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Eyesgood

Sandbox Expectations

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As usual Eyesgood I respect your opinions and how well you've expressed them but find myself in broad disagreement.

  • I agree wurm is relatively expensive. I don't see that as the main reason it hasn't "exploded"
  • Pay to win doesn't make sense. You present it as though it were a binary state - pay to win or not. I see it as more of a continuum and Wurm is somewhere in the middle of that continuum. Many more popular sandbox games are at least as "PTW" as Wurm as others have pointed out
  • Documentation is at most slightly worse than average. The wurm wiki is pretty good. Certainly isn't what's holding hordes of newbies back as the newbie-relevant stuff is all well documented on the wiki
  • Advertising, I don't know. It's very hit and miss. I think many people have tried wurm and not stuck around, which brings me to the real reason Wurm hasn't "exploded":

It just is not, and can not ever be with its current design, a main stream game.

By that I mean really the following:

  • The graphics aren't main stream. Wurm is a long way behind in visual appeal.
  • The gameplay isn't main stream. "Insanely grindy" is the opinion of my friends who refuse to play it, including the ones who tried it.
  • The newbie experience isn't main stream. I must admit I haven't been through the tutorial recently but I suspect if I do I'll see improvement since last time but not enough to grab a "normal" person, and odds are a "normal person" will end up on a PVP server at the end of the tutorials, meaning they won't be playing for very long.
  • Combat isn't main stream. Combat system is basically pre 2003 everquest level. I don't enjoy it, and combat is my main focus in every other MMO I play. It's also fairly pointless on PVE servers as mobs don't drop much of use or value.
  • It's focused on PVP. You can argue that many other more main stream sandboxes do the same, but PVP in combination with "insanely grindy" and "bad combat" is a game design document I could honestly not sell to any studio, developer, investor or even gamer I know
  • It doesn't play to its strengths. Wurm has the strongest terraforming and crafting system of any game I've played. To have these in an MMO is absolute gold. And yet, the actual "game" is PVP. On PVE servers there is no reason to build a village other than you want one. You build one, and then... nothing happens. There isn't even much reason to communicate with other players on PVE servers, other than sheer loneliness. There is very little trade, basically speciality items and bulk anti-grind goods only. There is nearly zero NPC economy which means player to player trades have to carry the can and there isn't enough player to player economy to do that.

And while I should really write what I think are the answers to these, well, I started. And I realised I've said it all before. In some cases years ago. And so have others. Ultimately Wurm doesn't want to be any more main stream than it is. The playerbase (who are left) don't want change and oppose pretty well every change that comes along, and the developers don't want change either. They're presumably happy with the tiny niche market, and that's fine.

So I won't talk about how insane it is to be trying to deliver a visual experience with Java in the age of Unity and Unreal being so accessible and cheap. Or how players won't perceive things as being as "grindy", even if they take a long time to do, so long as they are interacting and making decisions rather than just repeating actions or groups of actions. Or how newbies need a series of quests that take them through the early PVE game experience, up to building your first house and your first boat. Or any of the good suggestions often repeated to make combat more interactive and tactical, or why a PVP focus with this game's strengths and weaknesses is wasting most of its potential.

But I gotta say something or I'll feel like I just wasted all this time whining :)

So here's some things you could do with Wurm's current systems which are more content focused and don't require engine changes etc:

  • Graphics: Force texture compression to ON and use higher res textures. Use normal maps on ground tiles, walls, ships, and tree trunks. Bring back different wood textures using a shader I will help you make if you want. See other thread on it. These things will all work with your crazy old Java engine. Probably :)
  • Add some special drops to harder mobs. Troll hide should make slightly improved leather armour and better padding for plate armour. Lava fiends and hell scorpiuses could drop glowstones that make a lantern or street lamp glow for three times as long as tar. Spiders should drop silk to make fine cloth. Goblins could drop gemstones. Hell hounds could drop fire powder which acts like double strength tar. etc etc, suddenly hunting and PVE combat has meaning.
  • Add rare creatures (Wounded Troll, Dire Wolf, Corrupted Scorpion) etc that need to be tracked, hunted down, but drop special stuff. Hunting could be a valid CAREER in this game, not just a hobby for bored mayors. Have these creatures avoid populated areas, giving players a reason to adventure in the wilderness and hunt.
  • Add Goblin and Troll villages to the deep, wild, interior of PVE servers. Have lots of trolls and goblins spawn there, special ones that never leave the deed or perimeter, which is an extended perim. Have some (new, so PVPers don't whine) rare ore types which you place only on these villages in and these perims, so players can collect them and use them for new (again slightly improved) weapons, tools etc. Have a new type of tree or two which spawn there and convey advantages to wooden items made from the wood. Suddenly you'll have PVE players banding together to raid these lands, suppress the enemies and take the good stuff. Exactly the sort of play you always envisioned, just... coop PVE instead of one group of players infuriating another.
  • Expand this feature out over time. Aside from the core goblin and troll villages which can never be taken, satellite villages will spawn where the players leave room and will need to be destroyed via warlike actions or small raiding parties will harrass nearby deeds. You will need to beef up spirit guards and tower guards on PVE servers back to their original level - many PVE players aren't into combat and inflicting it on them wont improve the game.
  • Have Traders at the central villages (plus maybe put a few on the coast) buy a certain amount of the essentials each day (food, clothing, various iron supplies and tools) for each premium account. Have the demand accumulate up to one week so players can make a weekly trading journey. Yes this will mean money moves into the economy, which players will spend on Trader stuff. Add more trader stuff if need be. This will give players a reason to produce goods. Wurms present currency system is strangling the economy to death due to a lack of currency.
I better stop there before I give away ALLL my ideas, but you get the picture. I think Wurm could play to its strengths (crafting, terraforming) more effectively by developing its economy and developing the reasons we hunt and tame the wild.

