Wurm Online

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Blorx
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Wurm Online

Post by Blorx » Sat Aug 29, 2009 2:42 pm

http://www.wurmonline.com/

A Java-based, completely open-ended MMORPG. Anyone ever heard of it? Animations-wise, it could use improvement, and character customization has yet to be implemented but the gameplay is astounding.

It's kinda like A Tale In the Desert meets Oblivion.

I'm playing as Johnmatthais whenever I have the time and actually enjoying the ride. ^_^

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TheBigCheese
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Re: Wurm Online

Post by TheBigCheese » Sat Aug 29, 2009 3:23 pm

Okay, I tried it, because it looked honestly great. The premise is awesome, but the implementation is lacking.

The controls played horrible, first of all. Simply looking around was a pain. The UI was horribly outdated consisting of a console that displayed information. It was a pain to read. Beyond that, it's so blindly confusing without a single drop of easily accessible help, that I couldn't figure out what the heck I was supposed to be doing.

Then I figured out that you basically have to pay to do anything.
*Pick up hatchet from the ground*
Sorry, you cannot steal things in this world.
*Go to another world*
Sorry, you cannot go to another world without a premium account.

Then I closed the game. Free play is supposed to draw you in to want to pay, not sit there keeping anything worthwhile out of your reach.

Also, making it in Java was a stupid move. Sure, it can be played in the browser, but if you're going to be paying $5 a month anyways, you'd think people would be okay with downloading a program to their harddrive to play.

If they had spent a little more time making it playable, as well as giving the free players actually something meaningful to do, I might have played a little longer.

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Blorx
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Re: Wurm Online

Post by Blorx » Sat Aug 29, 2009 4:54 pm

You don't have to pay to do anything. I play fine for free. A good idea would have been to talk to the NPCs and try and get the tutorial quests. Asking for help in the help or local channels is also a good idea. Many players are willing to take you under their wing and maybe even provide you with housing.

You couldn't steal because you were in a town. You have to leave the town to get looting abilities, or any abilities regarding the world around you besides walking and talking.

The only thing I think you're missing out on by not being in a premium world is PvP.

Also, I don't know about looking being a pain. It's become second nature for me. You're not generally using the pointer for anything else until you reach something, and by then you're not usually moving until you need to reach something else.

I usually ignore the information log except for when crafting because you generally know what you're doing. Hence, the chat log is all I pay attention to.

It may have been outdated, but the game obviously wasn't meant to appease any sort of casual gamer to begin with. It is an MMO about wilderness survival after all.

Not trashing your opinion, just backing up facts. ^_^

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Re: Wurm Online

Post by Skofo » Sat Aug 29, 2009 6:47 pm

I love the concept of a sandbox MMO, but the graphics really turn me off.

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Blorx
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Re: Wurm Online

Post by Blorx » Sat Aug 29, 2009 6:53 pm

yeah, it's got it's own beauty though ^_^

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Re: Wurm Online

Post by TheBigCheese » Sat Aug 29, 2009 10:13 pm

Wait, do you play it as single player? I didn't see a soul besides myself.

And I thought PvP would have been the main focus. What exactly is the main focus? You said wilderness survival, but that's kind of boring without other players.

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Blorx
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Re: Wurm Online

Post by Blorx » Sat Aug 29, 2009 10:23 pm

No, I play with 5 other players on and off. There are like 20-30 online at any time of the day usually between the American and European players. Just check the smaller division of the chat window, it'll tell you who's in the area with you.

In fact, there's a dedicated player-base willing to team up with you and teach you and even house you, as I've already said if you just ask.

The focus is wilderness survival - getting materials, building a house, making everything you use except the starter tools, fending off danger, farming, breeding animals, helping others, etc. It's a completely community-based game.

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Re: Wurm Online

Post by TheBigCheese » Sat Aug 29, 2009 10:29 pm

Blorx wrote:No, I play with 5 other players on and off. There are like 20-30 online at any time of the day usually between the American and European players. Just check the smaller division of the chat window, it'll tell you who's in the area with you.

In fact, there's a dedicated player-base willing to team up with you and teach you and even house you, as I've already said if you just ask.

The focus is wilderness survival - getting materials, building a house, making everything you use except the starter tools, fending off danger, farming, breeding animals, helping others, etc. It's a completely community-based game.
Ah.... Okay. Gotcha.

It looks fun if I had the time to commit to it. I'm always a fan of survival games.

Edit: What confused me was that it says "this world is largely unpopulated". Sounds like it means singleplayer.

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Blorx
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Re: Wurm Online

Post by Blorx » Sat Aug 29, 2009 10:40 pm

It's a big world. People settle mainly around the starter area from what i've seen. Can't blame them. There's a river, lake, several mines, plenty of land and it's forested. The rest is just mainly used for exploration I guess.

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Re: Wurm Online

Post by TheBigCheese » Sat Aug 29, 2009 11:16 pm

Okay, so I went back to play it again. It's actually pretty fun.

The problem is that it really isn't fun by yourself. I spent about 30 minutes carving kindling and trying to make a campfire (it says 50%, but I never made one in all the tries I did).

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Blorx
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Re: Wurm Online

Post by Blorx » Sun Aug 30, 2009 1:25 am

I did fine with that. No clue why you had trouble. =\

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Glabbit
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Re: Wurm Online

Post by Glabbit » Sun Aug 30, 2009 3:11 am

"Holy Crash, Batman!"

Tried it, several times. After the oddest and ugliest registration method I had seen (which actually still worked well, but nevermind that), the client crashed on startup.
Yes, it actually said 'Holy crash, batman!' the first time.

Then I lost interest.
I have no wish to try and fix a game that you have to work to start playing without even knowing if it's worth it.

Meh.

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Blorx
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Re: Wurm Online

Post by Blorx » Sun Aug 30, 2009 3:14 am

Glabbit, if you're on Mac, there's some odd error where you have to set your sound driver settings (for the game) to software, rather than hardware the first time.

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Glabbit
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Re: Wurm Online

Post by Glabbit » Sun Aug 30, 2009 3:16 am

...wait...
WHAT?

Okay, I'm going to try that...
...riiiiight as soon as I figure out what you meant.

EDIT: It seems to start up fine now.
That truly is one of the oddest bugs I've ever heard of.
You said 'the first time'. Do I conclude that from now on hardware will work?

EDIT2: I hope so, because this suddenly burnt up my speakers with noise.
Force-quit.
Let's try that again...
Last edited by Glabbit on Sun Aug 30, 2009 3:19 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Blorx
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Re: Wurm Online

Post by Blorx » Sun Aug 30, 2009 3:19 am

Yeah, download it and while it's updating, go under Settings -> Sound -> Sound Engine and change it to Software or it won't run correctly.

Ah you got it! =D
Yeah it's a pretty odd bug, admittedly but it's an easy fix at least.

Also, you're European right? Good. It's laggy on high settings outside of Europe (servers are all based in Europe).

I don't know if it'll work after the first time. I've had no issues with it being on software. =/

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