Wurm Online and A Tale in the Desert - anyone played them?

[Huw the Poo]

I made it to my new home tonight!  The owner wasn't around to make me a member so I logged off for now; don't want to risk dying and having to spawn back in the centre of the map again!

Also I was greeted with absolute horror when I got there!  I'll post a screenshot tomorrow...

[Sparhawk]

I just canceled my subscriptions to EVE Online. The only thing keeping me logging in for awhile now has been keeping my skills going. When I played regularly I didn't do much combat, my focus has always been building and marketing things. I am intrigued by Wurm but wonder if it's polished enough to immerse me. The adventure of building something up out in the wilderness sounds like a lot of fun. I don't have much tolerance for pointless grind though.

[Huw the Poo]

This is what greeted me at the entrance to my new village!  :o

I am intrigued by Wurm but wonder if it's polished enough to immerse me. The adventure of building something up out in the wilderness sounds like a lot of fun. I don't have much tolerance for pointless grind though.

It might not be polished enough for you if I'm honest.  However it is free to play so you can have a go and see what you think.  To me, the promise of a completely deformable world and a vast array of building and crafting options is enough for me to forgive a certain amount of roughness.  So far I haven't been bothered by it at all.  Hopefully tonight I'll become a proper member of the village and start building stuff.  I'll report back.

[Sparhawk]

Goodness gracious, hopefully those buggers were on a short leash, metaphorically at least.

[Huw the Poo]

Heh, they were dead; they're just trophies now. :)

Sorry I haven't posted any more impressions yet.  I haven't had much chance to play this week.  I'll post some over the weekend.

[Huw the Poo]

Right, I've played a bit more and even had a tour of Bonsai (our settlement)!  Have a look at a few snapshots I took during the tour:

Gallery

The mayor, Phyko, is pretty cool.  He gave me an extensive tour then equipped me with a full suit of armour and a decent sword.  He set permissions so that I can take raw materials from the settlement, then told me his current long-term goal: To build a big ol' castle for us all to live in.

This game is starting to bite me.  I find the "anti-game" ethos to be extremely cathartic.  Instead of worrying about bad guys or whatever, I log in and set about farming, cooking, mining, whatever.  It's very relaxing.

However it is not for everyone.  You do need patience.  As a beginner many of the activities you attempt will fail, simply because you don't have high enough skill levels.  I just made a chest to put at the foot of my bed, and it took me a dozen attempts to attach three planks in order to finish it.  However the relevant skills always increase even if you fail, so you will get better in time.  Also, if you go to sleep in a bed when you log out you'll accrue sleep bonus, which you can activate at will to get better skill gains when you do stuff.

I've learned how to farm, so at the moment I'm growing cotton.  The reason I'm growing cotton is that it's an essential component of a decent healing cover; health doesn't regenerate over time.  In order to do this I first found some cotton by "botanizing" some grass.  Then I "picked" the cotton, destroying it but producing a seed.  Then I packed and cultivated some dirt (in a small farm outside our village's designated newbie house) and proceeded to sow the seed.  It will take about three real-time days for the seed to produce plants, during which time I should tend to the field to ensure efficient growth.

If I want, I can venture into our mine and dig out some iron.  Phyko's set up an anvil and forge inside the entrance to save us having to run back to town.  So I can get some iron then immediately use it to forge weaponry and tools.  Next I'm going to learn how to cook; again, the newbie house has a dedicated kitchen kitted out with everything we need.  I'll grow my own ingredients then combine them in the kitchen to hopefully make some decent meals.

I'll post more tomorrow.  For now, though, I'm happy to report that this is a marvellous game and I'm itching to dive back in and do more to help out the village and improve my skills.  This is going to be the first free-to-play game I actually buy premium time for.

I'll take specific questions if there are any.

[TheCommandTent]

This sounds like it would take alot of real time investment to get anywhere.  Is that the case?  Is the game like Minecraft in that there is no goal/objective just building to build or is there a reason settlements are formed and they need forts and castles?

[Huw the Poo]

This sounds like it would take alot of real time investment to get anywhere.  Is that the case?

I would say yes.  It can take quite a while to build a house, for example.  However since you only ever respawn on death at a village you'll want to join one as soon as possible, in which case a lot of time-consuming stuff will have been done for you.  I have a ready-made bedroom in the newbie house of my village, for example, and I'm surrounded by all the raw supplies I need to get started.  It's very much like Eve Online in this regard; joining a group of players is pretty much essential, and transforms the game.

It's also worth pointing out, though, that Wurm is very much a social and crafting-oriented game.  If you could just plonk buildings down in seconds as in Minecraft, you'd quickly wonder what the hell to do next.  The building (and associated mining, gathering, farming etc) is a huge part of the fun of the game.

