Wilderness server for hunting and exploration

[Vorticella 958]

Since the steam release there has been seemingly endless complaining and arguing over mob spawns and people deeding over steppe/desert hunting grounds. The typical suggestions to deal with this are usually along the lines of adding caps, limits, and penalties to player activities like horse breeding. Here's a new idea: release a wilderness server. Players can visit the wild server to hunt and gather resources, but cannot claim land. Any buildings, fences, items left lying around would decay quickly. Terraforming should not be allowed here; no highways, canals, boat tunnels etc, to maintain a true wilderness and give the feeling of being on a remote expedition far from civilization. Those first few days riding across the pristine rolling grasslands on Cadence were magical, before the fences, hard lines and jagged edges showed up, and the wild horses were scooped up and locked behind fences or shipped off to other servers. Sure there is still plenty of open land there, but it's never long before you run into signs of human activity. I had so much fun in those first few days. The raw wilderness experience was thrilling, and I feel a sense of loss now that it's gone. When Cadence opened, people who had already settled on the first northern servers and were struggling with scarcity immediately started using it as a "hunting server", so it's not an entirely new concept. I think this would be a much more positive approach to solving some of the conflicts that come up around resources, especially animals.

 

[PotatoOnStick 84]

a dedicated server sounds a bit too much in my eyes. I would prefer a designated zone per server that is listed as 'Hunting zone' so to say. As having another server would just make this messier rather then making current servers more interesting.

[nicedreams 1,035]

Been suggested a few times by myself and others.  I'd like to see Jackal be the hunting server with skills being 1:1 transfer between servers.  There are missions, new mobs to fight, new wood types, new mounts and was really cool except I didn't like when they released it you had to start over from zero skill.  Should just be advanced hunting server with unique stuff to do for experienced (higher fighting level) players.

 

Add some of the PvP features like random battle camps where different Alliances can compete and even battle each other except no looting when you kill someone.  That zone would be small and a time introduced event.  Hoping more people would be involved if they knew their wasn't a chance to lose your best gear to someone on death.  I mean you still have to go find and loot your own body though, but wouldn't be loot-able by others.  If they did do something like this I'd like to see some GuildWars 2 style PvP where all gear is zero'd out and everyone has almost even stats.  Only for the small zones on hunting servers.

 

Do some old school Chaos type stuff where if there's a bunch of people fighting there is a chance for Spirit Dragons (or drake or whatever they were called) or No Gumps to appear and start attacking everyone.

[Vorticella 958]

49 minutes ago, PotatoOnStick said:

As having another server would just make this messier rather then making current servers more interesting.

 

Why would it be messier to have a dedicated server? For one thing, it's hard to imagine anyone being okay with large areas of existing lands suddenly being off-limits for settlement, and with deeds, roads and landmarks scattered all over, it's unlikely there would even be suitable space out there, and forcing people off their settlements is obviously not an option. Even if all that did somehow work out, setting aside some land on existing servers would never have the same effect as a completely wild land, nor would it do anything about the creature count issues.

 

It seems far simpler and more effective to release a fresh map with special settings that people can visit from anywhere.

[PotatoOnStick 84]

36 minutes ago, Vorticella said:

Why would it be messier to have a dedicated server? For one thing, it's hard to imagine anyone being okay with large areas of existing lands suddenly being off-limits for settlement, and with deeds, roads and landmarks scattered all over, it's unlikely there would even be suitable space out there, and forcing people off their settlements is obviously not an option. Even if all that did somehow work out, setting aside some land on existing servers would never have the same effect as a completely wild land, nor would it do anything about the creature count issues.

 

It seems far simpler and more effective to release a fresh map with special settings that people can visit from anywhere.

 

It would be easier and simpler to make a dedicated server yes. This is undeniable, The reason i do not want to see it is simple why would you make an entire server for 1 goal? It is a waste of Wurm's resources. Taking the time to survey dedicated area's on existing servers for dedicated 'Hunting grounds' would take more time. But on the flip side you got a new point of interest like a landmark. Also just picking a random spot is a dumb move we all know that. For your argument that there is no suitable space out there is in my eyes a poor choice of words. I can think of at least 6 sites ready for such a zone which is just on Deliverance. 

