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Declining Player Curve

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First of all spend some money and do some advertising, it's time...

 

I have to ask, how much good did Gavin do for the game when he was given special treatment on his ban, how much good did Doughboy do for the game when he was given special treatment for his sound work that later threatened lawsuit?

Bashur is probably the saving grace.... NO.

 

Spend some money to promote your game and livelyhood, then profit.

Special treatment to players will never do it, only alienate the LOYAL, paying customers you already have. It seems like you take us for granted Rolf, like we are always gonna be here, that aint cool, even if it maybe true to some extent.

 

Spend some money bro, I offered to put together free advertising a few times but was brushed off.

Budget some money for advertising next year, it is time.

 

The game isn't going to go viral after all these years so it is time to do it the old fashoned way, with hard work and promotion.

 

Well said... some ads would bring in alot more new players than 1 random kid with some youtube followers who will most likely never even go premium.

Edited by Dextrome

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Bah! Publish the game on steam and get the numbers up again.

 

That's a 3year project for Rolf, integrating wurm with steamworks.

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The game has grown yet Rolf seems to be stuck in his old ways? He has put to much burden on himself and needs to share the load... However hard that maybe. 

 

I still believe this is one of the biggest problems today yes.

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rolf hired a new PR guy the other month, yet we seen no new advertising,  whats the new PR guy doing? isn't it his job to sort out promoting wurm?


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rolf hired a new PR guy the other month, yet we seen no new advertising,  whats the new PR guy doing? isn't it his job to sort out promoting wurm?

Redbaron_Johan is working his ass off - He is absolutely covered up atm and is working on a number of items that I cannot discuss here. There are many many things in the works atm. I expect we will all hear from him very soon.

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PR = Public Relations.


Public Relations also should handle just that. Rolf made a huge mistake, and instead of him going to the forums himself , acting completely immature and unprofessional, someone good at PR should have handled it.


 


A few things about declining player numbers: Just wait for May 2014 when all the one-year subscriptions from the old price run out, then you will see declining numbers. I doubt Bashur will change that. Notch has 1.2 million followers on his Twitter and has mentioned Wurm several times. We got a small influx of Minecraft players that quit after 1 hour.


 


How to fix the reclining player numbers?


Start acting like a professional. Less content, more polish. Fix all bugs before moving on to new content. Polish existing content before moving on to new content. Less is better sometimes.


Rolf could start focusing on animal balance, mail system, creation system (the materials required to build new vs old is way off), and client stability.


Also stop responding to players emails or messages on IRC. At least before you do anything, check with your staff/team. Thats what they are there for, to be your ears and eyes on the ground and help give feedback.


 


The problem with the price increase is that it also increased the players expectations. Wurm players deserve better IMHO.

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PR = Public Relations.

Public Relations also should handle just that. Rolf made a huge mistake, and instead of him going to the forums himself , acting completely immature and unprofessional, someone good at PR should have handled it.

 

A few things about declining player numbers: Just wait for May 2014 when all the one-year subscriptions from the old price run out, then you will see declining numbers. I doubt Bashur will change that. Notch has 1.2 million followers on his Twitter and has mentioned Wurm several times. We got a small influx of Minecraft players that quit after 1 hour.

 

How to fix the reclining player numbers?

Start acting like a professional. Less content, more polish. Fix all bugs before moving on to new content. Polish existing content before moving on to new content. Less is better sometimes.

Rolf could start focusing on animal balance, mail system, creation system (the materials required to build new vs old is way off), and client stability.

Also stop responding to players emails or messages on IRC. At least before you do anything, check with your staff/team. Thats what they are there for, to be your ears and eyes on the ground and help give feedback.

 

The problem with the price increase is that it also increased the players expectations. Wurm players deserve better IMHO.

 

 

Fair enough but we aren't minecraft, managing a non MMO is so much easier than managing a MMO especially like Wurm is.

 

Here will everytime be people who complain about the style of the developement. If Wurm would go into one year just bug fixes another part would cry for new content.

Wurm has many problems nobody has ever doubt that and many faults have been done but this is life being perfect is no option. Many things will need to be changed before Wurm can be compared with the playerbase of minecraft, but I am pretty sure one day Wurm will be up there.

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To the OP, it has been a catch 22 situation as regards to advertising, or being able to do so. The game a few years ago was not 'aesthetically pleasing' to any possible suitors, and numbers were lower. Since the recent updates of the last year or so, then marketing is a much more viable option. However that said, it COULD have been done 4 years ago as a 'going concern'. 


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I don't think people realize if this game were to explode tomorrow with 2000+ new players, it would just be chaos.  I hate to staff bash, but.. they are volunteers, like I waited hours before to get a /support, imagine all the griefing, questions, threads, etc.  


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Exactly my point Posteh, the staff are only volunteers, and only until the last couple years or so, have remained so. It is only in that short time frame that Rolf has started actually employing people.


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Plus if 30 or more people do things in the same location the game crashes or at least lags really badly. It's not really designed for mmo.


