Narau

I want to thank everyone for all the great comments to my original post. I must admit that I was pretty downtrodden when I wrote it, so that mental state may have creeped a bit into my words. But based on the awesome feedback in this thread, I decided to give my character another go. This time, I have been traveling much more cautiously (not letting my stamina get too low, staying near guarded settlements at night, etc) and have seen much more success. And as I travel farther from the spawn point, I am see a lot more available land and homestead sites. The coast is obviously crowded, and I am unsure about the safety of traveling too far inland at this point, but I think I now have the confidence to continue traveling with some measure of security.

When I initially heard about Wurm Online, I was very excited about it. The idea of a sandbox appealed to me greatly, as I had played similar games before (Eve, ATITD, Minecraft, etc). Unfortunately it really didn't work out for me, so after several failed starts at getting a foothold in the world, I won't be playing further. I doubt anyone really cares about my experiences, but I wanted to share them nonetheless. My desire was to strike out into the wilderness alone and build an initial settlement, with the eventual goal to build a ship and be able to explore the entire world. I think this desired gamestyle (alone, not part of an existing village) was a big part of my failures, but I really had a strong desire to scratch things out by myself. I actually tried to get three different characters going, 2 on Pristine and 1 on Release. Here is a brief history of each attempt: #1 (lasted about 4 hours in-game): I started on Pristine and began following two of the beginner tutorials on the wiki. After building up my digging skill, making some clay pots and bowls, and crafting some nails and such, I followed the advice of the tutorials and struck out into the world. I decided to head south along a main highway in order to find less-occupied lands: my initial scouting of the area within 30-60 minute running distance around the spawn was that practically all open space was taken. If there was an open spot, it became event quickly why it was not occupied (very steep, marsh tiles only, etc). Along the highway, I ran into a party of trolls who attacked me. As I was running away, I ran out of stamina and came to a stop, after which the troll wiped me out in a few hits. I made a few attempts to recover my corpse, but the trolls and some other creatures where camping my body. And at some point, I lost all of my starter tools (I'm not really sure how this happened, but there was a flurry of corpse recovery attempts so its possible i somehow dropped them). In any event, after some discussions in chat and after reading about the difficulty of creating crude tools and the fact that I only had a few hours invested in this character, I decided to roll a new one on a different (hopefully empty) server. #2 (lasted about 4 hours in-game): I started a new character on Release and began to survey the surroundings. I found what I thought was a good spot along the coastline a long haul away from the spawn. After finding this spot, I suicide'd back to the starter town and started to follow the suggestions in the beginner tutorials. After building up some basic supplies, I made my way back to the spot that I had found and started to flatten the land for a new house. as i started, i released that i had forgotten to bring along clay bowls to make food. I had seen a clay tile along my way to this spot, so i headed back there to dig some up. When I returned to my proposed homestead location, i found it camped by a troll, who was guarding all of the tiles that i had started to flatten (maybe he liked the place too?). I was pretty frustrated at this point so I attacked the troll, died instantly, then logged off for a few days. #3 (lasted about 24 hours in-game): On a whim, I decided to re-start a character again on Pristine. I followed the tutorials again but spent a lot more time around the spawn point building skills, crafted some basic studded leather armor and stockpiled food/drink/building supplies. After this initial build-up (during which I was killed a few times by surprise attacks from scorpions teleporting through mine walls) I set out north of Bloom and saw what looked like free land at the top of a hill. I tried to climb up the hill but didn't quite make it, so had to come back down. As I got back down the hill, a giant spider attacked me (I hadn't seen it before). I had no stamina left after the climb, so I could not run (apparently you don't regen stamina if you are under attack), and I promptly died (though somewhat slower owning to my armor). Back in town I went through the initial process again of getting clay, getting some wood, getting some iron, etc. I then made a second attempt to go north. while investigating a potential settlement spot, i was attacked by a large rat. This time, I decided to hold my ground: surely i could defeat a lowly rat? Apparently not, as the rat proceeded to kill me. On my third attempt, i headed south and west of Bloom. As I was investigating, a crocodile came after me. As I was fleeing, a spider and a flaming dog also started chasing me. The croc would not relent and kept following me until my stamina drained, then killed me. This was my last attempt. I loved the idea of Wurm Online, but I could not seem to get a footing in the world. One seems to begin the game completely defenseless and surrounded by lots of monsters that want to kill you, a very frustrating combination. I think that I would have really enjoyed the world without aggressive NPCs, free to build and explore without certain death. in any event, just my humble 2 cents...