Exciting Changes & Announcements for Wurm Online

[Miretta 1,415]

About argument to merge servers to bring people together:

1. If people wanted to play with others in close proximity, they WILL seek others out, we have recruitment threads and people who will jump on the opportunity to invite others to their village. They can choose it, it's available, no one is forced to play by themselves if they don't want to
2. the same way: players who don't want to play in direct proximity to others WILL seek out remote places and they certainly would not like it if someone was to suddenly force everyone together.

Those are 2 different playstyles and one should not be prioritized over the other, they are both valid and both present and possible in the way wurm currently is.

Meanwhile there are many players who probably enjoy wurm for it's longevity and the long lasting impact you can have on the world. It's one of the strengths of wurm. Deleting everything to create one mega server so "people can be more together" is going to ruin this and this was already very badly received on previous occasions (the tutorial server that once existed *gold something* and other cases and as others stated, playernumbers didn't recover from that).
Then I want to remind about lag/server capacity. Even if we were to bring everyone together, have you forgotten how laggy it is during events like impalongs or dragon fights? do you want to promote that this should be happening everywhere all the time? It would make the game unplayable.
Not to mention the drama....From all my years playing wurm, the more people are together in a small area, the more conflict is likely to come out of it. GMs could probably attest to that.

Also why is it, that people jump on the idea of merging servers, but not on the idea to do everything possible to increase players? Is server merging the more attractive/easier/shortterm "solution"? or is it a matter of not believing that wurm can ever have more players than what we currently have? Server merge is not a solution, it's an easy shortterm "quickfix".

Also, if you wipe wurm, you also wipe part of the game. The history of wurm, what players left behind, at this point, can be called "game content".

 

 

[Finnn 3,322]

29 minutes ago, Miretta said:

About argument to merge servers to bring people together:

1. If people wanted to play with others in close proximity, they WILL seek others out, we have recruitment threads and people who will jump on the opportunity to invite others to their village. They can choose it, it's available, no one is forced to play by themselves if they don't want to
2. the same way: players who don't want to play in direct proximity to others WILL seek out remote places and they certainly would not like it if someone was to suddenly force everyone together.

Those are 2 different playstyles and one should not be prioritized over the other, they are both valid and both present and possible in the way wurm currently is.

Meanwhile there are many players who probably enjoy wurm for it's longevity and the long lasting impact you can have on the world. It's one of the strengths of wurm. Deleting everything to create one mega server so "people can be more together" is going to ruin this and this was already very badly received on previous occasions (the tutorial server that once existed *gold something* and other cases and as others stated, playernumbers didn't recover from that).
Then I want to remind about lag/server capacity. Even if we were to bring everyone together, have you forgotten how laggy it is during events like impalongs or dragon fights? do you want to promote that this should be happening everywhere all the time? It would make the game unplayable.
Not to mention the drama....From all my years playing wurm, the more people are together in a small area, the more conflict is likely to come out of it. GMs could probably attest to that.

Also why is it, that people jump on the idea of merging servers, but not on the idea to do everything possible to increase players? Is server merging the more attractive/easier/shortterm "solution"? or is it a matter of not believing that wurm can ever have more players than what we currently have? Server merge is not a solution, it's an easy shortterm "quickfix".

Also, if you wipe wurm, you also wipe part of the game. The history of wurm, what players left behind, at this point, can be called "game content".

 

 

could be called the official WU server, as there will be no history XD

[_hyena 17]

It's so weird. Talk about deleting old servers and get people in tears, ok fair enough, have your vast open expanses and keep your skills, deeds and items but why do these same people cry when there's talk of new clusters/fresh start servers?

 

There are more people on NFI than SFI to this day. When Nfi first came out wurm peaked, yes a lot of that might have been from steam and more advertising at the time but heaps of new players would have left due to server issues at the time.

