Reflections

[Tritus 2]

I cut and pasted this from the end of a post in the Suggestions forum so it may seem a littel disjointed at the start.

The basic sentiment though is to rememeber some of the great things about Wurm two or three years ago when the game was less populated but still had some important features that are worth, in my opinion, not losing in the future.

Just because these are 'older' things does not mean that newer players should feel that this is a thread for more longterm players.

If you cannot or will not read, then you are about to get a wall of text.

This is not a troll post. Please try to post constructive thoughts that will help.

+1 and -1 to be left on your arithmetic jotters not here. Likewise, comments like "<3 John"

The game is maturing and strengthening very rapidly. The point of this post and thread is to highlight where lessons can be learned from both the past and the present.

There is not really any on or off topic. Just conversationally presented, constructive points about what you think can be done to improve the initial game experience for new players.

Pick a point I raise or some related side issue and say what you think is really what I am thinking, but please read this so you get my general tone.

Real suggestions on the Suggestions forum of course

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We all 'hated' NT, but it was actually a great way to help people start up in a game that has a hugely steep learning curve.

In a sense its incredible that the ingame population has grown so much (if you forget that the general web population has also grown and that the diehard, I hope I am one of you, Wurm population wont give up).

NewTown was a Trade center and that benefitted all players, new and old. The Howl and Freedom Market are the same, providing a central area where helpful and opportunistic, new and old players can meet by default.

Creating an environment where new players populate outward from a hub, as NT was, also means creating an environment where the less bold, new  players will get help from their peers as well as from any more-established players nearby that are willing to provide help.

If players 'have' to return to The Howl for food, then they also have to return to an area which, theoretically, is also more populated with people in the same bracket as them or 'willing to put up with' them.

Personally I live just along the road from The Howl for two reasons. One, it might be a source of steady income. And two, I dont mind occasionally helping new players with the intelligence to be courteous to the people they meet. Those that are not courteous? Well there is always Kos

The real problem with my way of seeing things is, of course, The Howl. It seems a great way of keeping trash, meaning woodscraps and such rather than lowly people, out of FM, but its also locking up a nice bit of land that new players could be building their first homes on.

Why impose these basic difficulties on people trying to learn the game? So they will all be uberist skill mongers?

Do any of us really want everyone in the game to be chasing 99.99 skill from the day dot? Personally I dont. I'd love to see NT spring up again and see people establish their undeeded little shack near FM.

I would actually like to see people having the same sense of community, even antagonisms, that used to exist in NT.

There's another thing .. why are non-Wurm topics not allowed on kchat? Fair enough, I dont think many veteran, or new, games players want to see the topics that are banned in almost every mmo's EULA and PC (player courtesy) clauses raised. I mean do you really really want to troll biggotry in a global community?

But what's wrong with talking programming? Heck, most Wurmians, not to mention most games players seem to have a base knowledge of the principles. I got warned for that once! (shock).

What's wrong with international politics if its done in friendly fashion? Our Cm's, Gm's and Ca's are surely intelligent and proactive enough to spot interpersonal tensions and call for an 'ease off', a truce, or even mute immature people.

Generally, I have found very few Wurm players that would transgress on the toes of more 'prudish' people who get upset at contradiction of their personal values and GM's like Pacer (and tbh most of the rest) were, IMO, both tolerant enough and diciplinary enough to hold /kchat to good manners.

When they were not, there were always players like Othob, Urman and those others that cared about the game to call a halt to situations that were getting out of hand.

After a year of absence, there are vast improvements in the game itself but, to me, it seems that the rigidity and inflexibility that I have seen squash the buoyancy of other game communities is starting to creep into Wurm.

As games become successful financially, it is almost inevitable that they have to adhere more and more to the red tape of legal formalities. But there is very little of legal restriction, that I know of, in what is beginning to calcify what Wurm has always been for me ...

There is beginning to become too much ingame regimentation. Too much regulation by 'the powers that be' as they try to organise a growingly popular game.

I do agree that we need a degree of chat moderation in order to ensure that more immature or irrespnsible people are held in check.

I do agree that the new deed system is the complete opposite of my concerns. Its very liberal and allows people to do as they can do, whilst protecting their 'ingame right' to do so at the same time.

I do agree that the rules of the game are fair and generally well moderated both, informally, by the players and, more formally, by the GM staff.

I do not, and never did tbh, agree that non Wurm related conversation should be vetoed in kchat. I think that has been one of the strongest reasons why the community aspects of this game have never taken off as strongly as they might have done. Surprisingly, people often make close friends with the people they most strongly disagree with, perhaps because it highlights what they do agree on.

I definitely do not agree with what I feel is currently an excessive 'staff' involvement in the non/developement of the spawn area of the map. What is it? 100-200 tiles in length where new players cant cut a tree? If you must do things that way then the tuturial should make clear and emphasise that players will have to travel for quite some distance to practice their skills. Imo, forcing a new player in a foreign world to do that is a great obstacle to them.

