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Old Freedom Isles is turning into Epic - A veteran's perspective

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I feel this kind of fear that old cluster will die away is abit too early. its only 1 month from steam launch. Lets see again in half year or year. Myself i was in new cluster for 3 weeks without playing my main because motherboard died and laptop couldnt not handle inde deed. now i multibox both with new motherboard and cpu. 

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55 minutes ago, Ekcin said:

Where are your last year figures from? I have no official data available, but all my counts from my log files are telling me you are wrong. Granted, I have only those from current server on login, data on crossing, and sparsely a / who inbetween. And mind you yourself were predicting the login count falling under 200 by end of 19.

 

In addition, the predictions, by you among others, told that on opening of steam servers, Freedomers would abandon the servers in droves. Where is this decrease then, now? Honestly, I was somewhat astonished myself, that not more let their Freedom character sleep for a while for the new server experience (and to dominate the newbies :) ) . I had expected some significant, albeit temporary, decrease, and am bit astonished myself that it is nor the case. Jackal hit us harder ;) .

 

My figures from last year are pulled from my logs using a grep command.

 

The big fear was that new player influx would not outweigh old player attrition on the old cluster; so far there is too little data to tell how that is going.  However, early data suggests that this is not the case.

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1 hour ago, Etherdrifter said:

My figures from last year are pulled from my logs using a grep command.

Impressive. You logged in on all servers all peak times every day?

1 hour ago, Etherdrifter said:

The big fear was that new player influx would not outweigh old player attrition on the old cluster; so far there is too little data to tell how that is going.  However, early data suggests that this is not the case.

As said, Jackal hit us harder, I have master crafters in my ally who have a good laugh about the dead market, in fact are sometimes cursing the amount of orders. In fact, the impact of Jackal was felt more, the business significantly cooled down then. Therefore I don't see so far that the stable, even rising numbers stem mainly from new players' influx. Sadly.

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I am waiting to see the actual numbers on the new servers at the 90 days post launch point. Based on observations in WU that's where many people are usually past the initial "build a house/first deed" stage in Wurm. Retention usually becomes a problem at that point.

 

The new cluster hasn't reached that time point yet.

Edited by Nappy

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52 minutes ago, Nappy said:

I am waiting to see the actual numbers on the new servers at the 90 days post launch point. Based on observations in WU that's where many people are usually past the initial "build a house/first deed" stage in Wurm. Retention usually becomes a problem at that point.

 

The new cluster hasn't reached that time point yet.

The difference now is that it's much easier to discover the game. It's out there on steam. The game being on steam increases discoverability of Wurm by 10x at least.

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3 hours ago, Ekcin said:

Impressive. You logged in on all servers all peak times every day?

Actually, fun fact "/who" gives both your server population and global population.  In this case, global is sufficient to compare.

 

3 hours ago, Ekcin said:

As said, Jackal hit us harder,

 

I'd love to see your numbers on that ;)

 

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Lets see how steam is still doing in 6 months or a year.  To all the people who want to shut down the old servers why do you care? Just play on the new ones and dont worry about us on the old ones. Think if they shut down everybody would just run right over to steam and join your little deeds? Lets see lose  toons, deeds and all the stuff they have grinded / accumulated and paid for over the years (12 years for me)  yeah they would never get another penny from me.

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This might have been said one way or another before but calm the hell down already

The south isnt dying the tiny bit lower then normal player count is purely because just like with jackal and challenge and any big event(even epic relaunches) players make new toons or take over existing toons(jackal) and play there for a month or 2 before they get bored and want to do big projects again or go back to a toon that feels good to their history, this happens every god dam time and every time someone is yelling doom and gloom but they fail to realize that wurm is a long term game they look at month 2 of new server player counts and that same month on the old servers and go "oh old servers are dying we must do something to make changes force players together or something we must do something" and start freaking out and over what? a tiny dip in an already lower player count?

