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Hussars

What Would You Change To Make Wurm More Attractive To Players?

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"While I agree there are a lot of issues like these which need to be addressed, this thread is to provide a summary list of what you feel can be added (or changed, and how it might be changed) to improve customer satisfaction and retention."

You kind of missed the biggest point of my thread.

It being that you don't need to add new content, time needs to be spent on what already exsists.

Players, new or old want polish, consistancy and less wurm logic.

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"While I agree there are a lot of issues like these which need to be addressed, this thread is to provide a summary list of what you feel can be added (or changed, and how it might be changed) to improve customer satisfaction and retention."

You kind of missed the biggest point of my thread.

It being that you don't need to add new content, time needs to be spent on what already exsists.

Players, new or old want polish, consistancy and less wurm logic.

While this thread isn't really about my personal ego, preferences or understanding why a feature change/inclusion is made, please allow me to call your attention to:

While I agree there are a lot of issues like these which need to be addressed, this thread is to provide a summary list of what you feel can be added (or changed, and how it might be changed) to improve customer satisfaction and retention.

If there are current [edit inclusion: i.e. existing] features you feel need to be addressed sooner, or are a larger impact to gameplay, please file a bug report/start a Bug thread/join an existing thread so the dev team can be made better aware of the issue and its impact. If you have specific examples of how fixing a specific bug might help the player experience, feel free to post a link back here with a brief summary and I'll add it to the roll-up.

I try to avoid over-arching summary statements (ex. "game needs more polish") as these try to address too much in a single statement. My personal experience in software development (non-game software applications, as well as game development & QA) is that specifically pointing out the major issues individually, and thoughts of how to address these, tend to be taken in much better light than just saying something "sucks - fix it".

I appreciate that for the most part every post has offered great views into what individuals think is wrong or could be changed or included to make Wurm more attractive for players.

That is the point of this thread.

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Nice ideas, but remove first the damn lag :unsure:

Lol.. if only I had the power to do so...

Hmm..maybe we can add a hardware support section under customer support or something...?

::Edit:: Added connectivity section under Customer Service

Edited by Hussars

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Ok, to give Hussars a more specific statement, that still covers all of Kajmirs concerns:

Respond and react to bug reports.

At the moment they do maybe one in ten and generally it only gets dealt with if Rolf or Zcul themselves respond. Seems that GMs tend to say no bug, even though a player just proven it.

Edited by Keldun

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Ok, to give Hussars a more specific statement, that still covers all of Kajmirs concerns:

Respond and react to bug reports.

At the moment they do maybe one in ten and generally it only gets dealt with if Rolf or Zcul themselves respond. Seems that GMs tend to say no bug, even though a player just proven it.

Could be worse : [Language Warning (profanity is used in some of the articles)]:

link

Joking aside, this is a great point, thank you for bringing it up. Will add a point under the CS section...

{Edit} Added. Thanks again!

Edited by Hussars

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Contrary to how it may seem I am not trying to start a fight.

But how can Rolf or anyone else expect to "release" Wurm when just so many basics are shoved a side.

Some of the items I listed are obviously not "end of the world" issues...but when you add them up...to release a game so..'unfinished' isn't good business.

We desprately need new players to come and stay AND we need the players here to stay, rather then eventually leave because of issues not addressed.

Example:

Rummor is Wild won't be addressed until 2013.

If this is true what a waste.

I myself have crazy memories of being over then for a brief stint, but to continue it with an average of 25 players online per day is just ...I'm not even interested in PVP but this is just bad business and practices.

Isn't that a $20k server?

Why on earth wouldn't it get fixed.

I am going to get screamed at but the resources being used for multi-story houses could fix SO much in 60 days....yet here we are getting new content, again.

You might ask why I am so fixated on this, but I've been around for years, this has bothered me for years.

And frankly I am considering leaving.

I won't presume to tell you this is the only reason, but I will state, it's certainly a part of it.

Wurm at this point is like buying a fully loaded new car, except the brakes are worn and the streering wheel is broken and the salesman just tells you over and over how luxury the item is and not adressing the fact you can't DRIVE it.

