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Rolf

WO Steam Discussion

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As anyone who knows me will attest, I simply cannot resist a new server, so there's that, which will feed into my intrinsic bias toward injecting new, fresh ideas and players into Wurm.

 

We already have a major change to the client, with the new launcher with embedded java, making it a lot easier to get Wurm up and running, this also makes it a lot easier for a lot of people to try Wurm without additional technical overheads, such as installing JRE/JDK and maintaining that themselves, now the launcher does that all for the player. That fits neatly in with the entire steam experience, where updates are pushed out to the players thru the Steam Client. There will have to be some work done making the present client Linux compliant, since for some it is still a struggle to get that running, as is, without some technical knowledge, and of course not ever Linux Distro has the same libraries installed as standard, leading to dependency hell for some players. (Note that my experience of the Linux Client has been relatively smooth, due to having enough technical knowledge to work around the initial issues i encountered, but it's still not perfect).

 

I wholeheartedly agree that a new server/cluster would be one of the best ways of introducing the game to a wider audience, I love that new server smell, and as already mentioned, it will hopefully reduce some of the embedded/entitled attitudes of some Wurm players who really ought to know better by now, but simply cannot resist any change that might impact their profit driven focus on the 'market'. 

 

I'm totally up for providing whatever in game assistance is required, whether that be formal or informal help in the CA Help system, on any new server, a new server or cluster will not impact my commitment to giving back what so many past and present players have given me, knowledge based on my own Wurm experiences, I simply think that is part of my game, fun and helping others find their way.

 

While I know that Epic in particular is one of @Rolfmajor projects, as a player who spent a lot of time there as a PvE player,  ( I make no apology for being a Freedumber, and carebear, Epic was one of the highlights of Wurm for me). It provided me with a lot of fun, and I am aware of my nostalgia for keeping it all, but rationally, it's not working now, and frankly it needs a top down total rework going forward, an issue that I am aware has been discussed already. So if this Steam based way forward goes ahead, may I suggest that any potential Epic plans are for an entirely new Epic, not merely moving the servers and assets to the Steam Client, but an entirely new reworked system, And retire Epic as it is now with full honours for what it has taught us, as a base for moving forward.

 

The timeline is ambitious, but in my view, entirely possible, I'll look forward to more discussions over then next few months.

 

Finally, I admire you revealing something this ambitious to what is frankly a conservative playerbase, we generally fear and fight change, and everyone will want to put their view forward as being the only true way, it's not of course, it's only their way, but regardless, we're a pretty fractious bunch, so, don't just give in to the loudest, the quietest also have something to say.

Edited by Zenity
tidying up
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I'd recomend that the prem level and skill starting level is same on both clusters.

 

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21 minutes ago, Oblivionnreaver said:

make it so you start with 10-15 in crafting skills at least, my god does having 1 skill suck, and first impressions of the game are big, when you fail to make kindling 10x times in a row it's just lol

About sucking to start at level 1

Maybe there could be some 'demo' time, idk.. how that could work with the alts and how people like to 'a-buse' gifts.. 

Perfect environment could be Golden Valley alternative to test abilities with higher skills gifted to the player... for limited time; BUT.. many people hate tutorials and just skip them.... Alternative.. makes it smart to make a new acct and use the bonus skills for the buffed time to do w/e bulk crafting etc..(bad part imo)

 

* Maybe instead.. 1 of the first things could be small packages to buy initial 15-20 skills in the game either up to 20~ to all skills for decent amount or FEWER skills to 15-20~ for few bucks?(time's money, server hamsters need money.. win:win)

another package option.. Basic startup with instant ability to operate a boat/cart/wagon/mount for ... bucks?

 

* definitely whip the graphics department to make a bunch of new skins... steam ppl love unique things

...

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I think it sounds like a great idea, and regarding eventual staff shortage, I would be more than happy to help out new players on the Steam server, as I would definitely go there and play.

Since the vast majority of Wurm players are helpful, I don't think it will be a problem.

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7 minutes ago, Rolf said:

Yeah, although because we lose almost every player who don't want to pay as soon as they hit this ceiling we should consider simply slowing down skillgain instead. We'll see. Also I like the idea of letting people start at 10 or 15 or so.

Some skills are slow as hell now,   making them slower for new player is a sure death  to a new start for your plans .

To me the plans for steam start up just sounds like adding another server ..

Why not remove 2 or 3 servers from Wurm  or use one as a new player area  , Pristine or release size is good .

As players lvl up to certain skill they need move on to gain any more , yes sounds like zones in other games but what else can you do .

Instead of adding another jackal set up use one of the old servers as a hunting event area total wipe every 6 months or more , have a comet or something destroy the area/server  , invasion maybe one time .

Give players 30 or 60 days to move from the servers about to be closed with upkeep and deed perches  price refunded . you have many options adding new server is not the answer ..

