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Joshh

Plans for population growth?

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combat is pretty trashy-unbalanced.. there's priest buffs vs nothing for non-priests.. balance...

 

before priests had generally lower stats, that's long gone, on the other side of the scale buff in combat for non-priests - nothing... pretty good pvp meta.. hilarious.. but is it really..

there's nothing fun to do with special moves, they are not unique to non-priests, and aren't reliable to hit, plenty of rng and dodging to them, for a lv90-99 fighting skilled 90-99 mastery with a weapon.. seems just sad to hope to hit, so you slap the ability/move/ and do not even hope to hit, just wait for the cooldown to do it again, even if you land the hit, it barely makes a difference, at the same time costs a lot of stamina.. and it's impossible to use at low stamina but still casts or starts channeling(loading bar to trigger the attack) - just to return a "LOL you have no stamina"

 

it's somewhat unbalanced and unintuitive to cast moves that wont even happen but wait on loading bars for nothing, 

guess it's not possible to have something more fun or eventful than 9 squares and directional sword to guess what kind of attack your enemy is planning, there's no player or creature animation for these moves, fighting is pretty meh when it comes to any other visual que to tip you when to dodge or react based on animations of other tips than new 9-squares; it's something more than what it used to be, but pretty boring, also the que is shown overhead of enemies, good luck seeing that when you're zoomed on your character and you fight a champion, the hud is on the moon

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Long time player here that has been on a long break.

I sometimes think I should get back into this game and starts browsing the forums. But then I realize there is nothing to do besides building a new deed for the gazillionth time.

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8 minutes ago, griper said:

Long time player here that has been on a long break.

I sometimes think I should get back into this game and starts browsing the forums. But then I realize there is nothing to do besides building a new deed for the gazillionth time.

new content.. and long-term content kind of stuff should be a thing, if we look back.. we get 2-4-6 new items or containers in 2 year timespan, 1 or 2 "big" changes to something, if that something is relevant enough to get you back is another topic, team's still small to get decent amount of changes to keep new/old players engaged and running around like headless chickens chasing random things that just can't be achieved in few days/weeks/months/lifetimes, there are doable and achievable things and ... quitting your job, meta grinding and collecting all sorc charges after crying a river for better drop rates just to hoard them all pokemon kills

 

event code for drops is good.. could be used monthly/seasonally with variations for specific mobs and skins or recipes, provide tedious alternative routes to obtain old content, balance things so new 'hype' content is not just ignored and workarounded with a meta of 50 alts fishing for bits of recipes..(archaeology style.. but afk "botting" to skip actually going out to kill and spin the rng wheel, or do w/e else picked to obtain the new content)

 

game's full of dedicated people with a lot of time, but they crunch through casual content fast, and that's the main population to 'feed' with content, only a few pvp or chase dragons, etc, the bull.. there is worth a different thread

 

the reason you get back is friends and trying something new, if you have some unsettled business.. getting 90 fishing.. and such, just chasing new things you haven't done, it's what we all do by revisiting old games, explore the new content, unless you restart and grind to 70fs then quit and return in a year to repeat it.. no judging.. it's your time and entertainment

 

find something you want to do and jump back into the grinds

Edited by Finnn

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With regards to new players leaving and not coming back, I feel it would be very valuable for the devs to get as much feedback as possible from people who stop playing and I hope they got at least some from the many new players who joined with the Steam release. If not, then maybe after a player has not logged in for several months, send them an email with a link to a survey about the reasons they have not logged in for a while (perhaps this is already done, though)?

 

Personally, what I feel is Wurm's strongest attraction value is the depth and detail and the sandbox freedom the game allows, where it really excels compared to many other MMOs out there.

However, I feel that where Wurm is lagging behind is mostly in easy-of-use and new players being able to naturally understand how to do things (at least if they've played other sandbox games before). Some of these are easier to change than others (like being able to ride a horse without leading it first) while others might require a bigger overhaul. The tricky thing is that we of course want to keep actions easily accessible, but I'm sure there is a way to have both.

Adding the crafting window and making keyboard shortcuts easier were great changes in this regard, but I feel like we need an even more intuitive interface (maybe switchable in the settings for those that prefer the old ways).

 

Obviously things like better character animations and an overhaul of sounds could help, but I feel like the graphics of Wurm are not that bad right now and I don't know what the data says about it either.

 

One feature that might help in this regard is something that was very helpful in another game with some similarities to Wurm is established players being able to easily mentor new players that wanted help and would be rewarded for it.

