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

[Arkonick 557]

Here is what I would do.

First I would Create a kingdom 40x40 max in a server. Then I would fill it with NPC's with Quest. Then I would creat a whole new server for these quest so they do not tie to the old server. This would allow for quest and mobs to be added to the new quest server also raid mobs for the raid type players. This would add about 20 to 25% theme park to the sandbox for all those gamers who love theme park but also love sandbox.

This type of system would keep it away from players who don't like it by it not being there in there way. And for those who do well they would come play wurm and enjoy it and the great sandbox it is today.

Reason behind it all is you can't mix pvp and pve players together with out a big head ache and same goes for theme park and sandbox but this is the true way to keep it in and everyone will be happy. Quest anyway are always supose to be on a journey so let the journey begin in a far off land. Rewards could be titles to what ever.

I would also increase textures for multi story and wall types as well as fences. Some type of map system ingame and make it responsibility of player to maintain it in this ever changing world could even go as far as some have suggested allowing a new sellable item maps. Map makers could then turn a profit selling maps at a map shot.

There are alot of good ideas floating out there in the fourms already no need for me to mention here time and time again.

But if it's audience you are looking to attract i would suggest the 20% theme park of quest and raid bosses on a server to it's self you have to sail to go do with a small kingdom set on a server. this land wouldn't be livable on or all the stuff you can do on the main servers cause it would be designed for quest and that alone.

This would bring in more players to wurm.

[Hussars 511]

Interesting ideas, and to clarify, the intent of the thread is to simply collect ideas players (and potential players) feel would improve the game overall. If this means brining in more players, great, if it means refining a current system, or introducing a new system, cool!

For any ideas submitted here, a couple of things to please remember:

• If you haven't started a thread to discuss the idea, and the discussion take 3 or more posts here, you'll be asked to move the discussion to a dedicated thread.
  
• If you have started a thread and think it has enough support, post a link in this thread and I'll add it to the list. If there is a lot of cross points/ongoing discussion, it'll likely be tagged as [Contested]
  
• Adding specific items are not generally considered "improvements" unless it is something that enchances the game world/general playability or community building. So please, no "uber sword of greyskull +20" suggestions, but items like the bulletin board or hitching posts would be considered "okay" in this context. Bonus points if you outline a way to make them player crafted.
  
• For all suggesstions related to PVP, if you don't include a comment on if you are a full-time Wurm PVP or PVE player, expect me to make fun of you (not really) and ask you silly questions (like are you normally a PVP or PVE player)
  
• And finally, please rememeber I'm not an employee of Code Club, I'm just a player the CA's like to make work by watching this thread lol
  

Edited January 24, 2013 by Hussars

[Maozorz 127]

I would change the title of the leader of MR to something other than 'Chancellor', there's enough people that don't understand it and it really doesn't do justice to the position that it actually is, despite it reflecting RL. It is still slightly ambiguous and just does not sound as awesome as it should.

[Farmerbob 369]

There was some discussion the other day in a few different threads about merchant abuse and storing items on merchants for absurd prices.

So I started this thread:

http://forum.wurmonline.com/index.php?/topic/74508-idea-to-prevent-misuse-of-traders-and-merchants/

In essence, Rolf would have to more closely track the value of items and enchantments, and then would change the behaviors of merchants so:

1) Merchants will only take hugely overpriced items if the player pays the merchant their 10% cut of the sale when the item is actually put on the merchant.

2) Merchants would keep 25% of any deposit given to them if the overpriced items are taken out before they are sold.

3) Any player can buy from any merchant if the merchant is not on a deed.

4) Any player can buy from any merchant if the merchant is on a deed, but there are no templars alive to protect the deed

5) This means that you can use merchants for convenience storage of things like village cotton for 1i per 5kg, or good pelts and whetstones, etc, but you cannot charge crazy amounts of money for items without paying for the priveledge. This will quickly add up to costs which would make this tactic painful.

6) If the enemy does destroy your templars, and buy your stuff, but you have it priced as a reasonable cost, well, you can just buy replacements.

7) Since the value of merchants as storage will go down, it would probably be good to offer an option to spend 10s (same cost as a merchant) to buy an expanded bank, which would allow, say, 20 extra items, meaning you could keep 25 total items in absolute security. This is plenty to store some sentimental stuff, and a solid set of gear to rebuild with if someone comes to level your deed.

8) Again, since merchants are going to be nerfed as storage, reducing the cost of large magic chests to 25s would probably lead to a great number of large chest sales.

9) Tracking of average prices for tools is not terribly hard, really. Create a database of all merchants and track what items sell from them at, and follow the trends. If anyone tries to artificially raise the price of tools quickly, well, that's going to cost them a stupid amount of money. 10% of the cost of each artificially high priced item sold straight to Rolf.