Cheers,

Shiraek

These are some excellent suggestions. While I have appreciated the treasure hunts of late, Wurm needs similar but more creative content. Make the undead spawn after 2am and make it actually dangerous to be outside. Perhaps they can be concentrated in wooded areas where "special unique" undead bosses would randomly spawn, dropping special loot. I love the idea of adding a real quest system - not the "kill 327 crocodiles" missions from the 1997 era. Reward players for making a village by giving "settlement or status points" the longer the village stays intact. Points could be used to enhance skills, grant abilities, award items, grant titles, etc. Implement a reward system for villages that ally together. How about actually rewarding players that build huge structures (colossus, obelisk, bridges, or even a certain number of buildings) with more than a silly title. There is no real progression in the game other than "hey I have more 90+ skills than you" and many people like progress - a goal to shoot for. I love the idea of creatures actually dropping worthwhile loot randomly (not 1 in 1000 chance) to make special armor, etc.

As much as I know I'll get flamed for saying it, as good as Wurm is, it could really learn a lesson from games like EQ2 that are very quest driven and have a variety of interactive content. Wurm "toys" with these types of features but flops or half-implements them for reasons I cannot understand. Wurm excels in its building system....but that's it...it's not near engaging enough.

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Yup, I remember it and it was pretty bad too. Huge amount of windows with walls of text and it forced you to do some things rather than letting you do them when you felt like it and in the real game. It got massive criticism because it was ugly and forced itself upon the player. I think it was just out dated and had to go because Wurm had outgrown it it in a way.  

 

The new one looks better but it doesn't help much, now it's more like a museum with signs.., Nothing like the real game. 

 

Massive criticism by new players doing it for the first time or by people making alts that didn't wanted to do it again?

 

Because is not the same. I'm ok with a way to skip the tutorial; for people making alts, but as a new player knowing nothing about the game i don't remember being upset by the tutorial. If anything maybe the pop up windows need an auto close function or even replace it with something else.

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Because is not the same. I'm ok with a way to skip the tutorial; for people making alts, but as a new player knowing nothing about the game i don't remember being upset by the tutorial. If anything maybe the pop up windows need an auto close function or even replace it with something else.

 

Should be close with right click anywhere in the pop up window. I remember they drove me insane.

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For the record, any optional game advantage you buy is P2W.

 

I'm willing to accept people have different perceptions of P2W.  I have never heard in a traditional MMO where accelerated leveling--say, premium accounts on World of Tanks, as pay to win.  It doesn't offer a direct head to head advantage that, say, +25 damage per a hit would.  That's pay to win, when in a direct confrontation, all else being equal, you come out ahead by people real life cash to the online cash shop.

 

And the idea of "winning" in this game is a bit nebulous. Is it skills? A nicely crafted deed? High QL items? (which would be odd, since items have the nasty tendency to take damage and decay).

 

I guess depending on what a person is looking for.  The idea Wurm is pay to win because you can deed an entire server is pretty silly, though.

 

imo, In the most fundamental way it simply means people who pay more get more. Wurm is full of this kind of thing.

 

As others have said, P2W is a continuum and not a binary designation.

 

You should give a swing at some of the mobile P2W games, where you can be literally dozens of times better than a veteran in a matter of hours.  If not instantly.

 

Riddle me this, what exactly do you get when you sink 10,000 Euros into Wurm.  A big hunk of unterraformed land in the ass-end of nowhere.  Tools you don't have the skills to use effectively.  And a mountain of sleep powder that requires you to still grind those skills, just in half the time (but that's still 100 hours of work instead of 200 for a single skill).

 

The power to money ratio is pretty abysmal in Wurm.  On the grand scheme of things, Wurm is pretty light on the P2W aspects.

 

Calling Wurm "p2w" is strange.

