Poll: The best changes Wurm ever made

[Brash_Endeavors 4719]

Multichoice: The best changes Wurm has ever made

[McGarnicle 1413]

Love the poll, but there are a few notable changes that are missing from the list:

1. Bridges

2. Underground building <-- my vote is for this one!

3. Fishing

4. Archaeology (not sure if this is as much of a change but rather an addition)

 

 

 

Edited March 13, 2021 by McGarnicle

[Brash_Endeavors 4719]

Those are all good ones! I meant to have Bridges but kept spacing it out 😛 Archaeology and Underground Buildings would get my vote, too!

 

[Etherdrifter 2371]

You missed out "removing some of the more insane priest restrictions"

[Drogos 336]

For me, 3rd person. Been wanting to play, and testing Wurm on and off since launch, but always got motion sick from 1st person. Played every day since 3rd person implemented!

Edited March 13, 2021 by Drogos

[griper 516]

The removal of skill decay was a pretty good one

[Wilczan 1987]

Multistory buildings.

Graphics.

Bridges.

Underground buildings.

[Muse 1660]

13 Pony colours.

Still room for more.

[John 252]

Chaos was never the default for PvP. Epic was a great addition, but I feel like it's more of a classic now than an addition.

[MrGARY 12420]

5 hours ago, John said:

Chaos was never the default for PvP. Epic was a great addition, but I feel like it's more of a classic now than an addition.

 

thats weird, when i started on gv in 2010 and portalled out wild/chaos was my only option for pvp.  sounds pretty default to me

[Lycanthropic 507]

I picked:

• Cooking overhaul: I really like indepth mechanics in a game, not all foodstuff/drinks you can make have use, but it adds depth and immersion to the game.
• Free players on freedom: If it wasnt for this, I probably wouldnt have left GV in 2009 to go to Independence. I still remember the crossing, the huge slopes of dirt, the huge STONE buildings, caravels everywhere, ... it got me hooked and never let me go. The friends I crossed with gave me their referalls so I could be prem and in that time I was able to poke an irl friend to use his paypall for my wurm subscription (and now ended up with paysafecards :p), never skipped a month of prem since
• RMT changes: Good and bad I suppose, I'm a bit neutral on this, but it still one of the better changes to wurm. (Discussed it in the topics back when the change was announced, so I wont go repeating it here again to not create a wall of text :p)

 

Other changes that come to mind (mostly from when I started in 2009):

• Bulkbins being introduced! This was a big one for me, I was still playing on GV, so before bsb's were a thing in wurm, I had to chop trees to make 20ql planks whenever I wanted to make another house, some more fences or to repair damages (decay was brutal on GV, but managable if you did a routine repair route every month or 2 ;)). And after they were ingame... I could actually just stock up on every 20ql material I could make, an could bash down the coffins and containers-in-containers-in-containers that I used befor!
• Large anvils going down to 10kg instead of 50kg. This was a huge change for me also, since when you failed creating back then, you'd end up a with scrap and could start mining iron all over again. And let me tell you, mining on GV with 20skill, no woa enchants... wasnt really "fun". (that and combined with how long it took for a 20ql forge to actually smelt the ore down to lumps and keep them warm long enough for you to smith with)
• Plotting course: A more recent addition, but holy Magranon was it a good one, simply choose the server you want to cross to, and sit back and relax (or zigzag against a gale... x_x)
• Archeaology: Simply, another indepth new mechanic added to wurm, that actually got my lazy ass of my deed to go explore, looking for old deeds and fragments.
• Permission system was a a great one to, finally I could fine-tune who could do what on my deed and who could pilot/sit in what cart/ship

 

Changes from the list I didnt pick:

• Multistory buildings: Mixed feelings about this one, it led to extreme freedom in creating awesome buildings, but for me, I never end up using all the floors on my buildings XD And its "mixed" because suddenly, the Wurm client ate up 1-1.5gig of ram instead of 150-200Mb of ram... bye bye being logged on with 6 accounts digging and mining (back then a year of prem was 50euros, so I could actually afford allot of alts just for digging/mining)
• Graphics overhaul: Altho a welcome change, it wasnt something I really needed, I'm usually not to bothered with the graphics of a game. It had its charms back in 2009, judging if your crops were ready by placing small barrels all over your farmplot, seeing crazy colored animals, standing on horses, etc...

