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Rolf

WO Steam Discussion

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2 hours ago, Wildelf said:

Rolf, if possible try doing both at the same time and see how it goes. If Steam doesnt come out well, you still be able to maintain WO as it is. So dont put all your eggs in the same basket.

 

This.  "Don't put all your eggs in one basket."

 

The basket may drop and all could be lost. For anyone not familiar with this expression  it means please don't make Wurm vulnerable by becoming fully dependent on Steam - we don't know what the future will hold for Steam, and we may become restricted by their rules, which can change at any time.

 

Rather "Keep several irons in the fire."

 

Keep your options open. Keep checking your irons in the fire to see if any are getting hot - keep looking at your portfolio of WO options.

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2 servers 1 pvp 1 pve like the good old days of jk home and wild(but no ore cap) make them indy/wild sized

No hard 20 skill cap but instead have a slower progression then currently from 1 to 20
you claim a lot of people quit after reaching this cap as they dont want to pay but you dont state why so my assumption is maybe the 1-20 is to quick and with the issues wurm has it leads to players not wanting to invest money(who has yet a other 10-15 bucks next to all other subs laying around) and thus quit as they feel like it isnt worth it and they are wasting skill by not being able to go past 20
1. slow down skill progression to 20 to about 70-80% of current rate?
2. no hard cap but skill gain past 20 is at a reduced rate 70-80%?
3. make premium offer more then it currently does next to a "fake" xp increase to normal gain and sleep powder add in some other incentives that are not game breaking(no high ql items or whatever just ease of access stuff) a good example is points that can be redeemed on various packs(or straight up packs) that are geared towards starting out eg extending newbie buff or a buff that while using newbie tools you have a higher % chance to create an item but said item is always created at 1ql and can be imped or an extension to current newbie buffs "buy within the first 24 hours of playing and extend your newbie buffs to 7 days of game time" would be rather inciting to people and make them feel time pressured and will be good for this cash grab
Yet a other option is have the ability to have your deed be maintained while your premium is active and once you run out of prem it falls back to silver you put into upkeep(This will make people buy prem for sure as its 1 less hassle)
4. do not do this until a better ui is finished/made releasing wurm in its current stage no matter what bonuses you give them will make 99% of people quit as you will be compared to rust 7 days to die and so on games where you can select an item from a tool bar (thats a other key thing give people a decent toolbar as part of the game itself not as an item) walk up to a tree press and hold a key to chop down a tree and after a certain amount of swing actions the tree goes down and you get resources, this can be translated to wurm actions easy where a single click after having a tool selected will do a predefined actions(eg hatchet or saw active and stand infront of a tree and default action is cut_down)  with a right click(or f key or what ever you keybind it to) on the tile opening a action circle of commands vs drop down list(more user friendly to most people)
5. Rebind inventory to E by default as we have wasd keys but inventory is f3(last time i checked out the new config at that time)
6. more information upfront have clear documentation INGAME not outside players hate and i mean hate to go to an outside source to get information on how a game works the days of external documents are long gone people dont want to have a guide on a 2nd monitor next to them to figure out how to play a game present your information properly ingame as part of the ui as part of the action circle(big question mark icon)
If you do not come out from the gate with an easy of access way to access information ingame a huge group of people will just not bother(look at the popularity of minecraft's ingame wiki books as a great example)
7. make it possible for people to leave offline messages that players can receive on login as part of their chatbox or inbox
8. flash out the tutorial properly get this done for once in a proper way with proper testing of people who never played wurm and make it an integrated part of your ui(with an option at the start to skip it not a ingame command that you gotta type in a hidden chat box like come on)
9. Plan it all properly hit the ground running not struggling if implementing a key feature and properly testing it means a delay of a month take that month of delay we let you get away with half assed features(dodging upon starving a good example) but on steam you will be blasted for a shitty update and review bombed into oblivion you can not screw up on this you can not half ass this you screw this up and your now parent company will think the current team is useless as their first big thing project struggled to come out of the gates crawling and was buried in the dust and lost in the 900+ other games that came out that day
You need to get everything sorted and tested every feature needs to be polished and as bug free as you can make it before release you have 1 chance and 1 chance only to make it big if not its wasted time and effort and money and would be a big reason for your new parent company to swoop in and kick everyone out
10. last but not least add in the mod improved improve(atleast its functionality aka have an item on you to be able to improve with it vs having to select/equip it) without this you will be seen as the clunky sandbox mmo where you have to press more keys per minute then an fps in order to create an item

Edited by wipeout
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Pvp is dead don’t waste your time tbh. Open the PVE server and make your coins for 6 months  

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In a sense, Rolf has not one but two "target markets" to make happy.

