Originally posted by WSIMike
I decided to try out Wurm again.. I checked it out in the past (some months ago) and was glad to see that it seemed to be picking up in popularity.
However.. I gotta ask, and I say this in a completely non-offensive way... purely out of curiosity:
How the hell do you people even get started, nevermind make progress in this game?
I created a character... Talked to the NPC, followed the instructions (open character window, open inventory... equip hatchet and shield, etc). No problem.
Then I'm told to leave the village and go chop down a tree with the hatchet. No problem. I wander off in search of a tree. Not a difficult task, since I seem to be surrounded by forest.
Walk up to a tree.. and have trouble even selecting it. Moving the cursor around it seems to want to select everything *but* the tree I'm trying to target... I'm getting the grass patches behind it, edge tiles, stone slabs... every other tree in the area... except the one I'm actually trying to target. Not very intuitive, and rather clunky to be honest.
Yeah the selection thing takes some getting used to. Basically the world is made up of tiles and you as the player do things to those tiles. So instead of click on the tree you click on the tile that the tree is on.
Finally, I get a tree targeted... I right-click and a menu comes up with options to examine, emotes, etc. etc.. But nothing to do with actually chopping down the tree (I checked and the hatchet was equipped). I try again... no option to actually cut down the tree. Decide to try another tree... Same result... can't do it. I wandered around for about 10 minutes going from tree to tree to tree trying to cut one down.. none of them gave me the option.
This part is a little less intuitive at first but once you get the hang of it is much easier. Basically instead of equiping the item you need in your hand you double click the item in your inventory to activate it. This will let you use the item in the world and on the tiles or items. The only thing you need to equip is weapons and armor, everything else is activated via the double click. Try this and you should have no problem cutting down trees.
Then I come to realize that there are messages showing up in the text window about thorns doing damage to me. What thorns? All I see is grass and trees all around me. I turn around and try to get back to the road... a red glow is growing around the border of the screen, indicating that I'm taking some bad damage... It continues to worsen even after I'm on the path again.
I haven't had this issue, could have been a bug or could have been something else. The thing with Wurm's combat system is that its not based on HP like every other mmo. It's based off wounds. If something gives you a wound, like a thorn bush or wolf, you can check in your inventory under your body tree. It'll say something like Wound (Light) or (Medium) etc. The thing about wounds is that if you have medium or worse you need to get the wounds treated or you might bleed to death. If you have a bunch of light wounds and start walking around then the wounds will get worse because you are over exerting yourself.
It's a bit weird at first cause I was so used to the HP system but I gotta say I kinda like Wurm's system.
So, here I am... almost dead due to thorns I didn't know were there, holding a hatchet that I can't use on trees that I can't cut down...
I went to the official site and checked the wiki to see what I was doing wrong (not a good sign when the beginning steps of a starter tutorial require you to research outside the game... but anyway).. Seems I was doing everything right according to the FAQ... It just wasn't working in-game.
Despite the lack of clarity in-game, it's still VERY useful to have the wiki page open and search for stuff as you start playing and having questions.
Needless to say my first impression is not at all good.
I'm wondering how those of you playing and enjoying it managed to get through all that? Are those known issues that there are work-arounds for?
I would highly recommend joining a village in game, they will help you get food and have services avalible to you such as a forge to make weapons or boats to sail out into the ocean to catch fish. I assume you started on Golden Valley? Are you Jean-Kellon? If so there's a nice village just outside First Light called Scorpion Stone that you could join. Message me in-game, my name is Haust, and I'll try to hook you up with a place in the village.
