Posted March 8 Hi everyone, We’d like to update you today on how and what we’ve been doing in the last few months, as well as showcase our current plan for the near future of Wurm Online. First, we would like to brief you on how Wurm Online and Code Club AB have been doing. As indicated in Game Chest Group’s report (Link), our parent company has improved the quarterly revenue by +11,8% compared to Q4 2022. This means the company has finally turned a profit with new corporate leadership and the increased focus on Wurm Online. During the year the game has performed better, with more players and increased revenue due in large part to maintaining a stable premium player count and the newly introduced silver shop. We’re still learning how to use the shop to best provide you with extra cosmetic items, even if we, most definitely, missed the mark with pricing at times. Going forward we aim to get out more attractive offers as well as a release more free craftable items into the game, not limiting new decoratives it to shop skins. We have more active players than a year ago (close to 1000 more monthly unique logins), and that seems to be climbing steadily. That number is higher than you might think while playing the game, while we don’t have exact data on it, it seems in large part to be new players, who at this point often don’t stay in Wurm for long, which is something we’re actively trying to improve on. We currently have around 4550 premium accounts, which we consider a healthy number. Still, for us to grow the development team, we need to attract more players, something we think our plans laid out below can accomplish. Action rework We are in the process of finishing multiple major projects. The largest, action rework, is nearing completion and will be released onto our test servers very soon. This feature is partly an internal refactor of the code that handles many of the player actions. It adds plenty of quality of life features that will make Wurm better to play, including new toolbelt mechanics, where every item there is activated at the same time, and adds a new quickbar that replaces the old toolbelt UI. The new quickbar also includes the functionality of the current select bar. We’ve also added a visible action queue and new default action mechanics, where you can bind a lot of different actions to a single key easily. For pictures and examples of the changes you’ll encounter after the action rework goes live, see here: Public testing of this feature will follow shortly after we finish the UI part of the changes and we run it through some more intensive internal testing. Expect an announcement on this in the upcoming weeks. Client work Graphics rework and client optimization have both grown in scope and we’re looking at releasing that work on test servers sometime after the action rework goes live. Other than the previously announced lighting improvements, it now also includes a complete terrain overhaul. Terrain will not only look better, with all of the terrain textures being remastered in a higher resolution, but the performance should be drastically improved as well. These changes will reduce stuttering when walking around and will take up less memory, which, in turn, should allow you to run the game at higher quality settings without sacrificing performance - or you can just run a few more clients with alt accounts at once, if that’s your jam. New Haven Finally, I want to reveal one of our biggest recent development projects, a total revamp of the new player experience. Codenamed New Haven, this will be a starting island on which you land right after you complete the tutorial. The game rules of that area will be adjusted so it’s less dangerous and faster for new players to start on, giving them a better environment to learn on, before they dive into the real lands of Wurm. This may remind you of what Golden Valley once was, except a lot more friendly and guided than starting on GV was, back in the day. Players will be guided through their first hours in the game by an entirely new quest system, at first unique to that new server, providing small rewards for players performing certain tasks that showcase various mechanics that they need to learn in order to survive Wurm. We hope this will help newbies avoid getting overwhelmed with everything they can do, and instead being able to better understand the game a small piece at a time. While “quests” as you may know them from other games may feel out of place for the sandbox of Wurm, we believe this is the way to go for us to reduce the amount of new players leaving the game early on. This server will use new land protection mechanics in place of deeds, instead linked to fenced areas around houses, to both make it simpler for new players to understand and to mitigate the possibility of claiming large areas of land. The goal is for players to be able to play close to other players, while still having enough wild areas to explore. We will most likely extend this mechanic to work on all servers, to make off-deed living just a bit more viable. A large challenge of this project that we are yet to finalize, are other limitations so that players will be motivated to eventually move onto the regular Wurm servers. We also need to make it so they don’t feel like they’re leaving their hard work behind. We do have a few ideas for solving that, like being able to pack your house to move it to another location, but we’ll share the details with you once they are more fleshed out. The aim for this project is to lessen the drop out rate of new players. We hope new players will also be able to join the community early, as we are going to allow everyone to visit that server. Portals Together with New Haven, we’ll be introducing a new portal mechanic, allowing you to teleport from any server to any other server, as well as between starter deeds on the same server. We would like to not ever have to ask players to make new accounts if they want to change their playing server, as that often is what happens now, as well as allow everyone to play with their friends at any time, wherever their account is. Mind you, this does not mean a complete NFI-SFI merge, although we do intend on having almost everything, other than your items, transfer. That means your character, coins, skills, will