 

One -- and decidedly the most important one -- is the current playerbase. These are the players who never dropped out, the ones who continued to put money into the game for 15 years, who have maintained multiple subscriptions (sometimes dozens) and multiple megadeeds (sometimes dozens) without protest even when subs were hiked. These are the ones who often buy high level characters from other players, who invested heavily into the old "trader" system, the ones who think nothing of buying $100-$200 in silver from the cash shop, the ones who love "end game" content, the ones who have spent YEARS perfecting the perfect deed and have ZERO interest in starting over.

 

This group must never be betrayed,  because if they leave the whole thing not only can, but WILL collapse. This is why Rolf will NEVER have a server wipe, and probably never force-merge servers. It would be seen as a deep betrayal, and the ones who kept Wurm afloat for years would eventually walk away because who knows what will happen next?

 

On the other hand, the needs and interests of this group are not necessarily identical to the interests and needs of "new blood."  One person who wanted to force all new players into the existing server system, noted how great this would be for the "market."  Yes, if you have a high level crafter, this IS the ideal result for you, and has always been the ideal result of new players. But a handful of high level crafters can easily meet the needs of a vast market, and the result is newer players never get the chance to sell their own wares, and except for a few who can grind hours on end,  can never develop their own markets. That only makes sense -- who wants to spend 30c on a 40Q item, when a 90Q item costs half that and can be made 3X faster by the master craftsman? No matter how low the new crafters cut their prices, the master craftsmen can always go lower.

 

New players do not want to "admire and be inspired" by the older playersbase's constructions and towns and massive monuments to themselves -- they want a chance to make their OWN monuments, from a pristine environment with challenges and rewards suited to their own efforts. This is why I think the "showcase tutorial" with fancy buildings and 100 glittering sparkle signs was such a failure. Wurm is not about being impressed by someone light years ahead of you, who will always be so -- it's about making your OWN world. It's about HANDS ON experiencing the world. It's about living in a dangerous world, maybe finding a wild horse (not given a 5-speed by an existing player), carefully crafting and improving a sword they made with their own hands (not getting a 99Q admantine 2hander with LT enchants).

 

Not every one wants to actually make their own sword and armor -- but they all want to make their own stories. Not live in a highend world created by others a decade earlier.

 

This is only one of many reasons why a "fresh start server" -- uncontaminated by veterans jumping in a boat with their gold and builders and sailing over to terraform it all in the first two weeks -- is necessary. Every time in the past the game has howled for "MOAR ADVERTISING!!!" what they really meant was they needed fresh blood with pockets of fresh money to keep the traditional Wurm market economy churning for the high end crafters. This market economy is actually a deeply flawed system -- its super duper fun for those on top, and much much less fun for those on the bottom. The ones on top will never be satisfied and always want more and more. In their generosity, they will often give crates of high level tools armor and enchanted weapons FREE to new players thinking this will encourage them to stay, when all it really does is spoil the game for the newer players. 

 

If Rolf limits the Steam version of Wurm to nothing more than an advertising gimmick, giving them a "free client"  that they essentially have had access to anyway for more than 15 years, and a "demo" where they can see only a landscape littlered with what other people have done, as they already had access to for the past 15 years, then a Steam launch is simply going to be a failure.

 

I think Pristine and Release (quarantined, fresh start only servers) actually were a successful model -- maybe in fact one of the last successful risk Rolf ever took.  Wurm's population numbers actually went up without immediately declining again a month later. 

 

I think the current server system, players, characters, deeds, communities,  should always be maintained, respected, and cherished -- but the future of new blood is not in that current system.

 

Yes the ideal end result is to eventually meld the two communities together into one big giant community, just as happened eventually with Pristing/Release. If that is done looking primarily at the needs and wants of the current player base, however, it will fail.

 

But if it is done WITHOUT considering the needs of the current player base, it will fail much more spectacularly,  much faster, and Wurm will indeed be pushed further into a death spiral.

 

 

Good luck with that, Rolf!   I mean that with utter sincerity. You HAVE to move forward, the game always needs to take new risks -- but the least misstep could be fatal.

 

You have always done well at taking risks however -- sometimes even changes I personally hated. Sometimes you make massive mistakes and fall flat, but you always get up again, and you always move forward.

 

 

 

 

Edited by Brash_Endeavors
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1 minute ago, Joelle said:

 

Curious, and I’m probably walking right into it here... Who is the most important group in the game and how is that determined? 

Eek ... ><

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9 minutes ago, Zenity said:

Eek ... ><

 

Lol admittedly, I read the forums backwards and didn’t realize he was responding to Brash_Endeavors. My bad!

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4 hours ago, Rolf said:

The login server will be the same for both clusters so we could allow people to go from Steam to the existing servers. And we can include an option to log on using old accounts via Steam. We need to sort out what that means for our requirements to prohibit the sale of silvers, items and accounts between players outside the Steam Wallet though. We'll have to look into it and can't really give an answer at this early time.