[Badvoc 204]

Just now, PotatoOnStick said:

 

It would be easier and simpler to make a dedicated server yes. This is undeniable, The reason i do not want to see it is simple why would you make an entire server for 1 goal? It is a waste of Wurm's resources. Taking the time to survey dedicated area's on existing servers for dedicated 'Hunting grounds' would take more time. But on the flip side you got a new point of interest like a landmark. Also just picking a random spot is a dumb move we all know that. For your argument that there is no suitable space out there is in my eyes a poor choice of words. I can think of at least 6 sites ready for such a zone which is just on Deliverance. 

 

I Understand what your saying and on the larger servers that could work, but the likes of Melody very little places to be a hunting zone.

 

A small island connected to the others size of melody with no deeding allowed for hunting would be a great idea and a reason to travel, explore.

[PotatoOnStick 84]

Just now, Badvoc said:

 

I Understand what your saying and on the larger servers that could work, but the likes of Melody very little places to be a hunting zone.

 

A small island connected to the others size of melody with no deeding allowed for hunting would be a great idea and a reason to travel, explore.

 

Your point is logical i honestly did not think about the new cluster as i do not really interact with it. For the old cluster though i still stand with my point.

[Vorticella 958]

10 hours ago, PotatoOnStick said:

 

It would be easier and simpler to make a dedicated server yes. This is undeniable, The reason i do not want to see it is simple why would you make an entire server for 1 goal? It is a waste of Wurm's resources. Taking the time to survey dedicated area's on existing servers for dedicated 'Hunting grounds' would take more time. But on the flip side you got a new point of interest like a landmark. Also just picking a random spot is a dumb move we all know that. For your argument that there is no suitable space out there is in my eyes a poor choice of words. I can think of at least 6 sites ready for such a zone which is just on Deliverance. 

 

I appreciate what you're saying, but if you can think of that many suitable sites on Deli, then I feel like you're not quite on the same page with what I'm thinking about here. It's about having a completely wild land where you can roam deep into raw wilderness for days without encountering highways and fences, terraforming and "that would be illegal here". As for hunting, I don't know exactly how it works with creature counts, but if it's true that animals on deeds count against the total mob populations on the server, then putting aside zones on the existing servers wouldn't accomplish anything.

[TheTrickster 2,284]

I wondered about the idea of a hunting reserve when I was still on Indy.  I was on only a small island, and though maybe a chunk in the middle (had some steppe, some forest, a little desert and even some mountain) could be fenced off, but with lots of no-lock gates.  The critters don't wander outside of the reserve area but player characters can travel in/out/through at will.  The main thing stopping me from attempting it was my poor skills and a daunting prospect of imping and maintaining a huge fenceline.

 

Now, I have since learned about hedges  😃.   A border of hedges around a "reserve" area and some gates to get in and out.  I don't know how to stop people from deeding in it, thought, apart from having it already deeded (expensive) or lots of sheds dotted about (ugly).  I am sure there is a way to get this to work within the current mechanics of the game; I just haven't figured it out yet.

[Minnie 178]

I love this idea so much.  I could not agree more with this:

 

On 12/3/2020 at 10:32 AM, Vorticella said:

Those first few days riding across the pristine rolling grasslands on Cadence were magical, before the fences, hard lines and jagged edges showed up, and the wild horses were scooped up and locked behind fences or shipped off to other servers. Sure there is still plenty of open land there, but it's never long before you run into signs of human activity. I had so much fun in those first few days. The raw wilderness experience was thrilling, and I feel a sense of loss now that it's gone.

 

My experience when Cadence opened was the same, and I also had a blast running around Melody on a newbie alt right after it launched.  It saddens me that I may not get to experience that again, or at least not for many years.  The more developed and familiar the new servers become, they less I enjoy them, to be honest.  On Cadence you could ride almost anywhere before major terraforming started happening.  As more and more deeds and roads go up, exploring becomes less of a joy and more of an annoyance.  Terraforming is both a huge draw and a huge drawback of the game.

 

I would absolutely love to see a new server with no terraforming.  Not really sure about the no-deeding thing though—personally I would very strongly prefer to be able to brand at least one horse (maybe to the starter deed?) in order to be able to more easily find my corpse if I died.  Also, without deeds, the server would clearly not bring in as much income, and there might need to be some way to compensate for that loss.

[Ekcin 2,407]

If you want hunting grounds on SFI, northern Xanadu is waiting for you . Mob count there is high enough to pose a threat even to well equipped experienced players. Even along a highway it is far from safe, and untouched ground extends either side off the highways if there are any.

 

That said, I do not know about all the other servers, but I recall to have run into such dense troll crowds in southwestern deli on return from rifts to my knarr that it took me several times and detours to get my cart back to my ship. Maybe it won't be a problem anymore with my recent CR but the crowd of trolls, hell hounds, and smaller mobs was scary at that time. Anyway, it was plenty of hunting opportunity   .

