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DemonaNightshade

Valrei International: What's To Come (Part One)

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Hello Wurmians! It’s been awhile since we’ve had some news to share, but the devs have been hard at work the whole time to bring some great things for the Exploration Update Part 2! We’re going to be doing a series of three Valrei Internationals over the next month, two weeks apart, each with a sneak peek at a different major feature of the second half of the Exploration Update. I’m sure you are all very excited to see what’s in store, so let’s dive on into that to start us off!

 

Mapping it all out with a new skill!

 

Cartography will be introduced as a new skill with the second part of the Exploration Update. Wurmians will be able to survey areas to create in-game maps, which can be copied and distributed if you’d like to share.

 

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To create a new map, you must first make a survey of the area. This is done by using a dioptra to survey the land around a placed range pole, including the highest and lowest points of land nearby. When a survey is complete you will be able to improve it by surveying the land more, or turn it into a map by taking it to a cartography table and painting the map using ink or dyes. Maps can then be displayed in-world when placed, and even combined to make maps of larger areas.

 

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A New Developer Joins the Team!

 

You may have noticed, especially with the archaeology rework that was recently done, that we have a new Developer! I’d love to welcome Jaytoo to the development team!

 

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Community Event Spotlight: Rockcliff Museum Grand Opening!

 

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Nirav and a handful of helpful friends have been hard at work making preparations for the grand opening of the Rockcliff Museum on Independence, under the shadow of Dragonfang Mountain and next to the lovely restored Rockcliff Cathedral that Belisama rebuilt in honour of Tich. All Southern Isles characters are welcome to come and visit the museum. You can find more information in Nirav’s post below:

 

 

 

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And last, but definitely not least… Happy Birthday Northern Freedom Isles!

 

This last July and August marked year two of the Northern Isles, and what a busy two years it’s been with all of you taming the wilds, building up amazing villages and structures, and creating your character’s stories! It’s lovely to see what you have all done so far, and to show what hard work you’ve put in, I’ve grabbed a few images of some wonderful places built around the Northern servers to share with you. I’m looking forward to seeing all that you achieve going forward! For privacy of PvP players’ deeds, Defiance is not included in these images. This concludes this issue of the Valrei International, we will be back again with another reveal for Exploration Update Part Two in two weeks! Be sure to check out Keenan's Development Update post as well for more information on what's going on behind the scenes:

 

Part Two and Part Three are now available for your viewing pleasure!

 

 

 

 

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2 years nice! most be close getting the lvl 11 med paths on defiance now.

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Nice update, Can we pleaseeeeeee have the ability to keybind more things, like say cleaning a forge?

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9 minutes ago, DemonaNightshade said:

Cartography will be introduced as a new skill with the second part of the Exploration Update. Wurmians will be able to survey areas to create in-game maps, which can be copied and distributed if you’d like to share.

I might like this...? Wonder how many steps my poor horses traveled already :)

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Nice! Very excited at the prospect of cartography.

 

Thanks for the aerial shot of Mooncat Lake. That really helps show it off

 

ETA Welcome Jaytoo! 

Edited by Sheffie
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I love seeing additional functionality for the dioptra and my pulse pounds to think of the cartography possibilities!

 

Wishful thinking - but it would be amazing if in-game cartography efforts could replace the annual map dumps.  Specifically - players submit maps of sufficient quality to a Lormere Ltd. Guild Cartographer in a starter town -> the map dump of the appropriate area is updated.  Which means players are responsible for keeping map dumps 'up to date' and regions that go un-surveyed for months or years will be appropriately out of date.  That feels very wurm appropriate to me.

(Granted, it doesn't resolve the 'make a QR code in the ground' problem, but it would very neatly create an incentive to players to keep the global maps up to date and remove the burden of generating annual map dumps for all of us.  :) )

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I was dismayed to see not a single update to the new player experience and no unveiled plans to do so before adding to the new and very niche system (Which I am still excited about). There are still rough spots in the tutorial that there is NO excuse for, like text wrapping issues, dialog box spam, unfinished systems,  and no first day gratification. Having the first 5 levels on an epic like curve alone, so a new player can BEGIN building a 1x1 within their first day (Few hours) would bring otherwise lost players coming back.

