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Keenan

Development Update - 2022-02-21

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9 minutes ago, Zao said:

Please don't spend any time or effort on VR. It feels like such a gimmicky medium. 

it's probably gcg's idea.. it's set in stone, pray it's not 90% focus and enjoy the 80% performance improvements for normal client if there's any because of the vr

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Re: VR.

 

I think people should perhaps read what Keenan has said and interpret the message he would seem to be imparting.

 

On the other hand, if funds/resources are committed to getting the game itself up to a standard that would even support the development of VR, that can only be a good thing.  I would never use VR (there aren't enough baggies for that) but to have the game CAPABLE of supporting it would be a vast improvement.

 

 

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Sounds great.

Definately looking forward to more deco!

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4 hours ago, Keridwyn said:

VR is great! I hope they do it well, if they are going to do it. :)

think of all the micromanagement.. and work that have to be done to simplify 1 of the biggest cookie clickers, simple things.. require huge amount of clicks to get it done... now imagine that for VR... 

only way to keep playable experience is to scrap concepts and simplify, hardly possible imo to get such in same world, at best to only explore.. and maybe have deed settings to allow such or not to freely explore

 

at least I imagine the vr to have it's own server and different mechanics

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On 2/22/2022 at 12:56 AM, Keenan said:

Finally, a word on VR. This was announced last year, but since then there’s been a number of things identified that must come before we can delve into the world of virtual reality. Namely, we need support for controllers, better performance from the client, and to rethink how you would interact with the world of Wurm while in virtual reality. This is not a trivial amount of work, but it brings benefits beyond enabling virtual reality support.

 

Does this mean Wurm will work on the Steam Deck with controller support?

I sure hope so, that will be amazing!

 

Now if only i could play my main character on steam 🤨

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On 2/22/2022 at 1:56 AM, Keenan said:

For Q2 and beyond, we would like to focus on several things: we would like to add more building and decoration options, put attention on PvP and the needs of that community, as well as take a look over the skills we have and see where we can improve the experience of some such as meditation.

 

Awesome. Does that include Epic? Will you commit to a decision regarding Epic? Cause it's been a dead server for years and it hasn't been acknowledged in any Valrei International close to a year as being part of the Wurm Online community. Which is in itself...at best depressing at worst embarrassing. 

 

Honestly at this point VR I think will be a massive mistake for the sole reason it doesn't fix one of Wurm's biggest problems. 

 

Player retention.

 

You opened up servers to Steam, yet now they are emptier than SFI. Why? Because they offered nothing new to the table in terms of gameplay other than the novelty of having fresh lands. Once those lands have lost their freshness appeal, it seems a good chunk of people have left. 

 

If I may offer a suggestion, resources should be allocated to understand why Wurm has such poor player retention. To this end, one or two devs should spend time analyzing the "player's journey" in game, aka what players do to the point where they decide to quit the game, and how to mitigate the chance of people leaving. 

 

Questions should be asked to this end. When do players quit? After they build their first deed? After they get a bit tired of grinding a skill to 90? If yes, what skills tend to make players more likely to quit?  Does the world feel empty due to how the chats are isolated from each other? Are certain journal goals too "impossible" to do at first glance? Answers are needed to figure out what keeps making players quit. 

 

Maybe a bimonthly event to give bonuses to people who skill a certain skill, like "Gardening Week" : players who work on gardening skillgain can get minor bonuses or boons in game, this could potentially alleviate some grinds or the feeling of mindless repetition in game. 

 

Will VR fix player retention? Slim to zero chance of that. Does it seem more like a marketing gimmick? Sadly yes. 

Edited by elentari

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1 hour ago, elentari said:

You opened up servers to Steam, yet now they are emptier than SFI.

 

That is not correct. Harmony has higher player counts than Independence, and Cadence eclipses any SFI server by quite a lot.

 

The difference between the two clusters lies primarily in the number of servers. SFI has eight, NFI has four, with logged in players spread about half-half between the clusters. (I'm ignoring the four epic servers that belong to SFI, which I think is fair)

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18 minutes ago, Batolemaeus said:

(I'm ignoring the four epic servers that belong to SFI)

 

You wouldn't be the first!

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Probably didn't phrase that well, but my point was the decline in players, at least according to etherdrifter's data, was quite insane, considering where it started and where it's now at. That to me isn't conducive to long term health of a server, which is why I pointed out player retention should be the number one focus of development. But what do I know. I've seen an entire server cluster die off due to people ignoring it. 

