Thoughts on Recent Changes #WurmOnline
stargrace 
* First of all it should be noted that these are my personal opinions, and have no reflection on anything I do as a CA for WurmOnline nor do they reflect any opinion other than my own.
While there are still some bugs to be worked out, the majority of the changes have been implemented and fixed now so I’ve had a bit of time to play around with the changes and formulate some opinions. There are some things I still haven’t come to a conclusion on, so I’ll post about them another time.
Rares: I like the idea of rares, but I find the way they’ve been added to the game a bit odd. Players have a 50% chance once an hour to create a ‘rare’ item. How that hour is calculated, I’ve no idea. I understand in concept why it is that way, it’s to prevent people from macro spamming a lot of rare items and thus lowering their value, but I still find it a bit weird. The person who logs in once an hour and creates an item will get just as many chances / rares as the person who logged in for 6 hours and did nothing but craft for those hours. I suppose in the end it does not matter, because if you want that rare to be worth anything you will still need to spend time getting it to a useful quality level.
Timers: Over all I’m pleased with the new timers. Bulk items are quicker to make, and there’s no break or pause between queuing actions. I have not yet noticed a decline in price on the cost of bulk materials, but I suppose in time that may come as a result.
Crafting: I dislike the changes that were made directly to crafting, and by that I mean the changes of what happens when you attempt to attach two items together. In the past if you attempted to attach two items together, you would lose a portion of those items or even the entire item. Sure, it was rough, but it was expected, and it made sense to me. With the new changes this doesn’t happen, you lose either a very tiny portion of what you are working with (so small you’ll barely even notice a loss) or you’ll lose some quality (also a small amount). The reason I have an issue with this change is because it doesn’t matter what you’re crafting, chances are eventually you’ll succeed at making it. Take dye for instance. On a fail (in the past) I would lose the item I was using to create that dye and thus I would eventually run out of said item before I even made the amount of dye I wanted for my house. No problem, it was logical and enticed me to continue working on my skills.
Tonight I attempted to make dye, failed numerous times, never ran out of any materials, and just continued on as though nothing had happened. A word of advice, those long term players who enjoy and love Wurm for what it is, are not interested in making it ‘easier’. They want current bugs fixed, and new content added (like two story houses, animations, and bridges). I personally feel that these changes went too far into the ‘lets be like every other game’ direction. Will it pull in new players? Sure. Will it be easier on players? Of course. Do I like it? Not at all.
Mounts and Slopes: Another “wow, that was a little too much..” moment. My horses and carts can now drag me up slopes of mountains that I can’t even climb on my own two feet. It just doesn’t sit right that this is an ability. Was it annoying that horses and carts were unable to walk up steep inclines? Sure, but we’ve all managed with it thus far. Why it had to be changed I’m unsure. The new ability stands at 39 slopes, which is a huge amount. Take into account the fact that stamina does not matter when you’re mounted on a horse (assuming you’re staying out of combat and simply riding) or a cart, and you’re pretty much walking up any hill you want without any penalties. What was the point of me working on climb?
New Mobs: Great, I love seeing new creatures roaming the lands. Now please tone down the non-aggros that are invading Deliverance, specifically the deer, unicorns, and dogs. It’s an odd world when unicorns are plentiful and you have to actually hunt to see wild horses out there.
Those are my thoughts for now. As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!