situations which would compliment scenes, tools and places withing the world which can become part of the story and last but not least RNG, you need that little touch of randomness to keep it form becoming predictable and I don't just mean plots I mean outside influences that will force a player to adapt but ultimately still allow them to achieve their goals.

I know Wurm won't rival NoPixel in terms of viewers simply because the already established streamers which play there most likely wouldn't play Wurm but some would if Wurm was more role play accessible. You can argue players can already RP in Wurm which they can but it's not good to watch. Wurms engine doesn't have physics like GTA does where something as simple as falling over can trigger very funny and enjoyable content but what Wurm does have is huge potential for role play all we need to is add the tools. 
 

  1. VoIP 
  2. Animations

 

With just these two things players could begin to construct their stories and create content that would attract a small following on Twitch and other streaming platforms which will inevitably swell our ranks with new players. Animations includes things like /sit to sit on the floor in place or /fallover to make your character fall over in response to something, I'm not going to list them all but you get the idea.

Also it's loads cheaper than advertising.

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Wurm used to have Voip for people in local. It was directional and faded in volume as your distance increased. If memory serves me, Rolf wanted it to be a paid service which, obviously, never flew. It would be nice to get this feature reactivated as I felt it added quite a bit of immersion to the game.

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voip never worked (for pvp atleast) because it ended up in people streaming the same concerts over the voice chat during raids from what i heard a looong time ago xd

Edited by Firecat
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I've been involved in a few rather heavy RP-based communities, and they've always been text-based. In roleplaying you can be anything or anyone for the most part, and some kid on VoIP completely breaks my immersion. Wurm has a lot of things needed for roleplaying, and I'm sure you and others can find what they're looking for in many of the roleplaying-heavy WU servers.

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I don't care for WU, I'm not suggesting RP because I want to RP, I'm suggesting it so we can attract the or at least some of the RP crowd who will stream their stories and create watchable content on Twitch which will in turn attract more players to Wurm Online.

We'd give RP it's own server (personally I'd use Epic cluster to house RP) and players would join there with character biographies and the understanding it's not a playground for kiddies. We also shouldn't not do things because a few might abuse it, instead we should punish those who abuse it and keep letting the good players enjoy it.

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2 hours ago, HexD said:

I don't care for WU, I'm not suggesting RP because I want to RP, I'm suggesting it so we can attract the or at least some of the RP crowd who will stream their stories and create watchable content on Twitch which will in turn attract more players to Wurm Online.

We'd give RP it's own server (personally I'd use Epic cluster to house RP) and players would join there with character biographies and the understanding it's not a playground for kiddies. We also shouldn't not do things because a few might abuse it, instead we should punish those who abuse it and keep letting the good players enjoy it.

 

+1 to more players and the idea of voip if optional.

 

-1 to another server. I don't see how this would work personally, I think there's not enough people for the space we currently have. Making another server would mean connecting it to others by sea and that would make biographies etc useless because people from other servers would settle and it would be a mess. Bring them to the existing servers, let them RP on their own.

 

Unless you want to make another cluster for RP which is a -1 from me too. We need to liven up the economy tbh.

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22 hours ago, John said:

In roleplaying you can be anything or anyone for the most part, and some kid on VoIP completely breaks my immersion.

A good point made here since this topic wants to integrate a focus upon "voice" through various channels available into its roleplay aspects. To me much of Wurm's interactions are influenced heavily by the imagination, as are a lot of online interactions where "voice" communication is not used. What I enjoy about this lack of "voice" communication is that I can imagine other players as I see them within my minds eye (imagination). No doubt most are not how I imagine them to be but I am not looking for the reality of their physical selves to intrude upon this image that I have of them through the contacts that I have had with them in the game. Using any type of "voice" communication thus completely shatters the image that I have developed of them over time. The imagination can be a beautiful thing which I realize that some (many?) wish to have tempered by reality; however, I do not really see Wurm as being much grounded in reality but rather mostly a game of the imagination, which is an escape from the reality of our everyday lives. If I want to experience other people I will go out into the "real world" to interact with them or if I need to hear their voice for some reason I can call them on the phone. I used "voice" in a game some years ago in an online game and abandoned it a short time later as I found the "reality" it added diminished the experience greatly. Strange?

Spoiler

"People Are Strange"
 

People are strange when you're a stranger
Faces look ugly when you're alone
Women seem wicked when you're unwanted
Streets are uneven when you're down

When you're strange
Faces come out of the rain
When you're strange
No one remembers your name
When you're strange
When you're strange
When you're strange

~The Doors~

=Ayes=

Edited by Ayes

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I didn't say 'new' server, I said 'a' server. We have plenty of dead ones that would work as a home for RP. Get the idea of 12 year olds and lower IQ players ruining immersion by misusing voice out of your head. They can do the same thing with text so the point is moot and in response to people not role playing on a role play server it's as simple as removing them like you would in any type of server with players that are unruly and disruptive. We live in a world where recording such events is a couple clicks meaning it's not going to be very hard to police and the occurrence of it wont be very often after the novelty wears off.

Your argument is that hearing someones "voice" will change your mental image of them? It's a moot point again because your perception of "them" is irrelevant as they will be role playing, you'll hear their characters persona not theirs and if you can't make that distinction then being part of a RP server is not for you. You talk of Wurm being a place of fantasy and escapism but are closed minded to tools which create the trapdoors, simply because your understanding and imagination can't comprehend how others will use them for the very purpose you say people play Wurm.


"I do not really see Wurm as being much grounded in reality but rather mostly a game of the imagination, which is an escape from the reality of our everyday lives." 


Why do you think role players, role play? To escape themselves by being someone else and typing their every move and emotion is an archaic practice and not very good when you're trying to be someone else and to allow the role play to flow naturally. Text can't express feeling like tone and delivery will through "voice". 

Seems people are hearing certain parts of this suggestion and getting the wrong idea because of what must be my lack of articulation and it is distracting them from the point. The point is, it's not about "you". We're not trying to recruit you to play Wurm as you're already here, instead we want to attract a new genre of gamer that can use Wurm as a platform to create content that is enjoyable to watch on streaming platforms. This creates a following and it will either fail and make no difference to the inevitability of Wurm or will succeed and become a source of shameless self promotion and rejuvenate life into Wurm without the need for spending 10's of thousands of monies in the process.

Embrace change, stop fearing it.
 

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One problem I've had with RP is that a lot of it requires some sort of moderation intervention with things such as powergaming, metagaming and such taking place. Does this also apply for the sort of Wurm roleplay you imagine happening? Would we want a seperate mod team for this?

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I'm not sure, maybe? There would definitely need to be some guidelines for current staff to refer to in resolving issues. We'd need a proper RP veteran to write the rules and regulations which define things like meta-gaming and such. Perhaps 1 position for a RP GM to make rulings where normal GMs are having issues. With proper guidelines and such I think a normal GM will be able to make a fair ruling the majority of the time.

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