Eyesgood

16 Years, 16 Maps

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Next year, Wurm Online will be 16 years old.  Unless there is another new map on the horizon, Wurm Online will have 16 maps remaining in 16 years.  It is well-known that Wurm Devs have used the land rush as a mechanism for growth, time and time and time again.  While that is certainly legitimate and understandable,  I do not believe it is a sustainable practice. So, what can Wurm do to sustain itself for the next 16 years that is different from the past?  That is the purpose of this post, to get feedback from the players on how Wurm can adjust for the future.  Please feel free to lend some constructive ideas.

 

Ok, let the food fight begin...

 

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Idea:

The wurm begins to consume older/lower populated servers

 

Servers in danger could receive periodic ominous messages similar to the messages you see when you sail close to the edge of a server. These messages could become more frequent/ominous as the wurm narrows its sight on a particular server and that final server begins to receive the most ominous messages until it is consumed by the wurm.

Edited by Tryfaen
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5 hours ago, Tryfaen said:

Idea:

The wurm begins to consume older/lower populated servers

 

Servers in danger could receive periodic ominous messages similar to the messages you see when you sail close to the edge of a server. These messages could become more frequent/ominous as the wurm narrows its sight on a particular server and that final server begins to receive the most ominous messages until it is consumed by the wurm.

 

God god, no!

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Like I said, before a Steam, there is no such thing like fresh start in Wurm, beside fresh land rush. All the vets, starting from scratch will be always far far ahead (couse of their experience) of all the new players that start from scratch.

We have seen this on steam servers.

 

So maybe we should stop pretending that people cannot cross with their skills and stuff couse they gonna destroy economy or new players experience. Just let merge population, which is too thin in Wurm to be spread more and more.

 

If there were an option to consolidate all pvp servers into one big server, I would gladly let go all that I have built in past years (and there was a lot of it), just to keep population together, not spread among servers.

Would be nice if we could keep our skills and maybe some stuff.

Edited by Wilczan
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Maybe they could add a little variety to the biomes and add islands that are just ice or desert or jungle/swamp where you can't survive very long or settle. You would have to fight the climate as much as the mobs there to get treasure or rare pelts/wood types. Those islands could also have more difficult mobs so even veteran players would have to team up.
Then add taxidermy, of course. Add more furniture/decorative items and craftable clothes on top of that. I love housing in most games but there isn't that much to do with it in Wurm, there's like, what, 3 different carpets only? The free building aspect is nice, but after that it's either a long grind to be able to make nice furniture (that's okay) or just not enough of it.

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19 hours ago, Tryfaen said:

Idea:

The wurm begins to consume older/lower populated servers

 

Servers in danger could receive periodic ominous messages similar to the messages you see when you sail close to the edge of a server. These messages could become more frequent/ominous as the wurm narrows its sight on a particular server and that final server begins to receive the most ominous messages until it is consumed by the wurm.

 

Surely you jest?

 

I've spent months slowly working on my deed; others have spent years working on theirs. I wouldn't be playing WO (and spending money on premium and silver for my deed) if I thought the server and all my work might be 'consumed' at some point because of a downturn in population.

 

No, I don't expect WO to last forever. But as long as it's going, I expect my home server to remain and the work I've done on it to last as long as I keep playing and paying upkeep!

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I am not a PVP player, but a big fan of the original idea of Epic... Play for 6-12 months, assign awards based on who won or lost, destroy the world, and start over. The Building is the fun part. The maintenance is not, at least for me. I don't mind starting over. I know I am in the minority, but I am in favor of assigning awards to people's accounts then merging a bunch of servers. If anyone bought anything with marks, they should either get the marks back or have a mechanism to allow them to redeem these items on the new server. 16 servers for this population sucks.

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If you would merge servers, more players would drop because they simply disagree with merging. Maybe merging NFI (as 1) and SFI (as 1) could be understandable. But the players who liked their current land might leave because of this particular decision. 

 

If wurm was really interested in more players. Then why don't they have more community based projects. What happened to twitch streams? What happened to advertisements? 

Why isn't the game actively promoted? Or more media out there?

 

Why don't we have polls in-game to give the community more control of how the game should be moving forward? The devs give 3 examples they want to work on. We vote on it. And we expect it in 1 month, which is also a reachable goal for dev team, so it doesn't have to be a big thing. Where is the sense of improvement in Wurm Online or the road map to look at, moving forward?

