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I keep trying to see things from the perspective of a new player.

 

I open up steam, find this interesting sandbox game thingy and try it out. Shortly I find out there's also a separate set of servers that aren't connected to the steam ones. And I ask myself a few questions:

1. Why are those still around?

2. Are people still playing there?

3. Will they get new people through steam?

4. What value do those servers bring vs the new fresh ones?

5. Why can't I transfer or copy my character (many games allow copying your character from one server to another if the population dies out) from the steam server to the WO legacy ones?

6. Why are they separate from the new steam servers?

 

The old servers we've been playing on for years are simply unsustainable for new people. The market is oversaturated, there are already too many skilled toons that have covered every aspect of the market. Simply put too much competition and offer, too little demand. They would be attractive from a historical/story wise point and having many pre-terraformed spots ready to build on but it would also carry a feel of what I can only describe now is "emptiness" in Wurm and lack of "true wilderness".

 

I'm worried that this over time will simply mean the old servers will be closed and characters will be given a choice to transfer to the steam ones. I simply don't see an outcome where steam will bring in an influx of players to WO. Maybe just in the beginning where there will be this sense of "new game, new discoveries" which will fizzle out in half a year where people will make the decision to stick to Wurm or quit for other games.

 

I am simply curious to ask a question of the devs and CCAR team. What are your plans for WO if in 12 months, the population keeps dropping? WU has already been abandoned, so a precedent has been set about abandoning a group of players in Wurm. It's not like it can't happen again, no matter how much wishful thinking we're trapped in.

 

Where will WO be in 12 months if the population will still be at this unhealthy level? What happens if many accounts from WO transfer to the new one and the population worsens for the legacy servers?

 

I know you guys have a lot on your plate, but a sort of manifesto detailing the big questions would be a big help. I see a lot of people asking about PvP, mechanics. I see few things related to Epic, which just reinforces the idea it's been abandoned to the wolves.

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1 hour ago, elentari said:

The old servers we've been playing on for years are simply unsustainable for new people. The market is oversaturated, there are already too many skilled toons that have covered every aspect of the market. Simply put too much competition and offer, too little demand.

Just because the market is full of high skilled toons does not mean that the old servers are unsustainable for new players there are quite a few players who just do not participate in the market on any level what so ever 1 of my neighbors shes like that(and i had a few around my old place too) they log in do their stuff slowly work on their place across months upon months and never really buy or sell anything(and in the current case didnt even have a mailbox until i told her i will give her one as her place was a nice spot for people hunting to restock on food) there are many who just play wurm to play wurm and talk to people in chat but never touch the market who just enjoy playing the game for what the game has to offer but its the vocal few(me included) who talk loudly about the economy having issues as well the economy side of the current cluster does because of lack of new players and thus lack of new wallets

As for player count rolf stated many times as have devs that even if 1 person plays on a particular server and others are still able to pay for that server it aint going anywhere if wurms population drops down from 3290 Logins average to say 1000 we still have enough to keep servers going(or so it was said in the past) and if it really gets bad i really doubt they will close old servers for the sake of pushing those players to new ones as last time wurm did that a lot and i mean a lot of players just outright quit when jkh and mrh where closed in favor of independence my friends list still shows a lot of signs of players that never came back after that day of closure 
So i really doubt that in 12 months time wo's old servers will suddenly go the way of the dino

See now the main thing we have to realize sure of those 3290 logins a lot are alts some are unpaid but most are paid(even though they refuse to show paid accounts anymore hey @Retrogradecan you guys have a proper look at https://www.wurmpedia.com/index.php/Server_graphs and fix the broken stats/add a message that those stats are not maintained anymore?) yet of those how many people do we really have visiting the forums currently there are 34 people that have been active in the last 30 minutes on the forums browsing around and that number does not really change that much same goes for gl chat we had a high of 507 today(drake slaying) and we went between 216 and 451(not counting the unique hunting period) players yet you see at most 10-15 people on gl chat on average
Same here on the forums we see a small group of those players playing actually engaging here on the forums and expressing their opinion so from us vocal few yes we make it seem like doom and gloom we are the pessimistic bunch that care enough about the game to speak up and we drag each other down because of everything that happens(something bad happens pve or pvp we speak up)

But end of the day there are many many players playing who play silently who buy upkeep who buy premium who keep the game afloat and thats the same with almost every other game and sure our numbers are way lower(3k players for ea on a mmo would mean pull the plug for example) then other games but it took 4-5 years to go from 8k+ to 3.5k active accounts which yes is a big loss more then half gone but given wurms nature and its lack of ads its screw ups in the past id say its still doing quite well purely because a lot of us love the game as much as we hate the decisions that get made

Anyway end of the day if no big screw ups happen that ruin the current servers and its charm and new content slowly comes in most of those players will most likely keep sticking around sticking to their deeds doing their usual thing logging in for a hour or 2 max a day if even that paying upkeep and prem for a game they dont play that much during the week and their contributions will keep the game afloat even if steam wo doesnt do well

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If you were a new player.. and you liked what you see.. you'll try and play for a bit.. it's free.. you'd not wonder about endgame, population or other great things like that..

