Wurm Online Comments by Quintin Smith

What're the first two games where nights are actually dark?

How intriguing!

Appropriate subtitle to this article?

Taking a look right now ;o

lolz at the strapline.

Very nice write-up EG, i will try this.

On the topic of dark games, I remember Operation Flashpoint being absolutely pitch black at night.

Earth Song!

That looks really interesting. I'd be worried about people nicking my apples or raping my pigs but it sounds cool.

The game has changed quite a bit from what it was in the betas and to what it is today. Yet, other things haven't changed at all.

The article only talks about the current state of Wurm. In the "olden days" there were alot of players running around causing havoc - and at one time Goons started playing. Well, we all know what happens when the Goons "raid" a game ;)

I quit playing Wurm both because of RL and because the game itself changed from being based on creating things into a game based on who could have the shiniest sword with the most blood on it, as well as the addition of magic playing an important role whereas the original promise was that magic would come into play as a subtle effect that only a very few could become really good at. The game was based alot more on social interaction between building communities back then rather what it is now.
I also had a character on one of the servers before they changed their server configurations - now you can only access one island as a free account - before, you could access at least two. Now, those are all for premium accounts - and my character is stuck on one of them.

If you want to try a game that is diffirent from most other MMOs out there then I would suggest Wurm Online. If you are one of the people that have trouble thinking for yourself, figuring stuff out, then Wurm might not be for you.

Screw that, the article taglines are hilarious :D

I remember characters in Everquest 1 moaning to high heaven because they couldn't see at night/in the dark, originally. I was a dwarf, so I laughed at their wussy non-bearded ways!

Hmm well I just had a go at Wurm, but it runs incredibly slow even at low settings (5fps). Ok, so I'm using a laptop, but I can run Left 4 Dead well enough at near max settings. As I'm lazy, can anyone find me a good page with tips on how to make it run better?

@retrend: If you haven't tried it then your words hold no water. If graphics are holding you away then you aren't a true gamer.

@Setaro: It's an MMO. Not an shooter. Frames don't matter as much as your connection does. Wurm uses opengl, you might need to update some drivers. You might want to go into settings on the start-up and try changing it from jogl+awt to lwjgl. If not then there are alot of graphic options in the Graphics and Advanced Graphics tab. Changing water reflections and render distance always helps as well.

Eurgh... that video link at the start of the review has put me off my cricket and salad sandwich! Yuck!

Hilariously appropriate tagline! A man died!

+1000 Pts for that YouTube video

.... I thought someone would have said the obligatory "better than Darkfall!" by now... oh well: Better than Darkfall! :-)

This, or plant a garden.

Quinns, this is totally the third time you've written about Wurm in 2 months. Come on, man!

Er. I played it and wasn't too taken. I think I need a mate to play with.

Nice article. Here's my newb experience. I signed up to a prem account about a week ago and followed behind the exodus to the new PvE homeland. On my arrival I saw that the beautiful landscape before me was largely undisturbed but roads and structures are shooting up all over the place and things are changing fast.
Everyone has been really helpful - thanks Dannyiron ;) – and I feel safe in the prem starter ‘town’ of Samling but, joining the land grab and venturing into the wilderness at such a low skill level is genuinely scary. I spend 3 nights with a friend plopping around the entire coastline in a rowing boat looking to establish my new home but all the prime coastal deeds had already been nabbed. hrrmmff
So inland it is then... but setting foot on land from the relative safety of my boat I need to watch out for roaming critters and mobs that will rip me to shreds unless you're light on your toes. (I nearly got toasted by a chicken on the first day for crisakes!!) I can’t describe how alert to danger you suddenly become when you know you could lose absolutely everything by venturing out. This for me is the essence of WURM and what sets it apart from the other MMOs out there. Oh, you'll need to get past the functional and rudimentary character models sliding towards you folks, but persevere and you’ll be rewarded big time. If they catch you unawares you could easily bleed to death and you’ll have a long walk back to find you're corpse and with no map or compass. (yup, not skilled enough to make one yet) oh and you’d better have a good memory for geography too. You really need to attempt this trip once though as it’s the only way you can retrieve your carefully crafted belongings. Of course you could start all over again in your underwear begging for basic tools in the starter town or a get your mates in your village to help you if you’re lucky enough to have joined one. Which, I can hear regular Wormians screaming is what I should be doing buy hey I like exploring.
You really do make everything in this world unless someone's got a spare to give you or sell you but be prepared to lose the lot if you’re not careful. The scenery isn't Crisis but it’s still gorgeous and very atmospheric. As the man said Its well worth a look but beware, only enter the hinterland of this world if you fancy yourself as Bear Grylls or are very brave indeed!

