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RedBaron_Johan

News Update: Work And Progress. Week 38

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Welcome Wurmians to this News Update of Week 38

Some words from the Developers
After we announced our focus there has been much charing and debating in several forum threads.
An especially reoccurring topic is the maps and the way people feel it affects gameplay. There has been much speculation and suggestions as to how it should (or not!) be implemented.
Our favorite reason so far for not wanting the maps, is the passion for being lost in the woods. Something we want to reassure you, will still be possible.
Though on the other hand, some are worried we wont go all the way implementing it to the extent of deeds showing and global positioning dot, making it "useless" in comparison to the community maps.
We are not competing with or replacing the community maps. Currently our map is realized as a useful and available tool, not taking away the survival and exploration aspects of the game.
It will not be implemented as a crafted item as we want it to be available for everyone from the very start.

Maps and Recruitment Board.
Maps are nearing completion and an example of work in progress is available for viewing here:
http://forum.wurmonline.com/index.php?/topic/87431-maps2/

The maps has so far been implemented and tested on the test server, functionality for annotations has been added.
The annotations work like this:
You have some for personal use, some are shared and available for people of the same village. Also, some are shared over the entire alliance.

Placing them is as easy as clicking your map, but you have a set amount and restrictions to who can place them on village and alliance level.

Village recruitment board is coming along nicely. Functionality is being tested for both putting up recruitment ads and requesting membership forms.

In collaboration between the map and recruitment board, a player is able to join a village from, for example, a starter zone.
This gives you access to the village shared map annotations and with that, the location of the village if it has been specified.
Using the map and compass you are able to start navigating and plotting a course by aiming at landmarks. With some skill and effort, getting to your destination is now a bit easier.

Money Distribution
There are possibilities to improve how money is distributed in the game, there are some changes being tested.
You will find information about Rolf's latest endeavor in this thread:
http://forum.wurmonline.com/index.php?/topic/87796-money-distribution-improvements/

Newbie Buff.
There has been some changes and additions to the Newbie buff:

*You wont get hungry or thirsty as quickly.
*Less aggro from mobs with a decreased aggro range.
*Better health regeneration.

Highlighted Bug Fixes.
Mycelium can now spread to bush tiles and the infected bush tiles can spread the Mycelium further.
The conditions of meditation tiles for Path of Hate has been fixed, and should now be working as intended.

That is all for now!
/The DevTeam

Edited by RedBaron_Johan
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All in all an excellent and critically needed set of improvements that hopefully will be successful in combating the issues they are designed for.

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Honestly I think the real question about maps is not if you want or not competing with the community maps, but if it justify the effort, resources and time of developers to make a tool that will have little or no use because most players will still chose to use the community ones.


 


Other than that good work!


 


PD: I know that most old players sometimes are afraid of changes, but imho, the game has already changed a lot since the first time I loged, and is my personal impression that most if not all the changes where real improvements, even the ones i didn´t liked for my own personal choices.


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Honestly I think the real question about maps is not if you want or not competing with the community maps, but if it justify the effort, resources and time of developers to make a tool that will have little or no use because most players will still chose to use the community ones.

If people think the maps as described above will have no benefit over the community maps, I think those people seriously underestimate the potential for being able to mark and share locations in real time with village and alliance.

 

I also foresee this as being a fun tool for treasure hunt activities and the like at organised events.

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Welcome Wurmians to this News Update of Week 38

Some words from the Developers

After we announced our focus there has been much charing and debating in several forum threads.

An especially reoccurring topic is the maps and the way people feel it affects gameplay. There has been much speculation and suggestions as to how it should (or not!) be implemented.

Our favorite reason so far for not wanting the maps, is the passion for being lost in the woods. Something we want to reassure you, will still be possible.

Though on the other hand, some are worried we wont go all the way implementing it to the extent of deeds showing and global positioning dot, making it "useless" in comparison to the community maps.

We are not competing with or replacing the community maps. Currently our map is realized as a useful and available tool, not taking away the survival and exploration aspects of the game.

It will not be implemented as a crafted item as we want it to be available for everyone from the very start.

Maps and Recruitment Board.

Maps are nearing completion and an example of work in progress is available for viewing here:

http://forum.wurmonline.com/index.php?/topic/87431-maps2/

The maps has so far been implemented and tested on the test server, functionality for annotations has been added.

The annotations work like this:

You have some for personal use, some are shared and available for people of the same village. Also, some are shared over the entire alliance.

Placing them is as easy as clicking your map, but you have a set amount and restrictions to who can place them on village and alliance level.

Village recruitment board is coming along nicely. Functionality is being tested for both putting up recruitment ads and requesting membership forms.

In collaboration between the map and recruitment board, a player is able to join a village from, for example, a starter zone.

This gives you access to the village shared map annotations and with that, the location of the village if it has been specified.

Using the map and compass you are able to start navigating and plotting a course by aiming at landmarks. With some skill and effort, getting to your destination is now a bit easier.

 

Well, if you wanted to do anything right, then YOU SHOULD be aiming to compete with community maps, which were created exactly because wurm didn't have a map. So if you're adding one, then IT SHOULD compete with the comunity Map.

 It should be BETTER than the community Map.

Instead it becomes a smaller community Map. One that shows the points that your village/alliance shares.

In otherwords, you are replacing a global community map with several local ones, which can be more or less exact.