 

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I call that demo time WU Finn. I use it to learn (and there is the test server)

More people on graphics so there could be more graphics would be nice. I couldn't have played this game for long how it was before I joined

I always thought this needed to be doen but I never thought it would be comfortable or easy

Edited by Seraph
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1 hour ago, Rolf said:

Free to play games are highly sought after and I think A LOT of people look for and try free to play MMOs there. Compared to finding us online and download our client via custom links and registration, on Steam we would work exactly like all other games.

This is what took me on the road to thinking that WO would be "free to play" on Steam with no restrictions as the current game has. Then Retro cleared it up somewhat, that it would be just up to 20 skill with restrictions then players must pay as currently. But then again aren't "all other games" only pay once then all content within them is free? There are monthly subscription games on Steam? Besides the point I guess since Wurm Online will be one (maybe the only one?).

 

=Ayes=

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By slowed down skillgain rolf means post 20.

 

I.e. You can still gain skill without prem but if you buy prem it's faster

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1 minute ago, Ayes said:

This is what took me on the road to thinking that WO would be "free to play" on Steam with no restrictions as the current game has. Then Retro cleared it up somewhat, that it would be just up to 20 skill with restrictions then players must pay as currently. But then again aren't "all other games" only pay once then all content within them is free? There are monthly subscription games on Steam? Besides the point I guess since Wurm Online will be one (maybe the only one?).

 

=Ayes=

Hmm nah quite a lot of the free MMO's have various shops. Don't know about subscriptions however for instance Eve Online sure does.

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3 minutes ago, Rolf said:

Hmm nah quite a lot of the free MMO's have various shops. Don't know about subscriptions however for instance Eve Online sure does.

Eve, Elder Scrolls, Black Desert kinda does, LOTRO, as well as a number of non-Steam ones of course, such as WoW, AO etc, Freemium is still a widely used model for many MMO games.

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1 hour ago, Rolf said:

Q2) Steam gets a bit fussy with real money transactions. Can we abide by Steam Guidelines?
I don't see how we wouldn't abide by Steam guidelines. We aren't involved in RMT or account sales. Our players may be but that's not unusual for online games. We would look into what we can do with the Steam shop though so we support their systems.

 

You would need to add terms that prohibited players from making transactions with money outside of the steam wallet. You would also need to moderate those transactions. You can read more about that from this post.

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@Damascus

 

I doubt shutting down existing servers and relocating their residents to make space for expected new ones would lead to anything good.

 

Besides, @Rolf promised to us no server will be removed as long as even one single player is still playing there, and I trust his word.

 

You do not try to get new customers by chasing away the long term ones, and it was already said in this thread, in Rolf's answers, there are means to cover the existence of a new server, so best to just focus on the main talk here, Wurm taking over Steam! Gnome army, attack!

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I guess my concern is that in the event all goes well, is a great success and the two don't become merged then I fear OGWO falls into an Epic situation. No reason to play there when everyone is having fun on the new servers with thousands of people so it slowly decays down to three people per server because the people who have been around supporting the game through thick and thin aren't allowed to take their efforts and join in without throwing away everything.

Don't get me wrong I want the game to succeed as much as the next person but I also don't like the idea of being shafted (again) and punished for picking the wrong time/place to play.

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27 minutes ago, Ayes said:

But then again aren't "all other games" only pay once then all content within them is free? There are monthly subscription games on Steam? Besides the point I guess since Wurm Online will be one (maybe the only one?).

 

=Ayes=

 

 

Elder Scrolls Online is on steam, you pay for box AND a subscription.

Final Fantasy 11 is now on steam, also requires a subscription.

I think there are a lot more.  

This page seems to suggest they planned this a few years back.

 

I would rather see NO level 20 cap or "required" subscription, and instead have many "preferred member subscriber" perks and XP boosters to people on a "gold subscription" type plan, such as 5 sleep powders per week (well worth the subscription cost to the ambitious)    In other words you could play F2P the whole way through, and still own a deed but on a fresh start server this is hard to buy & maintain without purchasing shop silver even with a subscription. Since Wurm is already a grind, most people who are ABLE to afford a subscription, would want a subscription ... and shop silver too! But the non subscribers could eventually get to all the same content if they were brutally stubborn and had unlimited time to play ...

 

Also some Steam players might wonder why they had to pay a subscription while WU players (also on steam) didn't. The way to do this, is paint WO-Steam as a better, modern experience over the 'old school' WU experience, which I expect Code Club to underline by gradually choking off future content updates to WU. I mean, we all know they've been planning to do that anyway. WU players can complain they were deceived but they are still going to do it. I think Code Club meant it at the time they promised it, but it is too tempting now to pretend "we never meant that, exactly." WU is helped out somewhat by modders who can try to fix and update where they can. Doesn;t make it right but I would not have been shocked 6 months ago if you told me the WU updates were going to trickle to a stop by the end of the year. I mean, they already have pretty much.

 

WO-Steam might cause some WU-Steam players to migrate back to the MMO. WU is nice but there are usually only 3-15 people on a server, especially since anyone can start a fresh server whenever they want, so population is spread much thinner than in WO. A lot of people want the "community" of a large official server.

 

 

Edited by Brash_Endeavors
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3 minutes ago, Brash_Endeavors said:

 

 

Elder Scrolls Online is on steam, you pay for box AND a subscription.

