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Maoh

Northern Isles feedback

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Hello fellow wurmians! I am making this post in regards to what has happened here, and would like to know what everyone’s thoughts are on the topic.

 

I will start with my story; I joined wurm about 6 months ago back on Independence, there was no talk of steam that I was aware of just yet, and I had invested a bit of time and money into the game already, maybe 40$ on premium and some silver for fast tools.

I had heard they were releasing a new server on steam and my first thoughts were, “No, i’ve already settled here.”

On the day it was released, I had happened to login seconds from the server being down, and saw how crazy it was in discord, so I decided, why not I will give it a try. I finished tutorial and landed this nice 96 x 36 stretch right outside Harmony Bay on harmony, the first server released.

 

It was laggy. I got excited and decided to throw down quite a bit of money (250$ to be exact) on premium and loaded up on moon metals thinking it would be a good investment. There were 2000 players logged into Harmony at the time. Then they released Melody and I saw the population dramatically decrease. A bit off putting, but I will continue building here. THEN Cadence is surprised released for some reason leaving almost everybody who is left to flock to Cadence. Now it’s become almost sad and lonely on the original server that was released? I have already invested so I’m not moving, but now I have to deal with a dead server. 

 

I am starting to wonder if it was all just a big money sink¿ There were players who had 5 alts all with premium, linking and abusing sleep bonus. Now we have players with 99 channeling already and 90+ woodcutting, where the players who did it fairly / were not paying attention to these bugs are getting left behind. 

Edited by Maoh
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Hmm, I have different experience on landing on Harmony. I have played over 7 years on SFI and decided to start fresh, because I love to start fresh. I started on the first day, though it was laggy, I totally understood the reasons behind it. Devs pushed so many updates in so short time, basically daily in the beginning. Yes, two other servers were opened, but they explained that there were no good spots to deed anymore and especially the beaches were crowded and claimed already. So others wouldn't get a chance to find a perfect spot for them. I haven't found Harmony too dead, I have played and heard on places and servers where the definition of dead server is actually only few people on the whole server. 

 

I totally get why people feel like Harmony has died out because of the other servers. I have a pleasant spot on Harmony which I'm more happy about than I ever was on any other deeds I've ever had. I have folks bumping into local every now and then. I have traveled across the server and seen many active deeds. Of course, also the collapsing ones, but still. I do not care about some people abusing stuff in the early games, of course that's breaking the rules, but there will always be maniac grinders to get it on the top right away even without the abuse. They do not affect my game play at all and I haven't seen anyone dominating too much of the market or the pricing. Within few months, many others have found themselves on market and selling their stuff they have slowly grinded too. So I totally get your point of view, but I wanted to share my own experience. I'm happy on Harmony, happier than I have been in a long time on SFI. 

Edited by Kadmint
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Of course it is a money sink.  It is entertainment, not an investment  

 

From the numbers I have seen, Harmony is not dead.  It is probably a lot quieter, and the economy has probably settled down a lot, but I recall both of those being explicitly and repeatedly predicted.

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“Numbers” are alts and don’t mean anything. What really matters is, it’s impossible to build highway through deeds that haven’t allowed the option, plus have dumped 100$ worth of silver into upkeep.

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Let me get one thing straight: You don't need to abuse any bugs to have 99+ in any of the skills this time into the server. Especially with the current state of the world and a lot of people being able to be online most hours of the day. 90+ woodcutting especially is fairly easy for an experienced player.

I've really enjoyed the new servers, though I have spent almost all of my time in the north on one of them: Defiance. I never really spent any time on Harmony, and instead I hopped over to Melody when that opened and now Cadence if I ever feel like playing on the PvE side of things. All of the new servers, even Harmony, seem a lot more alive than the proper old servers and there's always someone I can wander into. It's not packed like it was in the beginning, but I'm sure nobody wants to have their deed literally surrounded by other deeds.

Help me understand what you're trying to say. The Northern isles are still a lot different from the Southern isles.

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The note in the tutorial is still there saying Harmony is overcrowded so you should start on a newer server (Melody, Cadence) instead.

 

In my opinion this declaration should be removed.  It's simply not true.  With Harmony being where I play on the Northern Freedom Isles, I know there is still plenty of room for new players to set up house and a reasonable deed.  Maybe not prime in every single feature of the surroundings, but certainly there are many reasonable locations still remaining.

