The struggles of a new casual player (possible explanations for Wurm's low retention)

[Bloodreina 301]

There's no secret that the population of the NFI is on a constant and rather step decline, caused mostly by the abysmal retention among new and casual players. And that's mostly because both devs and veteran players are rather disconnect from the realities of the life of a new and casual player. Now, obviously, I don't have the arrogance to pretend that I can speak for all new or casual players, but being a steam summer kid myself, I can definitely talk about the challenges and struggled that I have encountered.

 

 

F2P trap

 

That's a struggle I haven't encountered personally, because I realized from the very early on that, although money are always tight when you're a high school student working part time, time can be even a scarcer commodity. But I have to say that I saw more than a fair share of people quitting in frustration over this and not only that, but they also gave a bad publicity to the game in the process (check steam reviews and you'll see that this is one of the most common problems).

 

I know that it is possible to earn enough coins to finance your game expenses and I even met a few people that manage to finance large deeds and multiple characters this way. But while it is definitely possible for high skilled and experienced people who know what they're doing and who amass very large play times, it is close to impossible for a new and casual player that is just starting the game. Yet, the game is advertised in such a way that it lets the people think that it is possible, which makes it feel almost like a scam when they realized it really isn't the case.

 

What I'd do instead would be to try to have a much more transparent approach about the F2P limitations and focus on the fact that the game can actually be very cheap to play with premium cost potentially going to less than 6 bucks a month. Really, just be honest about it. Wurm is not F2P game, but a subscription based game, with a F2P demo. In this regards, Wurm is exactly like WoW - it has a unlimited time demo, capped at a relative low level, and it also allows you to pay your subscription with ingame currency via wow tokens. Yet I never ever heard Blizzard advertise WoW as a F2P game, because, honestly it isn't one. Just like Wurm isn't one.

 

 

Time spent which chores (maintenance)

 

From very early on, I started to categorize all my actions as either projects or chores. And the truth is that while projects are generally fun because they offer you a sense of accomplishment, the chores are boring and tedious and they can generate a lot of frustration.

 

Now, if you're someone playing four, six or even eight hours a day, that is not a huge issue because the chores end up taking a relatively small percentage of your playtime - you spend an hour when you log in tending your fields, grooming your horses, milking your cows, sheering your sheeps, preparing meals and repairing the odd things that took some damage over night then you can move on with your projects (grinding, building, terraforming or whatever). And in the few days when I was able to play over four hours a day it really didn't felt that bad. On the other hand, if you're a casual player playing one, maximum two hours per day, you can easily end up seeing how most of your time is wasted with all these chores and you're left with almost no time for projects, logging out without any sense of progress whatsoever.

 

 

Sandbox vs themepark

 

I love sandbox games, that gives you the freedom to choose your own patch, but in Wurm's case I really feel that the new players are left in a complete fog. I mean there are quite a few tutorials covering one's first few days in game and the progress during those days seems almost obvious... get access to clay and iron, terraform a little piece of land, make yourself a small house, get an animal or two, find a source of food (foraging or farming) and water, build a cart or maybe a boat, level your skills a bit (and boy early on they do skill fast), reach some nice milestone (being able to lead a cart, ride a horse, load items, etc). As a side note, in regards to previous point in my list, please note that all these fall under the projects category. And I really think that the devs actually did a rather good job streamlining the brand new player's experience, so the first few days in a new player's life are actually quite interesting and rewarding, so I personally doubt that the drop rate during those few days / before subscribing / before deeding is (much) higher than in most other MMOs.

 

But, after that, you pretty much hit a wall. Things stop being intuitive. Skills start growing up much slower once you pass level 30. Milestones (like hitting 30 ML to get an extra action or 30 BS to stop being a leacher on dragon fights) seem to be miles away (pun intended). Chores start to demand a bigger and bigger share of your time. And you generally start having the feel that you're completely lost, that you're moving in circles and that you're making no meaningful progress whatsoever. Theoretically, missions and journal goals should help with this, but they're so random and they lack even the most remote notion of synergy, that they actually don't help at all.

 

If you manage to push through this phase, things eventually start to get better once you move past level 50 in some/most skills, not only because at that point things start to get easier, but also because you manage to better understand how things work out, so you can eventually feel that you're making progresses once again. But the problem is that this phase could last quite a lot when you're a casual player, who's only able too put only one or two hours a day (and I know it, because I'm still there despite almost reaching 20 days of /playtime). And I'm almost willing to bet that most new and/or casual players that quit, quit during this phase (when their main skills are between 30 and 50). And, to be honest, I have to admit that this phase was the one that almost got me too (and I'm not entirely out of the woods yet).

 

 

Needing a major in WURM to understand it

 

I don't mind the steep learning curve and the fact that one must befriend Wurmpedia from her early days, and I honestly think that it's fair for the people that take the time to optimize their actions and play the min-max game to have the edge over the over players. But when mechanics are so circumvoluted that you have to do completely counterintuitive things, many times not even mentioned in Wurmpedia, but known only by veterans, people using third party tools (like grinder) or, even worse, people that reverse engineered WU code, then I really think that it stops feeling right.