[Brash_Endeavors 4719]

Permission system was one I completely forgot about, and another major move forward for Wurm! Many great additions over the past 10+ years. 

 

"Server expansions" is another that people might disgree on, but that I myself happily welcomed. When I started on Indy in 2011 (another of the "free players" at first), Indy was packed and people were actually apprehensive to see new players, even just walking through their neighborhood, because land was so scarce that even a long walk from spawn, any open area would start to fill with newbie shacks and newbie fences popping up in perimeters. I ended up deeding on marshland (which is a royal pain) because it was the only waterfront I could find after days of exploration, and I wanted a boat! Especially if I could sail server to server! Meantime some argued anyone new should just join an existing deed as a villager and not expect to actually have a deed of their own.

 

Boats probably too. All of the various ones existed when I started but i imagine there was some major excitement when boats first went live. 

[Retrograde 12005]

Honestly, the best changes I've seen over the years has been the efforts of the dev teams in addressing bugs and tackling issues. I still recall the off-deed bug that affected you deeply @Brash_Endeavors as well as the server being offline for a weekend due to rolf not getting the message that it was down back in 2015, the work of Keenan, Samool, past and present devs in ensuring that major issues are addressed quickly, nd that server downtime has been kept to a minimum has been a huge change in the game. 

 

I do miss @spellcastgiving me a supreme mallet on test as we all played one weekend because I asked nicely, we had to give a reason why we needed it (as it was only for testing) so we said we wanted to test the effects of supreme mallets in combat, good enough! 

[Palgolak 449]

Wurm Unlimited

[Davih 1340]

The idea of the poll is nice, but it really lacks many of the things that i consider to be the best changes, and most of the stuff listed there was already in the game when i started.
so i'll make my own best/worst list.

Best :

1) Rifts / runes
2) Archaeology
3) Rmt ban on accounts
4) Trellis - Planters - Large planters - distillation - some other things of the cooking overhaul
5) Bridges - underground buildings
?) I guess some of the things that are mentioned on the poll that i never saw as changed cause they were already there (like multi-store etc)

Worst:
1) Rmt ban on items / currencies
2) Wurm unlimited
3) Poor addressing of huge issues (no new-player-friendly premium system / Uniques)
4) Major balance changes with HUGE delay and poor meta-understanding (enchant decay / imbue nerf / repair on steel never rebalanced / death of chopped veggies as easy sacs and so on...)

Fresh start was a good idea, poor execution. made a huge sacrifice to sell-out the game uniqueness for steam and failed to retain most of the new players-surge anyway.

Edited March 14, 2021 by Davih

[Ayes 3714]

A great topic which brings to mind so many of the "best" changes/additions made to the game over the years. Overall I have always viewed the game as progressing in a positive manner. A few not listed:

 

Level Mine Floors/Ceilings at 90+ Skill: Finally! no more unavoidable dips and bumps in mine floors and ceilings when a new wall is mined out. A great reward for reaching this skill *level*.

 

Reinforced and Paving Mine Floors: Another great addition to add more pleasing designs to mine floors and protect them from newbie digging damage as when completed they can't be removed without the proper tool.

 

Concrete: Although a very tedious and excessive mat creation process, the end result is that at last moderate mine floor bumps could be leveled out.

 

Care For Horses: Our favorite horses lives could be protected against death almost forever. Of course always the "hitch" is that they could be killed in combat while ridden if the mobs switched to them as target. It happened quite frequently when this change was made years ago but thankfully it was toned way down over the years and now rarely happens.

 

Looking back over the years all these new improvements have made the game more enjoyable for everyone and I would expect more of the same in the years to come.

 

Happy Trails

=Ayes=

[RainRain 590]

introducing new team members to replace old staff

and also banning rmt

[Derp 238]

Depends how far back you want to go - horses and keybinds were pretty key in getting to where we are now

[Odynn 2243]

the whole underground upgrades have been great (even if i hate the crazy amount in those marbles / slate / sandstones veins and the fact they are everywhere!)

[Ogare 72]

These where really good.

