Valrei International: Back on Track!

[TheTrickster 2,291]

9 hours ago, Finnn said:

If you go to a crowd with intention for discussion but get attacked by almost everybody, would you stick around and keep taking the beating?

 

We cannot know intent, but we can infer it from content.  The tone and word choices of not only the OP, but the CM's follow-up responses would to me say that there is not an intent for discussion.  Instead there is this low-content rainbows and unicorns talk that is soft and pillowy masking a hard and unpleasant core.  

 

Example: Announcing that Krister is officially NOT going to provide the financials he offered to back up his testable claims.  There are a lot of words following the declaration of what is not happening, but they mean nothing and provide no actual reason. (And this post is probably at risk of deletion for even discussing this.  It wouldn't be my first post removed for even mentioning Army's announcement about this). 

Example: Explaining the update to the website being done without the promised feedback opportunity because it was so urgent and there was insufficient time, when it took MORE THAN TWO MONTHS, and the "update" is only marginally better than what it replaced and in fact retained one of the key elements that the community complained about.  It also was full of misspellings, grammatical errors and outright nonsense references ("both games" ?) .  The update has all the appearance of being rushed in the few days before the OP so that the OP could say it was done, also implying that nothing much was done for a couple of months.  But the broken promise is attributed here by this staff member to lack of time for feedback.

 

I was one of those defending Army from "attacks" early on, saying to give him time and a chance.  However, when you can clearly see that the villagers have been driven to fork-and-pitchfork anger at the among other things contemptuous and largely empty communication it can only be expected that if you provide even more contemptuous and largely empty communication, they will start shaking their implements at you, too.  

 

If the Community Manager acts like they are simply the CEO's mouthpiece, then the ire provoked by the CEO is likely to be directed at the CM.

 

[TheTrickster 2,291]

2 hours ago, Malena said:

But we can make arched walls: using bridges. Look at the before and after:

https://www.andrea.net/wurm/screenshots/ai_enhanced/46.html

 

 

I have more of a problem with the glazed windows.   (Which, to be fair, are not in the cropped image on the website).

 

EDIT:  Honestly, the enhanced images are beautiful.  I don't agree with the "lazy" commentary around using AI for enhancement.  It isn't all that easy.  But it isn't the beauty of the images or the skill of the editor that is the issue.  It is the fact that what look like they could be screenshots are not something anyone can achieve in game.  I think also, part of the backlash at this is that the enhancement kind of acknowledges what the community has been saying for a long time - Wurm deserves better graphics.  The solution there is to improve in-game graphics, not to enhance the screenshots.

Edited September 25, 2023 by TheTrickster

[Zexos 468]

Some Wurm TV questions: 

 

If Wurm TV is coming, will the Valrei Entertainment discord channel be deleted with Wurm Tv taking its place? 

 

Also will previous Wurm popular streamers get an invite to Wurm TV or should they apply when a link is given?

 

Will users who are a part of Wurm TV get some sort of benefits/bonus/money..etc?

 

Since you mentioned that Craftyjoe is creating videos for Wurm on Tiktok and Instagram, will future users who join Wurm TV have a chance to be featured or even become regular content creators on Wurm's official social media accounts?

 

Would community events be something featured on Wurm TV, the website and social media to show off what the world of Wurm has to offer? 

 

Other questions: 

 

Do you have any plans to create any videos to show off community events like impalongs or enki's race events?

Edited September 25, 2023 by Zexos

[wipeout 1,355]

2 hours ago, Malena said:

But we can make arched walls: using bridges. Look at the before and after:

https://www.andrea.net/wurm/screenshots/ai_enhanced/46.html

Check the blurry mess to the left of it as well and yes with bridges we can mimic it but not properly which again people will nitpick about and be vocal about.

 

  

2 hours ago, Malena said:

The weapon isn't on his back, that's a leather strap that happens to sit at the same angle:

The landscape isn't any more "vague" than in the original Wurm shot. And there is nothing stopping players from technically having a fight like that eh?

https://www.andrea.net/wurm/screenshots/ai_enhanced/33.html

On the website itself you can not tell if it is a strap or on its back and a person is not going to bother doing a 10x zoom thing to try and figure out if its a strap or not and they will assume that he is carrying that axe on his back.
When including the fortifications it most def is way more vague and painted like then it would be and also way higher detailed ground
As for that combat? No pvp combat will ever be like that in wurm due to how wurm pvp functions half those people would be dead within seconds the other half yelled at for being off god knows where doing god knows what but thats really besides the point, the picture as a whole portrays something that just wont happen in the game.