 

If people think the maps as described above will have no benefit over the community maps, I think those people seriously underestimate the potential for being able to mark and share locations in real time with village and alliance.

 

I also foresee this as being a fun tool for treasure hunt activities and the like at organised events.

Yeah that is awesome, but then it doesn't have proper reference points. So yeah you can point stuff in the map, but unless you point 300 other items (deeds and roads on the way and whatnot) people still won't be able to get there exactly.

You're thinking of other games who have proper maps, and that marking locations is a handy tool for meets and whatnot, problem is on those maps people can always tell where they are because of the "you are here" blip. Then people just need to move the you are here near the other one.

In here you'll just have the destination blip, and left to your own devices to figure out the rest.

 

I'm not advocating a "you are here" but as it is, its useless, and basically a waste of Disk space.

 

So congrats on wasting time, money and resources on making YET ANOTHER useless "improvement".

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Its a sad day when developers don't learn from past mistakes. We've had these type of map limitation debates in the past and every single time the outcome is the same. The players end up using a high detail map that is easy to document road and villages. The idea of "getting lost in the wood" is not what history has shown the players want. And it may be what a vocal forum majority are asking for but thats the case every time.


 


I do thank you guys for at least sharing what your going to do.


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If people think the maps as described above will have no benefit over the community maps, I think those people seriously underestimate the potential for being able to mark and share locations in real time with village and alliance.

 

I also foresee this as being a fun tool for treasure hunt activities and the like at organised events.

if i can have unlimited markers and the size  was the same as the original dump files i know my alliance map would be the same or better than the community map,but why bother if its 1/4 the size of the map dumps

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Using the map and compass you are able to start navigating and plotting a course by aiming at landmarks. With some skill and effort, getting to your destination is now a bit easier.

 

This is in my opinion very bad. If you can set your compass to aim at a landmark you are completely removing the skills that have previously been needed. I enjoy looking at a map and determining where I am based on what I can see and where my compas points. This addition would completely remove the need for a skillset that most wurm players have built up after a long time.

 

Wurm is the only game I know where I need to use real life map skills to determine where I'm heading. Please don't remove this functionality by adding waypoints.

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RedBaron_Johan - Dev of the Year 2013 for excellent communication of development information.


 


He gets my vote.


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I would say marking the map and being able to share is fine.  (because the position is not automarked, so person marking can still make mistakes)


But no to auto-pointing/navigation (e.g. having a pointer that points to marker on map in real-time).


 


Instead, consider something like Navigation Skill which can use a sextant, or even use an accurate-enough star map in night sky texture, and sun position during day, enough to do our own navigation, using Compass, a Map, maybe a Sextant and our own knowledge and skills. (yeah.. just like in real life.). (In addition to the landmarks etc mentioned by RedBaron_Johan). i.e. some skill is involved.


Edited by smithforge
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So far I haven't seen any kind of "You are Here" marker (not even the vague kind from a crafted tool), so no fears of such... yet.


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So far I haven't seen any kind of "You are Here" marker (not even the vague kind from a crafted tool), so no fears of such... yet.

This should stay so.

But it can be interesting if we can come up with that "you are here" position by ourselves..

 

e.g.

Tools:

  • component: protractor - divides up a complete circle. measures angle. (can be a disc instead of the usual half-disc versions)
  • component: plumb-bob - string with a weight. Points "down" when held by the non-weighted end of the string. Defines "vertical".
  • tool: compass - magnetized pointer that when suspended freely (in the middle or floating on liquid) will point to "magnetic north" (which may not be grid north, but hell, we can make things simple in a non-real world).
  • tool: some dioptra variant - surveying tool to measure bearing and elevation of its position to a direction (not a position but all position along the ray). (uses 2 protractors, a plumb-bob and a compass). Looks like a rotatible protractor set in a vertical plane perpendicular on top of another protractor, with an attached plumb-pop and compass. The plumb bob is used to orientate the tool such that the "horizontal protactor" is realy horizontal abd the "vertical protractor" is vertical. The compass + horizontal protractor will measure the horizontal bearings. The vertical protractor + plumb-bob will measure the elevation.

Use:

After we have this, we will now measure the bearing and elevation of certain landmark positions. This includes: stars (if the night sky texture is consistent enough). Sun at time of day (assuming it did not blind us...), distant landmarks (like lighthouses, towers, or other points which can be seen from far away).

By measuring the bearing of a few visible landmarks from a position, we can now determine the relative position of "here" from the landmarks, on an accurate enough map. Thus determining the "You are here" position on the map.

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I would say marking the map and being able to share is fine.  (because the position is not automarked, so person marking can still make mistakes)

But no to auto-pointing/navigation (e.g. having a pointer that points to marker on map in real-time).

 

Instead, consider something like Navigation Skill which can use a sextant, or even use an accurate-enough star map in night sky texture, and sun position during day, enough to do our own navigation, using Compass, a Map, maybe a Sextant and our own knowledge and skills. (yeah.. just like in real life.). (In addition to the landmarks etc mentioned by RedBaron_Johan). i.e. some skill is involved.

 

 

 i like this idea we maybe have blank papyrus and ink to draw and made our own map to previus location we ever visit but with constant teraforming and deed disband the map maybe would able to given update or rechange when we visit them again so our map would be some outdate if we not renew  the map and not visit the area in long time, i think astrology skill (sextant) or geography skill would be use to create this kind map.

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