 

Like (and that's a very basic example) I wouldn't mind if people using the right rock type and the right pickaxe ql would get a 10%, 20% or even 50% bonus to their skill gains. But when if you mine marble at 10 skill or iron at 70 skill (just because you need them) you gain (almost) no skill gain, things stop feeling right. Like, honestly, a casual player's approach is pretty much that they should be able to do what they want to do and expect that their skills will eventually (slowly) grow over time. The problem is that in many cases they're effectively put on a halt because they didn't picked the right rock or crops type or because they didn't matched their tool QL with their action difficulty.

 

 

The community

 

Finally the community. It is marketed as one of the strongest assets of Wurm. And, up to a point, it really is a nice community, much more mature and less toxic than many other communities (not saying there are no bad apples, but they're much more rare than in other places). Yet, while not toxic, it is not very vibrant or helpful either. Actually (and I apologize if this offends any one) it feels like one of the most self centered communities in any of the games that I played, where pretty much everyone (again with a few exceptions) is only focusing on their actions and are hardly interested in what the other people are doing.

 

I had days when I was logged for hours, with 100+ other people on my server, yet complete radio silence on the freedom chat. I had days when I was logged for hours, with 10+ people in my FL online and none of them even messaging me to ask a basic thing like how was my day (and that under the conditions that in a typical day I take care to contact everyone and ask about there whereabouts). In half a year I was never invited to do a group activity (like a group hunt or exploration or whatsoever); the only invitations I ever got was to join or at least visit someone's deed to see what a great job they did (obviously, very few of those people, ever thought on visiting my deed or check what my progress was). In Entropia Universe (which nowadays I only play for a couple of hours per week) on Christmas I sent about 10 gifts and I received abut the same amount; in WURM I also sent about 10 gifts and I received back none.

 

So yeah, my feeling is that the community is far from toxic, but also far from friendly (as least on the public channels - maybe the things are different in the "inner" circles of friends and alliances) and at many times you can feel like you're playing a single player game and you can't stop asking yourself why still play WO and pay a monthly subscription and not stick with WU if you're still playing all by yourself.

 

Later added because of some comments: I am a social player. I founded a rather large local alliance in the early days of Melody, which I only left when I moved out on another area of the map. I tried to found a second alliance (promoting it on forum and server chat). I am always active on my server's chat and I have a fair share of people in my friends list (and even in my discord's list) who I always message and try to talk with. And for most days, I get a reasonable response rate on both server chat and friends PMs. Yet, it hardly happens for things to come from the other people, and I eventually grow tired of trying to make these virtual relations work, when I see that the other people don't put any effort into it. And no, I don't think I have unrealistic expectations or anything, since in most other games that I played, the moment when I was logging in I was having a chain of PMs.

 

 

I apologize if I offended anyone. It was definitely not my goal. I just wanted to give you the perspective of a new and casual player. I'm neither arrogant or smart enough to say that I have solutions, but I just wanted to let you know what were the problems that I faced, because I got the sense that this is a rather missing feedback. For myself I don't know if I'll be here in the new year or not (still working on my new year resolutions and debating if I should invest more time in Wurm or not), but if I'll quit, it will be for a mix of these reasons...

[contestani 94]

I saw at least three problems in my opinion with this game:

 

I am from Spain and I had in the past a lot of people also from Central and South America, people that are spanish spoken and living at countries with little purchasing level , some cases are poor countries.

 

They want play, the problem is the subscription fee, its a lot for them, maybe will be better in my opinion   removing premium, and only pay for create deeds , purchasing special skins in the shop and balanced items ,not for playing your character.

 

The lack of translation its a problem, even  some indie games or small games developers studios  have translations to several languages, not only english.

 

The combat system its awful , the grinding can be a real pain for a casual player, are also drawbacks .

 

Unfortunately a lot of people that played with me from south and CentraL America had to left the game because is for them very expensive the subscription. I think a game more widely open to more countries and people would be a good thing for this game, because I know this game not is for all players, but neither is good such paywall  .

[Stinboi 363]

Its clear on the steam page that this game has a subscription model, so shouldnt come as a supreise for anyone if they just read it.

 

Skilling is something i find exciting, its not just based on number of action, i do understand that it can be a bit mutch for new players, i felt the same way before i learned how it works.

 

Wurm is however a game you play over time and its intended that you shouldnt be able to skills everyting in a few month.

And the chores you mention, can you maybe cut some of them to save time? Its limited how mutch ressources you need if you not plan to mass skilling in near future.

 

I do think its a big problem with such a splitted community. Not just nfi and sfi but looks like the long term goal is for everyone to have their private server. 

 

And yes, many included me is busy with their own things. Most people i believe are more active in the alliance/village chat. I wish for more community events. and i do feel its sad that there are so many solo players deed.

[Muse 2,228]

Chores:

 

When I was a few months into this game, I found myself doing the usual repetitive daily things, tending and replanting crops, grooming horses etc.  Most people do - we fall into a routine of repetition.

 

One day, my brother asked me what I was going to do that day, maybe he asked me if I'd like to do something with him or visit somewhere else in Wurm, I don't recall now.  I do remember that I responded "I have to do my chores first."

 

My brother gave me some advice, which I've tried to keep in mind since: "If you call it a 'chore', don't do it." he said... "Do something else instead. It's a game."

 

If we do the same thing each day, it needs to be because we personally get something out of repeating our actions.  Wurm is such a vast, rich and deep game, it's quite possible to have an unique and surprising experience every day.  