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That's not the game itself Judicator, it's the platform upon which it is built. 


Java.


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Rolf has too much bad publicity on sites like MMORPG.com to fight this with a simple add campaign. He needs a good trailer with some shots of places like Castellum and some fight scenes coupled with some boats. He needs a full length development plan with a timeline, and he needs everyone who currently plays to go on a word of mouth campaign.

 

Lastly and most importantly sombody needs to create a real quality strategy guide (dummy proof) on how to survive initially, hunt, make stuff, and build your own home in that order.

 

Lastly Lastly the established players need to be less critical and rude to new players who don't know jack squat when they ask dumb questions in chat. They are new players. OF COURSE THEY WILL ASK DUMB QUESTIONS....

 

As awesome as my deed is, you're giving it too much credit :lol:

I do however agree that the game needs advertising.

We shall wait and see what Red_Baron does...

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Performance issues have nothing to do with java itself. Take a look at other very successful java games, like Runescape. Even in 2001 they were able to host 2000+ players per server and it could handle a few hundred players in one place.


 


A bigger problem for performance I'd assume, is that the landscape is made by the players, and so more information has to be transmitted between server and client than conventional MMO's.


 


Don't get me wrong, the game generally runs pretty smooth for me.


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Ad agencies do exist, despite the expertise of the playerbase.

 

Thanks for this. I guess the thought never occurred to you that some people might have expertise or experience in public relations or advertising AND actually play wurm.

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Performance issues have nothing to do with java itself. Take a look at other very successful java games, like Runescape. Even in 2001 they were able to host 2000+ players per server and it could handle a few hundred players in one place.

 

A bigger problem for performance I'd assume, is that the landscape is made by the players, and so more information has to be transmitted between server and client than conventional MMO's.

 

Don't get me wrong, the game generally runs pretty smooth for me.

 

It also has a lot to do with poorly optimized coding.

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Problem is that every server only holds about 120 people, so if we start getting an influx that large, lots of servers will need to be added quickly. Maybe if there was a massive iflux, no new players could be let in until the server space is ready. Another issue is that there could be events were players all crowd together on the same server (impalongs, battles, unique slayings, etc).


 


For instance, the wave of people that Bashur brought caused GV to crash. Maybe if GV had a cap of 30 people and it told people after that point that "they have to wait, " it would prevent a sudden wave of noobs from crashing everything.


Edited by Sir Arowhun

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For instance, the wave of people that Bashur brought caused GV to crash. Maybe if GV had a cap of 30 people and it told people after that point that "they have to wait, " it would prevent a sudden wave of noobs from crashing everything.

 

With the amount of free games nowaday, when players found they can't enter a game, whichever crash or limit, they will leave, forgot, and never come back.

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Wurm hasn't managed to do much to thrill me as a customer lately.  I'm paying $10 a month for this?


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tissues1.jpg


 


Advertising costs money.


Giving a special welcome to someone costs no money.


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With the amount of free games nowaday, when players found they can't enter a game, whichever crash or limit, they will leave, forgot, and never come back.

 

This is being directly addressed. Internal and external resources are being brought to bear on this issue and it has a high priority.

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Advertising costs money.

Giving a special welcome to someone costs no money.

 

In this case it can actually cost quite a lot of money to give "special" treatment to someone.

We will see come May.

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Just my 2 cents...

I am well aware that the developers have to found a balance between adding content, tweaking existing content and fixing bugs. Yet, at this moment I think too much focus is given to adding new features (some of which were great - true) and way too less to fixing existing problems. I'm quite sure that people would be happy with one major update per year - like we had in December and July, one suggestion implemented every month (maybe have a poll for the most desired suggestion coming from the community) - like adding the possibility to have beds in our caves or something, and other than that focus on bug fixes to improve players experience.

Everyone working in sales knows that increasing income can be done in two ways - getting more customers or squezing more money from existing customers by overselling (remember the "go big" promotions from fast-foods)? I don't talk about a cash shop, but about some basic things - like the option to gift premium to other players from shop or having a discount on larger orders of coins (which you'll spend in game anyway).

Also, don't minimize the importance of micro transactions. Many people may not be willing to chip 16 euros right away, but might be willing to start by buying just one silver if that option would be available - enough to get them a rowboat. And once they made the first purchase, they are much more likely to make another one and another one.

About massive advertising - I would say NO for now; the game is just not in the shape to neither hold a large group of newcomers (saw what happend with GV last week), neither to convert many of them (lots of bugs and crashes still, poor tutorial, not eniugh guides, step learning curve, etc). For now I think they try to do the right thing trying to improve the experience of new players.

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Well, I say we look at the premium being bought BEFORE the price increase, and choose the average, add 4-5 months to that, then add VAT in, and see what rolfs income  was with the old price.


 


THEN, look at the new price, look at the average of prems being bought now, add 4-5 months to that, then add VAT in.. see what his income is now.


 


Which is higher?


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