A letter from the CEO: Departing Friends and what's on the horizon

[Krister 232]

I have unfortunate news in regards to the departure of several valuable team members. Darklords, Keenan, Pandalet, and Demona are no longer with us as staff, although they will continue to be members of our community as players.  Each of them has left for different reasons, and I want to say I respect all the time, hard work, and dedication they have dedicated to help make Wurm where it is today

With personnel changes, here are some positive news:
 

Lead Forum Moderator
Asst Lead Forum Moderator Brattygirlsback has been promoted to Lead Forum Moderator. In the time they have worked together, Brattygirlsback has learned much from Pandalet, and we look forward to seeing her in her new role.

During these difficult times I have been getting great insights from the team and have been getting great feedback and ways forward. These will take time to incorporate but will show immensely helpful in taking Wurm to the next level. 

Open positions
We have, prior to this, opened up our doors to new recruits to join our team. We can not ignore the fact that we have had volunteers of great calibre that have been overlooked. For anyone in that position, please reach out so we can rectify our mistakes and get you on the team.

We are looking to expand the volunteer staff, and wish for anybody who is interested to apply.  Details can be found here:  https://forum.wurmonline.com/index.php?/topic/197859-growing-a-team-how-to-apply-for-staff-positions/&tab=comments#comment-1963788


Here are some updates

The New Website
We have been working with Malena/Katspurr to get the new images up, her work will shape the updates and better reflect the game from a visual perspective. You have seen her work in the past and she is a great resource and we are looking forward to the relaunch.

When can we get it out? Soon, but before we go live, I would like to share it with all of you. We’ll share a non-public preview site to get all your insights and make changes according to the community's wishes. The text and working has been changed to better reflect the valuable feedback we have received from you, and I hope we can further improve it with your help. I propose that we do it during the end of next week, get the site to you and transform it further. One thing I learned to do, thanks for keeping an open mind and giving me the chance to rectify it.

Enki
We have been working on setting him up with work to get his content out, hopefully he can start with this shortly and get out something next month.

New Players
We have a new project at the planning stage, and will begin sharing more with the community when we have a clear outline. We are looking to update the first hours in the game with a more modern approach to tutorials and have our newbies working together. The hope is to get players to see what is possible and get them prepared for what is to come. We will begin development during September.

End game content
In parallel with the development of the new player experience we will develop a way to track “quests”. I will need your help here, to make the ideas into reality. We will start a post with the outlines and collect your insights and share our work.

Graphics and client development
We are poised to do work on our client to update our graphics as well as code optimization to increase stability and offer a smoother experience, starting development in August. This is something we see would benefit new and current players.

PVP
We haven't forgotten about PvP, but with our limited resources and current team size, it is not realistic to deliver any significant updates/changes to it this year. After we have revised the beginners experience and graphics updates we can shift the focus back to it. We will begin talks with the PVP community, there are a lot of ideas, like merging islands to name only one. These changes have huge implications and are big undertakings, but with your help we can plan it out. We would also benefit from someone from your side to be the voice of the collective, I hope this is something we can set up.
 

Finances
I would like to share our financial situation with you, to give you all an outline of current status and our goals for the future. This could be in the form you chose is best suited, I will accommodate the wishes of the team and the community.

In closing
The biggest insight I have gained is that Wurm Online is not run by a single person, and it has never been that way. It is a community driven project and I do not intend to change that, even though I made mistakes and we have lost valuable people my goal is to share our victories and burdens with you. There will be backlash and I see every departure as my failing, be it financially as well as personally. Wurm Online is yours, you created it, it is not mine and never will be, However my job is to secure the well-being of our team and to make sure we have the finances to be able to not only keep Wurm Online live and well, but to further improve and add content to it.

We will share more, and we will invite more feedback and team members. I can see the harm in keeping a locked door, as it is not only distributive to you but we are losing so much insight doing things without involving our community. The thing that makes this all possible.

Even if our new management style will take some time to adjust and show results I am confident that we can work past our grievances and create more content at a quicker rate.

With all that said, for anyone that has left, my door is open and please don’t hesitate to reach out to me. You are always part of Wurm.

 

 

Edit: I have removed a section about Wurm Unlimited as it was included by mistake, without consulting the dev team first. We currently do not plan on updating Wurm Unlimited with new content. I apologize for not including this edit note initially.