Happy New Year!

[DevBlog 3,404]

With a few hours left to midnight here in Sweden, I’m thinking about you guys toiling away in the mines, tending your fields, building your houses or scouting a settlement in enemy territory.

I want to thank you all for staying with us this year, and hope that you enjoy the steps Wurm has taken towards becoming what it is destined to. The release of 1.0 has been a huge success, and the future looks really bright:

• We still have lots of untested creature models and improvements to release that didn’t make it to 1.0.
• In general, sandbox (MMO) games are on the rise (as they should be), with new projects on kickstarter every month as it seems. 
• With the increase in premium players we’ll be able to maintain a steady increase in quality. We’ll also be able to look at various marketing options and  distribution models such as Steam or other partnerships.

I want to share with you a few graphs I think you may find interesting. The first one is the number of premium players graph:

http://jenn001.game.wurmonline.com/mrtg/paying

Normally any increase happens during weekends, and there’s a slow decline the first days of a week. As you can see it has a very nice growth since the release.

The next is the number of players on the login server:

http://jenn001.game.wurmonline.com/mrtg/wurm

The most interesting view is the yearly graph at the bottom. It shows a huge increase since Notch’s blog post, then a rise during release and a general increase from 4 players taking the tutorial on average any given time up to 12.

The last graph is the retention rate. It’s a very new graph I’ve created. I have no idea how this compares to other games but I think it’s pretty common for MMO’s to have high numbers here. In our case it shows the number of players who still pay premium out of those who ever paid premium:

http://jenn001.game.wurmonline.com/mrtg/retentionp

Basically, as of today, 24% of the players who ever paid premium for Wurm Online still pays premium. After 6 and a half years. I don’t know of any comparisons but it feels pretty out of the ordinary. You can find the underlying figures here:

http://jenn001.game.wurmonline.com/mrtg/retention

That said, we did/do lose a lot of players on the way (we have a conversion rate of approx 5-10% from f2p to premium). The main reason may be that we have spent virtually no time explaining the game to the public and we’ll put a lot of effort into doing that in 2013.

From reading various assorted feedback I think it’s due to a few factors such as:

• Before the release, the game lacked important graphical elements
• People don’t see goals for themselves which is common in sandboxes. We’ll improve on that by offering a few goals early on.
• People don’t see the scope of the game and think it’s only a building/creation game and not the adventure that the Epic servers offer with a strong endgame (which btw will be further improved).
• Non-premium players don’t understand that they can earn premium membership by offering to work for eachother.
• There is a misconception that it is a pay-to-win game which we really do our best to avoid. You’re always supposed to be able to earn money in Wurm somehow and if someone pays the traders for something, a large portion of the money goes back to the other players since he purchases stuff for it.

By the way, I have a final graph to show you regarding the economy of Wurm. This  one shows the economy of the old Chaos server. When I paste this, it shows that the traders on that server has something like 4 gold coins spare on the lowly populated server. So if you can find and access one of the remotely located ones there’s a high probability that it has up towards 10-20 silver coins you can extract by selling items:

http://wild001.game.wurmonline.com/mrtg/economy

It’s a benefit of settling on old servers in Wurm that the economy often is stable and there are old deeds paying upkeep which ends up in the hands of the traders that you eventually can extract. Circulation!

Good luck with your Wurming, and Happy New Year!

Rolf

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[Wulfgar 1,128]

Basically, as of today, 24% of the players who ever paid premium for Wurm Online still pays premium. After 6 and a half years. I don’t know of any comparisons but it feels pretty out of the ordinary.

It is out of the ordinary, and it is something you should take great pride in.

I played almost 4 years now and I hope for at least 4 years more of Wurming, so better not mess anything up

[Kegan 3,926]

I think the biggest thing for players is getting past the "i built my house now what" thing. Once they get in-game the first thing they want to do is build a house and make a place to call their own but once they get past that they don't know what to do next. Maybe having a Freedom mission system might help out with that some? I am not sure how it should be set up or if maybe even have an epic PvE server so that people can go do missions and get involved in that without taking the risk of losing all their hard work on deeds and stuff..IDK

One thing for sure the ones that do stay they seem to stay for much longer then any other game i have ever seen so getting them to that point is what you need to focus on i guess.

[Wiro 370]

Can't wait for the crashes and memory problems to be solved. Wurm has gotten a lot better in the past year, I guess it is to be expected that it became a little (a lot) unstable.

Happy new year all.

[Wulfgar 1,128]

Maybe having a Freedom mission system might help out with that some?

