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I just realised something that might explain why so many new players struggle so much starting out in Wurm Online: The very nature of this game is completely different than most other games and new players generally don't realize that. Most players are used to games like World of Warcraft, Ever Quest, Warhammer Online, Lord of the Rings online, Dark age of Camelot and all those Korean Instant MMOs. All of these are so called theme parks, where you have a clear path, follow instructions and progress steadily. The relative strength between you and your environment is pretty much always the same throughout the entire game. What's more, all of these so called MMOs are at the core really single player games with co-op modus and raid option. Playing WoW or EQ felt basically the same as playing Elder Scrolls or Drakensang. If you try to play Wurm like you played WoW and EQ, you are going to fail and fail hard. Even Minecraft, where you immediately get the full impact of the "everything goes" sandbox setup, is still a single player game. First you protect yourself, then you steadily improve your situation. Wurm however was made as a true multiplayer game, The only such RPG I'm aware of actually. You are supposed to team up and with others or at least get support from someone. You constantly see new players that try to go off into the wilderness, build a place and go at it alone. That is ok in itself, but they have to realize that they choose to play Wurm in the most difficult way possible and they have to accept that and accept that they need to deal with it, not cry "I just wanna build a little shack here, but the game kills me every five minutes, you need to nerf these mobs around here, I'm just a newb!" If they can't accept that, they should go. I doubt we will ever be able to appeal to those kinds of player without changing the very nature of Wurm itself, but we can educate those that are unaware of the difference. There needs to be clear information and explanation about this nature of Wurm on the website and the tutorial and starter towns need to be adjusted to reflect this. Here are two statements that should appear so or similar in all the obvious places: Wiki, game launcher, loading tips and best right on the front page: "Wurm is a life Simulator, there are no stages, areas or levels you pass through. Everything goes and everything can happen at every time, right from the get go. So watch your steps! Don't assume you can take your short sword and fight that dragon over there just because it happens to be strolling through the starting area!" "Wurm is a true multiplayer game. You will have a very hard time when you try to go at it alone. You can't do everything yourself, at least not at the beginning. So team up with others or join one of the established villages!" Also Wurm is not only a community game in play, but in development as well. So this also means that the community here has pretty big responsibility. We need to take care of the starter towns and pick up the new players. I know for a fact that most of the town have been developed to some degree by regular players in the past. Any player with some prestige can approach the GMs to do this or even host a community event. Sorry for the wall-o-text, but what do you guys think, do I hit the spot with this?