 

 

 

Mostly untrue.

 

You pay once and you are in, there is an option to pay monthly but it it not mandatory and only offers small benefits. Expansion packs cost money.

Edited by FranktheTank
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4 minutes ago, FranktheTank said:

Mostly untrue.

You pay once and you are in, there is an option to pay monthly but it it not mandatory and only offers small benefits. Expansion packs cost money.

 

 

Thanks, I was probably confusing it with another game.

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54 minutes ago, Rolf said:

Yeah, although because we lose almost every player who don't want to pay as soon as they hit this ceiling we should consider simply slowing down skillgain instead. We'll see. Also I like the idea of letting people start at 10 or 15 or so.

I think that the reason people don't want to pay is because of the price, so I would think that the logical thing to do would be to lower the prem price(I, for one, would have bought it sooner) and make referals possible to be accepted before getting your own premium. When something costs more, people buy less of it. Also, all that decreasing the skillgain rate would do is make it more frustrating for new people to level up, and without a drop to the Subscription price, bringing newbies closer to the Lv. 20 mark will just see people losing interest sooner after starting the game and hitting that ceiling.

A big question I have is, how would you work out the whole situation of merging a server populated by Steam accounts that aren't allowed to be traded for real money with a server populated by Wurm accounts which do not have these restrictions, and still abide by the steam guidelines? I think that it will be hard to get Wurm onto Steam while retaining the open nature of this game's economy.

 

2 hours ago, Rolf said:

Q6) Would we release both Freedom and Epic servers?
We'd start with a Freedom server and be ready to launch more. You will have to discuss moving the Epic server there but from what I gather it would help with some multi account issues and might be a good solution for that.

By this, do you mean you would copy and paste the original un-modified terrain of an existing freedom server onto the steam server? Also, I don't see how an epic server on steam would work because once it is merged you will end up with 2 epics and I think we can all agree that that would not be good. It would have to be something more like Chaos that would be PvP-based but a single server.

But yeah, I totally think that this can be great for the game if all potential issues - including ones that don't just affect a Steam release - are thoroughly considered and resolved before making this happen. It would be great for the community, the playerbase, and just the game in general!

Edited by MinorArchitect
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7 minutes ago, Brash_Endeavors said:

 

I would rather see NO level 20 cap or "required" subscription, and instead have many "preferred member subscriber" perks and XP boosters to people on a "gold subscription" type plan, such as 5 sleep powders per week (well worth the subscription cost to the ambitious)  

 

Yeah worth considering for sure.

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3 minutes ago, atazs said:

Why not just improve upon wurm unlimited? 

Because doing that won't directly draw people into Wurm Online. This will

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Would paying for premium on WO also give you premium on the steam version of the game?

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8 minutes ago, atazs said:

Why not just improve upon wurm unlimited? 

 

There is really no way to get any additional monetization out of WU players once they are in. Most of the profits/benefits from WU came from the first 300,000 or so sales, and there probably won't be many new sales.

 

A WO-Steam would make it possible to play on OFFICIAL SERVERS for free but it would preferable to have an Elite Monthly Pass thingybobber.  You'd probably have access to special titles and perks  if you were "in the club", things like a regular subscriber pack of sleep powders, free barbershop visits/silver mirror usage,  and maybe a monthly "gift" of some sort, something collectible but not powerful, like some of the christmas presents - yule goats and gnomes, that players can trade and sell.

Edited by Brash_Endeavors
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I really like the idea of paying a sub to skill up faster after 20. The hardcap was always frustrating to me. I think this will be a really solid move overall for wurm. If it takes off and tons of people play can we please consider deleting/merging ALL the old servers and just starting over? Wurm with a healthy population on a fresh server sounds awesome. If you can't bring yourselves to cut the cord on the old servers, just keep them disconnected from the new stuff entirely.

Also, you mentioned it would be a freedom server? does that mean no pvp at all for the steam server?

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2 hours ago, Rolf said:

 

Q6) Would we release both Freedom and Epic servers?
We'd start with a Freedom server and be ready to launch more. You will have to discuss moving the Epic server there but from what I gather it would help with some multi account issues and might be a good solution for that.
 

 

I think if it goes well, Epic moves over.

If it does NOT go well, everyone shrugs and kinda pretends WO-Steam was never that big a deal anyway.

Edited by Brash_Endeavors

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First of all, this is kind of an important thing and seeing the two main voices of the game not on the same page is a little off putting... In my humble opinion.

If and when the new Steam cluster goes well and gets thousands of players, and then it doesn't get merged to the current WO cluster at all, we as the current population won't really benefit at all from those numbers. Or what am I missing.

 

2 hours ago, Rolf said:

As the servers mature we merge them into the main cluster.

 

1 hour ago, Retrograde said:

Steam server would only merge with existing servers if it doesn't go well, otherwise they will remain totally separate 

 

1 hour ago, Rolf said:

Retro and I try to answer with our best capabilities but we have a bit of different ideas since the subject is still up in the air and we're looking for your feedback. You might get some contradicting answers.

 

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