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Patch Notes: 03/MAR/20

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50 minutes ago, Nordlys said:

First of all, i have alot of 2s alts, and ive been using them mostly as listeners to sermons. And dont get me wrong, and i dont like the channelig grind.

That in concideration, i dont think it should be that easy either. I understand that they remove the 2s option to get sermon alts and free favor. I also think that the 2s option is real big for new players. How bout a middle way here? One option could be (not saying its the best option) to have 2s alts not be able to become listeners or priests. To get into the diety stuff you simply have to pay the 7,99e.

This would not limit the storage alts, but atleast with this solution we still can have a fairly cheap way for newbies to try out the game if they forage for a bit, and we remove the 2s sermon/link alts.

I'd say someone willing to splash what would be 20 silver on making a grind tolerable is more than enough of a reason to let it work. That and the pain in the arse that is trying to run all the linkers and your priest.

Edited by Madnath
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2 minutes ago, Madnath said:

I'd say someone willing to splash what would be 20 silver on making a grind tolerable is more than enough of a reason to let it work. That and the pain in the arse that is trying to run all the linkers and your priest.

This right here

Wurm uses around 2gb per client even on lowest settings or on med or near max it doesnt seem to matter until you move around a lot or are online for hours having opened up windows and what not
Even with world render off running 10+ clients now days makes a i7-4790 run at max cpu and a i7-9700 at 40% with the same settings and all clients will lag when they walk or do anything


Running loads of clients isnt viable for most people because of it but it is needed because of our low population numbers and those willing to afk an alt or their main overnight at a sermon group are nearly none existent yet we still had the ability to do so with 2s alts but now nope no longer a thing anymore which means those who did the grind to 100 faith already will have it easy those who did the channeling grind to 95+ will have it easy and those new players who want to catch up? they are SOL as good luck finding a decent sized sermon group of 10 people or bigger and then finding a spot in it it aint going to happen(this is why most of us resorted to the alts in the first place)

To me that idea just seemed like a quick "hey we have this thing where people make prem accounts and it doesnt make us money should we get rid of it?" and everyone just nods their heads without thinking and bam its gone :( its sad but alas all for the greater good right 😕

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8 minutes ago, Madnath said:

I'd say someone willing to splash what would be 20 silver on making a grind tolerable is more than enough of a reason to let it work. That and the pain in the arse that is trying to run all the linkers and your priest.

sorry sir grinding comfortably is only for the 1%

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1 minute ago, Oblivionnreaver said:

sorry sir grinding comfortably is only for the 1%

given the removal we've been suddenly presented with like a turd in a birthday box, grinding comfortably is for the 0%

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I used 2s sermons alts too along with alliance help to grind 100 faith. But my PC really didn't thank me for it, I'd rather see some changes to help more naturally gain faith and channeling, like:

 

As missions now contribute to deity pool, why not let them give a small faith tick too

Buff faith gain by prayer a little

Let followers provide favor to priests, might only be 20 but every little helps

Buff favor regen a little more

Also might be nice if sacing rare+ did something in the way of faith or prayer ticks

 

Sermons shouldn't be the only way for 100 faith, especially for those who can only play at the quieter times.

 

 

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As my main is smithing focused I'd love the +10% mag improvement on metal items - but vyn still has the 10% skill gain. Mag could also have 10% same as Vyn on Smithing and sub-skills? Doubt i would switch from vyn at the moment, it's not quite tempting enough.

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8 hours ago, Madnath said:

Also for anyone who missed it, animations are now forced on as per this update. The ability to turn it off in the client will be removed. Removed a few lines from the chat to keep it flowing and cut size.

Crez was confused why animations were playing despite being turned off everywhere.