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I'm fairly new but there's a few things I think that would help improve the game. Some of these may have been mentioned elsewhere, those that I have noticed I have omitted

UI:

The UI in my opinion is by far the part of the game which brings it down as a whole. It honestly speaking it feels terrible to use. A lot of what's been done so far is ok but is missing so many vital parts.

-A search function for the inventory. It's easy to lose stuff in there, ideally it would filter items as you entered each character.

-Start with a 50QL Toolbelt/Remove the toolbelt system. Activating items through the inventory is unwieldy and just feels bad, removing a key piece of usability from the beginning of the game doesn't strike me as beneficial to anyone.

-Key mapping UI screen. Binding keys through console commands is not the hallmark of a modern game, a UI for binding keys to actions should not be difficult to create and speaks a lot about the quality of a game.

-Combine some Key Binding actions. While binding multiple actions to the same key can get out of control, combining some preset actions would be nice. Having "FINISH" and "IMPROVE" on the same key wouldn't make the game any easier. This would free up other keys for the remaining actions.

-More intuitive categories for item creation. Having everything under "Miscellaneous" isn't a good system. I'd like to see weapon and tool components put into their respective categories at least. Alternatively items could be grouped by their skill or what they're used for.

-Improvements to Item combining. Combine without activating. It's frustrating to have to deactivate my small iron anvil to combine two iron lumps it takes unnecessary time and doesn't add anything. Combine in container. I shouldn't have to move things to my inventory to combine them. Again it does not add any functionality but irritates players.

-Add a visible action queue. It'd be nice to see what I have queued up, with icons for each, click to remove that task from the queue. Small Quality of life fix, makes things better for everyone.

Graphics:

Not much to be said here, improvements seem to be coming in the future. The game itself has a certain charm but is let down by a lack of almost any animation. People floating above horses also doesn't look great.

Gameplay:

-Not 100% sure on gameplay as I have fairly low experience. This will mostly be things that I have encountered and found lacking or frustrating, some could be completely invalid but come from my experience as a new player.

-Increase starting armour/fighting skill. We come into this world completely vulnerable to every creature we may encounter. The starting sword and shield do nothing but offer a false sense of security. Additionally even a low quality set of chain armour will not do anything to protect you from the teeth and claws of wolves and mountain lions, not to speak of the other horrors stumbled upon in our explorations.

-Dynamic speed reduction. Currently you seem to go from full speed to really slow, it would feel nicer if this was smoothed out a lot more

-Make actions slow down only at 0% or very low stamina. Having the action queue is nice but actually using it feels like a punishment. Additionally it's inconsistent with other stamina related tasks such as walking, we only slow down at very low/null stamina. Actions take long enough to complete that they're often boring but aren't long enough that you can do something else.

-Add an option to actively increase crop growth rate through fertilization with manure or compost (giving a use for unused organic items?) Allows active players to spend time for a quicker/larger harvest. Also allows an active farmer to use less land for the same gain as a passive one.

-Combat overhaul. Fighting is a bit lacking, probably the second weakest part of the game after the UI, doesn't feel particularly rewarding or clear.

Personal Gripes:

Things which may not be valid at all but have bothered/affected me as a newb.

-Fences in front of mine entrances. If someone wants to block a mine entrance they should have to use a mine door, fencing off the entrance allows people to become trapped in the mine if they run out of stamina on the slope above. While a veteran player can destroy the fence in a reasonable amount of time, f2p/new premiums must mine around. Personally it took about 4 hours to extract myself and collect my possessions. Most new players would log out or quit well before that or be forced to lose their possessions. Add in that a fence is much easier to construct than the item intended for that purpose only nd you may see why it can be a problem.

Overall I'd say the majority of these changes are small, but improve the quality of life of the player drastically, without altering the feel of the game. Currently the game offers a lot but does not stand up to other modern games in the UI or Combat areas. Combat can be forgiven at the moment but a weak UI certainly cannot, many of the features not implemented have been standard for over a decade.

Edited by Jochim

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Nice list, and great first post! ^_^

Some of the changes you've suggested touch on points already identified, but there are one or two I wanted to discuss a bit further.

