MMORPG.com Correspondent Mike Balent writes this At A Glance look at the java-based game Wurm Online that apprently holds more than some readers might expect.

Recently, I decided to try out Wurm Online. I went to the site, made a free account and began my adventure. Wurm Online has both premium ($16USD every two months) and free servers. The game is Java based and is being developed by an Indy developer. The game is skill based, and is a refreshing change from the countless clones that flood today’s market.

The Beginning:

As I log on, I can see the corpses of some recently deceased players. It was a very dark night, and it was raining. I slowly walked over to the NPC guide, and he explained to me how harvesting and crafting worked.

Read the article here.

Hrm... Afraid you forgot to add the link to 'here'. :)

nvm, must have seen it wrong...

Hi,

I have played Wurm for a couple of years now. It is a very addictive game and would fully recommend it.

It is still being developed and just recently boats were added. You can build your own fleet from a rowng boat to a large sailing ship.  There are 3 servers (2 home, no PVP & a wild server which anything goes). It is also possible to sail between servers. This game is a must for anyone that enjoys crafting.

Thank you for this. I will surely try it out.
Many thanks!

Very interesting, I'll have to have a look at this one also.

Thanks for the "At A Glance"

nice article :) but there is some mistake:

15min fire - depense of ql of fire/forge it can be  even 2h on one fuel ;)

5 slot for free  - premium have same

20 skill on free serv - bah but on free you can be premium too

"Players can see up to 16KM, even on lower end computers." what you mean? :P 16km x 16km is map not view sight

and not all item are player madeable.. yet there is some like deed write merchant contract or trader , spyglass (chrismast gift) farwalker amulet (christmast..) ressurection stone and 2 other stone ;p to be bought from trader rest (1000? item?) are craftable :)

"PVP: There is only PvP on the wild servers, which you have to pay for. On the wild server there is open PvP, where town raids happen at least once a week." - on home server pvp exist to but it's only duel and spar , where both player have to agree for fight :)

Another of those f2p that really are not free to play.  Where is the truth in advertising?   The trial is free and that is all.

On Java, only a braindead developer would develop a game in Java, language was never intended for such.  It just slows down the client, so don't run it i on marginal computers.

Nice article though.

 The crafting and housing sound really cool. My main concern would be the combat, creatures, and dungeons for this game. Are they interesting or cool? Regardless I plan to give this game a try.

     Heh I dont know why but when I hear the word "wurm:" I think of bad things like computer virus or the wiggly critters people use for fishing (I know different spelling but still)......

Yes although there is no PvP on the home server, we do have a little issue with some rather over enthusiastic fauna - the curse of many a new player is taking their new shovel, striding out into the brave new world and getting eaten by the first spider they find.

So, if you are into hunting, well, villages require meat and meat tends to come from animals who have an opinion about being hunted!

As for dungeons, on Wurm we dig our own.

Take your shovel and dig down till you hit rock, then take up your pick and open up a tunnel.

Some of the mines are now vast! And abandoned ones become the hiding places of cave bugs and giant scorpions.

A note on the Free to Play - On Wurm you can play for free as long as you like. However, if you want to raise your skills above the 20 cap you will need to turn to pay for premium time. This prevents you from doing some things. For instance to build a Stone house you need a masonry skill of at least 30 -so that is a problem. You can build wooden houses though.

However, if you dont want to go premium - that is fine, you can simply carry on playing as you are. No time limit.

One slightly misleading aspect on the article is about houses everywhere. Round Newtown, your starting point on Jenn-Kellon Home, there are houses everywhere, this is true. However, this is not true all over the map. I am on a large island on the far eastern Ocean and there are just a handfull of us,

And the new Mol-Rahan server (premium only) has loads of space, massive mountains and clean wonderful air -honestly, just take a deep breath! More information here: http://www.wurmonline.com/Game-News/a-new-land-is-discovered.html

Wurm is wonderful. So wonderful that I am writing the music for it - and I dont give my time lightly!

