New Server on the Horizon?(a player driven discussion)

[Chihuahua 60]

Imo it's terrible idea, we got too much already

[Sindusk 2215]

New servers are required in order to maintain growth in the game. It's an unfortunate side effect of the way the game was designed. Without new land and new opportunity, you will not see significant increases in the population. Any fixes and improvements to existing servers will only serve to maintain the existing players, and maybe draw a few others out of hiatus. If that's the goal - to keep the player base roughly where it's at and make the game more enjoyable for those who are playing - then adding a new server is not the solution you're looking for.

 

However, if you truly are actively looking for growth in Wurm and still disagree with the addition of new servers, then I'd love to hear a pitch on how to grow the population.

• Marketing/advertising will not get you very far without a new opportunity (new server) to utilize as a selling point.
• Fixing problems within the game as it stands will not provide significant growth. It will maintain existing players and maybe get a slight increase.
• Launching on new platforms (Epic Games Launcher, Console Ports, etc.) will create a significant increase, but are non-repeatable and thus not a long-term strategy.

[Revnik 63]

21 minutes ago, Sindusk said:

New servers are required in order to maintain growth in the game.

 

I have no issues with new servers if it means old servers get merged/closed/locked. At some point having a ton of servers to update, maintain, reboot, etc becomes nonsense. I do not work in the game industry, but I do work in the information technology industry. Even if these servers are VM's it takes man hours to make them work, and there is a point at which this becomes cost prohibitive.

Bring back the original Epic idea and modify it. Come up with an incentive for people to reclaim silver or perks for the years they spent on these toons to move to the new server(s). Have a PVP map with exclusive resources of some sort in the middle, then one or two PVE servers on the outside. Everyone works toward a goal while giving PVP a reason without being a requirement, meaning PVE players can participate as well. Give the "winning kingdom" some sort of perk on their account. The servers reset every six to eight months, presenting a yearly "new server land rush" without having the server bloat.

 

That rough draft of an idea isn't perfect, but today we are right back in the same boat of having 400-ish concurrent people playing. This time last year it was about the same number, except we are even more spread out. How many times do we need to see landrushes bring people back, only to have most of them leave after a short time?

[Zexos 325]

If people are leaving not long after a land rush, then does that not show that new servers/new land are not something that keeps players around for a long time. 

 

It is more like a repeating gimmick. 

[Stinboi 174]

1 hour ago, Sindusk said:

New servers are required in order to maintain growth in the game. It's an unfortunate side effect of the way the game was designed. Without new land and new opportunity, you will not see significant increases in the population. Any fixes and improvements to existing servers will only serve to maintain the existing players, and maybe draw a few others out of hiatus. If that's the goal - to keep the player base roughly where it's at and make the game more enjoyable for those who are playing - then adding a new server is not the solution you're looking for.

 

However, if you truly are actively looking for growth in Wurm and still disagree with the addition of new servers, then I'd love to hear a pitch on how to grow the population.

• Marketing/advertising will not get you very far without a new opportunity (new server) to utilize as a selling point.
• Fixing problems within the game as it stands will not provide significant growth. It will maintain existing players and maybe get a slight increase.
• Launching on new platforms (Epic Games Launcher, Console Ports, etc.) will create a significant increase, but are non-repeatable and thus not a long-term strategy.

sorry to say this but its proven many times that adding new server doesnt help either, in the long run it just make things worse.

we need new content, something more to do then pushing a button every 15sec to get our skills up.

Maybe that could make a few more people to a stay but atm most dont have any reason to stay when they built they deed.

 

wurm as it is today wont manage to raise their playerbase.

[Skatyna 372]

19 minutes ago, Stinboi said:

sorry to say this but its proven many times that adding new server doesnt help either, in the long run it just make things worse.

 

Dont be silly, okay? if that would be proven many times, dont you think devs would have stopped dropping new servers long ago? But they didnt, they kept making new and new servers, that means it doesnt make things worse, just better lol. More land to cash in from new players for a month or two and then when things settle down, can drop another new server. Jackpot. 

 

Just think if wurm made a new "steam" like release for asians? the popularity would go over the roof, no less than 50 new servers would be required 🥳

[AceRifle 1222]

For the older servers I would like to see weekend/monthly xp events to encourage new player to join and grind. This will also help vets long term, but will allow noobs to close the gap against those who aren't grinding or taking breaks. 

[Katrat 2148]

I like the idea of adding small islands to the old servers with their own unique biomes and creatures. Say tropical ones with palm trees or volcanic islands. Maybe even throw in a mythical/fantasy one with fairies and pixies or something or a fog covered island? Just something different from the same old thing. Maybe make one unique to each server?

[Ecrir 825]

12 hours ago, Skatyna said:

 

Dont be silly, okay? if that would be proven many times, dont you think devs would have stopped dropping new servers long ago? But they didnt, they kept making new and new servers, that means it doesnt make things worse, just better lol.