  Hide contents

[23:56:02] <Crezena> I have them set to be off. I confirmed it in the launcher. It just no longer disables them in the client it seems
[23:56:16] <Crezena> I've had them off since they were added
[23:57:35] <Smenext> poke the txt file somewhere that might gone messed up. write only or something, dunno which one it is tho, so many files :P
[23:59:19] <Crezena> nah I even checked in consol and collada_animation = 0
[00:07:51] <Smenext> are you using some weird amd processor. intel works fine :P
[00:09:10] <Retrograde> It's intentional, we'll remove the none option in the future
[00:09:51] <Madnath> Removing the ability to turn off animations?
[00:09:57] <Retrograde> Yes
[00:10:26] <Retrograde> It is next to no performance impact on minimum vs none
[00:12:17] <Smenext> yep, i always used animations on, no trubils, bobbin head thing tho.. dont force that one :D
[00:12:27] <Retrograde> only for you redi ❤️
[00:12:36] <Retrograde> The head bobbing one is annoying
[00:12:41] <Retrograde> so was third party horseback
[00:14:47] <Schiann> 3rd party? Is that where you're watching someone else on horseback? :P
[00:15:58] <Delwise> hang on, just logged in, the option to remmove head bobbing is going?
[00:16:26] <Relouwhite> i play in third person anyways
[00:16:43] <Crezena> its not just about performance its about preference
[00:16:54] <Crezena> I don't want to see things moving around all the time
[00:17:06] <Figs> play with no render
[00:17:22] <Crezena> well, I do but sometimes I have to turn it on to move around
[00:18:01] <Crezena> and you can't use hotkeys by hovering the select bar sadly =p
[00:19:28] <Crezena> I can't see why you would make effort to remove an option to disable something that was already working though. Not adding one sure, its effort that not many will use
[00:20:06] <Retrograde> Because having no animations at all was a rather poor visual
[00:20:19] <Figs> but it was optional
[00:20:20] <Crezena> you might as well just make a patch called "Crez get out and go play WU we don't want you here"
[00:20:22] <Retrograde> At minimum it's got little impact on performance, and no ones T posing all around
[00:21:11] <Crezena> who besides me even had it turned off to experience the poor visual? I mean it was a choice you had to actively make, and one you'd only make if you wanted poor visuals
[00:21:50] <Crezena> should i expect to be forced to use pretty trees and lose noworld render soon too?
[00:22:00] <Beastwolf> wait
[00:22:09] <Beastwolf> so my ###### alts now have to have better visual?
[00:22:23] <Crezena> the first thing I do in every game is set all the graphics to lowest
[00:22:36] <Retrograde> Well given pretty trees has zero performance either, probably

 

 

8 hours ago, MrGARY said:

removing the ability to disable animations because a minimal impact isn't significant to some people is a big bad

 

As I said it isn't about performance it is about preference and not having foals look like some sort of bunny who power chugged a huge tub full of espresso and horses that seem to be possessed by the devil.

 

Edited by CreZ
inb4 forced game sounds
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When animations are turned off in your settings then you won't see the animations from your character.  That is a big deal, because with animations turned on some people (like myself) get motion sickness in under 10 minutes of mining, sawing, etc.  If those were ever removed, then the game would be unplayable.

 

With this change it just means that even with player animations turned off you will see the animations of other players. That doesn't seem like an unreasonable change. I don't know of any other mmo that allows you to disable other players' animations. 

 

As far as sermon groups, I'm definitely in the camp that feels an alternative should be available. I agree that the game benefits from community interaction and involvement (in fact I hope to join a village on the steam release rather than just toil away on my own deed). However, I don't think that mechanisms like sermon groups should be the only reasonable way to achieve goals.

 

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9 minutes ago, Arimus said:

With this change it just means that even with player animations turned off you will see the animations of other players. That doesn't seem like an unreasonable change. I don't know of any other mmo that allows you to disable other players' animations. 

turning off self animations is also disabled. you get things like walking and idle animations where you slowly vibrate around for yourself, other players, and mobs, but still removes actual animations for other players. i know this because on my path of insanity toon a dragon illusion spawned right on top of my lava i was grinding at and sat there flapping its dumb wings in my face which would block my entire screen and i had to log off to get rid of it

Edited by Oblivionnreaver
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I think less emphasis on existing population and more on future steam population might change how people are considering the changes.

 

Think about it. Every new steam player will be a new account. Every single one of them now do not have the 2s option to prem on Wurm. Instead they have to pay more for more time as a prem char on Wurm. Wurm makes more money....

 

Also, every single veteran who plays on Steam also needs a new account. Again pay more to try it out as a prem.

 

Next to that pile of money impact on existing players in existing WO is likely not a major concern.

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6 minutes ago, Nappy said:

I think less emphasis on existing population and more on future steam population might change how people are considering the changes.