* Bulk storage bins - it was awful trying to micro manage item decay. And even if you didn't stress about item decay it was still complicated to build storage for things. I wish Wurm would take it a step further for the rest of our items.

* Not skill decay

 

 

The worst change for me where pretty much Tich stuff. It always seem to be overly complicated and restrictive. To this day I would trash the cooking and fishing updates in a heartbeat.

[Ostentatio 1790]

I can feed lasagna to my cat now, and that's the only thing that matters

[Sidereal 881]

Interesting opportunity to reflect on all of the changes over the years,@Brash_Endeavors!  Thanks for making it multi-choice because there have been many excellent improvements over the years.  From the list, I chose:

Cooking overhaul:  a tweak that created several small quality-of-life improvements without being absolutely necessary - and created a market for affinity pizzas almost overnight.
Crafting interface: being able to sort by the next imping step needed was a huge improvement back in the day, but just being able to look up what components are needed in game is so convenient.
Multistory buildings: clearly a favorite and has unlocked so much player creativity without ever unleashing the greatly feared Plague of Tall 1x1 Towers Everywhere that we were so sure would happen.
Graphics overhaul: looking back at the old troll graphics, we've come a long way - and now living in an era with volumetric lighting leaves me amazed on a regular basis.
Crackdowns on exploits: it's one of the reasons I stick with WO instead of moving to WU - I'll never know more than the barest hint of the invisible battle behind the scenes, but I'm thankful for all those tireless efforts.
RMT changes: WO was always a remarkable experiment with RMT - a thing no other MMO would touch with a 10' pole.  I'm still glad that era is behind us.

Other:

Bridges - which several folks have pointed out and I won't belabor, except to say I remember the the heated arguments about dirt bridges.  Being able to use bridges as ramps has been a huge boost to Impalongs in particular and building design in general.

Permissions system - I briefly lived in an era where copper was needed to make copies of keys and every time I set a permission on a pasture gate I'm so very thankful that era is behind us.

I'll add to the 'Other' list:
Improved storage solutions - just being able to have more than one BSB per tile seemed like a godsend at the time and the improvements since then have been marvelous: removing BSB loss, adding large and small crates, crate racks, BSB racks, saddle racks, amphoras, the works!  I'm so glad to be able to keep stocks of stone, dirt, and wood in a fairly compact building instead of dozens of BSBs scattered across the entire deed.

Highway system - even after living on the same server for years, I would routinely get lost when journeying too far from home.  The 'find route' feature has been fantastic for quickly finding a way back to your deed, an impalong, and even public slayings.  Plus, spiders finally got eyes in the process!

 

Thanks to the hard work of developers, game masters, community moderators, and an engaged player base, WO has certainly come a long way over the years.  It's good to reflect on how far we've come.

Edited March 20, 2021 by Sidereal

[Griffith 362]

47 minutes ago, Sidereal said:

RMT changes: WO was always a remarkable experiment with RMT - a thing no other MMO would touch with a 10' pole.  I'm still glad that era is behind us.

 

ive seen a couple mmos that still have rmt allowed or not actively prohibited. and in its broader definition most well populated mmos have rmt. Black markets may be an

unpopular fact among some who dislike it, and ive never practiced it to be clear. But we cant hide the sky with our hand.

 

edit. im not disagreeing with your opinion on you liking the change or not. just the asseveration.

 

Edited March 20, 2021 by Griffith

[Silures 91]

Fixing the 'horses disappearing in mines' bug comes high on the list for me. I chanced to see Rolf on a server and brought it to his attention. He thought it was already fixed and he fixed it for good asap

 

I'd also have voted for BSBs and bulk storage.

[Ols 232]

I voted for the RMT ban and character customisation for the same reason - Wurm should be about "your" story in the form of your character, and not about a specific place or the accumulation of material goods. I didn't like the idea of characters being treated as generic avatars to interact with the world. Anything that locks characters to a specific player or makes those characters more diverse and compelling on their own is good, in my view. In fact I think there's a long way to go in terms of adding more cosmetic variety to characters (for instance a variety of different items for slots like tabard, shoulder, cape, neck and belt) and to provide better ways for people to appreciate a character's history ingame.