 

We have been saying we will fix it since my first attempt at playing wurm, in 2013, and while better now it is not good enough. Wurm is wonderful and only gotten better over the years, but I can't get my MORTAL ONLINE friends past the tutorial, anyone who has played that game hardcore knows that game is an even worse buggy mess (And just as endearing). I know this post sounds fatalistic, it isn't. But come on guys, slip in some polish.  I stand humbly corrected

 

And one more thing to close this post that is NOT about NPE. The crafting system updates, the polish, and just about every single update to the game itself outside getting new blood has been phenomenal, amazing, and addictive and has me completely hooked. Keep up the wonderful work and I am so proud to be a member of the community especially after seeing all the old systems that have been cleaned up and repurposed!

 

Thank you dev team past and present for all the hard work over the years, I know it is thankless sometimes and people can be cruel but you are all valued and appreciated ❤️

 

 

PS: my god please fix the in game wiki some day before I switch to the path of insanity in rl

Edited by MrCak
My outdated and unlearned self needed to make corrections

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18 minutes ago, MrCak said:

There are still rough spots in the tutorial that there is NO excuse for, like text wrapping issues, dialog box spam, unfinished systems,  and no first day gratification. Having the first 5 levels on an epic like curve alone, so a new player can BEGIN building a 1x1 within their first day (Few hours) would bring otherwise lost players coming back.

I have good news! 

 

These were done several months ago:

  

On 6/8/2022 at 12:51 AM, DevBlog said:
  • Bugfix: Fixed Theft Warning window from being cut off.
  • Fixed headers in some windows being cut off.

 

On 6/8/2022 at 12:51 AM, DevBlog said:
  • Change: Digging and flattening changes.
    • Increased the max slope lower level characters can dig from 10 to 30.
    • Fixed flattening calculations to use the intended max slope for lower level characters.
    • Flattening a tile will now lower the tile if you do not have the final dirt needed to raise it to a flat state.
  • Change: Reduced the house planning calculation by 5 to make the first tile of a house free.

 

So the text wrapping issues were fixed, and the first day gratification/building house was added, along with the ability to flatten easier and make starting just that bit easier!

 

19 minutes ago, MrCak said:

PS: my god please fix the in game wiki some day before I switch to the path of insanity in rl

What's the issue with the ingame wiki? 

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17 minutes ago, MrCak said:

I was dismayed to see not a single update to the new player experience and no unveiled plans to do so before adding to the new and very niche system (Which I am still excited about). There are still rough spots in the tutorial that there is NO excuse for, like text wrapping issues, dialog box spam, unfinished systems,  and no first day gratification. Having the first 5 levels on an epic like curve alone, so a new player can BEGIN building a 1x1 within their first day (Few hours) would bring otherwise lost players coming back.

 

 

We have been working on those things as well! We recently had an update that makes the first tile in a house not be blocked by skill so players are absolutely able to build a small house on day one :) These are also things we will be addressing soon, as mentioned in Keenan's Development Update post he made just a bit before this one came out. 

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27 minutes ago, MrCak said:

I was dismayed to see not a single update to the new player experience and no unveiled plans to do so before adding to the new and very niche system (Which I am still excited about). There are still rough spots in the tutorial that there is NO excuse for, like text wrapping issues, dialog box spam, unfinished systems,  and no first day gratification. Having the first 5 levels on an epic like curve alone, so a new player can BEGIN building a 1x1 within their first day (Few hours) would bring otherwise lost players coming back.

 

We have been saying we will fix it since my first attempt at playing wurm, in 2013, and while better now it is not good enough. Wurm is wonderful and only gotten better over the years, but I can't get my MORTAL ONLINE friends past the tutorial, anyone who has played that game hardcore knows that game is an even worse buggy mess (And just as endearing). I know this post sounds fatalistic, it isn't. But come on guys, slip in some polish.

 

And one more thing to close this post that is NOT about NPE. The crafting system updates, the polish, and just about every single update to the game itself outside getting new blood has been phenomenal, amazing, and addictive and has me completely hooked. Keep up the wonderful work and I am so proud to be a member of the community especially after seeing all the old systems that have been cleaned up and repurposed!