 

If playing with 10 others on Pristine is what you want then fine, but that's not making wurm much money considering those 10 people probably have prem till 2025 and would likely prem up toons on a fresh start server all the same 🤣

[Finnn 3,322]

1 hour ago, Quiksilver said:

 

The problem is--if this game continues down the path it is on, one day we are going to try to login and the servers will not be there. I've invested as much time and money (IRL) as the next Wurmian. I'm not sure what game you guys play because 'the charm of riding through open spaces' is marred by the deeds of players who no longer play or people who put 20 slope roads everywhere.  Wurm was innovative in 2006...adding a canoe in 2023 for new players is not going to cut it. These ideas may not be 'cool' but something needs to change...in a big way. The problems I listed are real and any successful game has solved most of them. /shrug

How many of the great games you have on your mind have persistent world with changes and player made content with 10+ years of history?

You think you do, but you don't.

[TheTrickster 2,291]

If clusters of servers could be merged (e.g. NFI pve all on one server) without completely killing the game performance-wise, that might be useful, but server deletions and resets would simply be killing off Wurm quickly instead of watching it slowly fade.  People have paid literally thousands to keep what they have built in a game that promises permanence.  Deleting everything people have paid for would be seen as a betrayal of trust by many.  Who would come back and start over and risk losing not only all that time but all that invested money with nothing to show for it?

I am certainly in favour of a slow, limited rewilding.  In the thread I linked I explained how I would like to see that.  Essentially after all infrastructure has gone, THEN the cubist landscape would soften a little.  I am an explorer, and have found places that were obviously heavily modified and turned out to be long abandoned.  The landscape was in limbo, looking very unnatural but having no other sign of habitation.  I had no way of knowing if someone had terrraformed only weeks earlier and never got around to finishing or if they had an extensive deed that fell years earlier.   A little softening would have shown the time elapsed and made it clearer that the land was not currently occupied.

 

2 hours ago, _hyena said:

There are more people on NFI than SFI to this day.

Are there?  I thought it was pretty close to parity - which given how many people left SFI to start over in NFI should be a concern for NFI.  Neither cluster is doing particularly well purely on a population basis - but both have all that is needed to cater to new urbanites as well as new hermits and everything in between.  It just doesn't always look that way.

 

 

 

 

[Quiksilver 46]

Again, I have just as much invested in my deed as anyone else. I thought we were talking about saving this game, some real improvements that would bring new players in--and more importantly, make them stay. Isn't that what this thread is about? I never said merging the servers was the only way to do it--just that I didn't know another way to do it. In fact it was just a very small part of my original post...everyone gets so crazy just talking about an "idea". I have rode around Independence a lot...it has it's moments but it is a ghost town of a server and honestly not that great. Just logged in...33 players...amazing. Mayhaps the nostalgia of the 'old servers' is being romanticized a bit. This is a more 'needs of the many' vs 'needs of the few' type of argument. I was imagining a new 32x32 server but like Miretta stated, server lag is a major issue when too many players get online at once. I can only imagine how the hamster-wheel servers would be crying on lands of that size. You are right...terrible idea.

 

I digress. I feel like the Wurm player base is its greatest asset and its own worst enemy. We do be toxic. The only people posting here (or playing this game consistently) are the hard core. Why don't they post stats about how many new players there are or how long they stick around? It's probably pretty dismal. Personally, I love how their first 'big improvement' was how to monetize this game more. I mean that's the big update? Come on...if that is the mindset of the people in charge of Wurm, it's done. This game is an 11 on a scale of 10 when it comes to potential, Can we please be honest for one teeny tiny second...Wurm does nothing 'well' from a technical standpoint. Player limits. Draw distance outside and inside caves (16 tiles wut?!). Ceiling height limitations on caves. Stacking items. Animations. Interface. QoL. The list goes on and on and on. There are a myriad of issues that need to be tackled before the in-game store will do anything to bring in profits.

 

And can someone please tell me why they stopped updating Wurm Unlimited...? You have to pay for it and it literally has a better rating on Steam than free Wurm.

Edited July 6, 2023 by Quiksilver

[_hyena 17]

34 minutes ago, TheTrickster said:

Are there?  I thought it was pretty close to parity - which given how many people left SFI to start over in NFI should be a concern for NFI.  Neither cluster is doing particularly well purely on a population basis - but both have all that is needed to cater to new urbanites as well as new hermits and everything in between.  It just doesn't always look that way.

