Current population? 2017

[BigMike_85]

I have been eye-balling this game for awhile now. Question is, what is the population like prefurably on the war server? Also, what is the point of the game as a whole? Is there more than just gathering and crafting?

[Mactavendish]

There is a whole lot more than gathering and crafting. But let me explain...

This game is more realistic than the other "survival" games out there. It is also a longterm game, where you need to build up skills and ablities to make or have the best items in game. Even brand new players can create a homestead for themselves, but need to trade with other players and interact with the community. This is where many new players have problems.

Most new players are coming from steam. Because of this they have been trained by other games to expect immediate rewards, and not have to do for, or even think for themselves. I personally feel its due to impatience. Howerver let me describe what ALL you can do here...

Building:

The game has a very rich modular building system, things like doors, or various types of walls and roofs, and support structures that allow a huge amount of different styles in building. You want to build a 6 story log cabin lodge, you can. A full sized medievil castle with a moat and dungeon? yep you can build that too! The limits are only your imagination. I believe you will be impressed.

Hunting:

There is a large variety of wildlife in this game, most of which give resources you can use to stay alive or craft with. The best armor in game is bone armors and you will need to be a very accomplished hunter to make the best armor. In extreme danger areas you will find mutated creatures that present a challenge to the strongest hunters. The dev is also working on making many improvement to how animals react and move that will make them even more exciting and challenging.

Environment:

Full day/night, and seasonal changes. Weather effects like rain and snow. You get the drift I'm sure.

NPC's:

The only npc in the game are called revenants. Many refer to them as zombies but they are not zombies really, as they want to kill you and take your armor and weapons. They look more like plague victims, or people suffering from radiation sickness, and just as crazy. New players often lose they beginner gear to them so watch out!

Farming:

Ther are 14 food crops you can plant from seeds found by foraging or trading other players for seeds. Some of the very best foods come from combining different veggies together to get buff, or increase the power of a stat or lower the time it takes to eat the foods. Farming is also like a mini game, as it has its own requirement and skill affect the quality of the crops and you can fail or lose crops like in real life, if you neglect them.

To sum up...

This is to me, the best of all worlds... mmorpg meets realism meets community meets rewards for effort. If you love the old school mmo's but also want the realism of needing to eat and drink, have dangers that you must protect yourself from, and enjoy interacting with a great community of helpfum and friendly real people, then you will LOVE this game like I do!

[MrDDT]

I have been eye-balling this game for awhile now. Question is, what is the population like prefurably on the war server? Also, what is the point of the game as a whole? Is there more than just gathering and crafting?

The game is all about crafting, gathering, and building. PVE, PVP, and end game anything is 0. If you consider gathering animal stuff for random building supplies or clothes, PVE then you will be happy to know there are many animals in game from rabbits to bears. But if you are looking for a PVE game where you have to use teamwork, or special skills/weapons/armor etc then you will be let down greatly.

Building in this game is awesome, if you are very creative, you can build wondrous things and they are awesome to look at. But it ends there. Don't expect your buildings to be tested for PVP, sieges, PVE, raids, keeping anything out etc. None of this is part of the building in this game. It's 99% for looks 1% for storage.

Food and eating is cool idea, but it's super easy to get food within a few hours of playing you can stockpile food for weeks. Sure you can build things that make food last longer to save yourself time but it becomes super easy after just a few hours of play and some instruction on how to do it. If you even care about food because death in this game is respawn in your town with no skill or stat loss or item loss. Most people use death as a fast way to travel back home after exploring or trading.

Population of people playing, is very small. I've stopped playing waiting for updates to make the game more fun, but there are very few people on the server (either server you pick) less than 100s total.

Good luck and I hope you try the game if you like crafting, gathering, and building. The game is awesome for that part of it.

[doug111973]

Unfortunately I dont see this game going anywhere, anytime soon.. with only 1 person developing it, its gonna be ages before we see any significant changes.. and has been ages since we've seen any significant changes.. I log in 1 time a week to keep my homestead refreshed. and check the forums daily. Combat right now is a joke.. very basic.. and we were supposed to get ranged combat in January 2017, still no ranged combat.. The game is fun when you 1st get going, but once you have established yourself to the point where survival is no longer a problem.. theres is nothing to do but grind skills, and you cant even level all the skills.. yea, you could build a massive structure.. with nothing to put in it but baskets and your cart.. no furnature, no trophies, no nothing, just a big empty shell.. I have high hopes for this game, but unless the 1 man team.. steps up and gets more folks working on the game, I would say save your money.. and find something else, unless you can grab it on a 50% or more sale.