Why? Its a sandbox game and those people that run out of things to do after building their house, well a sandbox game is not for them.

Making missions for them won't do much good.

[Martynas5 435]

I think the biggest thing for players is getting past the "i built my house now what" thing. Once they get in-game the first thing they want to do is build a house and make a place to call their own but once they get past that they don't know what to do next. Maybe having a Freedom mission system might help out with that some? I am not sure how it should be set up or if maybe even have an epic PvE server so that people can go do missions and get involved in that without taking the risk of losing all their hard work on deeds and stuff..IDK

One thing for sure the ones that do stay they seem to stay for much longer then any other game i have ever seen so getting them to that point is what you need to focus on i guess.

Had this "what to do now" problem. This is becouse wurm has no missions in pve servers so new people have to find their own goals. Quests would help, but if they are made players must be rewarded.

I think that it is better idea to make post-tutorial server big as deliverance, exo there players are capped to 20 level and can stay (or instantly get into freedom cluster servers) until they feel that game is for them and they know goals etc. Less abandoned shacks and so on.

Edited December 31, 2012 by Martynas5

[Wiro 370]

A golden valley-like server would be cool. As long as we don't make the other servers premium-only.

Edited December 31, 2012 by Wiro

[Ecrir 887]

I think having a list of achievements, that's visible to the player (make it obvious early on in the tutorial how they can find the window with achiements so they can't miss it), could help with the "what to do now" problem. There's no need for an actual award besides the achievements themselves, though maybe they could give a small boost to the relevant skill (probably with no boost gained if the skill is over 20, so it's just a very small early bonus).

Such a system could be used to encourage players to explore certain features of the game, so they are more likely to find something they like to do before running into the "what to do now" problem.

It's pretty much just like how we have titles for 50, 70 and 90 skill levels, those are achiements that encourage players to grind their ass of to that, giving them a goal and something to do.

I did notice some achievements lately, got one recently from boarding my sailboat, so I guess work in that direction is already being done?

[alaskanbob 225]

I think having a list of achievements, that's visible to the player (make it obvious early on in the tutorial how they can find the window with achiements so they can't miss it), could help with the "what to do now" problem. There's no need for an actual award besides the achievements themselves, though maybe they could give a small boost to the relevant skill (probably with no boost gained if the skill is over 20, so it's just a very small early bonus).

Such a system could be used to encourage players to explore certain features of the game, so they are more likely to find something they like to do before running into the "what to do now" problem.

It's pretty much just like how we have titles for 50, 70 and 90 skill levels, those are achiements that encourage players to grind their ass of to that, giving them a goal and something to do.

I did notice some achievements lately, got one recently from boarding my sailboat, so I guess work in that direction is already bein?g done?

Some of those have been in place for months

But maybe making a list of basic achievement lists to help em out? Build a house, build a boat, sow a couple of fields. Lead a horse, Your first kill ect ect. Would give em a couple directions to point towards.

[Lolabelle 597]

With the thought of missions.

Would it be a good idea to maybe make missions/achievements such as farming, cooking, fire making.

These could act as an additional tutorial with a purpose and reward.

I do remember when i started wurm that i had to go to a NPC person in Newtown and get my backpack and such and complete missions.

[Lolabelle 597]

Some of those have been in place for months

But maybe making a list of basic achievement lists to help em out? Build a house, build a boat, sow a couple of fields. Lead a horse, Your first kill ect ect. Would give em a couple directions to point towards.

THIS

[Fireflyb 920]

When talking about what players should "do" after building their first house or whatever, I'd say this: If you look at Wurm as a sandbox, creativity provided by the player is the main factor in what you do.. I think Wurm has a rather nice balance between what you're given to do and what you are able to do, although I think the former part should be strengthened. Enabling finer creativity and more tools to be creative is of utmost importance in a game like this, at least IMO.

[Lancelot 765]

Although the graphics may not have been there prior to the release of 1.0, as far as retention is concerned at least, the staying factor is the community. It's been a bumpy ride not just for us players but for you too, and now this MMO can look forward as not only do we have the input financially to sustain these updates, but a regular flow of people wanting to give this a try. Once tried, most will stay. This calculation comes from when Independence opened its doors to non - premium players. As an elder of Silent Hill on that server, we took in a large number of new players. Because of the help and advice they recieved, about 70% of them bough premium time and have kept it up. Some now with skills in the 80's and higher, which can only serve as a welcome note to other new players wanting to try Wurm.

The amount of work that has gone into the game recently by all the development team deservers recognition. You deserve it, and I think I'm safe to say so do we.

