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WO Steam Discussion

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47 minutes ago, Damascus said:

 

To keep the price as is would need removing all restrictions from characters , you want to be a priest np , want to be a crafter np  even just a warrior ..

Remove that priest can not mine , cut down trees , dig or pave  and last but lease remove the no improvement .

 

A character should and can be anything , yes a lot of players may be peeved but think you have a head start just need add few other skills or sell off and let someone else do it .

 

Wurm a game with no restrictions come play today and make you're own future !

Maybe decreased skillgain instead of restricting skills ? wont be as bad, but will have lot more freedom.

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10 minutes ago, Martynas5 said:

Maybe decreased skillgain instead of restricting skills ? wont be as bad, but will have lot more freedom.

Why have any  restriction ?

You still need to lvl them skills up .

No matter what having one character that can do it all or 2 or more , you still need spend time doing it .

Some prefer two because in one way it is faster then then doing it all on one char ..

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1 hour ago, Finnn said:

What is golden valley? (I have to explain.. #my1stGVExperience)

First time I spawned there it was a total bore, walls, fences, you have no clue about game controls etc.. further more your movement is locked like you're a rat in a maze..

Than you realize.. there's a tutorial part in there.. and you see what's what .. well.. how it looks at least.. as items are actually absolutely decorative "look - don't touch".. eventually.. you get to the portal and leave.. finally in the sandbox..

IDK about others.. but I can't imagine temp environment as fun place, maybe if in a quick manner you could tell people what it is.. and that they could start from there.. with friends.. and pick the server where they are going to play on... other than that.. seems like waste of time to explore/exist/experience.

 

Finnn, Czar is talking about the original Golden Valley setup which was not a walled-off closed-in tutorial.  It was before your time.

As one of those old veterans from before the time Golden Valley as an open server was cut off from new players being able to join there, I can empathize fully with his memory of how it was.

At the time, ALL non-prem characters were limited to Golden Valley (with the entire server open to them) and you could only go through the portal to either Freedom (PvE) or Wild (PvP) by becoming premium.  That's all changed, as it had changed by the time you'd had joined, so when you created Finnn all you saw of Golden Valley was of a server name where the walled-in tutorial was that you could only leave by taking a portal out to choose one of the 'full' servers.

 

That tutorial system has all changed now with Haven's Landing, and I think that's for the better for new players than the walled-in tutorial, but in knowing how Golden Valley was as an open learning experience in years before that Czar addresses I can certainly sympathize with his suggestion.

 

Here's a good thread giving some details if you'd like to see players explaining how Golden Valley was in the past: Brief History of Golden Valley and its Shutdown for a New Player

Edited by Tristanc
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I wonder if maybe first time premium could be discounted, same way it is ingame?

Rather than only having the option for 1 month of prem for 5s ingame, why not make it possible to choose between a 5 euro first month prem as a "trial" of sorts or the option to still use 5s instead. Would make that first cheap prem more accessible, since people might not be open to a paypal transactions for silver at first.

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I had a huge, long winded post that most wouldn't have read and a lot of it was echoing things that have been already said in this thread. I decided to crop out the most important part:

The Steam version of WO is going to need a lot of mechanic changes in order to be remotely successful. The biggest being:

* Character subs are going to have to be removed (deed prices stay).
* Action timers will have to be greatly reduced to almost instantaneous (while the amount of actions needed to get a skill tick will have to be increased to offset skillgain)

The current WO clusters don't have to follow suit, but don't expect any new blood in the current cluster(s) from this if they don't also change.

Quite frankly, I'm not so sure that this Steam idea is going to help much, even with major changes. WU is out there, it's a one-and-done purchase and you can play on servers there that cater to all types of playstyles, including the "instant gratification" types that are prevalent on Steam. With all that WU has going for it, while being on sale for 7.99 USD quite frequently, it still doesn't get much of a draw.

I wish Rolf & team luck in their future decisions.

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58 minutes ago, Tristanc said:

At the time, ALL non-prem characters were limited to Golden Valley (with the entire server open to them) and you could only go through the portal to either Freedom (PvE) or Wild (PvP) by becoming premium.  That's all changed, as it had changed by the time you'd had joined, so when you created Finnn all you saw of Golden Valley was of a server name where the walled-in tutorial was that you could only leave by taking a portal out to choose one of the 'full' servers.

