Northern Isles feedback

[Etherdrifter 2,512]

4 hours ago, Retrograde said:

I just wanted to share that it's more than just online player count at play here. 

Oh definitely; deed density near spawn is a big factor on early game experience.

 

Player numbers just indicate how people are voting with their feet.  It also gives a rough idea of lag levels during server rushes.

[Zarwaddim 42]

@Retrograde, I just to give a really big and heartfelt thanks to the team (past and present) for bringing this to Steam and for making an all around really great game.

[Carmichael 684]

This post will probably get removed, but it needs to be said and at least brought up at some point and seen by at least some eyes even if they don’t fully agree.

 

The game also needs to be advertised more, and in different places. You have so many easy and cheap ways to advertise the game to bring in even more players. I see very little being done about advertisements. Like the dev team should be trying to reach out through mainstream social media of course firstly. Doing YouTube updates for patch notes even. To at least show “when” they start to do updates more often and consistently. The game hasn’t gotten an update/bug fix in WEEKS. I can tell you from seeing it myself. Since there hasn’t been any updates in a while, people have been dropping off like flies because most will think that the game is just a money grab because there hasn’t been an update or patch in close to or more than a month. Or they may also see it as the devs just don’t update the game enough, you have to consider a lot of the people that play the games don’t go onto the forums to see what’s going on. I also feel like money is being put into the wrong places within the dev team. There isn’t any real paid devs that actually update the content but instead we have a paid PR person (sorry Retro)? Like a lot of things are ass backwards. I mean seriously, other than steam, how many players have joined? Also there’s a lot of bias within the moderation team, and it’s obvious. There should be a standard of some sort. Literally a questionnaire if you will for specific situations. That way everyone will be treated equally and fairly. Not for someone to go off muting someone because you can, or banning/trying to ban someone because they’re disliked. Also the whole “being toxic to the community” thing that I see people getting banned for is ridiculous, like sorry to break it to you, but the game is on steam now. You should expect it because of how it is already on the internet. There are methods to fix that within the game personally like /ignore. Or report them for harassment of whatever it is being sexual or whatever. Then you have the valid means to ban someone. But there are absolutely no standards for the devs/gms to go by. Also challenging moderation is the absolute dumbest thing to ever be in this community, it’s literally what a GM/dev says goes, like listen Linda... you sometimes needs to either appeal or challenge something if it’s obviously seen as wrong or unfair. Or sometimes the moderator/gm/dev is doing something that only benefits them... and you can’t really say anything because if you do it’s challenging the team. It’s off the rip type of moderation mostly that I’ve seen over the years of playing. And I’ve been playing for over 10 years now. A lot of things need to change if you REALLY want to see this game get more attention/get anywhere. I’ll keep playing regardless, but more people won’t come to a game like this and stay if they don’t see actual effort being put in. Like someone said, majority of these game changes only take up to 5 minutes to fix if you know what you’re doing. I won’t even start with bugs and exploits... 
 

tldr from my rant:

-update the game more consistently 

-fix the inner works of devs/moderations aka pay an actual dev to help with the updates vs a pr guy (simply streaming for “PR purposes”, then Promoting your own personal content isn’t cool in my eyes) 

-set a standard for the moderation to go off of.

-a lot of this can be fixed

 

[CistaCista 253]

7 hours ago, Retrograde said:

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. 

 

 

Can't find land? I really have a hard time believing this.

I live in M13 on Harmony. Since the first week, not a single deed has been founded in L12, and M11-M13. In fact, in M12 , not a single deed EXISTS! That's right, the map tile is completely empty and it has been completely empty throughout the existence of the server, even though two bleeding highways go right through it. It consist of mainly flat land and gorgeous forests.

 

PLEASE remove that notice, and allow new players to come to Harmony once more!

Edited December 15, 2020 by CistaCista

[Badvoc 204]

3 minutes ago, CistaCista said:

 

Can't find land? I really have a hard time believing this.

