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Loremaster

Revert All Of The Unpopular Updates

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Recently Wurm has been attacked by several unpopular updates: the lamp change, tunneling creatures and bashing trolls being the most prominent. I propose a removal of these changes as they provide nothing beneficial to the community as a whole and only serve to create something we have to "deal with." These changes hurt the game by steering new and old players alike towards the door and I don't really think that's the best direction for Wurm to be moving at this point. I've heard Rolf say that since the subscription rate is so low that the game can't die, but even if the game was free, if it's annoying and tedious no one is going to want to play it, so I can assure you Rolf it can die.

I urge comments from all of you, even if they are in support of these changes, so we can finally close a large rift in this game.

Edited by Loremaster

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The absolute worst change of all was horses not going backwards at full speed and the move forward while turning change.

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The absolute worst change of all was horses not going backwards at full speed and the move forward while turning change.

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The absolute worst change of all was horses not going backwards at full speed and the move forward while turning change.

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Every change has some people for, and some against. Some are less popular than others of course - however, it's Rolf's game, and his vision. Pandering to the majority on all decisions would turn wurm into a clone of other more popular games. Personally I play Wurm because it's different, and on the whole, I understand all the changes, even if some don't make my life in game easier. Out of the 4 mentioned so far:

Lamps: I have not struggled in the slightest to provide enough oil for my deed while I'm away from the game for quite a while - it took me about 2 hours to collect and press them. I don't have a problem with this change. I always wondered why they were infinitly fuelled.

Tunneling creatures: I like the idea. When it first came in it was horrifically bugged. However, as those bugged tiles are discovered and fixed, while the creatures can mess up a mine, I accept it as a hazard. I would like to be able to raise cave floors though to make fixing things like this easier.

Bashing trolls. Another that only serves to inconvinience me, however, again, I'm OK with the threat being there, makes the place that much more dangerous. Having said that, I would support a 'no bashing for trolls on deed' limitation - particularly on Freedom. If players can't, then mob's shouldn't be able to either.

Horse movement. I prefer it now, I like the faster turning adjustments although I agree that turning shouldn't force forward movement - RL horses are able to turn on the spot.

So on the whole, I dissagree that the less popular changes should be reversed, but some could be adapted.

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Not all updates are equally unpopular, who gets to decide what gets reverted? If I could vote I would say get rid of karma, achievements and rare items, and revert the bulk timer update that messed up more than it helped,

I think the reason the unpopular updates are unpopular is because they are basically just implemented, then not followed up upon and bugs never fixed.

Keep in mind though, that Wurm's subscription count continues to rise despite all the poor updates, so he must do something right :-)

Edited by Wulfgar

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I would like to be able to raise cave floors though to make fixing things like this easier.

This. Being able to drop shards as some kind of filler to raise a cave tile corner would be a good start. It'd need some kind of limit though, to stop people raising the floors through the ceiling or something stupid.

Edited by syncaidius

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however, it's Rolf's game, and his vision. Pandering to the majority on all decisions would turn wurm into a clone of other more popular games.

I'm getting sick of hearing this. Sure, Rolf is the creator and owner, but if it was up to him alone this game would be dead. There's the team of (volunteer) developers and moderators that help designing this game, and of course the player base that keeps the game together and helps funding it with their payments. Without this, the game wouldn't be where it is now. Completely ignoring the suggestions of these people and instead adding things that upset the majority while saying "Rolf can do what he want, so f*** ya'll", will most likely harm the future of this project.

That said, I don't know many other (popular) Sandbox games that are like Wurm. Maybe you do, but I'm not entierly sure how for example taking away deed light, destroying tunnel systems or massacring cattle herds, which contrary to how Wurm has been since about forever and I'm pretty sure I haven't seen most of these things in other games, turn this into a clone. Wurm is imho one of the greatest Sandbox games and it's a unique kind. Most of the ideas we get that enhance game play and contents barely find themselves cloned from other games. They don't need to be added now, but why instead take steps backwards by removing features that keeps people happy? Rather than listening to the playerbase and approach their ideas and suggestions to at least find a middle thing in this, they get mostly ignored.