 

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i'd imagine the 99 channeling thing is more due to like 5 months of time to grind, nobody had over 80 when they butchered links, 90 skill is pretty easy to get if you grind all day due to being at home coz of covid and stuff

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There is just so many deeds now that people aren’t playing anymore, my place is one of those places that is literally surrounded by deeds, and they are all dead, nobody plays there, but they appear to have put a lot of effort into it already so you know they put money into the upkeep, they’re just straight up in the way. I am in the local for Harmony Bay and I see nobody not even 6 months after release. I’ve had more action in my local on Indy over the course of 1 day then I have in 2 weeks on Harmony.

Edited by Maoh

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2 hours ago, Tristanc said:

The note in the tutorial is still there saying Harmony is overcrowded so you should start on a newer server (Melody, Cadence) instead.

 

In my opinion this declaration should be removed.  It's simply not true.  With Harmony being where I play on the Northern Freedom Isles, I know there is still plenty of room for new players to set up house and a reasonable deed.  Maybe not prime in every single feature of the surroundings, but certainly there are many reasonable locations still remaining.

 

 

doesn't say start on melody tells new people to start on Cadence or SFI

 

its time that message was removed.

 

Healthy numbers on Harmony and Cadence not so much on Melody imo, which has the problem of small size coupled with large amount of deeds and few players, deeds are dropping and spawns have returned, so I see things getting a lot better on Melody space wise.

 

numbers were always going to drop, a lot of people came back due to the virus and being off work, 4 deeds near me all quit once work opened back up, I think we will still lose a few more but then become stable, what we really need is the devs to come out and tell us what is planned.

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If they are not playing any more their deeds will sooner or later fall. Wurm staff needs to take some steps to keep players, the idea of one way ticket from NFI to SFI was a good one, it should be done ASAP, as there are a lot of free land here. What else do you expect the Wurm staff to do? This land was paid for a particular period, meddling with this would possibly cause the community outrage. Maybe some ideas like double upkeep drain for players who did not log in last 90 days would be worth to consider. 

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1 minute ago, Platyna said:

If they are not playing any more their deeds will sooner or later fall. Wurm staff needs to take some steps to keep players, the idea of one way ticket from NFI to SFI was a good one, it should be done ASAP, as there are a lot of free land here. What else do you expect the Wurm staff to do? This land was paid for a particular period, meddling with this would possibly cause the community outrage. Maybe some ideas like double upkeep drain for players who did not log in last 90 days would be worth to consider. 

 

 

Not needed,

 

Harmony and Cadence has a lot of free space, melody is righting its self due to deed disbands which has picked up pace and now some nice spots becoming available again with houses decaying. Even the wild life is returning.

 

Now what about a one way ticket for people who made the mistake of starting on SFI to north?  That wont happen and is one reason why North to South shouldn't happen either.

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The Steam release for Wurm Online could have been executed much better.

 

1.They should have made the initial PVE server 32x32 instead of 16x16 to avoid the early server expansions.

 

2. The devs could have fixed the difficulty in finding livestock and mobs MUCH sooner, I believe this is partly the cause of new player discouragement for the game.

 

3. The channeling exploit could have been addressed MUCH sooner as well, but the devs decided to wait 3 WEEKS from the start of the new cluster, to tackle the issue and controversy about it.

 

4. The devs had a plethora of time to address server lag issues with higher player counts, this issue has been present since Xanadu first came out and they have yet to come to an effective solution for YEARS.

 

5. This ties in with #1, but the devs split the community WAY too soon. This is my opinion, but I think with our current Northern Freedom Isles PVE population, it would be nice to have everyone on the same server instead of scattered throughout.

 

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12 minutes ago, Nukacola said:

The Steam release for Wurm Online could have been executed much better.

 

1.They should have made the initial PVE server 32x32 instead of 16x16 to avoid the early server expansions.

 

2. The devs could have fixed the difficulty in finding livestock and mobs MUCH sooner, I believe this is partly the cause of new player discouragement for the game.

 

3. The channeling exploit could have been addressed MUCH sooner as well, but the devs decided to wait 3 WEEKS from the start of the new cluster, to tackle the issue and controversy about it.