I live in M13 on Harmony. Since the first week, not a single deed has been founded in L12, and M11-M13. In fact, in M12 , not a single deed EXISTS! That's right, the map tile is completely empty and it has been completely empty throughout the existence of the server, even though two bleeding highways go right through it. It consist of mainly flat land and gorgeous forests.

 

PLEASE remove that notice, and allow new players to come to Harmony once more!

 

 

I agree, on Melody you can find land right next to spawn now to deed if you so wish.

[Ogare 74]

I started on Melody and there wasn't a lot of desired land for deeding. And I stress the word "desired". Land needs to have access to water and the terrain can be terraformed with reasonable effort. So I understand why Cadence was added. Knotice that Cadences has a lot of cost line land that is relatively flat? I live on Cadence now :). I don't know anything about Harmony.

 

The whole argument about advantageous mechanics being nerfed after players benefit from this is a hard on address. I don't think there is a fair way to go about it other then removing the mechanic and moving on. Remember that using many priest alts wasn't an exploit and people who worked hard and benefited from it where playing the game as intended (note I don't have any priests).

 

Specific to the issue of priests, I think its dumb. If I had the power to do so, I'd remove all priest restrictions. And don't try to argue with this, well you can, but I don't expect me to respond because care about your opposing opinion on this.

[Maoh 20]

Retro is right, it was absolutely nuts at launch and the amount of deeds that were zerged into the map was nuts. I’m thinking the decay system might need a revamp or something, like I have this one bsb  that this newbie made on my deed with a lock that will probably last years. Things like that. Hopefully these inactive deeds blocking the way will just decay at some point. 

[Retrograde 12,013]

11 hours ago, Carmichael said:

This post will probably get removed, but it needs to be said and at least brought up at some point and seen by at least some eyes even if they don’t fully agree.

 

The game also needs to be advertised more, and in different places. You have so many easy and cheap ways to advertise the game to bring in even more players. I see very little being done about advertisements. Like the dev team should be trying to reach out through mainstream social media of course firstly. Doing YouTube updates for patch notes even. To at least show “when” they start to do updates more often and consistently. The game hasn’t gotten an update/bug fix in WEEKS. I can tell you from seeing it myself. Since there hasn’t been any updates in a while, people have been dropping off like flies because most will think that the game is just a money grab because there hasn’t been an update or patch in close to or more than a month. Or they may also see it as the devs just don’t update the game enough, you have to consider a lot of the people that play the games don’t go onto the forums to see what’s going on. I also feel like money is being put into the wrong places within the dev team. There isn’t any real paid devs that actually update the content but instead we have a paid PR person (sorry Retro)? Like a lot of things are ass backwards. I mean seriously, other than steam, how many players have joined? Also there’s a lot of bias within the moderation team, and it’s obvious. There should be a standard of some sort. Literally a questionnaire if you will for specific situations. That way everyone will be treated equally and fairly. Not for someone to go off muting someone because you can, or banning/trying to ban someone because they’re disliked. Also the whole “being toxic to the community” thing that I see people getting banned for is ridiculous, like sorry to break it to you, but the game is on steam now. You should expect it because of how it is already on the internet. There are methods to fix that within the game personally like /ignore. Or report them for harassment of whatever it is being sexual or whatever. Then you have the valid means to ban someone. But there are absolutely no standards for the devs/gms to go by. Also challenging moderation is the absolute dumbest thing to ever be in this community, it’s literally what a GM/dev says goes, like listen Linda... you sometimes needs to either appeal or challenge something if it’s obviously seen as wrong or unfair. Or sometimes the moderator/gm/dev is doing something that only benefits them... and you can’t really say anything because if you do it’s challenging the team. It’s off the rip type of moderation mostly that I’ve seen over the years of playing. And I’ve been playing for over 10 years now. A lot of things need to change if you REALLY want to see this game get more attention/get anywhere. I’ll keep playing regardless, but more people won’t come to a game like this and stay if they don’t see actual effort being put in. Like someone said, majority of these game changes only take up to 5 minutes to fix if you know what you’re doing. I won’t even start with bugs and exploits... 
 

tldr from my rant:

-update the game more consistently 

-fix the inner works of devs/moderations aka pay an actual dev to help with the updates vs a pr guy (simply streaming for “PR purposes”, then Promoting your own personal content isn’t cool in my eyes) 

-set a standard for the moderation to go off of.

