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Rolf

Steam and new Product Manager

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2 minutes ago, Oblivionnreaver said:

i hope its a battle royale where you have to do archaeology to get weapons and tools

*scribbles notes* it is now 

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Congrats Samool on your promotion! 

and Thank you Budda for all your work.

 

6 hours ago, Retrograde said:

Let's keep this on topic please, this is not the place for biscuits to be posting off topic things about politics 

 

Is calling people biscuits a technical term from community relation coordinators? Here it's a bit rude to reference someone in that fashion.

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9 hours ago, Finnn said:

IF the cost aren't a factor to drive server closes.. there's a good bit of deeds costing a good amount of 'silver' that's paid monthly even on smaller servers.

As for deeds.. it's piece of land.. but all that is on it is what players value, forcing them out isn't something to play with. Even if there was an option to export a deed and it's perimeter and plant it on a new piece of land.... some might not be that willing to move.

Existing servers have history, some projects on the maps took months/years of daily work for some of the nuttier folks with the canals/tunnels/bridges/etc.. How do you just pick to erase that for no reason?

If folks wanted to live next to each other, nobody stopped them to move.

Sometimes its better to take bold actions rather than let game wither to its death. But i knew it already that there is those few ppl who doesnt like changes.  "nobody stopped them to move" i can think of few reasons why and what might hold ppl back on moving. 1. Time, 2. Time and Third is resources. Sure there is those sweet spots too. How to pick to erase? quite easy, leave the 2 biggest islands stay and press delete on others. History? yes, this game will be too if no radical changes happen. You can keep denying it if you want, biggest factor  that keeps players still here is the magnitude of terraforming and possibilities it gives.

 

What does a new player think when they join a game where is dozen servers and there is 10 actual ppl there max? Yes, game is niche and there prolly wont ever be more than 2k players, but it doesnt explain crappy choices of launching more and more servers. Sometimes companies expand to wrong direction, nothing new there. Hopefully not this time as i truly want this game to survive. Hopefully new updates are done with thoughts and implemented properly, sure always few errors might occur, but overral "DLC" is polished and not done with left hand behind back.

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@ThemystrixI don't fully understand why you are rallying that hard for server wipes except for some myopic "microeconomical" point of view. If I have a look at servers I see only two classes of wipe candidates, namely Chaos and Epic, and I am sure that even there are still enough active deeds and premed players to let these servers pay their cost. And wiping them would mean to drive away a significant number of players.

 

For the Freedom servers, I have visited them all, often stay there for rift fights, sometimes for looks at markets, and they are well up and alive, low login numbers notwithstanding. Just have a look at the community map threads. Not few players have deeds on more than one server.

 

Just opening a new set of servers on Freedom would indeed not be wise. But the steam project is something different.

 

But again, and even if I am too insistent about: It is crucial to raise the visibility and publicity of Wurm to a larger audience, best a ways larger than the steam community. As repeatedly said, mags and portals around Linux, Mac, and IT/PCs in general would be the target. I don't know whether it is possible to add the Wurm launcher to one of the Linux repositories, or even better the game section of some Linux distros, best something like Ubuntu or OpenSuse. 

Edited by Ekcin
addendum
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20 minutes ago, Ekcin said:

@ThemystrixI don't fully understand why you are rallying that hard for server wipes except for some myopic "microeconomical" point of view. 

Dunno about ecomical reasons since i dont sell much, i usually buy and couldnt care less.

 

I am all in for steam and its possibilities, but it gets new server(s) and when its combined with existing servers there is too many. Dont care which servers stay, just few less would be nice. Even if a deed or two pays for the server to exist, is it really must to have in game to make it feel empty? and im not talking about packing 2 servers full so ppl live 20-100 tiles away from each other. It was rhetorical question. but, lets see what happens, time will tell.

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20 minutes ago, Themystrix said:

I am all in for steam and its possibilities, but it gets new server(s) and when its combined with existing servers there is too many. Dont care which servers stay, just few less would be nice. Even if a deed or two pays for the server to exist, is it really must to have in game to make it feel empty? and im not talking about packing 2 servers full so ppl live 20-100 tiles away from each other. It was rhetorical question. but, lets see what happens, time will tell.