 

4. The devs had a plethora of time to address server lag issues with higher player counts, this issue has been present since Xanadu first came out and they have yet to come to an effective solution for YEARS.

 

5. This ties in with #1, but the devs split the community WAY too soon. This is my opinion, but I think with our current Northern Freedom Isles PVE population, it would be nice to have everyone on the same server instead of scattered throughout.

 

A 32x32 Server on Steam Start.....?

 

That would have been the biggest disaster in Wurms History.

Look how broken and laggy Xanadu is with a few Players.....

 

My personal Opinion would be that Melody was a misstake, Harmony and Cadence alone would have been perfect.

 

 

And yes REMOVE THAT SIGN AT THE TUTORIAL PORTAL ASAP!!!!

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2 hours ago, Caduryn said:

A 32x32 Server on Steam Start.....?

 

That would have been the biggest disaster in Wurms History.

Look how broken and laggy Xanadu is with a few Players.....

 

My personal Opinion would be that Melody was a misstake, Harmony and Cadence alone would have been perfect.

 

 

And yes REMOVE THAT SIGN AT THE TUTORIAL PORTAL ASAP!!!!

 

Maybe if the devs actually cared about Xanadu and getting more new players to settle, they should fixed its major lag issues early on.

 

+1, I agree Melody was mistake, unnecessary small server that is losing players fast. It will eventually end up like Deli, Release, Exo, and Pristine.

 

+1, Remove that sign at the tutorial portal as well.

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3 hours ago, Nukacola said:

1.They should have made the initial PVE server 32x32 instead of 16x16 to avoid the early server expansions.

 

Xanadu is an experiment of 32x32 size, and there is a major problem with lag even at 100 players there, 1000 players would blow up the machine along with the data centre it is in. 😉 

 

3 hours ago, Caduryn said:

2. The devs could have fixed the difficulty in finding livestock and mobs MUCH sooner, I believe this is partly the cause of new player discouragement for the game.

 

There are games where live stock is a lot harder to get than in Wurm, even with all the issues it is still easier to get. 

 

What I think was a mistake is making a separate cluster, one additional PVP server was indeed needed. I know it was an attempt to balance the economy (which isn't that bad in Wurm, in fact it is one of best I have ever seen, and I have written economy systems for several games), but there only few months passed, and they have all kind of rares, channelling 99 priests, dragon slayings etc. 

 

Currently, we have 952 players which is 79 players per server, and we have several servers where there are 9-15 people online. Considering the steam reviews I think new players would benefit from a contact with old ones, who would help them to get into game that isn't easy for a newcomer. 

Edited by Platyna
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Just to say: Player numbers never were an issue on Xanadu, and 1000 players simultaneously exceeded quite a couple of times. Lag and latency issues (about which non-Xanaduers are ranting and whining even if they did not set foot on the server for years but never hindered Xanadu to have the largest population of "the old servers") are due to polling of tiles, items, and creatures (6 digit numbers of them) and items (7 digit numbers or more), their movements, aging, decay (of items) all time in a single threaded engine. 

 

Therefore I agree that another 32x32 would not have been a good idea and thus was ruled out. Only if the engine is overhauled and creature, movement, and item polling handled by different threads or processes (which I am not sure how hard it is to implement in java) such server, or even a larger one, could work without lag spikes.

 

And I still think the seperate cluster was and is ok. Only there should have been a way to 1 way transfer people to SFI when the servers were overcrowded. It may have contributed to more retention. Right now, the population ratio NFI-SFI is between 3:1 and 2:1, with SFI population somewhat on the rise, and NFI still bit decreasing albeit not much.

 

And yes, the sign on tutorial should be removed.

 

 

Edited by Ekcin
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I'm a Steam newbie. Just wanted to share my experience. I spent the first day looking for a spot. I knew the shores would be taken fast, so I settled my sights on a mountain in the distance from Harmony Bay. When I found the spot I wandered a little and saw some tents put up. At the time I felt I made the mistake of not deeding immediately, waiting to see what the players in the tents were up to. I spoke with one of them within a few days and they seemed interested in the area, but not overly so. I went a little further down from the mountain top and started a deed. Originally, I started with something about 20x30 going away from the tents. A few weeks in, the tents were gone but someone else further down the other side of the mountain deeded over the area. I was bummed. The mountain was fairly steep (30+) and probably 20-30 tiles down before it got relatively flat, and I really wondered what the person was thinking at first. I spoke with them some time after, and it seemed that they just wanted to abut my deed. I presumed they were waiting for me to leave. Fine.