Let's move forward.

[Redd 4,281]

Chaos still hasn't been looked into.

Happy new year anyhoo

[GreenHero 72]

Chaos still hasn't been looked into.

Happy new year anyhoo

Or a mention of it..

In any case, Happy New Years All!!!

Edited January 1, 2013 by GreenHero

[Evilvision 301]

I think the biggest thing for players is getting past the "i built my house now what" thing. Once they get in-game the first thing they want to do is build a house and make a place to call their own but once they get past that they don't know what to do next. Maybe having a Freedom mission system might help out with that some? I am not sure how it should be set up or if maybe even have an epic PvE server so that people can go do missions and get involved in that without taking the risk of losing all their hard work on deeds and stuff..IDK

One thing for sure the ones that do stay they seem to stay for much longer then any other game i have ever seen so getting them to that point is what you need to focus on i guess.

I lived on JKH and when it closed down I was on Freedom minutes after it. Sailed South and dropped a deed and I am still not finished with it and have 3 other projects I work on and have been slowly since then. With a touch of imagination I cant see someone ever running out of things to do but thats me. I do wish we had PVE servers though.

[ReaverKane 363]

GZ Rolf, Its good to see Wurm on the right track...

Too bad with great popularity comes greater number of bad players...

I founded my deed on exodus about a year ago, the community where i settled was great, we formed an alliance early on, most of the stuff was public for everyone to use.

Now recently, half the area is fenced off, theres player simply hostilizing others, and even though no rules are broken (well, mostly because of crappy ruling like perimetering over active player's houses, and adding guard radius to perimeters) you have half a dozen guys hostilizing at least another half a dozen (who were there first too).

In spite of this i had a really good time with wurm this year, and with the new things, new projects keep rolling into mind.

Happy new year Wurmians!

[Klaa 4,872]

Wait... Wurm isnt pay-to-win?

[Martynas5 435]

Wait... Wurm isnt pay-to-win?

It is not pay-to-win. Free player can work for coins so he/she can buy deed/trader/premium easy

[Spolmit 627]

For me it is clear that Wurm has a winning formula. We have a development team who are working tirelessly to improve the quality and content. Of course there are problems that still need attended to- but that is what makes the game realistic / challenging. I must also agree with Lancelot that it is the community that is a major factor in the success of the game as well. In my experience (July 11- and now 3 premium characters on 3 different servers), it is rare indeed to meet someone who is not willing to help, advise and support.

I would like to say thank you to everyone involved in the game, developers and gamers for making it such a pleasurable experience.

Happy New Year to everyone.

[MetalDragon 1,630]

One thing that puzzled me with release of 1.0 was there was no email sent to everyone who had previously signed up, or atleast i didn't get one. So the announcement was pretty much mouth to mouth unless you read blogs/reviews showing it.

I've played Wurm since just after the start of Gold 2, i continue to play this game, other devs may attempt to build something like Wurm but i doubt they will produce anything better than it. The amount of customisation you can do to the land in this game is supurb.

There's a topic in Woodscraps called what ruined games for you? I think Wurm was on everyones list, just because it's set the benchmark of what to expect in a sandbox mmo.

Happy New Year to you all, hope you have many goals set on how to improve Wurm much more to become a bigger better game for us all!

[Wiro 370]

One thing that puzzled me with release of 1.0 was there was no email sent to everyone who had previously signed up, or atleast i didn't get one. So the announcement was pretty much mouth to mouth unless you read blogs/reviews showing it.

They better wait until after the crashes and memory problems are sorted out, I think.

[Huserx 189]

Happy New Year.

I am no expert in statistics, but I think part of the problem in determining prems who stay prem figures are deed holding alts. As is new player count by pristine\release alts.

One more singular metric may be paypal accounts that purchase prem. This could still be variable but less so I might think.

I.e. Offset by ingame prem renewals.

Edited January 1, 2013 by Huserx

[aimet 4]

well I for one am looking forward to seeing what the dev team will come up with and release in the next year..

o and if wurm hits steam.. o boy there are gunna be players everywhere!

I'm currently kinda new and have subbed up myself..

I played wurm many many years ago and back then I wasnt really to impressed by it.. or it was just over wealming to me.

mabey its cause i'm older and wiser now

but I really enjoy the game now.

I dont think any other sandbox will come close to the xp I get in wurm..

Happy New year Everyone

[Rolf 3,563]

Last time we sent out emails it took over 24 hrs for some reason and it lagged the login server. We didn't take time to change email setup before the release since the effort was an uncertain factor.