Yes this is Rolfs dream, but this dream won't fulfill itself if there's nobody to help funding, developing or in the end wanting to play it.

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-1

Rolf should not revert all the changes a bunch of forum posters gang up on him and call him names for.

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I'm sick of hearing about Rolf's vision too. This is also a business, and where I come from there is an old business saying, the customer is always right. Besides, I am convinced that at this point Rolf does not really know how the game actually plays anymore. It happens when you do all the coding and no playing. You make so many changes you really don't remember how it all goes together. That explains why Rolf tells interviewers about things he thinks you can do in Wurm, but we know you can't (Anyone figured out how to use a horse to find a water tile?).

The forums exist so Rolf can get feedback on all his changes. And he needs to pay attention to both positive and negative feedback if he really wants this game to grow.

Ok, here's my take on the latest updates that upset me.

1. Lamps - It was never magic to me that my lamps were fueled, it was supposed to be part of upkeep. Just like repairs are made to structures without supplying materials.

2. Tunneling creatures - Might have been a good idea IF THIS WAS A 3D GAME. As it is all they did was cause massive screw ups in mines that took way too much effort to correct.

3. Horses - While horse movement needed a fix, as far as I'm concerned it still does. And making them get attacked was a step backward in trying to get folks to keep fewer animals.

4. Bashing trolls - Seems to be more like it should have been now, I always thought that a PVE server needs some danger. But when Rolf introduced it he set it way too high and caused massive problems, and the most problems for the newest players. Not a good way to get the subscriptions up. Rolf really needs to be more cautious, and introduce a change that may be too weak and needs tweaked up, rather than the overpowered changes like he did here.

5. Meditation Answers removed from Wiki - He had a problem with too many advancing too fast, and enchanted grass from the love path was becoming quite common in everyone's pastures. His problem was the fact that advanced players on a meditation path can enlighten others to a higher level, even if they did not have the skill. I know of many players that have only 18 meditation skill, but thanks to enlightenment are at level 7 on the path of love so they can enchant pastures. If he had removed enlightenment it would have slowed most players on a meditation path considerably. Instead, after letting the answers be put in the wiki and being there over a year he decides it is wrong, removes them, and threatens anyone who shares the answers. Not one of his best PR days.

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There have been hundreds of unpopular updates, the new fighting system was one of them many years ago. So many hated it and didn't want it, others kept telling Rolf it was nowhere near ready but he didn't listen and put it into the game anyway.

Then we had to go through years of bugs and exploits and general catastrophies to get it fixed.

Rolf makes many unwanted updates and when he gets negative feedback usually either ignores it or simply tells everyone to trust him, he knows what he's doing.

Rolf needs to listen to his customers more, yes. But he won't. Don't ask me why he just wont.

See the good ideas that are being posted in Suggestions and Ideas? How many of them ever get added? Almost none, maybe one or two here and there every year or so but the rest get ignored.

Rolf isn't a bad guy but he is a very stubborn developer and I do not mean that in an insulting way in the slightest. He has his ideas and visions and he won't back down from them whichis a level of determination I can admire and somewhat relate to.

Sadly it doesn't make for a good game when most of your players don't like the ideas. There has to be a time when you admit that the idea isn't very popular and give way to what the majority want.

The other problem is the minority. You'll get one or two weirdos out of the whole playerbase who will shout and scream about how much they love the unpopular ideas and constantly whine at how everyone else is whining about something they don't like. These people really tick me off because regardless of the fact that they are the minority they are so loud that Rolf listens to them as if they were the majority and then these people will basically taunt the others by ranting on about how glorious the terrible idea is. They're like masochists.

So yeah, that's basically how Wurm development works.

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-1

Rolf should not revert all the changes a bunch of forum posters gang up on him and call him names for.