Edited December 27, 2020 by Muse

[Goldfinch 272]

very well expressed thoughts, Bloodreina - also you are a very good writer You explain yourself eloquently. I have played for years but can commiserate with nearly all of your points .... I'm not sure of any solutions but perhaps we can at least improve the "interactiveness" of the community. You are so right, folks are either quietly doing their own thing or chatting away in their village and alliance - not with the server as a whole. I hope you can stay in Wurm and get "plugged  in" with some great folks who will interact with you more

[CreZ 284]

Well written and salient observations. Nice work.

 

Free to play... sigh. I wish they'd never gotten rid of the premium only servers. It made it obvious that you had a limited world with caps on things to use for free or you could pay to remove that cap. Alas they have and it's even rather convenient (especially now that you can ride and sail with characteristics only dropping to 30 instead of 20 like it was. It makes it way easier not having to prem your alts just to log in.

Also, like you said, you *can* earn prem but it usually requires you to spend a ton of your time doing "work" rather than playing and enjoying yourself. At a rate of fractions of a penny it would be more efficient to go get a pickaxe IRL and find some iron to sell to the scrap dealer (or do some paid basic labor for someone not in a video game at a far better rate at least).

 

These ideas that your time is limited, has personal value, and that entertainment/relaxation have value lead into your ideas about chores and the nature of the struggle between sandbox and themepark in this "Sandbox of Discovery" (at least thats what it used to be before you could major in Wurm min-maxing anyway).

 

You've definitely dialed in on some of the key factors of how the recruitment experience/effort and the early game guidance is not well aligned with the retention of mid or late game. I think that most people who become long term players learn to appreciate the longevity and continuity of the experience across years. Its not about constant and easy achievement, but the reward when you do something that takes years is far greater than one that takes weeks. Also at some point the projects can become just as draining as a simple routine and slow growth.

 

For example, with regard to chores, at some point you don't have as many projects or you've done an example of most of them, or perhaps your project is limited by funds, resources, or a gating skill that you have to grind for what feels like the rest of your life to be able to build the mega castle with giant bridges on the walls. Around the same time your real life gets busier. You only have an hour a day to play, but getting on and checking your deed, doing your "chores", and maybe harvesting the seasonal fruit can be cathartic. It becomes your daily world that you experience and visit rather than a rat race (with some friendly competition/support mixed in from your peers and luminaries). The routine becomes cathartic and you branch out on occasion to do extraordinary things, much like one does in real life. This then leads into the nature of the community to be isolated on their own little deeds doing their own thing and not seeing the world/people around them.

 

Actually, I feel like the community has changed quite a bit, and not just in Wurm, but the internet as a whole. A smaller and smaller percentage come to Wurm from text mudding and a larger and larger amount come from some "survival" game made 10 years after Wurm. The public chats used to be far more lively but it seems people prefer to chat in their other clients or voice comms in the modern era and just click into the game to perform actions. Considering the niche nature of this experience and how challenging it can be to get your friends to play it, or stay playing it, I guess it makes sense but I do miss the days of a vibrant kchat.

 

 

In my opinion Muse's advice is the best. I used to be the elected leader of some hardcoded game faction and my motto/mantra whenever people got too downtrodden or infuriated was "It's a game. If you're not having fun you're doing it wrong."

 

[ChampagneDragon 971]

I truly think most of what you've said can be fixed by not having your own deed, but joining a village. There are always villages looking for players.

 

Villages give you:

 

1) PEOPLE.  People to hunt with. People to share "chores" with. People to chat with. 

2) Resources. You want to make something? There's a good chance someone in your village has the resources needed to make it, saving you hours gathering.

3) Shared costs. You don't have to worry about making the 1-2 silvers a month to pay your deed. Quite often the deed holder pays it, or it's split among the village.

4) Knowledge. The more minds the better.

 

I'm what many would call a "hardcore" player. I'm here daily, and often logged in for 10+ hours a day (mind you, I'm not always here. I log in, do things IRL, go to the store, cook dinner, clean the house, do laundry, even *gasps* do my RL work). I have a good sized deed, bigger than many, smaller than many, but I didn't start out that way. I started sharing a deed. Then after a year or so I had my own SMALL deed, Then it grew.. and grew... and grew... I have no idea where this perception of you have to have it all right away came from. Same with skills. I have 99.6 farming on my main. Not once did I ever grow what some numbers cruncher said I should grow. I have 97 carpentry. I got there by making and imping what I needed, when I needed it. I won't say I don't grind, because quite often a project IS a grind. I just refuse to stand and do something JUST for skill. There is always a purpose behind it. I wanted to work on blacksmithing: I made 50 horseshoes, imped them so my priest could enchant them, so I could sell them. I used the highest quality tools, because simply put, it's easier. Yea, skill gain isn't as good, but I don't care to sit and pull out my hair just for tad higher number on the charts somewhere. 

 

Bottom line is, if you're not having fun, or you're stressing over it, it's not gonna work. Do something that does work for you.

 

*edited to add* Those in my alliance on Indy still think of me as a "newer" player, so I haven't been around as long as many.

 

 

Edited December 27, 2020 by ChampagneDragon

[Zexos 468]

Chores - I hardly ever repair items.  Only in a blue moon do I bother to repair things. Maybe once or twice a month, I would say.  I wait until things are really quite damaged until I repair. 