Like so what they will come back they will most likely let their new toon die off sooner then later once the new feeling is over and they will run back to their existing toons and pick up a project again and feel happy its just how we wurmians are in general
Looking at my cele alliance there is an actual 10% increase(4 players but still) of players who are now back to wurm who had quit before and are playing on cele that number might not be big especially not compared to the new servers but we are active we talk in alliance we talk in freedom chat and we enjoy the peace and quiet while we can talk about whatever without worry(and i do mean whatever freedom chat sometimes gets really really really weird with its idea's(nothing rule breaking)) about scaring of players or anything like that

Given time the servers will balance out a lot of the new players will loose interest when the flavor of the month game changes again and when streamers and yt content creators move on and when they themselves get bored of wurm some will let their deeds decay others will put in money for a year of upkeep and just disappear and check up after a few months to see if they feel like playing again and some might even be interested in going to the old servers to have a look there as why not?

Something that i think a lot of people here on the forums seem to forget is that new players start out with 7s and 100% creation on bricks and planks and nails and such they start out in relatively mob free area's(sadly) their biggest concern is not making money in playing in the economy their biggest concern is making their own little place in the spot they picked and hunting for resources to try and find what they need and in the end a lof of them quit after planting their tent and making the start of a house(both decay really quickly as ql 1-10) or make a deed and forget to throw silver into it(as its never explained) and log of for the day and forget to log back into wurm but those who stick around and build that small percentage they will be the ones making their beautiful deeds and infrastructure to support future new players
Just like we have done in the south

But is the south dying? no. why? its simple no one is doing a mad dash to abandon ship on the south sure some are playing a new toon for the time being but almost everyone isnt going to restart and throw away years of playing just to start from the start again and never touch their old toon ever again(like hell id throw away 16k usd just to make my wurm time hard)
Is there a dip in players on the south currently? im sure there is a small one but it wont be a long term one that will lead to the south becoming epic where no one plays on it at all as epics main issue was resets coupled with stupid mechanics and broken features and bad ideas

In the end be happy that all those new players are living on the new servers where they can build away to their hearts content and not destroy your precious tree farms and off deed animal pens

So please stop spreading doom and gloom about how the south is dying if anything here let me leave a quote for you "South shall rise again" retrograde -2020 and i agree with that statement southern freedom isles will rise to become more popular as the new servers mature and people learn more about the game and some realize that playing on an established server with a lot of player lore is more fun for them and some will make the switch permanently and some temp just like we made the switch temp to play on the new ones and help out the newbies

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17 hours ago, Radni said:

The difference now is that it's much easier to discover the game. It's out there on steam. The game being on steam increases discoverability of Wurm by 10x at least.

You raise a good point although WU has been on Steam since Nov 2015 I think.

 

My focus is more on the retention aspect. In WU at least a lot of people seemed to disappear after building their first house or getting a deed started. That was usually less then 90 days for most.

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Deli is quiet yes, but not empty, there are several new 'family and/or friends' groups of new players in the South and around the SE coast, and they are very active.

 

I also think there are an increasing number of players using discord rather than public chat, I have noticed a few missing names in freedom chat, true, but I know from my friends list that they are still coming online and playing on Deli.

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2 hours ago, Nappy said:

You raise a good point although WU has been on Steam since Nov 2015 I think.

 

My focus is more on the retention aspect. In WU at least a lot of people seemed to disappear after building their first house or getting a deed started. That was usually less then 90 days for most.

He is right though. WU was wonky stuff mainly for single user game player. Creating a server is something intimidating for most players. So far, WU hardly was an advertisement for a MMO not even available on steam.

 

As to retention, we shall see. I am sure that not few players give up after some time. But creating a deed already is a sign for at least some retention.

 

19 minutes ago, Muse said:

Deli is quiet yes, but not empty, there are several new 'family and/or friends' groups of new players in the South and around the SE coast, and they are very active. ..

Bold newcomers, or is the troll infestation in the southwest gone? :) Last halloween the Soutwest looked like all illuminated by green lanterns in the night.