I do not agree with making the general game mechanics easier in any way whatsoever.

If there is huge appeal in Wurm; it is that it is complex, challenging and extremely engrossing as a result. I strongly believe that the inherent difficulty in the original game concept is why Wurm has such a great player base and why so many people that enjoy it keep coming back.

I do think it is beneficial to lessen the steepness of the initial learning curve .. to make that initial learning process easier.

In NT and its surroundings, we had some of that. In The Howl and its surroundings we have some of what NT had, lost some of what NT had and gained some that NT never had.

In some ways the game is much more accessible to the new player. The new deed system is a huge part of that.

But there also seems much less initial community support. Because all the areas near The Howl are deeded, there is no shanty town. There is no lumber. There are very few players, if any, actually living in the area to give advice to new players as they come in.

/ca is not really the same as feeling the immediate presence of other players the same as yourself in the area when they answer you in Local. I never notice players talking in Local near The Howl. I always did around NT. Its like entering a world where your communication with the rest of the world is via a very impersonal intercom.

I dont think thats really what Wurm is, so its a false impression that I suspect must put a lot of players off. By the time they reach my Local, not very far from Freedom Docks, they seem to think that the whole world of Wurm is populated by people that are not really there. 90% of the new players that run through my deed daily dont say anything to anyone, on /ca, /kchat or Local. With three alts active much of the time I do actually see who is saying what on all channels.

Its no wonder people ask for Wurm to be made a solo game more and more often, an exaggeration yes but still true. They feel that Wurm is a single player world because there is no NT populated with people like themselves who are relatively new and talk and chat in the area.

Solve the old NT problem? Corpses and trash everywhere? Make Stealing impossible on the 'Home' server except on your deed or in your house and only by you (for Lockpicking I guess). Make dropping stuff and suiciding on deeds privelege settable by the mayor.

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Summary

What was right/wrong with NT thats been lost/fixed?

What is right/wrong with The Howl?

What would make it easier to get into the game?

(no "make balcksmithing easier" stuff, just what would make it easier to get started in Wurm)

[itistricky 0]

anything put forth to make wurm easier to get into would be laughed out by 90% of the community. not to say it isnt one of the best things to be done, as it is. the community believes that the fact that they miraculously made it through the horrific startup means noone else deserves fairer treatment, spare a few sensible folk.

[namyahmas 4]

I think the main objective should not be to make wurm (significantly) easier at the start, just to make it less confusing. The tutorial is a good step towards that goal, but the fact that there are trees about, and seemingly terraformable land, that cannot be accessed, just generally makes it a bit more confusing. At least if there's a shanty town, most people can see that they have to walk to find trees.

No matter how ugly the shanty towns are, they give space for newbs to live, conveniently next to their starter food source. The main issue that needs to be dealt with regarding this is decay. If the shacks take ages to decay, then the shanty town has no other option but to expand. If shacks start to fall down and free up space, then hopefully there'd be enough free spaces opening up to limit the spread of the sprawl.

[Ryshad 26]

But how long would it take for that starting area to be stripped of trees and covered in shacks?

I personally think that dumping everyone in the centre of the map is part of the problem unless we give them SOME way to reach the outlying areas. At present there is barely a scrap of usable land for new players within a lengthy walk of the howl. If you ahve no idea where you are going you are more likely to wonder in circles on all the deeded land getting frustrated that you can't do anything except walk and die.

[namyahmas 4]

Maybe some sort of "magical areas" (stay with me) could do the trick.

Smallish areas (6x6?) dotted about the place that have a massively increased tree growth rate (fully grown in a day) and where trees do not get old and shrivelled. No building allowed. Trees automatically start to grow in place when old ones are cut down, and young trees cannot be touched. Only around the started deed. Maybe indicated by different coloured trees/grass? Could have a similar sort of thing for areas to forage/botanise on.

[Vroomfondel 1,128]

As I recall, JKH used to have an undeedable zone between deeds, but you could build undeedable buildings there.  This helped leave space for free players to work with.  There would be a problem with current deeds, but we could start the limiting now and let deed disbands create the spaces in the currently crowded areas.  Maybe we also could use a limiting of how much undeeded land you take up.  Say let folks 'stake a claim' on a limited area (my first suggestion 11 x 11 max as it is free land), to keep from having huge fenced in undeeded lands. If this claim is in an undeedable zone it means just that, you won't be able to deed your claim.  Or maybe only allow claims in undeedable zones.  Also limit the number of claims you can have, just like deeds.  Keep all the other new rules for land that is occupied.

Other spawn points for the new players would be a good idea too.  Let them all initially spawn at The Howl, but have 2 or 3 other points they can set as a secondary point, but only if they go to that point first.  Then they could have The Howl, or one of the other points (not all of them) to respawn at, like villagers do.  This would allow better spacing of the players, and possibly create new market areas too.