 

You also don't need to milk cows, collect wool, groom animals or rake farm tiles over and over again.  Only if you want those mats do you have to do it or if you want to increase animal skills.  I mean, I only tend to my farm maybe once a week, if that.  And when I do, I won't do it all in one go.  I will then also rake the fields before harvesting them.  I know that raking the fields every day can increase the amount of mats but I get fed up after I while.  Farming is actually one of my most hated things to do on wurm for some reason.....

 

Also meal prep.  If you make like 20 meals all in one go and then store them away in a larder with snowballs then that normally lasts for ages. Either that or just make some food when you need it and then store any leftovers in the larder for later.  Do as much or as little as you want.

 

I do agree though that information about how to do things in game is like reading a book to know how things work, even what monsters are safe to kill too.   A new player will not know what monsters will drain their hp super fast.  There is no way from a distance to know.  No guides either in game.  Only other players for info or go onto the wurm wiki to find it all out. 

When I first came to wurm, I actually did not move from the tutorial spot because I was reading the in game help guide.  Then when I joined a village, they told me about the wurmpedia and I then spent ages reading pages upon pages of the wurmpedia.  Though, no other game have I had to do that before. I don't think that many new players will want to read pages upon pages of text.  This is just generalizing though. There is still information that I don't know.

Also your point about the community....Well when I was on Pristine for example, I saw how an Alliance could be quite active or the discord was active for the alliance but the server freedom tab was blank. 

I also don't talk that much to people, as in asking them what they are doing.  Sometimes I might but normally I want to focus on my own stuff.  There is also the point how alot of the more grinding things such as creating mats or building walls can have me with a wurm window open but also with firefox open as well at the side with youtube open.  I can be watching videos alot of the time while I just click on the mouse to create some more mats.  If I'm watching a video on youtube, then I don't really want to talk to people that much.  Well, there is a pause button of course......lol  I could use. 

[Finnn 3,303]

1. Make friends

2. Start your own chat topics if chat seems dead, if you fail - try again in an hour or 30min if you are impatient.. takes a few tries to get good at reviving chat, just don't copy/pasta news titles like darwin

3. If your alliance sucks, ditch them, find somebody to give you a 'hi', rather than expecting people to ask you how you are/feel/your day have been.. pfff they are not your "soul mates" to check on you after regular or rough day of work/school or w/e - JUST START A CONVERSATION if you feel like having one, if you do not find anyone chatty at the moment.. join GL - bug others what they do.. ask them if they had a good or bad day when *something* happens, you have that power, BUG PEOPLE, BE SOCIAL, nobody from the community is just there to be there for you, we're all here for our own reasons(can give you GL examples.. but if you play WO and you are active.. you can figure a few of the regulars there and their interests, and that should give you an idea what they do and what you don't - just join or start a conversation)

4. knowledge - like in any game.. you know that to get exp or skill on something you're best to do this and not just *that*, nothing different here.. just skills are many and not all use same methods to grind them, grinder JS tool is just an aid and it's not a secret one any new player is given the link usually or it can be found in the community assistance toolbelt or w/e thread(guessing.. seen it somewhere, it's on way more than 1 place on the forums and commonly in chat when a newbie asks in ca-help or gl about skilling); if *you*(or anyone) suck at grinding some skill from the start.. that's normal, everybody learns, you don't get into min-maxing stuff on day 1, and that's for the best, optimizing is not fun.

5. wurm's page on steam explains that it's subscription model game, and that you have this and that limitation.. as f2p and them lifted with active premium subscription. 
Nobody promised you free to play game with all the optional benefits or easy path to earn 10silver on your day 1 with no knowledge or skills, hell even old accounts can have hard time making that.
If 'you' could do that, imagine what a 15 year old account could do, and if everybody was printing golden coins daily.. what's going to pay the server and staff costs?

6. Chores vs projects - you're doing that to yourself, if you have a reason or a goal, go for it.. skip some days, do what you must, ditch whatever whenever you can't care more about it. If it's shared project/responsibility about something figure that out with the other/s, else all you need is to stop doing it when you feel like taking a break from it.

Edited December 28, 2020 by Finnn

[Ayuna 331]

OP, extremely well written review...

I agree with so many of your points. Especially the community bit. Outside of a strong alliance, it's lonely out there. 

Wurm is my favorite MMO.

Game developers have tor######ed their own products many times before. I hope devs of WO will not follow the same route.

[Antony 280]

When I look at other games that I enjoy playing, one thing that I think other (more successful) games excel in is transparency.

Because I've nothing to look forward to I lose interest.

• Put the game rules in the actual game
• Give weekly dev updates in a blog post or news post, and twitch stream
  • Have 2-3 guest developers on stream. At the start of the stream have everyone introduce themselves by name and role
  • Chat for 5-some minutes about what each of you got up [since they were last on]
  • Verbally read out the news update
  • Devs discuss their thoughts on the update
  • Devs take turns in reading out most popular questions raised by the blog post then someone answers
  • Review some of the best forum suggestions from that week to let players know their voices are being heard and that you appreciate them, even if you don't
  • Have devs discuss what they've been working on
  • Finish strong by preview renders and concept art to get people excited
• Maybe consider polling content so dev priorities are aligned with player interest

[CistaCista 253]

1) Join a village and forget about doing chores.

2) Stop feeling that the game is pushing you to struggle for those milestones that you talk about. Play the game exactly how you like it. I will never reach 30 ML, yet in other ways I am one of the most succesful players on the Northern servers.