[Xsyon]

we were supposed to get ranged combat in January 2017, still no ranged combat

This is not true. I'm not sure where you got that misinformation. As stated in my Developer Updates, I am working on a series of patches and will start releasing them once I have enough content ready to ensure the release of regular patches for a while. In the past, I've rolled out updates and built up momentum but then lost momentum in the pause between public patches. I'm hoping to avoid the lost momentum once I start rolling out these changes.

I was hoping to release the first upcoming patch in January, (as I originally stated (http://www.xsyon.com/entry.php/214-Xsyon-Pre-Holiday-Sale-50-Off!)) but for reasons detailed in a recent Developer Update (http://www.xsyon.com/entry.php/217-Developer-Update-2017-02-03), I decided to continue working on and testing these changes for now. There are several Feedback Threads in the Developer Zone (http://www.xsyon.com/forumdisplay.php/39-Developer-Zone)pertaining to the first of the upcoming patches.

Regarding the active population, we currently have around 500 players that log in at least several times a month and 100-200 logging in every day.

[MrDDT]

Haha funny that he said 2017, and it was supposed to be out 2011 and you are saying he is wrong because the 2017 one was really just listed on the Developer update as "coming soon".

Archery is not going to happen, you keep just focusing on minor bug fixes and building updates. I guess you do what you know right?

AI? Crap. Combat? Crap.

When are you going to add fun to the game and not just fix minor bugs and update the awesome building system? The building system doesn't NEED to be updated. It's amazing. Lets have a game now that does something with what people build and craft?

[Xsyon]

I've been over this before.

Ranged combat was implemented very early on. It matched the original combat system. During the pre-order phase combat was revised right away. Ranged was not revised to match that system. At the time I figured it wouldn't be that hard to update ranged to match and I did post that ranged should be coming soon. We never got to it. Other tasks took priority and coders that revised combat left the team.

After the official Prelude launch we revised combat completely again (with 2 new programmers, one brought on specifically to revise creatures and combat). With this current system, the original ranged code became obsolete. The combat programmers did start working on code to match the current system but they also stopped working on Xsyon the following year. Their code wasn't good and I scrapped it.

At that point, ranged combat became something that needed to be done from scratch and it hasn't been one of my priorities. I haven't mentioned it as a priority either but as something that I am working towards.

I work on the code in order. Proper ranged combat required many changes. Collision and the path finding blocking system needed to be redone. That was completed but caused the 'trick' multi-story system of building to no longer work. So I spent a lot of time implementing a proper multi-story building system. Next, de-synch needed to be resolved or at least greatly improved. I've heavily optimized many portions of the code and revised the networking (packets) system. Three times I've put synchronization changes up for public testing and hardly anyone cares. The full changes have yet to be patched.

Last year I worked primarily on creatures, combat and the War Server conquest system that I proposed. For most of the year I was injured which made it difficult to sit at the computer for long period of times. During that time I read up on ways to further optimize the code and I've implemented what I learned. All of this I've gone over in my Developer Updates.

Things like a complete overhaul to creatures and combat (which is what I've been working on primarily) take time. Two programmers spent the greater part of a year on just combat and AI. I spent months of my own time completing and reworking parts of the system and adding things like creature migration and tools to gather data for these systems. Going into revising these systems, I knew there would be a long pause of 'meaningful' updates. So I squeeze in bug fixes and improvements that our player base enjoy. Other issues (like compatibility issues that most players don't notice) also take precedence.

Frankly, MrDDT, I don't understand your obsession with Xsyon. You know that we don't see eye to eye on what makes a fun game. I enjoy creativity and immersion in games. Being able to create something (like towns in Xsyon) for me is satisfying and rewarding in itself. I've tried to make systems like crafting, farming, cooking and tribe systems enjoyable in themselves. I enjoy them! Xsyon still lacks a lot that I want to implement, so I keep working as hard as I can on it. But, I think as is it's a fun game. It's more enjoyable to me than other 'sandbox' 'survival' games that I've checked out.

When you come to the forum bringing things up out of context, misrepresenting things I've written, writing things that are simply not true (like that I'm focused on minor bug fixes and building updates) and poking insults at me, I honestly don't know what you're trying to achieve. If you're trying to push me to work 'harder', that's not happening. I've always worked as hard as I can to the point that it's caused many issues with my health. I'm also not going to change my focus. Creature and combat revisions take priority right now but minor improvements and fixes will continue to come as I squeeze those things in while I'm running time consuming tests.