 

There are ton of games out there with a dev team lower than 5 people and they are able to put out more updates then our current dev team. 

 

We deal with toxicity in many forms. 

 

If players among each other don't wanna help out new players how do you think you will ever grow? And why don't you?

 

- Because you don't trust them.

- Dont feel like they will be beneficial.

- Also your alt doesn't have a mind of his own and doesn't just quit on you.

 

If your accepting new players do you have a place for them to come by?

A bed to sleep in and a chest or more for his personal belongings?

A public area and private area?

 

Managing settings is a important part and shouldn't be understimated.

 

Then this mechanic to my opinion should be voted on and make a change where it doesn't hurt the player as much and people are more willing to help out other players. There should be a mechanic in the game that makes permissions better. So it's not A... I trust you 100% or not case anymore. 

 

Honestly to my opinion. It is also not the Graphics. There are worse looking games out there then Wurm Online that have a higher player base. I also think that wurms player base is pretty much spread out. And most people play on the weekend'. And not everyone feels like playing this game daily. Why not improve on that as a second community goal? Give reasons to login besides your own biggest goals that are probably to big anyway to achieve in the first place. 

 

Just brainstorming gives a huge pool of opportunity and coming with these ideas only took me 20 minutes. And I assume the dev team would be even faster. But why isn't more stuff like this being worked on.. Kill the reasons why people would leave rather than a work around which has been done way to many times already in Wurm history.

 

Now first focus on these things before you decide on something as drastic as changing servers. 

Edited by Deltora
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1 hour ago, Deltora said:

Why don't we have polls in-game to give the community more control of how the game should be moving forward? The devs give 3 examples they want to work on. We vote on it. And we expect it in 1 month, which is also a reachable goal for dev team, so it doesn't have to be a big thing. Where is the sense of improvement in Wurm Online or the road map to look at, moving forward?

 

Voting is pretty much broken in Wurm because any "alt" can be premmed up to vote and skew the results.

 

I recall the first Elevation wipe was a result of many alts voting to wipe old elevation and replace it with a new map. The new map sucked and killed pvp.


The players voted, they got what they wanted then they realised they didn't like it and pvp died off elevation. It was too big a map and too flat, if I can simplify the reasons.

 

1 hour ago, Deltora said:

Kill the reasons why people would leave rather than a work around which has been done way to many times already in Wurm history.

 

Unpopular opinion, but I'll state it till Wurm dies off entirely : No one has years to sacrifice out of their lives to improve their characters. It's not realistic, yet we go with the same "slow grind" we had 10 years ago. Wurm needs faster timers. The old veterans won't agree with me, but at the same time I can chuckle bitterly and ask, how many of us vets are still around? A handful? Do we matter that much anymore anyway?

 

There are a lot of reasons people leave Wurm, but one of the main one I guess is simply how everything is a chore that takes a long time.

 

My observation is that on Freedom another reason is a "lack of identity and goals". On the older pvp servers, when they were at their peak you had a sense of cohesion among players. They played to strengthen their alliances, they built defences, crafted armors and weapons for allies, bred 5 speeders for pvp, etc. There was a sense of general direction, even if it was warfare based.


On freedom, that sense is lost, everything is indeed "free" to do but at the same time, I have noticed that Freedom is characterised by one dominant behavior : Isolationism. There is no risk, no reason to actually help people out in the hope they might one day do the same for you. Which also enforces a secondary behavior : a more mercantile approach to everything. Everything must have a price tag.

 

You ask why there are so few community projects or group goals? Beyond basic infrastructure, there is no mechanic or reason to actually have people group together.


Pvp servers usually have 1 -2 alliances at best on 1 server. Servers like Deliverance have 20 alliance, Xanadu has around 100 alliances. Isolationism. Lack of common purpose.

 

If wurm needs something to keep it alive, it needs new content that at the same time, bands people together with a common purpose to work together for something, anything. Make it a dragon invasion as it was suggested in the past. Make it an apocalyptic event. Make it a godstorm battle. Anything. As long as it implies a collective effort beyond  "any one player and their army of alts" it might  be worth considering.

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2 hours ago, elentari said:

 

Voting is pretty much broken in Wurm because any "alt" can be premmed up to vote and skew the results.