Edited December 27, 2020 by CistaCista

[Platyna 521]

I am not really grinding type. When I play I try to avoid doing pointless actions that will just give me skill gain and nothing else - for example my woodcutting skill is fairly low because I cut trees with high QL hatchet to get high QL logs. Well one of the major complaints about Wurm is that it is grindy. I am afraid that forthcoming imbue nerf will make it even more grindy and will give you only one path to achieve certain goals, for example now if you want to mine higher QL ore, you had a choice - either grind mining to very high skill or become a unique slayer. There were many nice suggestions concerning small carts (let one horse to pull or a bull or whatever) or do not give a player such a major slow down when dragging, let F2P players to master one skill above 20 etc. etc. About chores - this is the main threat to economy balance - players who do everything, it makes the "massive multiplayer" part of the game quite pointless. There was a suggestion to let priests to improve things their god likes, or even have a bonus in improving them - that would make multi-purpose crafting chars less desirable. There is also no incentive to create multi-citizen deeds. Giving a mayor the ability to isolate plots for a citizen to have certain rights and pay a share of upkeep could be an incentive for new and casual players to "pile up". Yes, working with higher difficulty items should give more skillgain, this way people could get level 100 with natural passing of time, by simply doing things not just grinding using weird methods. I recently met a player with 80% damage wound, he did to himself to grind forestry. The game encourages creating useless rubbish to skill up, this isn't good. About the community - Wurm is a complex game and will attract certain types of people, a lot of them work in IT and several of them, including myself, are autists. Autists may sound rude or self-centered but most of us is not, we just have communication issues, that come from the fact our brains are composed differently, we are great at spotting patterns, we tend to be fair and impartial, but we have a very few mirror neurons so will never process emotional and social communication in the way neurotypical people are used to. So I wouldn't go into stereotypes here. Anyway let's be frank - GL, at least on SFI is a gutter, especially when certain people appear there, it becomes unbearable, this is why many people have it off, and many people advice new players to turn it off. There was recently a suggestion to make another channel where we can DISCUSS the game mechanics itself, because many people, including me, do not feel comfortable in chit-chat, and we often turn out awkward when trying to participate. 

[Votip 1,613]

 

14 hours ago, Bloodreina said:

everything

its probably one of the best posts on this forum ever

[Eobersig 1,006]

20 hours ago, Bloodreina said:

There's no secret that the population of the NFI is on a constant and rather step decline, caused mostly by the abysmal retention among new and casual players.

 

You made some good points, however you missed an important one:

 

It's quite natural that people that see Wurm primarily as a building game (and there are a lot of them!) only play for some months and then leave the game (or the server). In many cases they even return to the server they came from. Quite some people are also not motivated by the skilling game or economy or MMO-gameplay at large, but they love to change a persistent world to leave their mark, both by building own structures and by contributing to public infrastructure. Once a server matures these players typically leave the game or the server: their dream-place has been built, the highway finished, the canal or tunnel is done. Happens with every new server - and there's nothing wrong with it. It's not my style of play but I can well understand (and value!) the contributions of these players.

[Ogare 74]

@ chores

Wurm should aim to remove these. For example, It wouldn't hurt anything to change farm crops so they don't rot to weeds. Or have it so your hens in coop stop laying eggs once food or water is gone.

I would like to point out some of the things Bloodreina listed as chores don't have to be done. Grooming doesn't need to be done. You'd only groom if your animal has disease or your looking for more Animal handling skill. If you set up your pens right you'll never see disease. With that said, this falls into the next category of a lack of information. Repair work is nearly non-existent on a deed with 30+ days of upkeep.  Although, decay could be improved for non-bulk item on deeds.

 

@ Needing a major in WURM to understand it

This is Wurm's biggest problem. About skill training, it would be easy to add feed back messages informing how effective an action was at gaining skill. Wurm should explain it's mechanics or at the very least give us tools that make it easy to figure things out.

[KharnovKrow 105]

Hello Bloodreina,

 

I agree with previous commenters that your thoughts are well-written and reasonable for the most part. I also consider myself something of a casual player.

 

Free to Play

 

This is a matter that I myself am very of two minds about. For the purpose of optics and the general market, I agree that describing Wurm as "Free to Play" probably comes across as deceptive to many. But, for a few reasons, I honestly do believe that Wurm technically *does* qualify as Free to Play. Aside from hypothetically earning the coin for constant Premium with considerable drudgery, one can get by with only partial Premium in many cases; as noted by Crez, many features can be permanently unlocked for a non-prem toon if they level up the Characteristic while premmed. And I actually have someone on my Friends list who says he hasn't premmed his toon for five years or more, his house isn't on a deed, and he just logs in every month or so to tend it; that's Free to Play. But playing Wurm completely free is either very hard work or for a very special person, agreed.

 

Chores

 

See "Community."

 

Themepark

 

See "Community." Again.

 

Major in Wurm

 

See "Community." Again! But with a small addition that some weird nerds *coughs* consider this a feature rather than a bug.

 

COMMUNITY

 

Maybe it's kind of lazy to chuck my response to most of your comments into one section, but I am actually going somewhere with this. In my opinion, many of the problems that you've described above are probably tied into something I find rather fascinating about the intentions versus outcome of Wurm's game design. See, I am almost certain that Wurm Online was built to be a community simulator. The whole point from the start was that one person doing everything is supposed to be nearly impossible, because that, in theory, encourages people to form communities and specialize in particular skills. Where the irony comes in is that the actual crowd that found the game the most engaging as a whole tend to be more private individualists and obsessive skill-grinders who see those challenges as things to overcome on their own, or, again, see them as a feature rather than a bug. 