 

 

I think it is also worth noting, at least for discussion purposes, that Wurm had gone mostly "under the radar" in the gaming world during the period when Golden Valley was the entry for non-premium, and the game population literally exploded when Rolf decided to start allowing "free to play" players to try out the game on the main Freedom server, Independence.

 

I had tried out the game a few times during the GV era, but it really clicked for me when I became one of those first wave F2P on Indy in 2010 and could actually see how the game worked better in a vast open world. Also I think the tutorial was a bit better by then ^_^ I only remember spending HOURS in GV (or maybe some place called Glitterdale? I tried Wurm a few years before then too) trying to make a clay bowl in a campfire, there were absolutely no trees anywhere remotely near the clay area, I could  hardly carry more than a log or two at a time, pottery took FOREVER to harden back then, and every time the campfire sputtered out and the bowl had still not baked out, I had to slog across an area devoid of trees looking for something, anything,  I could add to give me a little more time with the campfire.  After several hours, I just gave up.

 

In 2010, after falling in love with Minecraft, I realized that Wurm "on paper" was still my dream game, and came back for another try, and this time it really clicked. I think part of that was from being a part of a larger world than just GV.

Edited by Brash_Endeavors

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I definitely think this is a terrible idea if you shoot for early next year, you need probably two years to turn the game around.  Honestly, you should go dark for like a year or two, invest decent capital into revamping wurm to be more mainstream.  Otherwise, you will face the same problems you always have... loss of retention.  This game has just way too many archaic ideas and systems that a person in this day and age shouldn't want to deal with.   Way too much clicking, for example.  Way too much...

 

You've been listening to this really loud and hostile 300 person player base for too long, and it's isolated you and put you on an island.  Now the game is unsuitable for the large influx of players coming to try it out via steam.  You need to do more research on what things a gamer wants in a game like this, and maybe do a whole new version for steam.  Start sending out email surveys to old players who didn't come back, asking why they left.   Get some data going!

 

Anyone who wants the current version has already found it, as it's VERY niche and most of us sought it out.  I can tell you I've come back 10-15 times since I started playing Wurm, and always hit that "wall" where you realize you've accomplished everything and now it's just "Imping" stuff to be higher ql.   So much stuff needs to be fleshed out as well, as burn-out is a real concern when the time it takes vs the reward isn't proportional (like turning cotton into string is wasted game-time).

 

The other concern, is that they won't be on equal footing.  The vets WILL come to this new server, they will form towns together and not let any new players in and dominate the marketplace/take advantage of newbies.  Newbies will still have that experience that they "cannot" compete as Jackal has shown, many of these vets have a LOT of time on their hands.  Some reached 50-60 in a skill in a week or two on jackal, same thing is going to happen unless you put caps on skill gain to give everyone a fair chance.  This will ruin the experience for new players.   Within a month some of these players will have very high skill levels, and you'll end up in the same situation where anyone coming in after that first month is now going to be at a severe disadvantage, feel like there's no point in grinding for a month, etc...

 

There's a lot of reasons new players leave, and leave fast... and it's not really just that they cannot compete with vets.  In fact I bet you that's only like 10% of the reason.  My most recent new player leaving experience was they went out hunting, died lost their stuff spent their whole night trying to find their body couldn't find it and never logged in again.  Stuff like that cannot happen, that's what you call -bad game experiences-.

 

I also saw vets leave because of the lack of real-estate on jackal resulted in neighbors being too close together.  I would say increasing the given size of a deed (free amount) would be a good move, as giving people a lot of real estate is never a bad thing and allows their neighbors not to feel "too close".  This also might help with griefing/trolling.  It would also increase the value of the deed itself, convincing people going "free" to establish a deed to claim a large plot of land.

 

This experience was only in two weeks of playing on Jackal, as I myself have left as the grind just burned me out and I'd rather spend my nights playing Factorio, RimWorld, etc...

 

I always wanted a more fleshed out hunting/animal content as the grinding part of wurm never interested me, but the idea of being a provider did appeal to me (going out getting supplies and giving them to people who do grind).  Spirit guards/guards made this type of gameplay impossible, as guards provided so much meat and resources you would never need to go hunt.  Nor does anyone need any protection.  Unfortunately there's really no reason to explore anything in Wurm, which usually results in shut-in syndrome, where you feel like you're not actually doing anything but grinding/stuck in a cave or in a house.