 

You can see the founding date of a server on the wiki: https://www.wurmpedia.com/index.php/Server_types

As you can see, 2011 and 2012 saw a lot of new servers, then finally Xanadu  on 2014 and after that nothing for 7 years. So they did stop adding new servers long ago, with the exception of a temporary one (Jackal). After many years they broke that streak with the Steam launch, probably because they figured it would help increase the initial boost to the player count. Since then they've once again stopped adding new servers.

 

It's become pretty clear over the years that new servers don't help. You get a temporary rush of new and (mostly) returning players to check out the new server. Most of them fall away pretty soon after again as the new server simply proves to be more of the same and in the end you simply have a player base spread even more thinly over more servers, which just worsens player retention even more as everything starts to look more and more abandoned. They stopped adding new servers because it didn't work, otherwise they'd obviously have continued to add new servers to the Freedom cluster between 2014 and 2021.

[griper 515]

Well, they could always add a hunting server.

 

More powerful mobs

No construction/terraforming outside deeds

Accessible from both S and N cluster (binding the clusters together)

[Tor 313]

How do you call that thing when you do the same thing over and over, expecting a different result

[Skatyna 372]

6 hours ago, Tor said:

How do you call that thing when you do the same thing over and over, expecting a different result

 

you call this 'wurm online' 🤣

[Skatyna 372]

7 hours ago, griper said:

Well, they could always add a hunting server.

 

Or, they can pull the plug finally and start properly reworking existing infrastructure. Millions of ideas been suggested over the years. The main one everyone agrees is there are too many servers, yet you suggest another hunting one lmao. if anything - Chaos probably has to be just deleted. Elevation deleted too and replaced with Defiance. All travel, skill transfer, item transfer etc crap should be simply removed so everyone can travel free anywhere they want in wurm, not start over skill or gear wise every time you want to change cluster. Smaller servers like Pristine, Release, Celebration, Exodus joined into one 16x16 server incorporating respective small servers in a quarter on the joint map. Rework all server in circle connection, current freedom servers being outer circle pvp free, epic home servers being intermediate circle of servers with possible pvp but still mainly pve/hunting grounds with the increased skill gain speed/curve, increased actions timers and main pvp server being Defiance with the same skill set up as home servers, but all the non pve related events happening only there, all hotas, treasure chests whatnot. highest the risk to play - best rewards and deepest game content. Either way everyone is free to move/change/try out anywhere in wurm freely. 

 

And thats just one my idea, there were hundreds or other ideas offered. You will never please everyone 100%, but wurm devs got to choose to die slowly to cancer for the years to come until wurm finally gets shut down or try aggressive approach to try change things 

[Stinboi 174]

42 minutes ago, Skatyna said:

 

Or, they can pull the plug finally and start properly reworking existing infrastructure. Millions of ideas been suggested over the years. The main one everyone agrees is there are too many servers, yet you suggest another hunting one lmao. if anything - Chaos probably has to be just deleted. Elevation deleted too and replaced with Defiance. All travel, skill transfer, item transfer etc crap should be simply removed so everyone can travel free anywhere they want in wurm, not start over skill or gear wise every time you want to change cluster. Smaller servers like Pristine, Release, Celebration, Exodus joined into one 16x16 server incorporating respective small servers in a quarter on the joint map. Rework all server in circle connection, current freedom servers being outer circle pvp free, epic home servers being intermediate circle of servers with possible pvp but still mainly pve/hunting grounds with the increased skill gain speed/curve, increased actions timers and main pvp server being Defiance with the same skill set up as home servers, but all the non pve related events happening only there, all hotas, treasure chests whatnot. highest the risk to play - best rewards and deepest game content. Either way everyone is free to move/change/try out anywhere in wurm freely. 

 

And thats just one my idea, there were hundreds or other ideas offered. You will never please everyone 100%, but wurm devs got to choose to die slowly to cancer for the years to come until wurm finally gets shut down or try aggressive approach to try change things 

no thanks, i start working on my escape from Xanadu the first week i arrived, as a Exodian i dont want to be forced onto a new Xan look alike server.

But i agree that something has to change, the way it is now we getting closer and closer to everyone having they private server .

 

I dont think any would argu that the community atm is to splitted.

[Ecrir 825]

8 hours ago, griper said:

Well, they could always add a hunting server.

 

I'd rather see them make hunting more interesting on the existing servers first. After having played Valheim for a bit the Wurm Online servers mostly just feel very dead environment wise. Games like that can feel more alive because they spawn stuff in around the player, giving the illusion that the world is alive, and that works quite well. They even solved issues like being able to tame such creatures, turning specific creatures into a permanent addition to a world instead of a temporary instance. Wurm on the other hand has a set amount of creatures per server and they exist at all times, even when 99% of the time there are no players near any specific creature, making them just a waste of resources. Improve upon that and there would be very little point to adding a hunting server.