I agree to the last sentence, and thanks for clarification. I can only say that I love to sail between the seven Freedom servers, and would not want to miss a single one. I could not imagine Fabricant's creations to be wiped, even if he were the only one on his continent. And he is not. I liked my excursions to Epic though I really find those servers underpopulated, which has to do with the PvP crisis. Chaos issues may be similar, though I cant tell about as I never were there. And I have not much of a clue how to get out of the PvP mess. I blame the PvP players a lot to be honest. Maybe the fresh PvP server on steam will help. Or not. 

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1 hour ago, Ekcin said:

But again, and even if I am too insistent about: It is crucial to raise the visibility and publicity of Wurm to a larger audience, best a ways larger than the steam community. As repeatedly said, mags and portals around Linux, Mac, and IT/PCs in general would be the target. I don't know whether it is possible to add the Wurm launcher to one of the Linux repositories, or even better the game section of some Linux distros, best something like Ubuntu or OpenSuse. 

 

Wurm on the repositories is an friggin' great idea.  @Rolfy'should look into that one.

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Farewell to Budda, your work has been appreciated, and Congratulations to Samool on your new role!

 

I think it’s great that this is going ahead to Steam. After 16(?) years, this awesome game may just get a big new audience for us to enjoy it with. To whoever will be working on this, I hope it all goes well and can’t wait to see Steam Release turns out!

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10 hours ago, Nappy said:

I've been trying to think about how the steam WO could be successful especially in light of both WU and existing WO, the concerns around unjust moderation and of course the changes around what content made it to WU compared to what was promised.

 

A few observations apply to both WU and WO:

 

- New server rushes are very popular

- The time from first login to building your deed tends to be where the Wurm appeal is strongest for many

- The feeling of living on the edge of life versus doing chores in complete safety tends to also line up with the second point

- Usually once people build their deed then their participation starts falling, slowly at first and then building up steam overtime until they've moved on to the next new server

- Not everyone can afford the massive amount of time needed for 1x WO or 1x WU so many look for a logical ending point, often when a deed or building is built to some arbitrary level

 

One advantage WU has over WO is the ability to find a server that is different, it's not the same experience everywhere you go. Custom mods, custom maps, even custom themes exist and can be experienced relatively easily by everyone who wants to do so

 

One disadvantage of WU is the ease at which "cheater mods" can be written and used with no real control over them. This makes things like PVP next to impossible.

 

WO has the advantage of being perceived as having the most likely chance of a server being there for the long haul. In reality it's a business and like all businesses the decision to turn it off can happen at any time. Things like back-ups etc aren't really any secure on WO then on WU. I've had high usage servers running with 30 minute backups while I think I read that WO runs at 3 hour intervals. Really depends on the admin decisions more then anything.

 

WU has the advantage of being able to pick whatever level of server hardware you want. Again, I've run on server hardware that was much better then whatever WO is using.

 

Advice for making this successful on steam?

 

1) Give people multiple experiences to choose from. Don't make every server the same in terms of grind, map, feature set etc. Experiment with a no-deed server, a snow server, a hunting server, extreme survival server, a roaming pvp server and a pvp deed destroying server. Go for 1x, 5x , 10x to capture those with limited time. Introduce different concepts to let people enjoy Wurm in different ways

 

2) Capitalize on the "new server" syndrome. Make a server time or event boxed. When something key happens the server ends or perhaps after x amount of time. Maybe the island sinks under a massive volcanic eruption and everyone has to flee from the approaching lava after building a ship so they can run to a new server that in some ways is another new experience when they arrive

 

3) Put some clear rules around moderation and follow them. Be transparent, be honest. No-one wants to feel like they can be banned for whatever reason someone comes up with out of the blue. There are a lot of people on steam who left WO and the most common thing they cite is the "fear of unreasonable/unfair banning". It doesn't matter if it's completely true or not. The problem is you are entering an environment that is under less WURM control then this forum and if enough people think this way (and they do) then it's a real problem. (BTW - To be clear I am blaming the poor policies on what has happened rather then saying any particular staff are a problem. In my few encounters with actual moderators or GM I have nothing but good things to say. When people have absolute freedom to do whatever they want then they often do).

 

4) Keep your promises. You will be going up against anyone who cares to review on steam. If you say you are going to do something then do it. Otherwise when you introduce this shiny new game the doubters are going to start calling out what happened before, the broken promises etc.

