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

[Miretta 1,415]

The only thing I have a problem with to be quite honest, is me attacking things I dont want to attack, and not attacking things  I do want to attack.

 

For example?

Taming my pet. I dont want to nearly slaughter my cat when it disobeys! I click no target, but it doesnt help, and is a waste of time. I have to hurry and scramble out of the room. Within seconds, I had gotten my cat down to Bleeding without even touching anything.

 

I wish the fighting was just a tad easier. I do like the style we have now, but I'm a bit upset we cant click and attack. I don't like attacking things automatically, especially since sometimes it's on accident.(Taming, for example)^

 

 

a "passive" stance could help with that the animal would still attack you but you arent forced to attack back^^

[brianvball 21]

First fire rolf!

 

Have a raise so much money and rolf has to hire someone to actually develop this game

 

Second have a feedback on GMs and Hire more of them

 

I notice allot of rules can get you banned and especially when it comes to smashing walls  

 

PS ENKI is the best thing to happen to wurm not nescessarily the nicest but the fairest most human of the GMs I have encountered

 

a nine hour response time seems a bit long especially for premium members issues like house blocking and fence destroying questions should get some kind of response.

[brianvball 21]

IMO you need a live person in the tutorial all the time with the patience of a saint

 

Should have skilling stations just like practice dolls so if you wanted to practice mining you could use the station at the deed to do this it wouldn't produce anything but give a bonus to skill gains . these could be bought at vendors just like deeds making more money for wurm and convenient for new players.  

 

The game needs to evolve it has evolved so slow its sickening to me as a player but the industry of gaming is no better so no competition means no motive for innovation.

 

Rolfs inability to see these things makes me wonder if it will ever get better  but yet it already doubled in price.

 

After epic I realized if I want this game to get better I have to make it better for every customer. Maybe this would help the most?

[notstupidbobb 175]

get rid of fog, it is an annoying waste of time that we pay for.

[brianvball 21]

I totally agree on fog and all the non essential cosmetic crap like seasons!!   stabilize the game and have reduced pc use versions my game crashed 35 times in 24 hours very annoying resets tool locations and breaks up rythem of the game. I use the lowest settings and still not low enough imo. 

[Shardivh 3]

There are a lot of good and bad things about Wurm.

The single worst thing is that 98% of what you do is watch timer bars go up. The second worst thing is that player skill barely factors in to the game at all. (Player knowledge does, but that is separate.)

I would suggest supplementing action timers with optional minigames that provide additional skillgain/success chance/harvest quantity etc. So during a crafting action you are presented with a relevant minigame, if you ignore it then the action completes normally, but if you complete the minigame then you are rewarded with a significant increase in skillgain(or harvest quality, or whatever is relevant) for the action. The better you are at the minigames, the greater the skill bonus.

 

This can perhaps balanced out at higher levels because the faster your timers, the less time you have to complete the minigames.

 

If you want examples, take a look at A Tale In The Desert. No combat in that game, all crafting/sandbox gameplay, but the crafting was very engaging nonetheless.

Edited June 11, 2013 by Shardivh

[brianvball 21]

tale in the desert was insane for the normal gamer to call it difficult would be like calling the ocean "water" it is but man does it get massively deep. its a game supposed to be fun! not work this is why only the manuel labor really pays in wurm. There is a delicate balance between time spent and reward given. Id say the common 20ql fence maybe the longest lasting reward with the least amount of work absolutely insanely hard to remove ounce made. Just my 2 copper

[Jovan 20]

i know its probably been said a lot, i saw it mentioned on the first post. but the UI clickfest absolutely must be addressed before anything else. I am a loyal player with 3 Deeds, but im on extended break because this game is giving me RSI in the wrist.

 

all we need is a "repeat last action" keybind.

 

still watching patch notes and the forum for news of this change, will not actively play again until i can play without physical pain and damage to my body.

[brianvball 21]

I feel your pain  playing for more than ten hour stretch the boredom is intense and it actually cause pain in my hands and elbows

[Hussars 511]

Hi all,

 

Please move ongoing (off topic) chat off the thread.  If you're discussing an idea that has been presented, please start or join a thread dedicated to that idea.

 

Thanks!