There must be games that are much closer to your ideal! There must be developers that see eye to eye with the things you seek in a game. Even with the upcoming combat changes and conquest system, I doubt Xsyon will satisfy you. Seriously, why don't you seek out a game that you truly enjoy created by like minded developers?

[MrDDT]

I'm glad you are happy with your game.
Most people are not.

I've been trying to give input to make the game better not for the few but for the many. You know the ones that bought the game 10+ years ago that you left hanging. Things like ranged combat? Breeding? Heck you almost didn't even put animals in the game you had to delay the game a month to put them in on release.

You act as if, I made all this stuff up that I want in a game and you didn't say it was going to be in the game or it was coming. You ask questions about how to do it or what people want and you do things like split servers.

I do play games that are closer to my ideas, I've been playing them for years. I'm here because I have hope and seen that you have skills that could but you focus them on things that matter little to most. If this is all you care about is making a building simulator then why do you tell us different stories how about other things are "planned" or "coming" or "soon"?

I made comments on these posts here like this because I want people to know what they are getting into, before they think "Hey this is a game of survival and PVE or PVP" (depending on which server they pick.

The changes you are talking about that "hardly anyone cares" is because mostly that's true. Those changes are not really going to affect the game. You need to add content. Things for people to strive for. At this point, you need to add a large chunk of content. Just adding in something like Revenants (which was awesome) is not going to cut it. People want the survival aspect of the game. They want something to overcome and work towards. You have a great skill system but no direction in why to do it. You have great crafting but it's mostly for looks. You have great building system but it's all for looks.

Have I not put 1000s of hours into this game? I've gave ideas, and reported bugs, and worked on wikis and recruited people and tried to work on the better of the game. Yes I know you don't agree with all the ways I go about things but such is life.

What is your mission? Is your mission to have a very small group of people playing your game? Where you like your game being creative world where you can build? or did you want it to be a survival game where it's a journey of playing and growth of toons and guilds?

You have a great building game. But if a building game is your focus, you should focus on it. Where are the chests? The paintings? The landscaping? The statues? Where are the texture colors for walls? Where is the paint?
People have been asking for those things. I understand again we hit a brick wall here because guess what? Those require graphic artists. Opps got a problem hard to go into that direction.

Only you can tell about how hard/long something will take and the effort, time and resources to do it. I and others have tried to help you in what is of a high value to player base. This is a great project for you and you've spend a lot of effort on it. I completely understand. But not admitting to the faults something has will not allow them to be fixed. People expecting ranged combat to come into the game anytime soon will be sadly let down and tell anyone else how let down they were. It also will not allow for a topic to really see what is coming and needed in the game that can be worked on.

It really seems like this is the end. I've already deleted my tribe in PVE just to remove any doubt of my posts of how committed I am to making the game better. I deleted my main toons there too. I wanted people to see I'm not trying to mess up a PVE world and control it. As many of the PVE people have accused me of for years.
Until updates come in that will allow players to strive for things in game, you will not see people sticking around. Giving unbreakable tools/weapons etc is not helping anyone. The economy and decay of items is needed for people to strive for purpose in the game. Give them more to strive at, tell them about the wonders they can do and build, but it will be hard and take time.

Most of the old Xsyon players I know left it and play Wurm Online. I know dozens of them that play it instead of Xsyon and truly if you made changes they would love to play Xsyon instead of WO. But Xsyon can't hold them in it because nothing to strive for, no survival aspects, no true PVE or PVP.

I will leave you with this on this topic. I'm not trying to debate you on it. You've said your peace and I've said mine. I really wish Xsyon and you all the best. I'm not going anywhere I will still be around, just I've really lost almost all hope sadly.

[Xsyon]

My comments are not meant as a debate but to clarify things primarily for other players reading this thread.

I develop Xsyon based not only on the feedback on this forum but direct feedback from players, data I gather from actual game play and comparing information with other game developers.

