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Retrograde

The Future of RMT in Wurm and Price Reductions

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Hi everyone,

 

With the upcoming Steam release there’s been a lot of questions and discussions around the future of RMT within the game. We know Steam will not allow RMT within their platform and there have been many questions about what this means to the original servers, given the talk of merging at a currently unknown point. We will go into detail below about not only what we plan on doing but also why we plan on doing it, and what you can expect from here on out in regards to it. 

 

Real Money Trading
When Wurm was started, it was started with the belief that players should be able to profit from their time invested in the game. This core belief helped build the economy into what it is today. Many players have relied on this system in converting ingame assets into real world money but it does cause issues within how players interact with Wurm, and what they expect from it. 

With a direct, open translation of silver/goods to real world money, many players took prices dropping as views of direct loss of income, similar to being told your boss is paying you less because they hired more workers. It built many expectations of the trade in Wurm and a major focus on maximising profit even if it was not needed ingame, the excess could be sold. Value of items was inflated because they were seen as investments that could be sold off should the need arise, and unfortunately was the core reason behind a large amount of macroing cases the GM team has handled over the years. 

It also provides an issue where we ourselves are competing for sales with our players, with players able to sell their currency for cheaper than we could due to no overheads and taxes on it. The landscape of the internet and online gaming has vastly changed over the past sixteen years, and many parts of Wurm have remained in simply because changing it was too big a step to take. 

With the steps to Steam it gives us an opportunity to re-evaluate many aspects of the game that have felt a little too daunting to touch, and offers us the chance to make major changes in order to provide a welcoming environment and reduce premium and silver costs as well. 

Currently having RMT on the regular Wurm Online servers we would not be able to have any connection with the Steam servers, and the existing client would not be able to connect to the Steam servers. 


With this in mind we have made the tough decision of no longer allowing any and all RMT and account sales effective March 1st, 2020. This will include sales of silver, items for real life currency and account trades. 

 

Account trades
It has been raised in many threads that account sales mean high skills never truly leave the game. This causes a huge top heavy system where high skilled accounts are sold and resold and we want to encourage new players to gain skill and take part in their community, feeling accomplishment for gaining their skills. This also occurs with accounts shared between a group of players, such as a highly skilled weaponsmith or priest that can be accessed 24/7

We want achievements to be individual based rather than adding value to an account, and as such we will also be placing a ban on account sales for ingame silver AND Real Money Trading. 

We will be adjusting our stance towards shared accounts. Your account may be shared on a personal basis (i.e. a family member or a close friend) but sharing your account with multiple people will be against game rules. We will also not be providing ANY assistance with account ownership disputes where the password has been shared in ANY way.


Trader Mechanics
Traders have long been a contentious point, with Xanadu and Jackal both disallowing traders. Initially launched as a means of offsetting the high upkeep costs of large deeds, traders have since been used as a means of farming silver from the coffers on a large scale, using minimum size deeds which goes against the original intention and is not ideal. 
Trader items have their benefits in being sold, but the ongoing ability to use them for means other than their directly intended purpose is something we are taking the opportunity to address.

After the end of February update traders will no longer pay out silver earned from the kingdom coffers or give a portion of sales back.
Instead they will now grant a percentage reduction on the upkeep of the deed they live on which cannot stack with multiple traders. We will be discussing the actual percentage over the month and have the final decision before the launch. We will also be revisiting trader prices and reducing them to account for these changes.
In order to accommodate players wanting more traders on their deeds we will be reducing the minimum range between traders to 20 tiles. 
Traders will no longer be able to operate on land without a deed, and if they are on un-deeded land at the time of the update they will disband immediately. 
We know these changes may affect some who rely on the silver but we feel the deed upkeep reduction will still provide significant value while removing the ability to farm multiple traders. 


We’re aware these changes are major changes to mechanics and our stance on Real Money Trading. They have been controversial mechanics with many suggestions about removing them, and with the Steam launch coming up by mid 2020 we feel this allows everyone to have time to adjust to it prior toit, meaning there will be no confusion about whether we allow it.