 

Regarding your experiences with the community, I agree that the friendlier and community-minded people are a bit more of a minority, but we definitely are out there! If I'd known you were feeling left out of things, I would have made more of an active effort to reach out, because my experience with the Wurm community has been almost nothing but positive from the very start, taken in by a bunch of friendly and patient people. Only a handful of us still around, and I get ribbed a lot for not being on as much as many of them lol, but our alliance has expanded a lot recently with veterans interested in events and happy to help newer players out

[Skatyna 434]

i can agree with the OP on several points, but have to strongly disagree on a few too...

 

First is "chores".. i personally dont see any chores in this game at all. He mentions grooming, farming, cooking etc chores.. like really? why do you have to groom, milk those animals? the only time i have ever groomed them was when i was grinding my animal husbandry, once i hit it 50 i dont think i have ever groomed an animal.. is this a chore? no, you just grind a skill as much as you need. Milking.. lol why is this even a chore? get a bucket, milk 5 cows if you need some milk or cheese for cooking thats it. Milk is always 100Ql anyways, why would you milk your 200 animals every day? its just stupid. What else? farming? once again, if you want to grind your farming skill, you farm, but its not a chore - its skill grind. once i hit desired farming skill i have never ever tended fields either.. sow - harvest few days later. thats it. oh, put a bee hive in the area.. gives less yield? sure it does, but who cares, you still harvest more that you sow. if you need more crops - make bigger farm. repairing? what to repair? if you have a deed with 30 days worth of upkeep stuff doesnt decay.. repairing odd item that gets some dmg while using it is no chore at all. So, really, where are those chores that take an hour or more of your daily play time? i dont know any of that. Yes, some ppl choose to do so, thats their choice, but you can really play "chore free"

 

Secondly, the community.. Dude dont expect that everyone will PM you asking about you as soon as you enter the portal.. it doesnt happen on any games.. noobs make friends as well as enemies since day one in any game. Once you become vet player, become known within community the ppl will talk to you and ask how you are. Like really, who are you to me that i would have to greet you and ask things about you im not even interested cuz i just dont know you? you have to introduce yourself to the community, join the community, join an alliance and you will have a ton of ppl to chat with etc in the alliance chat. These chats are always lively. Global chat is not the same as alliance chat or a deed chat if you have dozen of villagers.. ppl play in groups or solo, what ever they prefer.  

[Whane 156]

On 12/26/2020 at 2:53 PM, Bloodreina said:

There's no secret that the population of the NFI is on a constant and rather step decline, caused mostly by the abysmal retention among new and casual players.

 

The population in general fluctuates on all servers. The retention rate on the new servers will no doubt be low due to the fact that Steam brought in a lot of new players and it takes some time for those players to decide if Wurm is the right game for them. And we all know how niche Wurm is. But the retention rate may look even lower than it really is because a lot of players that hopped on the new cluster still have deeds on older servers with older characters that they like to play.

 

Also consider that vets here take long breaks so it may look like quitting to some. But in WO it is not uncommon to see someone take a break for 3, 6, or 12 months. Sometimes even longer. A deed next to mine on Xanadu has been claimed for 6 years and I think the owner might pop in once a year or so for just a short while (for example, although it could be an alt too). Many vets recommended deed upkeep paid in advance for 2 years to safeguard their claim even if they decide to take a long break. I myself jumped on Harmony knowing full well that I would need some time to decide whether or not I preferred to stay active on the new server, or my original server and after having played Harmony and then taking a 3 month break (a short break in Wurm time) I've decided that I prefer Xanadu. So in my own example, I've contributed to the decline in population on Harmony, but not Wurm Online as a whole.

 

Essentially, Wurm for many players is a "seasonal" game. This includes some players that have quit already thinking they are done only to find themselves thinking about the game a year from now and then returning to find their deed disbanded, yet willing to find a new spot anyway.

 

Subscription

As for the subscription model, it's a proven model and works well to keep the doors open. It's the money that keeps the machine running and even though we're fans of the game, WO is still a business and I hope that it continues to be successful... for entirely selfish reasons. It's not the best news for anyone that can't afford it, but after going premium just once, you can rest easy even if you let it expire knowing that you can still keep a deed for as little as 12 silver per year and if that's too much, one can play for free and construct buildings that will still protect your items as if you had a deed... I don't know of too many MMO's that give so much for free the way WO does so if I were one of those guys mentioned in another post that lacks the money for a pay to play game... then I'd be sooo happy with WO. If you want to call that a demo, that is fine, but let's be clear... it is a demo that never expires.

 

 

[elentari 2,660]

On 12/27/2020 at 2:15 AM, Stinboi said:

Its clear on the steam page that this game has a subscription model, so shouldnt come as a supreise for anyone if they just read it.

 

Sorry Stinboi, but respectfully read again. 

At best the description is a mistake, at worst it's deceptive. 

 

Here's my issue. 

 

https://imgur.com/a/Uib6FNW 

 

From the pic you can see not one, but TWO indications it's free to play BEFORE this description : "

Premium Subscription

Wurm Online is a Free-to-play sandbox MMORPG with a premium subscription. The premium subscription allows you to access such things as:" 

 

See the issue?

 

See the conflict? 