10) If people try to slowly game the system over time despite the cost, (and someone with more money than sense surely will) then implement an alert system that sends a message to Rolf about items that are on a strong, upward value trend. Most items trend downward in value over time. Anything trending upward would be strange and would get looked at. An automated system might also be implemented where merchants would start talking into local, "barking" their prices when their held items are far cheaper than the average cost of items.

11) Putting items on merchants for 0 price would be disallowed

12) Changing prices remotely for anything that is overpriced in the penalty range, or which would be overpriced after changing the value would be disallowed.

[huntgrem 11]

I have an idea that would be more lifelike; to be able to move your beds and chests, ect. up a ramp and into a cart to move. That would be a plus, and more realistic to boot.

[Hussars 511]

Updated the OP with your link Farmerbob (sorry for the delay, still having issues with my home internet and so have been replying from my phone).

Huntgrem, think there was a mention about this previously by the dev team as being looked into. If I can find a post related specifically to it, I'll link it here for you to follow-up if you're interested. If you find a thread discussing it first, feel free to provide a link here and I'll add it to the list.

[Guvnor 1]

I think essentially Wurm needs to have a smoother, less steep learning curve, without getting any easier. My main dislike as a new player was the eating thing, hated it. Felt like it was a catch 22 situation made very difficult and was just a problem that took me away from playing the game. Not saying it should be scrapped, but maybe something could be done to make it more pleasurable?

I suggest that a new bar tender could be purchased by players at the same cost as a personal merchant. This bar tender could have ready meals and maybe some buff drinks readily available for a cost. Alternatively, players could supply the ingredients needed for any of the foods or drinks and have them made for free by the tender? Just something Ive thought of whilst playing.

Still to this day I dont make meals or eat at all, I use refresh, found that the effort of meditating to get the required level was a lot less than the effort needed for a decent meal.

[huntgrem 11]

I think to make the game more realistic and a little bit less of a hassle, i am suggesting the use of ramps and the ability to load objects(fsb, chests, beds, ect.) in a cart to be moved. People don't generally leave everything just to move, and is really rather silly. For example, we are moving from temporary housing to our regular houses now that the land is starting to be terraformed where we wanted them. Now we have to move the furniture, looms, ect, this can only be done by the push pull a little bit each time. Instead of the way it would be done if you were actually moving, with the use of ramps to get the large, cumbersome items where you would want them. Another thing. We cant move beds up on the upper floors? a normal place would allow you this option. Other than that you have a very solid game.

[wasntme 156]

not sure if its been said couldnt be bothered to read it all but people dont want to keep dying as soon as they walk out of the starter village . imo i think it was better before the spawns were added where the animals spawned in certain regions not all over the place.most games i have played have there easiest mobs out side there starter places

[Farmerbob 369]

not sure if its been said couldnt be bothered to read it all but people dont want to keep dying as soon as they walk out of the starter village . imo i think it was better before the spawns were added where the animals spawned in certain regions not all over the place.most games i have played have there easiest mobs out side there starter places

I am not going to engage in a debate on game theory here, but part of a sandbox game is that things are not so cleanly divided into little boxes of content. If you can't kill it, you should run from it. If you can't run from it, you should watch closer where you are going and what is near you. If you do get suprised out of the blue by a spawn, well, it happens, and you need to go collect your corpse. Distribution of content and a more complex world is a critical difference between sandbox and themepark games.

[Iulianx 90]

Oh well excuse us for wanting to ruin a perfect sandbox game and turning it into a themepark MMO by improving the experience of new players. The spawn system is horrible, It desperately needs improving and adjusting not only as described above but at least that.

From playing Planet-Side 2 I almost quit after getting killed 2 seconds after I first dropped from orbit, then get killed 4 more times without even seeing the enemy. These sort of experiences are bound to anger people and turn them away.

[Farmerbob 369]

Oh well excuse us for wanting to ruin a perfect sandbox game and turning it into a themepark MMO by improving the experience of new players. The spawn system is horrible, It desperately needs improving and adjusting not only as described above but at least that.

From playing Planet-Side 2 I almost quit after getting killed 2 seconds after I first dropped from orbit, then get killed 4 more times without even seeing the enemy. These sort of experiences are bound to anger people and turn them away.

This is a problem with the tutorial system, IMHO. There should be an active hunting and fighting tutorial. I'd definitely throw a +1 at a hunting and fighting tutorial.

[wasntme 156]

i really think it needs changing some how a lot of new players have just given up cause they keep dying .or they just cant find there corpse.

