WO Steam Discussion

[Amadee 1,543]

11 hours ago, Jore said:

 It's been stated multiple times throughout this thread if I'm not mistaken, and here as well

 

"Whatever happens, the original Wurm Online servers will get the same attention and features the Steam ones will." quote from there as well

 

 

Deja Vu

 

 

Edited January 29, 2020 by Amadee

[Jore 338]

59 minutes ago, Amadee said:

Deja Vu
I've just been in this place before
Higher on the street
And I know it's my time to go
Calling you and the search is mystery
Standing on my feet
It's so hard when I try to be me uoooh!
Deja vu

Things change

[WittleBunnBun 149]

14 hours ago, Jore said:

Whatever happens, the original Wurm Online servers will get the same attention and features the Steam ones will." quote from there as well

Until they randomly decide one or the other doesn’t suit their tastes anymore and drop it like old salami. 
 

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. 🤷‍♀️ I guess time will only tell.
 

But I will stick with WU until it’s dying breath and I’m finally forced to leave due to no new content or other end-of-life problems.
 

Why invest time in WO when it’s so uncertain and the politics so unsavory. At least WU gives you the ability of controlling the outcome of your own game. 

Edited January 29, 2020 by WittleBunnBun

[bdew 2,462]

16 hours ago, Milkdrop said:

More or less, it was said that they will run both - WO and WO Steam and neither will be shut down for the one or other, as both are the same codebase and thats easy for them to maintain.

 

Yes same thing was said by rolf for WU back then too... And now Retro &co say stuff changes and 4 years is too long to keep their word. I wouldn't put too much faith in those statements.

[Milkdrop 278]

12 minutes ago, bdew said:

 

Yes same thing was said by rolf for WU back then too... And now Retro &co say stuff changes and 4 years is too long to keep their word. I wouldn't put too much faith in those statements.

I know that it was said.

 

But it is up for everyone themself to make the decision to stick to WO or WO Steam or whatever WU Server they might play on and the group of people who is like "welp, they lied a bunch of times to us" still can decide if they want to play or give up on the game entirely as well.

It's called freedom, people can do whatever they want; hence why I said that Retro also said they can't look that far into the future and promise things longterm.

Considering things that looked like "long term promises" had been said may have been a misstake, you could also say that people blindly believed that was a misstake as well thinking about it all things considered or maybe just wishfull thinking on both sides.

 

Right now it all comes down to wait and see how things turn out and what options will be on the table.

When things happen you can consider it as a window of opportunity, Wurm had a lot of those.

Right at that very point in time people will have the chance to play on new official servers, if they want to or not is up to them.

 

And those who just hang around to complain, keep repeating how there are only lies and staff can't be trusted - why bother?

(I mean, the trust issue has been brought up time and time again in multiple threads by now... it's the dead horse thing.)

Personally if a game or whatever ###### on me I take my wallet and leave for good, not worth the stress.

Nowdays there is little to no reason to keep preaching negativity (you only stress yourself out by arguing with white knights or be banned on forums and so on and forth),

because eventually the misstake will be repeated over and over and the playerbase will shrink until the game disappears. (see what I did there )

 

It is not easy, but I still have some hope left and if it fails me ah well... what gives, at least there is a chance to have the fresh start experience once again - it will be around long enough to enjoy that - if the conditions that would make me play there end up true anyhow.

For now I just read here and post a bit here and there but I stick to what happens right now and what is a fact right now and not what has been 4 years ago or could be 4 years from now.

I get your point and the saying "who lied once is not to believed again" (at least we have that in germany anyhow - "Wer einmal lügt dem glaubt man nicht.") is there for a reason,

damaged or lost trust is very very hard to gain back - you mess up once and you pay for it for the rest of the time you are around.

 

However, imho this should not stop anyone from having a look at things or giving things a chance.

[Retrograde 12,013]

Steam will be the same game as non steam. It won't be a spinoff like WU was. 

 

It's like saying "celebration won't be updated but the others will" 

 

15 hours ago, Sklo:D said:

"Whatever happens, Wurm Unlimited will get the same attention and features as Wurm Online." indirect quotation from 2015

The problem with an indirect quotation is that it wasnt actually said. We've stated many times that there are, can be, and will be differences with WO and WU, it's a separate product with it's own targets, support costs and goals.

[bdew 2,462]

2 hours ago, Retrograde said:

Steam will be the same game as non steam. It won't be a spinoff like WU was. 

 

It's like saying "celebration won't be updated but the others will" 

 

The problem with an indirect quotation is that it wasnt actually said. We've stated many times that there are, can be, and will be differences with WO and WU, it's a separate product with it's own targets, support costs and goals.