 

A rice pudding cannot be a rice pudding and a brownie cake at the same time. It's either one or the other. 

 

For me, Wurm has never been free. From my first days in Wurm I realised I needed to buy a subcription to achieve anything meaningful ingame. I cannot believe how ridiculous this is that after so many years Wurm would be marketed as a free to play game. Just like WoW it's purely 100% subscription based game. 

 

Give me the name of one player who has played Wurm for 5 years as a non-sub. Please, I'll wait. 

 

And OP made a valid point regarding Old timey players with deep knowledge of the game's skilling systems. Let's be realistic here. The old dogs will have 90 in many skills and they will dominate the market. Wurm isn't a young game with mysterious mechanics. People have been doing crazy equations over the years to figure out the optimal skilling systems down to the 8th decimal so they can skill as fast as possible and sell as much as possible.

 

In such a market you actually believe a new player can truly compete? In that market a new player that might not have enough money to buy a sub, might think "oh hell, I'll just sell some stuff to buy premium..." Then he realises his competition is as fierce as a dragon. He realises that he can't make much money that way or that his ROI (time to make items vs money made) isn't viable. 

 

Wurm IS NOT free to play. It is PAY to play!

It's free to try. But you cannot achieve anything worthwhile without a sub. That costs money. Silvers = RL $. Even with RMT gone, Silvers = $ and/or real life TIME = which in the end means money made working. 

 

It's not free. Period. 

 

Wurm should never be called free to play. It should be called "free to try, pay to play" . 

 

Simple as that. Up to 20 skills you get your trial run and impressions . Anything past that, from deeding, riding, good combat skills, priesting , building stone houses....aka 99% of the game's content is locked behind a subscription wall.

 

"Free to play" means a person should never have to spend 1 cent on the game. But if a game's 99 % content is locked behind a subscription paywall then IT"S NOT FREE.

 

The concept of free is black and white. 

 

There is absolutely nothing wrong to market Wurm as a subscription based game with a free to try approach.  I cannot stress this idea enough. Remove the free to play tags and no more bad steam reviews on that end. 

 

 

Edited December 29, 2020 by elentari

[Ekcin 2,407]

 

Quote

There is absolutely nothing wrong to market Wurm as a subscription based game with a free to try approach.

I agree. I want, though, stress the difference to subscription  models like WoW. If subbed once, even the 2 months for 8€, you retain significant privileges, such as being undeletable, retaining characteristics up to 30, and so on. Also you may resub/extend with ingame currency, I am not aware of any other game offering that (maybe I am wrong). 

 

But nevertheless, marketing the game as free to play triggers misunderstanding, frustration, and critique. Wurm does not win anything from. It may be ok to stress that it is not only free to try, but has some free to play options beyond that.

Quote

 

I cannot stress this idea enough. Remove the free to play tags and no more bad steam reviews on that end.

I disagree. The hate reviews from formerly banned ex-Wurmians will not vanish. It is a campaign, they are on a crusade, and they will continue to spout lies and slander, or at best extremely subjective tales from 10 years ago (without mention that they are).

Edited December 29, 2020 by Ekcin
addendum

[Stinboi 363]

8 hours ago, elentari said:

Sorry Stinboi, but respectfully read again. 

At best the description is a mistake, at worst it's deceptive. 

 

Here's my issue. 

 

https://imgur.com/a/Uib6FNW 

 

From the pic you can see not one, but TWO indications it's free to play BEFORE this description : "

Premium Subscription

Wurm Online is a Free-to-play sandbox MMORPG with a premium subscription. The premium subscription allows you to access such things as:" 

 

See the issue?

 

See the conflict? 

 

A rice pudding cannot be a rice pudding and a brownie cake at the same time. It's either one or the other. 

 

For me, Wurm has never been free. From my first days in Wurm I realised I needed to buy a subcription to achieve anything meaningful ingame. I cannot believe how ridiculous this is that after so many years Wurm would be marketed as a free to play game. Just like WoW it's purely 100% subscription based game. 

 

Give me the name of one player who has played Wurm for 5 years as a non-sub. Please, I'll wait. 

 

And OP made a valid point regarding Old timey players with deep knowledge of the game's skilling systems. Let's be realistic here. The old dogs will have 90 in many skills and they will dominate the market. Wurm isn't a young game with mysterious mechanics. People have been doing crazy equations over the years to figure out the optimal skilling systems down to the 8th decimal so they can skill as fast as possible and sell as much as possible.

 

In such a market you actually believe a new player can truly compete? In that market a new player that might not have enough money to buy a sub, might think "oh hell, I'll just sell some stuff to buy premium..." Then he realises his competition is as fierce as a dragon. He realises that he can't make much money that way or that his ROI (time to make items vs money made) isn't viable. 

 

Wurm IS NOT free to play. It is PAY to play!

It's free to try. But you cannot achieve anything worthwhile without a sub. That costs money. Silvers = RL $. Even with RMT gone, Silvers = $ and/or real life TIME = which in the end means money made working. 

 

It's not free. Period. 

 

Wurm should never be called free to play. It should be called "free to try, pay to play" . 

 

Simple as that. Up to 20 skills you get your trial run and impressions . Anything past that, from deeding, riding, good combat skills, priesting , building stone houses....aka 99% of the game's content is locked behind a subscription wall.

 

"Free to play" means a person should never have to spend 1 cent on the game. But if a game's 99 % content is locked behind a subscription paywall then IT"S NOT FREE.