Come on Protunia, even you will have to admit there were some changes recently you feel were not necessary. This is a thread to vent on that a little, so go ahead and let us know which you did not like and why.

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Im also upset with the "Rolf's game" excuse. Wurm is a product; not a painting. We don't go to a museum to appreciate it we pay actual money for it and expect the fullest extent of our money in return. By no means is Rolf unable to change his own game but he should at least touch base with his customers and test his updates before releasing them.

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Unfortunately, if we are being very honest, there might as well not be a suggestion section. It's more of a discussion corner than anything, a special bin for posts that end up largely ignored. Either the developers change the way they treat the suggestions forum, or some sort of compilation team is made (I'll carefully avoid the word "council"). That, or, you know, we can sit here and play pretend.

Whichever way this goes, the game is amazing which is the only reason Rolf can afford to treat his customers like this.

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What defines unpopular?

I'd say when the majority on your paying customers are opposed to something you'd call that unpopular as a business owner. Or in Wurm we could just say EVERY change that's been made to pve for the sake of pvp is unpopular since they hurt the majority while benefiting the few.

Changes on my reversion list would be:

On deed lamps being put back exactly as they were.

Remove horses drawing aggro.

Remove the CR nerfs from pets & led animals.

Allow us to hitch bears, crocs, unicorns, etc. like before.

Revert the back up speed on horses.

No bashing or tunneling creatures other than drakes & dragons.

I could go on but you get the general idea. All of the above nerfs to the game had their roots in changes that may or may not have been necessary in pvp yet the majority of us who don't pvp have had to live with them.

Rolf seems to be unaware, or simply doesn't care, that he's alienating the majority of his customers when he implements changes that take away features from pve. Every growing business reaches a point where you have to make decisions that allow you to bring in new customers while not losing the ones you already have. I don't know why game developement would be any different.

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I still haven't seen any tunneling creatures, and I just left the game for a month long vacation, came back, and found my troll happily in his cage (fed by tower guards, apparently). In short, I don't really care about those. It did almost cost me a drake set once, but oh well.

I agree that unicorns/bears/ect should be hitch-able.

I think horses shouldn't draw aggro from mobs other than maybe tower guards/spirit templars. It was originally added to prevent us from trolling around on enemy starter deeds and killing noobs some 50 tiles in. Ironically, it didn't help.

The CR nerf on tamed animals has to stay in, but only on PvP servers. If they had their full strength and could be used in PvP, a champ troll would be better than any fighter on the server (assuming luck is against them). Although, this could be remedied by removing the stupid animals-hit-three-times-every-second-change and partial parry.

The back up speed of horses was changed to... add realism, or immersion, or make traps funnier. I dunno. I don't really care. Sounds fun to go backwards at full speed again though.

Minedoors in houses should be reimplemented.

But to be honest, the chances that any of these will be reverted is slim to none. No matter how much the communities vies and protest, Rolf rarely listens to suggestions that involve reverting game play mechanics. I'm not sure why, but instead we tend to get strange patches and nerfs, which usually either make the feature totally pointless or break something else in the process. A great example is horse barding.

1. Barding gets implemented.

2. All horses are tanks.

3. Barding and horses become essential to pvp.

4. If you don't have a horse, you cannot pvp.

5. Rolf makes it so that horses slow down when hit.

6. Horses are now somewhat balanced.

7. Rolf makes it so that barding reduces horse speed dramatically.

8. Everyone takes the iron barding off their horses.

9. Iron barding is now rarely seen in combat.

And thus the progression of a cool feature that was over powered, tweaked, and then pushed down to the novelty bin. Another great example is champions. Champions were made hideously over powered, broke pvp for about a year, and was eventually patched, nerfed, changed, and finally rest on what we have now- no champs, and a broken system in case anyone actually feels like trying it.

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And how do you plan to do this exactly? Wasnt tunneling creatures and trolls bashing fences removed or severely nerfed anyway? Ive never had a problem with those.

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What defines unpopular?