 

5) While the focus is often on giving people a better endgame, one clear winner might be to figure out how to keep the grind reasonable while extending the portion of the game that happens between when someone is brand new and when they get a new deed. Some WU servers have experimented with very, very minimal starting gear which dramatically extended the initial parts of the game.

 

A second product launch on the same platform where you have an existing product is hard especially if you don't have a clear and distinct advantage for the new product over the old one. In light of my comments above it's unlikely to be enough to say "Managed by Wurm staff" as the difference, it will have to be something way more significant then that.

 

Personally I wish you well with what you are attempting to do.

 

~Nappy

 

 

Nice post, Nappy.

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The problem is the inconsistency of releasing servers.

Back when i started in 2010, we had only Golden Valley (tutorial server, where you were heavily restricted even if you bought premium) Independence, and Wild (now Chaos).

 

Then by 2014, starting from the first new server release: Deliverance in late 2011, we had, in no particular order:

Golden Valley, Independence, Chaos, Elevation + three home servers, Xanadu, Deliverance, Exodus, Celebration, Pristine, Release.

Then... nothing for 5 years, until Jackal (unless you want to count 2 elevation wipes, and a BL home server wipe, and a short lived challenge server, none of which were PvE related.)

 

Now Deliverance was released to fix the overpopulation of Independence after it was opened to non premiums, especially since the terrain was really really bad and the dirt layer was extremely high, making settling very difficult even for veteran players.

Then Exodus was then released as a sort of hunting server, followed by celebration, which as the name suggests was celebrating... something? I can't remember now. That was followed by Pristine and Release as a seperate clusters, and then Xanadu that was advertised as a massive landrush or something, but was plagued and is still plagued by performance and other issues. 

 

Honestly? None of the servers were nessecary or even needed after Exodus. Even back then, people have already been complaining that the playerbase is getting stretched too thinly, yet the devs ignored us and pumped out more servers. 

 

Epic also did not need four servers, the three home servers were just a blatant nostalgic excuse put in by Rolf to try and draw in the older crowds who played on the old home servers, and, once again created more issues by drawing in people who had no interest in pvp whatsoever, but were there for the higher skillgains and actually complained about pvp and pvpers. On a cluster that was supposed to be pvp.

The devs were following a sort of "let's release a new server every 6 months and get a quick temporarily boost in player numbers" kinda plan, that did work back then, but has long lasting consequences now, especially since there are no plans to remove any of the useless servers. This is exactly what has been happening to games like WoW where blizzard released dozens upon dozens of servers at first, most of which are now empty, and then instead of removing servers, they attempted things like cross realms and such to get the players together, but that only created more issues. 

Edited by atazs

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this thread makes me feel so much better about selling up and cashing out.

See you boys on steam

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On 9/30/2019 at 7:36 AM, Rolf said:

I have decided that we're moving in that direction aiming for a Steam release in the beginning of next year.

A positive decision I would say, with so many possibilities opening. As none can predict the future the only way to find out is to move forward with it. I for one an hoping for the best and will watch with interest for further information and progress. Always nice to see you keep that one eye focused upon us with care and concern.

 

=Ayes=

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1 hour ago, atazs said:

The problem is the inconsistency of releasing servers.

Back when i started in 2010, we had only Golden Valley (tutorial server, where you were heavily restricted even if you bought premium) Independence, and Wild (now Chaos).

 

Then by 2014, starting from the first new server release: Deliverance in late 2011, we had, in no particular order:

Golden Valley, Independence, Chaos, Elevation + three home servers, Xanadu, Deliverance, Exodus, Celebration, Pristine, Release.

Then... nothing for 5 years, until Jackal (unless you want to count 2 elevation wipes, and a BL home server wipe, and a short lived challenge server, none of which were PvE related.)

 

Now Deliverance was released to fix the overpopulation of Independence after it was opened to non premiums, especially since the terrain was really really bad and the dirt layer was extremely high, making settling very difficult even for veteran players.

Then Exodus was then released as a sort of hunting server, followed by celebration, which as the name suggests was celebrating... something? I can't remember now. That was followed by Pristine and Release as a seperate clusters, and then Xanadu that was advertised as a massive landrush or something, but was plagued and is still plagued by performance and other issues. 

 

Honestly? None of the servers were nessecary or even needed after Exodus. Even back then, people have already been complaining that the playerbase is getting stretched too thinly, yet the devs ignored us and pumped out more servers. 