[Corvyn 14]

1. Fully 3D. Currently the "physics" in this game are 2D. If it was fully 3D people would like its mechanics better.

2. Less grindy to get to pvp, (as much as i hate to say it)

[Hussars 511]

i really think it needs changing some how a lot of new players have just given up cause they keep dying .or they just cant find there corpse.

While I sympathize, any suggestions on a change to make?

1. Fully 3D. Currently the "physics" in this game are 2D. If it was fully 3D people would like its mechanics better.

2. Less grindy to get to pvp, (as much as i hate to say it)

1. Ideas/ways to clarify what you mean here? Suggestions on what to address to make it "fully 3d"?

2. Have to ask, are you a Wurm PVP player and think this would improve the PVP aspect or PVE player and this would be something that would increase your draw to PVP gameplay?

Edited February 5, 2013 by Hussars

[wasntme 156]

While I sympathize, any suggestions on a change to make?

1. Ideas/ways to clarify what you mean here? Suggestions on what to address to make it "fully 3d"?

2. Have to ask, are you a Wurm PVP player and think this would improve the PVP aspect or PVE player and this would be something that would increase your draw to PVP gameplay?

i really thought i gave what i thought i got nothing left lol it needs to be easier for new players most new players dont want to be dropped into pvp or die as soon as they leave the starter village.the only other thing i can offer is the alt system it isnt good for any kingdom if its about making money rolf steam roller these guys that are scared of change.give us a map reset every 1 to 2 years

Edited February 5, 2013 by wasntme

[Arkonick 557]

Too many new players come and want this to be easy we have enough dumbed down mmo's out there that are easy. How about we have a hard one for a change. I play wurm online for what it is have no intentions to ever ask for it to be easier maybe harder cause I personally feel like it lacks a challenge with mob's. Id love to see more mob's spawning more and a bigger variety of dangerous mob's on freedom server's.

Honestly make a new server and call it noob very little mob spawns close to nill and when you feel you are ready to engage in the real world of wurm then you can haul your but over to the real server's with massive mob's.

Edited February 5, 2013 by Arkonick

[wasntme 156]

head to epic or chaos then cause everyone loves everyone till they can kill you lol if you like playing on a lower player base you are in the right pace

Edited February 5, 2013 by wasntme

[Arkonick 557]

head to epic or chaos then cause everyone loves everyone till they can kill you lol

I hate pvp I'm the old timer from the beginning of mmo's who loves his pve raid mobs and hundreds of mob's. Epic chaos bah If I had a nuke stock pile You know what I would launch them on.

[Kidknie 19]

I think essentially Wurm needs to have a smoother, less steep learning curve, without getting any easier. My main dislike as a new player was the eating thing, hated it. Felt like it was a catch 22 situation made very difficult and was just a problem that took me away from playing the game. Not saying it should be scrapped, but maybe something could be done to make it more pleasurable?

I suggest that a new bar tender could be purchased by players at the same cost as a personal merchant. This bar tender could have ready meals and maybe some buff drinks readily available for a cost. Alternatively, players could supply the ingredients needed for any of the foods or drinks and have them made for free by the tender? Just something Ive thought of whilst playing.

Still to this day I dont make meals or eat at all, I use refresh, found that the effort of meditating to get the required level was a lot less than the effort needed for a decent meal.

instead of just having higher ql meals go down faster, how about also making them last longer once you have eaten them. in other words, if I eat a high quality, nutritious and filling meal, I should be able to go a little bit longer without eating, as opposed to if I had just had a bologna sammich and a small bag of chips.

[Aeris 3,752]

While reading the posts in this thread I can't help to wonder: Make it more attractive to what players? New or old ones?

Some of the suggestions proposed in this thread would surely attract a lot of new players, but at the expense of a lot of the old players. Arguments are made in the form of "If you want the game to live you neeeeeed to change it into something people will like", but is this the point of this thread? To make the game attractive to the general meat grinder MMO player and chase away the long term players who have hope for the current game?

While it is important to introduce elements that attract new players it is also important to keep in mind that this is already a defined game, we're not standing with the cursor on a blank page trying to create it.

I wrote in this thread a long time ago so not sure about everything I've already suggested here, but here are my current suggestions for making the game more attractive, to both old and new players:

1) Bug fixes. No motivation needed, it is obvious why bugs are unattractive.

2) Re-do the whole tutorial. The last time I went through it I noticed a very easy pattern which meant I could complete the whole tutorial without reading any of the information provided and just focus on the parts that told me how to get to the next stage. The tutorial also doesn't give a very good preview of what Wurm actually is.

3) Remove the achievements for performing mundane tasks. The whole point of an achievement is that you should feel you've achieved something for receiving it. The current achievement system just screams that Wurm Online wanted to jump on the Bandwagon.