 

  

2 hours ago, Malena said:

The lighting is pretty much exactly the same in the original screenshots, so not sure what you mean:

https://www.andrea.net/wurm/screenshots/ai_enhanced/44.html

https://www.andrea.net/wurm/screenshots/ai_enhanced/16.html

You are telling me you can not see the obviously more yellow sun lighting the overall better lighting that the ai applies and the better shadows it comes up with?
The better reflections of light hitting polished wood, the sharp reflections in the water all things that currently are not a thing either some are in the works or are just not going to happen at all.

 

  

2 hours ago, Malena said:

From a gameplay perspective, mines do fill up with piles of rocks and ore eh?

And if if you wanted to achieve a similar atmosphere in Wurm, you could do that in Wurm Unlimited by spawning in boulders. That's what I did for the original shot.

https://www.andrea.net/wurm/screenshots/ai_enhanced/21.html

The mines fill up with a neatly stacked pile of shards not stacks of stone that can obstruct a players movement as the picture implies, and yes that is the thing to get the desired effect one would have to use WU a unsupported version of the game and not what the wurm ONLINE website is about

 

  

2 hours ago, Malena said:

We've got plenty of items in game that are much more detailed, so technically it's completely feasible. Has it been done in this particular case of the foods? No - but that doesn't mean the foods couldn't be improved further down the line. The point is, that as it currently stands, highly detailed stuff CAN be technically implemented in the game.  

 

For instance the dragon skin for the staff is mega detailed:

 

Your words exactly they CAN be implemented but they aren't and even the dragon skin for the staff is no where near as detailed as just the grapes are on their own, to you these things clearly don't seem to matter as you are fine with showing fake stuff but to many players wurm's graphics being upped from a clearly ancient state to a mixture of last and current gen via ai enhancements would be seen as faking it.

And that brings me back to the point of we are trying to attract new players to the game so showing them fake images that are not representative of the games actual quality will make players leave, you might say "oh why would they" well simple a LOT of people dont want to play the game because it looks too old and shitty they might like the style of gameplay but the graphics put them off.

And in a time of baldur's gate 3 and starfield(hate on the game but its strong suits are strong) and cyberpunk's latest dlc and plenty of beautiful looking indi games being made by 1-2 man teams all of these games stick to what they actually look like for their ingame footage trailers and screenshots on every store front(the website is one) where as the games that are using ai generated content get laughed at and people refuse to support those projects.

I want the game to grow for years the biggest holdback to this games growth is half assed decisions across the board from current and ex staff volunteer and paid alike missed opportunities and thrown away chances and this "redesign" of the website was once again just yet another such missed opportunity this time by the owners before once again the content that gets used being ai focused as if there is a boner for ai when it comes to this site.

I love your originals though and I really do wish that they were used instead if gcg has such a big issue with wurm's old graphics being an issue and thus wanting to use ai to hide that fact then maybe they should invest money into a actual developer for the website and not some random who uses chatgpt to create and update its sites while over charging and content that gets added by staff/community should not be ai generated or "enhanced" as the defects in a lot of those places or the fakeness of it all is glaring and will push people away.

It doesn't matter of can be's or would have been possible scenario's a game should show of what it currently has to offer to players not fake information as that is just a let down but sadly that is a reoccurring theme with this whole website and ai enhanced screenshots just dont belong there.

But hey they will most likely stay for months then some dev gets told "post these pictures on the steam store front they look great and way better then our old ones" and suddenly the listing gets taken down and then suddenly there is a push from above to be real and not fake so I guess I will just wait until that happens.

[wipeout 1,355]

Sorry for the double post but I wanted to keep this separate

For Wurm TV can we please also start using youtube shorts for the same video's that get uploaded to IG and tiktok?

Tiktok I can kinda understand but IG is not really used for gaming related stuff like that and people typically follow gaming brands for merch and events and so on and follow the same companies yt for actual game related stuff so the fact that youtube has been left out of all of this is just bad and shows a clear lack of understanding of the culture of gamers as a whole.

So please do expand to youtube as well so that you can reach a broader audience and hopefully draw in more people from there and do it on a official yt channel for wurm not some personal channel of someone.