This could easily be fixed if they, would limit it by IP Address. Also games like Runescape, have been using the vote system for a long time in the Old Skool Community. And it works to keep poeple excited for new content. ALTS have been there, Have been there in EVE ONLINE. If you give alts the fault of every purpose in life I always point them towards the number: 42. Answer on everything.

You will never satisfy everyone, progression can only be made if you make something people can give input on, If you keep quiet nothing will happen. Progression need  to have a certain line dragged, if your killing that for other people your killing the game you pay so much for. with all the alts you own.

 

2 hours ago, elentari said:

Unpopular opinion, but I'll state it till Wurm dies off entirely : No one has years to sacrifice out of their lives to improve their characters. It's not realistic, yet we go with the same "slow grind" we had 10 years ago. Wurm needs faster timers. The old veterans won't agree with me, but at the same time I can chuckle bitterly and ask, how many of us vets are still around? A handful? Do we matter that much anymore anyway?

 

There are a lot of reasons people leave Wurm, but one of the main one I guess is simply how everything is a chore that takes a long time.

 

Wurm Online is unique because everything takes long. Because it takes long, it holds value and there is trading because of it. If you would speed things even more you would kill the economy with it. The Value of leveling. The Value of a building. the Value of a place you made, which you invested a lot of time in. 

Making things faster doesn't work. and if it did. Why aren't there more players Playing Wurm Unlimited? They have servers over there, where everything goes a lot faster. And Maybe, we could learn a thing or 2 from them. But how fast something goes is not 1 of them.

 

2 hours ago, elentari said:

My observation is that on Freedom another reason is a "lack of identity and goals". On the older pvp servers, when they were at their peak you had a sense of cohesion among players. They played to strengthen their alliances, they built defences, crafted armors and weapons for allies, bred 5 speeders for pvp, etc. There was a sense of general direction, even if it was warfare based.


On freedom, that sense is lost, everything is indeed "free" to do but at the same time, I have noticed that Freedom is characterised by one dominant behavior : Isolationism. There is no risk, no reason to actually help people out in the hope they might one day do the same for you. Which also enforces a secondary behavior : a more mercantile approach to everything. Everything must have a price tag.


Strength of your alliance is done by the right leadership, if you can't encourage people to play together as one, then it isn't the games fault but just the leadership not been able to organize properly. People can make many goals together, because it's a sandbox game that allows you unlimited space for creativity. The fact that it takes longer, should be a reason to get people to work together. But because the majority of the community has ALTS, they can barely talk with other people or make plans or think about anything else beside this point.

Which ultimately is the fault of the player and not the game once again.
 

2 hours ago, elentari said:

On freedom, that sense is lost, everything is indeed "free" to do but at the same time, I have noticed that Freedom is characterised by one dominant behavior : Isolationism. There is no risk, no reason to actually help people out in the hope they might one day do the same for you. Which also enforces a secondary behavior : a more mercantile approach to everything. Everything must have a price tag.

 

You ask why there are so few community projects or group goals? Beyond basic infrastructure, there is no mechanic or reason to actually have people group together.


Pvp servers usually have 1 -2 alliances at best on 1 server. Servers like Deliverance have 20 alliance, Xanadu has around 100 alliances. Isolationism. Lack of common purpose.

 

If wurm needs something to keep it alive, it needs new content that at the same time, bands people together with a common purpose to work together for something, anything. Make it a dragon invasion as it was suggested in the past. Make it an apocalyptic event. Make it a godstorm battle. Anything. As long as it implies a collective effort beyond  "any one player and their army of alts" it might  be worth considering.


Wurm has enough goals to do together, from anything you could imagine, the thing is do people see that as the same value? What if there was a event in the world. Where you would train Woodcutting/Stone Making, but the experience can be chosen to a skill of your choice instead during that event? So if you actually wanted to train a certain skill you will gain experience for that skill instead. That way you would encourage players to come to an event and it should be made by the deed owner once every week. So that would be able to gain experience of any skill that would like to. 

I think new content is definitely something we need to have. WoW also goes downhill if it doesn't by a huge margin. However, they also have a playerbase that loves to do Role Playing. And they all meet up together. Wurm needs something else next to skilling and goal making, that makes people stay in the game for other purposes, and not just wander off else where.

We have a huge amount of skills. But not enough variety in game play, not actually related to skills, if we aren't in the mood to continue our goals and skill gains. Mods can make the game, into something totally different where the community could be really excited for. And if people would want to Role Play in this game. They should be able to travel a lot easier then the 3 hours I need to travel with a boat to start a RP. 