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1 hour ago, elentari said:

I keep trying to see things from the perspective of a new player.

 

I open up steam, find this interesting sandbox game thingy and try it out. Shortly I find out there's also a separate set of servers that aren't connected to the steam ones. And I ask myself a few questions:

1. Why are those still around?

2. Are people still playing there?

3. Will they get new people through steam?

4. What value do those servers bring vs the new fresh ones?

5. Why can't I transfer or copy my character (many games allow copying your character from one server to another if the population dies out) from the steam server to the WO legacy ones?

6. Why are they separate from the new steam servers?

 

The old servers we've been playing on for years are simply unsustainable for new people. The market is oversaturated, there are already too many skilled toons that have covered every aspect of the market. Simply put too much competition and offer, too little demand. They would be attractive from a historical/story wise point and having many pre-terraformed spots ready to build on but it would also carry a feel of what I can only describe now is "emptiness" in Wurm and lack of "true wilderness".

 

I'm worried that this over time will simply mean the old servers will be closed and characters will be given a choice to transfer to the steam ones. I simply don't see an outcome where steam will bring in an influx of players to WO. Maybe just in the beginning where there will be this sense of "new game, new discoveries" which will fizzle out in half a year where people will make the decision to stick to Wurm or quit for other games.

 

I am simply curious to ask a question of the devs and CCAR team. What are your plans for WO if in 12 months, the population keeps dropping? WU has already been abandoned, so a precedent has been set about abandoning a group of players in Wurm. It's not like it can't happen again, no matter how much wishful thinking we're trapped in.

 

Where will WO be in 12 months if the population will still be at this unhealthy level? What happens if many accounts from WO transfer to the new one and the population worsens for the legacy servers?

 

I know you guys have a lot on your plate, but a sort of manifesto detailing the big questions would be a big help. I see a lot of people asking about PvP, mechanics. I see few things related to Epic, which just reinforces the idea it's been abandoned to the wolves.

by the way the old servers are unsustainable for old timers also..

any new kid can get a 90 skill in a week or less like any other player(if they knew how to grind numbers, had ench toolset and had a few sleep powders)

 

Game needs a shift from current w/e model and idea.. into something fun to be a part of.. rather than play a farmer 24/7/365, people need entertainment, and things to do to spice their gameplay... once in a while people get burned out and take breaks from doing same over and over.. and the lack of anything new just pushes them to go do something else irl or in another game.

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New fun random activities would be great to diversify Wurm's entertainment.

 

There seems to be this mentality that all content must be player driven content, but what happens when player's don't do that? Well players quit due to lack of "new" things.

Moreover, any proposal that the devs add content is met with this argument that "Wurm's not gonna be a theme park game where everything is given out to you, etc etc". So what's the solution?

 

I've seen countless suggestions of daily or weekly random quests. And I don't mean the same missions generated for karma and SB.

 

I wonder why don't we have a quest board where players can enter into a small contract to help each other with random activities.

 

Example : "Player X requires help with prospecting for high ql copper. Rewards : He's offering to make some bulk carpentry materials such as nails and planks in exchange."

or

"Player requires aid with building a multi storey house."

 

A quest board would definitely be nice for the game. When you have a large population the message channel is spammed with chat and you can only keep track of so much. It would still be player driven content, but the devs would offer the platform to encourage it.

 

Why not centralize it?

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I really hope this stay disconnected from the old server, as I'm a new player, there are other new players I encounter daily in WU, and we'd be glad to get into the Main Game sincec it'll be a fresh start for everyone. However, connecting the old servers would just unbalance everything between new players, and old players, as there is already the huge learning gap within the new player base, it would discourage me and probably lots of other players wanting to jump into the game without feeling irrelevent..