[Damascus 381]

29 minutes ago, wipeout said:

2 hours ago, Malena said:

We've got plenty of items in game that are much more detailed, so technically it's completely feasible. Has it been done in this particular case of the foods? No - but that doesn't mean the foods couldn't be improved further down the line. The point is, that as it currently stands, highly detailed stuff CAN be technically implemented in the game.  

 

For instance the dragon skin for the staff is mega detailed:

 

 

Yes the graphics have improved big time since i started back in 2010 .

But insted of fake AI images they are using , what about or is it even possible to make the game play and look like said fakes ?

 

Leave it to the player to set the graphics there systems can handle .

I know many will said what they use now wont be able to handle it .

 

Expect the worse and hope for the best is all we can do for now , but the years are ticking on faster .

[Yggdrasil 233]

>you guys are bitter, mistrusting, and toxic

 

[Finnn 3,323]

32 minutes ago, Yggdrasil said:

>you guys are bitter, mistrusting, and toxic

 

that's considered trolling, you're provoking a reply to such claims : /

[Kian 171]

Could've used AI to improve the old logo for example:
 

Edited September 27, 2023 by Kian

[Karrde 344]

On 9/26/2023 at 4:48 AM, Yggdrasil said:

>you guys are bitter, mistrusting, and toxic

 

 

Decades of experience. 😑

[HerbalMentat 108]

Ugh enough with the AI images. You come off like a mobile game. The explanations make it even worse.

[Loggy 35]

The team should just upgrade to unreal engine (They did offer to assist you in the coding)  and start competing with the newer games. Instead you toss up images that are not even close to the game...The new website looks like it was done in a college dorm..

[Reagor 7]

Thanks Drogos, for keeping up with Wurmnode.

[Archaed 2,284]

On 9/30/2023 at 6:44 PM, Loggy said:

The team should just upgrade to unreal engine (They did offer to assist you in the coding)  and start competing with the newer games. Instead you toss up images that are not even close to the game...The new website looks like it was done in a college dorm..

I don’t recall unreal ever offering to assist Wurm in the coding. 

[krixano 0]

Wow, ok. I cannot believe Wurm Online is now lying to people with these dramatically changed AI images. For the person who did the AI images, these are not even slight changes to the images. These are extreme changes that very clearly gives the impression that Wurm has better graphics than it actually does. These images don't look like concept art, and they don't look like what one would get with cinematic trailers. They look like actual screenshots from the game edited to make the game appear better than it really is, and that is exactly what they are.

Take this screenshot for example: https://www.andrea.net/wurm/screenshots/ai_enhanced/01.html

This is not a painterly style, this is a realistic style. Afaik, games don't usually do concept art that looks realistic like this. They usually make it more cartoony or some other style to clearly show that it's concept art. But this modified screenshot is the type of quality one would expect from a game nowadays, but one that we do not get with Wurm because the team is clearly too busy trying to trick people into trying the game rather than spending time hiring real artists and programmers to improve the graphics quality of the game.

Your screenshot literally changed the lighting completely and freaking added clouds that aren't there in the original image! The water reflections became more realistic too! It also completely changed the landscape and makes it look like the game uses real 3D models instead of just rotating 2D textures for the plants. This is completely unacceptable! If Wurm actually looked this good, I would be playing it, but it doesn't.

Edited October 15, 2023 by krixano

[Thorinoakshield 603]

On 22/09/2023 at 23:27, Thorinoakshield said:

3) So we're starting a new concept of promoting Wurm, but nothing has mentioned about all the streamers who've been doing their part in the days the VEN was in a coma.
What about them? Will they get any credit? Will they be asked to join this new WTV?
And how the hell are you going to show what Wurm is like in a video at a platform made for people with the attentionspan of a peanut?

 

On 23/09/2023 at 01:32, Carmichael said:

PvP merge with pmks > defiance pmks. But what's the word boss?

 

On 25/09/2023 at 16:22, atazs said:

Curious if there are any plans to revive Jackal?

 

You keep talking about "attracting new players". A revival of a Jackal like server that is properly advertised would attract a lot of players, both new and old to the game. 

 

On 25/09/2023 at 23:13, Zexos said:

Some Wurm TV questions: 

 

If Wurm TV is coming, will the Valrei Entertainment discord channel be deleted with Wurm Tv taking its place? 

 

Also will previous Wurm popular streamers get an invite to Wurm TV or should they apply when a link is given?