 

Maybe a dedicated small server solely inhabited by wildlife might be ok for the crowded NFI littered with too many deeds. Anyway, how to preserve "untouched nature"? Not allowing deeds, and consequently, highways, ok, but what about digging, mining, terraforming, paving, and building houses, and pens? How long would it take until the "hunting server" would be littered with roads and structures?

 

Generally, I would very much advocate a revival of Jackal in some way, maybe along Sindusk's proposal, or just as it has been, except for the disappointing skill transfer. 1:1 would be fine, and some safeguards would have to be taken to avoid NFI-SFI(-Epic) black marketing, especially of silvers. I have no concrete ideas about the currency problem, but think that a Jackal revival in some way would be the best solution, and would create a new sense of unity between NFI and SFI.

[Ecrir 887]

On 12/3/2020 at 5:20 PM, PotatoOnStick said:

a dedicated server sounds a bit too much in my eyes. I would prefer a designated zone per server that is listed as 'Hunting zone' so to say. As having another server would just make this messier rather then making current servers more interesting.

 

That would simply encourage people to settle near that zone, making it really crowded there. The entire problem with hunting up north is that it's already too crowded, so I can only imagine a system like that failing for the same reasons. It would also leave even less space on those servers for deeds and such, so it makes them artificially more crowded than they are already. There's also no real way to choose a spot that's fair for everybody who already lives there, assuming there's even a large enough spot without deeds to begin with.

 

From what I've heard hunting is generally an issue on servers that are too crowded, so pretty much everything NFI, and it's not an issue on less crowded servers, so pretty much everything SFI and especially Xanadu. So the most obvious solution would be to connect the two clusters now. It's probably a bit earlier than what the devs have in mind for that, but it's inevitable, and would solve such issues quite easily as players will then be able to travel to many other servers to hunt.

[christopher 207]

a full on danger island small no deeds just fear have to boat there no cheating zappys

[TheTrickster 2,284]

2 hours ago, Ecrir said:

From what I've heard hunting is generally an issue on servers that are too crowded, so pretty much everything NFI, and it's not an issue on less crowded servers, so pretty much everything SFI and especially Xanadu. So the most obvious solution would be to connect the two clusters now. It's probably a bit earlier than what the devs have in mind for that, but it's inevitable, and would solve such issues quite easily as players will then be able to travel to many other servers to hunt.

 

I still don't understand the complaints about Cadence unless the north is simply hunted out.  I was back on Cadence just recently, in the south, and I had more critters than I could handle chase me for miles.

 

That said, the less populous servers do have large chunks of fallow land that is crawling with animals.  I really like to explore, but most of my exploration trips might as well be hunting trips for the amount of animals I have to fight just to look around.  I still haven't been to all the SFI, but on several the small islands are already very good hunting grounds.   For example, both of the 2 islands on NE Indy, although they have deeds on them, have both numbers and variety of mobs to hunt.

[Vorticella 958]

10 hours ago, Minnie said:

Not really sure about the no-deeding thing though—personally I would very strongly prefer to be able to brand at least one horse (maybe to the starter deed?) in order to be able to more easily find my corpse if I died.  Also, without deeds, the server would clearly not bring in as much income, and there might need to be some way to compensate for that loss.

 

Good points!

 

I agree about the horses, it would be nice if that mechanic was changed somehow to make inter-server travel easier all over, for example branded horses could be more like boats, with permissions locked to the character instead of server. Or maybe that server could be special so that branding carries over from the server the player came from, or something like that. I have no idea what's technically possible or feasible.

 

True that this server wouldn't bring in income like normal ones, but if it makes a big difference in player retention that could still be an argument for doing it. I wonder if another option could be to allow a limited form of deeding. For example if deeds were restricted to a small size so you just have enough space to set up a little camp, maybe a cabin and some fencing so you could keep a few animals, brand, store some stuff and a respawn point besides the tent.

 

 

[Vorticella 958]

4 minutes ago, TheTrickster said:

I still don't understand the complaints about Cadence unless the north is simply hunted out.  I was back on Cadence just recently, in the south, and I had more critters than I could handle chase me for miles.

 

It must be localized somehow, because I spent a few hours riding around the eastern side last weekend, covered a lot of ground both open and forested, and barely saw any creatures at all. It's absolutely nothing like it was in the first few weeks, not by a very long shot.