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2 hours ago, DragonNoir said:

I really hope this stay disconnected from the old server, as I'm a new player, there are other new players I encounter daily in WU, and we'd be glad to get into the Main Game sincec it'll be a fresh start for everyone. However, connecting the old servers would just unbalance everything between new players, and old players, as there is already the huge learning gap within the new player base, it would discourage me and probably lots of other players wanting to jump into the game without feeling irrelevent..

I guess, every new players can say the same if they start after a year or two, on thise new servers. So i hope they keep up opening new servers to make the new players feel relevant. Especially after they do massive changes here and there.

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7 hours ago, elentari said:

I keep trying to see things from the perspective of a new player.

 

I open up steam, find this interesting sandbox game thingy and try it out. Shortly I find out there's also a separate set of servers that aren't connected to the steam ones. And I ask myself a few questions:

 

People playing via Steam will still go trough the same tutorial, and will be able to choose to go to the current servers or the new ones via portal at the end of the tutorial.

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16 minutes ago, atazs said:

People playing via Steam will still go trough the same tutorial, and will be able to choose to go to the current servers or the new ones via portal at the end of the tutorial.

While that is true, in one of Wurm streams Retro has said that they will be promoting the new server for new players as a better place to start.

I hope there will be unbiased comparison of the environments that await the new player, whether they choose new or old world; and not just a sign "Start here" pointing to the new server and somewhere in small subscript "or you can choose the meh servers, whatever".

When I listen to our Wurm streamers introducing the game to viewers, there's always something along the lines "and this is just one server, but we have EIGHT of them, eight ISLANDS, and we can travel to ALL of them; no loading screens, no different logins, just sail out to the sea and soon you see land again"

 

To keep it sort of on topic

Quote

Q: Will the new servers eventually be connected to the old ones?
A: This depends on many factors, and is not something we can answer at this point. We are definitely not looking at connecting them any time soon, but it’s a possibility in the future.

I have the feeling that nobody in the team really wants to talk about that topic (speculations are sensitive, I know), but is there, or could there be a public list of all the currently known factors?

90-skills will be on new market in not too long, is there anything other than market health that strongly speaks against the merge?

If those people start asking for a new server (oh yes, they will, give it a year) - then what? :)

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Absolutely hyped for this new release, same as my gang. Trying to get people to play again, hopefully the launch will go well.

 

Only got one complaint - that it isn't coming sooner. Spamming deeds on the build planner can only pass so much time.

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10 hours ago, elentari said:

I keep trying to see things from the perspective of a new player.

 

I open up steam, find this interesting sandbox game thingy and try it out. Shortly I find out there's also a separate set of servers that aren't connected to the steam ones.

 

I think the greatest source of confusion for new players that join through Steam will be from the usage of the phrase "steam server" because that phrase is misleading. There is no such thing as a "steam server" for WO. (Devs should release the name of the new servers to avoid the use of this phrase and hence create more confusion for vets and new players alike). Anyone using Steam or the current launcher will be able to create a character to join any server, just as it is now. Steam is a promotional tool to bring in new players, it does not represent an independent version or server of the game the way WU does.

 

1 hour ago, Shmeric said:

I have the feeling that nobody in the team really wants to talk about that topic [connecting old servers to the new] :)

 

 

I've seen it addressed more than once and at least once in this thread though the thread is growing and I get that some posts get skipped. Is there a staff tracker on this forum to track all posts by staff? In short, they have not made up their mind yet. There is a possibility that the servers will be connected in the future.  But they are going to need data over time in the form of populations and popularity and since the server it not yet live, there is no way to measure that. How long did it take for previous new servers to be connected to the older servers? Xan for example? However long that took, is probably how long it would take to for staff to make a decision about it regarding the new server, minimum.

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4 hours ago, Shmeric said:

While that is true, in one of Wurm streams Retro has said that they will be promoting the new server for new players as a better place to start.

 

And that is true.

 

It will be the server with the most people for a long while

Everyone will be starting from 1 skills, giving newbs and veterans a mostly equal chance

New players will be able to find friends, a community and places to settle more easily

They will be less lost when entering the world

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2 hours ago, Whane said:

 

I think the greatest source of confusion for new players that join through Steam will be from the usage of the phrase "steam server" because that phrase is misleading. There is no such thing as a "steam server" for WO. (Devs should release the name of the new servers to avoid the use of this phrase and hence create more confusion for vets and new players alike). Anyone using Steam or the current launcher will be able to create a character to join any server, just as it is now. Steam is a promotional tool to bring in new players, it does not represent an independent version or server of the game the way WU does.