Xsyon was originally designed as a game where players could play roles and create adventures for other players. I had never heard of the term 'sandbox' nor played any 'survival' games. Elements such as food, water, weather and comfort were intended to add to the immersion of the game, but survival wasn't a focus. I was hoping for some players to role play crafters and traders while most would be casual adventurers. Some would be hard core town leaders and the adventure creators (dungeon masters). I didn't have the resources to create my full vision, so I began with the Prelude. This phase was meant as as what is now termed 'sandbox', where players have the freedom to decide what they do and what they focus on in the game. Xsyon is not the game I originally designed. I admit it's flaws and I acknowledge that it needs to be improved. That's why I keep working day and night on it! It's still a fun game and many players have enjoyed it, if even for a limited time.

One of my goals had always been to evolve the game based on player feedback and 'give the players what they want'. Unfortunately by doing this I admit I've lost some of my original vision. From day one most of our players want to do everything not play a specific role. Players wanted systems that I intended to be simple during the initial phase to be more complex, and I made them more complex. Players wanted things I wasn't planning for this phase at all and I added them. This happened at the cost of other systems I did plan not getting implemented.

That's how the game evolves. This is why I usually list what I'm working on and what I'm planning rather than what will be released by a specific date. I use qualifiers such as 'as soon as possible' rather than 'soon'. Sometimes systems I worked on were put aside (like real estate). Sometimes I had outside help that failed me (such as the first round of implementing farming). Often I implement minor suggestions because they are quick changes that make active players happy.

I've been focusing my time and effort on creatures and combat for the past two years. Revising the building system was a necessary step. Optimizations were necessary to accommodate the increase in construction. I improve the game in a logical order and I squeeze in bug fixes and minor improvements as these move the game forward without much effort. Revising systems that took about 1 1/2 years in man hours the first time around takes time when I'm one programmer juggling many other tasks! My progress is slow but steady.

I would love to have higher player retention and to have more players spending more time in game. By the actual data, however, retention and hours played on average are normal for a game like this. These could be improved but realistically I can't expect them to be much higher. Where Xsyon differs most from other similar games is initial sales, although conversion rate from the Steam Store Page is also ok. Retention and median hours played are much better now than during the launch year. These improved once I set up the two servers and improved again with the proper multi-story building updates. Attracting initial players will be key in the future but for now I chose to focus on improving the game.

Note to MrDDT:

Not sure what you mean by the game being delayed because creatures were not done. Creatures were in during the pre-order phase well before the launch. If you meant letting players into the pre-order phase was delayed, that time was a huge mess and I readily admit that but players were let in before creatures were placed for testing.

If you meant during the official Prelude launch, that was delayed a month because of the influx of players and new problems that surfaced with the increased population. There was also a rushed decision to launch with two servers that I regretfully changed my mind about!

[Xsyon]

Regarding comparisons to Wurm: Many of our early players also played (and enjoyed) Wurm. Many players made suggestions to make Xsyon more 'like Wurm' and I'm not surprised if a bunch of hard core players are spending more time in Wurm rather than Xsyon.

I have seen data for Wurm. From what I've seen I gather that Wurm has sold at least 15 times what Xsyon has sold and retains numbers (daily peaks, monthly players) in proportion to sales. Of course this makes for a more active game which helps over all retention.

I personally haven't played Wurm much as each time that I've checked it out, I didn't enjoy the experience. Even though the feature list is nice, I didn't like combat, I thought building was inferior to Xsyon and I didn't like how many things are implemented.

From what I understand some major differences include:

- In Wurm you can max all skills without skill decay or balancing. It does take a long time however and is one reason for retaining long term players.

- Wurm has more skills than Xsyon, so there's more 'to do'.

- Buildings decay over time and get attacked by creatures so they need to be repaired. That's the only different 'use' that I'm aware of.

- There's a monetary system used to upkeep your tribe which forces players to either buy coins or trade for them.

- Wurm launched separate PvE and PvP servers before I did (and like Xsyon, their players lean heavily toward the PvE servers, which is just more indication to me that I should have launched with War and Peace servers).

I can see how these things could retain players for longer periods of time (especially things like upkeep in order to not lose hard work) but to me they aren't attractive features. More skills are nice of course. However, I personally prefer games with stricter skill limits (like Ultima Online) that encourage players to settle into specific roles. Repairing building decay just seems tedious to me and is not something I envisioned in my original design.

Anyways, I'm not going to be using Wurm as a model for the future of Xsyon. My current development plans are posted and when I get through those, Xsyon will evolve to be more different than Wurm rather than similar.

[Ooloo]

O.O

I say again......O.O.....if I could make my eyes bigger I would!

This informative debate IMO is not good for business. I would suggest removing them and for the 2 of you to rant in private.