 

Epic also did not need four servers, the three home servers were just a blatant nostalgic excuse put in by Rolf to try and draw in the older crowds who played on the old home servers, and, once again created more issues by drawing in people who had no interest in pvp whatsoever, but were there for the higher skillgains and actually complained about pvp and pvpers. On a cluster that was supposed to be pvp.

The devs were following a sort of "let's release a new server every 6 months and get a quick temporarily boost in player numbers" kinda plan, that did work back then, but has long lasting consequences now, especially since there are no plans to remove any of the useless servers. This is exactly what has been happening to games like WoW where blizzard released dozens upon dozens of servers at first, most of which are now empty, and then instead of removing servers, they attempted things like cross realms and such to get the players together, but that only created more issues. 

you missed the challenge server pre WU release

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@atazs : I feel your perspective being fairly biased. I fail to see that any of the Freedom servers is deserted, the low pop of the smaller ones notwithstanding where not few Indyans and Xanadians hold hunting deeds, or at least travel to frequently. The free passage between the servers is great, not only for passionate rifters like me.

 

As to Epic I heard different stories, from veterans in my ally as well as from things posted in the forums. Generally, indeed the founder's vision was obviously more strictly PvP oriented, and as in practically every MMO, PvE prove to be more resilient and reliable providing the bread and butter. So far, Freedom is still a success, PvP has proven a failure.

 

Sadly, as I had expected, after appropriately developing my character, to participate in PvP too, best on Epic, avoiding risks for my PvE character when entering Chaos. In fact the Wurm PvP "community" is what has ashamably failed, last in the Elevation3 disaster. I have witnessed over 1.5 years of complaints, promises ("when you do this and that we will flock in in hundreds") and bragging. Then the Devs set up Ele3 as a test release heeding many of the proposals of the "community". It could have been expected that the new features and opportunities would have been evaluated thoroughly, proposals for amendmends made, different things tried and evaluated, e.g extended sieges with the new dirt wall and mine door architecture.

 

Instead there were a few deeds, a few brawls, and after about 5 weeks the "community" dissipated, spoiled brats bored of the new toy throwing it away.

 

And yes, this pisses me off.

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14 hours ago, Nappy said:

I've been trying to think about how the steam WO could be successful especially in light of both WU and existing WO, the concerns around unjust moderation and of course the changes around what content made it to WU compared to what was promised.

 

A few observations apply to both WU and WO:

 

- New server rushes are very popular

- The time from first login to building your deed tends to be where the Wurm appeal is strongest for many

- The feeling of living on the edge of life versus doing chores in complete safety tends to also line up with the second point

- Usually once people build their deed then their participation starts falling, slowly at first and then building up steam overtime until they've moved on to the next new server

- Not everyone can afford the massive amount of time needed for 1x WO or 1x WU so many look for a logical ending point, often when a deed or building is built to some arbitrary level

 

One advantage WU has over WO is the ability to find a server that is different, it's not the same experience everywhere you go. Custom mods, custom maps, even custom themes exist and can be experienced relatively easily by everyone who wants to do so

 

One disadvantage of WU is the ease at which "cheater mods" can be written and used with no real control over them. This makes things like PVP next to impossible.

 

WO has the advantage of being perceived as having the most likely chance of a server being there for the long haul. In reality it's a business and like all businesses the decision to turn it off can happen at any time. Things like back-ups etc aren't really any secure on WO then on WU. I've had high usage servers running with 30 minute backups while I think I read that WO runs at 3 hour intervals. Really depends on the admin decisions more then anything.

 

WU has the advantage of being able to pick whatever level of server hardware you want. Again, I've run on server hardware that was much better then whatever WO is using.

 

Advice for making this successful on steam?