Farming - As your skill rises, you gain more yield on each harvest already, adding more yield on top of this might be a bit unbalancing from a market view. Any ideas on how you'd want to see this balanced?

Fight Skill/Starting equipment - My understanding is this is by design as a "welcome to survival". There are a lot of discussions about the new user experience in the forums (with pros and cons of easier/harder first day experiences). As such, I'll not include it directly here, but if any of the threads (or if you create one to discuss this further) has constructive conversation/feedback, I'll be glad to add it to the tracker list with links.

Mine Entrances w/Fences- Creatures get "stuck" in them as well, and I would ask that this one be moved to its own topic to be discussed further if you feel it is a large enough issue. Not trying to justify the behavior, just providing a bit of background since you've stated you're a new player with limited time in-game, on-deed fences don't decay if there is enough upkeep in the town's coffers, mine doors do. So mine doors have to be replaced even on-deed where the fence is "forever". There is also a history of mine doors becoming bugged and trapping people inside and outside of mines, so this may contribute to the use of fences.

For everything else, if it touches on a "core" aspect of gameplay and is a new suggestion, I ask that a dedicated "suggestions" thread be started to discuss the idea to which I link back to. That helps keep this thread ("mostly") on topic.

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Farming - As your skill rises, you gain more yield on each harvest already, adding more yield on top of this might be a bit unbalancing from a market view. Any ideas on how you'd want to see this balanced?

I was leaning more towards a slightly faster turnover of crops. I can see how it would be difficult to balance for larger farms/more skilled players, the intention of this idea was to make it easier for new players to get started. It could potentially be balanced by reducing the effect of the farming skill on fertilized crops, at higher levels of farming skill it could throw an error "your advanced technique renders fertilization useless". I don't see Farming as a major issue however, perhaps more of a pacing problem in the beginning.

Fight Skill/Starting equipment - My understanding is this is by design as a "welcome to survival". There are a lot of discussions about the new user experience in the forums (with pros and cons of easier/harder first day experiences). As such, I'll not include it directly here, but if any of the threads (or if you create one to discuss this further) has constructive conversation/feedback, I'll be glad to add it to the tracker list with links.

It may be by design, but the design does not seem constructive. If the intention is to create a realistic survival experience then the fact that we begin a sword and shield should mean we can kill a simple mountain lion perhaps even a wolf, common animals in my starting area at least. Even covered in armor ~20QL a wolf will still bite through your chainmail before you can kill it at starting skill levels. While I appreciate the need for difficulty and danger for rewarding gameplay, being killed by something that can outfight and outrun you does not add to gameplay it only frustrates new players. A feeling of helplessness can be constructive, creating hopelessness is not.

Mine Entrances w/Fences- Creatures get "stuck" in them as well, and I would ask that this one be moved to its own topic to be discussed further if you feel it is a large enough issue. Not trying to justify the behavior, just providing a bit of background since you've stated you're a new player with limited time in-game, on-deed fences don't decay if there is enough upkeep in the town's coffers, mine doors do. So mine doors have to be replaced even on-deed where the fence is "forever". There is also a history of mine doors becoming bugged and trapping people inside and outside of mines, so this may contribute to the use of fences.

I understand, I put it in under personal gripes because I don't know if the issue is common or if it only affected me. It strikes me that mine doors should be fixed/improved if there are issues making non-specialised alternatives preferable. From the wiki article it seems like they disproportionally hard to create compared to the alternatives.

For everything else, if it touches on a "core" aspect of gameplay and is a new suggestion, I ask that a dedicated "suggestions" thread be started to discuss the idea to which I link back to. That helps keep this thread ("mostly") on topic.

So a thread for each point?

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Just for information:

Mine traps like that (can get in, but can't get out) are considered griefing and will be removed by GMs (talk to them through /support)

Edited by Keldun

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So a thread for each point?

Generally limiting threads to a minimum number of topics is a good thing (they tend to get derailed on their own), but up to you. As a reminder, I'm not part of Code Club AB, just another player trying to organize the chaos that is the forums lol.

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I think the biggest reason that I haven't logged in recently is because Rolf is changing the design focus of the game from something like low fantasy to high fantasy.

