Several ideas: customization, cities and terrain altering events

[manthium 52]

So after so many years I still find myself coming back to Wurm and thinking 'huh it could do with...' so I figured I'd turn some of my rambling at friends to a post.. So without further ado

 

Customization: 
Probably suggested several dozen thousand times since the days of identical twins all walking around but yeah.. There is a clear need for customization in a game/ world made from freedom
to play your way with maximum ability to alter things such as leveling mountains or raising islands from the sea but where 80%+ of the stuff is identical with different colours.. shouldn't need more explanation:

Ship building:
high shipbuilding should add options to change things like figureheads or patterns/ carvings and other ornamental changes.
Fine carpentry:
reasonably high levels should add the option to customize wagons carts etc by adding patterns etc as with the above suggestion.

People/ deeds and/or alliances should get heraldry or 'banners' that can be displayed on wagons, flags (both on land and ships) and sails using high tailoring 
Also allowing armour and weapons to be customized in some minor ways such as engravings etc.

Priests. 

I know they've had several reworks but with the dwindling population of Wurm combined with the cut off of RMT leading to accounts fading out of use instead of remaining active
it would be nice to have options other than maintaining multiple accounts to use as batteries etc. The suggestion here is simple: Add the option for priests to hold charged gems in their main hand/ off hand to use the 
vesseled favor as though a priest (with equal favor that is held in the gem) were linked to cast spells. or add options such as jewellery or staffs/ wands etc that add favor capacity (by a balanced amount)

This is said as someone with a 83 faith priest who needs to either level up a battery or drag someone (if there is anyone) nearby to cast things like summon soul.. without the need to spend 
weeks at a sermon party which I like many members of the game can't do due to work/ children constraining time we can play. (and lately the cost of energy to keep a pc on all day if you aren't at it)

 

Cities with rental options: (reduced 'upkeep' but not owned by you directly)
This one would be a fairly complex undertaking and require potential CA+ involvement to act as a 'city lord' or similar title.. (to avoid abuse of position and ensure fairness.
This adds a niche that would benefit Wurm with it's constant ebb and flow of player engagement as deed holders or sections of a community stop playing then the others either patter out or go to pastures new.
The premise is that a city of fairly decent size with or without walls (depending on the player base as a whole's preference) where plots of land were available to rent (this would be noticeably cheaper than upkeep
but obviously come with constraints such as paying your rent or losing your property (it being sold off at auction should you disappear without settling you account rather than decaying to dust in some locked box somewhere)
as well as having to behave according to the general niceties of civilisation.
This would enable players who don't have high skills/ lots of time or real world money to invest in a deed but also add to the feel of community as people would be clustered in areas around cities. (farms etc) as well as spattered around the map in 'wilderness' settlements (what we have now)
The plots could be used for personal (small and medium plots) or businesses: shops, inns, smithies etc (medium or large plots) and perhaps 1 or 2 extra large plots for a market in each city. Obviously there would be no punishment moreso than there is now for being a hermit out in the woods you'd just not have the community feel around you)

 

Random destructive events:
This will probably be a hard sell but would save every single place you go to on the map ever (even if today was your first day in wurm) being terraformed out the wazzoo. events such as Earthquakes/ meteors etc or whatever that 
should an area of the map have: no Highway, deed or player presence for 3-6 months or above it has a chance to occur and randomly change the landscape to be different. This keeps the game fresh and allows more people to find the wilds and make their
 home their own without directly scrubbing someone elses mark first.

 

Cap/ F2P Easing:

The final one I have for now is not mine but deserves consideration. The raising or removal of the skill cap for free players and funding being moved to a cosmetic cash shop or similar (although the increase in players from a more community/ new player friendly changes above.. maybe the income from silver and or premium would increase the total income)

 

Edit to add a comment I've put below:
So I get that people don't like 'destructive' events how about a more mild version such as 'land errosion/ land slides etc (where gradually the super flattened plateaus of long gone players slowly (1 or 2 dirt changes at a time over several months) change to be 'wibbly' as Olaf would say?

Edited June 2, 2022 by manthium

[Finnn 3,303]

-2 from me..

seems like you've missed to catch up on few things;

gg on the cosmetic change suggestions, but rest is either solved in different way or just cant be w/o drastic rework

[DaletheGood 1,073]

I'd be in favor obviously for the customization of things, have always advocated for more variety across the board in this game. The priest thing, I'm kind of in favor of, but don't feel that qualified to speak on since I only have one under-developed priest. The others I'd have to say meh (rentals) or no (the other 2) to.

[Zachariah 736]

Agree with Finn. We could always use more customization in game to make our characters more our own style. The other suggestions are more disruptive innovation and would disrupt a lot of the systems and daily life we already have established. 