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Joedobo is 100% right, buying an advantage in achieving your ingame goals is P2W - that is what pay. to. win. means  :)

 

If your only goal in Wurm is to have a nice deed to sit on the beach and meditate with your friends, and my goal is exactly the same, guess what? If I *buy* the whole stretch of coast that you had in mind for your deed because I have more RL money than you, then you cannot get that coast - you will have to be content with some not-so-nice coastline that is not accessible by big boats for instance. What's more is, I can buy me a character that can make the most beautifully terraformed coastline you can imagine, if I have the RL money for it. Not to mention my beautiful mansion.

 

While I serve my friends the QL90 wine that I bought, you will be standing there with your 15 digging skill, 10 stone mason skill, and some months of really hard work of skilling up ahead of you before you can make anything so spectacular.

 

It is the purest definition of a P2W game out there.

But fear not, most other sandboxes are the same, which is where the OP got it all wrong  ;)

Edited by Cista

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"Pay 2 Win" on PvE games, long story short, is "Pay 2 Convenience/Expediency Toward Bling".


 


To a certain point you can also "Win" on PvE say, I buy all badass CoC tools and raw materials to forget gathering and focus on becoming a bigtime weaponsmith and armorsmith (plate included), buying a gold's worth of sleeping powders.


 


Whether I keep that "Win" for personal/alliance convenience or to compete in the market, still a "Win".


 


Don't need to beat someone else to "Win".  If I bought 10k dirts off someone to pimp my deed, it's a personal ingame life win, specially the part where I ain't gotta dig 10k dirts myself.


  • Like 1

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The fact, that you can buy stuff from ohter players for real money(you can do it in any MMO out there, in some games it is legal, in some games illegal) doesn't make the game pay to win. IF Code Club would sell all those items/characters, then for sure..

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The fact, that you can buy stuff from ohter players for real money(you can do it in any MMO out there, in some games it is legal, in some games illegal) doesn't make the game pay to win. IF Code Club would sell all those items/characters, then for sure..

This.. i don´t think Wurm is pay to win. Of course you can buy high end chars and stuff but usually its the game that sell stuff are pay to win. In wurm i think the effect of pay to win comes from the fact that silver is tied to RL money aka knowing that the thing that is worth 10s is worth 10€. This is actually made by the players, not wurm. So i don´t consider wurm pay to win by default. I also like the fact that CC encourages this making it safer and easier instead of a "black market".

 

+ Wurm is not expensive.. You can make it expensive but by essence, 10€ per month is not expensive (prem + 1s + SP is more then enough for having a char and deed without having to do anything in game to earn coin)

Edited by Wulfgarr

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And the idea of "winning" in this game is a bit nebulous.

 

>>>>You should give a swing at some of the mobile P2W games, where you can be literally dozens of times better than a veteran in a matter of hours.  If not instantly.<<<<

 

Calling Wurm "p2w" is strange.

 

I agree, the strict concept of paying to win is cleverly eluded within Wurm by its usual definitive nature. Nebulosity at its best.

 

Then again, anyone can accomplish exactly what you describe above merely by searching the Merchant Ads section of these forums and with a bit of patience (elusive to many it seems) acquire an account for real life cash that will surpass most others in terms of skill levels. Then since the character's skills are everything to a players capabilities within Wurm, they have indeed paid for the best that money can buy at that time. Define that as you like.

 

Strange indeed!

 

=Ayes=

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Joedobo is 100% right, buying an advantage in achieving your ingame goals is P2W - that is what pay. to. win. means  :)

 

It is the purest definition of a P2W game out there.

But fear not, most other sandboxes are the same, which is where the OP got it all wrong  ;)

 

As I said before, there's degrees of pay to win.  Imagine if Wurm allowed a player to carry .01kg more than they normally could for 10,000 silver.  Is this pay to win...Yeah.  It's a paid advantage.

 

Would Wurm (ignoring everything else) be considered pay to win? I would argue no.  The degree of "p2w" relative to the entire experience is pretty minimal.

 

And everyone keeps bringing up deeds.  It's less pay to win and more first come first serve.  If I decide to plop down my 1s a month deed, no matter how many billions of silvers you spend in game, that piece of land is mine unless it gets disbanded one way or another.

 

In a real pay to win game, there'd be a way to interfere if not outright purchase someone else's land.

 

 

 

 

Then again, anyone can accomplish exactly what you describe above merely by searching the Merchant Ads section of these forums and with a bit of patience (elusive to many it seems) acquire an account for real life cash that will surpass most others in terms of skill levels. Then since the character's skills are everything to a players capabilities within Wurm, they have indeed paid for the best that money can buy at that time. Define that as you like.

 

 

That's the closest thing Wurm has pay to win and I'll agree on that much (as I said in my original post, I believe).