For those not familiar with the difference:

Low fantasy is a setting where magic and mystical/divine entities are rare and have little impact on the world normally. Most people live their whole lives with very little or no influence from things magical. Magic items are extremely rare and valuable. Magical creatures are rarely if ever seen.

High fantasy is a setting where magic plays a major part in the everyday life of everyone. Mystical races are common, your chamberpot cleans itself with magic, and most of your family knows a bit of magic to do their day to day work.

Wurm started out as low fantasy, but is accelerating into high fantasy with every change Rolf makes.

The problem here is that the gaming market is Extremely Full of all sorts of High Fantasy. The biggest part of what makes Wurm cool (IMHO) is the crafting system, but the actual world design matters too, and it just doesn't feel like Wurm anymore, it is starting to feel like a wannabe WoW with a good crafting system.

Bring back the grit. Get rid of the foofoo mystical critters. Eliminate artfacts and uniques. Make priests WORK to create quality enchantments by changing the enchantment system into a crafting system like all of the rest of the crafting in the game.

Edited by Farmerbob
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Hi Farmerbob,

I updated the OP to include an entry under Game Design to reflect your post.

Just in case anyone didn't see this post by the Team (Link), it looks like the world design/drifting from original vision is a concern for them as well.

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Hi,

I am going to get screamed at but the resources being used for multi-story houses could fix SO much in 60 days....yet here we are getting new content, again.

[...]

Wurm at this point is like buying a fully loaded new car, except the brakes are worn and the streering wheel is broken and the salesman just tells you over and over how luxury the item is and not adressing the fact you can't DRIVE it.

I can't but sign here.

Talking about a V1.0 in the current state is quite overconfident, IMHO. The game still is full of:

- nasty bugs (invisible hitched horses, vanishing ships entering a cave canal, etc.),

- crazy mistakes made once and never corrected (spider gives more FS then a troll, shark-in-a-satchel etc.),

- and the well known "Wogic" ("Wurm logic", we all can give hundreds of examples).

"Making the game more attractive to players" would, IMHO, require to work in this area at first. Winning new players with a V1.0, multi-story houses and char customization might work, but how long until they'll run in horror again, frightened by the dreaded "Wogic", and by all these bugs and inconsistencies?

I understand, Hussars, that it doesn't fit your idea with the thread, and I respect this. Nevertheless, one of the most important answers to the question in the thread title would be what Kajmir wrote some posts ago:

Continuity, consistency, polish

I kindly ask for thinking about if this couldn't be set at the top or the end of your list - after all, this is what covers quite a lot of your list anyways, and might make a great "tl;dr".

Have a good time, and thank you for your work!

PS: Would I have the money to drop a serious coin into a wishing well, my wish would be:

"Please, Rolf, halt any development of new features now, and unite all forces

you can get your hands on for "The Epic hunt of Bugs, Inconsistencies and Wogic" â„¢!

No mercy, show 'em your cold steel, whack 'em into oblivion!

They must get eradicated from the soils of Wurm -

soon enough new ones will come requiring your time!

Make PvP/PvE code split & char customization then, and after having debugged it,

release the V1.0, with the promise of multi-story houses coming in V1.1.

And with a proper PvP and fighting system soon after. Please, pretty please!"

OT here, right? SCNR, just ignore ;-)))

Edited by Xandra
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o/ Reading the list it seems you misunderstood my running speed suggestion. I suggested linking it to weight not stamina. Currently you go full speed then add a piece of cotton and suddenly slow by a huge amount. Sorry if my wording was unclear in the earlier suggestion.

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Has anyone mentioned fixing the traders so they will allow you to trade without having exact change?

It is terribly infuriating being a noob and trying to actually buy things from traders without knowing exactly how traders work.

The exact change requirement is toxic. Let the traders rip you off a bit, just warn the player "It seems like the trader is willing to accept your trade, but you think you are paying 37 iron too much. Let the Trader keep the change?" or whatever with a confirm required.

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Updated the OP to include:

  • call-out under Bug Fixes to provide a list of known issues and to provide a "road-map" on the priority to address them.
  • Trader Suggestion under General
  • Link to Suggestion post related to improving Hot Food Cooking under skills
  • corrected/appended "Weight" to movement speed changes.