 

The concept of free is black and white. 

 

There is absolutely nothing wrong to market Wurm as a subscription based game with a free to try approach.  I cannot stress this idea enough. Remove the free to play tags and no more bad steam reviews on that end. 

 

 

 

Every game you can play for free will be listed as such under the payment options(never seen a game on steam that is listed as subscription, so not sure its possible, even tho i can be mistaken). 

 

Tags are set by the players so apparently some think this is free to play.

I stand by what i said, this is clear in the description where it even says you cant skills above 20. So everyone that think you can fully play this game for free must have just hit the play button.

[Retrograde 12,013]

8 hours ago, elentari said:

Sorry Stinboi, but respectfully read again. 

At best the description is a mistake, at worst it's deceptive. 

 

Here's my issue. 

 

https://imgur.com/a/Uib6FNW 

 

From the pic you can see not one, but TWO indications it's free to play BEFORE this description : "

Premium Subscription

Wurm Online is a Free-to-play sandbox MMORPG with a premium subscription. The premium subscription allows you to access such things as:" 

 

See the issue?

 

See the conflict? 

 

A rice pudding cannot be a rice pudding and a brownie cake at the same time. It's either one or the other. 

 

For me, Wurm has never been free. From my first days in Wurm I realised I needed to buy a subcription to achieve anything meaningful ingame. I cannot believe how ridiculous this is that after so many years Wurm would be marketed as a free to play game. Just like WoW it's purely 100% subscription based game. 

 

Give me the name of one player who has played Wurm for 5 years as a non-sub. Please, I'll wait. 

 

And OP made a valid point regarding Old timey players with deep knowledge of the game's skilling systems. Let's be realistic here. The old dogs will have 90 in many skills and they will dominate the market. Wurm isn't a young game with mysterious mechanics. People have been doing crazy equations over the years to figure out the optimal skilling systems down to the 8th decimal so they can skill as fast as possible and sell as much as possible.

 

In such a market you actually believe a new player can truly compete? In that market a new player that might not have enough money to buy a sub, might think "oh hell, I'll just sell some stuff to buy premium..." Then he realises his competition is as fierce as a dragon. He realises that he can't make much money that way or that his ROI (time to make items vs money made) isn't viable. 

 

Wurm IS NOT free to play. It is PAY to play!

It's free to try. But you cannot achieve anything worthwhile without a sub. That costs money. Silvers = RL $. Even with RMT gone, Silvers = $ and/or real life TIME = which in the end means money made working. 

 

It's not free. Period. 

 

Wurm should never be called free to play. It should be called "free to try, pay to play" . 

 

Simple as that. Up to 20 skills you get your trial run and impressions . Anything past that, from deeding, riding, good combat skills, priesting , building stone houses....aka 99% of the game's content is locked behind a subscription wall.

 

"Free to play" means a person should never have to spend 1 cent on the game. But if a game's 99 % content is locked behind a subscription paywall then IT"S NOT FREE.

 

The concept of free is black and white. 

 

There is absolutely nothing wrong to market Wurm as a subscription based game with a free to try approach.  I cannot stress this idea enough. Remove the free to play tags and no more bad steam reviews on that end. 

 

 

 

That tag and the "free to play" button are because we don't sell the game. 

 

The game IS free to play. 

 

If you want to get the most out of the game, a premium subscription is available that unlocks skill, but it is not required to play, own land, or actually live in the game. 

 

Free to play markets are oversaturated with Gacha type microtransactions, which we have not used, this is what is happening here, people mistaking free to play meaning a predatory monetisation concept that allows a minor few to pay for the experiences of the majority. In those instances the free players are content for the whales. 

 

Wurm does not create a fully free experience funded by whales, we approach the game and offer a subscription that is the same benefits as anyone else, unlocking skills. 

 

The argument that you can't do anything worthwhile overlooks what people can, and do, do. You can build a village, farm, you can live with others, you CAN play the game without ever spending a cent or unlocking premium, THAT is free to play and it is not 1% of the game. 

 

Unfortunately there's no such thing as unlimited trials, or demo's on steam, it's free to play or a paid game. 

[Retrograde 12,013]

As for everything else, it seems to boil down to a mindset, and how you approach the game. 

 

If something feels like a chore, or is not working for you, feel free to change things up and adjust what you do. I know plenty of people who have taken to nomadic travelling, living on other servers on other peoples deeds, or simply taking on community projects. 

 

Being a sandbox means it's up to you to decide what is fun for you, and find it.

[Bloodreina 301]

3 minutes ago, Retrograde said:

As for everything else, it seems to boil down to a mindset, and how you approach the game. 

 

If something feels like a chore, or is not working for you, feel free to change things up and adjust what you do. I know plenty of people who have taken to nomadic travelling, living on other servers on other peoples deeds, or simply taking on community projects. 

 

Being a sandbox means it's up to you to decide what is fun for you, and find it.

 

That's not really about me and I was definitely not complaining. I do think that Wurm is a great game and, if I'll manage to find enough time for it in my busy schedule, I'm sure I would be able to enjoy it even as it is.

 

The sole goal of my post was to present some of the struggles I faced as a new and casual players. If you'll think that there's anything you can extract from my feedback, I'll be happy that I managed to help. If not, then no worries, is not like I actually ask for any changes (especially since I don't know if I'll stick around or not).