 

Also I would not do PVP anymore, stick to just PVE your team isn't big enough to do two types of games, and they really are two different games...  Plus PVP usually ends up affecting the PVE content poorly, as it results in nerfs instead of buffs usually.


I will also mention that...  I am embarrassed to tell my friends I play this.  I invited one friend many years ago to try it, and he literally laughed at me and said, "You really want to develop wrist problems playing a stupid game?".  He was referring to the massive amount of menus and clicking and how there really wasn't any content on the surface of the game, it was all hidden and you had to "battle the menus" to win it.

 

Even my wife who loves Stardew Valley, Minecraft, and My Time at Portia tried it and said, "I have no idea why you play that game it's so ugly and not cute or fun at all.  It tries to be hardcore but it thinks hardcore is being boring and complexity means hiding the game from you."  Once again referring to the endless grind and menus and having to use a wiki for everything.

 

I would recommend getting feedback from a lot of the Wurm Unlimited players who left as well... and the server admins from those servers and see what they found made players leave/dislike the game even with the bonuses WU offers.  The biggest concern is there...  WU IS NOT a huge success.  It did alright, but the player base is about the same as what you have already...  So if people aren't playing WU< why would they pay to play WO?  It's the same game, just better.  It's also completely free after you buy-in for what, 5 bucks on humble bundle?  Or was it 2.50?

 

Also, get rid of failing on creation a(with the exception of imping) and make sure gaining skill on failure is a thing (on imping).

 

The most concerning part to me, is the fact that you're even asking the current player base for advice.  Respect them, let their servers run and let them benefit from new content created by the new income...

 

but by no means should they be providing input on a business decision.  Business decisions are to secure capital, not to please an existing player base.  This should be kept internal, and announced when ready as anything announced too early will be met with some degree of negativity and could cause you to not go through it even though it's a sound decision in the long run.

 

It simply doesn't affect them since a new server would be created separate from the main branch.  You should be looking to the future, not to the past.  You're trying to increase your player base.  If you don't do this, then there is no future for Wurm Online and the player base will continue to decrease...  If your thinking is "we'll find more of the vets style of players!" Then you are going about this all wrong!  All the players that are like your current player base are already here or playing WU!  The version going on steam needs to be the best possible version of Wurm!

 

This player base is quick to tell new players, "Then this isn't the game for you."  When someone doesn't like something. This is not a healthy player base to have introducing new players!  I would rate out of all the games I've played...  Wurm Online behind League of Legends for most hostile community to new players.

Edited by jonsnow
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On 9/23/2019 at 6:29 AM, 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.

You really should let players go all the way to 100 with no subscription and no penalty in skill gain.  Out with subscriptions.  It is not the right business model these days.  Make the cash from deeds, items, cosmetics, etc.  Make deeds significantly more expensive and people will be less inclined to gobble up huge tracts of land, which should make the server more available for players to get around and find their own deed spaces.  I'd suffer from this big time, but I also probably should not be hogging so much land for myself. 

 

Create a fee structure for vehicles and animals.  Base account can have x number of each and if someone wants a massive shipyard or scatter carts all over the server, they need to pay a small fee to increase.  Look at DDO (Dungeons and Dragons Online).  Pay to increase storage capacity.  Pay to increase bank storage.  Lots of conveniences you can buy for an account, but once bought and paid for, you own that capability forever.

 

Yeah, lots of transactions to slowly drain you over time, but ONLY when you choose to and AT ALL TIMES, you can play the game without a subscription.  When you are too poor to afford a sub, you can still play and not get a penalty.  When you get grandma's xmas check, go crazy and buy up all the extra storage, features, etc. 

 

The number one reason I take long breaks from this game, is because it always requires I buckle down and drop a ton on subscriptions.  WHat is worse is that when I need to take a break shortly after subbing, I get really angry with myself for wasting all that money, because most of the subscription goes to waste.

 

Subscription MMOs are only good for the people that are always available to play all the time.  For everyone else, it feels like our characters are being held hostage.

 

PLEASE move forward with the Steam MMO option, but make it really free to play, not free to 20, or free with skill speed penalties.  Either is a sure way to fail this project.  Even if you charge nothing for anything, it would be good to at least test how much you can grow the player base.  If it grows a ton, slip in a small fee for some feature, then later add another, etc.  Get the players first.  Don't do anything that will limit how many players might sign up.