See you there, I hope!

nope even on my crap computer (6600, 1 gig RAM, and 3.6 GHZ) at the top of the highest mountains I can literally see a vast majority of the map/server(even on an edge),  Sure it's not accurate and distorted(everything is so tiny obviously) but I'm rarely lost when I can get to/see landmarks.

It's a great all around game it's just pretty indy.  It has so much stuff that AAA devs can't do just because they're AAA and is pretty much the best arguement around why the MMO genre could possiblely be pretty receptive to indy MMOs.

The world graphics are on par and above a lot of current MMOs, as for characters they're pretty much behind and behind a hell of a lot. The graphic style suits the whole settle theme very nicely(except characters) even if the old graphic engine from beta suited the theme better.
 

As for why I'm not playing it I played it for 2 and a half years and did most the stuff I wanted to several times.   I love the game and will recomend it to just about everyone just because it is so awesome in it's specilizations.

Originally posted by Ozmodan

Another of those f2p that really are not free to play.  Where is the truth in advertising?   The trial is free and that is all.

On Java, only a braindead developer would develop a game in Java, language was never intended for such.  It just slows down the client, so don't run it i on marginal computers.

Nice article though.

 

Runescape is extremely optimized and that runs on Java. I never lag in RS no matter how many people are on. Needless to say Wurm does not have any such optimizations and runs very poorly. There is major lag spikes in that game on broadband 15Mb down connection. I played it for a week and ran into so many difficulties with lag spikes, but this was about 4months ago.

To me the game was lacking in being user friendly, it certainly wont boast well to many gamers. There is the problem of finding people also in such a dense world. Sure the starter towns had people but not many.

You gotta dig that groovy song on their web page.

Wurm Is waiting! waiting for you!

Makes me want to watch Hawk The Slayer or Yor Hunter from the future.

One more thing I hated about this game was the housing. There was so many houses all over the place that you would not know if you came across a town or what till you checked the map. The system is flawed and it liters the scenery everywhere with houses. Pretty stupid system in my eye. Houses need to decay  if they are not used after a set time along with fences and objects placed by people.

Nice review. This is a nice game I've played for awhile, but the warning I have is it's very addicting! You might end up logging on to cut a tree or fix a fence when you're bored. lol

I have a home near Newton I've been wanting to leave for awhile and go out and explore. But it lets you do everything, even raise and lower the ground with dirt you dig. I've built my house, built fences, raise crops, cooked food, mined metal, you name it it's there. Lots of animations are the only things that are lacking, but trees sway and grass and other stuff grows, you see a tree grow from nothing to very tall. It can actually be set to full screen so it pretty much runs just like a standard game.

Originally posted by Tyres100

One more thing I hated about this game was the housing. There was so many houses all over the place that you would not know if you came across a town or what till you checked the map. The system is flawed and it liters the scenery everywhere with houses. Pretty stupid system in my eye. Houses need to decay  if they are not used after a set time along with fences and objects placed by people.

The houses decay, everything decays. Takes about 2 weeks for a houses walls to start falling apart then they disapear, same with fences and everything, it also depends on the quality of your building related to it's skills and if you own a "land deed" which slows down decay that detemines how long things last.

Thanks for the tips, comments, and corrections everone; I'll make sure to remember them :).

The crafting sounds interesting but they lost me in the 'first person only' part.  For shooting games I tend to prefer first person view, but sometimes third person also depending on the game.  For mmo, I have a steep preference for third person.  I usually am pulled back to the middle or far distance, so I can get a feel for the world around me and any threats that might be sneaking up on me.

From an rpg aspect, it also feels less immersive.   I like to see my character, dress him or her up and be able to see their cool gear that I looted or purchased at the auction house. When I shrug, laugh, dance, clap, etc, I like to see my characters actually perform the animations.

All games are not for everyone though.  Sounds like some are enjoying the game and that is nice.

One thing one should keep in mind is that wurm is not really a traditional mmo.

It's indie, low budget. It has a lot of bugs, the ui is crappy, it is grindy to a level that even lineage fails to reach. And if you aproach it like a traditioinal mmo, you will just quit before ever making your first campfire. Wurm also has no Quests, no Storyline to follow. Additionally, in wurm you don't hunt monsters - the monsters hunt you.

