Sign in to follow this  
Keenan

Development Update 2021-09-22

Recommended Posts

Hello!

 

I’d like to address some of the concerns we’ve seen from you.

 

Communication

I’ve talked with Demona, who will be staying on board, and we’ve agreed that a Valrei International on at least a monthly basis is a must. Releasing one on this cadence will ensure active communication from the team every month.

 

Animal Husbandry

I won’t go into all the details here, but I will say that we have a patch we plan on releasing tomorrow that has some long-awaited fixes for breeding and animal husbandry. I’ve asked Demona to cover the details in a Valrei International, which should be going up later. As with anything, development is an ongoing process, and we will await more feedback from you before we decide on future tweaks to this system.

 

Patches & Future Content

While tomorrow’s patch will be a bug fix patch, we’re still actively working on a few significant projects and sourcing suggestions for quality of life improvements. We plan to make another post in a week or so regarding the previously detailed plans and where things currently stand.

 

With all of that said, I’d like to thank you all for your patience and feedback.

 

Happy Wurming!

 

Edit: to stop suggestions getting lost in this thread, there is a separate epic channges suggestions thread running here:

 

Edited by Pandalet
Added suggestion link
  • Like 50

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Thank you for the update!

I must ask is there any planned changes coming to Epic cluster in any foreseeable future?

We are struggling on our lonely cluster :(

Greatly appreciate any update on this matter thank you!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Like what was common not long ago for much lesser player-base frustrations, is it possible we could also get some sleep bonus for all we've been through over the last few months? 

Edited by MordosKull

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
1 hour ago, Rukhal said:

Thank you for the update!

I must ask is there any planned changes coming to Epic cluster in any foreseeable future?

We are struggling on our lonely cluster :(

Greatly appreciate any update on this matter thank you!

 

1 hour ago, Beastwolf said:

Any news on deleting Epic ?

 

We are defiantly open to suggestions about what people think would be best for epic going forward. Just closing it fully is a tough thing to do and something I personally hope we can avoid.

  • Like 8
  • Cat 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Defiantly? or definately 😜  Prob both amirite?

Edited by Rhianna
  • Like 3

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
2 hours ago, Darklords said:

 

 

We are defiantly open to suggestions about what people think would be best for epic going forward. Just closing it fully is a tough thing to do and something I personally hope we can avoid.

When can we expect stuff for defiance like PMKs?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
5 hours ago, Keenan said:

Communication

I’ve talked with Demona, who will be staying on board, and we’ve agreed that a Valrei International on at least a monthly basis is a must. Releasing one on this cadence will ensure active communication from the team every month.

 

Not to be the downer here, but at this point I'll opt to be sceptic until proven otherwise:

 

I hope the talk with demona was less like "hey, try to post a VI once a month, k?" and more like "hey, we the dev team will actually try to give you info that you can share with the community. The idea is one VI a month, k?"

 

Because let's be real, you're making it sound awfully a lot like it'll be demona responsibility to deliver communication with us players, but unless you guys fix one of the core issues of not giving demona info to share, then she's just going to be sitting there taking the heat of the players while not having anything to communicate like the last few months.

 

I wish I didn't have to have these cynical thoughts, but I can't stop them until I get proven that I can. This hurts my hope and overall enjoyment.

  • Like 8

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
3 hours ago, Darklords said:

 

 

We are defiantly open to suggestions about what people think would be best for epic going forward. Just closing it fully is a tough thing to do and something I personally hope we can avoid.

 

I mean, you don't have to be defiant about it, but personally I suggest adding a massive incentive to convince people to play there despite the risks and problems.  Like, no f2p restrictions on the home servers.  You can grind skills on the home servers on a free character with no limit, with the epic skill grind system, but cannot bring those skills to freedom, and cannot access Elevation without premium.

 

I bet the net result of this would be a huge increase in Epic playerbase, both premium and free, an eventual big increase in Elevation population as the advantages of that server call to all the home server players, AND an increase in income as the f2p home-server'ers premium up to hit Elevation here and there.

 

Would let the kind of players for whom current premium is too steep and f2p too drudgery get hooked on Wurm and have a place to play even during times they couldn't afford it.  Also imagine the marketing inherent in having areas that are completely truly free to play on without restriction.

Also you know even the people that only play if it's free will often buy occasional silver anyway.

Edited by Koreal

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
1 hour ago, AceRifle said:

When can we expect stuff for defiance like PMKs?

I don't recall that being a "expect" given that the intention was to specifically not have pmk's

 

37 minutes ago, Borstaskor said:

 

Not to be the downer here, but at this point I'll opt to be sceptic until proven otherwise:

 

I hope the talk with demona was less like "hey, try to post a VI once a month, k?" and more like "hey, we the dev team will actually try to give you info that you can share with the community. The idea is one VI a month, k?"

 

Because let's be real, you're making it sound awfully a lot like it'll be demona responsibility to deliver communication with us players, but unless you guys fix one of the core issues of not giving demona info to share, then she's just going to be sitting there taking the heat of the players while not having anything to communicate like the last few months.

 

I wish I didn't have to have these cynical thoughts, but I can't stop them until I get proven that I can. This hurts my hope and overall enjoyment.

