Content-Oriented Roadmap
By Sindusk, March 28, 2021 in Suggestions & Ideas
Sindusk 2215
Wurm Online Content-Oriented Roadmap
This theoretical roadmap is a series of planned development updates which serves as an alternative to the current direction of the game. The current direction leans heavily towards maintenance and minor updates, whereas this roadmap will focus on expansion.
The goals of this roadmap are twofold. First, it is aimed towards streamlining some of the more overbearing systems of the game, making them more approachable and easier to work with. Secondly, it aims towards giving new content for players who have stuck with the game for years.
With these goals in mind, the organization of updates is slightly changed.
Every month, an update is released with any updates and bug fixes that are relevant to the game in current form.
Every several months, a sizable content update is released providing a new or overhauled system. These updates are explained in this document.
Every year, a major "expansion" update is released, providing major changes to the fundamental game and accompanied by a new server and marketing video trailer. The new server will always be changed in some significant way, and is not simply another basic server to the existing clusters. Additionally, these new servers will have some form of link to existing servers. These will be explained further in this document.
Content Update: Adaptive Journal - Est. July 2021
The first major content update would be the adaptive journal. Major goals of this update:
Streamline the existing journal.
Add tutorial elements to the journal that help new players.
Create branching paths within the journal so players can specialize and learn about aspects of the game in more detail.
Make rewards meaningful to the players who unlock them.
In an effort to streamline and replace the existing journal, this would be a more expansive iteration that would focus on more detailed aspects of Wurm. It would start with the more generic options, then expand into skill-oriented subcategories that would provide unique bonuses to those who would seek them.
Additionally, each journal entry would be accompanied by a minor text-based tutorial "?" that players can click on to find out more about how to achieve the goals and what they mean. This can also be used to present more complex mechanics to the player in approachable format, such as animal breeding and combat.
As an example, here would be one of the first journal objectives, alongside the tutorial. Note that the tutorial text would be written better than presented here. This is just an example.
Basic Woodworking (Reward 1 hour sleep bonus)
Activate a hatchet
Chop down a tree
Chop a felled tree into logs
Create a shaft from a log
Create a mallet head from a log
Use the shaft and mallet head to create a mallet
"With your inventory open, double-click your hatchet. This will activate it, turning it green on the bottom of your inventory.
Next, find a tree. The tile below a tree will tell you what type it is. When you examine a tile, it will also tell you if it is on a deed. Find an off-deed tree, then right-click the tile and chop it down. This may take several actions. You can examine the tile to see how much damage the tree has taken so far. Once it reaches 100, the tree will fall.
Once you have felled the tree, use your hatchet on the felled tree and "Chop up" to create a log. Most trees will allow you to chop up a felled tree into many logs.
Once you have a log, pick it up into your inventory, and use a carving knife to create a shaft and mallet head. When you have both items, activate the shaft or mallet head, then right-click the other item to begin crafting the mallet."
These are the basics, and are much more "focused" tutorials that appeal to skilled players who want to achieve everything in the game. Here's a high-level carpentry journal, with some additional context in brackets:
Master Carpentry
5 hours sleep bonus [Sleep bonus is always nice]
+3 maximum build limit [Build limit is the amount of walls/floors when building a house. This adds 3 to the maximum limit, allowing players who completed this journal to create larger houses (such as they had +3 carpentry skill).]
10% carpentry improvement bonus [Increases the amount of QL when improving by 5%. If an item would go from 50 to 51 in an improvement, this would make it go from 50 to 51.1]
10% carpentry rarity chance [Increases the chances an item goes rare when improving or creating a carpentry item by 10%]
Create 5 rare, supreme, or fantastic carpentry items. [This is the most RNG-oriented requirement, but has few enough item requirements to make it attainable by dedicated players. Simple items such as shafts and planks count towards this progress.]
Improve 10 unique carpentry items past 90QL. [This means unique types, such as 1 mallet, 1 spindle, 1 grooming brush, etc.]