 

👍

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I'd like to take this opportunity to ask.

Are you considering adding character size customization?

This would add variety to the game, which is so lacking.

 

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Please bear in mind this is nothing set in stone. We really want to ensure that if we take this step it's a step that has been discussed with you all, so you know our plans moving forward. 

 

Specifics may change or we may not be able to give full answers because at this point we haven't sat down and worked out our full map to make it on steam. 

 

Speaking personally, I really do appreciate you all lending your thoughts and being constructive, I'm on break at the moment, but I'm able to relax a little lore knowing the place won't melt down without me just yet! 

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5 hours ago, Locath said:

 

Not to sound like a smartarse but yes, suggestions forum section and WU modding section. 😛

 

And I'd take it one step further.  If they haven't already, they should make characters on some of the WU servers and experience for themselves what works, and why.  :)  

 

It's a real eye opener for those who haven't actually experienced it, and who are still stuck on some of the old assumptions about what would "ruin" Wurm.  As I've said before, WU is living proof that many things that may look like "dumbing down" in print and dismissed out of hand, are in reality fun, good for the game, and don't feel "un-Wurm-like" at all.

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2 minutes ago, Retrograde said:

Rest assured we have! 

Then where is our improved improve ;):P

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6 hours ago, Rolf said:

We need to sort out what that means for our requirements to prohibit the sale of silvers, items and accounts between players outside the Steam Wallet though. We'll have to look into it and can't really give an answer at this early time.

 

If selling silvers between players becomes an offence, please adjust the price of silvers from the shop to be a bit more in-line with the current ingame market cost, please.

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But hey, why did nobody rise the question about the platforms the new owners have established where people pay per month for games anyways?

Can't we go there and still be able to trade coins between us etc?

 

Their goal is 10 000 monthly subscribers to their site before end of this year, we would add to that woldn't we?

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2 hours ago, Brash_Endeavors said:

One -- and decidedly the most important one -- is the current playerbase. These are the players who never dropped out, the ones who continued to put money into the game for 15 years, who have maintained multiple subscriptions (sometimes dozens) and multiple megadeeds (sometimes dozens) without protest even when subs were hiked.

 

Just to add to this, a thought here that occurred to me when I read this.  I agree, but in this group should also be included those of us (and there are many of us) who may appear to have jumped ship for WU but are still supporting WO financially by maintaining our deeds (with silver bought from the shop), paying premium on at least one character, and logging in periodically to check on said deeds & characters.  The fact that we enjoy our time spent in WU much more than WO because of all the QoL, and therefore spend all our time there, doesn't mean we've given up on WO entirely. We are still supporting it and still have hope for it.  :)

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6 hours ago, Rolf said:

 

  • Also the monetization and premium model will be questioned. We might tweak it in such ways MrGary suggested. Eve still has monthly premium/subscriptions so it's not like it's a dead business form.

Way more than just Eve, including some games that are small and niche-y like Wurm, like ATITD. Most of us understand that Wurm has to pay its bills and it's not just here to make us happy, for free. 

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5 hours ago, Mordraug said:

- Start players with the BC to ride a horse.

- Start players with a <ragglefraggle> hammer.

 

There's 50% of retention factor =P

Yes, being able to ride a horse right out of the bat will HELP a LOT! there have been WU server where the moment I realized I was dumped in a random place without even the capability of riding a horse and I just alt F4 and try again lol.
No idea what that hammer is though lol.

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1 hour ago, Legios said:

Yes, being able to ride a horse right out of the bat will HELP a LOT! there have been WU server where the moment I realized I was dumped in a random place without even the capability of riding a horse and I just alt F4 and try again lol.
No idea what that hammer is though lol.

 

The actual hammer lol... stumps too many players re:  use mallet to make small anvil to make hammer to then start smithing your stuff hehehehe

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I might play Steam WO. But only until Chronicles of Elyria comes out.

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16 hours ago, Nappy said:

I think a better solution is to determine a way to take a deedplanner copy of a deed and reimport it into a server. The deed sizes for the old_location and new_location would have to be the same. Then once the deed is imported you would still need to terraform the borders to blend it in plus the mines would have to be rebuilt as well (perhaps the rock layer could be placed where the mine was so you simply tunnel in.

 

I suspect there is a way to programmatically do this.  If it's possible then at least server shutdowns to move populations together would be much less painful. 

 

This would be awesome! It would not fix everything but it would go a long ways towards it. I have over 200K+ dirt of work and no idea how much surface mining done on one of my deeds, while I would never want to redo that work, some of the complex buildings I have seen deserve being preserved or duplicated rather than having to rebuild.