 

 

 

I've seen it addressed more than once and at least once in this thread though the thread is growing and I get that some posts get skipped. Is there a staff tracker on this forum to track all posts by staff? In short, they have not made up their mind yet. There is a possibility that the servers will be connected in the future.  But they are going to need data over time in the form of populations and popularity and since the server it not yet live, there is no way to measure that. How long did it take for previous new servers to be connected to the older servers? Xan for example? However long that took, is probably how long it would take to for staff to make a decision about it regarding the new server, minimum.

Xanadu was specifically delayed, and we were given clear answers and indication that it was going to be disconnected for a very short period of time. It was about a week give or take i think.

For the new servers, they said they wont be merged anytime soon, just like Pristine/Release was.

I can't remember how long Pristine/Release were disconnected, but i'd say a year or so and we had a poll about connecting them too. I hope the devs learned from that debacle.

Any other new servers were instantly connected to the current ones.

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12 hours ago, elentari said:

I keep trying to see things from the perspective of a new player.

 

I open up steam, find this interesting sandbox game thingy and try it out. Shortly I find out there's also a separate set of servers that aren't connected to the steam ones. And I ask myself a few questions:

1. Why are those still around?

2. Are people still playing there?

3. Will they get new people through steam?

4. What value do those servers bring vs the new fresh ones?

5. Why can't I transfer or copy my character (many games allow copying your character from one server to another if the population dies out) from the steam server to the WO legacy ones?

6. Why are they separate from the new steam servers?

 

The old servers we've been playing on for years are simply unsustainable for new people. The market is oversaturated, there are already too many skilled toons that have covered every aspect of the market. Simply put too much competition and offer, too little demand.

Well I read that and thought: Yawn, another doomsaying. First: Stop the "new player perspective" imposting. You are no new player. Nor am I, though I am ways closer to my new player times than you are.

 

Some facts: I started playing two and a half years ago. At that time, average participation (estimated by /who values on logon and over playtime) was about 15-20% lower than now. It remained stable over the year but significantly dropped after the Ele3 developments, and further after the CC sale to GC which seemed to have disquieted not few. It has significantly recovered since. So all the speculations about the game, or the old servers, going titsup are not founded in reality.

 

As to the market: Reading it I thought: Yawn, another market complaint. The game ist more than market, and the presence of highly experienced players bears not only disadvantages. Wipeout perfectly described my stance towards the market: I never bought much, for a long time only used tools, armour, and weapons I could maintain myself, only hired e.g. a priest when things hat to be done I could not do myself, profited from impalongs both in getting better gear, and crafting experience. And that was and is the way I enjoyed and still love Wurm.

 

Ofc I cannot predict what will be in a year. Reading some of the contributions here I am bit worried that the new servers will be steamrolled by bored ancient and old wurmians yearning for domination which they will easily achieve over new players. Under that perspective it might be better for newcomers from steam to join the old servers.

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33 minutes ago, atazs said:

Everyone will be starting from 1 skills, giving newbs and veterans a mostly equal chance

 

Lol.

 

33 minutes ago, atazs said:

New players will be able to find friends, a community and places to settle more easily

They will be less lost when entering the world

Let us hope so.

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3 hours ago, atazs said:

And that is true.

 

It will be the server with the most people for a long while

Everyone will be starting from 1 skills, giving newbs and veterans a mostly equal chance

New players will be able to find friends, a community and places to settle more easily

They will be less lost when entering the world

 

Pretty sure everyone will be lost on the new map, with no landmarks, signage  other than starting deed

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5 hours ago, Jeston said:

 

Pretty sure everyone will be lost on the new map, with no landmarks, signage  other than starting deed

You forget ingame map i highly doubt they will do a jackal move and not include a map if they do they will shoot themselves in the foot on that part(people's experience of "oh we have a map icon but no map" and so on thinking)
As for the rest this might just be me but getting around the place isnt really that hard for me specifically on reading tiles+compass direction from either starting town or compass i have but this is just me i know plenty who get loss even when following the existing highways

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8 hours ago, Jeston said:

 

Pretty sure everyone will be lost on the new map, with no landmarks, signage  other than starting deed

 

2 hours ago, wipeout said:

You forget ingame map i highly doubt they will do a jackal move and not include a map if they do they will shoot themselves in the foot on that part(people's experience of "oh we have a map icon but no map" and so on thinking) ..

You are both right. I predict a storm of complaints that there is no "radar" showing players and mobs around, no "GPS" showing where exactly you are on the map right now.