Mookie

[ChefRamsey]

Actually, I find this conversation rewarding. How many games have you seen a dev so passionate about what he does and why he does it? I am proud of Xsyon to take the time to respond and in a way that shows his commitment. If nothing else, it really makes me happy that I decided to stay playing this game and that I put my trust in a dedicated developer. I have enjoyed playing this game for years. As with anyone I get impatient at times for updates but that doesn't really take away from my game experience. Just want to say thank you, Xsyon for your commitment to such a fun and truly amazing game.

[Wilson423]

Has community modding ever been considered? Is it even possible?

[Xsyon]

Has community modding ever been considered? Is it even possible?

I'm not sure what you mean. Do you mean selling a stand alone version of Xsyon where players could run their own modded servers or do you mean setting up a system (like in Warcraft) where players can create add-ons? Or something else?

[Wilson423]

More like add on and tweaks. What is added would be up to you or by vote after testing maybe. With a small community I think voting would be reasonable idea and splinter servers would be a bad idea.
Most moddable games are built around the idea of being modded and this could just muddy the waters and make your life harder if xsyons engine is uncooperative. There should also be a local test mode to polish before submitting

[Xsyon]

Ah, ok. Yeah, Xsyon's not designed for that type of modding at all. I wouldn't even know where to begin or what I would allow to be modified. (I've never played any moddable games)

[Whorlok]

XSYON is designed for a true Sandbox MMO where the Player bring her ideas in form from Events to a Game!
Your ideas bring the world to LIVE!...and not the MMO give you the joice to do only ONE WAY!

example: Player can build QUESTS for other Players on a QUEST TOTEM where they can earn XP for Levelling her Char!
1000 other Things to explore in XSYON...only bad Thing is not the highend grafic!...but ist in middle class ..gameplay is more important and fun on a game...;)

[Eyesgood]

I am one of those veteran Wurm players that pops in to see how things are going over here at Xsyon. I first came here in 2010. About 2-3 times a year I jump on my character and walk around looking at the game and its updates. About 1 time every two years I purchase game time and play a little. Ok, so I am nobody important and what I am about to say probably means little to few.

Rather than being a contributor to the community and progress of this game, MrDDT has become a disgruntled, apathetic distraction. His constructive feedback from years ago has morphed into what appears to be a mindset of bitterness that the game has not gone his way. He has stated in this thread the game is dead but yet he chooses to stick around. And for what? To continue to badger the developer? Enough of that, sir. Take yourself somewhere else if that is all you plan to do. But honestly, if I were this developer, I would delete your forum account, your game account(s), and block your IP at the router, and be done with you. At this point, I would imagine you have broken so many phrases in the terms of agreement, the development team (of one) is wholly justified in these suggested actions. MrDDT, leave the game and let it recover from your cancerous diatribes of the past few years.

Xsyon developer, keep up the good work. I admire your singular accomplishments and your tenacity. You haven't pulled me from Wurm yet, but that's ok. I am happy to see another sandbox game grow and flourish and I will keep coming back and watching your progress. But guys like DDT who are obsessed with being a nuisance to everyone are only pulling you down. You don't have to put up with it, you know?

That is all I wanted to say.

[Ooloo]

O.O

I stood behind The Dev. for the first couple of years because the game had most of what I was looking for at that time but changes happen and now I'm more inclined to be on the other side of the fence with MrDDT (not that I really like him). Though this post has been sidetracked a bit, the game has not come to fruition as the Dev. stated it would after original launch. MrDDT has in fact probably helped the game more than anyone wishes to admit and he has the right to his opinions as all of us do (though in the past I was told to take my rants to private tells and is why I mentioned that in my earlier reply).
The game needs to get some finishing in order to gain more players and keep them...until then the Population will be meager if that.

Mookie

[Thailen]

Well as far as I'm concerned... (vet wurm player) I like Xsyon more and I'm still new to the game :P

[DrakeHawkins]

I, being totally new to the game find it odd that a forum conversation is actually about (primarily as i can read it) the fact that a game made over 7 years ago somehow is not what everyone (devs included perhaps) expected it to be.

if I'm not mistaken a lot can happen in 7 years. congrats for sticking with it Dev! Build your dream and those who luck upon it and enjoy will join you. those who don't like it will either move on and enjoy something else if they can or they will stay and be bitter.

you clearly have the tenacity of a bulldog to stick with the building of this cool game so long, just need to keep having the feathery trait of a duck and let the whimpering complaints run off to the gutter.