[huntgrem 11]

The ability to load livestock(animals) into a ship or a wagon for smaller ones(dogs,cats, bird in a cage of coarse for them). As well as the ability to cross servers with them in a vessel. Both of these things would make it more realistic. Also food you see to, why not water for the animals?

[metis 51]

Ok so im on my phone...and I do not have time to rwad all the post or click next..next..next..for the NEXT 20 minutes..please dont flame me if I end up saying something that has already been said or for typos....its a phone dang it.

Anyway my idea for all servers ......is....

How bout some different races or something...I believe this was brought up along time ago...but if I am from say JKE then make us all like one race and those from HoTS another seperatw looking race...if I am on indy...let me choose.

[Arkonick 557]

We'll there is a list of things not one certain thing.

1. A lot more wall types and textures after building 1 huge wood building and 1 huge stone building any others almost look 100% like the next. Least 12 to 20 different wood wall's and stone walls they could even have different textures.

2. Ability to paint wooden walls and stone walls 2 different colors. What I mean by this is the out side can be one color while the inside could be another color.

3. Lot more furniture. Again with such a low verity every room looks like the one you just walked out of.

4. Mob's this is a little longer to explain so here goes. Spider's need to come in different species and different sizes. Example a large spider should have baby spider's or a wolf should have pup's that roam with her a lot of aggressive animals roam in family packs with one another. Animal's like buffalo should roam in packs of 3 or more in the fields normally a male and a female. So if you take the buffalo for example or the deer there non aggressive animal's so 1 male and female adult with a baby in the pack so if one tries to kill or capture the baby the mother and father are not far away and become aggressive cause they are linked.

5. Animal's should have a auto trigger to mate in the wild or in pens. example would be a season mating time where animal's would go in heat and mate with the opposite sex of there species. This would require a animal tender to separate there flock's during these times or be over run with animal's and a higher chance of disease from over crowding. This could help control players from over mating cause it being a seasonal mating time. So if you miss the mating season you have to wait till the next mating season to try to get them to mate by making sure there in well planted fields of food and that there groomed to give them a chance to auto mate.

these are some major attraction's and now for the one everyone hates to hear I saved for the last.

The one thing that makes Wurm stand out from any other MMO or Sandbox is it's real world money trade system in game. I'm not sure but this is for Rolf to really think real hard.

In todays world of the MMO industry I'm not sure how far you want Wurm to grow? How many player's you really want to attract? But with a real world money system Wurm will never ever grab the gaming industry of mmo players do to all mmo's out there use a virtual money system and players don't mind pay for a sub but when they have to spend more money out of there pocket to transfer it into a game currency to use in a game they want.

Only the select hand full of players that play now who use it as a real life cash flow that they use to trade and make real money to buy stuff in real life out side of wurm will continue and root for this type of game style all the rest will shun it and pass Wurm by.

I would suggest a server for the rest of the world that has a virtual money system in game which could be dropped from troll's and goblins alone. And the silver buying eliminated on it. This server would not be connected to any of the other server's no character transfer's. If it was me I would make this a 14.99 a month server this is in us dollar's that I speak. What would you get for 14.99?

Premium account 1 deed token which has a max of 16x16 which would be a starter deed. And if you like to have it bigger you could by Deed size changers from the online shop for this server. The deed size changer's would add a price increase to the monthly sub all based on the deed size. and they can be down sized at any time to lower the sub back to the original 14.99 fee. This type of server would not be a F2p server.

This is my Idea and Rolf I hope you read this and for all the negative remarks that will follow this post over look them Rolf. It will be mainly from players who want all the player bases on there pvp server or in there real life money sink exchange system they live off of.

[ReaverKane 363]

At this point, i'm starting to think that the only way to attract new players is to get a whole new development/distribution/management team.

[Hussars 511]

So to summarize :

We'll there is a list of things not one certain thing.

1. A lot more wall types and textures after building 1 huge wood building and 1 huge stone building any others almost look 100% like the next. Least 12 to 20 different wood wall's and stone walls they could even have different textures.

2. Ability to paint wooden walls and stone walls 2 different colors. What I mean by this is the out side can be one color while the inside could be another color.