The actual quote is
 

On 9/25/2015 at 1:11 PM, Rolf said:

WU and WO share the same code, but the main branch is WO which means we will develop the WO server code first and then release on WU, except when there are features that are more appropriate to try on WU first. Such changes may be added to WO when we feel that they are tested properly. When it comes to the client, the code is also very much shared and improvements of for instance settings or rendering will be available for both within a fairly short time frame.

 

This is what was said by rolf when WU came out, and what many of us based our decision to buy your product on to one degree or another. If in 4 years it went from that quote to our current situation who can vouch that in 2024 you (or whomever takes your place) doesn't post:

"We've stated many times that there are, can be, and will be differences with WO and SteamWO, it's a separate product with it's own targets, support costs and goals. Also, statements made over 4 years ago aren't promises."
 

[Mordraug 2,542]

Funny how it went from "it's basically the same code" to "code is soooo different!!!!".

[Sklo:D 2,210]

2 hours ago, Retrograde said:

Steam will be the same game as non steam. It won't be a spinoff like WU was. 

 

It's like saying "celebration won't be updated but the others will" 

 

The problem with an indirect quotation is that it wasnt actually said. We've stated many times that there are, can be, and will be differences with WO and WU, it's a separate product with it's own targets, support costs and goals.

 

Indirect quotations are a scientific standard on the whole world used in all kinds of scientific research documents. So I am not sure why you want to throw arguments over by saying, indirect quoations are referencing to something you never said, which we obviously just proofed as wrong.

Bdew even gave you the exact wording, a direct quotation showing basicly everything I mentioned in the indirect quotation.

 

 

Possible definition of indirect quotations:

In writing, an "indirect quotation" is a paraphrase of someone else's words: It "reports" on what a person said without using the exact words of the speaker.

[Samool 2,004]

Except that the release of Wurm Online on Steam is not a separate product at all, just a different launcher/storefront and new servers (and with it we're pursuing the goal to make the game more accessible beforehand, which applies to all of Wurm Online).

 

It's really a reach to assume our stance on anything else based on the decision to not provide WU with additional content, as that has been a running discussion in our team for quite a long time, and not one taken lightly as you assume.

We can rehash the entire argument a dozen times, and it's always going to end up with the same result. It was a very tough decision, but it's final and we're long past it. You've heard our reasoning of it and there's nothing else we can say or do - keeping WU up to date with WO is simply not sustainable for us anymore, among other things.

 

Permanence of Wurm Online servers is one of the most important things about the game, and so we're making sure that the business model is sustainable enough (cough cough WU) to not ever need to close any servers or make any decisions on the level of limiting support of Wurm Unlimited. This has always been one defining feature of WO, and any news regarding WU isn't changing that and isn't even remotely related to that part.

 

Side note, this is actually where Keenan's work on AWS works out great - scalable hardware makes our running costs not depend on the server amount as much, as we can run the less populated servers on less powerful/expensive instances.

[Wonka 438]

 

3 hours ago, Retrograde said:

"celebration won't be updated but the others will"

 

wait wait wait...

 

Celebration isn't getting any more updates???  How could you possibly treat both the loyal Celebrites still remaining on the server like that?!?  Bet it's the Indy guys again, taking up all the dev time with whatever it is they're doing over there.

[Sklo:D 2,210]

48 minutes ago, Samool said:

Side note, this is actually where Keenan's work on AWS works out great - scalable hardware makes our running costs not depend on the server amount as much, as we can run the less populated servers on less powerful/expensive instances.

 

Not sure if you don't know or if you are just keeping a little detail for you just to sound good.

The players online on a Wurm server aren't affecting the performance anywhere close to the effect from the amount of creatures, item counts, the map size, etc. Big servers with less people playing on it need almost the same performance as big servers with many people online, you are talking like the perfmance can be halfed, I think it is a maximum of 5-10%, which is actually nothing you want to scale down because of the jumps you have when polling occurs.

So you are wasting money and ressources if you think that you can scale down servers with less players online in a big way, you will not be able to scale down those servers more than just a bit, it will not get you the big benefit you seem to be hoping for.

[Samool 2,004]

11 minutes ago, Sklo:D said:

 

Not sure if you don't know or if you are just keeping a little detail for you just to sound good.

The players online on a Wurm server aren't affecting the performance anywhere close to the effect from the amount of creatures, item counts, the map size, etc. Big servers with less people playing on it need almost the same performance as big servers with many people online, you are talking like the perfmance can be halfed, I think it is a maximum of 5-10%, which is actually nothing you want to scale down because of the jumps you have when polling occurs.

So you are wasting money and ressources if you think that you can scale down servers with less players online in a big way, you will not be able to scale down those servers more than just a bit, it will not get you the big benefit you seem to be hoping for.

I'm glad that you're concerned about us introducing this change successfully, but don't worry - there's tons of room for optimization in the servers, both memory usage and processing wise, and we're ready to work on that more if performance becomes an issue.