If we would look at GTA 5 Role Play. It is huge... And it is something else then the game was designed to be about. I think Wurm should head in a similar direction to keep people playing not just for the purpose of the game. But also it's variety of gameplay.

Edited by Deltora

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44 minutes ago, Deltora said:

Strength of your alliance is done by the right leadership, if you can't encourage people to play together as one, then it isn't the games fault but just the leadership not been able to organize properly.

 

I wouldn't fault it really on leadership. We had relatively loose leadership styles on pvp, but the thing that kept people close knitted was the "threat" of being raided or the possibility of losing stuff, horses, token drains, etc. A sort of "community - defence" driven behavior was born out of it. Old Valrei scenarios made alliance members work together for their god to win. People did missions with a purpose other than some SB or karma. On freedom there is no such purpose other than karma or SB, which let's face it, are kinda pointless most of the time. Karma is only useful in pvp really and SB depends heavily on how much time you have to play.

 

For a community to band to gether it needs to band against something or for something. We don't really have "that something" in Wurm for quite some time now. In pvp scenarios that something is the danger of pvp itself. On freedom servers, there is no something. You really can't compel people to do anything. Hence why we always see drama threads on freedom about roads, who cut my cherry tree, who built that tower over there, who pruned my grapeyard, etc.

 

44 minutes ago, Deltora said:

Wurm has enough goals to do together, from anything you could imagine, the thing is do people see that as the same value?

Kinda my point here. Wurm might have goals to do together, but what is the gain in doing things together? There is no added value on freedom side by working together aside from public infrastructure projects such as roads, canals and such.

 

I repeat my observation, isolationist playstyles , enforced by game mechanics make players quit en masse faster than any "bug" out there in Wurm.


Is there any benefit to have 1 alliance on Xanadu vs the current 100 smallish alliances? As long as there is no long term benefit, you'll have these situations where everyone lives, plays and quits in their own little social bubble.

44 minutes ago, Deltora said:

We have a huge amount of skills. But not enough variety in game play, not actually related to skills, if we aren't in the mood to continue our goals and skill gains.

 

Aye. Quite a lot of pointless skills I'd argue. Or shallow at best. Trebuchets do what again? Or catapults? Or butchering knife? Thatching is only useful for 1 thing. Papyrusmaking is pointless without a more in depth system for books/scrolls, etc.

 

Edited by elentari

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Merge the smaller servers into larger ones.

 

Even with no attempts at best-fit, 4 of the 5 small SFI maps could be merged to 1 medium server.

Edited by TheTrickster

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"Merging" means destruction and deportation. I doubt it would be technically feasible in finite time to preserve all existing deeds into a "merged medium server". That would e.g. require to preserve all coast lines with harbours to avoid ship stranding, not to speak of inner lakes, canals, road networks.

 

The 16 maps may be not ideal, but "merging" would spell exodus of many long time players

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There's also the fact that a few players have deeds on more than one server.

You can't have two deeds on the same server (for the same character).

 

Same goes for those players who have seperate cared-for animals for different servers.  The maximum number of cared-for animals would be exceeded in many of those players because currently they could have the max cared-for on one server, with others cared-for on one or more other servers which have their own seperate cared-for limits.

 

I agree that there are too many servers for Wurm Online's active player population.  But I fear that it's already happened and such a big change as merging/removing servers to pare down the total number is likely not possible to do with the time that's passed and would likely have grave consequences.

 

A linking together of the Northern Freedom Isles cluster and the Southern Freedom Isles cluster would be my recommended action.  Then, at least, travel wouldn't be cut off from any of the PvE servers from one to another and players could visit at will.

Edited by Tristanc
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I have been tooting that horn since NFI turned one year old.  Whatever the technical limitations are, they should figure it out and DO IT.  I really believe opening the border will create a boon similar to what happened when Independence opened up.  That was a day to remember!!!

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More limited time special servers like Jackal would be my honest reccomendation.

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do another fresh start server, maybe for pvpers with a good ruleset, in all seriousness this is how you will make the most money

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I agree to Reverent that reopening Jackal, maybe after some mopup like better skill retransfer, and a prettier endgame fortress 😎 would be good. But not without cluster unification.