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I'm a bit confused why so many people talk about this like moving to the steam cluster is mandatory, suggesting how to make their move there easier or even threatening to leave for good if they have to pack up their stuff. The current servers aren't going anywhere like they haven't for years, why should you? I for one will just look forward to the eventual merge and welcome the influx of people, possibly by helping them settle around my neighborhood. And if they won't come, nothing has changed for me anyway.

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1 minute ago, Flubb said:

I'm a bit confused why so many people talk about this like moving to the steam cluster is mandatory, suggesting how to make their move there easier or even threatening to leave for good if they have to pack up their stuff. The current servers aren't going anywhere like they haven't for years, why should you? I for one will just look forward to the eventual merge and welcome the influx of people, possibly by helping them settle around my neighborhood. And if they won't come, nothing has changed for me anyway.

 

I think a few are still hoping for  mandatory server mergers to absorb some of the smaller servers into the larger ones.

 

 

 

 

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Opinion: WU doesn't offer credibility since it's user operated. That's WO Steam's strong point.

WU servers are player made. They can go poof in a week, or they are run by shady individuals or you can get unfair treatment and noone would care to know. WU servers, they are not for serious investment so eventually they don't attract players.

 

Opinion: Don't take away the "massive" aspect of the game.

@Legios posted a graph with the WU players. It shows very small numbers. If it says something, it's that the amount of people who want to "minecraft" their way through wurm are very small. Wurm's more complex and deep. It's not a game designed for LAN with your buddies. Wurm works best in an open persistent world with a lot of people. It encourages trading which brings life into it's economy, one of it's attractions. Small servers such as WU don't have this beautiful aspec that WO has (or once had). This doesn't mean though that theres a batziliion of players in Steam waiting for an open world persistant MMO to arrive. But it surelly means that going "minecraft" means competing with WU for a customer base of 500. Don't go there.

 

Opinion: Old players should not be your primary target group.

Most of us that have been through a lot in this game. Some of us are toxic, some others are here just to make money out of the game and so on. Old players have nothing to provide in this new venture. Quite the contrary, they can drive new players of steam out of compentition because they know every quirk of the game, they can skill much faster and so on. Dear old players, @Ayes, @Brash_Endeavors, @Amadee and the rest. If WO Steam suceeds, there's no need for new players to join "our" cluster. They will simply join the WO Steam and as it will bring revenue devs will focus their work there. Soon you'll be playing single player on a multiplayer context. Inevitability is what will make our accounts and efforts of the last ... 10 years, insignificant. Deal with it, Knock Knock, who's there ? Reality ! And Reality says : Nothing stays forever.

 

Opinion: Wurm skilling should be a bit easier to accomodate for the generation useless (Millenials, Next Gen and the rest of instant gratifiation junkies).
Suggestion: Skilling should be free, premium should get a class specialization, read bellow.

@MrGARYproposed a good solution. Here's one different from me. Once premium for the first time, a player will pick a specialization, e.g. builder, crafter, smith that contains a couple skills (4-5). One of those skills can be designated as master skill and get a 3x gain. The rest of the skills  of the specialization group will get a 2x bonus. The bonus will last as long as the player will stay premium. An account that has gone premium once, will get the 20 cap while non-premium as it works now, to prevent people skilling up accounts and keeping them without prem and fully useful. This will help people build professions and seek others for their services on their professions too. This will also make the game more approachable to millenials and the rest of the next gen lazy people while maintaining the hard grind identity for those that wish to push more skills.

 

Suggestion: Don't generate random noise maps, they don't have variety. Make realistic map and climate.

What makes trading bloom is that not all areas are able to accomodate all materials. You shouldnt be able to plant cedar next to the water, nor have sand up on the mountains. Very high altitude should not have that much plantation. Higher quality ore's should be common on mainland with high altitude mountains while low quality in low altitudes. And so on, you get the idea. Spoiled brats should not have everything available next to their stone double door, cause if they do it's like playing single player, on the same server with 1000 other people seperated by a couple of fences. Independence was a bad example of a server. You could be next to the water, have huge plains for crops and a very steep moutain next to you with all the ore available. That's not realistic. And let's not talk about that huge dirt layer :P

 

Suggestion: Hoarding materials shouldn't be easy.

Hoarding materials makes trading and player interactions not work. Containers should go back to how they used to work in 2014 and prior. Decay is good, we should embrace it. 

 

Overal, my opinion is that you should treat this as a new and seperate project. Something completelly different as it targets a new breed of gamers. If you ask people on a game con what's wurm online, nobody will probably have a clue. So nothing to lose. Also ignore most of the established player suggestions. All they want is a way to keep their hard-earned highly skilled characters, or prepare the ground on the new "world" to get there easily and much faster than every new player. 

Edited by Lordbeerus
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