To be honest I can't even read the first part, it all just sounds like the latter. 

 

They've agreed giving Demona the the information to post a VI once a month is a must. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
7 hours ago, Darklords said:

We are defiantly open to suggestions about what people think would be best for epic going forward. Just closing it fully is a tough thing to do and something I personally hope we can avoid.

Hello, and thank you so much on this reply!
To start off this post, i would like to say most of us would like to avoid erasure of Epic, at least me personally if possible.
Now to move on to actual suggestions, i would like to point you to a thread :
Epic <-> Freedom skill transfer - Suggestions & Ideas - Wurm Online Forum
I believe that general consensus at least from my perspective of Epic players would be the <-> transfer.
As you can see of peoples postings, that most of the time people are not inclined to delve into our lands because simply, we're an insolated cluster, nothing going back and forth gives no incentive to Freedom players to spend their time in our world, or almost anyone else as you can see by the numbers of our cluster :( .
This in my estimate would be the primary thing to consider/implement, obviously there are other great suggestions i believe, one of the other problems i have seen is non-prems not seeing local, i understand this is part of spy prevention, but in terms of new players, it certainly does not help.

As for the transfer obviously everyone is aware it cannot be a simple 1-1, in the post i will quote at the end of this writing is simplest/crudest example i could think of to make this work.

To quote my self :

"Let's say in theory:
An freedom player will grind a skill, spending 24 hours on it, flat out, he reaches 20 skill in a particular skill.
An epic player will do the same, 24 hours on it, but he reaches a skill of 40
Why simply not slash the epic players skill to 20 once he reaches Freedom? Making it a fair ground to the freedom player due to time investment being exactly the same as the result of the said investment?"

Obviously as i stated in the post linked, i understand the math can be far more complex then this, this is simply to illustrate a point.

With all that said, @DarklordsAny thoughts about this? As in would something of this magnitude be able to be implemented, Epic knows it would surely be a good start to helping our cluster.

Again, thank you so much for taking the time to reply and hopefully read the above , hope this post finds you well!
Happy wurming!

 

Edited by Rukhal
  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
8 hours ago, Darklords said:

We are defiantly open to suggestions about what people think would be best for epic going forward. Just closing it fully is a tough thing to do and something I personally hope we can avoid.

Well if we aren't closing it down we must address one of the MAIN issues WHY no one plays there. 

Aka the 1 way skill transfer.

Realistically all the people I've talked to, Epic and Freedom players alike agree it's the main reason why they don't play there. All the players on Epic right now are either the hardcore vets or people coming over from Freedom to grind journal goals on easy mode with the speed timers we have there. 

5 hours ago, Koreal said:

I mean, you don't have to be defiant about it, but personally I suggest adding a massive incentive to convince people to play there despite the risks and problems.  Like, no f2p restrictions on the home servers.  You can grind skills on the home servers on a free character with no limit, with the epic skill grind system, but cannot bring those skills to freedom, and cannot access Elevation without premium.

Respectfully disagree, but one of the reasons f2p players got "nerfed" on Epic was due to the heavy alt abuse. Free alts were used to scout enemy locals, to infiltrate villages, to add speed to sailboats and knarrs, etc. Making home servers on Epic f2p will just bring back troubles. 

 

I'd focus on the core reason why ALL epic players left when the skill transfer kicked in, aka it was only 1 way. 

If you want to motivate people to play on Epic, read on the threads on what Epic people have been asking for years now: 

 

2 way skill transfer, it doesn't have to be 1:1, but even keeping 25%-30% of what you grind on Epic ported to Freedom is better than the current situation. This really is the crux of the issue here. 

Wurm is a game designed around the idea of longevity and that you keep what you earn. If you tell players of an entire cluster all their stuff / skills is isolated from the rest of the playerbase while at the same time SFI can copy over skills to Epic, it basically deletes any reason or motivation to play there. Want people to play Epic? Give them something to transfer back. 

 

 

  • Like 7

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Thank you.  Specific and meaningful, with a commitment to keep the communication happening.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
7 hours ago, Borstaskor said:

 

Not to be the downer here, but at this point I'll opt to be sceptic until proven otherwise:

 

I hope the talk with demona was less like "hey, try to post a VI once a month, k?" and more like "hey, we the dev team will actually try to give you info that you can share with the community. The idea is one VI a month, k?"

 

Because let's be real, you're making it sound awfully a lot like it'll be demona responsibility to deliver communication with us players, but unless you guys fix one of the core issues of not giving demona info to share, then she's just going to be sitting there taking the heat of the players while not having anything to communicate like the last few months.

 

I wish I didn't have to have these cynical thoughts, but I can't stop them until I get proven that I can. This hurts my hope and overall enjoyment.

 

This is a fair assessment, however I feel we need to approach the VI as a team going forward. Being a small team, there will be times during the year where development slows considerably as people take vacations. During these times, we'll likely share less about development and more about what the team is up to. Even if it's just saying "Hey! It's vacation time here, what are your plans?" or something of that nature. The point being that you won't be left wondering whether or not we're still here, as has been the case during the last few months.