To Xandra's post:

...continuity, consistency, polish

It's not that global suggestions like these are against my "vision" for the thread.

They just do not help identify areas anyone feels needs more immediate attention or highlights specific elements that someone feels need to be addressed.

It is like walking into a restaurant and saying the chef needs to do better, or a car dealership and saying they need better cars. Without providing context for the statement of how they need to improve or change, (i.e. what should/could they do or change in their offering to meet your expectation), it just comes out as complaining, not as constructive feedback (which can still be complaining, but complaining about a specific item and how it needs to be changed or addressed).

This is why I do not add these statements to the list.

Could I provide examples for those generalized statements made by others, sure, but the idea of this thread is not what do I think needs to change (honestly doubt many of the current players would play the game built to my wants), but what everyone else wants to see changed/included.

When doing lists like this, it is very easy to filter/or guide conversations (or just list the things the "host" supports), and I'm attempting to avoid doing that beyond: "Please provide specific examples"

Again, I think all of the ideas presented have a lot of merit/are solid/great ideas, even the ones I don't agree with.

Edited by Hussars

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As a new player myself, I can comment on something I would change. Although I love that the game is truly a sandbox game and is so open, I wish it had more of a "frontier" or "pioneer" feel. Ideally, I would love to set up my first home in a place from which you can't even see your nearest neighbor, like farms in the old (American) West, but I would be happy with any fresh plot even if it had lots of neighbors.

However, I have struggled to find a place on Independence to deed that isn't currently occupied or wasn't previously developed. Before veterans get angry and tell me I should have known better because Independence is the oldest server, I did my research before chosing a server and there are a fair number of people on these forums or other places saying that there is plenty of available land and that because Independence is four times larger than the other servers it has the lowest population density, which is why I went there. But a look at the map dump shows how extensively everything has been terraformed, which isn't really conveyed by the labeled map. (Heck, entire mountaintops have been lopped off for houses, so obviously the map has really been worked over.)

While there might still be a few new places to settle, the lack of access to water at those places effectively prevents a new character (not merely a new player) from starting there. Unoccupied places near shore are likely to be too steep for a new character to level. Open space away from water requires a well, which is beyond a new player's ability. I don't want to have the play the game for months grinding skills before starting in earnest on what I consider to be the fun part, which is founding my first home and building my way up from there. My favorite part of any game is the beginning and I often start over once my character becomes too skilled.

I think the land rush on Celebration is evidence that I am in good company with other people who want unspoiled land. I wish I had been around when that server opened, but after only a few short months it is already quite bustling. I did try it and spent hours walking around but couldn't find any area more remote than Independence. Perhaps that has left Deliverance or Exodus more open, but I haven't had time to create a new character to try there. Anyway, I assume they are the same as Independence and there might be available land but not undeveloped land.

I also tried one of the Epic servers, Serenity. I did like the wilderness feel, but getting sufficiently far away from the spawn point has proven beyond my capabilities without getting killed. And honestly I really don't relish spending a lot of time creating my nice home only to have some other player get joy out of destroying it and killing me. That's just not my play style, and I fear those servers will only attract players who think it is fun to ruin other people's accomplishments (fair enough, that's what PvP is for).

So the best you can really hope for is an abandoned site to re-develop, but there are problems with taking over an abandoned site, too. It can be hard to identify what is truly abandoned. While it would seem simple to conclude that anything is free for the taking as long as it doesn't register a message in your event log saying "You have entered [blank]", you are apt to incur the wrath of another player who was working on it. (Or who merely had his eye on it. Don't get me started on the number of people who will tell you that you must ask "permission" from neighbors before starting any project. Don't get me wrong, the people I have met in game have uniformly been very nice and also helpful. But a lot of threads on these forums include comments explaining that before developing anything you are required to make sure others in the vicinity don't have other plans for it, which is ludicrous to me. If they have plans, shouldn't they have deeded it? I don't think you can call dibs on land.)