 

Fast forward to some time in late October and their deed disbanded. I had been checking Niaraja.com for a few weeks, and anticipated they might disband toward the end of the month. I checked constantly during those days. Finally, one Saturday, at around 6 a.m. local, sure enough they disbanded. I logged in probably a few hours after and immediately expanded my deed (I previously expanded down the other side of the mountain probably to 25x35, but this new expansion probably brought me to about 35x45). I was quite content (my 60+ mining skill,. I'd say 90% surface mining, on three alts, shows this). I spent the following weeks surface mining and getting myself set up the way I wanted.

 

Fast forward to late November and a neighbor I had been friendly with informed me of a deed further south that had disbanded and had horses/cows. We got friendlier and in chatting with someone else about highways started working on connecting my deed to his deed and to places further toward Harmony Bay. We spent a few days getting the highway setup. My deed being on a mountain top made it challenging, but we did it.

 

A day after finishing the highway, this neighbor started talking about connecting our highway further south to the deed that disbanded. I logged in a day later and he was already working on the highway. I joined in. As we were getting close to the disbanded deed, I realized this place had been well terraformed. It was on the water, and about 60x40. I decided to invest a bit more and take over this deed. Mind you, I am alone with two other alts. It's a lot of work. But the new deed is on the water, had a lot of clay and tar, and was easy to fix up and connect to the highway we were building.

 

All told, I probably spent as much on the game as you mentioned, OP. During the Black Friday deal, I bought premium for 12 months (seriously, I feel like this was a steal, plus the 12 sleep powders I got with it for each of my two alts). I've bought probably 3 gold in total from the store. So, yes, I am invested. I can't imagine the first server would be the first to go, if ever. And although I am away from Harmony Bay (around P 16/17), I am happy to have two large deeds relatively close to one another. There is a lot of space around me. Local is not always busy, but I notice people either sail by or cart by in local. And I got to meet a neighbor behind me who helped me out with some animals. I feel my deeds would contribute to archeology at some point. :)

 

Just my very naïve, limited experience. I'm really enjoying the game. Thanks!

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20 hours ago, Maoh said:

There is just so many deeds now that people aren’t playing anymore, my place is one of those places that is literally surrounded by deeds, and they are all dead, nobody plays there, but they appear to have put a lot of effort into it already so you know they put money into the upkeep, they’re just straight up in the way. I am in the local for Harmony Bay and I see nobody not even 6 months after release. I’ve had more action in my local on Indy over the course of 1 day then I have in 2 weeks on Harmony.

 

Have you considered moving if the area where you live now isn't satisfying? Though I do see that you put down a rather large deed, so it's understandable that you wouldn't want to move. But if you aren't enjoying your current spot then why keep putting more time into it? Beware the sunk cost fallacy.

Edited by Ecrir

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There's 250 players every evening on Harmony, unthinkable figures for any server in the years prior.

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I'll comment properly later once I get the most recent data off my pi but...

 

Overall the steam launch did 3 things...

 

1.  It got a whole crowd of new players, more than doubling wurm's overall population.

 

2.  Alienated a lot of the old player base by opening more servers rather than directing players to existing ghost town ones.  Note, while Ekcin is correct that the population of the old cluster isn't dropping and may be slightly growing, we're talking a cluster whose average population dropped below 200 here.  We're going to see the Christmas bounce again this year; the real test will be January's figures.

 

3.  It quickly alienated the majority of new players by funneling them to an overcrowded server cluster with serious lag issues.  The result has been a mass exodus of players, with the number retained less than 30% possibly (can't track that with my data sadly).

 

Remove the message aye, but also remove the flagged message on the steam board telling all players to join the new cluster as well.

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Please bear in mind regarding the notice. 

 

the notice isn't just about player count, the amount of deeded land was a huge portion, and it's not dropped by a massive amount:

https://harmony.game.wurmonline.com/mrtg/villages.html

 

A lot of land is still owned, and it still brings difficulties for new players to find land of their own. 

 

We'll discuss and review the situation for sure, but I just wanted to share that it's more than just online player count at play here. 