now all cross between those two server clusters. Due to economic concerns, items are currently excluded from the transfers, but we have looked into skill statistics and found that at this point, the skill gap is not significant enough for us to have a reason to keep it separate. We hope this will make the new server transfers a more popular feature, since your skills will no longer be locked to the Freedom cluster you've been playing on, so it'll be easier for you to explore or move to any of the other islands. Upcoming months Shortly after we release all the previously mentioned work, we would like to focus on more content for all players to enjoy. A good bit of this will be things we already announced in the past, but priority changes came in the way. PvE content We plan on releasing this as an update soon after New Haven. It’ll include goblin camps, a new feature focusing on exploration and combat, as well as a building expansion, currently planned to include ceilings, docks, and new wall types. Character customization rework We’re in the initial planning phase of a character customization overhaul. This will address most of the complaints with the current player character visuals, while looking better and adding a lot more possible variations, including more detailed faces and new hairstyles. In-game auction house Another project being developed is an in-game auction house, which will handle both auction and WTS offers. It’s meant to facilitate trade between players - you’ll be able to sell and purchase items through a new UI window, currently planned to be accessible through any mailbox in the game. Longer term projects Most of our plans for the future will depend strongly on the outcome of the releases of changes described above, so we would like to avoid creating a definite roadmap for the entire year here. There’s just not much point in that right now, as we historically haven’t been great at following our own roadmaps, so our aim is to only promise what we’re sure we can deliver, and to bring you the things you’ve long waited for. Among previously mentioned changes you might be wondering what happened with, is the new account system and PvP work. The account system is something that is not currently the priority, but we likely will focus on finishing it in the later part of the year. Our developers are actively looking into PvP tweaks and balancing, but we have no progress ready to share yet in either of those projects. I hope you can forgive me for this post being so text-heavy, as these aren’t things we can easily show off right now, but you can expect more posts from us to pop up over time with details about each of these works. Thank you everyone for your continued support, and we can’t wait to have you try out what we’ve been working on! Happy Wurming! PS: This year's map dumps have just been released. Check them out here: Answered Questions Below you can find some questions and their answers from this thread. That way you don't have to go through all the pages yourself. Q: Will portals only be available at starter deeds or will they be craftable anywhere (like Epic Portals)? A: The portals will only be available at starter deeds. Making them craftable isn't planned at this point. (link) Q: Will Epic be included in the portal system, are there any plans for skills to transfer 1:1 with Epic if so, and would the Epic skill curve be removed or changed? A: The Epic cluster will be included in the portal system. However, the current Epic portal functionality will remain, so no further plans in that regard yet. (link) Q: Will priesthood and meditation path transfer between all or some of the clusters or remain entirely separate? A: Your priesthood and meditation path will transfer over where your skills will as well - so between Southern Freedom Isles and Northern Freedom Isles. (link) Q: Is the fatigue system going to be reworked as a single pool between all of the clusters? A: There are currently no changes planned for the fatigue system. (link) Q: And How are that going to work for uss playing on Chaos that can't get to a starter deed? A: That's uncertain at the moment and still under internal discussion. However, it's safe to say already that you'll be able to sail over to a freedom server to use the portal system. (link) Q: also, what about affinities? are they being transfered? tomes? A: Affinities will transfer where skills will transfer. We don't have a final decision on tomes yet, but they most likely will transfer just like skills. (link) Q: Can you explain the rationalization of why we have to travel to starter deed? (link to answer) 7 hours ago, Army said: Starter deeds provide a safe and accessible place for the new portals. Always in place, always guaranteed to be reachable. Portals are not intended to provide a quick and easy way to teleport away from your deed. The whole thing is about connecting servers that weren't connected before, so you are able to use your character on different clusters. It's also not intended for portals to replace boats or travelling. They should only provide a limited alternative to that. 72 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted March 8 When is the PvP merge happening? 3 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted March 8 Sounds amazing, but when are we getting trains in wurm ;) 4 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted March 8 If rounded walls coming, you won't get rid of me 🥵🤩 6 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted March 8 (edited) 57 minutes ago, Samool said: In-game auction house Another project being developed is an in-game auction house, which will handle both auction and WTS offers. It’s meant to facilitate trade between players - you’ll be able to sell and purchase items through a new UI window, currently planned to be accessible through any mailbox in the game. Jesus christ no oh god no please please please for the love of god please allow a long period of time for user testing and feedback for this feature, this can even be one that takes 5 years to implement god damn Edited March 8 by Blazecraze 12 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted March 8 Auction house is interesting as this will kill your merchant contracts will we be refunded for those since