Perhaps a simple solution for new players looking for unspoiled land would be more inland lakes on new maps to make more sites feasible. After all, it seems the Independence map should be large enough for the hundred players or so that are normally online. Another possible solution is a rolling cycle of servers. For instance, every year a new server could be opened and the oldest one could be closed, or more likely every year the oldest server could be reset to scratch with a new landmass like there has been a natural disaster (but the player characters, skills, and owned personal items would not be reset). If there were a half dozen Freedom servers, six years would be as much as a player could expect I would think before you have to start a new house. (We can't expect our MMOs to last forever--see City of Heroes for proof.) Another possibility is that roads decay. Because it is really the roads that bother me the most! It just doesn't feel like I'm settling in a new place when there are already well developed roads to every nook and cranny. Old houses at least fall down eventually.

Just my two cents!

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First, welcome to Wurm!

Second, (as I'm sure you know) the forum of any game tends to be the home of the most vocal of any game's community, so take every complaint as well as compliment with a grain (or a few pounds) of salt. Wurm is a very niche game and with a community size reflecting this, however we do seem to have a lot more forum aware users than in other games...

Next, just to share a bit of information you may have missed (related to the roads and houses decaying) roads (off deed at least) do decay as well. If they are in use regularly, they will not decay, but stop using them and they will eventually decay. I've spent a lot of time repairing them around my deed and can confirm this (unless there was a recent change that doesn't apply to me lol). Also, if a user goes premium, they would have the ability to destroy pavement on-deed (if it's your deed) and off-deed as long as it is not protected under the highway rules.

That said and to keep this on topic:

Beyond that, I'm not sure what you're asking to have included in the roll-up. It sounds like you're wanting to have map resets of some type (localized to specific areas)?

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I think one thing he wants is that erosion system that was mentioned somewhere before, so that abandoned places return to a more natural state.

And another thing that I noticed: there seems to be some misconception of what new players should be doing. It doesn't need to be made easier for them to settle somewhere. Wurm is a true multiplayer game and purposefully made to be so. Instead it should be made clearer at the beginning that new players need to join a village or at least team up with someone. Otherwise they'll have to accept that they decided to play the game at the highest possible difficulty.

Edited by Keldun

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I wasn't requesting that the game be made easier. I understand that it's a niche game, and I appreciate that going it alone might be difficult. The topic is what could be done to make the game more attactive to players, and I assumed one of element of that is what could be done to make it attractive to NEW players. I was suggesting that fresher places to settle would be attractive to some new players instead of the feeling that you're jumping into someone else's game midway through. As for the multiplayer aspect, I am more than happy to team up with people. That is why I play MMOs instead of a solo console game. But if I'm going to team up with other players I would rather it be a group who is jointly settling someplace new to create something from scratch, not just living on someone's property that they have spent years improving already. Said another way, the notion that you are required to joint an existing village will turn some people off. That's all. So yes, one of my suggestions for making that a possibility is to have about six servers, and create a new map each year on one of those. That seems like a workable compromise because then some players have new places to explore and some players who are happy not to explore and just work on developing their plot can be confident their place isn't going anywhere for six years, which is a really long time. I have read about the erosion suggestion elsewhere but I didn't think that was workable. I am glad to hear that roads off deed decay. Someone must be doing a lot of road maintenance on Indy then! Or the place is so deeded that the majority of the roads are on deeded land.

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Thanks for clarifying!

As for decay, yeah, the decay timer, like everything else tied to the RNG, can be rather, well random. You'll see a stretch of road not used/touched for weeks/months, and in perfect condition.. and look behind you to see the tile next to you has just decayed. Also, there are protected "highways", which may impact their status.. I've never really looked too far into the details of how these are kept up, only in how they are declared as such.

For map resets, there are a lot discussions on this, and Rolf has said to not expect different types of resets on various maps, ever... (barring VERY specific reasons - almost all tied to serious exploiting). As you said, some folks have spent years working on their deeds, resetting an entire map would be difficult to accept for a lot of people if for no other reason then the amount of time it takes to do things, and the potential real world money invested.

So for this one request, I'll have to ask that it not be discussed further in this thread, but to start or join a topic which is already discussing it. The reason being, this is one of the topics that generates a lot of ... conversation.. and usually quickly devolves into flames and getting locked.