 

Thank you dev team past and present for all the hard work over the years, I know it is thankless sometimes and people can be cruel but you are all valued and appreciated ❤️

 

 

PS: my god please fix the in game wiki some day before I switch to the path of insanity in rl

 

Keenan mentions it a bit in his post made before this one but we have some big plans for the early game tutorial that are already in the works and will see our full attention as soon as our prior commitments like the rest of exploration are finished. As soon as we have more final details to share we absolutely will but we are very actively discussing and working on this area.

 

 

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I need to ask, is this adding an entirely new skill or is it replacing an existing skill. Will it break affinity cooking recipes, or is cooking going to get fixed along with this change?

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14 minutes ago, Blacklotus said:

I need to ask, is this adding an entirely new skill or is it replacing an existing skill. Will it break affinity cooking recipes, or is cooking going to get fixed along with this change?

We have not made a final decision on the exact route, but we will absolutely not be messing with current food affinities with what ever route we take.

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2 hours ago, Sidereal said:

players submit maps of sufficient quality to a Lormere Ltd. Guild Cartographer in a starter town -> the map dump of the appropriate area is updated

 

I would actually hope that the cartography maps are *more* than updates to the map dumps, specifically that they show names of deeds.

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Will we be able to use a compass on a big enough map to tell where we are on the map?

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1 hour ago, Archaed said:

I have good news! 

 

These were done several months ago:

 

That is wonderful! And I stand corrected, when I went to give the steam client a try they were not yet fixed and I felt sort of embarrassed when my friends all gave me guff about the rough edges and outdated graphics and I said ignore that, the charm is in the attention to detail and then they brought up those little details like the wrapping and having to read a dictionary worth of skill explanation in the tutorial (I love the steam client btw, I can't use it on my old toons but it is still slick!)

 

 

Quote

What's the issue with the ingame wiki? 

My issue with the ingame wiki is threefold:

1. It doesn't work several times a day, it wont load until I spam H, sitting and letting it load wont work as when it loads it does not detect text wurm just takes it as input and I get assaulted with window even after clicking into the input sections.

2. The delay on opening sometimes can be as much as 15-20 seconds

3. It does not save the page you are on, or rather it saves it for a few moments and then refreshes to homepage. This is the one that drives me crazy, I would rather it either save the page you were browsing or reset the session on close instead of on open.

 

1 hour ago, Darklords said:

Keenan mentions it a bit in his post made before this one but we have some big plans for the early game tutorial that are already in the works and will see our full attention as soon as our prior commitments like the rest of exploration are finished. As soon as we have more final details to share we absolutely will but we are very actively discussing and working on this area.

That is completely my fault, I did not even know the town hall had texts that were not linked in the launcher, I thought it was just an archive. Doh! I appreciate your patience while everyone tries to teach this old dog new tricks.

 

And this is the best news I have heard in a long time, I have never in all my starts stayed so long and had so much fun with wurm. It finally feels like a whole game for the first time, and all I want to do is share it with all my sandbox loving friends!

 

1 hour ago, DemonaNightshade said:

We have been working on those things as well! We recently had an update that makes the first tile in a house not be blocked by skill so players are absolutely able to build a small house on day one :) These are also things we will be addressing soon, as mentioned in Keenan's Development Update post he made just a bit before this one came out.

This was the nail in the coffin that convinced my friends to quit before they got to feel the achievement wurm offers, so it is a personal victory to see it defeated so completely and with such finesse!

 

 

This is what I am going to send people to when they complain about their current games devs ruining their games and not listening to player feedback so they can see what a healthy and in touch dev team looks like. Thank you all for everything you do and being kind with me and my outdated information

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Would it be possible, now that the dioptra has new uses, to also add a system with which dioptra to get the height of the Corner above the water level. This would make the planning of a road tunnel much easier, for example.

 

 

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Do you plan to keep that brown border on the edge for some reason ?

Also , why is this needed other then deco addition .

You have player made maps already , unless this brings more to the table then something to display ..

Dont get me wrong it looks good , however just hope there is more to it then a topo of areas you can get to  for surveying .