Improve a supreme carpentry item past 90QL. [This can be any supreme item, even if it did not originally belong to the player. This means players can buy a supreme item to improve to finish this journal entry.]
Plan and finish a house with at least a 7x7 open area inside. [Any house design will work so long as a 7x7 open area exists within the interior.]
Build 50 wooden house walls finishing at 70QL or higher. [This will require the player to use high-QL planks when creating the house walls.]
This carpentry journal would be focused towards those who have high skill in carpentry, while not being mixed in with combat goals like the existing journal. The rewards would be specifically oriented towards carpentry based activity. Other journals would have similar rewards, focusing their reward structure towards benefitting the skills that unlock them.
Content Update: Combat Overhaul - Est. October 2021
The second major content update would be a real combat overhaul. Major goals:
Make combat slightly less random.
Do not make players weaker as a result of the overhaul.
Allow dual wield to become a viable combat strategy again.
Implement new mechanics which benefit non-priest combatants.
Update key binding system to allow for contextual combat binds.
Interesting mechanics added to each weapon archetype to allow for more style expression in combat.
Special moves would have synergy with each other.
This combat overhaul would reduce the amount of random mechanics that take place in combat. The mathematics behind accuracy would be adjusted so that strong combatants would have a higher hit chance against opponents. This should result in combat speeding up a bit, as more hits would land instead of being misses or parries.
Dual wield has been in a sorry spot for a long time now, and would be changed dramatically. Randomization of time between offhand swings would be eliminated and rebalanced to be more consistent. It would also be allowed to swing at all times instead of only during odd combat rounds.
Focus and special moves would be enabled at the start of combat, instead of requiring time to use.
A new "kick" mechanic would be added for players who are not using a shield. This would replace the slot for "shield bash" in the combat UI. Shield bash would also be updated to guarantee an interrupt of the opponent's current action upon completion.
Priests who use kick or shield bash would not interrupt the opponent's action. Additionally, non-priests would have the difficulty of increasing focus reduced (meaning it's easier to focus). Priest focus difficulty would remain at current levels.
Key bindings would be updated to allow for combat-specific binds. This will be an option turned off by default that the player can decide to enable. When a player enters combat, they can have their keybinds adjusted to combat actions instead. For example, a player might use Q to improve and E to repair. However, during combat, Q might turn into special move 1 and E might turn into special move 2. This allows the control scheme to switch during combat, allowing players to have a "combat" binding setup and "non-combat" binding setup.
Each weapon archetype would have a specialized mechanic which allows for a certain style of play.
Swords - Riposte: Build up riposte points in combat. These can be spent on special moves which queue a counter-attack when next struck. These counter-attacks will apply debuffs to the opponent.
Axes - Rage: Build up rage, increasing damage. Spend rage on special moves with deadly effects, including bleeds and infections. Bleeds would worsen quickly during combat, and infections would be difficult to heal.
Mauls - Balance: Use special moves which adjust the balance of the maul. One side of the balance is more offensive, whereas the other is defensive. If the player goes too far off balance in either direction, they will open themselves up to attack and become vulnerable for a short time.
Blades (Sickle, Scythe, Knives, etc.) - Combo: Build up combo points, then spend them in a special move combination to create a fast and deadly assault.
Warhammers - Charge: Build up a charge, which can then be used in a single devastating attack.
Additional note: A craftable warhammer would be added in this update.
Special moves would be designed around the mechanic attached to each weapon. Here's a short list of special moves that could be used for the Swords archetype:
Basic Specials (Building Mechanics):
Quick Stab (Middle-Center)
No Cost.
+1 Riposte point.
Deals 100% attack damage and cannot be parried.
Armada (Middle-Right)
Deals 55% attack damage and attacks twice.
Four Head (Upper-Center)
+2 Riposte Points.
Deals no damage. Incoming attacks to the upper section deal 50% reduced damage for 10 seconds.
Advanced Specials (Using Mechanics):
Sweeping Strike (Lower-Center)
Costs 3 Riposte Points.
