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Tigerclaw

Newbie Playing wurm Update the map !

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As a new guy starting out it was so hard for me to work my way around and i got lost so many times.

A lot of ppl say that's the fun of it -  getting lost. As a new guy to this game, let me tell you, there's no fun in it at all.

 

Looks like there would be a way to update the map to show where you are on it.. 

 

As the game is going to Steam and there's going to be tons of new players, looks like this would be a priority to show where you are.

 

Like many times this almost made me just rage quit.. Getting killed over and over and lost , just don't see where this is fun for new players

 

Edited by Tigerclaw
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I speak for some, not all, and maybe not even very many (these days), but it was always intended to be travel intensive and finding your way on the map meant using real life skills.  Tracking yourself on a map as you move using landmarks,  moving out of a forest and into a desert you would see the spot on the map and know where you were.

 

I get it's hard, but Wurm is oldschool and was meant to be this way.  I personally, absolutely love manually tracking myself on a map, it's just a good skill to have in RL when shtf, but that's me.  I don't care for easy-mode and if a sort of live map was introduced I'd be the first to say I'd disable it on my client.

 

All this said, you should have seen the game a decade ago, the changes they've made to retain players make Wurm look easy-mode these days :)  I was spawn killed on the PvP server a few times by another player when I first started, as a matter of fact, I'm in the OP on the Chaos forums in the Kills and Skirmishes thread.  I was barely 2-weeks old when that post was made and they bragged about killing me :P

 

Don't give up, this game is meant to be unfair early on, forces you to learn from mistakes and reach out to players for help and advice.  If you are on a PvE server and see someone in your area, ask for help.. this is one of the friendliest communities you will ever find in a game.  You may also PM me here or ingame and I would gladly sort you out with some basic gear, weapon, and shield.

Edited by Nomadikhan
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I suggested a few times the option to ask the tower guards "where am I?" and get a big red dot on the ingame map. It would be helpful while not breaking the immersion (too much).

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4 minutes ago, Odynn said:

I suggested a few times the option to ask the tower guards "where am I?" and get a big red dot on the ingame map. It would be helpful while not breaking the immersion (too much).

Yes, please.

 

No to original suggestion, though.

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landmarks, highway-system and community maps... can show you EXACTLY where you are already.. unless you toss your compass.. you'll know the direction.. and figure your location with landmarks; 

highway-system.. lets you pick a deed and track your path to it.. or you could just find a deeded land.. and ask in FREEDOM-chat(that's your server's chat), somebody is bound to reply and help you figure where you are..

 

Rest is... drop your tent if you're about to die.. you'll spawn there where your tent is.. knowing where your camp is.. based on something else big or useful near you is a MUST.. like spawn town close by.. or a deed with templars, tower with guards to help you kill a troll, etc..  rest is.. building your house and yard so creatures can not just come and kill you repeatedly..

 

You can start a deed on your own, or look to join a village that accepts new players or.. any based on preference/rules/etc.(that way you could have templars to protect you from creatures attacking you near the deed or in case you die - deed token acts are respawn point, your tent will eventually decay with time.)

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Even more Wurm Lore friendly would be the Tower Guards just giving you an ingame coordinate relative to the ingame map, no dots or markers.

 

"The Guards kindly point to a location on your map.  You appear to be somewhere around L-5."

 

Anything more accurate then that I feel places Wurm further into the Easy-Mode category 😕

Edited by Nomadikhan
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9 minutes ago, nekoexmachina said:
13 minutes ago, Odynn said:

I suggested a few times the option to ask the tower guards "where am I?" and get a big red dot on the ingame map. It would be helpful while not breaking the immersion (too much).

Yes, please.

 

No to original suggestion, though.

I'm a fan of the old school towers with names.. J15 or M12, C10, etc.. you see a random guard tower.. pointing over it... you read where on the map you are.. great.. as long the builder wasn't a troll and name it with wrong coordinates :)

---edit

I guess we could start a community 'event'/action.. if we see unnamed tower or named after somebody etc.. without location to figure where you are... to create a Sign or plant a blessed lamp on paved tile.. and name them with the in-game location to 'fix' that; 

This have never been that much of a problem to address it.

Edited by Finnn
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As a community map editor, we could also help by naming towers that way

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28 minutes ago, Nomadikhan said:

"The Guards kindly point to a location on your map.  You appear to be somewhere around L-5."