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Xanadu unplayable lag is a myth imo, yes you can sometimes get the odd issue, but I have had lag spikes of some kind on all servers.

 

Xanadu on release was some of the most fun I have had in wurm ( I did enjoy the release of release but for different reasons, the race to get through the tut to be first to step on the server and win a gift from rolf, crazy night but tons of fun )

 

The problems with Xanadu was the old ship travel before you could plot was a nightmare, now with that problem removed I do think Xanadu would be a good choice, feels like a world where roads are important, where as Exo feels like a tiny island, that you can cross from top to bottom at will.

 

Having the 3 sizes is a good idea and likely 16 x 16 is the "best" size, but i think Xanadu gets an unfair bad rap imo.

 

Main complaint I have heard on Northern apart from some complaining about the help being merged *shugs*  a toxic player in help with her spamming of help non stop, is how slow the devs are, fixes came late and people have the feeling of cheat early, things like some people allowed to get moon metals and then removed so we have the haves and have nots.  ( for what its worth none of these issues effects me )

 

I am very interested to see how things move forward next year, I expected a large drop off ( every server release does this ) and theres more good than bad, but overall I think the northern lands have been a success and with that the whole stream release has to be called a success in the main.

 

I am looking forward to the roadmap and hope the devs have something there for us all to get excited about.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Badvoc
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13 minutes ago, Badvoc said:

 people have the feeling of cheat early, things like some people allowed to get moon metals and then removed so we have the haves and have nots.  ( for what its worth none of these issues effects me )

 

To touch on that:

There is little to no moonmetal on the northern isles, not enough for any major viable advantage, maybe a trinket but definitely not a have and have nots vibe. 

 

As for priest skills, there is an absurd difference between the skill level at the time of the removal of links, and the current skill level, and not all the people who were at the top then are at the top now. 

 

Could we have addressed bugs faster? Absolutely, but please bear in mind there was a LOT going on, and a lot of processes and planning and things happening that weren't so visible. 

 

We're beyond thrilled with the launch of NFI, and although there will always be power players who can grind fast and hard, the isles are growing very organically, it's just the nature of growth compared to years past is different.

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15 minutes ago, Retrograde said:

To touch on that:

There is little to no moonmetal on the northern isles, not enough for any major viable advantage, maybe a trinket but definitely not a have and have nots vibe. 

 

As for priest skills, there is an absurd difference between the skill level at the time of the removal of links, and the current skill level, and not all the people who were at the top then are at the top now. 

 

Could we have addressed bugs faster? Absolutely, but please bear in mind there was a LOT going on, and a lot of processes and planning and things happening that weren't so visible. 

 

We're beyond thrilled with the launch of NFI, and although there will always be power players who can grind fast and hard, the isles are growing very organically, it's just the nature of growth compared to years past is different.

 

That maybe the case Retro, but I think in your position in "PR"  you also know how perception is important and it maybe it is a myth but one that is persisting and people really do believe it, I have heard people talk about how its impossible for 99 channelling priests to exist already without the link issue ( I have no idea myself and again doesn't effect me ) but these things grow from small seeds into overblown myths that will stick around for years, just look at the myth that Xanadu is so bad with lag its unplayable even though there's a full community that plays there fine.

 

Hand on heart and even though I love my new home melody, if you guys could go back in time and make just 1 change, I would guess instead of melody being released it should have been Harmony and Cadence together, to split the player base between the two larger servers. Apart from that I have came across no game breaking bugs or exploits as I don't rush anyway and just doddle along in my own little world. I am having a blast on the north servers.

 

As a side note, we on the forums are a tiny sample of the player base, I bet half of them don't even know its here ands even less post.

Edited by Badvoc
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@RetrogradeI think we understand that "a lot of things were going on" etc. but there several things that players suggest and complain about, many of these suggestions are easy to implement - such as one-way ticket to SFI and small QoL changes and bug fixes - we - die hard fans can deal with them and bear with them, but new players have a lot lower tolerance to such things. Black Friday sale was a good idea, Christmas sale will be a good idea too, but Wurm needs to be able to handle the promotions, and what has to change is that "everything is fine" attitude where clearly there are some problems that has to be addressed for our common good - as both the CCAB and the community wants a satisfied and huge player base. 

Edited by Platyna
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