4) Having Rolf actually write in the updates what they mean. I know that we as players are supposed to write the Wiki manual, but it has gotten to a point where it is just tedious and ridiculous. Generations of players are fed other players' guesses and quite frankly it's more frustrating than interesting. Also, some of the bugs are VERY hard to discover when noone knows what the newly introduced items are actually supposed to do. Non-prem players could ride large carts for a year before Rolf realized it was bugged out. This creates frustration - Because things like that have time to be considered game mechanics rather than bugs before they are fixed.

Of course everyone will not agree with me, but these are some things I've noticed that at least a rather large portion of the players find frustration and some I imagine being frustrating for more people than myself.

[Hussars 511]

As said before, it is for what you think would make it attractive to more players (new or old). All I ask is that:

• Any suggestions that start discussions be moved to their own threads (or threads about the topic) and if you feel it is something others should see/contribute to, post a link here.
  
• If you are wanting to change an existing gameplay mechanic (PVP, skill gain, etc...) you post what areas of your idea you'd be willing to compromise on.
  
• If you want to ADD a new mechanic/skill/item, you outline benefit/impact to players/setting/general gameplay
  
• If you are wanting to change PVP, you need to provide information on if you are a current and full time/primarily Wurm PVP player, or PVE player.
  
• Keep non-topic chatter to a minimum in the thread (or if it is on topic and your the 3rd post or later, see the first point)
  

I try to stay out of the discussions since I "control" the list in this thread, while I may not agree (or even when I do agree/support) an idea, this is about the playbase in general, not my ego. So if you can make a case for, or provide reasons that gain support from the general player base, it goes on the list.

If it gets logically countered (or just overwhelmingly argued), it gets the [Contested] flag. If it gets a poll and there are more than 100 people voting at 75%-90% against it, it gets removed from the roll-up.

For everyone new to the thread, or those just returning, PLEASE RE-READ the original post BEFORE posting a new idea. While I understand it is easier to just pop in, drop your idea off and run, I try to keep the list up to date, so if you see your idea listed already, it doesn't need a duplicate (I tend to ignore these). If there is a thread discussing your idea, but it is not linked to in the list, feel free to drop a link and quick note about which idea it is related to. While it may seem like I read all of the threads, I don't, so I may have very well missed one discussing your ideas.

Finally, everyone is welcome to post any idea they think can improve the game for ANY player group (New or Established, PVP or PVE) I just ask that you keep the information above in mind and please keep it civil.

Edited February 5, 2013 by Hussars

[HellMutt 6]

I know it's been mentioned before but I would like to add my thoughts to the matter. I think the combat needs to be more interactive, for example left click to attack, right click to block.

The current state of combat is embarassing and the main thing that prevents me from showing some of my friends this game. I don't want them to brush it off without giving it a real chance and never be interested in it again, I'd rather wait until it's in a state I know they'll give it a chance. Currently the combat is not only confusing to new players (they walk up to a mob and a box opens up in the upper left, what is happening? They have no Idea and they die), it's just not fun. Sitting back and watching your player make noises while text scrolls by faster than you can read it is not fun. Even if you don't change the basic balance/mechanics of combat the tactile control and feedback is needed (players need to feel like they are in control).

I understand that the way the game is programmed probably doesn't allow for this, but if you were able to pull it off I think it would make the game much more attractive to new players (and probably? not piss off too many old players).

Edited February 5, 2013 by HellMutt

[Keldun 335]

I realize this discussion has been going on too long here already, but let me add one for the list:

maybe under "Marketing"

Add something to the website, the launceher, the tutorial and the starter towns that clearly exposes the exact nature of Wurm Online to new players.

Wurm online is "different". Players have to realise this, accept it and play the game like it is meant to be played.

If you try to play Wurm like you played World of Warcraft or Ever Quest or even Minecraft, you are going to fail and fail hard.

All of these so called MMOs are at the core just single player games with a co-op modus. (except for the raid content obviously)

Wurm however is a true multiplayer game, you are supposed to team up with others or at least get support from someone.

If new players are going at it alone they need to realize that they choose the hardest possible way to play Wurm and they need to accept that and accept that they need to to deal with it, not cry "hurr durr, I'm dying every five minutes, nerf this!!!111elf"

I don't think we will ever be able to appease to these kinds of player without changing the very nature of Wurm itself. But what we can do is educate the unaware.

Edit: Here is a thread with more detailed thoughts to continue this discussion: Wurm Online Is Different!

Edited February 5, 2013 by Keldun

[Hussars 511]

Added to the roll-up with link (Under the marketing section)

• Better setting of player expectations as they relate to gameplay style/theme (Link)