[manthium 52]

3 minutes ago, Zachariah said:

Agree with Finn. We could always use more customization in game to make our characters more our own style. The other suggestions are more disruptive innovation and would disrupt a lot of the systems and daily life we already have established. 

Ok but in my opinion the game has been floundering for far too long.. I miss the days of roaming through locals and meeting dozens of strangers that I had on GV or Indy.  there's 16 servers + WU to dilute those who can still be bothered to play due to it being a lonely grindy game unless you meet some cool people.. the destruction makes parts of the map less lived in but I get it's fairly disruptive but how is the option of living in cities for those who 'want' to be part of a bigger community without the direct constraints of living on someones deed.. I just thought it would make new players come into the game (maybe with a wave of advertising somewhere which I don't think I've ever seen for Wurm... I've played it for over 4200 days..) and stay rather than trying to build up realising others will always outlevel them and make them redundant and then quit for something more immediately satisfying.. Sometimes you need a radical shake up.. just look at shock therapy

[olafhairybreeks 595]

I like the cities idea, perhaps that could be an addition to the starter towns? People could have a small safe base for a smaller amount of money, and if it was 'official' you wouldn't have to worry about your landlord disappearing.

[Katrat 2,296]

10 hours ago, manthium said:

Customization: 
Probably suggested several dozen thousand times since the days of identical twins all walking around but yeah.. There is a clear need for customization in a game/ world made from freedom
to play your way with maximum ability to alter things such as leveling mountains or raising islands from the sea but where 80%+ of the stuff is identical with different colours.. shouldn't need more explanation:

Ship building:
high shipbuilding should add options to change things like figureheads or patterns/ carvings and other ornamental changes.
Fine carpentry:
reasonably high levels should add the option to customize wagons carts etc by adding patterns etc as with the above suggestion.

People/ deeds and/or alliances should get heraldry or 'banners' that can be displayed on wagons, flags (both on land and ships) and sails using high tailoring 
Also allowing armour and weapons to be customized in some minor ways such as engravings etc.

Customization...This suggestion I love! As with DaletheGood I am always in favor of customization and I really would love to see figureheads on ships. I think they give the ship a personality. I don't have a priest so I can't comment on that one. Rental cities might be nice in theory but I have a feeling "Complex undertaking" might be an understatement. As for random destructive events...if I wanted my deed to be destroyed I'd play on PVP so Please No! As for the last suggestion I'm up in the air about that. The game really does need to be much more new player friendly but there are so many other options for that starting with a better tutorial.

[TheTrickster 2,284]

Customization always get a big idiot-grin two-thumbs up from me.  I think ships and vehicles should have slots where stuff can be applied/installed and then displayed.  E.g. currently all rowboats are depicted with fish-keep nets whether they have one or not.  All wagons are shown with a water keg.    What I imagine would probably be a ground-up rebuild, though, because I would like to see the elements of the vehicles installed via slots (and therefore replaceable).  E.g. different styles/materials of wheels; white cedar masts on a red oak boat; that kind of thing.

 

I would say no to the random destruction, but there are other mechanics that have been suggested for slow, limited return of heavily landscaped abandoned areas to more natural configurations.

 

Rents - I can see some potential here, but would wonder about the market for it.  Beds can have rent charged - but how many do?  I am not sure what the main difference is between a rented plot and small deed, though (unless you mean even smaller than the smallest deed).

 

 

Edited June 2, 2022 by TheTrickster

[Idlamn 297]

17 hours ago, manthium said:

Random destructive events:
This will probably be a hard sell but would save every single place you go to on the map ever (even if today was your first day in wurm) being terraformed out the wazzoo. events such as Earthquakes/ meteors etc or whatever that 
should an area of the map have: no Highway, deed or player presence for 3-6 months or above it has a chance to occur and randomly change the landscape to be different. This keeps the game fresh and allows more people to find the wilds and make their
 home their own without directly scrubbing someone elses mark first.

It was suggested before... a sort of decay system for those pavements and remaining flat raises.

 

Destructive events have been on epic. They made the land worse instead of better - craters and spires:

 

[manthium 52]

9 hours ago, Katrat said:

 As for random destructive events...if I wanted my deed to be destroyed I'd play on PVP so Please No! 

Oh I am the same about PVP I meant literally if there is no deed in place, highway or player activity for half an IRL year or more but I get it's not a hugely popular idea

 

[manthium 52]

So I get that people don't like 'destructive' events how about a more mild version such as 'land errosion/ land slides etc (where gradually the super flattened plateaus of long gone players slowly (1 or 2 dirt changes at a time over several months) change to be 'wibbly' as Olaf would say?