 

 

 

 

 

About 60~ more on nfi than sfi atm.

 

And no doubt more would leave both nfi and sfi if a new cluster opened up, leaving the others behind because they value their existing characters and deeds and I'm sure they would whine about that as well.

 

Would be great for the games profits though that's for sure but then the people would start whining that it's splitting the player base up. But it's only those that are stuck with all their deeds, items and skills on old servers that complain while the rest have fun.

 

Are there many reasons to not have another new cluster released alongside an advertising campaign?

 

Edit: Also I can't find the graph anymore but wurms population right before NFI was abyssmal even compared to where we are at today, it's not like nfi just split sfi players lol.

Edited July 6, 2023 by _hyena
Edit

[Fairyshine 3,183]

5 hours ago, _hyena said:

It's so weird. Talk about deleting old servers and get people in tears, ok fair enough, have your vast open expanses and keep your skills, deeds and items but why do these same people cry when there's talk of new clusters/fresh start servers?

 

There are more people on NFI than SFI to this day. When Nfi first came out wurm peaked, yes a lot of that might have been from steam and more advertising at the time but heaps of new players would have left due to server issues at the time.

 

If playing with 10 others on Pristine is what you want then fine, but that's not making wurm much money considering those 10 people probably have prem till 2025 and would likely prem up toons on a fresh start server all the same 🤣

 

I have played both NFI and SFI.  I can say that the two communities are very different.    Not sure why you insist that forcing them together without players getting a choice, will work out splendidly.

 

One of the biggest reasons I come back to Wurm is because there are many memories on my deed where I built stuff with friends - some of them no longer able to play Wurm.  We had lots of fun, and the deed we built is a testament to that.

 

Over the years we spent a lot of time, effort and yes, even some money, to collect valuable things we enjoy using, including special horses, an old PvP wagon, some speciality GM named animals, tamed champions, five speed hellies (the old type) and five speed unicorns (again, the old type).   This is part of the charm of the game, and when the world changed a lot for us in real life, Wurm remained the constant and happy world we loved and cherished.  

 

So please get rid of this idea that this can all be wiped and somehow everyone will be happier.  

 

I won't.  My deed mates won't.  And I bet hardly any of the little deeds we now maintain apart from our main ones, will just go and never return.  Perhaps the main ones won't either, since we want an enduring and reliable world, not one where things can be wiped and people thrown together like sardines in a tin.

[TheTrickster 2,291]

2 hours ago, _hyena said:

But it's only those that are stuck with all their deeds, items and skills on old servers that complain while the rest have fun.

Eh?  Some of the hardest push for merging SFI and NFI has come from NFI players for quite some time - certainly before the servers could have been considered "old".

 

And the "old" players that you seem to think worth ignoring are the bread-and-butter income for the game.  Sure a new launch will get a pulse of cash, but then it settles back to the steady stream from die-hard player base.  Alienating heavy investors to spin off yet another community splitting server for a quick splurt i snot good business.

 

 

[Etherdrifter 2,518]

My counter-argument when anyone suggests new clusters -

What we saw, over the period of a year, is that the old cluster had a lower population than it did before the new cluster announcement (migrants), the new cluster boomed, and then busted *very very* hard.

 

It left both clusters in an "unhealthy" state (numbers stagnant or declining), and just stank of "quick cash grab".  It definitely generated short term profit, but given how heavily players were funneled into the new cluster (to the point of overpopulation), it likely harmed longer term income (laughably low retention rate when you take migrants into account).

 

Jackal, with tweaks, is the better option, and always will be.

[griper 537]

Glasshollow in north-west Xana is the poster child of dead areas in Wurm.

Almost all of it consists of abandoned deeds where only terraformed land and pavement remains. It all looks quite sad and its no wonder no one comes there to settle.

 

They shouldnt delete servers because it would upset the people living there. But adding a new server every couple of years could keep the gameplay a bit fresher. Nevermind that people get spread out because that is already the case.

[Stinboi 367]

11 hours ago, _hyena said:

 

Would be great for the games profits though that's for sure but then the people would start whining that it's splitting the player base up. But it's only those that are stuck with all their deeds, items and skills on old servers that complain while the rest have fun.

