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Suntzu

Declining Player Curve

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Very refreshing, open minded and humble/friendly post, thank you Claies :)


I hope this will bring this thread to rest though, I put my trust in the people that kept this thing alive for so long, and I don't see any "decline" in my areas, I meet people, I see people, I hear of folks going premium all the time. My colleague started playing a month ago, and this month he is going premium, we keep meeting newbies, that just started, and they are happily setting up around our village.  People are just being people...

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-wall of text-

 

Before playing Wurm, when I saw that Wurm had hardly 100 players in a server at any giving time, I thought it was dying.

 

But yea, after playing Wurm (almost 7 months) you realize that neither the server's hardware, the server's code, or the servers map(the size of map, amunt of buildable terrain, resources... etc). Can handle more than 300+ players.

Now, you throw as extra, wurmlogic, and mobs that can one-hit kill you, things became even "funnier".

 

I think we(I mean the comunity, 'cuz I'm using this since I started) should start using Dwarf Fortress's concept of FUN

 

And by the way, Claies, in Serenity JHK you will (almost)always find people that are chatting and to chat with(If you see that Forgedrake is not talking, he is in spaming in villavechat). Don't know about Elevation or the others home servers tho.

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when Independence has 100+ players on it, things are just fine for me, given I am not very far from FM, (20 minutes), but there's a constant supply of folks coming past us on the South mountain road, and a fair deal of chat happening during the day on Local. Seeing more players would be awesome, but if we can get to 200-250, that would be just dandy for me :-)


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when Independence has 100+ players on it, things are just fine for me, given I am not very far from FM, (20 minutes), but there's a constant supply of folks coming past us on the South mountain road, and a fair deal of chat happening during the day on Local. Seeing more players would be awesome, but if we can get to 200-250, that would be just dandy for me :-)

 

Erhm... Independence and Chaos are the largest maps in all Wurm, Serenity and specially Affliction are all water/mountains, good luck trying to fit in there more than 100 players.

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Erhm... Independence and Chaos are the largest maps in all Wurm, Serenity and specially Affliction are all water/mountains, good luck trying to fit in there more than 100 players.

Relax. I reread my post, and could not find any part of it saying that I want to fill any other servers, or needing luck to do so. I was stating that from my personal pov and experience, I am (again, a personal opinion) happy with the smaller numbers, and that thousands would be very awkward and distracting for me. And as a matter of fact, all water and mountain sounds awesome, I actually sometimes wish I got started there, I like low-population areas. 

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Relax. I reread my post, and could not find any part of it saying that I want to fill any other servers, or needing luck to do so. I was stating that from my personal pov and experience, I am (again, a personal opinion) happy with the smaller numbers, and that thousands would be very awkward and distracting for me. And as a matter of fact, all water and mountain sounds awesome, I actually sometimes wish I got started there, I like low-population areas. 

 

Thought you mean all servers, sorry.

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Total Ip's are down to near pre 1.0 levels. Steady growth eh...


Edited by Suntzu

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Thought you mean all servers, sorry.

No problem, I should have worded more clearly.

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Total Ip's are down to near pre 1.0 levels. Steady growth eh...

 

Don't take this wrongly, but since a lot of your posts are negative, I have to reply on this.

The three people that started after me, all of which I know  play on masqueraded/shared internet connections via work and home adsl. They essentially are one ip. I know it's not a good indicator, but still. People on the same cellblock in some areas would also have this problem, and many times transparent proxies exist on a city level (although not sure if this would actually be for origin IP's).

I must admit though, that the passion you people are tackling this issue on, is probably due to passion/love for the game, and fear of its future, rather than being negative. Benefit of the doubt.

 

I just hope/wish/dream that we can work on solutions and ideas, and stop posting negating posts every few days. The one helps, the other doesn't.

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I don't think I've ever played a single online game, since I started back in the late 90s, where the forums weren't full of posts about how the game was failing, couldn't possibly last, and full of advice (and/or demands) about how to "save" it. Even WoW had, and I'd bet still has, those kinds of threads.   Most of those games are still alive and kicking, some are gone.  


 


I've just never understood why anyone wants to sit around analyzing graphs and financial reports when you don't own stock in the game.  Yes we all love the game or we wouldn't be here, but the joy of arguing about it's possible success or failure, and how to 'fix" it, when we don't know all the facts and are not privy to the "books" in the office just escapes me.  


 


But whatever floats your boat I guess.  hehe   


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It's a form of Theory Crafting.  Some of us just like to analyze the data we can get a hold of and dig as far into it as we can.  Some just like to foretell the end of days, and others just like to complain.


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I don't think I've ever played a single online game, since I started back in the late 90s, where the forums weren't full of posts about how the game was failing, couldn't possibly last, and full of advice (and/or demands) about how to "save" it. Even WoW had, and I'd bet still has, those kinds of threads.   Most of those games are still alive and kicking, some are gone.  