-a lot of this can be fixed

 

You are absolutely correct in many aspects here, so I'd like to share with you our thoughts and feedback too! 

 

-advertise

Our post Steam ad campaign highlighted a few issues with tracking conversions (when people purchase premium we can't tell if they came from clicking on the ads we shared). We're working on improved systems to 1) make the effects more visible, and 2) ensure we're getting the best bang for our buck.

 

-update the game more consistently 

Monthly updates are the consistent schedule we are working on, this doesn't mean new content being added every month, but that we work on a month to month basis for bugfixes, tweaks, changes and additions. These usually happen around the end of the month. They've been light on content as we prepare for our roadmap plans in 2021 however. 

 

-fix the inner works of devs/moderations aka pay an actual dev to help with the updates vs a pr guy (simply streaming for “PR purposes”, then Promoting your own personal content isn’t cool in my eyes) 

We have multiple paid developers working on the game, not just me! (As for promoting personal content I'm not sure what you mean, as I've tried to avoid mixing the two beyond mentioning that it happens)

 

-set a standard for the moderation to go off of.

Absolutely, when you feel that any moderation is biased or incorrect, we have a system to raise that issue. Simply contact the lead of that department (Astarte for CA/CM, Pandalet for FM/BM, Enki for GM). This is handled via direct escalation channels so the focus can be given there and the topic can be discussed without continuing to violate chat rules. 

 

-a lot of this can be fixed

Agree completely, and we'll continue to work on areas that improvement can happen

 

[Omar 479]

No Fo god on the Valrei map on Defiance 😕

[Ekcin 2,402]

20 hours ago, Retrograde said:

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 difficualties 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. 

Retro, if I compare this with https://cadence.game.wurmonline.com/mrtg/villages.html

I fail to see any reason to direct to cadence. Maybe there are bit more "good coastal spots" but a new player starts at the starter town, where encore or sonata is not better off than harmony bay or heartland. Melody is worse due to lower size and more deeds per land area.

 

Another topic, advertising the game. I have written this repeatedly, but it seems to be ignored.

 

Wurm is, beside the much smaller Ryzom, the only native 3d MMO for all Linux (maybe for Mac too, but I am no expert there). This is an asset which has widely been ignored by the company so far. It would be good to advertise Wurm for the larger Distros at least, and make it mentioned on Linux portals where games are discussed. If Wurm client were in the games packages of major distros, a player base beyond the recent may be reached.. (Yes you may play steam on Linux, so far I had real troubles to make it run on any of my boxes, and the 32bit libs are crap)

[TheTrickster 2,279]

Actually, if players were to head west or southwest or even south overland from Encore, there are plenty of good spots.  Cadence generally has a much higher proportion of desirable land than other servers of the same size.  If it was just about the map, I would probably be over there more.    I recently travelled overland from Encore to Strathbrock in the southwest - via the middle - and really came across quite a variety of settled and unsettled land, many different landscapes and many different animals.  There were plenty of places I could have settled, if I wasn't a nomad.

 

I think the notice does need to come down, but there should be other information available in its place.  Surely it could only be a good thing to help new players find the server that is going to give them the experience they are most likely to enjoy.  Don't make the choice for them, but let their choice be a sound one.

[Retrograde 12,013]

1 hour ago, Ekcin said:

Wurm is, beside the much smaller Ryzom, the only native 3d MMO for all Linux (maybe for Mac too, but I am no expert there). This is an asset which has widely been ignored by the company so far. It would be good to advertise Wurm for the larger Distros at least, and make it mentioned on Linux portals where games are discussed. If Wurm client were in the games packages of major distros, a player base beyond the recent may be reached.. (Yes you may play steam on Linux, so far I had real troubles to make it run on any of my boxes, and the 32bit libs are crap)

I've spoken and worked with multiple linux gaming sites, unfortunately it hasn't led to much as many games actually have linux clients, even in MMORPG's 

[Ecrir 887]

4 hours ago, Maoh said:

I’m thinking the decay system might need a revamp or something, like I have this one bsb  that this newbie made on my deed with a lock that will probably last years.