Edited by Ekcin
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We just moved to the south west of indy. Other day on a trip we spotted no less than 10 trolls at one spot. Several times we have run into gangs of 4 or 5.  On the plus side ive gone from 50 to 70+ fighting finally. Must be a sw thing

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10 hours ago, Eleraan said:

We just moved to the south west of indy. Other day on a trip we spotted no less than 10 trolls at one spot. Several times we have run into gangs of 4 or 5.  On the plus side ive gone from 50 to 70+ fighting finally. Must be a sw thing

I live also around SW of Indy and there is alot of trolls around all the time. they come hunt me at my deed.

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Freedom has been slowly going the way of epic with dwindling numbers. And while the overall player base is high right now because of the new fresh servers combined with a new audience from steam, Wurm is still the same game it was before the steam release.

 

So unless the devs add some great content, the new servers will follow the route of epic and freedom, or i guess there is always an Epic Games Store release they can try in a few year.

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On 8/19/2020 at 7:24 PM, blameping said:

The Devs aren't forcing people to play on the new servers. Have you guys maybe thought that it's a terrible experience for new players to join a server where everyone has high skills? What's the point of playing in the southern freedom isles and spending hours and hours grinding blacksmithing to 50 when you can just buy 70ql enchanted tools for copper? The only opportunity for new players to earn money on the old servers is by bulk making bricks etc. And even that can be done faster by veterans using alts with higher skills and WoA tools.

 

Even though there's tons of "available" space on old servers it's all been terraformed already. Just because the deed expired doesn't mean the land is unsettled. Why would people want to play in the ruins of someone else's deed instead of carving out a section of the wilderness to make their own? The way the game works, the gap between veterans and new players is just too large for any noobs to feel like they are contributing to the game in any meaningful way. How could the devs fix this? 

 

These, exactly, are two of the three reasons I stopped playing WO after a few months back in 2015. Buying or scavenging rare high ql stuff, and the difficulty of finding decent pristine land (not inland Lagadu), didn't appeal to me. Had WU attracted more long term players I would still be there.

 

SFI has been dying, I mean receding, for many years because of internal issues. If it's going to be affected by anything related to NFI it's only because enough players from the south simply prefer to make a fresh start in the north. Nothing wrong with that. This game becomes stale and kind of pointless when there's no progression.

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The only way the southern islands get population again is if they made skill gains and action timers faster.  Then all of a sudden you would see everyone from the northern on the southern lol

 

Really the dev's should have come up with some creative solutions to the economy instead of releasing brand new servers but that's a bit of hoping for too much.

Edited by sweatygopher

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1 hour ago, sweatygopher said:

The only way the southern islands get population again is if they made skill gains and action timers faster.  Then all of a sudden you would see everyone from the northern on the southern lol

You mean like Epic? Yeah, people are flocking there in droves.

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On 8/22/2020 at 8:50 AM, Ame said:

I live also around SW of Indy and there is alot of trolls around all the time. they come hunt me at my deed.

Is that new? I had a healthy number of trolls to hunt today (even 2 champs among them). Though it is not totally unusual for the northwest of Xanadu where I live I felt it is bit more now. But the times I came to Indy I felt the whole south relatively calm, albeit not as calm as the south of Xanadu.

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6-day averages (I'd provide 7 day averages but I'm going away tomorrow for a week and I wanted to get a post off)

 

Populations on the old cluster

 

Average of Daily Minimums: 118.8333333

Average: 222.4615385

Average of Daily Maximums: 324.3333333

 

In terms of old cluster health, this isn't actually too bad; the number indicates that we've not gained players, be we've not lost too many.  Compared to last summer, we're down about 80--100 players on average, we're not sub 200 on average mind (pretty damn close though).  We appear to be worse off than we were last year based on these numbers (and remember, we're still at a peak if you look at the Release/Pristine data, the drop off won't have hit yet); a definite indicator that the last 12 months have not been kind to the old cluster, though what the cause of this decline was is not really easy to tell.

 

What can we reasonably conclude about the health of the old cluster with regard to the impact of the new cluster?  Too soon to tell really; once I have a month's worth of data I can start to draw some actual conclusions.  The plan is to compare values by day (so compare all mondays, compare all tuesdays etc), possibly even the individual hours of those weekdays.  However it is worth noting the following....