 

Anything more accurate then that I feel places Wurm further into the Easy-Mode category 😕

 

This would definitely be the best fit. Its still a little easymode but since everyone who hasn't been playing since the 200x's grew up with easy-bake-gaming some sort of compromise is inevitable. Better that it be this than some giant glowing arrows and built in GPS. Might be interesting if it were tied to some sort of skill so at first the guards tell you "You are on Xanadu in the northwest regions." and later as you level up some sort of mind skill they can identify your location more exactly. Then you could even make it so that at like 90 parent mind skill or something absurd they give you the exact server x,y of where the tower is placed.

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I love the "The Guards kindly point to a location on your map" thing, great suggestion . All I'm saying is that when a new server starts there won't be Guards .

 

It will be a new server no towers, no roads, tons of new players ... I just want the game to be fun for them and not so challenging that they get discouraged too early.

 

 

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To the OP, there are community-made maps showing a lot more detail than the in-game map - there should be a sticky'ed thread in the server sub-forums for each server.  This may help if you're struggling to find your way around before it becomes familiar.

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7 minutes ago, Tigerclaw said:

I love the "The Guards kindly point to a location on your map" thing, great suggestion . All I'm saying is that when a new server starts there won't be Guards .

 

It will be a new server no towers, no roads, tons of new players ... I just want the game to be fun for them and not so challenging that they get discouraged too early.

Sure, but spirit templars could do the same. Starting towns are marked on all maps, and you'll be surprised by how quickly people get small villages and road systems setup. They won't be catseyed but as long as you paid attention to the spawn you chose, you'll do alright!

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All im saying is it would be nice to get a bit more help to know were your at , when a mob runs you for like 30 mins and your running tho woods and cant think oh im going this way. maybe if they just give you something for the first lets say 7 days.. would help if your new to this game.

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10 hours ago, solmark said:

As a community map editor, we could also help by naming towers that way

 

Trouble is : not a lot of the original creators are still around, so you will either have to had the unique name of each towers on the map... or replace the existing ones by new ones with

the map coordinates... hoping the ingame map doesn't change or the player made use the same coordinates, no matter whoever will take over it.

 

10 hours ago, Nomadikhan said:

Even more Wurm Lore friendly would be the Tower Guards just giving you an ingame coordinate relative to the ingame map, no dots or markers.

 

"The Guards kindly point to a location on your map.  You appear to be somewhere around L-5."

 

That's the idea of the big red 'map square sized' dot, the ingame map is inaccurate on old servers with all the terrain alteration. But giving fresh players a way to locate themselves more or less on it with the existing landmarks like lakes / mountains and said dot would do a lot.

 

In the event of the steam release, it might be a hard sell for new players to be forced to go on the forum to look at maps too. Towers will be created quite fast, since it's one of the first (free) things you can do to get some protection... just like it happened on jackal for those who want to remember a fresh map release.

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2 hours ago, Odynn said:

 

Trouble is : not a lot of the original creators are still around, so you will either have to had the unique name of each towers on the map... or replace the existing ones by new ones with

the map coordinates... hoping the ingame map doesn't change or the player made use the same coordinates, no matter whoever will take over it.

 

 

Well I recently updated all the Guard Towers on the Exodus map, with details provided by the community. Not every guard tower is on there and some of them probably are not 100% accurate in terms of location, but since I can put a label on each one of them individually, it wouldn't take me long to update the labels with the IG map reference. It wouldn't pinpoint the exact location of course, but at least the player would know which IG square they are in.

 

The same mapping system is used by Celebration, Deliverance, Exodus and Pristine, so at least all those server maps could be updated.

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Yeah it was a bit hard in the beginning, but after 2 or 3 days I started to know my way around in the area.. It never made me want to ragequit.. and was actually pretty fun..

Now I know my way around in so many places.. I really loved the challenge of having to figure out where you are on the map and honestly it wasn't that hard.

Maybe if new players have trouble with it on the in game map they should use the ones on wumpedia like we used to years ago before they added the in game map.

But please no live updates on where you are on that in game map!

 

What keeps me in wurm is that nothing comes easy.. if they start changing these kind of things im afraid id get bored really fast.. we'd be like zombies not having to think about anything anymore. Where's the fun in that?

Edited by SweetSusie
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13 hours ago, Tigerclaw said:

All im saying is it would be nice to get a bit more help to know were your at , when a mob runs you for like 30 mins and your running tho woods and cant think oh im going this way. maybe if they just give you something for the first lets say 7 days.. would help if your new to this game.