How to naturally bring in mentoring into a game where players are so far apart I don't know (in the other game mentors could teleport to the tutorial server and when the new player were ready to leave the tutorial they could choose to start near where their mentor lived), but I feel like new players who have other players to ask about the less intuitive parts of Wurm are more likely to stay longer.

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All you need to do is advertise. Nothing else could be wrong

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Don't know what everyone expects, the modern younger gaming types do not like slow grind kind of games (especially wurm) this game appeals only to those who have extreme amount of patience and that is just a dwindling trait anymore when it comes to everything really. Even games that blow up and get super popular die quickly, games are just a fad now and the popularity of the month hinges on the most popular twitch streamers playing them then moving on like locusts.

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12 hours ago, Bottles said:

All you need to do is advertise. Nothing else could be wrong

At this point, it will take more than just advertising to retain new players. Sure, it will lure people to come try the game at least, but once they see all the abandoned deeds, clunky controls, poor tutorial, lack of horses and livestock, and other problems addressed by many newcomers in the Steam reviews, it won’t last long.

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Im new to WURM. I only started playing a couple months ago. I have experience in multiple Adventure, Survival and RPG games.. Including, Bards Tale, Battle Tech, D&D, Ultima Series, Ultima Online, Ever Quest, Rune Scape, World Of Warcraft, Elder Scrolls, Sky Rim, Witcher, Total Annihilation, Command and Conquer, ...... and many, many, others.... 
My new experience to your game I can tell you I found that the low population of currently players seem to have a stigma to a jump button that are in many other games... While I understand that some people do not like a jump button... many people consider this a deal breaker when it comes to playing an modern game.  Next the way water works.. Mine Craft which is compared to this game in many posts clearly has a better scheme and design for the way water works... Seeing that years have passed since origination of water elements in games like Mine Craft and World of Warcraft...  this is probably a deal breaker for a great number of people also...  While I understand the concepts of player protections are a construct of not being able to jump over a fence...  I think adding jump commands to PVP servers would help retain more people, and if you improved the way water works and made in more like the way water works today in modern day Mine Craft I think you would retain even more players... Another challenge I have found as a new player is getting to 21 Mind Intelligence and 23 Body Strength...  While the grind to get to these land marks is a great accomplishment to be treasured, I can also see why non-premium members would not want to continue playing... I suggest allowing non-premium members to play up to 24 Mind Intelligence and 24 Body strength... so long as they log on to the game at least once per Real World Month... then progressively loose stats after that to a bottom of 20... no one should have to go below 20 once they have worked so hard and long to get above 20... Being able to ride a horse and load a large cart with crates is a majorly important deal in this game... and I can see why not having this ability would make players not want to play... have non-premium player able to do this would easily increase the population and over time would without a doubt increase premium memberships in my opinion.   and the last thing I will suggest is your character model sets for premium membership.. I think your pricing is a bit off for one.. If you look at most games today a lot of them are free to play with no progression beyond a certain level without premium membership like you have done... however, with those other games you can usually have 10 or 11 characters ... while I don't think 10 or 11 characters would be needed to acquire all abilities of WURM online I do think a minimum of 2 characters is needed and should be added to your premium membership plans... at least at your current price.. or lower your price significantly..  This is defiantly a deal breaker for many people.. I think adding more characters slots.. a minimum of 2 per account is needed to improve population on all server...  An idea for this to make it easier for you would be to add the ability for a character in game to create a clone of themselves that has the ability to resurrect just like a normal character but is only present in the world when your main character logs on.. so long as it is in a relative close range of you and lining you can toggle back and forth between your real self and your clone... but as you go on you can progressively add new abilities... so that one can potentially be a master sorcery and crafting master of everything and the other can be a master priest or champion of his chosen God...   If you do this I guarantee you will retain more people on premium memberships...   
I enjoy the complexity of this game and appreciate all the time you have all spent developing it. I would like to see more  people to play along side with.... 