 

Think about it. Every new steam player will be a new account. Every single one of them now do not have the 2s option to prem on Wurm. Instead they have to pay more for more time as a prem char on Wurm. Wurm makes more money....

 

Also, every single veteran who plays on Steam also needs a new account. Again pay more to try it out as a prem.

 

Next to that pile of money impact on existing players in existing WO is likely not a major concern.


Reason for 2s first month prem was because of the high churn with players once they need to pay, and I believe Rolf talked about increasing the amount of skillpoints allowed on non-prem. Without an alternative you're asking people to spend 7.99 on a F2P game they might have played one evening.
For me personally, that is not a problem to fork out, but I've seen a lot of people refusing to fork out at all until they really know they want to play the game. That's why we have these more generous deals for new players typically.

I think the 2s alts were not hitting the mark either, the things that a player can realistically do when they first start playing to get 2s are not aligning with what they want to do at all(build first house, start crafting some items). Going out to forage for 5 hours to find 2s is not going to sit well with most new players.

 

Converting Players to Payers is an age old problem in F2P and it doesn't really matter how you slice it, only a fraction of players that try out an F2P game will get over the initial hump of inputting their credit card on a website to spend real money on it.
I'm pretty sure that the team is aware of this issue and that their idea is not to make piles of money come out of a new userbase that have no reason to fork out 7.99 to try the game initially. 

Edited by Noevi
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Let's say 1000 current WO players go to Steam to try it out. If you were the owner of the game would you rather have them pay upfront for 2 weeks or 2 months? What impact does it have on bottom line especially if you also don't have them giving out referrals?

Edited by Nappy

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I doubt the hopes are for the current WO players. But they are more likely to be willing to spend sure, most of them are already payers. Getting someone that paid once to pay again is orders of magnitude more likely than a completely new player. I think steam launch is hoping to bring in new players, not just get a quick buck out of the current dwindling playerbase.

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19 minutes ago, Noevi said:

I doubt the hopes are for the current WO players. But they are more likely to be willing to spend sure, most of them are already payers. Getting someone that paid once to pay again is orders of magnitude more likely than a completely new player. I think steam launch is hoping to bring in new players, not just get a quick buck out of the current dwindling playerbase.

I don't disagree with you about the need to go bigger in terms of population. They need to escape the constant dwindling of the WO veterans. I doubt their current population numbers are sufficient for their current costs so that means they need new blood.

 

However, it costs money to experiment by moving to Steam. If they can make more money from people currently on WO + former WO veterans moving to steam then the cost of the experiment becomes less, especially by limiting shorter trials and the cost of referrals when they are used. 1,000 might seem to be a large number when compared against current population. It's actually a very small and conservative number when compared to the 5,000 - 6,000 population we had in previous years. 

 

Additional new players would just make this even better from a success viewpoint especially since I believe the critical test is server populations following the 60 - 90 day time period. That seems to be the critical time point in WU and other recently updated WO servers.Declaring victory before that time point will be premature in my opinion.

 

So let's look at their possible strategy so far:

 

- Bring back some players

- Get current WO players to try the steam WO

- Get rid of legal character transfer (makes it more possible for new players to compete even on older servers of course on old WO the next logical step would be a skill reset so everyone starts fresh)

- Reduce/remove money pay-outs (currently in form of traders but could be more coming)

- Increase revenue earned from prem

- Get rid of premium related payouts (like referrals)

- Force people to purchase silver from WO only (especially on Steam where silver will likely be limited)

- Keep the current focus on need to have multiple characters (meaning premiums) in order to have access to the game

- Do something to further increase the deed costs while being able to point to trader purchase as a way to reduce costs over time (otherwise why have traders anymore)? Simple possible change? Make deeds that pay 1s pay 2s. Basically create a "curve" that increases costs on the lower end where most deeds reside. At the higher end less curve impact plus use of traders as well.

 

All that remains is the clear set of features that enhance Steam WO far beyond Wurm WO at which point population starts shifting big time to Steam WO. With enough time, "Unfortunately old WO servers don't have sufficient population to support them. With the overwhelming success of Steam WO the decision has been made to close the old servers and focus entirely on Steam WO. Players wishing to transfer from old WO can apply for two complementary sleep powders when they move to Steam WO after disbanding their old WO deeds)".

 

Could this be a bad prophecy? Sure. It could also be a correct one. Only time will tell.