Deals 150% attack damage. Next incoming attack within 10 seconds to the lower section gets counter-attacked with a 200% unavoidable attack to the enemy lower center.
Ultimatum (Middle-Center)
Deals 130% attack damage. Next two incoming attacks within 10 seconds are countered.
There would be more special moves available than just these. There would need to be close attention paid to how these moves were utilized and balance changes set in motion to ensure a single strategy did not become dominant.
Auto-fight would be updated to defend the locations being attacked by your opponent. It would not utilize special moves and only attempt to attack in directions your opponent is not defending.
Major Expansion: Epic Unbound - Est. February 2022
Epic Unbound would be a major expansion for Wurm Online. It would come with a short video trailer and sent to major gaming outlets a few weeks before launch alongside a written article. Brownie points if this could also be launched on Epic Games Store at the same time, just because it's so fitting.
Epic Unbound would be a full re-launch of the Epic cluster for Wurm Online. Existing epic servers would be either merged or shut down. All epic accounts would have some form of skill transfer to Southern Freedom Isles. Additionally, all existing epic accounts would have their skills re-calculated to a new "highest" for the new epic servers, granting them a 3x skill gain boost up until that point.
New Epic would consist of two servers. One PvE and one PvP. The item economy would be shared. Skills would transfer between both servers. Additional servers would be avoided heavily.
The new epic servers would no longer have a skill or QL cap of 100. Players would be able to gain skill or improve items indefinitely. The mathematics behind how skilling and improvement work would be adjusted to account for these changes. Vein QL cap would be replaced with vein purity. Combat mechanics would be adjusted to account for uncapped skill. Many other mechanics would be adjusted to account for an uncapping of skill. Some interesting side effects of allowing this:
Players can build houses to theoretically unlimited size.
Bridges could be made to span hundreds of tiles with a single bridge.
Slopes of tiles (on PvE) could be made dramatically steep.
Food quality could increase to a point where affinity buffs last weeks or years.
Skilling on epic would be adjusted. Sleep powder would no longer grant double skill gain, but instead grant 30% additive to existing affinities. Enchants like Blessings of the Dark and Circle of Cunning would have their effects reduced as their power increased. This should help reduce the skill gain difference between players using permanent sleep bonus and high enchanted tools versus those who do not.
Epic rewards would be available in the new servers. Players would be able to find unbound items that transfer between all clusters while exploring the new epic servers. Some examples:
An item which allows players to capture an affinity on their character into a consumable which grants the affinity back. This will allow players to sell skill affinities or carry affinities from one cluster to another.
An item which grants a random skill affinity. These would be rare.
An item which can be consumed to give another item one charge of Soulbound, meaning it stays with the character through death one time. These items would be rare.
Free accounts would not have limited skills on Epic. Instead, they would have half the skill gain rate and improvement rate of premium accounts. This allows players to experience the entirety of the game free at a reduced speed.
Disclaimer: None of this is happening. It's purely theoretical and presented as a suggestion/alternative.
Shamgar 106
Hire this guy!
Is this Wurm 2 the search for more gold?
Edited March 28, 2021 by Shamgar
or is it rehire?
DemonaNightshade 1829
In case you hadn't been paying attention, @Sindusk, content things have been briefly announced by myself in the last Valrei International We have 2 coming up in the next several months. We aren't just in "maintenance" mode. We actually do have quite a few things we are working on, some that have been mentioned and some that just have not been announced yet because they aren't ready to be (but that I can NOT wait to tell everyone about!). I'm sure you remember from your time on the team how that goes.
Etherdrifter 2357
Now this is an interesting one!
The first is a universally positive idea (specific "class paths" in the journal) and would help give players at mid skill levels a reason to keep on going. The only ramification I can see is that it could also widen the gap between newbies and the old guard.
The second change would be an active nerf to me in combat, but I can see the need for this is PvP. Remember though, if a new system is added AI for the mobs will also be needed for PvE.