 

Are there many reasons to not have another new cluster released alongside an advertising campaign?

And shouldnt we complain? Wurm used to be more fun, now i have problem staying online, due to low activity and a world that seems more dead and lifeless then the moon, most of my grind was done during covid and i dont have the time doin it all over again. 

 

But sure why stop before we all have 1 server each, that be fun?

 

New ceo, talking abot revenu, doin a rebrand which was badly done, sounds like a class book example to someone trying to milk the last coins before shutting down.

 

My guess is that in a year or 2 it will only be the most hardcore and dedicated playerbase left if they dont do something drastical

[_hyena 17]

5 hours ago, Etherdrifter said:

My counter-argument when anyone suggests new clusters -

 

 

Yes that totally suggests sfi on its own would be thriving to this day if it weren't for nfi /s

 

The cash flow from those thousands of accounts and new deeds (several new deeds due to disbands when melody/cadence released) plus who knows how much prem was bought and exists to this day on accounts that no longer log on far outweighs just about anything sfi could accomplish on its own. 

 

Stinboi complains he doesn't want to login because the game feels dead. If a new cluster was made everyone should pack up and go to it. All these people that want to be together should go to it. Leave the grumpy furniture to their private islands on sfi.

[Vorticella 958]

1 hour ago, griper said:

Glasshollow in north-west Xana is the poster child of dead areas in Wurm.

Almost all of it consists of abandoned deeds where only terraformed land and pavement remains. It all looks quite sad and its no wonder no one comes there to settle.

 

They shouldnt delete servers because it would upset the people living there. But adding a new server every couple of years could keep the gameplay a bit fresher. Nevermind that people get spread out because that is already the case.

 

Adding more land leads to even more ghost towns in the future.. we have seen how this plays out. It's not a sustainable solution unless you are deleting old maps and that is not an option in this game. When NFI came out it was a massive rush to develop those maps, at this point it basically looks the same as SFI, except now we have more complaining about the population being spread out. If abandoned areas reverted back to a natural state, we would get fresh land without having to add any new maps, and players looking for free land that feels safe to claim wouldn't have to travel as far to find it. The servers would look a lot nicer too.

 

Honestly, renewing used land is the only solution that makes sense long term.

 

Edited July 7, 2023 by Vorticella

[Thorinoakshield 603]

1 hour ago, _hyena said:

 

Yes that totally suggests sfi on its own would be thriving to this day if it weren't for nfi /s

 

The cash flow from those thousands of accounts and new deeds (several new deeds due to disbands when melody/cadence released) plus who knows how much prem was bought and exists to this day on accounts that no longer log on far outweighs just about anything sfi could accomplish on its own. 

 

Stinboi complains he doesn't want to login because the game feels dead. If a new cluster was made everyone should pack up and go to it. All these people that want to be together should go to it. Leave the grumpy furniture to their private islands on sfi.

 

I'm afraid you don't see why the "grumpy furniture" makes those comments.

The reason is very simple; we've already seen it all.

Some multiple times when we got new servers in SFI, some when NFI was released.

 

Fact is: you get a massive rush of new players at new servers. That massive that it's even impossible to log in - we've had that at NFI - or aren't able to find a good spot because the "best" spots are taken by those who come first. Or those who've got the experience of the "old" servers and know what you may need to pick a place and turn that in "the best deed ever". It was actually that bad,  the dev's had to add more servers as planned, because there simply wasn't any place at all.

 

If you want to know the effects of that; look for the very first reviews of Wurm Online at Steam.

Most are negative because players couldn't log in, couldn't find a spot to settle, couldn't find a mob to kill - or ran into too many mobs killing them - didn't understand how the game worked, considered it to grindy, considered it as false advertisement as it wasn't FtP at all and I could continue for a while with that list.

 

Fact is - and NFI has proven that - you get a massive rush of new players and everybody is like: "YES! We got a huge influx of new players! This game is going to last for a very long time."