 

Same concerns like with PvP unification without cluster unification: Would create a common silver space without item space (given that no item transfer on common PvP server which would be even worse), so opening would create avenues for abuse, cause panic bandaids as evil as the mining/wc, and priest nerfs, or even worse, and possibly precluding or at least hindering full cluster merge.

Edited by Ekcin
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On 5/9/2021 at 7:39 PM, Eyesgood said:

Next year, Wurm Online will be 16 years old.  Unless there is another new map on the horizon, Wurm Online will have 16 maps remaining in 16 years.  It is well-known that Wurm Devs have used the land rush as a mechanism for growth, time and time and time again.  While that is certainly legitimate and understandable,  I do not believe it is a sustainable practice. So, what can Wurm do to sustain itself for the next 16 years that is different from the past?  That is the purpose of this post, to get feedback from the players on how Wurm can adjust for the future.  Please feel free to lend some constructive ideas.

 

Ok, let the food fight begin...

 

It's all good, there are no news for new maps, no further splitting of the population is on the horizon for the moment.

 

5 hours ago, ChewiustheReturned said:

answering the origional post.. Wurm needs more population density... too empty

nah, do you ever team up with anyone for anything? with random people?

it's not that type of game

 

On 2/7/2024 at 8:06 PM, Emi said:

do another fresh start server, maybe for pvpers with a good ruleset, in all seriousness this is how you will make the most money

"seasonal"/yearly wiped pvp map? with how pvp works.. this means a lot of work done to be all lost in a few months, is it worth or preferred concept from pvpers?

I'm yet to see pvpers build a honest meta/issue list and vote on things needing change.. and discuss about what is good and bad about wurm pvp;

maybe I'm just blind.. but still.. I haven't seen discussions trying to fix pvp

 

On 2/7/2024 at 6:46 PM, Reverent said:

More limited time special servers like Jackal would be my honest reccomendation.

maybe.. one day.. you'd need 1-2 devs dedicated to new rng procedural events, etc.. loot to spawn, stuff to gather, gamify exploration etc.. and keep things balanced in some way so there's fun for everyone willing to spend time and effort on it, experience, experience, experience.. from it all, it all comes down to.. is it fun, is it worth doing/going trough, cost - reward, etc..

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This is actually a very complex subject. For instance, I do agree that larger population density would do the game some good. And I do realize that the number of maps is what contributes to the low density in the first place. However, merging maps, or getting rid of some of the continents, would be a measure that is too drastic, in my opinion.

 

While a number of Wurm players enjoy starting over in new locations and building new deeds, an equal amount is quite the opposite. They like what they have and would absolutely hate to lose it. I am one of those players. Some of the deeds are very elaborate and have taken a long time to complete... especially the ones with sculpted cities under the surface of the earth. Many players put a lot of time and sometimes even money into them. The deeds become bases for the players to explore the world from, but always have a feeling of "home". It's hard to let a home go, especially if there is an emotional attachment.

 

I think that a lot of players - those who do not thrive on starting over - would be very unhappy if some of the continents were to go away. Many would not want to start over and would probably leave the game. I'd be on the fence myself, as I love my deed and the thought of spending all this time again to get a new one (especially since this one is exactly how I want it and in the exact location I love) may be just not appealing enough. So, it's very likely that a merger of servers may create the opposite effect of what it would be designed to do. One can argue that a more concentrated population would compensate for that, but we have to remember that Wurm is a niche game and a lot of players who play it have been here for a long time. Those are the players that sustain Wurm today. Replacing those, given the fact that Wurm is not widely known, would be very hard.

 

There are also two more aspects at play here. First is the fact that some people actually like the low density of players. Many play for the solitude of the experience, where on daily basis they carve their little piece of Wurm in a frontier-like isolation, while exercising the option of visiting their friends and travelling whenever they feel. The low density of players is actually what draws some players to the game and to their hand-chosen locations. The second is the exploration bit. Many continents and much wilderness means that Wurm is a mecca for exploration. I, for one, love exploring in Wurm. I have been doing that for years, and the fact that there is so much land out there means that even after those years there are many, many places I haven't yet seen and each trip is a new adventure. I like seeing other players' secluded locations, ruins of old settlements, terraformed land that is being reclaimed by nature, new vistas, mountains, coasts, etc.

