Wurm Online: New land opened, Free to Play tutorial server/sandbox

[Mrbloodworth]

I logged in for the first time. I was asked to go find a tree. Apparently there wasn't a tree for several square miles. I stopped right about there.

The volume of new users tend to makes trees extinct in the area :) But, I am expanding the tree area right now around the start deed.

[Mrbloodworth]

Just a hint of self promotion. Sorry.

PC Gamer Reader's Top 100:

[Bzalthek]

PC Gamer to Wurm.  Only premium members may have a rating higher than 20! ;)

[Mrbloodworth]

PC Gamer to Wurm.  Only premium members may have a rating higher than 20! ;)

They actually have two full towns, one on our free server, and one on the freedom server.

[Bzalthek]

Time to pat myself on the back.  I think I'm about done with GV.  The terraforming I've been doing has been attracting new neighbors which subsequently leaves me with less space to bend to my will!

After setting my own place up, I decided I needed to make an extension of the three lane road down towards sepadale

I was originally going to extend it all the way to the coast, but there was too much clutter and a few neighbors in the way so I just decided to make a park.

It's hard to properly screenshot the area as I have a lot of nooks and crannies and hidden paths under trees and large bushes but you get the idea.  
Finally I decided to make something useful for my neighbors, a public park!

I had to go back pretty far to get it all (I found splicing the images doesn't work all that well from the road pics) but you should be able to see most of it.  there's a 5x5 area for most types of crops, and people have flocked to it to get their farming skills up and have a better chance at finding seeds for their personal farms.  I'm pretty proud of the work there.

But I think it's about time to hit freedom and see what I can do about some untamed corner.  This really is more fun than it should be though =P

[Mrbloodworth]

That's awesome!

[Demonix]

Bloodworth - Hey, love the change you guys made to forgaing and botanizing;  knowing that a square has already been picked clean certainly saves a lot of time and is something I thought should have been added when I first tried it out two years ago :)

Also, can we talk about coal piles?  There are some things about them that just don't add up.

[Mrbloodworth]

Bloodworth - Hey, love the change you guys made to forgaing and botanizing;  knowing that a square has already been picked clean certainly saves a lot of time and is something I thought should have been added when I first tried it out two years ago :)

That was me. Glad you like it.

Coal piles should be discussed in our forums.

[Bzalthek]

That's hot. 

[Demonix]

Bloodworth - Hey, love the change you guys made to forgaing and botanizing;  knowing that a square has already been picked clean certainly saves a lot of time and is something I thought should have been added when I first tried it out two years ago :)

That was me. Glad you like it.

Coal piles should be discussed in our forums.

Great, I'm going to be branded a heretic because I actually collected data on coal burn rates vs. production vs. overall quality. :P

[Cheddar]

Guess I will give this a shot.  What exact does premium time get us? 

Ya'll need to doll up the sign up page.

[CharlieMopps]

Guess I will give this a shot.  What exact does premium time get us? 

Ya'll need to doll up the sign up page.

its a different, much larger, server
your skills can go above 20 (cap on premium server is 100 but its a bell curve so it gets ridiculously hard to raise it the higher you go)
subbing also gives you a small amount of money you can use to buy a deed
a deed prevents other people from messing with your land and also gives you guards that will kill mobs that wander on

I'd recommend starting on Golden Valley... if you don't like it there you wont like the premium server. Find someone helpful that will answer your questions. you'll have a lot.

[Mrbloodworth]

Golden valley is also 3X the decay rate of premium servers, and deeds all but stop decay as well.

[Bzalthek]

Can I destroy a fence I created but no longer want on Freedom?

[Mrbloodworth]

Can I destroy a fence I created but no longer want on Freedom?

I think thats a deed right, but I'm not 100%.

[UnSub]

Gratz on being voted the 20th best PC game of today, between CiV IV and L4D2.

[NiX]

Gratz on being voted the 20th best PC game of today, between CiV IV and L4D2.

Second post on this page. They just copied the print list.

[Mrbloodworth]

First Tutorial
Fighting
Making A Forge

 

[Simond]

Gratz on being voted the 20th best PC game of today, between CiV IV and L4D2.

3. Eve Online

haha what

[Mrbloodworth]

No one should have any trouble doing the tutorial now (finding trees/foraging and such), updated tutorial text is next. Progress.  

Feedback welcome.

[Mrbloodworth]

Perhaps I'm rubbing off a bit on others.  

Anyway, rather major set of changes happened Tuesday, followed by more today.

Wurm online patch notes.

Also, one of our staff did a small write up on some of the recent graphical changes.

Various new object images:

A few changes of note, there is no more skill decay. Also, previously, if you failed at combining two items (say a hammer head and a shaft) one item would be destroyed, this is no longer the case, both items just get damaged now. You need to repair them before trying again, but no longer do you need to start from square one.

Ya'll need to doll up the sign up page.

Dolled.

Can I destroy a fence I created but no longer want on Freedom?

"Plans" can now be removed by the owner.