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27 minutes ago, ShinWolfardd said:

Im new to WURM. I only started playing a couple months ago. I have experience in multiple Adventure, Survival and RPG games.. Including, Bards Tale, Battle Tech, D&D, Ultima Series, Ultima Online, Ever Quest, Rune Scape, World Of Warcraft, Elder Scrolls, Sky Rim, Witcher, Total Annihilation, Command and Conquer, ...... and many, many, others.... 
My new experience to your game I can tell you I found that the low population of currently players seem to have a stigma to a jump button that are in many other games... While I understand that some people do not like a jump button... many people consider this a deal breaker when it comes to playing an modern game.  Next the way water works.. Mine Craft which is compared to this game in many posts clearly has a better scheme and design for the way water works... Seeing that years have passed since origination of water elements in games like Mine Craft and World of Warcraft...  this is probably a deal breaker for a great number of people also...  While I understand the concepts of player protections are a construct of not being able to jump over a fence...  I think adding jump commands to PVP servers would help retain more people, and if you improved the way water works and made in more like the way water works today in modern day Mine Craft I think you would retain even more players... Another challenge I have found as a new player is getting to 21 Mind Intelligence and 23 Body Strength...  While the grind to get to these land marks is a great accomplishment to be treasured, I can also see why non-premium members would not want to continue playing... I suggest allowing non-premium members to play up to 24 Mind Intelligence and 24 Body strength... so long as they log on to the game at least once per Real World Month... then progressively loose stats after that to a bottom of 20... no one should have to go below 20 once they have worked so hard and long to get above 20... Being able to ride a horse and load a large cart with crates is a majorly important deal in this game... and I can see why not having this ability would make players not want to play... have non-premium player able to do this would easily increase the population and over time would without a doubt increase premium memberships in my opinion.   and the last thing I will suggest is your character model sets for premium membership.. I think your pricing is a bit off for one.. If you look at most games today a lot of them are free to play with no progression beyond a certain level without premium membership like you have done... however, with those other games you can usually have 10 or 11 characters ... while I don't think 10 or 11 characters would be needed to acquire all abilities of WURM online I do think a minimum of 2 characters is needed and should be added to your premium membership plans... at least at your current price.. or lower your price significantly..  This is defiantly a deal breaker for many people.. I think adding more characters slots.. a minimum of 2 per account is needed to improve population on all server...  An idea for this to make it easier for you would be to add the ability for a character in game to create a clone of themselves that has the ability to resurrect just like a normal character but is only present in the world when your main character logs on.. so long as it is in a relative close range of you and lining you can toggle back and forth between your real self and your clone... but as you go on you can progressively add new abilities... so that one can potentially be a master sorcery and crafting master of everything and the other can be a master priest or champion of his chosen God...   If you do this I guarantee you will retain more people on premium memberships...   
I enjoy the complexity of this game and appreciate all the time you have all spent developing it. I would like to see more  people to play along side with.... 

 

You have some good ideas, but I’m going to have to disagree with skills progressively decreasing to 20.

 

Pricing for premium could be cheaper for sure.

 

If I understand correctly, you suggest having one premium payment to support at least 2 characters instead of just a single character? I think that is a good idea, unless someone explains to me why it is not.

 

 I don’t think not being able to jump was a major issue during the initial Steam release. Not as much as say the poor tutorial, lack of useable deed land, and hard to find livestock that was addressed by many players.

 

 

 

 

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Player growth is stagnated until they develop some basic marketing and communication skills. They can make small tweaks and changes, but the best case scenario would improve player retention which leads to a slight growth in concurrent players. If they want significant player growth, it will require a successful marketing campaign alongside a sizable update. Preferably one that benefits new players entering the game for the first time.

 

Communication is so lacking that we have no idea what they're aiming to accomplish anymore. Is player population growth actually something they're aiming for?

Edited by Sindusk
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i guess chess will increase the population a lot

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On 4/17/2022 at 9:53 AM, Votip said:

i guess chess will increase the population a lot

Yes people will stand in line to get in, we will need atleast 10 new servers before the update go live

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1 hour ago, Stinboi said:

Yes people will stand in line to get in, we will need atleast 10 new servers before the update go live

But the real question is, should they be connected to SFI or not?

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4 hours ago, HawkHawk said:

But the real question is, should they be connected to SFI or not?

 

No, it should be a completely new cluster. We wouldn't want the new rabble to mix in with the existing player base!

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I don't agree with everything he says, but dude has some good points. This is a good video to see the new player experience. 

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6 hours ago, Cheststrongwell said:

I don't agree with everything he says, but dude has some good points. This is a good video to see the new player experience. 

nice, 

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Don't be put off by the title, he's not calling Wurm the worst MMO ever. It's the title of the video series. There are a lot of good points in there.

 

Significant quote at 35:23: "Wurm Online is actually really good. It's just so bloody hard to get into it's losing 90% of its players in the first opening hour."