 

You need an addicted player first, before you can squeeze a dime out of them.

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Selling Silver for $ direct from the developer is unique to Wurm, I think it will put people off. Rethinking where silver comes from will be required.

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6 minutes ago, zCat said:

Selling Silver for $ direct from the developer is unique to Wurm, I think it will put people off. Rethinking where silver comes from will be required.

Not really. There are probably some examples of direct sales. But some other bigger games have direct conversions from IRL purchased to main currency. (e.g in Eve, buy PLEX and sell on market for Isk and GW2 the gems had a market for trading gems & gold)

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On 9/23/2019 at 5:54 AM, Retrograde said:

This is aimed at new steam players, not the existing population. 

 

I would greatly enjoy a new start where you could actually be on even and equal footing (personal gaming experience aside) where you aren't competing with 10 year old accounts that are cranking out 90ql enchanted items and selling them for bargain basement prices.

 

New players would actually have a chance to be a PART of the economy, instead of having the whole thing utterly monopolized by accounts older than most people's kids.

 

I see this as only a positive thing, and will try it out, if it goes forward.

 

To arms!

 

[21:31:13] <Freedom Isles tower guard> I come as well, old troll.

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10 hours ago, Thalorane said:

I favor bringing WO to Steam.

 

Launch a quarantined server with PVE and PVP zones.  Allow up to five characters per Steam account.  Discontinue the old client when the servers merge.  Current characters will have to be linked to a Steam account.  Characters not linked to a Steam account will no longer be able to login but can be linked to a Steam account at any point.

 

All new characters start with five skills of their choosing at 10.00 vice 1.00 skill.  Provide a UI at character creation that explains skill basics.  Increase nonpremium skill caps to 25.  As previously mentioned, lower sleep powders prices at game store and merchants and restrict to the purchasing Steam account.

 

  Any server with no populace can be closed or given a treatment similar to Jackal.

pvp zones in a pve server doesnt work, it needs to be two servers one pve one pvp.

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4 hours ago, As_I_Decay said:

The Steam version of WO is going to need a lot of mechanic changes in order to be remotely successful. The biggest being:
* Action timers will have to be greatly reduced to almost instantaneous (while the amount of actions needed to get a skill tick will have to be increased to offset skillgain)
The current WO clusters don't have to follow suit, but don't expect any new blood in the current cluster(s) from this if they don't also change.

Quite frankly, I'm not so sure that this Steam idea is going to help much, even with major changes. WU is out there, it's a one-and-done purchase and you can play on servers there that cater to all types of playstyles, including the "instant gratification" types that are prevalent on Steam. With all that WU has going for it, while being on sale for 7.99 USD quite frequently, it still doesn't get much of a draw.

 

I feel like this is the wrong thing to do. I think the best thing to do is to focus on the best QoL changes found on WU already, while not altering the basic Wurm experience as it is. We all know Wurm at it's core is a grind that is made tolerable to us all by the ability to eventually do other thing while we play. We already have servers with instant timers, they're basic Unlimited servers. Why bother making another instance of Wurm on Steam if it's just going to be an official Unlimited server?

The best approach is making this for new players like Retro said it would be, while improving on Wurm as it is without straying from what the heart of the game is.

Why? QoL changes that are proven to be effective can be brough to Online, and keeps the door open of merging this Steam island with the Online PvE cluster.

Edited by Madnath
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On 9/24/2019 at 5:23 AM, Brash_Endeavors said:

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.

 

Nailed it, right here. This 100x.

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1 minute ago, Belrindor said:

 

Nailed it, right here. This 100x.

Yes but how do you make it so they can have their own stories without having to join a town that's willing to take care of everything for them?
What exploration/PVE content is there?  What story driven content is there?  There in lies the problem...

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39 minutes ago, Huntar said:

Question, why didn't WO move to Steam earlier? 

 

Steam conventionally takes 30% of revenue and in addition applies restrictions to certain facets such as player account selling and silver sales / RMT. 

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1 hour ago, jonsnow said:

Yes but how do you make it so they can have their own stories without having to join a town that's willing to take care of everything for them?
What exploration/PVE content is there?  What story driven content is there?  There in lies the problem...

By not joining a town. 

 

This is a sandbox game, you make your own story in what you do, we just provide the canvas to do it in. 