Any plans to add markers  , pins or  names on spots ?

Can it be updated on the go with ink and pen ?

Will be interesting to see what you can do with this ....

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Soooo... we replacing the current ingame map UI? Cartography kind of had a possible use ingame before we were able to place and share markers. Let alone the community-maintained map sites and databases now.

 

Granted a cartography skill that interacts with all that... might be handy. Depends on implementation and possible API. Kind of akin to Wurm Planner.

 

Also always been in favor of merging the shield skills from six skills into three sizes. The metal and wood thing can be a material bonus just like everything else in wurm.

 

That way theres THREE whole skill slots in the food affinity system up for grabs. Let alone making it more reasonable to add more shields, for example the turtle shell shield uses small wood shield skill atm.

 

Not to mention reworking shields so the small and medium sizes get some kind of usage. Maybe allow bucklers (small shield) for dual wielding with spears or w/e.

Edited by Karrde

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Congrats to new roles and promotions!
What's that table on the picture? New piece of furniture? Looks cool

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39 minutes ago, Votip said:

What is the point of cartography and having maps?

also the thought that crossed my mind... will it be helpfull in finding treasure from maps? will it be ingame replacment for third party community maps?

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3 hours ago, Damascus said:

Do you plan to keep that brown border on the edge for some reason ?

Also , why is this needed other then deco addition .

You have player made maps already , unless this brings more to the table then something to display ..

Dont get me wrong it looks good , however just hope there is more to it then a topo of areas you can get to  for surveying .

Any plans to add markers  , pins or  names on spots ?

Can it be updated on the go with ink and pen ?

Will be interesting to see what you can do with this ....

We do have customization options coming with it but we are not quite ready to show that part off yet. They will not be able to be updated once a survey has been painted, you would need to survey the area again.

 

1 hour ago, kochinac said:

Congrats to new roles and promotions!
What's that table on the picture? New piece of furniture? Looks cool

That is the new cartography table for painting maps on, or just decorating.

 

2 hours ago, Karrde said:

Soooo... we replacing the current ingame map UI? Cartography kind of had a possible use ingame before we were able to place and share markers. Let alone the community-maintained map sites and databases now.

 

Granted a cartography skill that interacts with all that... might be handy. Depends on implementation and possible API. Kind of akin to Wurm Planner.

 

Also always been in favor of merging the shield skills from six skills into three sizes. The metal and wood thing can be a material bonus just like everything else in wurm.

 

That way theres THREE whole skill slots in the food affinity system up for grabs. Let alone making it more reasonable to add more shields, for example the turtle shell shield uses small wood shield skill atm.

 

Not to mention reworking shields so the small and medium sizes get some kind of usage. Maybe allow bucklers (small shield) for dual wielding with spears or w/e.

All the images that it shows in game are cached into a sub folder of your character settings folder so pulling the images from that directory should allow you to interact with it in some way treasure maps already currently work like this for example.  On the shield skill note that is something I agree with and we have looked into it but due to some technical reasons with removing skills and not replacing them with something else it is not likely to happen soon but is on our radar.

 

50 minutes ago, Votip said:

What is the point of cartography and having maps?

What ever exciting things we think people will come up with the tools we will provide with this feature. I am sure we will see much more tile art being able to export it into images you can show off in-game.

 

8 minutes ago, kochinac said:

also the thought that crossed my mind... will it be helpfull in finding treasure from maps? will it be ingame replacment for third party community maps?

They will likely be helpful on some treasure hunts but I don't see them fully replacing community maps in full as those are more global being hosted online vs an item you would need to copy and distribute but I am sure people will make some fun community maps with them still.

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Would really much rather see improvements or much needed fixes to current systems than new stuff but happy birthday nfi

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8 minutes ago, Joemog said:

Would really much rather see improvements or much needed fixes to current systems than new stuff but happy birthday nfi

We plan on putting a solid amount of time into this area as soon as this release is done, and are already starting planning for it. The goal will be QOL and new player retention, Keenan touched on this a bit in his post but it got a little lost in the VI notifications will see about getting a link to it in the VI post.

 

 

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