this new global system will be in place? If we are doing AH like other AAA games is the same 10% merchant tax going to be applied to all our sales? If we list things on the AH and its purchased is it AUTO delivered and can all items or just some be listed? New haven sounds good but do NOT make it to soft on new people. It is even more of a shock when you pop into your first starter town and a full size troll tries to eat you. We have those things in real wurm. Also in New haven is there going to be boards that allow normal SFI and NFI people to recruit and how will the new server choices look. Right now its a crap shoot what you pick and where. For instance on Xanadu if you pick Esteron or Whitefay or Greymead you going to find a barren wasteland where as Summerholt and Lormere and Vrock and Glasshollow ( kind of seem to have people) will you show populations and people near each starter town to give people a more educated choice on joining a community or even starting near one? Just some of the many questions to be answered. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted March 8 56 minutes ago, Samool said: Together with New Haven, we’ll be introducing a new portal mechanic, allowing you to teleport from any server to any other server, as well as between starter deeds on the same server. We would like to not ever have to ask players to make new accounts if they want to change their playing server, as that often is what happens now, as well as allow everyone to play with their friends at any time, wherever their account is. Mind you, this does not mean a complete NFI-SFI merge, although we do intend on having almost everything, other than your items, transfer. That means your character, coins, skills, will now all cross between those two server clusters. Would that mean we can teleport from our freedom deed into our Chaos pmk's capitals or even tho you say: "from any server" you actually forgot pvp exists? I would not care if is either or i just want to make get a clarification if it's pvp servers included or you forgot those are a thing aswell. Good news tho! Now is the magic of the hard part that has to come thru: turning the forum posts into in-game reality. Success! 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted March 8 Good news indeed. Wurm is an elderly, temperamental game and as such things take time to change. Change is also difficult at times for some to accept and that is your challenge!. Many but obviously not all players appreciate the work done to try and improve our playing experience. There are times when changes initially do not seem to work for many, however, as far as I am concerned, the updates carried out across the many years that I have been playing are testament to the love of the game- and the desire to try and improve it- by the development team both now and in the past. I speak as someone who has little idea of how a game like Wurm is coded but remains amazed by the things that I can do. Thank you for the time and effort that continues to be put into our game. 9 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted March 8 19 minutes ago, Blazecraze said: Jesus christ no oh god no please please please for the love of god please allow a long period of time for user testing and feedback for this feature, this can even be one that takes 5 years to implement god damn +9999 For the love of all that is wurmm NO! 2 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted March 8 Looks great. Looking forward to it!!! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted March 8 1 hour ago, Samool said: Client work Graphics rework and client optimization have both grown in scope... Is this going to include the work you mentioned some years ago so that those of us on macOS are not stuck with the legacy version (2.1) of openGL? And will finally get to see distant trees, writing on signs and all the other good things? Oh, and while the client is being worked on, how about an Apple Silicon version? 3 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted March 8 When will the game be finally relieved from Oracle's stranglehold and horribly oudated Java 8 engine and moved to OpenJDK 17 (or 21) which runs fine and is less troublesome? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted March 8 Looking forward to the changes! It is looking like a great year ahead for Wurm!🥳 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted March 8 (edited) About the auction-house.. Adding automation to trading has to be done in the right way for it to not kill the feel of wurm. While this exists in many other mmorpg's, the feel of playing wurm is very different from the feel of playing most other mmorpg's. Keep in mind that I don't know what would be good for the game, but I'll give an example of a way to possibly make it fit in to wurm: Add a UI that allows a player to place buy orders, not sell orders. (example: "WTB steel skiller pickaxe 100+ coc") Other players can browse the overall buy orders list. Obviously fine tune by allowing search filter, maybe use tags, etc. Allow other players to "reply" to a buy order through the UI. Maybe even "reply and offer" where you can then add an item and put a price to the buy order. Allow the withdrawal/deletion of an offer/reply. Allow the player to look at a list of replies/offer for their buy order. Maybe even allow the player to simply accept an offer and get the item right away. (example: someone offers a ql4.19 steel pickaxe head casted with 101 coc for a price of 2s. You could then simply accept the offer and grab the item right away or look through the other offers. The offering player would get a mail message telling them their offer was accepted and to collect the money at a mailbox, all other players would get a mail saying it was declined and have their offered items returned in the mail). Once again, my example isn't potentially the best example of how to do it; my point is that for it to fit wurm, the mechanic should probably be different from the standard traditional world of warcraft auction house system. I'll leave the design of the system to the devs and then harshly critique it later (as you can expect the player base to do) when it's in testing. Edited March 8 by Borstaskor 10 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted March 8 +1000 to every single thing, yes, Including the Auction House. Long overdue. Thank you ! 