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I think VR is a waste of development effort. While Wurm is a very pretty game at times, the main advantage of VR isn't the ability to look at pretty things. It's the interactivity, it's the ability to DO things.

To touch things, push them around, get in NPCs faces. The less UI there is - the better. The less buttons you have to push - the better. For example - Instead of pushing a button to chop a tree you swing horizontally. Instead of clicking a LMB to swing a weapon you swing your controller. So on and so forth.

 

Now look at Wurm. While I do think that it would be cool to check out many glorious builds that people have built over the years I cannot imagine a game that would be more unfit for VR than Wurm. 

VR is interactive, Wurm is an Idle game.

VR tends to UI less, Wurm is all about cluttered UI(which we love, btw)

VR is about physics and "getting there", Wurm doesn't even have physics.

 

So unless you're planning on soft, "tourist" mode VR which shouldn't be as massive of an undertaking I really don't see how or why VR should be a thing. 

It will also not bring new players guaranteed, unless you're planning on actually making it a proper game with all of the features I've described above. In which case that... is a bit too much, don't you think? I cannot image the development effort that is required.

It is not too late to back down, instead of making a feature that will be available to ~30% of a playerbase, bring no new players and get abandoned in time.
 

Spoiler

I mean, just look at the fiasco that is Hitman VR. It's a good example of a great game that was poorly adapted for VR. Non-existant gesture controls, bad gunplay(I believe it's due to direct port of how it works in PC version, i.e. when you shoot your crosshair gets bigger and accuracy decreases, but you can't even see a crosshair in vr obviously) and all other issues. And this game isn't even a worst base for VR, rather the implementation was poor.

 

Edited by Vessel
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Hoping for many reasons to leave the deed, Maybe more keybindable actions, that lead to less right clicking, save my wrists please. 

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3 hours ago, Batolemaeus said:
4 hours ago, elentari said:

You opened up servers to Steam, yet now they are emptier than SFI.

That is not correct. Harmony has higher player counts than Independence, and Cadence eclipses any SFI server by quite a lot.

 

The difference between the two clusters lies primarily in the number of servers. SFI has eight, NFI has four, with logged in players spread about half-half between the clusters. (I'm ignoring the four epic servers that belong to SFI, which I think is fair)

It is true that population density on NFI is higher than on SFI, mainly because the players have no other place to go. It is true too, sadly, that NFI nowadays has at best 75 to 85% of SFI player count most times. Even at the simultaneous red dragon slaying on NFI and SFI Feb 19 there were well 20% more players logged on SFI (646 on SFI and 35 on Chaos of a total of 1164 players logged in, 3-6 on Epic). That is worrying as it demonstrates that few of the initially several ten thousand new players, most of them starting on NFI, stayed with Wurm. That was Elentari's point about retention, not some pissing contest.

 

And I agree it is something to think about.

 

Edited by Ekcin
correction

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My 2 irons concerning the VR stuff: 

 

Not interested in it at all because of how I play this game.  I play to relax after a hard days work or on the weekends. I'm usually playing next to my wife (who is usually reading) while we have some movie or series on the TV for background noise. I play without the sound so I can hear the TV and/or my wife when she's talking to me (besides the sound is pretty annoying sometimes).  I constantly go AFK when I'm playing because I have a real life things to attend to like cooking, eating, getting coffee, dishes, attending to the household pets, phone calls, etc. etc. etc.  While VR could be pretty cool, it's not something I'm interested in because I don't just play Wurm when I'm playing Wurm, I'm also doing lots of other stuff in real life too.

 

I really don't care if VR gets developed or not, I just hope it doesn't ruin the game for those who are content to play Wurm on a regular computer or a laptop.

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I really think a lot of what is being said here focusing on VR has missed much of the OP. 

 

There was a whole lot of other, more relevant and important stuff in the post.  VR was almost a post-script and even that pros-script was of a "Hey, now, don't get all worked up about a looming VR implementation.  There is a bunch of other stuff that has to happen first if this is to happen at all."

 

Exploration, PvP, caffeine, building, decoration, skills, shop - these are all named priorities.  Then there are the general pre-requisite development areas of controller support, client performance, the whole general interface/interaction - indeed described quite understatedly as "not a trivial amount of work."