Look at it a couple of year later and most; not all, but most; of the players who entered through the portals when NFI was released are gone. While those who were remaining at SFI some some players come and go; but overall remained with a more or less steady population and as a result both clusters got more or less the same amount of players now.

And the same will happen with a new cluster of servers. And the new cluster of servers after that one. And the new server cluster after that one and so forth.

 

Merging servers isn't the solution. What it would do is driving the core group who's been here for years away. For the simple reason why not all of them moved to the NFI when that cluster was released: Not wanting to start all over again with zero skills, zero items and knowing what needs to be done to get back to the level they are at now.

For that same reason is removing some of the servers not an option. People aren't willing to leave the things they've crafted and collected over time behind. Not to mention the fact that some people simply refuse to live at some servers because of the "lag issues".

Adding new servers isn't the solution either; as there's plenty of - non-terraformed - land to live at at some of the servers.

 

What could work is turning the negative review trend at Steam into a positive one.

Try to get those players using Steam to log in to post positive reviews. The more positive reviews a game has, the more people will try it. Not everyone will remain in the game; but you can make sure you will get a few that do like it and start a "long term commitment."

Try to get peoples attention at game sites by having a nice trailer, a nice banner and things like that.

The rebranding process started last week is a step in the right direction. Except it's in such an amaturistic way with the use of AI generated images that absolutely don't represent the game; it most likely has done more harm as it did good. Not to mention the extra time some staff members need to spend to get everything looking as it should.

 

Be open to your customers is another step.

Don't use an AI generated message to address your community; write it yourself. It doesn't matter if there are typoes; what does matter if it's a message written by you, not by an AI.

Which also means; if you say you'd do something, do that. A week ago we were  told  that "I will book a few days next week to reply to your posts." Up to now I haven't seen ######; other as some replies to posts done 3 weeks ago.

With staff members saying they'd do something and then don't do anything at all, you won't generate much trust of your customers. When customers don't trust you; they walk away. And when they walk away; they aren't happy and will give a bad review of the game.

 

I'm playing this game for almost 8 years; so I guess that makes me part of the grumpy furniture.

I've seen the attempts to revive Wurm and up to now they all ended up with the same result; a high influx of new players followed by the slowly abandonning of the game by most of those players. 

One of the very few things that actually did work was the addition of Jackal as a seasonal server. The advantage of that one: Players know everything they made will be gone after some time. But at least they still got their skills  the moment they arrive at their "home server".

If there's anything to be done, I'd start there. Along with better communication to your customers and better advertisement. Without using AI generated ######.

 

Thorin

 

[Miretta 1,415]

so in summary: I do think we all agree that something DOES need changing.
In my mind those are the 2 main things:
1. Marketing, how and where the game is advertised, how to spread word about wurm, how make people aware it even exists, cause somehow we seem to be spinning in circles that most of the wurm playerbase are those who never stopped and those who came back.
so in a way, atleast the idea of changing the branding of wurm in itself, IS a good direction, because clearly, it hasn't worked very well for many years what we had.

2. The players found need to have a much easier time to get to know wurm in it's specifics. We all know how hard and frustrating it can be to be a newbie, especially so when you don't know the game mechanics yet and they are vastly different from other games.
And I do think there are several ways and actions that can be taken to improve readability of everything to make it easier for people.

Just think about how huge improvement it would be, if as example: instead of skills being invisible on your list, before you have found out about them, they would show up as "???" skills? their parent category would be visible, giving players a hint of what and where they could look to figure out what skill it could be (instead of straight up not knowing possible existence of a skill, it would now be a mystery, something to figure out).
Or an option for newbies when they spawn in, there would be an object in the starting town allowing them to get teleported to an area without any deeds
or...if teleport is too jarring, an ingame overlay that makes deed boundaries visible from afar (like glowing light walls with a fade towards the sky)

or if wanting to go more fantasy, we could have a little companion "fairy" similar to the first buff one gets, but it acts as a sort of guide.