[Finnn 3,303]

3 hours ago, manthium said:

So I get that people don't like 'destructive' events how about a more mild version such as 'land errosion/ land slides etc (where gradually the super flattened plateaus of long gone players slowly (1 or 2 dirt changes at a time over several months) change to be 'wibbly' as Olaf would say?

Do you think that's "wise" to have if you have maps with years and years of history?

On new exploration and resetting server.. sure, but on home servers.. this makes no sense.. "healing" terrain will mess up player's work, sure.. it's realistic to think that it's great if paving should be gone if not used and there should instantly pop a new forest.. or desert should invade forests, the other way around, etc scenarios.. but in reality.. that is really messy business.. and you'll end up babysitting the maps and fighting these automatic cataclysms. I do not think that's fun.. if you have a deed and need to add a chore to fight griefing server to your daily chores. 

[Finnn 3,303]

In a way.. this already exists with paved ground turning back to not paved on it's own if the road is not used for relatively long time.. slowly the server turns such old deeds into forests... but else.. it's up to players to reclaim these paved terrains and build new places or demolish the decaying walls/fences/etc, remove all paving and plant a few trees.. which will quicker spawn some grass around them, etc etc etc

[manthium 52]

4 hours ago, Finnn said:

Do you think that's "wise" to have if you have maps with years and years of history?

On new exploration and resetting server.. sure, but on home servers.. this makes no sense.. "healing" terrain will mess up player's work, sure.. it's realistic to think that it's great if paving should be gone if not used and there should instantly pop a new forest.. or desert should invade forests, the other way around, etc scenarios.. but in reality.. that is really messy business.. and you'll end up babysitting the maps and fighting these automatic cataclysms. I do not think that's fun.. if you have a deed and need to add a chore to fight griefing server to your daily chores. 

I have literally said over and over the entire post and replies NOT IN AREAS OF THE MAP WITH DEEDS HIGHWAYS OR PLAYER ACTIVITY meaning if there's an active deed with say 200 tiles or a highway or someone walked past it in the last 6 months it wouldn't trigger at all and even if not it 'might' not but personally when I go around and everywhere in the world is terraformed into monstrously flat gargantuan dead deeds... it's unnatural but as above it wouldn't trigger in all that many areas because people have put highways all over the place haha but fine let's cross that one off  

 

[Idlamn 297]

I think there are some technical things to consider for a landslide:

There are mountain generated with high dirt slopes. Some of those are not passed by players so you would basically have generated mountains having dirt fall off them. Maybe they take into account how thick the dirt layer is... For a mountain slope of 100 a dirt layer of 5 dirts should probably not landslide. But if there is a slope of 100 but it's all dirt it could landslide.

 

38 minutes ago, manthium said:

I have literally said over and over the entire post and replies NOT IN AREAS OF THE MAP WITH DEEDS HIGHWAYS OR PLAYER ACTIVITY meaning if there's an active deed with say 200 tiles or a highway or someone walked past it in the last 6 months it wouldn't trigger at all and even if not it 'might' not but personally when I go around and everywhere in the world is terraformed into monstrously flat gargantuan dead deeds... it's unnatural but as above it wouldn't trigger in all that many areas because people have put highways all over the place haha but fine let's cross that one off  

 

It might be that a lot of the map is getting some activities... explorers, etc. This would result in basically nothing happening :).

[TheTrickster 2,284]

2 hours ago, Idlamn said:

Maybe they take into account how thick the dirt layer is... For a mountain slope of 100 a dirt layer of 5 dirts should probably not landslide. But if there is a slope of 100 but it's all dirt it could landslide.

Ah, that is a different take on it.  Basically, what is underneath the tile acts to stabilize.  That could work.. The thing is, any such process should be slow and limited.

 

I had proposed a different way in a couple of places an "angle of repose" mechanic where the tile type would itself have a stability - rock and clay would never naturally change, grass/steppe from memory would be in the high 400 slope in what I was thinking, tundra somewhere in between I think.  Sand at about 40.  The process would "erode" corners where the slope changes dramatically - i.e. the top edge, with dirt/sand "dropped" and spreading at the foot.  Basically a big squared-off plateau would over many months (a year or more) lose the outer couple of tiles as flat and the bottom edge gong from nearly flat to steep - at both ends it would be rounded off a bit.   Absolutely any kind of infrastructure would stop it from happening, so this would only occur after everything else has gone.

[Katrat 2,296]

12 hours ago, manthium said:

Oh I am the same about PVP I meant literally if there is no deed in place, highway or player activity for half an IRL year or more but I get it's not a hugely popular idea

 

Ah I see. There are places that have been left with massive deep holes and/or sharp high slopes in the middle of the wilderness that do drive me nuts on an annoying to traverse basis. These I would like to see smooth a bit just to allow better travel. But I'd rather it be a slow erosion over time than a quick destructive event that would leave more scars.