 

1.  I've not accounted for unique slayings; I plan to mine niarja for the times/dates do I can match them against my data and see what impact they have on population.

2.  I've not accounted for server reboots except to eyeball oddly high numbers between one server and another.  I'll see if I can mine this from somewhere (maybe wurm's twitter) and, again, see how long it takes for populations to resume normal levels after a reboot.

3.  The entries for the 21st are missing one, likely because the server was down when I polled it.  Going to tweak my bot to add a full timestamp so I can spot which one it is next time!

4.  I've assumed that a popular streamer being online does not impact population, I may be wrong in this assumption.

5.  School holidays are ending this coming week, and I'll need to assess what kind of impact this has on wurm population.  Not too sure how to account for this factor and may just have to note it for the study.

 

Also, for those of you who wanted to know....

 

Populations on the new cluster

 

Average of Daily Minimums: 732   (6.16x the old cluster)

Average: 1293.366667  (5.81x the old cluster)

Average of Daily Maximums: 1734.5  (5.35x the old cluster)

 

 

The new cluster is quite a bit more crowded than the old cluster, and this seems to indicate good health here.  Even if it loses half its player base, it will still be in a good position [it's average minimum would still be above the average maximum of the old cluster].

 

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Yet another off topic. Lots of unverifiable assertions in the wrong thread. Rude behaviour again. Try to read what a thread is about. Consider to move it to an appropriate thread.

Edited by Ekcin
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"Old Freedom Isles is turning into Epic - A veteran's perspective"

 

Sounds like the right thread to me.

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Just my opinion, but I do think one difference between a lot of Freedom Servers players and Epic, though, is that on Epic you literally expect the possibility that your hard work can be destroyed, your items taken, that there is no permanence. Even the home servers get raided.  Deeds are smashed, items are stolen and remade, etc. It's hard to be super attached to one place and such when you know it can be gone. Versus on Freedom Isles (PvE of course, not Chaos)  you are almost 100% guaranteed that your things will still be there when you log back in (as long as it hasn't been awhile and your upkeep is paid, or untrustworthy people have permissions), you can guarantee that your buildings are still there, that your rares placed where everyone can see will still be there, etc, and it's much easier to get attached to a place and your things when you can reliably expect them to be there. People on SFI can be very attached to their deeds and their belongings, and yes I'm sure that happened with some on Epic too, but not everyone is going to want to leave years (in some cases, a decade) of things built and collected to play on a new cluster. I for one, created a new character during the hype of NFI starting because my best friend was going, spent 45 minutes there total about, and have happily gone back to Indy since with pretty much no intention of ever going back unless they are merged and I can go on my real toon to explore and visit. I have even noticed a lot of my alliance mates and friends coming back to SFI after a month in NFI. Just like Jackal. Freedom was empty for a month or two, and then people got bored and filtered back to the comfort of their deeds, their belongings, and their skills. Of course, not all will return but I do not see the majority of the SFI population ditching it in favor of NFI.

 

 

Also, as a CA paying attention in SFI chats as well as living on the first server people spawn into (Inde) and therefor seeing them in Freedom chat, I do see a LOT of new players starting out in the southern cluster as well.

Edited by DemonaNightshade
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30 minutes ago, DemonaNightshade said:

[02:31:03] <Gumbo> NASA called.. they'd like you to turn down your deed Demona  :)      [02:31:11] <Demonanightshade> NEVER :D

Also +1 to your signature :P 

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1 minute ago, Fairyshine said:

Also +1 to your signature :P 

Lol I feel like you can totally relate with your beautiful colorful deed as well <33

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On 8/22/2020 at 1:50 AM, Ame said:

I live also around SW of Indy and there is alot of trolls around all the time. they come hunt me at my deed.

We've had them walk right up and smack a meditating player. After our last big purge 200-300 hostile mobs it was quiet-ish for a few days. Saw maybe 6 or 7 while getting some apples. 

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