 

 

Edited by Nappy

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5 minutes ago, Nappy said:

I don't disagree with you about the need to go bigger in terms of population. They need to escape the constant dwindling of the WO veterans. I doubt their current population numbers are sufficient for their current costs so that means they need new blood.

 

However, it costs money to experiment by moving to Steam. If they can make more money from people currently on WO + former WO veterans moving to steam then the cost of the experiment becomes less, especially by limiting shorter trials and the cost of referrals when they are used. 1,000 might seem to be a large number when compared against current population. It's actually a very small and conservative number when compared to the 5,000 - 6,000 population we had in previous years. 

 

Additional new players would just make this even better from a success viewpoint especially since I believe the critical test is server populations following the 60 - 90 day time period. That seems to be the critical time point in WU and other recently updated WO servers.Declaring victory before that time point will be premature in my opinion.

 

So let's look at their possible strategy so far:

 

- Bring back some players

- Get current WO players to try the steam WO

- Get rid of legal character transfer (makes it more possible for new players to compete even on older servers of course on old WO the next logical step would be a skill reset so everyone starts fresh)

- Reduce/remove money pay-outs (currently in form of traders but could be more coming)

- Increase revenue earned from prem

- Get rid of premium related payouts (like referrals)

- Force people to purchase silver from WO only (especially on Steam where silver will likely be limited)

- Keep the current focus on need to have multiple characters (meaning premiums) in order to have access to the game

- Do something to further increase the deed costs while being able to point to trader purchase as a way to reduce costs over time (otherwise why have traders anymore)?

 

All that remains is the clear set of features that enhance Steam WO far beyond Wurm WO at which point population starts shifting big time to Steam WO. With enough time, "Unfortunately old WO servers don't have sufficient population to support them. With the overwhelming success of Steam WO the decision has been made to close the old servers and focus entirely on Steam WO. Players wishing to transfer from old WO can apply for two complementary sleep powders when they move to Steam WO after disbanding their old WO deeds)".

 

Could this be a bad prophecy? Sure. It could also be a correct one. Only time will tell.

 

 

 

Now you're talking retention and strategy where as I was just saying that I doubt the changes they made to the premium cost just now are primarily for the purpose of getting more money out of old players when steam comes.

As far as negative prophecy?
Mine is that if Steam WO is a success there is zero reason to merge with old WO, it will just sink the fresh economy that does not have the taint of a decade of RMT on it, over night the few thousand players on steam WO would have thei 50-70's skill made completely useless and their ability to craft items drown into the well stocked(over hoarded tbh) current servers.

Hoping for a trickle of new players to the old servers from the Steam launch seems like hanging on to hope were it's not reasonable. Why would you start a completely new character on a server where you are so far behind your only means of engaging in the economy for years is making bulk materials?
From a PvPer perspective, why go roll against old accounts when you can fight the ones at your own level? 


I doubt they'll close the old WO, but we might be looking like epic in a few years.

Best case I can see from the viewpoint of someone who isn't interested in redoing all the grinding I've done: Steam WO is not a huge success, it's enough of a success that it brings players in to sustain the game for a few years but not successful enough that it makes sense to segregate the playerbase.

From a purely egocentric perspective I am not pleased at all about steam servers being segregated but I can also see why it's the only hope they have of being successful.
 

 

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I think the mistake they made with Release and Pristine was connecting them to the freedom cluster. Keeping them separate would have allowed for a clear skill development path for new players. Instead they did what you said, made the release/pristine player skills useless when they allowed the old ones in. Hopefully they learned from this huge error. 

 

Their better course of action would have been to open another cluster later and allow fresh starts with no option to later connect it to existing clusters etc. This would have kept the game fresher.

 

I agree with you on the Steam WO, why come to old WO when your life could be so much better and competitive on Steam WO?

 

Of course, no one has stated that the Steam WO will have same skill and action timers as current WO either. Perhaps they will do a 3 - 5x instead on steam WO. Would very quickly allow people to ramp up.

 

One clear message that seems to be happening lately is less requirement to make changes the veterans support. It appears they are now looking bigger picture in terms of how to get new people.

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It's a difficult topic because I feel like as a current player what is good for me and what is good for the game does not align.
If it's successful maybe we can hope to get a transfer over to the greener pastures after a few years like the epic guys got.
All I know is I'm not grinding body stats and buying 100s of euros of sleep powders again.