The last one I have really mixed feelings on; if implemented it would essentially sunset freedom. The lack of limitations for free players would make it the new de-facto cluster (freedom's 20 cap cannot compete), and the unbound skills would make it the logical place for older players to go.
But, on the other hand, it would definitely generate two densely populated servers, and I can see no way of doing this using the existing freedom setup. It would essentially be a wurm reboot, with all the good and bad that entails.
Jaz 2514
Added journal items would be great. When journal was introduced it was a promise that further tiers will be added - specialized forks are a brilliant way to expand. Make then real hard but avoid boring and useless tasks like the prayer skill requirement for priests now.
The new cluster should be totally separated from the others item wise - also I'm always against the item transfer from pvp to pve, that makes pvp a money cow. Only thing that should transfer back to old servers is some skillgain... I'm unsure about the affinites.
Very good food for thoughts!
kochinac 1264
What is the most concerning thing is that content that is recently added screams for overhaul. I mean seriously, when still haven't done overhauls for alchemy, animals husbandry but on top of that we have added systems that had chance to be implemented right and weren't. Cooking was nice idea but its light years far from balanced implementation, fishing is still worthless, runes are a mess with only few that are good, rifts are boring as hell, archeology is hell of randomness in my opinion it's lacking so much small qol changes that have been requested for so long. Second problem are overhauls that in fact are not overhauls, they are measly patches and upgrades not changing anything fundamental and thats maybe find but for the love of Fo dont advertise it as overhaul it brings unecesary hype and only disapointment afterwards. I mean look at the priest and fight rework, in essence they might be better than the old ones but thats all they are not some fundemental changes you said they would be and to be honest result doesnt really justify amounts of work put in to it. It looks like a minor update that could have been patched in a week or two..
Finnn 2390
6 hours ago, Shamgar said:
I mean... this guy @Sindusk XD
Edited March 28, 2021 by Finnn
2 hours ago, Etherdrifter said:
I originally planned to write this up to 2 years timeframe, which would've lead into a new server shared between the NFI and SFI clusters. It would probably be something along the lines of what was in the Jackal's Return suggestion I made several months ago. Essentially a high-power hunting server that encourages players to fight co-operatively alongside eachother. When that server was launched, I'd want to move the free to play skill cap on freedom up to 30/30 or 30/50 (characteristics/skills). It might not be enough, but it would at least be a start. The current free to play model is simply too restrictive, and work should be done towards loosening that up to encourage players to try the game for free. Under ideal circumstances, this would need to come alongside a major update with marketing materials to draw in the largest audience to utilize the reduced restrictions.
The unfortunate truth of the matter is that without new servers, there's little to no growth for Wurm Online. The key is that the new servers need to augment the existing ones or provide a new style of play that caters towards a userbase that would otherwise be uninterested in the game. For the Epic iteration proposed, it would be targeted towards players who are interested in progression. Some players just can't get enough of watching the numbers go up. I'd say I'm among that group of players. Others like to test their limits, which would be the purpose of the new server on year 2 (hunting server). The final group of players are more creative and like to build, in which a server would need to be designed to keep them engaged for year 3. I don't have strong ideas for such a server, though if I did I think it might be better slotted in for year 1. I'm curious if anyone else has strong ideas for a new server aimed at the creative playerbase. Ideally, it would need to augment the existing servers (go to the server, create, then bring back something cool as a result).
If all goes according to plan, the creative (casual) crowd is centered on the Freedom Isles, while players more interested in progression (hardcore) would be centered on Epic. Players on freedom are able to find a spot to place a deed and build to their hearts desire. With Epic consisting of only one server for PvE, it will be a much more cutthroat style where border friction will come into play. Additionally, deeds consisting of many players would be more common since there is less overall space per player. It's not for everyone, and that's exactly the point.