 

We've already significantly reduced polling overhead a couple months ago and lately we've been looking at reducing the general server memory usage - as a result the memory usage on test servers is almost halved (down to 500MB from 900MB, which literally allows us to cut the cost of those in half), and we're just getting started.

[Cecci 1,609]

37 minutes ago, Samool said:

I'm glad that you're concerned about us introducing this change successfully, but don't worry

Is this what is called patronizing?

[Etherdrifter 2,512]

1 hour ago, Samool said:

I'm glad that you're concerned about us introducing this change successfully, but don't worry

 

I must admit, I am a little concerned.
 

(Taken from an old news thread)

On 9/18/2015 at 6:52 PM, Docterchese said:

As for the future of the existing Online servers, they're very much here to stay! The function of the servers will change, from being the game to simply being officially hosted Wurm servers - complementing the many servers we expect Unlimited users to host themselves. We will not shut down any Online servers unless unless they're virtually dead for a long period of time, so there's nothing for existing players to worry about; especially since the increased revenue from Unlimited will hopefully allow us to put more towards developing the game on a whole (we'll roll out updates to both Unlimited and Online,) and as new players complete the single-player Unlimited experience and look for a multiplayer experience so they can keep playing Wurm, the Online servers will be incentivised as something to progress towards. We'd be very surprised if Unlimited doesn't benefit the Online servers in a variety of ways.

"(we'll roll out updates to both Unlimited and Online,)" - Yep, definitely can take things at face value there.
 

"We will not shut down any Online servers unless unless they're virtually dead for a long period of time" - Just how dead is dead?  Are we talking <10 players online at once at a time, because a fair few servers fall under that geas.

[Syhl 215]

2 hours ago, Samool said:

Except that the release of Wurm Online on Steam is not a separate product at all, just a different launcher/storefront and new servers (and with it we're pursuing the goal to make the game more accessible beforehand, which applies to all of Wurm Online).

...

Permanence of Wurm Online servers is one of the most important things about the game, and so we're making sure that the business model is sustainable enough (cough cough WU) to not ever need to close any servers or make any decisions on the level of limiting support of Wurm Unlimited. This has always been one defining feature of WO, and any news regarding WU isn't changing that and isn't even remotely related to that part

...

 

It means you won't sacrifice "old" WO servers for Steam WO servers ? I know you can't confirm it for the next decade but can you at least give us a period (6 months, 1 year, ... more ?) it's 100% CERTAIN "old" WO Servers won't be shut down ?

 

Here is the situation: We have players waiting for Steam to play, either new and old players waiting for a new start AND players who don't want to do this fresh start for multiple reason but are afraid of the future of the "old" WO Servers so they don't invest themselves into long term projects on "old" WO.

 

A defined period, even a short one, where there is almost 0 risk the old servers will be shut down could help us to say "Hey! I will start a 6months terraforming project as i know i will be able to finish it !".

[Samool 2,004]

43 minutes ago, Syhl said:

 

It means you won't sacrifice "old" WO servers for Steam WO servers ? I know you can't confirm it for the next decade but can you at least give us a period (6 months, 1 year, ... more ?) it's 100% CERTAIN "old" WO Servers won't be shut down ?

 

Here is the situation: We have players waiting for Steam to play, either new and old players waiting for a new start AND players who don't want to do this fresh start for multiple reason but are afraid of the future of the "old" WO Servers so they don't invest themselves into long term projects on "old" WO.

 

A defined period, even a short one, where there is almost 0 risk the old servers will be shut down could help us to say "Hey! I will start a 6months terraforming project as i know i will be able to finish it !".

Giving you a definite period would contradict my whole statement. We do not plan for it therefore we just don't have any dates - I can say that we're not closing any servers (except Jackal!) for the forseeable future, and the Steam release will not disrupt those plans. You're definitely safe starting those terraforming projects.

[Beanbag 239]

Wurm stays operational on the "whale" principle. They won't jeopardize this.

 

Edit: And with volunteer staff, whose value cannot be overstated.

Edited January 29, 2020 by Beanbag

[Amadee 1,543]

18 hours ago, Jore said:

Things change

 

Exactly. Oh an btw, you made that look like the entire quote was my words rather than your added words. All I said was Deja Vu.   Just sayin' 

[Toma 76]

11 hours ago, Beanbag said:

Wurm stays operational on the "whale" principle. They won't jeopardize this.

 

Edit: And with volunteer staff, whose value cannot be overstated.

And what attracts whales?  Lots of minnows.  You need to have many free players to attract whales to lord over.  This is the basis of any fremium game.  However wurm has a fairly large entry barrier due to the complexity of the game and the premium subscription so the minnows are limited.