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re" "From a PvPer perspective, why go roll against old accounts when you can fight the ones at your own level? "

 

You raise a good point here as well. Back when I first went to Epic I started playing on my usual freedom accounts (this was back when going to Epic was a fresh start, no skills transferred in). After awhile I realized how long it was going to take to catch up to the accounts with years and years of grinding that were ahead of me. I purchased a new main and used it mainly on Epic.

 

Of course they did the same thing, repeated their Release/Pristine mistake on Epic when they made a one way skill transfer from epic to freedom but allowed freedom to continue to transfer skills into Epic. This ultimately resulted in first the "why live on Epic when nothing counts compared to living on freedom where skills increment and travel to epic" dropping population to the point where they can safely ignore an entire cluster that's basically on life support.

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9 minutes ago, Noevi said:

It's a difficult topic because I feel like as a current player what is good for me and what is good for the game does not align.
If it's successful maybe we can hope to get a transfer over to the greener pastures after a few years like the epic guys got.
All I know is I'm not grinding body stats and buying 100s of euros of sleep powders again.

I feel your pain. I used to spend tons of time playing this game, grinding skills and trying to figure out how the game worked. Despite the grinding there were alot of fun times.

 

It makes me sad to see where the game is today. The biggest motivation behind my comments is actually a strong hope that the game will improve and hope that maybe, my comments, will spur our current team to think about wider issues and how to get to a successful finish line without completely destroying what made this game, it's community.

Edited by Nappy

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3 hours ago, Arimus said:

When animations are turned off in your settings then you won't see the animations from your character.  That is a big deal, because with animations turned on some people (like myself) get motion sickness in under 10 minutes of mining, sawing, etc.  If those were ever removed, then the game would be unplayable.

 

Try doing it in the new third person mode. Your camera stays steady even with animations.

 

I don't get motion sickness from e.g. first person mining but I prefer the third person camera for a lot of things now.

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On 3/3/2020 at 8:53 AM, DevBlog said:

Fo

  • +15% skill gain to Nature & its sub skills, Healing & First Aid, and Cooking & its sub skills.
  • +2.5%-10% skill gain to Body Stamina, Soul Depth scaled by alignment.
  • Doubled the existing bonus to taming attempts.
  • 20% slower food/water bar drain (Replacing previous +25% food gained when eating).
  • +1 range for Gardening/Forestry-dependent mouseover info (trees, grass, etc.).

 

The +1 range for Forestry isn't working for me. 100 Faith should be enough.

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TSA7yLG.png

i haz found grammar bug found this on 2 of the animals i cared for today not sure if its happening to others

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12 hours ago, wipeout said:

TSA7yLG.png

i haz found grammar bug found this on 2 of the animals i cared for today not sure if its happening to others

 

Thanks, this will be fixed.

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It might be confirmation bias but I see a lot of "we're removing this, don't worry we'll fix it later" from this management group.

 

Meanwhile things aren't fixed from years ago. How about catapulting bridges? Any progress? Maybe fixing server travel issues once and for all. Hows that UI coming? How about just letting things, eg. 2s prem, sit until you have it solidly worked out and ready to be replaced (not we're working on a replacement system, but don't hold your breath), as did not happen with the war machine revamp? How about not changing the hell out of things without fixing old bugs and problems?

 

It seems, so much, that we players are asked to shoulder the burden of poor planning and implementation. I myself, am near the breaking point. There is SO much useless work and time wasting in Wurm as it is, I'm not sure I want to continue supporting this management team and it's decisions, when it seems to just get worse.

 

I mean, maybe just come clean, would you rather the OG players just sthu so you can get on with your master revamp of the game for this expected Steam audience? Brand loyalty only goes so far, what happens when you've burned through all that and a new set of people are asked to start shouldering the burden? How long can this model last?

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10 minutes ago, Fearil said:

I mean, maybe just come clean, would you rather the OG players just sthu so you can get on with your master revamp of the game for this expected Steam audience? Brand loyalty only goes so far, what happens when you've burned through all that and a new set of people are asked to start shouldering the burden? How long can this model last?

 

I have to admit I often feel similarly of late too. I'd rather be told to get bent so I can just stop caring.

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