For what it's worth, I'm also hesitant to say it's the best idea. It could end up fragmenting the playerbase even further, splitting them across 3 clusters instead of the current 2. It would bank on the growth from a new server launch being sufficient to offset the fragmentation. Judging from the result of the Steam server launch, I'm inclined to lean that it would be. Southern Freedom Isles has increased in population (slightly) since the Steam launch, not declined. Furthermore, there is a sizable amount of players who were dedicated to Epic and have stopped playing as a result of it becoming empty. With a relaunch of the cluster, I believe many of those players would return, granting an even further boost in growth.
3 hours ago, DemonaNightshade said:
I've been hounding away at this point for literally years. If there's something in development that affects the players, a dialogue should be open early in development to gauge player response before it gets too far along. Sometimes, what the development team thinks is great for players isn't something the players want. At current time, we have basically zero information about the proposed "exploration update" that would be coming in the middle of this year. What audience will it be aimed at? Will players need high skills for it? Is there new skills involved so current skills aren't a factor? There's no ability for players to provide feedback if they're never told about it until it's dropped on their heads. If you want to sell players (like myself) that engaging content is coming out, tell us something substantive about it.
See the community response to the combat update as proof of concept. The only thing anyone knew was that special moves were being changed. It was not what players wanted most from combat changes (dual wield, new weapons like a warhammer for PvE, etc). Had there been an open dialogue in the form of "what would you like to see from a combat update" prior to the work being done, the focus of the project would've been far more clear. If I was in the development team's shoes right now, I would at the very least put up a thread asking players what they would like to see from an exploration update. You don't even have to give out more information about what the team is planning, just ask the players what they are looking for. Take that feedback and improve the design of the system.
On the flip side, one of the systems that recently turned out really well was the pending favor system. That was presented ahead of time, players provided feedback based on the design, and the design shifted in a positive way before it was released on the live servers. It took another couple of patches to get it where it is now, but it's become one of my favorite priest QoL updates.
The whole hush-hush mindset is just so damaging to the reputation of the Wurm Online development team. If they can just break that mindset, the amount of positive attitudes would increase dramatically.
Anyway, that's more of an off topic rant. There's probably a better place to have that type of discussion.
Madnath 2359
journal changes when tho?
shuego 67
I love wurm... That being said... Wurm won't be around if the game doesn't start changing to try and retain players. The combat update was seriously disappointing to say the least.
solmark 480
I like the journal pathing, sounds like a good idea to me.
In terms of the bringing the community closer to the Development piece, having worked in Software for well over 20 years, I can tell you it works both ways. You definately want community feedback to understand if your ideas will hit the spot, but you also have a direction that you as the business owner have in mind to take the game.
Lets be honest, when new community ideas are posted on here there is almost always a split of opinion with some very much in favour of a certain feature and some dead against it, its not like the community will ever be in total agreement, so the Dev team then have to make sense of that dilemma also.
What is also clear is that you have to balance all of that with the amount of Development and Test/QA cycles you have available to you as a business, whilst also providing a sensible mix of bug fixing and short term and long term features. Add to this the work that has been done to move us over to a new host and the fact that Java isn't exactly a modern language and then you start to see a more complex picture than perhaps is apparant to those who have not had the pleasure of working in a software business.
RainRain 590
4 hours ago, Finnn said:
It might be that i missed the joke, but for those unaware sindusk did used to be a developer for wurm.
while it's a good step, i still want to stress the importance of communication: in regards to upcoming content, something like what Ostentatio did with the sacrifice rework would be a great idea, although doing it much earlier than the release comes.
I.e for the most developed/soon to come update, give a rough overview of mechanics as they are finished (and what needs to be finished), explain the intent of the content, the power level, etc etc- and allow players to give feedback. This resulted in a lot of good points being brought up for the sacrifice rework (which i thought was great; i was the original person to suggest that sacrifice system to begin with and i had completely overlooked some important things as well) which ultimately ended up getting fixed, and satisfying almost everyone in regards to the system.
You don't need to add numbers to the mix (unless you feel comfortable) as thats usually the topic of most concern, just the general idea of how things will work, and filter through responses as you can. A front-and-back is vital with big updates like this.