Little things...big things...I think also one thing to remember is, that wurmians are very used to using wurmpedia as a source for many many things...but if someone new joins a game, every time they have to open a website to check something, it rips them out of the immersion into the game. It's bad game design. All Info of game related things need to be able to be found ingame in some form.
I don't mean to just throw a box of text at a player pretty much imitating wurmpedia ingame (that's how last tutorial change turned out), but by having the world be self explanatory to some extend.
Want to know that there is fishing ingame? show some fish jumping out of the water near the shore.
How to communicate to the player without text that you need a mallet/hammer/trowel to plan a building? heck how do you explain that they have to make a plan before they can build? in most games you directly build walls, floors etc.
We can't expect that people "just know that" or that they have to dig through wurmpedia to see it.

Those are the kind of things we need solutions for and improvements. Ways that make the game better, ways that make the game more like a cohesive experience even for newbies and especially for newbies.

[NeeNee 855]

55 minutes ago, Miretta said:

Little things...big things...I think also one thing to remember is, that wurmians are very used to using wurmpedia as a source for many many things...but if someone new joins a game, every time they have to open a website to check something, it rips them out of the immersion into the game. It's bad game design. All Info of game related things need to be able to be found ingame in some form.
I don't mean to just throw a box of text at a player pretty much imitating wurmpedia ingame (that's how last tutorial change turned out), but by having the world be self explanatory to some extend.
Want to know that there is fishing ingame? show some fish jumping out of the water near the shore.
How to communicate to the player without text that you need a mallet/hammer/trowel to plan a building? heck how do you explain that they have to make a plan before they can build? in most games you directly build walls, floors etc.
We can't expect that people "just know that" or that they have to dig through wurmpedia to see it.

 

I really love this idea. I'm not sure how we'd make some things more self explanatory but the fish is a great example. Obviously, I love the wiki and use wikis in other games, but you have a good point on immersion. The in-game wiki helps and we try to make it useful, but it's not the same as a visual clue. This would also help with our large non-English speaking population. I don't know about making building made more sense, but off the top of my head:

 

-Bigger fruit on trees (Okay, I don't want it to glow or sparkle, but it is hard to see sometimes).

-Would a different model for an unbotanized/foraged grass tile be possible? 

-It would be amazing if when building, the crafting menu showed visual options, not just words. 

-I personally would love some kind of in game NPC guide that did a tutorial with you, but that's probably even more complicated. "Jeeves, how do I build a house?" 

 

[Miretta 1,415]

8 minutes ago, NeeNee said:

 

I really love this idea. I'm not sure how we'd make some things more self explanatory but the fish is a great example. Obviously, I love the wiki and use wikis in other games, but you have a good point on immersion. The in-game wiki helps and we try to make it useful, but it's not the same as a visual clue. This would also help with our large non-English speaking population. I don't know about making building made more sense, but off the top of my head:

 

-Bigger fruit on trees (Okay, I don't want it to glow or sparkle, but it is hard to see sometimes).

-Would a different model for an unbotanized/foraged grass tile be possible? 

-It would be amazing if when building, the crafting menu showed visual options, not just words. 

-I personally would love some kind of in game NPC guide that did a tutorial with you, but that's probably even more complicated. "Jeeves, how do I build a house?" 

 

yeah exactly, like also more animations. The same way how we can see what other people already made and can get inspired or curious about it, what if activating an almanac would make the character visually open a book?
and why did your Jeeves example made me think of a wurm chatGPT companion XD, which could be an actual character looking npc in an updated version of the old green outfit ^^"
or...we have those glowing lights from priests...it could be a light with a voice following you around, that way it would also be visible to anyone else around that this is a newbie...though should be toggeable (in final fantasy new characters have a sprout symbol infront of their names) 

[_hyena 17]

1 hour ago, Thorinoakshield said:

 

I'm afraid you don't see why the "grumpy furniture" makes those comments.

The reason is very simple; we've already seen it all.

Some multiple times when we got new servers in SFI, some when NFI was released.

 

Fact is: you get a massive rush of new players at new servers. That massive that it's even impossible to log in - we've had that at NFI - or aren't able to find a good spot because the "best" spots are taken by those who come first. Or those who've got the experience of the "old" servers and know what you may need to pick a place and turn that in "the best deed ever". It was actually that bad,  the dev's had to add more servers as planned, because there simply wasn't any place at all.