 

The subscription has kept a number of my friends from really getting into wurm.  It also causing burnout since you feel commited to playing the game as much as possible as to not waste premium time, as oppose to taking little breaks to play other games.  My experience has always been several months of intense wurm followed by long breaks, because of burnout.  

 

Obviously a game needs to bring in money, so you have to monitize it somehow.  But if you want to hook a whale, you need player volume, whether they're free players or not doesn't matter. This something this game sorely lacks.  Steam wurm may be a step in the right direction.

Edited January 30, 2020 by Toma

[elentari 2,660]

To be fair, I am also in the "concerned" group of players who aren't certain if my next building project will be pointless sincer after steam update, we'll see 100 more players leaving for steam and the already low population will make the server I live on be a ghost town.

 

As an Epic player, I've already been through this experience once, when the Freedom Character transfers kicked in and 90% of Epic just moved to Freedom. Epic is a ghost town at the moment. Everything I have done or accomplished on Epic was more or less voided when I moved to Freedom. All the work in getting good items, all the deed and infrastructure work I've put in, worthless since there weren't any players left to populate it.

 

My fear is that WO will suffer the same fate. People will move to Steam, and Freedom will become the new Epic, aka a ghosttown inhabited by 5-6 players per server, all playing more out of habit than actual fun. I don't want to go through this experience again, of seeing the time I've put in the game reduced to zero again. I have nothing against the idea of WO being on steam, but the question is, to the few of us that remained loyal to the game, what's going to happen to us? Will a copy of our current servers be implemented on steam? Is steam going to be a 100% completely new slate? Can a player from steam transfer his character to WO via a shop token or something? And/or viceversa?

 

My worries are centered around the future of Wurm. My fun is often derived from seeing industrious people in the game having fun building stuff and working on their projects. And on that note, I am curious if the steam version will have an improved skillgain. It's fun derived from having players to play with really. It's an MMO after all.

 

The grind is really what burns out most people in this game. I've been through a dozen burnouts at least over the years. And each time it was harder to come back. I kept hoping something would change. I don't think putting the game on steam will do anything positive for the company if the game stays as it is. Reality is, by now it's more than a niche game. It's an impossible game to maintain fun in as a player over a prolonged period of time, which is contrary to what a company should  want : a long term paying client.

 

This isn't about content really, more like design philosopy. Things take too long. If WO is a case study for what happens when you have long timers, Steam will just be the replication of the same results. Getting players is one thing. Keeping them is the issue. I hope I am wrong. Time will tell.

[atazs 962]

Epic died a very long time ago.

 

The whole Elevation remake was a pointless, desperate marketing stunt to try and bring back more players. 

 

 

The big problem with the developers, Rolf and the company is that they are very, very scared of taking any sort of a risk and don't think in long term.

 

They think in short boosts of income, dump things (broken/unfinished updates, WU, Jackal, and more) on us, and then abandon said things in the pursuit of their next short boost of income (at the moment it's Steam WO). 

That was the case when they release a whole bunch of servers all at once, and now they are all dead, that was the case when they released WU and when they promised the modding API, that was the case when they released Jackal, that was the case when they released Epic, that was the case when they released Xanadu as a laggy mess, that was the case when a graphics driver broke WU and instead of rolling out a quick fix, they flat out told us to "roll back your drivers" and took months with said fix, and i could go on and on.

 

Features are never finished, or really fleshed out, and they are just putting bandaids onto the game. They abandoned WU and didnt put out in the newer updates, Rifts, etc... because they wanted people to play WO, and because WU wasn't and isn't generating enough income for their liking.  

 

For example, why didn't we get something akin to Rust in WU in regards of hosting your own server?

Edited January 30, 2020 by atazs

[Flubb 773]

20 minutes ago, atazs said:

The whole Elevation remake was a pointless, desperate marketing stunt to try and bring back more players. 

 

To be fair, the Elevation reset was widely clamored for in the time leading up to it, it wasn't just a stunt from CCAB's own initiative. I even supported it back then thinking it would staunch the complaints of the PvP community. I was more optimistic back then...though you could say that it worked, nobody asked for another Elevation reset after that. People just widely gave up on it.

[kochinac 1,395]

2 hours ago, Toma said:

The subscription has kept a number of my friends from really getting into wurm.  It also causing burnout since you feel commited to playing the game as much as possible as to not waste premium time

This is mostly in people heads. What helped me to not have feeling to waste time while not playing is to buy premium for year and not think about it. However if you want alts this approach gets kinda expensive...

[Ame 99]

3 hours ago, kochinac said:

This is mostly in people heads. What helped me to not have feeling to waste time while not playing is to buy premium for year and not think about it. However if you want alts this approach gets kinda expensive...

True. I also buy one year always and log in whenever i feel like it. And Its working great for me. cost is not that much in the end (less than netflix for me)