 

I also know that we're tight-lipped about what we're working on usually until it's ready for release. This is a learned behavior from things having been promised in the past, only to not be delivered in a reasonable time frame or sometimes changed completely. I think we need to get better at this, even if we disclose that whatever it is we're teasing is subject to change during development. It's something we're discussing internally and I hope the results of that discussion show in future editions of the VI.

 

 

  • Like 17

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
12 hours ago, Darklords said:

 

 

We are defiantly open to suggestions about what people think would be best for epic going forward. Just closing it fully is a tough thing to do and something I personally hope we can avoid.

Epic is only one way skill transfer. You can't transfer skills back to freedom, so it feels pointless to play there. Why should people go there to play? For what? Empty, dead server with few people is not appealing.

 

A map reset on Elevation with skills transferring both ways would be a good start. Try to keep people there like a skilling server for the Southern freedom isles with some extra risk. If this doesn't help, you should probably close it.

Edited by Ryaanna

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
9 hours ago, Archaed said:

I don't recall that being a "expect" given that the intention was to specifically not have pmk's

 

To be honest I can't even read the first part, it all just sounds like the latter. 

 

They've agreed giving Demona the the information to post a VI once a month is a must. 

Nah fam go back to launch and pvp improvement post and read up. PMK was suppose to be implemented few months after launch. Artifact had QL lower and was suppose to be reverted over time etc.

Edited by AceRifle

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
1 hour ago, Ryaanna said:

Epic is only one way skill transfer. You can't transfer skills back to freedom, so it feels pointless to play there. Why should people go there to play? For what? Empty, dead server with few people is not appealing.

 

A map reset on Elevation with skills transferring both ways would be a good start. Try to keep people there like a skilling server for the Southern freedom isles with some extra risk. If this doesn't help, you should probably close it.


I would be pretty pissed if we could just go grind stuff to 70s in record time and transfer back to freedom.  Hell I ground prayer to 70 on epic for the goal then came back to grind it again on freedom. 
 

I guess this way I could just make a toon to grind everything on epic and then come back to freedom to play on chaos pvp.

 

at that what is the point because it just makes epic a viable grind server for freedomites?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
14 hours ago, Darklords said:

 

 

We are defiantly open to suggestions about what people think would be best for epic going forward. Just closing it fully is a tough thing to do and something I personally hope we can avoid.

It would certainly save you and the dev team a lot of headache and allow you to start fresh and focus on a single, normal server

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
3 hours ago, Nomadikhan said:

I would be pretty pissed if we could just go grind stuff to 70s in record time and transfer back to freedom.  Hell I ground prayer to 70 on epic for the goal then came back to grind it again on freedom.

 

I don't see how that'd be possible. Transfering your actual skill value and not the curved really doesn't do any harm at all.

If anything it's likely faster to skill on Freedom so you can sweetspot much easier and longer.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
17 hours ago, Darklords said:

We are defiantly open to suggestions about what people think would be best for epic going forward. Just closing it fully is a tough thing to do and something I personally hope we can avoid.

 

Please do not close Epic down! Personally I love Epic, I love the idea behind it, and just because it hasn't worked well for a while doesn't mean it can't be fixed!!

 

The way I see it, there are two main issues:

 

First, we need some kind of skill transfer. Few Freedomers want to come to Epic if they lose their gains on the return, and no one who never left Epic wants to go to Freedom and lose their gains (since 2017 and then some). A lot of this is about the gains.

 

Second, there needs to be an incentive to play on Epic. Most Freedomers don't like the idea of losing all their stuff to crazy PvPers and getting their tokens drained, and while I wouldn't necessarily change this, there needs to be some kind of incentive to attract players to Epic. I'm not entirely sure what; I'd have to think long and hard about it. Perhaps there could be a Sorcery revamp: Epic being the only place you could get Sorcery items (from missions), and then these transfer back to Freedom? I dunno. This needs some proper thought.

 

I would also add that right now there's no reason Epic couldn't be fun for certain Freedomers looking for adventure and to break up the grind. Freedomers can't really lose anything given their stats are preserved, and while there's nothing to gain, mooching about with the prospect of PvP is a genuinely interesting aspect of Wurm in its own right.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
17 hours ago, Darklords said:

 

 

We are defiantly open to suggestions about what people think would be best for epic going forward. Just closing it fully is a tough thing to do and something I personally hope we can avoid.

 

I guess I'm confused on what options there really are. Epic cluster itself is how many servers, 4? and how many active premium players across 4 servers. It's likely a person on MRH is never going to encounter someone on JKH. If Epic players wants, they can just swap over to Chaos. So what's the problem with closing Epic? It doesn't remove any player's eligibility to go PvP because they have access to Chaos. The only downside is they lose the curve, which is great for new players. Overall though I don't see why we would try to rebrand and update a server that has been essentially deserted for years when there's 2 other PvP servers that are fairly active. I'm all for new ideas, and I feel bad to propose removing a cluster and knowing the few active players there may lose their hard work, but overall it seems like if you put work into revitalizing Epic, you're just going to then hurt Defiance and Chaos. So you're fixing one and hurting the others. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this