 

Changes to store prices
This time is also an opportunity for us to adjust our store prices for both premium and silver. After the shop maintenance today our store prices will be: 

  • 5 silvers - 6.49 euro (1.3 euro per silver)
  • 10 silvers - 12.99 euro (1.3 euro per silver)
  • 20 silvers - 21.99 euro (1.1 euro per silver)
  • 40 silvers - 43.99 euro (1.1 euro per silver)
  • 50 silvers - 49.99 euro (1.0 euro per silver)
  • 100 silvers - 99.99 euro (1.0 euro per silver)


Premium time

  • 1 month: 7.99 euro
  • 2 months: 15.99 euro 
  • 3 months: 20.49 euro (85% original price)
  • 6 months: 38.39 euro (80% original price)
  • 12 months: 67.19 euro (70% original price)

These prices will be the same across Xsolla and PayPal and effective after the store update.

 

Steam server connections
These changes allow us to announce something else we have been working towards, and that is how the Steam servers will integrate with our existing servers. 
The Steam servers and the regular Wurm Online servers will be available via BOTH clients, and simply be disconnected via mail and travel. 

This will mean that all servers can be accessed from Steam, as well as the Steam servers accessible via the regular client. This will still require separate accounts.

 

Moderation
This does mean that selling silver or any other ingame goods and accounts after the cut off date (1st March 2020) will lead to moderation penalties including suspension of accounts. During the last update we included several new logging tools in order to help GM’s track items and silver trades, we’ll be using this period to test it out and make adjustments if necessary. 

As Real Money Trading has been in the game for such a long time, we’re aware many merchant threads do mention sales of silver, as well as official comments, so we’ll be spending this month updating all of our documentation to remove it. We will also be working with players in ensuring their forum market posts are in line with the new rules, such as hiding or editing threads that include it. 


This is a big change for all of us, and while we've done our best to address the issues you might raise already, we will be here to answer all of your remaining questions, and Retrograde will be more than happy to discuss it during our live-stream on Sunday at 9pm UTC as usual. 

Regards,
The Wurm team
 

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22 minutes ago, Retrograde said:

After the end of February update traders will no longer pay out silver earned from the kingdom coffers or give a portion of sales back.
Instead they will now grant a percentage reduction on the upkeep of the deed they live on which cannot stack with multiple traders. We will be discussing the actual percentage over the month and have the final decision before the launch. We will also be revisiting trader prices and reducing them to account for these changes.
In order to accommodate players wanting more traders on their deeds we will be reducing the minimum range between traders to 20 tiles.
 

 

If you're going through with this bull****, you need to give us a means to move our goddamn traders. Especially when there are those of us who solely use traders to help maintain our deeds, but don't have them on those deeds for various reasons. Either refund the traders themselves, or allow us to move them to separate locations and deeds.

 

@Retrograde @Samool

Edited by Delacroix
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Wow, this sounds a lot like common sense gun laws in the states.  Great job you leftists.

 

How are you going to prove I am not sharing my account with my "Brother" in another state or if he was on deployment to another country?  Tracking account sharing is near impossible and same with account sales.   I could just give my "Brother my new cell number, cause reasons, and all he has to do is paypal me cash. From there I text him the email and login info.  Poof done.  You don't even have authority to get my cell records, at least the Left can do that through a court order.

 

I'm sorry but this stops the majority  rule abiding mayor but the criminals still roam free.   /smackmyhead

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7 minutes ago, Retrograde said:

but sharing your account with multiple people will be against game rules.

Define multiple peolpe please?

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Disagree. Even though I never really participated in RMT. Also, inb4 black market trading, how to beat two stones with one bird, is my first thought on it. I'd rather see Wurm retaining its freedom.

Edited by Ulviirala
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A pity, i thought i would be able to play WURM until i grow (really) old...

guess in a couple of years its over then.

 

Oh and btw, while i am allright with no RTM for the account sharing i hope you burn.

Edited by Beewolf

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7 minutes ago, Oblivionnreaver said:

fca95001ef5ed7b75f1d0b3baf0aaf4d.svgACCOUNT TRADING IS GONE fca95001ef5ed7b75f1d0b3baf0aaf4d.svg

 

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Just now, valodis said:

Define multiple peolpe please?

More than one or two. 

 

If you login to a friends account to take care of their deed that is fine. If multiple people login to run a weaponsmith or priest for a village, alliance, or kingdom then we will take action on that account. 

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I feel this is a good move overall for the game. Time will tell of course.