 

Ok the seasoned wurmians taking over the new server (unless they drown in newbies which would not be a bad thing) could do it right this time: Adding grid coord information to every, especially coastal, guard tower and similar lasting structure (bridges, beacons, colossi etc.) . That might help a bit. There once was a sound proposal to add a "Where are we here?" or so question to tower guards context menu giving grid information of some sort.

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People need to be told and made aware in the tutorial of how the ingame map works and what it doesnt do

Edited by nitram20
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1 hour ago, nitram20 said:

People need to be told and made aware in the tutorial of how the ingame map works and what it doesnt do

This has been mentioned with every tutorial rework so far but was never really brought up in any of them

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A suggestion for crossing between servers:

 

Have all portals from the new PvE server lead to the starter deed portal on the PvP server, NOT to a player-made portal.

 

This helps to avoid the issue that you have with Epic portals, where upon raiding a deed, people are able to "teleport" from Freedom straight to the deed being raided. The Epic portal situation also encourages part time PvP'ers that will only cross onto the server when PvP is happening, which isn't healthy for the server (a consistently higher population leads to more people sticking around in the long term).

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3 hours ago, BrokenSanity said:

A suggestion for crossing between servers:

 

Have all portals from the new PvE server lead to the starter deed portal on the PvP server, NOT to a player-made portal.

 

This helps to avoid the issue that you have with Epic portals, where upon raiding a deed, people are able to "teleport" from Freedom straight to the deed being raided. The Epic portal situation also encourages part time PvP'ers that will only cross onto the server when PvP is happening, which isn't healthy for the server (a consistently higher population leads to more people sticking around in the long term).

Or make it so that when you try to teleport to the pvp server and enemies are within 1 local around the deed itself(not around the portal) it tells you that the gods wont let you

If you get forced to teleport to start towns every time then people will just build deeds around the starting towns right outside of starter town influence or just stick to freedom kingdom and you wont really see many far away deeds from the kingdoms who have a big player base of people who play on both servers
Or teleport to nearest deed with a portal so that you still have to travel from a deed with no enemies in local to the deed that is being raided vs popping into the deed that is being raided

Your idea although fine would be a discouragement to players who mainly pve yet want to pvp at times from participating in defenses of deeds or even joining kingdoms

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Edit: to add a question someone who cant access the forums wanted to ask(just edit my post and delete this section if its seen as bad)

The question is as follows "will staff be allowed to pvp on the new pvp server"

Now my addon to that is that there is a mentality that comes from other games(and as we are trying to draw in new players) of "oh the staff/gms are playing in pvp on this faction/kingdom/side ya no thanks i will pass i dont want that unfair treatment and favoritism" which based on wurms long long history of all the people who have been gm's and dev's and the weird stuff that went on shows that this has happened in the past and is bound to happen again if allowed
From gm/staff exploiting bugs too sticky situations where gm's are put in the position where they have to choose loyalty to the kingdom or their position because of bug reports too using gm powers to give a kingdom an unfair advantage/access to unreleased content so that they can adapt quicker
To show an example of the last one
A long and i mean a long time ago a dev(not going to name any names here <3) was working on a update that would change the damage of a weapon and they shared that info with a friend who then shared it with their kingdom and that kingdom was able to prepare for the change and swap their weapons on day 1 and get multiple wipes and drained multiple deeds as a result

So for the sake of not repeating the past again in order to favor a kingdom can we please have such a rule that prevents staff from being part of the pvp server and its kingdoms so that the pvp server will be players vs players and not players vs players and their dev buddies?

No bashing no nothing is intended with this edit it is just an question that really needs to be asked as i think with wurms history and the prospect of clean slate pvp it might entice people who are currently on the fence it might show them "hey so gm's will not interfere or be part of kingdoms at all unless bugs happen oh nice a actual wild wild west with no ingame rules against grieving and the likes"

Edited by wipeout
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"For the new servers, they said they wont be merged anytime soon, just like Pristine/Release was. "

 

This is what we are worried about. Pristine/Release were merged after only 12 months, if this new server gets merged in the first 5 years then I will be most upset.

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1 hour ago, zCat said:

"For the new servers, they said they wont be merged anytime soon, just like Pristine/Release was. "

 

This is what we are worried about. Pristine/Release were merged after only 12 months, if this new server gets merged in the first 5 years then I will be most upset.

why?

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1 hour ago, zCat said:

"For the new servers, they said they wont be merged anytime soon, just like Pristine/Release was. "

 

This is what we are worried about. Pristine/Release were merged after only 12 months, if this new server gets merged in the first 5 years then I will be most upset.

I will be upset if there is no new server for me then, if i am left with 10 people on 10 servers and want to start new after a year from now.

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