I logged in for the first time. I was asked to go find a tree. Apparently there wasn't a tree for several square miles. I stopped right about there.

This is no longer and issue. :)

[NiX]

Glad you're cleaning things up to make them more user friendly without making it a cake walk. Has the tutorial been updated? That was the thing that kept me from playing. It didn't work and I ended up wandering off and getting bored because I didn't understand half of the systems.

[Mrbloodworth]

Glad you're cleaning things up to make them more user friendly without making it a cake walk. Has the tutorial been updated? That was the thing that kept me from playing. It didn't work and I ended up wandering off and getting bored because I didn't understand half of the systems.

It has a bit, but the new grand, step-by-step one is ill say 50% constructed, but wholly untested. And considering we have had to make an entire .."scripting" layer (uses an in game GUI that GM's can use to to, almost anything) its going well.

The current start area has been revamped, trees are now auto spawned, we provide forges and ovens as well as a mine I keep stocked with iron to make your basic tools. Its kind of a big, protected confined noob area where you can bootstrap yourself in before heading out. We have also added more PA's (Player assistants) to help with the PA-chat (new user question chat).

So, movements are happening. When the new tutorial is done, players will go through a step-by-step tutorial, in multi-stages, once completed be whisked away to the freedom server, Golden valley will be no more. But having new users mix with old users and premium users has worked well in the past, it also consolidates our support staff.

[Nightblade]

Gratz on being voted the 20th best PC game of today, between CiV IV and L4D2.

3. Eve Online

haha what

Ruh Roh.

[Mrbloodworth]

That was a user poll, blame those that voted I guess.

[Cadaverine]

I gave it another shot about two, three weeks ago.  It was much improved, and I was actually able to figure out what the hell I was doing this time around.  The only thing that kept from tossing them some money was the overcrowding.  I just wanted to build a little tower, or something, out in the middle of nowhere, and then do my thing by myself, but I couldn't find any nowhere to hang out in. 

[pxib]

This might be worth its own topic, but... is there an obivous solution to the UO/Lebensraum problem? Either the world is huge and empty and there's plenty of room to set up your own space but nobody will ever see it, or the world is cramped and there's nowhere for you to stake your claim. Vanguard being an example of the former, and UO being the obvious latter.

In fact I'd go so far as to say both UO and Wurm seem to have reached an ugly middle ground where they feel simultaneously crowded and empty: endless, crowded development with no life and no soul. Like walking around an office park on a weekend, or suburban subdivisions at night. It's understandable why so many other games have chosen to instance personal space.

[Rendakor]

One solution might be a middle ground: instanced neighborhoods. Each instance of Village X has room for 10 people; every player has control over their own little nook, but they only see (by default) the copy of the Village that they share with 9 other randoms. If they want to visit someone else, it's a simple matter of selecting the relevant instance (with a search-for-players option) when zoning in. Put a minor upkeep cost in mostly as an activity check; players who fail to pay their upkeep are evicted, freeing up space in old neighborhoods for new blood.

The number of players is pulled out of my ass, but you want to share the area with some people so you still the houses of other players, just not the whole playerbase. The reason for that is that if you never see anyone outside your guild/friends, the world feels really empty (See: EQ2 post guildhalls). You could even have villages of different sizes; the small 10 person village, an isolated 4 person hamlet, a massive 50+ player city, etc.

[Mrbloodworth]

I gave it another shot about two, three weeks ago.  It was much improved, and I was actually able to figure out what the hell I was doing this time around.  The only thing that kept from tossing them some money was the overcrowding.  I just wanted to build a little tower, or something, out in the middle of nowhere, and then do my thing by myself, but I couldn't find any nowhere to hang out in.  

Golden valley is a trial server, it is packed, but its also 1/10 the size of the live (premium) servers. Its also going away and all new users will start on the "Freedom" (PvE) server. And yes, its kind of a wasteland of urban housing, even at three times the decay rate and no deeds or other decay stopping or slowing features.

More new wall shots.

[Lantyssa]

This might be worth its own topic, but... is there an obivous solution to the UO/Lebensraum problem? Either the world is huge and empty and there's plenty of room to set up your own space but nobody will ever see it, or the world is cramped and there's nowhere for you to stake your claim. Vanguard being an example of the former, and UO being the obvious latter.

Hubs.  Easily reachable distant towns where some form of activity is present to draw people, but vast space between them to allow for that emptiness.  That's how I like it, at least.

The trick is making people want to spread out between those hubs.  SWG managed to split people across planets, but they tended to congregate in only a few places on each one.

[LK]

ATiTD managed this just fine.

[Mrbloodworth]

Helping The New and The Old

[NiX]

Helping The New and The Old

Quit talking about the new tutorial and finish it. I desperately want to like Wurm, but it really needs a tutorial for those of us who don't have Aspergers.

[Bzalthek]

ASS BURGERS!

[tgr]

ASS BURGERS!

I hate you. Thank god I didn't read that while at work.