 

One point I wish to bring up, is that 2 months is actually 0.01e more expensive? How about a discount for 2 month purchases? Or, perhaps just a discount overall and cut the buy more-spend less approach that benefits those people who can afford large single purchases?

 

Premium is a pretty necessary thing for any serious player, there really isn't any need to appeal to the more affluent players over poorer ones who can afford single large purchases (not to mention exchange rates).

 

Overall 9/10 would read again. ;)

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2 minutes ago, Retrograde said:

More than one or two. 

 

If you login to a friends account to take care of their deed that is fine. If multiple people login to run a weaponsmith or priest for a village, alliance, or kingdom then we will take action on that account. 

 

In other words, you can either check if a friend and i are the only people who are using our accounts, or you will arbitrary ban people and everyone who logs into a friends account

is in danger to lose their yearslong account.

Edited by Beewolf
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1 minute ago, Retrograde said:

More than one or two. 

 

If you login to a friends account to take care of their deed that is fine. If multiple people login to run a weaponsmith or priest for a village, alliance, or kingdom then we will take action on that account. 

Some people have jobs that require regular travel, either multiple states a month or perhaps monthly travel overseas... how do you plan to detect honesty or criminal?  I'm all ears.  IP addresses are waaaay to easy to dup or be reliable.  My "Witchhunt" experience with Kamal was proof of that.  Can't count how many times he was banned over multiple IPS after weeks and months of trying to prove it was him, and I still even to this day get PM's from him saying hi.

 

 

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1 minute ago, Nomadikhan said:

Wow, this sounds a lot like common sense gun laws in the states.  Great job you leftists.

 

How are you going to prove I am not sharing my account with my "Brother" in another state or if he was on deployment to another country?  Tracking account sharing is near impossible and same with account sales.   I could just give my "Brother my new cell number, cause reasons, and all he has to do is paypal me cash. From there I text him the email and login info.  Poof done.  You don't even have authority to get my cell records, at least the Left can do that through a court order.

 

I'm sorry but this stops the majority  rule abiding mayor but the criminals still roam free.   /smackmyhead

Nah, what is claimed and what is done don't need to be the same. Just as politics in any given country. You can ban something and then abandon any effort to enforce the ban. In the end you have same situation as before, just higher morale ground and good defence in case someone sues you. FYI (almost) all mmo's are already working with similar definition.

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Just now, Beewolf said:

 

In other words, you can either check if a friend and i are the only people who are using our accounts, or you will arbitrary ban people and everyone who logs into a friends account

is in danger to lose their yearlong account.

 

Seems like a fair concern. Could there perhaps be an authorized account-sharing system between one or two other accounts put into effect? Only to be changed perhaps once a month at most to avoid sudden knee-jerk account sharing?

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Please allow for the moving or refund of existing deeded traders.

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This post made my day. Kudos to the Wurm team for thinking this through and having the courage to make the tough decision. Wurm will be better off in the future for it.

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Ok, @Retrograde  This is an amazing and perfectly written post. All the information is here and clearly stated. and im behind you on everything on this update. Ill be glad to see this top heavy system get a little more balanced, the account sharing is great, good changes on the pricing, thoe i wish we had know about that sooner since im sure many folks already re-subbed under the higher rate. PLEASE continue in this fashion of full disclosure with as much detail as possible, im sure we all appreciate it. I know i certainly do, Thank you.

 

 - VirusMD

 

EDIT: I also agree that we should be allowed to one time pack up traders and move or sell them.

Edited by VirusMD
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Just now, Fearil said:

 

Seems like a fair concern. Could there perhaps be an authorized account-sharing system between one or two other accounts put into effect? Only to be changed perhaps once a month at most to avoid sudden knee-jerk account sharing?

 

A once-and-forver-lock would be fine for me.

 

I worked for years with a friend together and all that will be ###### if we can't use each others mainchars anymore.

 

 

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might want to update the archaic account system/page at the same time as this. 

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Define how the new price is cheaper (70%) than the price I get for a year now, when I pay 720 Skr, witch translates to 67,45 euro.

And what will happen to merchants?
And what are you saying, if I want to log in from Steam I can not play my current toons, despite fact we can reach all servers from both clients?
Edited by Cecci
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