But, it is entertaining in a way traditional mmos can't. Travelling through the dangerous lands and finding abandoned or prospering villages, making friends and building your own place.
It's a "game" (trust me, it isn't a game..but i'll just call it a game for now for the sake of it) where people don't ask "What level are you", but "Where do you live". You will settle down, and build something. Changing the landscape is not only a part of wurm, it is wurm. It's what it is all about. Build your village, build your towns, be creative.

I'm currently actively playing wurm on the near deserted Mr Home server and enjoying building my roads and special places, but it will never replace Eve as my favourite Mmo. When i'm bored of space, however, i like to go back to my small hut in the shadow of a huge mountain, chatting with the people also living in out little village, and building or exploring the map. My skillsheet is closed all the time of course, you don't really need it.

It's like Atitd, only with monsters.

Oh by the way.. "farming" is to be taken literarily. There's a reason why you can craft rakes and scythes..

Originally posted by todeswulf

 

 

You gotta dig that groovy song on their web page.

Wurm Is waiting! waiting for you!

Makes me want to watch Hawk The Slayer or Yor Hunter from the future.

 

lol "Wurm is waiting!"

Originally posted by batolemaeus

 Additionally, in wurm you don't hunt monsters - the monsters hunt you.

lol . The Good:  Large map you can terraform the tarrain  make mine tunnels through mountains make buildings guard towers to defend your land from the monsters and outlaws,  you can tame wild animals to be pets to help you in combat or to lure them into a farm area where you can horde thousands of chickens cows and pigs.  On the wild server there is pee v pee  you can destroy some ones house,steal all there stuff and flaten there farms and take the deed money while they are offline lol.  you have to build a good village and terraform your place so its hard for raiders to break in. so if you want to be a crafter you have a none pvp server to be safe from the free for all pvp.

the bad: its very time consuming to get things done takes a noob one hour RL time to smelt  ores so you can make your first few items like metalic tools.  dont expect to have much fun they are other felings you may get that will keep you playing this game but fun is not one of them lol.  Grind is insane but not as much as some korean mmo's i have tried.  stealing you cant leave any thing around you have to watch your fire the whole time or some other noob will take your stuff out of the fire.   no customizable characters or visable armor.  The healing system sux you will get hurt and have to play that way for hours for some of it to heal or spend hours trying to find materials to make healing supplies.

Originally posted by todeswulf

 

 

You gotta dig that groovy song on their web page.

Wurm Is waiting! waiting for you!

Makes me want to watch Hawk The Slayer or Yor Hunter from the future.

 

Yoooooor... Heeee's the maaaaaaaaann.....

(sorry, I couldn't resist)

:-p

Seriously, I tried the game out a bit... It says to go talk to the NPC near where I started, but I couldn't find any such NPC that had any useful information for me O.o. I think he quit.

This is the first time I have ever seen a game advertise the time it takes to craft as a positive thing...  And it didnt say fast it said 15 mins...

Hi,

This is a pretty good review, I must say. Thanks to this article I know a lot more about Wurm Online, a good which looked great to me but a bit too hardcore...

But I wish you would say a little bit more about the combat system in the game. Because in this article, you only write about the crafting/harvesting system.

Greetz2Z

Originally posted by phatpetey

Hi,

This is a pretty good review, I must say. Thanks to this article I know a lot more about Wurm Online, a good which looked great to me but a bit too hardcore...

But I wish you would say a little bit more about the combat system in the game. Because in this article, you only write about the crafting/harvesting system.

Greetz2Z

 

 pvp is the only minus of game :[ it's pretty unbalanced for now and hard for new player (as most of player on wild are pretty high skiled fighter)

but you can have pvp on home too ;) and it's much safer like:

spar - fight as long as someone have 10-15%hp then it auto stop

duel - you die in this so not good idea ;]

"war" - this one never happened yet as I know ;) if 2 village/ single deed holder want they can declare war each other but on home server both side need to agree then you can kill each other without penalty ;)