3. Lot more furniture. Again with such a low verity every room looks like the one you just walked out of.

4. Mob's this is a little longer to explain so here goes. Spider's need to come in different species and different sizes. Example a large spider should have baby spider's or a wolf should have pup's that roam with her a lot of aggressive animals roam in family packs with one another. Animal's like buffalo should roam in packs of 3 or more in the fields normally a male and a female. So if you take the buffalo for example or the deer there non aggressive animal's so 1 male and female adult with a baby in the pack so if one tries to kill or capture the baby the mother and father are not far away and become aggressive cause they are linked.

5. Animal's should have a auto trigger to mate in the wild or in pens. example would be a season mating time where animal's would go in heat and mate with the opposite sex of there species. This would require a animal tender to separate there flock's during these times or be over run with animal's and a higher chance of disease from over crowding. This could help control players from over mating cause it being a seasonal mating time. So if you miss the mating season you have to wait till the next mating season to try to get them to mate by making sure there in well planted fields of food and that there groomed to give them a chance to auto mate.

these are some major attraction's and now for the one everyone hates to hear I saved for the last.

The one thing that makes Wurm stand out from any other MMO or Sandbox is it's real world money trade system in game. I'm not sure but this is for Rolf to really think real hard.

In todays world of the MMO industry I'm not sure how far you want Wurm to grow? How many player's you really want to attract? But with a real world money system Wurm will never ever grab the gaming industry of mmo players do to all mmo's out there use a virtual money system and players don't mind pay for a sub but when they have to spend more money out of there pocket to transfer it into a game currency to use in a game they want.

Only the select hand full of players that play now who use it as a real life cash flow that they use to trade and make real money to buy stuff in real life out side of wurm will continue and root for this type of game style all the rest will shun it and pass Wurm by.

I would suggest a server for the rest of the world that has a virtual money system in game which could be dropped from troll's and goblins alone. And the silver buying eliminated on it. This server would not be connected to any of the other server's no character transfer's. If it was me I would make this a 14.99 a month server this is in us dollar's that I speak. What would you get for 14.99?

Premium account 1 deed token which has a max of 16x16 which would be a starter deed. And if you like to have it bigger you could by Deed size changers from the online shop for this server. The deed size changer's would add a price increase to the monthly sub all based on the deed size. and they can be down sized at any time to lower the sub back to the original 14.99 fee. This type of server would not be a F2p server.

[...]

1 & 3, more variations on existing items/structures

 

2 - Already mentioned as "Being Researched/Worked On" by the art team in previous feedback

 

4 & 5 , Animal behavior changes to reflect pack/herds and mating

 

(6) Premium only server with included deed and disallows Real Money Transactions (RMT) between players.

[metis 51]

At this point, i'm starting to think that the only way to attract new players is to get a whole new development/distribution/management team.

 

deja-vu....SWG

[Arkonick 557]

deja-vu....SWG

[/quote

SWG if you speaking of Star Wars Galaxies that was never SOE's fault that was lucas arts Fault. The story behind SWG was lucas art's was loosing player base and they wanted a action fighting mmo so they had soe redo the old system into the nge that ruined it this was not soe's call it was lucas art's call. Then after such a bad hit it took and lost so many player base lucas got bioware to work on the old republic which was suppose to be a console title and turned it into a mmo and had soe shut down SWG again it wasn't SOE who decided to shut SWG down and they had no ability to stop it cause Lucas Art's owned all the right's.

This also happened to Matrix online as well WB had SOE take over to help where they keep messing up then WB bought out LoTrOl and had soe close down Matrix online. Soe isn't a bad company and I'm saying this to try and let the public know what was really going on when these certain titles where closed down.

All in all it is bad business on the owners fault not the host. Now wurm on the other hand it's not the fact of bad business but more like what the fans want. There are not enough of one type of gamer in Wurm to trump the already player base that exist.

In order for wurm to attract the other gamer's it is missing it will have to make separate server's tailored to them and there game style.

But the big question that should be meet and answered is Does Rolf want Wurm to get bigger than it is now or is this as big as he wanted it to go.

[dreadlordnaf 22]

How to make Wurm attractive to players?  Make it so you are not punished with extreme frustration and lost time if you happen to be new.  Some examples:

 

Starting compass - I have yet to see a good argument why we can't have these stay on people when they die, especially if you are just starting out.  For a newer player its the difference of spending hours trying to find your corpse versus 30 minutes since you at least know the general direction to search in.   The starting compasses are so bad anyway they wouldn't exactly collapse the market for the higher QL player made ones if this change occurred.