 

The point I am making is that while I do understand the desire of some to condense the Wurm experience to create a more robust community, and can see some of the benefits, there are many different playstyles in Wurm and not all thrive on a condensed, economy-based gameplay. Solitude, distance, exploration, nature and other aspects are equally important to many. So, combining or limiting servers is a mixed bag and may drive many people away. I believe that a better option would be a more skillful and more sustained recruitment campaign. This should - at least in theory - slowly rise the numbers and make the continents a bit more populated. I don't think this will fully achieve the results that the proponents of a condensed community would hope for, but in today's MMO world, where options are plentiful and attention span is at a premium, that may be the best way to give all the playstyles a boost and sustain Wurm for years to come.

 

My 2 cents :)

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On 2/7/2024 at 8:35 PM, Ekcin said:

"Merging" means destruction and deportation. I doubt it would be technically feasible in finite time to preserve all existing deeds into a "merged medium server". That would e.g. require to preserve all coast lines with harbours to avoid ship stranding, not to speak of inner lakes, canals, road networks.

 

The 16 maps may be not ideal, but "merging" would spell exodus of many long time players

I think a merged medium server would be quite doable as far as the landscape goes.  It is simply creating a new map and then mapping the 4 old maps onto a new set of co-ordinates which themselves are simply the old co-ordinate plus an offset.  Buildings would likewise be okay.  Anything that isn't on a tile centre or tile border would likely wind up moved (i.e. no longer where it was placed).

 

The hard parts would be object id mapping and permissions.  Object id could I think be also handled with an offset.  Quite possibly, that could help solve permissions too.

 

Done well, each smaller server could be merged in sequentially.   

 

I can't see it ever being done at all, though.  It is a major amount of work and all it really does is eliminate server crossings.  

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33 minutes ago, Valdor said:

My 2 cents :)

That's all I am quoting, for space, but have to agree with the rest.

 

I think recruitment is indeed the major hurdle here.  I haven't looked, but is the "Everybody go to the new Cadence server" still up?   That was only ever meant to stop overcrowding on the existing NFI servers.  It was such a missed opportunity to have new players discover the many servers available.  Regardless, what there needs to be is something help "seed" players into servers. 

 

SFI has several small maps, which I would have thought would be ideal for new players to start out exploring Wurm.   Like Valdor, I am an explorer and although I went to most servers on expeditions, on my home server of Release I could still go for a ramble and find new stuff every time.   Even sailing versus riding the roads versus getting off the beaten path can each give completely experience of the same general location.  The one thing I only ever saw rarely when away from the home deed was another player.  Genuinely, in 3 years of exploring Release I set eyes on another character away from my home deed 3 times - 2 of which I was passing through their deeds.  

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In my opinion.

 

Adding another server is a huge psychological sell - it says that the game is expanding rather than shrinking.  The new servers and the hype that surrounds them are popular with old and new players, the press, and wider gaming community - not to mention shareholders - everyone interested in seeing the game grow.

 

It would be difficult to close a server or combine several servers into one, and still pass this off as 'growth'.  Unless everyone sees the company as building and growing the game, there's a risk that people will feel that the company has shown 'failure to thrive'.

 

Staff have said that servers cost very little to host, so cost is not the issue.  If people feel that population density is becoming the issue, then more focus should be placed on attracting an influx of new and returning players, and nothing does this better than a shiny new server, it attracts many many people, and some of these also join, or return to, the older servers.   

 

Merging NFI and SFI is a hotly debated option.  The land-rush effect of joining North and South may have a similar attraction to adding a new server.  Arguably, we could have both.

 

As many have said, a temporary Jackal type server is one solution, as when it closes, all the players eventually come back to Freedom (whether that is NFI or SFI).  Some of these players will eagerly await the next Jackal type server, others may deed on Freedom servers and stay longer.  The hype and buzz surrounding any big server event like this, is often enough to bring back enough returning players to bolster the whole population noticeably.

 

This cyclical process will always cause a population (and income) spike and decay, this is the natural ongoing pattern for online game development. 

 

I think most of us Wurmians are keeping in contact with a number of people who have played Wurm in the past.  We are all waiting for some notable news that we can tell these friends - that will draw them back into Wurm.   I have heard time and again how people have money ready and waiting 'if Wurm releases a new server' or 'if they merge North and South'.  Currently I can not think of a more popular funding model than the current model.  I think the main reason people are currently bored /disgruntled with it, is that we are overdue one of these 'big events' and are years past the last big spike.

Edited by Muse
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