[griper 515]

The main point for adding a new server is that starting a new deed on a fresh server is one of the few things that attract a lot of players to the game (for a while at least).

I would much rather have much more content in the game than new servers. But it seems unlikely that we will get that any time soon (or ever).

[MordosKull 708]

= wurm unlimited

 

wurm offline

[Nukacola 59]

I’m not sure what good creating another new server will do, as it will further split the community apart.

 

However, I do think keeping the NFI and SFI separated in the long term is not good for the game at this point.

 

 

[Antony 279]

On ‎5‎/‎10‎/‎2021 at 8:32 PM, AceRifle said:

For the older servers I would like to see weekend/monthly xp events to encourage new player to join and grind. This will also help vets long term, but will allow noobs to close the gap against those who aren't grinding or taking breaks. 

We have an XP curve in place that allows noobs to close the gap, we don't need xp events.

[AceRifle 1222]

1 hour ago, Antony said:

We have an XP curve in place that allows noobs to close the gap, we don't need xp events.

I wouldn't call sweet spot imping and gimping their body stats closing the gap. And curve currently not attracting new players so gotta try something else

[Cheststrongwell 8]

We already have to many servers. They need to find a way to allow more people on the servers without the servers crapping the bed. More content and being a bit more newbie friendly wouldn't hurt either. Also(if more players can't be retained), though it would be wildly unpopular to some and sad,  remove half the servers(totally scrap PVP). Bring more people to a few maps so you actually see someone every once in awhile. Add some official events like monster attacks, treasure hunts, fishing tournaments. Make the seasons mean something other than being able to harvest a cherry or a grape. This is all me talking out of my ass, but I would hate to see this game die. There really isn't any other game like it. After years of playing, I still enjoy sitting at my forge and peacefully tinkering away. 

 

 

[Ekcin 2026]

Removing servers spells removing players. I would not continue when my server would be bust, and many others as well. And being pressed into crowded areas would be abhorrent to me anyway, others may feel differently about. I like wide, open lands, and good neighbours around me, at best no less than 100-300 tiles away. Removing PvP would also drive out all who at least did or do PvP in the past or casually, along with those who love it and see their destiny in Wurm or at least some part of in it.

 

I would agree that we have too few PvE events. Rifts, the ranting of some veterans notwithstanding, are wildly popular especially among newer and mid range players. There should be more rift camps, and also PvE challenges above the usual trolls, scorps, including champs, which are too weak for players with some fight experience. Nothing against treasure hunts, some certainly will like them (not me so much  tbh, don't love time gated competitive treasure hunts where you waste time for nothing, though stumbling over some stuff when exploring or just riding in the wild is ofc nice).

 

Bit more newbie friendly, or at least bit less slapping newbs in the face is certainly not wrong. Still I think the "f2p" model is crap. Once you reach the ridiculous level 20 in a few skills, you are obnoxiously molested by the game to get prem. The game practically tells you "prem or f*ck of", and too many heed the advice.

 

 

 

[Cheststrongwell 8]

Yeah, the subscription model needs to go. I'm okay with subbing(have been for years) but unless you are WOW or FFXIV, it doesn't seem to work anymore with newer players. Devs still need to make a profit though, so who knows.  My idea of a treasure hunt would be maybe randomly get a map while digging, mining, or foraging, then find the location. More of a solo thing and would get my butt away from my forge. 

 

As far as removing servers, that's just me brainstorming for the end of the line, nuclear option. We could pack all the current population in a few maps and still have more than enough room. Like I said, maps right now are a ghost town in most locations. Devs working on PVP for a few people is a waste of resources in my opinion, but maybe those few purchase a lot of silver.

 

Anyway, I just want wurm to stick around. 

[Oblivionnreaver 4661]

26 minutes ago, Cheststrongwell said:

Devs working on PVP for a few people is a waste of resources in my opinion

pvp work is mainly done by a single dev who only plays/played pvp, doesn't make any content for pve and is a volunteer, so there's no resources being wasted nor would they do work for a pve only game. i'm not sure why you keep posting about removing pvp which would in turn drop the population further (plenty of pvp people play on pve too) in your posts about trying to keep population but it got a laugh out of me

[Cheststrongwell 8]

26 minutes ago, Oblivionnreaver said:

pvp work is mainly done by a single dev who only plays/played pvp, doesn't make any content for pve and is a volunteer, so there's no resources being wasted nor would they do work for a pve only game. i'm not sure why you keep posting about removing pvp which would in turn drop the population further (plenty of pvp people play on pve too) in your posts about trying to keep population but it got a laugh out of me

That's good to know. Thanks for the info 😛