 

1) Give people multiple experiences to choose from. Don't make every server the same in terms of grind, map, feature set etc. Experiment with a no-deed server, a snow server, a hunting server, extreme survival server, a roaming pvp server and a pvp deed destroying server. Go for 1x, 5x , 10x to capture those with limited time. Introduce different concepts to let people enjoy Wurm in different ways

 

2) Capitalize on the "new server" syndrome. Make a server time or event boxed. When something key happens the server ends or perhaps after x amount of time. Maybe the island sinks under a massive volcanic eruption and everyone has to flee from the approaching lava after building a ship so they can run to a new server that in some ways is another new experience when they arrive

 

3) Put some clear rules around moderation and follow them. Be transparent, be honest. No-one wants to feel like they can be banned for whatever reason someone comes up with out of the blue. There are a lot of people on steam who left WO and the most common thing they cite is the "fear of unreasonable/unfair banning". It doesn't matter if it's completely true or not. The problem is you are entering an environment that is under less WURM control then this forum and if enough people think this way (and they do) then it's a real problem. (BTW - To be clear I am blaming the poor policies on what has happened rather then saying any particular staff are a problem. In my few encounters with actual moderators or GM I have nothing but good things to say. When people have absolute freedom to do whatever they want then they often do).

 

4) Keep your promises. You will be going up against anyone who cares to review on steam. If you say you are going to do something then do it. Otherwise when you introduce this shiny new game the doubters are going to start calling out what happened before, the broken promises etc.

 

5) While the focus is often on giving people a better endgame, one clear winner might be to figure out how to keep the grind reasonable while extending the portion of the game that happens between when someone is brand new and when they get a new deed. Some WU servers have experimented with very, very minimal starting gear which dramatically extended the initial parts of the game.

 

A second product launch on the same platform where you have an existing product is hard especially if you don't have a clear and distinct advantage for the new product over the old one. In light of my comments above it's unlikely to be enough to say "Managed by Wurm staff" as the difference, it will have to be something way more significant then that.

 

Personally I wish you well with what you are attempting to do.

 

~Nappy

 

14 hours ago, Nappy said:

3) Put some clear rules around moderation and follow them. Be transparent, be honest. No-one wants to feel like they can be banned for whatever reason someone comes up with out of the blue.

~Nappy

TL;DR, will read later,  but that part flashed for me, that alone gets a like!

 

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39 minutes ago, Finnn said:
15 hours ago, Nappy said:

3) Put some clear rules around moderation and follow them. Be transparent, be honest. No-one wants to feel like they can be banned for whatever reason someone comes up with out of the blue.

~Nappy

TL;DR, will read later,  but that part flashed for me, that alone gets a like!

 

 

If Nappy and you refer to this

 

I fail to see how it was not transparent, or a "reason someone comes up with out of the blue". I witnessed myself how one of the perpetrators tried to continue the smear in Wurm discord, and can confirm that their behaviour was not only obscene, but unlawful at least under the laws of my country. A permaban was hardly a harsh or deliberate step to take.

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Imagine living in a country where free speech doesn't exist. Y  I K E S

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in b4 WurmNite server where it's battle royal and super fastr wall build times ;)

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18 minutes ago, Madrocks said:

Imagine living in a country where free speech doesn't exist. Y  I K E S

 

Most people live in countries with free speech, the majority though are too dumb to understand what it means...

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14 minutes ago, Ekcin said:

 

If Nappy and you refer to this

 

I fail to see how it was not transparent, or a "reason someone comes up with out of the blue". I witnessed myself how one of the perpetrators tried to continue the smear in Wurm discord, and can confirm that their behaviour was not only obscene, but unlawful at least under the laws of my country. A permaban was hardly a harsh or deliberate step to take.

@Ekcin..lets just stick to the point, I'm not defending any of the 'pvp folks', you're way out there in the cold reading it like that.

I literally quoted 1 random thing I agreed with, and said I didn't read the rest of it.

You've probably missed the thread with personality profiles.

I like to know the rules to know what I step into.

 

Having all rules and ways management operates will plainly and clearly explain to all who could get spanked for this or that, and how much... stepping over a border just makes it your fault..

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46 minutes ago, Madrocks said:

Imagine living in a country where free speech doesn't exist. Y  I K E S

 

Freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom from consequences!

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if you think freedom of speech exists in america your wrong, try saying in a public forum your gonna shoot up walmart

 

I am very excited about this news, I been saying for years WO needed a Steam Client

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38 minutes ago, LumpyGravy said:

if you think freedom of speech exists in america your wrong, try saying in a public forum your gonna shoot up walmart

That's a call-to-action, which is certainly not the same...

It's the difference between "I think LumpyGravy should die", versus "Someone please go make LumpyGravy die".

To get back OT:
Thanks to @Buddafor the work he's put in.
Congrats to @Samoolon his promotion.

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