 

If you want to know the effects of that; look for the very first reviews of Wurm Online at Steam.

Most are negative because players couldn't log in, couldn't find a spot to settle, couldn't find a mob to kill - or ran into too many mobs killing them - didn't understand how the game worked, considered it to grindy, considered it as false advertisement as it wasn't FtP at all and I could continue for a while with that list.

 

Fact is - and NFI has proven that - you get a massive rush of new players and everybody is like: "YES! We got a huge influx of new players! This game is going to last for a very long time."

Look at it a couple of year later and most; not all, but most; of the players who entered through the portals when NFI was released are gone. While those who were remaining at SFI some some players come and go; but overall remained with a more or less steady population and as a result both clusters got more or less the same amount of players now.

And the same will happen with a new cluster of servers. And the new cluster of servers after that one. And the new server cluster after that one and so forth.

 

Merging servers isn't the solution. What it would do is driving the core group who's been here for years away. For the simple reason why not all of them moved to the NFI when that cluster was released: Not wanting to start all over again with zero skills, zero items and knowing what needs to be done to get back to the level they are at now.

For that same reason is removing some of the servers not an option. People aren't willing to leave the things they've crafted and collected over time behind. Not to mention the fact that some people simply refuse to live at some servers because of the "lag issues".

Adding new servers isn't the solution either; as there's plenty of - non-terraformed - land to live at at some of the servers.

 

What could work is turning the negative review trend at Steam into a positive one.

Try to get those players using Steam to log in to post positive reviews. The more positive reviews a game has, the more people will try it. Not everyone will remain in the game; but you can make sure you will get a few that do like it and start a "long term commitment."

Try to get peoples attention at game sites by having a nice trailer, a nice banner and things like that.

The rebranding process started last week is a step in the right direction. Except it's in such an amaturistic way with the use of AI generated images that absolutely don't represent the game; it most likely has done more harm as it did good. Not to mention the extra time some staff members need to spend to get everything looking as it should.

 

Be open to your customers is another step.

Don't use an AI generated message to address your community; write it yourself. It doesn't matter if there are typoes; what does matter if it's a message written by you, not by an AI.

Which also means; if you say you'd do something, do that. A week ago we were  told  that "I will book a few days next week to reply to your posts." Up to now I haven't seen ######; other as some replies to posts done 3 weeks ago.

With staff members saying they'd do something and then don't do anything at all, you won't generate much trust of your customers. When customers don't trust you; they walk away. And when they walk away; they aren't happy and will give a bad review of the game.

 

I'm playing this game for almost 8 years; so I guess that makes me part of the grumpy furniture.

I've seen the attempts to revive Wurm and up to now they all ended up with the same result; a high influx of new players followed by the slowly abandonning of the game by most of those players. 

One of the very few things that actually did work was the addition of Jackal as a seasonal server. The advantage of that one: Players know everything they made will be gone after some time. But at least they still got their skills  the moment they arrive at their "home server".

If there's anything to be done, I'd start there. Along with better communication to your customers and better advertisement. Without using AI generated ######.

 

Thorin

 

 

 

I'd hope wurm would anticipate the server rush in future and be able to withstand the mass of players. Also it's not just new land that's so inviting, that's pretty much 'same same' after 15 servers but the idea of becoming someone else or becoming 'someone' at all, in the community. 

 

Perhaps NFIs blacksmiths will want to try their hand at becoming the very best of priests and casting for people, or the horse breeders will venture to pvp for the first times without fear of veteran specialised accounts dominating the map.

 

Sure you can do all that now but we all know NFI had more than just a new land to explore that attracted the crowds, it was new opportunities and possibilities. Fresh start, together.

[Ecrir 887]

On 7/5/2023 at 5:12 PM, Revnik said:

Because fragmenting the player base across 15 or so servers is a good idea? These days 500 concurrent players is a good day. Divide that between the vast number of servers, and considering how many are multi-boxing, and we might as well play solo. Its crazy how we keep doing the same thing over and over, do not see results, and then people still resist thinking up a logical way to consolidate servers... Astonishing.