 

For me, I couldn't care about caffeine as long as it doesn't hobble those of us who just don't use it.  I don't PvP but I do care that it be done well, so to that and to all of the rest I say (again), "Yay!"  This is all good news.  VR is no news, and, well, "no news is..."  so win/win.

 

 

Edited by TheTrickster
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still no word on server mergers, north and south?  deed counts keep dropping . player counts are lower and lower.    other then that. still love the game and like that the VR is on hold. so many other things are needed before that. i feel the VR thing would be better as a separate game like wurm unlimited.  also very glad to see the team grow. just would like to see the plan to grow the population again.  where's the advertising.  sales. ect...   If i ever win the lotto i'll invest for sure.

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1 hour ago, validate said:

i feel the VR thing would be better as a separate game like wurm unlimited.

 

It would be better as a mod for Wurm Unlimited.

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As to VR:

 

- For those who mainly grind, VR probably won't be of a huge benefit. For those who explore and adventure, camp out, etc, the extra immersion VR brings will likely be a greater experience.

 

- Most players, I believe, would prefer the game to mature in other areas as a priority over development of VR.  Long-awaited QoL fixes, bug fixes, and the like should take priority.

 

- Goals of VR development could very well be a catalyst for the game to be improved in a great number of ways.

 

- I would very much enjoy the immersive experience, exploring tunnel networks, the woods in the middle of a dark night, a seat by the campfire, looking over your shoulder, views from high mountains and beautiful bays. But how in the world Wurm would interface with VR is a huge question mark and something I'm glad to not be tasked with figuring out.

 

- How many players have or will have VR hardware for this?

 

- Will servers be able to handle VR? A slaying with lots of VR going on?

 

As to the rest of the info in the development update:

 

- Communication is huge and appreciated. 

 

- Are there any plans for marketing in the future?

 

- As always, the player-base is chomping at the bit for more development. Fixes and new features alike, keep it comin!!

 

 

 

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On 2/22/2022 at 4:27 AM, Stormblade said:

 

Again more info on this please. Does this mean the current client will still be available for play or is it going full throttle VR client only? Really confused on this because if it does go to VR only for game play, hate to say it, but 9 years will be the anniversary of when I won't be able to play any more.

 

Is this a troll question? Why would they do away with the original client and make it VR only?

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Can you give insight on the meditation ideas because I don't want to spend the next few months getting 70 for everything to change.

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6 hours ago, Jimmy_Norman said:

Is this a troll question? Why would they do away with the original client and make it VR only?

 

I've seen similar things happen to other games before. Original developers sell the game to some corporation and they decide to focus on something that ruins the game. For example, I played World Golf Tour (WGT) for years, spent a lot of time getting decent clubs and played most every day. They sold it to Top Golf who decided to make it a mobile app and basically ruined the experience for all the long time PC players.

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If the focus on VR means focus on fixing the performance of the game engine, lag, animations, upgraded textures, better sounds, etc then I'm all for VR even though I'll never use it.

 

To me I don't see the point of VR for Wurm.  Who is going to enjoy mining a tunnel wearing a VR headset pressing the same key for hours?  You stand in front of a forge for 2 hours alt tabbing between web browser, another game or whatever.  I just see VR being "free look mode".  There is not enough immersion in Wurm for it to go VR.

 

If going to take VR serious you need to go the Valheim route which has such beautiful flow about everything you do in the game be it actions, combat, beautiful environment, sounds, physics engine.  You're not attracting new players to Wurm without rebuilding it from the ground up so you should focus on retaining players.  Just rewrite the damn game already and stop trying to bandage it.

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4 hours ago, Gwiz said:

I've seen similar things happen to other games before. Original developers sell the game to some corporation and they decide to focus on something that ruins the game. For example, I played World Golf Tour (WGT) for years, spent a lot of time getting decent clubs and played most every day. They sold it to Top Golf who decided to make it a mobile app and basically ruined the experience for all the long time PC players.

WoW and other Blizzard games come to mind as well as examples. 

 

I'll take VR seriously as something other than marketing gimmicks when stuff in Wurm gets fixed like I dunno....Can I cross a server on a boat without having to disembark / re-embark? That ###### is annoying after a decade and still not fixed...seriously. 

 

The money spent on VR would be better spent trying to look at potential engines to remake Wurm. But anyway...corporations and companies and their vision, what else is there to say. 

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6 hours ago, Finnn said:

What happened with the docks

Even better, is fixing animal husbandry to make it less horrible no longer on the cards? The system is far from a joy to work with still

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