 

If that bsb is on your deed and you have more than a 1 month of upkeep in it then it wont decay at all, that's one of the big advantages of a deed. If you want to get rid of it then you can probably just bash it to pieces with a maul or something.

[Maoh 20]

Ecrir, I tried to bash it but don’t have perms, tried pushing it off then lost abilities to move it so I had to plan a house on top to move it again, I’m thinking will take more damage off deed tho 

[Etherdrifter 2,512]

1 hour ago, Retrograde said:

I've spoken and worked with multiple linux gaming sites, unfortunately it hasn't led to much as many games actually have linux clients, even in MMORPG's 

 

One of my hobbies is getting mmorpgs to work on linux, so I can confirm this.  Also wurm isn't the only native 3d mmorpg out there that has linux supprt - you have games like gorgon online and the like.

 

However; wurm is not FOSS, so it's unlikely to make it onto the main repos for linux distros.

 

Your main inroad into Linux would be hurrying up your Linux (Debian) Installer (64-bit) and getting that up and out to everyone (you're really just writing a .sh file to handle a bunch of terminal commands since you already have a native client).

[Snoo 280]

I think the main issue with wurm is the lack of paid staff. It's relied on volunteers for too long and whats that saying "nothing changes if nothing changes"

 

Since I've played wurm I'm sure others can attest - Whilst wurm gm's and other devs were on a voluntary basis, there is always some sort of bias that has been prominent and frankly unprofessional. 

 

Lets look at the Wurm NFI release, we had the PR guy of wurm Streaming the dead servers, not the new and vibrant servers currently under development. The PR guys excuse - I cant ride a horse yet - thus streamed Xanadu server multiple times and then jumped on his personal streamer account and streamed another game completely.

 

I'm not saying that the PR guy shouldn't be able to do so, all the more power to him, however a PR guy for wurm who can't ride a horse 3 weeks into a new server cluster release promotes a real non interest in playing wurm to enable this.

 

TLDR: if wurm gets staff that are paid, non biased and interested in their role I'm sure wurm will make leaps and bounds ahead, imo I think that's the missing key ingredient to wurm.

[TheTrickster 2,279]

"vibrant"   mmm, there's a perspective on it. 

 

We have a thing in my part of the world that we call "meat ants"  these ants scurry about everywhere, but around their nest where they are busiest there are just ants and dirt.  Nothing else, just a bare patch of dirt and pebbles with ants scurrying around carting the pebbles.

 

I started [in the north] on Melody.  It was like a meat ant nest.  If I had seen that as a glimpse of Wurm I wouldn't have started.  What started me in Wurm is the potential for what can be done - demonstrate by what HAS been done on the mature servers.  

 

The choice to stream the older servers instead of the newer was IMO the right call.

 

 

Edited December 17, 2020 by TheTrickster
specifically in NFI

[Ekcin 2,402]

Quote

Lets look at the Wurm NFI release, we had the PR guy of wurm Streaming the dead servers, not the new and vibrant servers currently under development.

I consider that vain polemics and venom. At that time, "the PR guy" (Retro has a name, mind you) showed the new audience how developped servers with highways, tunnels, large deeds looked like, how archeology could be performed.

 

All that was weeks if not months in the future for NFI players. To showcase what could be done in Wurm, it was the right thing to showcase the "dead servers" (stupid and toxic rant btw.).

 

One may dispute whether it wouldn't have been better to show more than one server, for example release with its beautiful huge underground canals, or Exo, Indy etc. instead Xanadu repeatedly. The tent villages and shanty towns of the newly populated servers NFI players could "admire" themselves. And at that time, there were lengthy streams by Katspurr, FF,  and around 10+ streams from brand new streamers covering NFI.