I played this a while back, even coughed up money for a short subscription which is required to advance skills beyond level 10, a very crippling handicap (despite assurances to the contrary by the article author).

The graphics, interface and audio are very basic. I mean, there aren't even a lot of animations available, resulting in very awkward combat encounters. Equipped armor won't show, everyone's avatars are identical, there's no map, etc. It works, but just barely, mostly thanks to how unique it is.

The game shines when people are co-operating, pooling their different skillsets to craft and build things. There truly is nothing else like it out there, so if you want an MMO with virtually no mandatory combat then you might want to check Wurm out. But be warned - you'll still be grinding experience for your skills, just not through killing stuff or doing quests. Oh, and bring friends!

I want to try it, but I can't bring myself to play a game where I might be killed by a chicken.

It's so much better than Darkfall. Shitty but funny.

Well...Wurm is different, just in case you hadn't realised by now. I started playing almost a year ago, and have been hooked pretty much since then. Sadly I've been busy IRL these past few months and have been unable to log in. So here's my story shortened a bit.I decided I wanted to make a boat so in my foolishness I built a raft thinking I could sail on it. Nuhuh. I then applied for several towns and lurked around Small bears for a few days where I was used for what was basically slave labour by some dude called Elias. There I met Elwood and Osdeath. After a few days of hard work and no thanks I convinced Osdeath to go to Ahkenaten with me. Halfway through the journey I remembered I was going camping for a week and hurridly logged off to pack my bags. Came back a week later and finished the journey to find out Osdeath never arrived. I had no acces to any building for about a week because Flinter was never one when I was. When Flinter finally logged on I'd managed to track down Osdeath and persaude him to swim down to Ahkenaten from the Harandros desert where he'd been living.I'd later come to live a few hundred tiles away from where he was at the time. After persauding him to ask Flinter to join(he was shy :P) he got a house--I refused, I wanted to build my own(Never happened, I just camped with Os for the next 3 months). I then set my sights on becoming BL, met a few people and blahblahblah I didn't go. Computer broke, got a new one, played again, went to MRH met some awesome people, went BL, realised I wasn't ready for Wild, came to JKH, joined Ahkeanten again when 4chan invaded. Those guys at Brome were awesome...After convincing them to leave their homes and go to a new place Rolf introduced GV, massive panic attack and before long the bustling town was in ruins. Fun while it lasted though.

Lesse...Before long I got restless and looked for some people to go to MRH with. Out of the 4 people I found only 1 came with me, despite we'd planned everything ^^. Oh well. Next stop my old home on MRH(I lived in a cave, heh). Next stop Validus. Can't say I did much but I'm going to use the fact I was ill and had a music exam coming up as an excuse for that. Gave a few people a ride down there, spent a week looking for a horse on Emoo's orders and found one on the way back...Almost got killed about 20 times, and when I got back I found he had 7 already. I was very annoyed. Now I'm on Freedom with Ahkenaten again, currently annoyed at certain people.

Anyway, if any of you need a helping hand on the newbie server (Golden valley, or GV for short) don't hesitate to send 'Looroll' a PM on the Wurm forums, or contact me here. Hope to see some, if not all, of you in game :)

-Gwydion

Thought I'd give this a try today but after running it on default settings it was looking REALLY bad and ran at about 5-10 fps. If it's one or the other I can work with it and try a few things but both at the same time and it's not for me.
Interesting concept though.

Gutted, I really wanted to try this. Downloaded the client, registered but returned EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION error log and the client would close after a bubble animation. Cant post on forums as my username is not recognised but I can log onto the shop area and buy the premium package or silver coins.

I have tried everything I can think of to get this to work but alas its not to be.

Wanted a brerak from wow, damn I guess I'll just have to carry on!

Romel_potter I think you should update your graphics drivers. The client doesn't get very good fps on certain laptops and old graphics cards.

yea, I tried that. unfortunatly it didn't work. I am using an ati based acer 5920g

i think they have ati compatability issues perhaps.

romelpotter, you need to register a separate account for the wurm forums in order to be able to use it. The forums are separate from the game and do not use the in game accounts.

fixed, was advised to turn off ai in the ati catalyst control center.

thanks for the info on the forums, i was not on to that!

I gave this game a try and it really sucks and the graphics are horrible what a waste of time.