I think that's part of the purpose of this thread. Everyone expresses which ones they felt were unpopular, and we see which ones start rising to the top. So, Aetherwalker, which ones did you not like?

Edited by Vroomfondel

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Remember when fishing used to be doable? back when it was only really hard to level and very difficult to make a pendent with Litd with out spending a couple silver. Well way back then i decided I was going to level my fishing cause there know way any one would ever mess with an already difficult skill. Then my fishing poles started breaking randomly. So i bought really nice ones in fm high ql, nice and fancy, and they broke. Now i make planks.

Why? Cause i figured out how to project nerfs, if multie story houses are going to come out soon they will be way cool right? Then they will get tweaked and then debated and then nerfed so it takes even longer to nail a plank on, for example. So i suggest reading dev twitters and blogs to get ahead of the nerfing curve.

This is not our world we just live in it, and its getting more and more difficult. I'm going to stick it out as long as possible but im getting better at surviving the devs. Now i just have to watch out for bears o.0.

So in short, my least favorite nerf is the next one that isn't needed cause i already have to deal with these. I've let three deeds go, no more alts. It's just to much work to try and make it big. I'll enjoy planks while i still can.

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Wait, people liked horses going backwards at full speed? Personally, one of my more favoured changes, but I guess that's what this thread is for.

Also, I agree that "It's Rolf's game!" shouldn't be a catch-all shield for all unpopular changes. That needs to stop.

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And how do you plan to do this exactly? Wasnt tunneling creatures and trolls bashing fences removed or severely nerfed anyway? Ive never had a problem with those.

Tunneling creatures were fixed so that rather than creating dropshafts to water level, they just mined bits of floor away etc. Also, trolls still bash fences - at least they were doing it to my deed a month ago (I've not been in game for a bit).

Also, I agree that "It's Rolf's game!" shouldn't be a catch-all shield for all unpopular changes
My aim wasn't to say that we shouldn't have a say in what will help improve the game. Every idea will have proponents and opponents and I have no doubt Rolf gets many suggestions/complaints etc that conflict with each other. In the grand scheme of things we can't all have the game we want because it conflicts with others', so my point was more that Rolf's trying to make the game he envisages. Each change will either make all of the people happy some of the time, or some of the people all of the time, but you'll never make all of the people happy all of the time.

For instance, Trolls bashing fences, all I see is uproar about it in some threads and demanding it's removed, but then there is a thread in the suggestions board asking for lockpicking goblins working with trolls.

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I recal the massive flame wars (player vs player) over when archery was being balanced... armor atributes were being tweaked, especially leather (that caused alot of uproar in forums)... the gimping of prices for most items (in beta one could have 200+ deeds w/o using exploits)... Self-healing Fo fighters in beta (for a long time after, Fo priests couldnt attack)

As has been mentioned, mere popularity does not indicate the need for a change. Let alone whether the change is good or bad in the long run. However, that is not saying Rolf and staff are not open to player feedback. Even the nature of the feedback can be open to controversy.

Granted when everyone and his dog are doing something... it probably needs a nerf. Although, there are changes I would personally like to see removed. You will never see me mention most of them publically however :P

Edited by Klaa

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I recal the massive flame wars (player vs player) over when archery was being balanced... armor atributes were being tweaked, especially leather (that caused alot of uproar in forums)... the gimping of prices for most items (in beta one could have 200+ deeds w/o using exploits)... Self-healing Fo fighters in beta (for a long time after, Fo priests couldnt attack)

As has been mentioned, mere popularity does not indicate the need for a change. Let alone whether the change is good or bad in the long run. However, that is not saying Rolf and staff are not open to player feedback. Even the nature of the feedback can be open to controversy.

Granted when everyone and his dog are doing something... it probably needs a nerf. Although, there are changes I would personally like to see removed. You will never see me mention most of them publically however :P

Then why did you make a post? The purpose of this thread is to state which changes you did not like. Take a stand and speak up, or please, at least stay out of the way.

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