Edited December 16, 2020 by Ekcin

[Retrograde 12,013]

14 minutes ago, Ekcin said:

I consider that vain polemics and venom. At that time, "the PR guy" (Retro has a name, mind you) showed the new audience how developped servers with highways, tunnels, large deeds looked like, how archeology could be performed.

 

All that was weeks if not months in the future for NFI players. To showcase what could be done in Wurm, it was the right thing to showcase the "dead servers" (stupid and toxic rant btw.).

 

One may dispute whether it wouldn't have been better to show more than one server, for example release with its beautiful huge underground canals, or Exo, Indy etc. instead Xanadu repeatedly. The tent villages and shanty towns of the newly populated servers NFI players could "admire" themselves. And at that time, there were lengthy streams by Katspurr, FF,  and around 10+ streams from brand new streamers covering NFI.

yes, other servers would be much better to cover as well. 

 

I liked Xanadu because it give a sense of exploration rather than just following roads, but for sure! 

[BoarHead 26]

This will not be an answer you might like to hear  but 1 thing that every Long Term Player have in common is to #1  DON"T WORRY ABOUT WHAT OTHER PEOPLE DO or HAVE! 

and Two , if you ever get " lonely " make a village , recruit people, Join in Freedom chat or join discord or make an alliance, or Join in on GL chat. Wurm is only lonely if you want to be left a lone. Wurm really is a small place and you can , will get to know people even if they live on a different cluster. Like Every Other MMO you have to put in work to make friends!

 

 

Edited December 16, 2020 by BoarHead

[Eyesgood 2,121]

On 12/14/2020 at 5:35 AM, Maoh said:

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. 

 

You have just described the entire history of Wurm in a few sentences.  Good job.

[Etherdrifter 2,512]

10 hours ago, Snoo said:

Lets look at the Wurm NFI release, we had the PR guy of wurm Streaming the dead servers, not the new and vibrant servers currently under development. The PR guys excuse - I cant ride a horse yet - thus streamed Xanadu server multiple times and then jumped on his personal streamer account and streamed another game completely.

Hang on hang on...

 

They're DYING, not DEAD; I'm notorious for my (very well informed, and backed by theory) doomsaying, but there is a line.  It's an important difference; you can save something that is dying if you really work hard at it.  Dead things....  Not so much.

 

10 hours ago, Snoo said:

TLDR: if wurm gets staff that are paid, non biased and interested in their role I'm sure wurm will make leaps and bounds ahead, imo I think that's the missing key ingredient to wurm.

I'd disagree there, mostly because the staff are not really someone new players interact with much.  They see and hear the CAs a lot, and often players recruiting, but usually they only encounter staff when something goes wrong.  While sometimes outcomes on wurm when dealing with staff leave something to be desired, they're far better than many larger mmorpg companies with their policies (whose outcomes almost always leave something to be desired!).

 

If you *really* want wurm to thrive, and really hit high server populations, you just need to do one thing...  One small thing that would make it all happen...  Drop the idea of "free play" as a demo and offer a path to play the game for free in full.  I've said it for years, as have countless others.

[Nomadikhan 2,195]

On 12/14/2020 at 5:35 AM, Maoh said:

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.

 

Welcome to all the  other servers in the non-steam cluster.   WU killed us off first go around.. and now yall are complaining about what happened to us in the old WO clusters when people flocked to the steam servers.  Celebration is pretty dead these days all over again, I've recently finished fixing an island on Pristine and it's pop. is worse.

 

TLDR - That's Wurm for ya every new server go around.  Just wait until yall get another map on your steam cluster.

Edited December 16, 2020 by Nomadikhan

[Quicktor 1,346]

20 hours ago, Retrograde said:

They've been light on content as we prepare for our roadmap plans in 2021 however

 

LOL

[TheTrickster 2,279]

3 hours ago, Etherdrifter said:

Dead things....  Not so much.

He's only MOSTLY dead....

 

😃