 

Better disclaimer when building an off-deed house -  Currently if you build an off-deed house you get this warning: ""You are planning a structure outside any known village. This is very risky, and the structure may very well be pillaged and looted by other players."     For a new player who is just learning the game this disclaimer does not even begin to convey how much lost time and effort you are possible setting yourself up for.  First off it makes you think that if you are not on a pvp server then you have no looting and pillaging to worry about... But mainly this disclaimer does not at all convey that you can basically be griefed by a player who deeds close to you, then expands their perimeter over you. New players can put hours into their first house.  To have them lose it all due to a technical oddity they weren't even aware of on how deeding works seems unnecessary.  At minimum you could convey the risks of off-deed housing a little better. 

 

So instead of trying to mess with deeding fundamentals which is fraught with difficulty, I suggest instead expanding this disclaimer slightly to convey the risks clearer.  Here is what I suggest as a new disclaimer:  "You are planning a structure outside any known village. This is very risky, and the structure may very well be pillaged and looted by other players, or the land it is on could be annexed by a settlement making it very difficult for you to maintain your structure.  Please be aware the risks of building off-deed [link to a wiki page about this]."  Another even better approach would be a simple one page screen like with deeding that elaborates on this more and has you confirm by hitting ok.   I have already made a wiki page which conveys some of this through the "House Planning Guide" but would gladly create a page more specifically suited toward this if requested.

 

Thanks for reading.

[Mallister 3]

As a new player, my first impressions of this game are that it is very slow and tedious. It is also very text-based, like playing an old MUD with scenery in the background. I've played dozens of MMOs and would recommend that Rolf check them out. GUI improvements in the last ten years have come a long way.

 

A new player needs: 1. to get oriented fast (how do I do things);

                                  2.make initial progress fast (I can do this!);

                                  3.get goals (a reason to play)

 

For 1., this game requires a full re-vamp of the GUI. Player actions are not connected to graphic output. It is not immersive or engaging. On simple tasks like chopping wood or fishing, I see nothing change except the text window. This is so 1990s! Even Runescape (another java game) has more feedback for players.

 

 

GUI things to change to better orient and immerse players:

 

- floating text or bubbles in response to player actions like skill ups, damage done, etc.

- replace the menu bar with icons and tool tips. Don't cancel actions if a player clicks on it

- You need to see your character making appropriate actions

- add response options to mundane skills to engage the player. ie. a fish bites, do you "tug or wait"?

- Skill window: change to have icons with tool tips, make it a nice looking table. Clicking on a skill icon should bring up possible recipes and item requirements. Currently, I spend all my time OUT OF THE GAME reading the wurmpedia. That is not good design.

- inventory needs to be more organized, less text-y, more icons

- Sounds. We need more for so many things and they need to match events graphically depicted in the game, not the text window

- Voice acting for character conditions such as, "I can't carry anymore," "I am hungry!" "I need to rest" or "I can't reach that".

- Music. Need better music and more of it. I only hear approx. once an hour for about 30 seconds. Music should match the zone and or situation. ie. combat has started! or "you have just entered a dark spooky place!"

 

When the above is done, a new player can perform a simple action but feel connected to the world.

 

Example for Fishing. A player clicks on the fishing icon and selects the water tile to cast at, you see the characters arms cast a fishing rod, and a line to the water where it landed with sound effects, the water splashes, the player can right click for an option menu to tug gently, pull hard, or wait, a voice response indicates the player choice "steady now....", the water splashes again with sound effect, the player chooses pull hard and bingo! he gets a fish with another sound effect and voice effect "gotcha!". The player opens his inventory and sees a glowing outline on the new fish item. A mouse over shows it is a QL 45.00 perch.

 

 

Maps, waypoints, and directions have already been mentioned in other posts. I would remove the compass from the game and make directions or location easier to figure out. Maybe a compass can remain but improve basic information? An in-game map can show player-discovered regions. Those regions could have tutorial locations or public skilling sites marked on them. When I first started, I got lost, fell off a cliff and could not find my body. Had I understood the game better, I would have behaved differently!

 

 

For 2., players need to understand what to do quickly. Common tasks should be intuitive. More complicated ones should require tutorials.