7 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted March 8 It's not a good idea to add auction houses to the game. The uniqueness of the game will become much less. 5 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted March 8 Good stuff. it's funny how all the price trolls are being triggered to more transparent system being announced. AH been talked alot in the past with plenty of examples how could it looks like, so NO because i say so or because horror stories about ghosts and vampires shouldn't suffice. 5 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted March 8 (edited) 1 hour ago, Blazecraze said: Jesus christ no oh god no please please please for the love of god please allow a long period of time for user testing and feedback for this feature, this can even be one that takes 5 years to implement god damn Auction House is on the Kanga Private Server run by Budda. You need a Merchant Contract to sell items in your shop. The shop gets linked to the Auction Menu which gets accessed through a mailbox. It is very simple and still requires you to buy a Merchant Contract for a shop if you want to sell items. It just makes it more easy to sell certain items. Bulk items are still ship deliveries...etc. if the Auction House works like it does on the Kanga Private server then there should be nothing to worry about. Edited March 8 by Zexos 16 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted March 8 For all the people arguing against the Auction House, it's inevitable. I first like merchants and large market deeds in Wurm, but lets face it, not many people are using them as browsing forums, advertising in trade chat and mailing items is far superior to it. You can cry how much you want about loosing the feel and stuff but reallity is different and nothing is gonna change that. Practicality often wins over nostalgia with most people. That being said would it be better to have ingame system that is efficient instead of realying on forums and what not? If it's implemented in a way to keep some immersion or extension to merchants currently bonus points. But in no way should we be against AH comming to Wurm imo. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted March 8 (edited) The auction house will kill so many aspects of the game IMO ,, now we have people traveling by ship to buy and sell and we have wagoners to deliver and market places to go shop at ...what will the point of ships and wagoners be then ..i agree with the other players who say it will kill the uniqueness of the game ..i say its a mistake and that u should just add shipping NPC for easy selling to other servers and connect all the servers .that would be a fun addition. Maybe have a central area for each server with a large market area or something , Edited March 8 by mysterydate 4 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted March 8 42 minutes ago, AlexeySt said: It's not a good idea to add auction houses to the game. The uniqueness of the game will become much less. The uniqueness of this game for having a forum based auctions that you don't even have to be logged in with your in game account and you can use whatever account is because actual auction in game system is not existing 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted March 8 (edited) I'm 99% sure that those who don't want to use the auction house to trade, won't be forced to do so. Similarly with fast travel ruining "exploration", you enjoy it? You do it. Nothing stopping you from spending 2h in a boat because of low wind. Enjoy. Edited March 8 by Locath 4 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted March 8 As someone that been playing since, no mounts, no ships, and much less, wagoners, my opinion is that the AH will add much more life to the game, and make it so much easier for new players to get their first set of armor, their first axe or mail or longsword, for cheap, and fast. I always wanted to offer them all these things for cheap, to make their life easier. Right now is too hard, because they have to be online at the same time than me, and I have to be reading freedom, or GL. And well, we know That GL is for trolling, and Trade Chat is to sell mostly end game rares, and supremes. Do not be afraid of change, and more options. 7 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted March 8 Inevitably, the auction house will compete with other ways of trade, but as we have to add certain limitations to it (no bulk items, max offers per player, fees to avoid offer spam), we don't think it'll make any other trading features irrelevant. Wagoners and "manual" cross-server bulk delivery will stay as the main ways of transporting materials. It'll still make more sense to go and visit a market in-game to purchase many different items at once as well, so it's unlikely to kill merchants either. The motivation with this feature is to increase trade where there currently is very little happening already - a lot of our players don't have forum accounts or prefer to not participate in chats, leaving them pretty much unable to participate in the market. On 3/8/2024 at 12:03 PM, Wulfmaer said: Is this going to include the work you mentioned some years ago so that those of us on macOS are not stuck with the legacy version (2.1) of openGL? And will finally get to see distant trees, writing on signs and all the other good things? Oh, and while the client is being worked on, how about an Apple Silicon version? We are close to being able to use a newer OpenGL version on Mac, and finally adding the in-game browser (currently only used for Wurmpedia) to the Mac client, as some recent changes in LWJGL seem to have made that possible. I can't promise the Wurmpedia feature being there in time, as the implementation of that may be more involved, but we should be able to up the OpenGL version on Macs with this larger client update, which should also be available on test within a couple months. We don't have an Apple Silicon device to test with, but it is something we want to look into still. I thought Rosetta is able to handle Wurm currently though, is that not the case? 15 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