[Finnn 3,303]

we could use more swarm attacks.. like jackal/rifts if in the future there's gap for development of other massacre event mechanics, alternatively.. player built slapalongs and gm help to feed "jackal" spawns, question is .. what are players going to do in the cooldown times when there's nothing to kill, normally during impalongs there's sermons/games/imping or struggling to afk while people slap you, point at you for being afk, etc..

[Finnn 3,303]

15 hours ago, Katrat said:

Ah I see. There are places that have been left with massive deep holes and/or sharp high slopes in the middle of the wilderness that do drive me nuts on an annoying to traverse basis. These I would like to see smooth a bit just to allow better travel. But I'd rather it be a slow erosion over time than a quick destructive event that would leave more scars.

often that's either reclaimed by another player to deed on leveled spots.. or some go and use a shovel to level and with that average the slopes a bit.. maybe enough to allow mount/cart to move through there, not ideal.. but else personal and community projects will require constant maintenance to fix terrain that is intended to be in a certain way

[Katrat 2,296]

9 hours ago, Finnn said:

often that's either reclaimed by another player to deed on leveled spots.. or some go and use a shovel to level and with that average the slopes a bit.. maybe enough to allow mount/cart to move through there, not ideal.. but else personal and community projects will require constant maintenance to fix terrain that is intended to be in a certain way

I do on occasion see the nice leveled places reclaimed but the flat spots aren't a problem. I actually like those it's the deep steep craters that some leave behind which would take a ton of dirt to refill that are problematic. No one ever claims those so yes at current it would be up to players like myself to fix them but most of the time I have better things to do than lug a ton of dirt through the wilderness to fill a random pit.

[Finnn 3,303]

3 hours ago, Katrat said:

I do on occasion see the nice leveled places reclaimed but the flat spots aren't a problem. I actually like those it's the deep steep craters that some leave behind which would take a ton of dirt to refill that are problematic. No one ever claims those so yes at current it would be up to players like myself to fix them but most of the time I have better things to do than lug a ton of dirt through the wilderness to fill a random pit.

well .. it's a sandbox.. either somebody have to bring a filler sand/dirt and fill the hole or it's down to random bored fo priest to sacrifice few creatures or materials for favor and cast dirt and raise the slope of that hole..

 

it's what we get with persistent world terrain 

[Lisimba 779]

If there's a steep hole you can "erode" it yourself by leveling the slopes partway. This takes no dirt and leaves a wider but shallower hole, which is still a hole but is now easily traversable. This also works for adding access paths to steep platforms.

[Sheffie 1,120]

6 hours ago, Lisimba said:

If there's a steep hole you can "erode" it yourself by leveling the slopes partway. This takes no dirt and leaves a wider but shallower hole, which is still a hole but is now easily traversable. This also works for adding access paths to steep platforms.

 

And this also has the benefit of looking a lot like natural erosion: soil is removed from here and deposited over there.

[Ekcin 2,407]

19 hours ago, Katrat said:

I do on occasion see the nice leveled places reclaimed but the flat spots aren't a problem. I actually like those it's the deep steep craters that some leave behind which would take a ton of dirt to refill that are problematic. No one ever claims those so yes at current it would be up to players like myself to fix them but most of the time I have better things to do than lug a ton of dirt through the wilderness to fill a random pit.

Tbh I dislike the dirt cliffs too. But I morphed them all into more or less gentle, anyway almost completely rideable slopes and hills in my area. That was a few days of digging, bit surface mining, some old mine entrances collapsing and refilling, then even some replanting of grass, trees, bushes, some sand and steppe too remaking a natural landscape. No other reward than that I just liked it and was satisfied.

 

No algorithm could replace that. But would deprive us part of our control over the servers as players, and responsibility for.

[Katrat 2,296]

2 hours ago, Ekcin said:

Tbh I dislike the dirt cliffs too. But I morphed them all into more or less gentle, anyway almost completely rideable slopes and hills in my area. That was a few days of digging, bit surface mining, some old mine entrances collapsing and refilling, then even some replanting of grass, trees, bushes, some sand and steppe too remaking a natural landscape. No other reward than that I just liked it and was satisfied.

 

No algorithm could replace that. But would deprive us part of our control over the servers as players, and responsibility for.

I often do the same when I have the time. But that is limited to my local. When I run into these obstacles while distance traveling there's not much I can do but try and find a way around without getting disembarked by that lovely glitch that likes to toss me out of my cart when I turn to often on a steep slope.