 

Tutorials:

 

New players should have more tutorials for the most common things. ie. smithing, fishing, woodcutting, cooking, the game environment and simple things like why build a house, and of course combat. Then they at least understand the basics and can feed themselves. Why not have a tutorial so they can fight a basic mob, gather mats and make their first pieces of cloth armor?

 

Skill practice for noobs:

 

One problem I see is that everything is player owned near starting areas. Where do you cut a tree or mine? There should be occasional public trees or farms or mines for new players to use for minimal items and skill practice.

 

Crafting charts: Want to make a cart? Click on the carpentry icon in your skill window, select small cart in the vehicle tab to see a blueprint of the item and a description of what it can do and materials required. (Notice this follows the model of presenting a little information at first, then allowing the player to drill down for more info as needed). Drag items from your inventory window to the cart chart, and click Build to start building. This type of approach is way more visual and interactive for new players.

 

Money:

 

I also think introducing new players to some basic currency feels inclusive. If a player can sell his cart to an NPC for some iron, he feels like he can earn a living. You can slide NPC prices up or down depending on supply and demand to prevent money farming.

 

You want the early process to be rewarding. Satisfied players will soon see the need to become premium after that!

 

 

For 3., players need a reason to play. Unfortunately, most games are about killing things. Happily, Wurm is different that way. Players need to understand this right away and change their goals. You could have NPCs ask them to gather materials, or make things for them to gain rep or iron. When I started, my focus was, "how do I learn to fight?" and when I talked to people, I realized most players aspire to owning a big house. This is the "unique value" of this game and should be communicated and enshrined in player thinking.

 

I can't suggest anything for combat, because after one week of playing, I still haven't found anything to fight!

 

Hope this helps

[Stewen 45]

I dont know how you ppl think about human corpses (freedom clusters) but I realy hate mess around my village.
I hate when human corpses all around becouse the person didnt bury his own corpse (I live near spawn).
The new corpse model make my village look like a graveyard :/

 

I think anyone must able to bury any ppl corpses but just if its empty.
 

Edited July 2, 2013 by Stewen

[Protunia 735]

More GM involvement in game like those special Zombie events  always fun and good to have.

[Elen 1,013]

Make a GM controlled mega-boss and start kicking in skulls on Freedom somewhere. Give a title to participants who fight it. Event should last 6-10 hours (yes gm controlled monster the whole time).

 

We need a few more events. Nothing that would remove the focus of the sandbox though.

[Arkonick 557]

Now that you have a paper doll ui I would work on adding a cosmetic section page to it that allowed you to re skin a item to a different look.

This could open up a new item market online of cosmetic armor and weapons for more income. Every major mmo does this to increase there income for having F2p. you could make a new cash maybe for example call it Wurm cash. This cash could be used to purchase cosmetic item's on the online store and they would be added to your bank or inventory.

These type of items would have special glow to weapons and such. Armor would have more detail and different than anything that could be maid in game. Could make horse armor that can't be made in game yet you would have to make some type of horse ui with a cosmetic screen.

[Arkonick 557]

It's me again. With another what would I do.

Before any thing else I've suggested on this topic or any other for that matter. I would search for least 3 full time code developers to work in the shop to help move wurm a bit faster. As I can see pr tell the art department has art but this art needs code. I know it's a load on Rolf to have to go over all of it from volunteers before he can implement it but with a few more full time coders this would ease his load and help wurm flow a lot faster.

[anterion 4]

I am representative of nearly all American Gamers. Im casual, dont want things to be hard for no reason but i also want a sense of achievement. Wurm offers this. The foundation for the game is strong, HOWEVER:

 

Like Eve Online's early days, you have to get your tech upgraded. HIGHER FRAME RATES SHOULD BE A #1 PRIORITY.

 

If you look at the subscription graph for EVE, it spiked when CCP upgraded its hardware. Atm, i cannot go into Strongbox without wanting to kill myself. Jita (Eve's capital) was the same way before CCP put that system on its very own server.

 

Optimize the game, and watch the ppl flood in. 

 

E: one more thing, this game is a sandbox. Wasting development time on events (there isnt many of you) should be waaay down the list. And im sure it is. Focus on optimization and smoother gameplay. You guys are doing great, and the only reason im still playing is the hope that one day the tech will catch up. If there is no light at the end of the tunnel, im apt (not saying i will) move on to a different game.

Edited July 15, 2013 by anterion