Is the game like Minecraft in that there is no goal/objective just building to build or is there a reason settlements are formed and they need forts and castles?

I'm not sure about this one.  I certainly don't have any other goal than to help my village prosper.  There are no NPCs handing out quests (not that I know of, anyway).  However there is another layer for more advanced players; you can join a religion, learn spells, improve your combat skills and go after "boss" NPCs like dragons, for example.  Also, some servers have open-world PvP so I imagine the game is quite different there, with player-run factions and territorial conquest etc.  As with any sandbox game, Wurm is what you make it.

[Yskonyn]

As long as the playerbase is mature enough to play open PvP at a decent way I think that might actually be the preferred way to play in these games. This is Utopian, however. To quote Game of Thrones: "Within every man is a beast. Just give him a blade and you shall meet it" (not exact wording).
In games this is even more true and grown up men devolve into immature gankers just because its easy and instant fun to keep bashing the low level newbie.

How would you gauge the general playerbase in Wurm, Huw?

[Huw the Poo]

Well I only play on a PvE server.  However, thus far, I'm happy to report that everyone I've spoken to has been polite at least, and exceedingly helpful at most.

I should add, though, that I've never seen more than 300 people on my server at one time - and spread across the enormous map, that means you don't physically encounter many people beyond your own village-mates.  Don't expect a large playerbase.

I'll post more thoughts later today.

One more thing - there's always at least one volunteer helper in the help channel and they are goldmines of useful information.  You can also access the extensive wiki in-game.

[Yskonyn]

Which server do you play on Huw? Can you tell a bit more about the restrictions of a free account vs a subscription?

[Huw the Poo]

I play on Independence, which is in the Freedom cluster.  Here's an excellent summary of the servers.

The biggest difference between premium and free is that you can't develop skills above 20 on a free account (and lapsed premium accounts' skills are capped at 20 even if they have exceeded it).  Having a high skill in something makes you more efficient at it, meaning things get done quicker, the tool you're using degrades more slowly, and you get a higher yield (as when growing crops, for example).  Crucially, some actions are not available at all at 20 or below.  You can still do all the essential stuff like build a house, but capped at 20 in building means your house will need to be made of wood, because building with stone requires a higher skill level.

There's a tremendous amount of breadth to the game, very reminiscent of Ultima Online.  For example, to make food you can grow all sorts of crops and herbs and make very varied meals.  Cut down a tree, saw the resulting logs, and take your carving knife to the wood and you get plenty of options of what to make.  Every part of the terrain can be worked in a variety of ways, from terraforming - digging the ground to lower it or refilling with dirt to raise it - to farming, to paving, etc.  There is a lot of stuff you can do in the game.

Ultimately, at least on the PvE servers, it's purely a sandbox.  You play to make your own space in the world and develop and customise it as you see fit.  Grow crops, mine for ores, work the ore into valuables, build ships and set sail, travel to the market to trade your surplus goods etc.  I imagine that the game is quite different on the PvP servers.  For me, the attraction is that I love Minecraft, and this is basically a much deeper, MMO version of that game.  I could have built a house somewhere in the wilderness for myself, but instead I chose to join a village and since they provide for my basic needs, I'm happy to spend my time in-game doing less selfish stuff.  Instead of growing just enough crops to sustain me, I'm happy to take care of our huge farm to ensure that everyone in the village is catered for.

You also need patience.  It's not as bad as the picture Bardolph painted at the top of the thread - the game has evidently moved on since he played - but things do take time.  Crops take a few real-time days to grow, for example, so you can't just plant a potato and expect to have a meal half an hour later.  And while your skills are low you'll have more failures than successes when you're trying to achieve something.  But even failures increase your skill level, so the problem lessens over time.

I want to play now so that's all I'm going to say for the time being! :D  One feature I do like is that if you go to sleep in a bed you will log off and start to accrue "sleep bonus" - this can be activated any time to give substantial bonuses to skill increases.  It's designed to narrow the skill gap between players who can't spend much time playing and those who have all day to play.

One last thing - here is the map of Independence!  As you can see, the world is absolutely enormous.  I shudder to think how long it would take to walk from one end to the other!

[Yskonyn]

Thanks! Great writeup!
I am going to take a peek tomorrow. It's free afterall, so I won't lose anything by checking it out.
Perhaps I find I want to stay too. ;)

[Huw the Poo]

Splendid!  I'm Huw on that server if you join it.  Also, you'd be welcome in Bonsai if you want to join. :)

[Huw the Poo]

A word of caution - beware falling damage!  It's very easy to take damage even from small drops, so watch your step.