[Zetsumei 0]

I'd just say make the map a lot bigger, less cluttered, and randomize starting positions while having kingdoms, or even just very small hunting villages that can offer food and a place to stay for the night while you settle into your surroundings. These would be randomly placed along with the starting positions. Not to mention climates would have the affect of changing the areas, so no one place would be the same and over-cluttered with not only new players, but people building too close to the starting areas. People naturally tend to want to find their own area and settle down, without encroaching upon other people. We need the space to do this and the map needs to be setup to allow this. As it is, everyone spawning at one place, creates the problem in it that of itself.

I also like vroom's suggestion of limiting deed-able areas, other some system of that manner - preventing people from over building, or over-saturating a single area with too many buildings.

There should also be something stopping random road building, which takes up space that someone could have put their village/deed their instead we have a road going into a forest for no reason, cutting the area in half.

[Xianruflux 59]

Tritus, you make a lot of good points. The one I would like to focus on is how the chat has changed. With the large influx of players over the winter Kchat underwent fundamental changes which drove a lot of experienced players to IRC. Their helpful play style and knowledge has been lost to the new players. I hope that the focus on moderation in chat is motivated by an attempt to bring it back to what it was.

Whether or not I agree with the changes to Kchat is irrelevant because unmoderated, or player moderated, chat is available to anyone by creating an irc channel and advertising it on the forum or in Kchat. I'm sure many would join you on such a channel.

[Othob Rithol 700]

I see two issues sort of mashed together in one post.

Chat moderation - the answer is simple, use IRC and jelp us push more chat options or a smoother IRC implementation on the Devs. The main chat needs to be moderated to avoid immature people vomiting filth in a public place.

What's wrong with the Howl- it was dropped into an already populated location long after the server opened in a highly contentious move. Freedom would have been populated and likely designed in a much different manner if it had been intended as a mixed server populated from a central location. But it was intended as a premium only server, populated from the north.

Why there is a crowding problem in the first place is a better question.

• 
  [o]Freedom's terrain is fine. As a premium server. It's lousy as a jam-packed mixed server.
  [o]Village life is not encouraged enough to new players.
  [o]Off-deed structures last too long and are protected by the game rules. This leaves shacks in all sorts of odd places.
  [o]Settlement Forms cost too much. At minimal settings they fund the deed for something like 7 months. Players quit and leave these deeds all over the place, preventing settlement there for a long time.

[br]

Some good solutions I think would be to recondition GV to be a temporary tutorial area where premiums can go to directly recruit to their villages and to launch a second Freedom server (with smoother terrain and distributed spawn points) and re-route the new players there.

[Norak 0]

I recently returned to wurm after a hiatus of over a year. I couldn't remember my old character's password, so I started a new one. So I got to see wurm from a new player's perspective, sort of.

The decaying shacks, random open pits, bits of patchwork wall and lack of accessible trees were a familiar sight. In other times and places, community-minded players have had plans for creating newbie-friendly areas around the starting areas. They have had limited success for a variety of reasons, mostly because they were a whole lot of work for a few people. One idea that came to me was to create special areas "the king's mark" for newbies with special rules. These could be placed on current abandoned towns/shantytowns.

• Make them like a deed with no restricted permissions. This reserves an accessible area for newbies.
  
• Make trees grow many times faster, but with reduced quality. Also disallow cutting young trees.
  
• Appoint a mark warden(or several) with the power to quickly destroy abandoned structures, collapse mine openings, level ground, and, if necessary, plant more trees. But of course only within the deed.
  

I took the liberty of borrowing good ideas expressed in this thread, and of course it would need to be adjusted, but that's the idea. Reserve an area for newbies and have a way to reclaim it from the newbies that came before for the newbies that come after. The advantage is that the warden doesn't have to build anything, they just have to make room for the new players to make what they want.

If you destroy it, they will come.

[Littlebear 3]

Where's your Miku avatar, Nora... Wait!

oh shi~!

[Norak 0]

What's miku?

[dlinacre 19]

I for one think the central starting area is useless. I played Wurm about three years ago, and re-joined as a new character about 2 months ago. I spent an hour - maybe not even that - around The Howl, before realising that I wasn't going to get anywhere. It's too crowded, too deeded, and the only thing that keeps you there is the bartender. Kind of a catch 22 situation, really.

So I went straight to the recruitment forums and joined a village. I spent a month or so there, working up my skills, then left to make my own deed. Personally, I think this was a perfect way of doing things - but it's not suited for everyone. It required a little patience to get to the end goal.

GV was a perfect way to introduce new players to Wurm, and I'm not really sure why they changed it. What everybody seems to be asking for in this forum is Golden Valley redone, just in the central part of the Freedom Isles.

It seems to make sense. So why not just go back to the original way of it?

Either that, or have three of four starting zones spread across the world - and bartenders in each.

You could even have player made Inns pay for a bartender writ or something.