 

It's better than driving away the majority of your players. Right now many players are invested into the game through things they've made and decorated, like their deeds, buildings, gear, etc. Take all of that away and suddenly a ton of players are no longer anywhere near as tightly bound to the game as they were. This means that there will be a lot less holding them back from trying other games and leaving to those.

 

Besides that, you're right how people keep doing the same thing over and over and not seeing results. For example, did you know that the server consolidation that you're talking about his actually been done in the past? The results were not good. It's easily one of the biggest mistakes in the history of Wurm. So yeah, people who still think that consolidating servers will solve anything... Astonishing.

 

  

3 hours ago, _hyena said:

 

Yes that totally suggests sfi on its own would be thriving to this day if it weren't for nfi /s

 

The cash flow from those thousands of accounts and new deeds (several new deeds due to disbands when melody/cadence released) plus who knows how much prem was bought and exists to this day on accounts that no longer log on far outweighs just about anything sfi could accomplish on its own. 

 

Stinboi complains he doesn't want to login because the game feels dead. If a new cluster was made everyone should pack up and go to it. All these people that want to be together should go to it. Leave the grumpy furniture to their private islands on sfi.

 

SFI is actively being sabotaged since new players are being adviced, in game when selecting a server to go to, to go to NFI. It's rigged at the moment, so making any such conclusions about what SFI could accomplish is utterly pointless when going off data on a rigged scenario.

Edited July 7, 2023 by Ecrir

[Pandalet 1,848]

I'd like to note a few things that have not changed, since they've come up a fair bit here:

 - there is no plan at this time to merge SFI and NFI

 - there are no plans at this time to shut down or consolidate any servers

 

While people have strong feelings and are passionate, please remember that you're dealing with other real people.  Let's try to keep the discussion and feedback constructive.

[Stinboi 367]

1 hour ago, _hyena said:

 

 

I'd hope wurm would anticipate the server rush in future and be able to withstand the mass of players. Also it's not just new land that's so inviting, that's pretty much 'same same' after 15 servers but the idea of becoming someone else or becoming 'someone' at all, in the community. 

 

Perhaps NFIs blacksmiths will want to try their hand at becoming the very best of priests and casting for people, or the horse breeders will venture to pvp for the first times without fear of veteran specialised accounts dominating the map.

 

Sure you can do all that now but we all know NFI had more than just a new land to explore that attracted the crowds, it was new opportunities and possibilities. Fresh start, together.

so new cluster every couple of years incase someone want to do something els? wow, i hope you understyand how far off this suggestion is.

[Tukodama 316]

35 minutes ago, Pandalet said:

I'd like to note a few things that have not changed, since they've come up a fair bit here:

 - there is no plan at this time to merge SFI and NFI

 - there are no plans at this time to shut down or consolidate any servers

 

Can the Cadence "New Server" be taken away at least?  It has been a long time since Cadence was "new".  It would allow new players to be more open minded in their choice of their starting server and may even start to revive SFI with new blood.  

[Yaga 2,892]

1 hour ago, Ecrir said:

new players are being adviced, in game when selecting a server to go to, to go to NFI

 

Let me check... where exactly is that happening?

 

[atazs 965]

5 hours ago, Vorticella said:

 

Adding more land leads to even more ghost towns in the future.. we have seen how this plays out. It's not a sustainable solution unless you are deleting old maps and that is not an option in this game. When NFI came out it was a massive rush to develop those maps, at this point it basically looks the same as SFI, except now we have more complaining about the population being spread out. If abandoned areas reverted back to a natural state, we would get fresh land without having to add any new maps, and players looking for free land that feels safe to claim wouldn't have to travel as far to find it. The servers would look a lot nicer too.

 

Honestly, renewing used land is the only solution that makes sense long term.

 

Basically, greatly increase decay on roads and spreading of grass/trees on areas that have not been traversed by players for sometime. 

Off deed houses, vehicles and storage containers owned by players who have not logged in for over a month should also get 2x as much decay, increasing with every 1 month of inactivity (3x for 3 months, etc...)

Edited July 7, 2023 by atazs