Also, you could address a lot of concerns by just going "Here's a list of things we're looking at- changes aren't promised, but we're looking over the following subsystems to see if they need changes:
Here's a list of subsystems we want to change up significantly as well, but don't know when:"
And only 'announce' things that are ready to be released soon (i.e next couple months).
Edited March 28, 2021 by RainRain
9 hours ago, Sindusk said:
So let's assume this epic overhaul was put in place, a 30:50 cap on regular freedom and unbounded on epic.
I've just capped out on freedom on a skill that really matters to me. Now I could move over to epic and continue on skilling there as per normal for free at a slower pace, or I could drop 5x my deed cost for premium and stick on the freedom cluster.
Anyone who is making that early game choice is going to say "start on epic", because dense population isn't something they would be thinking of. They would be thinking "when I cap out, what do I do".
Your creative players are really a social type, are they going to gravitate to a server where everyone sees their works, or one where there is more space for that work? The former seems more likely given their motivation.
The logic suggests you'd end up with freedom where it currently is (maybe thinned out even more), or worse off.
Then again, let's ask the real question, would everyone ending up on the same two servers really be a bad thing? Probably not.
elentari 2196
Lot to unpack but in general I agree to sindusk's idea (and he's really not the only player I've met who stated the same) that Wurm NEEDS a compass to follow. We need to know what's going to happen , we need to know what's planned.
A general outline of what's to be expected is a normal attitude from any paying customer. The responsibility of clear and timely communication goes hand in hand with any business following a subscription model.
WO is not WU where you pay once, play forever. That comes with the idea that we need to know at least what's in the works.
19 hours ago, Sindusk said:
The whole hush-hush mindset is just so damaging to the reputation of the Wurm Online development team. If they can just break that mindset, the amount of positive attitudes would increase dramatica
Yeah well a few hundred former paying customers from Epic agree with that. I did an excel sheet back in 2014-2015 and counted a yearly customer base of 300 unique players just on Mol Rehan Home (Desertion server). 300 people a year, just on one Epic server * nostalgia tears intensify *
Most of us left for two reasons. Lack of updates over the years (this includes not fixing broken or abusable systems) and the freedom one way skill transfer, which was the final nail in the epic coffin.
We've been asking for years what's going to happen to 4 dead servers and its playerbase. Epic will not revive, ever at this point.
In fact I could reasonably argue keeping epic does more damage to Wurm than deleteting it. I've said it before, but any new player that comes to epic, sees a dead server cluster, will leave Wurm with the impression that it's a dead game, and that's one paying customer you lose forever, including any recommendations to Wurm he might give. Why? Because we somehow decided keeping 4 dead servers is a good idea. Do you know of any succesful game that keeps dead servers open? Me neither.
Either decide to do something else with those servers such as :
1. Repurpose them into a hunting server. (like use elevation to hunt)
2. Repurpose them into a specific one time usage, such as a Jackal server unto the current Elevation server.
3. Connect them to freedom.
4. Close them down, they do more harm.
The new journal concept seems awesome. I'd love to have an adaptive journal that focuses on what skillls you want to use instead of the journal forcing you to grind the skills it wants. ]
As for combat, honestly the only thing I really want to see in game is a non priest actually be able to stand on equal ground with a priest.
With the current system, it's pretty much impossible to kill a priest if he has the same gear as you. Maybe if you get super lucky and he's naked or has some ridiculously low fighting skills, then you get a shot at surviving. Chaos / pvp is based around the number of priests a group can muster. Pretty much forces one playstyle above all others.
What I'd like to see on the potential road map :
An overhaul for every individual skill in the game every few months. Give alchemy some love, add cartography, eliminate some useless skills (such as thatching). You don't need a giant update for all of them, but add a bit every few weeks so the skills seem less superficial than they are right now.
Hope the devs respond positively to sindusk's thoughts, his ideas are excellent and a good foundation for future wurm improvements.