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I came back because Wurm is fun.

 

I’m curious why everyone is so nostalgic for early years. It’s neat to have been part of early development, but the game has come so far. I much prefer it like it is now.

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On 4/14/2022 at 1:42 AM, Nukacola said:

At this point, it will take more than just advertising to retain new players. Sure, it will lure people to come try the game at least, but once they see all the abandoned deeds, clunky controls, poor tutorial, lack of horses and livestock, and other problems addressed by many newcomers in the Steam reviews, it won’t last long.


The controls are not clunky. They are more intricate than any traditional PC game control system could provide. 
 

If someone wants traditional PC gaming control, they can go play Skyrim or LiF or something.

Edited by baseema
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On 4/28/2022 at 11:08 AM, baseema said:


The controls are not clunky. They are more intricate than any traditional PC game control system could provide. 
 

If someone wants traditional PC gaming control, they can go play Skyrim or LiF or something.

How so? Honest question.

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Wurm is a niche game and only certain people like the grind, I personally like the grind not just in Wurm but all games. It gives me the satisfaction to see something I have worked hard at coming to fruition.

 

I always hope more players come into Wurm Online but I don't think it is advertised enough to be honest. A friend got me into the game a few years ago, he said "do you want to play Wurm Online" I said what? What the hell is Wurm Online? I actually thought it was something to do with worms.

 

I did the tutorial and went walking around for an hour on an island and I loved it, once I started making things like cart I loved it even more. Hopefully more new players come, it's always nice to see new players in the game and I try to help them if I can. The game certainly helps me with my mental health troubles so that is a plus with this game.

 

I've also played Wurm Unlimited and the people who run Sklotopilis do a fantastic job of updating that with new features but one thing I never got is why did the developers decide to make 2 games in the first place? To me the logic would be just run Wurm Online to keep the player numbers up and not split the player base. There must be a reason for this but I don't know why, seems strange to me.

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The reality is those that love this game will keep coming back, because it's a niche game and nothing else like it.

 

So why try adding treasure hunting?  Or new features in general.  What's there is already enough functionality for me.  I just want more of it.

 

More decorations, more clothing, more tool variations (aesthetics) more weapon/armor(aesthetics only) for variations, particularly in the later parts of the skill development to make grinding more interesting.

 

I think the biggest problem this game suffers from is once you've hit about 40 in a skill you've effectively unlocked all the game has to offer.   There needs to be more things to shoot for in the later part of the game.

 

When this game launched on steam it had tons of players, and most of them binged the crap out of this game 300+ hours each at my village.  Just wasn't enough late game to keep them there.  They loved what was there, though.

Edited by sweatygopher
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19 hours ago, sweatygopher said:

So why try adding treasure hunting?  Or new features in general.  What's there is already enough functionality for me.  I just want more of it.

 

More decorations, more clothing, more tool variations (aesthetics) more weapon/armor(aesthetics only) for variations, particularly in the later parts of the skill development to make grinding more interesting.

 

I think the biggest problem this game suffers from is once you've hit about 40 in a skill you've effectively unlocked all the game has to offer.   There needs to be more things to shoot for in the later part of the game.

 

Because as a game that is intended to be the ultimate sandbox, in current state, is very one dimensional: build... try to get folk to come see what you built...renovate/start over in other plot of land.

 

So they are adding stuff that caters to other types of players just so that it stops being just one dimensional farmer Joe and builder Bob type of gameplay, not to mention that it helps existing players engage their family and friends in their Wurm experience.

 

Maybe you know folk that you tried to get to play Wurm with but they did not like the slow pace grind and build stuff.. so now you could have them hunt for treasure while you build and grind.

 

All MMO's suffer from end game content. No matter how big the dev team and the budget is . nerds will no sleep the new patch then cry on forums: where's the content.

 

Wurm is even worse: does not have a budget or a big dev team... so the practical answer is to make pvp the end game. Because pvp is player vs player which means is unpredictable and always naturally evolving/changing.

 

You could argue that you dont have any interest in pvp. And in the current patch maybe is not the most fun inducing proposition Wurm has to offer but if we let them work on it maybe it could.

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I guess what i'm trying to say is rock what you got.

 

This game is basically medieval version of the sims.  You're going to spend the majority of your time on a deed, alone.  Or with friends...

 

Building a town. Content updates are too far between and few that you can't really rely on future growth of content.

Edited by sweatygopher

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