 

Will users who are a part of Wurm TV get some sort of benefits/bonus/money..etc?

 

Since you mentioned that Craftyjoe is creating videos for Wurm on Tiktok and Instagram, will future users who join Wurm TV have a chance to be featured or even become regular content creators on Wurm's official social media accounts?

 

Would community events be something featured on Wurm TV, the website and social media to show off what the world of Wurm has to offer? 

 

Other questions: 

 

Do you have any plans to create any videos to show off community events like impalongs or enki's race events?

 

On 25/09/2023 at 23:22, wipeout said:

For Wurm TV can we please also start using youtube shorts for the same video's that get uploaded to IG and tiktok?

 

@ArmyIt's been over a month since these questions were posted and up to now we haven't seen a reply from you.

 

Care to inform us and finally post some answers here?

Because that's your job and so far other as your first post as well as some minor posts, we as community haven't seen much or anything at all lately.

 

I'm aware you don't have the easiest job, but playing deaf, blind and dumb with the community you need to inform and represent isn't doing you any good.

 

Retro and Demona has had their loads of manure thrown at them as well, but right now I can only conclude they did a far better job as you did. Which isn't a good thing at all.

 

Thorin

[wipeout 1,355]

13 hours ago, Thorinoakshield said:

@ArmyIt's been over a month since these questions were posted and up to now we haven't seen a reply from you.

 

Care to inform us and finally post some answers here?

Because that's your job and so far other as your first post as well as some minor posts, we as community haven't seen much or anything at all lately.

 

I'm aware you don't have the easiest job, but playing deaf, blind and dumb with the community you need to inform and represent isn't doing you any good.

 

Retro and Demona has had their loads of manure thrown at them as well, but right now I can only conclude they did a far better job as you did. Which isn't a good thing at all.

 

Thorin

Given that both ig and tiktok went from multiple posts a week to once a week to now nothing for 2 weeks(might seem silly to complain but if you wanna grow you gotta stay active) my guess is all this stuff will just fall dead and silent and only receive some necromancy to attempt to revive it in like half a year when its asked from higher up "so how are our socials doing" or something like that.

Instead of them going down the route of asking all current content creators to create shorts and have the main guy in charge of ig and tiktok introduce them and then them show off content(which would be a lot easier then just one guy) they are gonna do low quality low effort sporadic posting which will make either platform not promote those pages at all and subsequently will only be hidden away.

Atleast on yt even older shorts from a few months ago have a chance of showing up if the content you are watching aligns with it but you know they aren't going to do what's actually needed to grow wurm's presence on social media they are just going to do the bare minimum to please us and higher ups(kinda starting to sound like an abusive relationship almost) and hope that that will be fine.

[Nordlys 1,430]

*snip*

 

Double post

Edited October 29, 2023 by Nordlys

[Nordlys 1,430]

22 hours ago, Thorinoakshield said:

 

 

 

 

 

@ArmyIt's been over a month since these questions were posted and up to now we haven't seen a reply from you.

 

Care to inform us and finally post some answers here?

Because that's your job and so far other as your first post as well as some minor posts, we as community haven't seen much or anything at all lately.

 

I'm aware you don't have the easiest job, but playing deaf, blind and dumb with the community you need to inform and represent isn't doing you any good.

 

Retro and Demona has had their loads of manure thrown at them as well, but right now I can only conclude they did a far better job as you did. Which isn't a good thing at all.

 

Thorin

 

2-3 weeks until the last quartely report for GCC. Something will happen, but im not very sure its going in the way that the CEO predicted.

[Army 1,135]

On Wurm TV:

The program has members already which we actively assist on their content production. It's running inofficially at the moment though. The details are yet to be announced officially.

 

On our content production:

I'm not sure why the output on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube shorts is so low at the moment, I'll ask them what's going on.

 

On PvP merge:

This was discussed in a different topic already.

 

 

[Wulfgarr 810]

Wasnt valrei international a monthly thing?

[atazs 965]

23 hours ago, Wulfgarr said:

Wasnt valrei international a monthly thing?

Only if they had something to talk about or show us.

[TheTrickster 2,291]

On 11/20/2023 at 10:38 PM, Wulfgarr said:

Wasnt valrei international a monthly thing?

Yes it happens during months.

[Leilue 35]

finances when

[Finnn 3,323]

2 hours ago, Leilue said:

finances when

nevaaa.... you can see them anyway in full it's law to public them