Edited March 29, 2021 by elentari
11 hours ago, Etherdrifter said:
I actually disagree that players would feel inclined to go to epic as a result of hitting the cap. Right now, the cap is reached quite quickly. I'd say it takes an hour or two to get a skill to 20 without CoC/sleep bonus. If you are going to 50 without sleep bonus or CoC, you might be looking at ~10+ hours. I think at current state it's quite easy to hit 20, not experience much of the game, feel "capped" and urged to pay the subscription fee without having experienced the game. At 50, you're going to allow the player to experience quite a bit of the game before they hit a cap on a skill. At this point, they're likely to actually subscribe and become a paying customer since they've already invested a lot of time into getting their skill high enough, and have seen enough of the game that they want to continue playing.
If the creative players are more social, they're already in a situation where the population is very thinned out. My hypothesis here is that SFI and NFI would not see significant decrease due to the overall growth of the population at large. Sure, there would be a new and populated cluster, but many players would want to return to the game where they left off instead of starting over.
It's an interesting thought experiment to try and think of ways to allow clusters to interact with each other without being fully linked. If a new cluster appears and is populated, is there a way to make that activity beneficial to the other clusters as well? Is there a way to encourage people to be playing on multiple clusters, reaping the benefits on both sides?
1 hour ago, elentari said:
Oddly enough, I believe you've hit on the method by which Runescape has continued to grow (with quite a few similar systems to Wurm Online, it's an apt comparison). They frequently add new quests and update skills with additional content on a regular basis. The method you've outlined has been tried and proven to work.
Edited March 29, 2021 by Sindusk
I think I've read somewhere they used the methodology (agile methodology? kanban? something like that) to add continuous content but in smaller chunks rather than a ton of content but over longer periods of time and that was one of their initial sucess formulas.
This does seem to work well since it gives players the constant feeling of improvement and expanding.
The same could be done for Wurm. A monthly update to add say a new potion to craft for alchemy, a new cape to tailor ( why can't we craft capes again?) , a craftable warhammer, a new way to grind locksmithing, a new mission type, a new flower type, or allowing epic players to grind paving using catseyes (amusingly catseyes are disables on epic so players can't grind paving as efficiently as those on freedom, you can only pave, not improve) etc would go a long way to constantly add updates with minor work vs the current system where we have "overhauls" at a 6 month period, which often times tend to leave a lot of room for balancing and inevitably leave some players angry that some systems aren't working as intended or "it simply took too long" between updates.
Fixes are all fine and good but have to balance fixes with content as well. That's the tricky thing.
On a sidenote, I don't really understand why devs, any game developers would want to build up a mystery regarding new content or updates. It really servers no purpose unless you're a big game studio (wurm isn't) and want to build up hype for a year or two. However all succesful indie studios constantly talk to their playerbase.
Communication on the development cycle actually would serve to foster better relations between players and game developers rather than just hitting us with a "valrei international" from time to time. I think a lot of wurm's playerbase is unique in the sense that I see a lot of tech savvy individuals or people with a lot of life experience who won't fall for classic marketing tricks and are just interested in what's happening with wurm and want steady news. Our demographic was always in the 25+ age, we have few youngsters in the game. That creates different expectations from the game and from the staff.
Ecrir 824
I really like the journal idea and also making weapon groups more distinct from each other. The Epic idea on the other hand is set up for failure, here's why I believe that's the case:
2 Servers, 1 Pve and 1 PvP, additional servers will be avoided heavily, no skill cap even for free players (though 50% reduction in gains). We all saw what happened to the first new PvE server after the steam launch, right? It got incredibly overcrowded, so they had to add several more servers. What do you think would happen if a new cluster contained a PvE server without a skill cap, especially for free players? It would be the biggest launch mess since the steam launch. I'd imagine that the only way to prevent that is to spread that specific part (the no skill cap, or a cap of 100, for free players with a 50% reduction in gains) throughout all the servers. Though even then, what would be more attractive for new players? A cap at 100, or no cap at all? Take into account that a new player likely knows very little of the game, so what do you expect them to choose in that case if they have two choice (cap at 100, or no cap at all) with very little knowledge? I'd put my money on the no cap option, after all why limit yourself if you don't have to?