 

Pay attention to the starting server/deed you pick from the tutorial area. From there, use your compass to figure out which way you're going, and use the community maps ( http://wurmonlinemaps.info for instance ) to track your movement. Use landmarks, paved areas and roads, waystones (which integrate to the highway system), and types of biomes like steppe, forest, desert, etc. to spot yourself on the map. I get that as a new player it's tough, but if you're not the kind of player who appreciates the rewards of hard work, the grindyness of Wurm alone is going to deter you, let alone how easy or tough it is to figure out where you are.

 

I do like the sound of the tower guard "Where am I?" idea with a generic quadrant from the in-game map. Maybe put a minimum QL on the tower to be able to make that happen, or just make it so lower QL means they could be completely mistaken. That'd be a nice compromise in my eyes.

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or simply make a marker of where our caricature is on the map like i show below 

joRymSE.png

0bSy7nc.png

the arrow would show where your standing and the way your facing, these images are only to show what the idea would look like in game  

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1 hour ago, leander said:

or simply make a marker of where our caricature is on the map like i show below 

 

 

the arrow would show where your standing and the way your facing, these images are only to show what the idea would look like in game  

NO

Edited by CreZ
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-1, having to actually navigate in Wurm is a feature not a bug, speaking as a relatively new player who really appreciates that realism.

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As a newbie, I preferred the generality of the ingame map and the fact that one needed to employ some real world skills in navigation.

 

I do think that a few labels on the map would be in order.  Specifically, fixed respawn points should at least be visible, and the respawn options should give you SOME idea of where these places are.   I had a recent respawn where the first menu option was almost 3 times further away than my home deed, in completely unfamiliar (and dangerous) territory and I had to find a community map before I could navigate.   Basic travel is one thing, where you should be able to make at least approximate matches between the map and what you have seen, but a respawn is effectively a teleport, so you could be almost anywhere on the ingame map for your server with no real hope of locating yourself without a lot more travel. At about 4 months in, I have twice simply accepted help and a ride to get me somewhere safe and familiar.  The neighbourliness is nice, but needing it feels like a defeat.

 

Major highways, bridges, tunnels could also be shown at least in some form.  Precision wouldn't matter a whole lot, but it would be nice to know when a 5k detour is NOT needed.

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On 3/7/2020 at 11:29 PM, Tigerclaw said:

Looks like there would be a way to update the map to show where you are on it.

 

No. Breaks the nature of the game. 

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Learning the old fashion way to orient yourself is what made wurm magical. No real time map, no ridiculous floating arrows like in certain games to point you to a specific deed, just use your head and be patient. It's a skill both in game and RL. The better you get  at it the more you can figure out where to go by just finding North. Or any other point really.

 

I am not against removing the tedious aspects of Wurm (although from a certain perspective, wurm is 60% tedious actions if not more) but the few bits of realism, let's keep em.

 

Having a player actually describe a path to his deed is wonderful. I have so many fun memories helping players navigate MRH. "What do you see? I see a highway flanked by Olive trees, and a big colossus named Karne".  Reply ? You're around J 11.   That sort of interaction stimulates the mind and good conversations. It's part of Wurm.

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9 minutes ago, elentari said:

Learning the old fashion way to orient yourself is what made wurm magical. No real time map, no ridiculous floating arrows like in certain games to point you to a specific deed, just use your head and be patient. It's a skill both in game and RL. The better you get  at it the more you can figure out where to go by just finding North. Or any other point really.

 

I am not against removing the tedious aspects of Wurm (although from a certain perspective, wurm is 60% tedious actions if not more) but the few bits of realism, let's keep em.

 

Having a player actually describe a path to his deed is wonderful. I have so many fun memories helping players navigate MRH. "What do you see? I see a highway flanked by Olive trees, and a big colossus named Karne".  Reply ? You're around J 11.   That sort of interaction stimulates the mind and good conversations. It's part of Wurm.

 

It's fun because mr Elentari here actually pointed out the way to his deed to me a year or two ago. It was a very nice way for us to get to know eachother, and we are still good friends to this day.

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It IS hard to get around as a newbie. I'm pretty bad at orienting myself and have right-left confusion. However--Wurm is supposed to be difficult and huge and new. Learning how to find your way around by landmarks and player-made maps is maybe not a skill that people want to have anymore (those of us who learned to drive with a big book of maps probably all love GPS now), but there's something great in one day realizing you can navigate your server blindfolded. It keeps the world big and interesting, instead of just staring at an ingame map following your dot around. Directions from other players can add a layer of interaction as well (even when players give you those "You can't get there from here" directions).

 

It wouldn't hurt to have respawn points organized by distance though. 

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