Maybe a thread like this one? Or one of the topics talking about land after a deed disbands here?

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Sorry Jade I didn't make it clear enough. That second part was not in response to you but the player base in general.

Hussars, the highways are just a soft rule (like a law) It's declared and followed, or not and enforced, but there is no mechanism to it, they are just like any other pavement.

Edited by Keldun

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Skills

Move away from a timer-based approach to crafting/skilling where possible. (Time it takes to make something needn't change, but where possible, engage the player more when crafting)

When each skill is based on a few templates, practising the skill gets boring quickly. For instance, carpentry/tailoring/smithing/pottery are based on the same template - there are a few tools required to finish/improve and the raw materials and products are different, but other than that, you keep doing the same thing over and over again (select tool, click, wait for timer. Rinse and repeat). Another template is the basic resource gathering - mining, digging - which is even simpler (click, wait for timer)

This encourages people to stack commands and then go do something else (watching a film, get a cup of tea etc) - a bit like ad breaks on TV. Waiting for timers is not what we're really interested in, but it is a necessary evil. I think it would massively boost the game's appeal if changes were made to address this.

I think there are several possible methods that can be used for this - in a way that can be "bolted on" to the the current situation, rather than replace it. Different methods are suitable for different things, but all aim to give an alternative to waiting for timers. Here are a few ideas, and although I plug them when I can, my main concern is not the suggestions in itself, but an attempt to shift the emphasis away from the action timer.

  • Add an element of research to give current skills more depth (e.g. as I outlined for HFC).
  • Add new methods for making existing bulk materials that work in parallel to the current method. Require user interaction and enable higher yield, faster manufacture and/or higher ql depending on player skill. See as applied to Windmills. Design to avoid... a) commodity inflation B) achievement inflation c) allowing macroing/benefits from being idle d) making current methods redundant.
  • Add new materials that may only be manufactured by multiple players cooperating (e.g. a tool that needs 2+ operators)

Starter server

I played wurm before it went gold, then again on GV, and recently resuscitated my GV account before creating an alt, going through the tutorial and settling at Deli a few months later.

I think the tutorial is good at explaining the UI, and the basics of crafting, but doesn't give a good impression of what playing wurm is like. Unfortunately, If my experience of landing at Deli is anything to go by, the transition from spoon-fed tutorial to the harsh reality of Wurm is brutal. If that was my first ever experience of wurm, I don't think I'd stay for long. Because of this, I think Wurm/CodeClub would benefit from reintroducing a starter server. Sure, GV had its problems, but the fact it was a starter server wasn't the problem. I think there were subtle flaws in how GV was set up, in particular that you had to be premium to move and you could still have lots of fun on GV. There simply wasn't a strong incentive to leave - unless you *wanted* to pay. Because of this, lots of non-premiums stayed on GV, despite not being beginners any more. This caused crowding, which made it harder for the beginners. My suggestion would be to re-introduce a starter server, where you spawn after you complete the tutorial, with the following modifications from GV:

  • Allow non-premiums to move from the starter server.
  • Severely limit the starter server. For instance
    • Restrict skills (not characteristics) to 10 on starter server. Possibly only make a subset of skills available?
    • Remove some features (e.g. only iron veins?)
    • Have only low-level animals (rats/cats/dogs/pigs?) available in the wild - enough to get a relatively safe introduction to PVE and taming, where you have a realistic chance of winning but can still get a beating or even die.

    [*]Have lots of cool stuff on the starter deed to showcase what you can do once you move on, including animals and buildings etc.

    [*]Reset the starter server at regular intervals. Or maybe better - if possible - run 4 instances on the same server, each with identical maps, each reset every 4 weeks. If you start in week 1,5,9... you spawn on server 1; if week 2,6,10 on server 2. That way you'll get 3-4 weeks maximum on the island, depending on which day you join it. Show popup when you log in on the island with the number of time until the island is reset. If you log on after reset, get option for which server to go to and be moved to that server immediately.

The intended outcome is a more gentle introduction, so the new player can discover the wonders of wurm, get to grips with the game, and get a desire to do more, before getting frustrated.

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