6 hours ago, elentari said:
This is exactly how I feel as well, some of the best moments over the last decade were when they added a couple of little things every month. The first five month last year were frankly incredible and might have spoiled me for good. There was stuff to talk about and look forward too every month.
In periods where that doesn't happen its communication about upcoming features which can keep things alive, it gives people something to talk and theorize about. It keeps your player base involved and invested in the game, it makes them care. Yet this is barely done by the devs, they prefer to keep everything shrouded in secrecy until it's almost ready. For example while we knew for a while that a combat overhaul was coming, we didn't have much of an idea what it was going to be about, for example scope wise, until like a month before it's release, when they had no choice but to reveal details so it could be tested. Perhaps they do this because they don't want to release information out into the wild only to have to make changes later on, resulting in that information no longer being correct? Yet I see other developers simply tell their players about such changes without an issue in later updates. For example the Stellaris dev team, the way they do their weekly dev diary is great, even if there isn't always something in there about a coming update.
And sure, they did show us the achievement system in the last Valrei International, but honestly that just feels like another weird thing. After all, don't we already have an achievement system? I'm looking at you, Journal. Perhaps it's part of some journal overhaul, but since they barely tell us anything we don't really know and are left to wonder about these seemingly weird decisions/choices...
I have to conclude that I also don't understand why the devs do communication around features this way, and you can really see with the lack of responses to the latest Valrei Internationals that it isn't working at all. The hype and looking forward to updates just seems to be gone.
11 hours ago, Ecrir said:
and you can really see with the lack of responses to the latest Valrei Internationals
Well the central theme of it was freaking straw bed which most people beside new players who i doubt reads forums won't be making, i mean seriously. That ###### is every 2 weeks, right? and you give as straw bed, i mean the feature is needed alright but it is a side note, having it the only thing to be presented is disappointing to say the least...
Really makes me wondering how many people exactly are working on development for full time? Looks like zero
Edited March 30, 2021 by kochinac
1 hour ago, kochinac said:
Literally zero, yes. I think they only just hired their first contracted worker, but even then it's not clear how often we can expect that person to be working on development. A lot of the dev team has been both, part-time or even just volunteer.
Guess we need more devs for a roadmap to happen.
8 hours ago, kochinac said:
I hadn't actually seen that one when I made my post here (and it's too young to fairly count it), so I was actually referring to the news posts before that, the Ready your weapons! one.
The straw bed is actually a good example of content that we do need. Sure, only new players will mostly find that specific piece of content useful, but that's fine.
Edited March 30, 2021 by Ecrir
Darnok 126
This is a good idea, but not only for Epic, it should be for every server. I would also add that free accounts should have a deed size limit.
atazs 925
On 3/30/2021 at 7:50 AM, RainRain said:
The whole dev team has been made up of volunteers, part timers, and 3rd party contractors for a very long time now. Only Rolf was full time and maybe one or two other coders.
I have been told countless of times by devs and insiders that X content was not properly finished and rushed out because it's developer left (Budda with Jackal is one example) or that Y developer could not work on his job because he was too busy with real life stuff (meaning he wasn't a proper full time employee, like you'd expect someone working on a game like this) and thus content had to be delayed or, once again just rushed out unfinished.
I honestly have no idea how you can develop a game, let alone an MMO like this.
Edited June 30, 2021 by atazs
9 minutes ago, atazs said:
Time to crowdfund wurm 2.0 and sell nfts and copy scam-citizen, there are millions out there waiting to be donated to a "good" cause, who's to say what is good?
40 minutes ago, atazs said:
Probably why Rolf sold it in the first place. Game chest group saw a company that basically could be run "for free" with minimal server costs. That's pretty much the golden grail of any parent company. No reason for GCG to actually hire devs, and if Wurm pop plummets to critical unsustainable levels : aka subscription income < server costs, then they can pull the plug and still come on top.
Maybe they'll resume development for WU afterwards since that's also popular.