 

I've just never understood why anyone wants to sit around analyzing graphs and financial reports when you don't own stock in the game.  Yes we all love the game or we wouldn't be here, but the joy of arguing about it's possible success or failure, and how to 'fix" it, when we don't know all the facts and are not privy to the "books" in the office just escapes me.  

 

But whatever floats your boat I guess.  hehe   

 

Some of us do own stock in wurm. ;p

 

Plus when the guy who is in charge of the books says there is a problem there probably is.

Edited by Suntzu

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Players of Wurm invest a lot of time in their characters, and these characters then have worth. Accounts are bought and sold everyday. Everyone who plays has stock in Wurm.


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Players of Wurm invest a lot of time in their characters, and these characters then have worth. Accounts are bought and sold everyday. Everyone who plays has stock in Wurm.

 

This is a great true, and I think I will quote it when some one use the "whatdoyoucareyoudontownthegame" argument.

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Well just to be the devil's advocate....by that logic then every player of every game who pays to play owns stock in the game.  For that matter, guess I own stock in my internet company, electric company, and my apartment building.  :)


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That's correct you do. They need your money to function and survive and you can choose who you give your money to. This is called basic economics.


 


I think you're thinking of capital stock.


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However just because you give your money to Rolf for a monthly premium subscription does not mean you are entitled to a say in the direction Wurm takes. Sure you can suggest ways to fix it, but at the end of the day, Rolf does not have to listen to a single one.


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OK ok ok ok....

 

What the jackal do you mean by "declining curve"? It seems pretty flat to me currently, and its higher than it was last year at this time by 2000 players.

 

VDFi2gA.png

 

This is a very interesting chart to analyze. For a long time, Wurm's population has been flat at about 3k players. Early December last year, there was a massive spike in the playercounts because of the 1.0 update. However, after the hype faded, half of the new players left. Over the last year, Wurm's player count grew by about 33% overall.

 

The developers are currently focusing on "making Wurm easier to start out" so that during the next spike (I bet something is planned) a larger percentage of the new players will stay. This is hardly a time for "doom and gloom". Things are finally starting to happen! :)

 

OK..umm isnt that the same time two newbie only servers were released, thus forcing old players to create new alts to play on them, therefor artificially inflating shown 'membership' numbers...Look at the unique IP chart for the same timeframe!

 

totalips-year.png

 

sorry but I dont see any additional 'players' at all. 

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I cannot really see a decline in players, neither in the game itself nor on any graph that has been thrown around.

 

As for the prices, i think there is one huge problem with them when it comes to (potential) new players/customers; In order to start out with your own deed you pretty much have to plunk down 32 € from the get go (16 € premium, 16 € for the silver for a deed). That is way too much and probably deters quite a lot of potential new (premium) players.

 

Now correct me if i'm wrong on that one, but that was the impression i got. And it also is the impression everyone not familiar with the game i talked to got, so should it not be that way it needs to be made clear. VERY clear. Because nobody i talked to was willing to spend 32 bucks just to "get started".

 

Nope..16 e will get you premium AND first deed, you get 2s for first time premiuming, another 6 silverfor selling a referral, AND 4 more for those two sleep powders! that totals 2 mos premium AND 12 silver right off without purchasing any additional silvers. In fact it is much cheaper to do this than it is to purchase silvers. Just sayin!

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Fix the issues, address each one throughout the next year, make it viable to have influxes of up to 300 players on each server, (like this scale sandbox should be) AND PUT THIS GAME ON GREENLIGHT ROLF. you will rake in the cash and this game will be completely turned around in the next year or two, I am available for hire:P


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meh, it's an awesome game and that in and of it self will generate income.


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I'd like to +1 the micro transactions idea as long as they went into your inventory.


 


I died recently during a long move across servers and lost everything. I would have gladly paid a few bucks for a new set of starter tools. Thankfully I was given a lot of help from another player. But I forgot to ask for a carving knife. Wow, I never realized how important that damn thing is until you don't have one. It took a few days before I could rummage enough to make a crude knife only to find out you could only use it to make shafts from forraged branches. Needless to say it was a lot of work just to make a carving knife.


 


Just don't put anything on the store that would be too overpowering. Stuff like other games have. Sleep bonus potions, a stack of rations, container of water and maybe cosmetic stuff like an xmas tree to can put in your house, jack-o-lanterns and other holiday decorations. This game could make a lot of money on micro transactions. A lot of games are doing very well on them without the need of a monthly subscription.

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OK..umm isnt that the same time two newbie only servers were released, thus forcing old players to create new alts to play on them, therefor artificially inflating shown 'membership' numbers...Look at the unique IP chart for the same timeframe!

 

totalips-year.png

 

sorry but I dont see any additional 'players' at all. 

 

I appreciate your forthrightness.

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