 

My best stories are long convoluted tales of struggle and being mauled

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15 minutes ago, Retrograde said:

By not joining a town. 

 

This is a sandbox game, you make your own story in what you do, we just provide the canvas to do it in. 

 

My best stories are long convoluted tales of struggle and being mauled

True... can wurm create these single player experiences online, that rival say... The Village, 7 Days to Die, or any other experience that goes online as well, and creates stories using modern technology? 

When I can jump into one of those games, which have their own grind in different ways which are enjoyable (exploration to find tools/resources vs menu grinding). 

 

It's true it's an MMORPG setting, but if you're playing it solo does the solo experience stand up?  Have to analyze every style of play and find out where your weaknesses are or steam is going to eat the reviews!

 

I've almost exclusively played this game solo the last couple years when I've come back and find myself at a lack of "what to do".  Combat requires high ql gear, which requires grinding.  Boats require carpentry/boat making cloth making and rope making... which requires grinding.  Almost everything in the game is behind this giant wall of grind.  Does the grind = the experience?  Or is the experience the end game of what you get after the grind? 

I know a lot of people on here will say, grinding is part of the journey.  While I play Wurm Online singular, I can grind out 10 games of the The Village, or some other fun game... How is that not similar to the grind in wurm?  IF I spend 40 hours in one game, vs 40 hours in here the only difference is a number.  I get a number in wurm, showing my progress.  I come back to Wurm for a story, and leave disappointed every time.  It never lived up to my desires and dreams for a solitude experience out in the wild, exploration and experiences abound.  When you really get into Wurm, it's a pretty empty game.  Almost all the content is solely around your village and the content inside that.  There's no stories outside your village, unless you are playing with other people.  Then you're just relying on people to keep people around and well...  I've seen plenty of empty deeds on Freedom leaving solemn messages, "Fred...  You haven't been on... I miss you"

Edited by jonsnow
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9 hours ago, Wurmhole said:

Subscription MMOs are only good for the people that are always available to play all the time.  For everyone else, it feels like our characters are being held hostage.

Wurmhole nailed it. With a subscription model you feel 'obligated' to play, whether you really want to or not. Especially if you've plunked down a 6 month sub.

 

That's no way to do it in 2019. Subscriptions may have made sense 10 years ago, and what works well for YOU as a financial income model, doesn't work very well for your players.

 

There are other ways, as others have suggested, to get the same or greater income without using the subscription model. Many people these days, myself included, absolutely despise subscription based services.

 

You can do it better.

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8 hours ago, Belrindor said:

 

New players would actually have a chance to be a PART of the economy, instead of having the whole thing utterly monopolized by accounts older than most people's kids.

 

In theory, sure. But in practice experienced players will immediately get ahead of any new player because they already know all the tricks to maximizing skill gain and which skills are important. New players won't stand much of a chance on the above unless the influx of new players is in the thousands.

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Honestly I think it's a great idea to begin a new cluster, basically as a revival for Wurm. Kind of what I've been looking for for a while, alongside a couple people I know from back in the day. While it might not be the only way to boost player numbers, it seems it would be the easiest and most effective. 

Personally I would rather the clusters not be merged at any point; keep the accomplishments separate but of course it may be necessary eventually.

Hope to hear more about this, definitely on the right track along with the many recent changes I've seen.

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4 hours ago, Ecrir said:

In theory, sure. But in practice experienced players will immediately get ahead of any new player because they already know all the tricks to maximizing skill gain and which skills are important. New players won't stand much of a chance on the above unless the influx of new players is in the thousands.

 

Experienced players might actually burn out fastest though and head back to their "mains".  Who really wants to level Channeling and Weaponsmithing to 100 twice?  Most might wait till a server cluster merge, then sail their caravels over packed with construction supplies and mastercrafters loaded with gold coin. By then the new player merchants will have an advantage in "community roots".

 

Also -- and I am NOT suggesting it -- disabling multiboxing might help even the terrain (plus improve the economy)  for new players.

Most veteran players can manage 3-6-9 accounts easy-peasy but less so for the new guys.  Easy to carve out vast terraforming, multiple priests/crafters, thousands of bricks, undergound gold and silver mines that rival Khazad-dûm etc when you have 5 alts and a cart. The downside is, multiple accounts = multiple subs = more revenue (if Rolf uses subscriptions, vs pure cash shop options)

 

 

Edited by Brash_Endeavors
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