 

Though, I think part of the charm in Wurm is getting those skills yourself and seeing the growth of your characters and deed.

 

Extra Credits did something about it.  It talks about monetization of free to play games (granted Wurm isn't free to play, but the idea still stands). 

 

>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mhz9OXy86a0

 

For those who don't want to watch the video, there's two "broken" sort of monetization systems in F2P.  The second one they talk to about is about P2W where people have to pay to compete.  If you're not a wallet warrior (hundreds, if not thousands of dollars a month), you lose.

 

I think Wurm is the former.  The first system they talk about is how a game is actually more fun and interesting without paying much if any money.  I know Wurm doesn't fit here perfectly (premium costs and deeds are pretty much required, I think, to fully experience the game), but the idea of buying a nice deed and a nice character sorta defeats the purpose of Wurm on PvE.  Congrats, you "won" the game...but that's sorta like spending money to pass all the levels on a video game.  Is it really worth 500 dollars to see the ending credits of a game?

 

Of course not everyone thinks this.  Maybe they want the skills to build what they want in Wurm right here and now and not grind carpentry for 6 months.  That's fine.

 

I'd figure there's probably cheaper and more interesting games to do that in.  But to each their own.

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...Though, I think part of the charm in Wurm is getting those skills yourself and seeing the growth of your characters and deed.

 

...the idea of buying a nice deed and a nice character sorta defeats the purpose of Wurm on PvE.  Congrats, you "won" the game...but that's sorta like spending money to pass all the levels on a video game.  Is it really worth 500 dollars to see the ending credits of a game?

I have always enjoyed advancing my own characters in any online game that I have played. In Wurm even more so because then those skills can be used to build my deed Villages. Since I have done it all myself the accomplish is then mine alone and is not diminished by others efforts. Definitely not a "team" player here.

 

Still, other players have their own motivations for playing the game and although I can't relate or put any value in purchasing a character or deed they do. Also since there is the opportunity to pay game expenses as well as making a profit from playing the game, purchasing an advanced character affords the perfect opportunity to do so. For good or bad remains to be seen per individual.

 

=Ayes=

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I don't think the high retention rates are something Wurm specific..

https://www.superdataresearch.com/blog/understanding-mmo-retention/

 

Nice link.

 

I think Wurm Online is just unpopular mostly because it's not quest-centered and very detail-oriented. Like Shiraek or others here have said, a quest interface to introduce players to the most important craftables would be very nice.

 

I first started this game in 2012. I made the following post a week after I had started:

http://forum.wurmonline.com/index.php?/topic/64712-improvements-to-starter-tools-and-servers/#entry638994

 

Well I like things hard. That's just how I am. I like that there's a game that's like this.

If anything, I think a Goals Tree that a new player can review at any time would be useful. It would list basic goals that they should strive to achieve to progress in the early game. Achieving these goals would not give an extra reward. And it would only list basic things to do in the early game. Beyond that, players will have enough knowledge to know where to look to find information. And long-term goals should be already on their mind. They're on their own after that.

 

Like this:

This might be listed under the Housing Tree:

1) Cut down a tree

2) Make a plank

3) Make enough planks for a wall

4) Rummage for some iron rock

5) Mine for some iron

6) Make some kindling

7) Combine kindling and wood scraps to make campfire

8) Create some iron lumps on a campfire

9) Make a mallet

9) Make an anvil

10) Make some nails

11) Flatten some land with a shovel

12) Build a wall

13) Finish a house

....etc.

 

(continued)

 

I agree the game is very grindy at certain points, but activities requiring lots of time do not have to be boring. Making a hammer can require 1 minute or 100, doesn't matter. What matters is how repetitive it's. And oftentimes the activities are very repetitive and this is where it fails. And it also fails on other points. I've stated this before in other posts, but I never felt I grinded in this game until I wnated to make cordage rope. The main problem seems to be ropemaking is an underdeveloped skill. Its recipes are not used enough in other skills. When the main thing I am making to be able to make cordage is bow string and I'm making 100's of them, SOMETHING IS WRONG. Even making bow strings burnable or usable in making roping or fabric would be better than keeping them in a bulk bin unused. Either make it so I can produce cordage at lower skill or give ropemaking more depth so what we produce early on feels like it makes an impact on our everyday experience. Bow strings do not do that and, in my opinion, fail spectacularly.

 

I also think imping is a lot better regarding grind than some other processes, like, for example, fishing or mining or installing planks in walls. In my case, I don't use a toolbelt. This means organizing my items in the inventory when I'm imping. To limited extent, imping is more bearable in terms of its repetitiveness.

 

What I'd like to see is more circumstance in imping, so when we're alert we can catch things and make something much better than we otherwise would. I guess this would make it a mini-game, but is better than at present.

 

Will also add I rarely spend more than 30-60 minutes on activities. I change things a lot. The only thing I can do for a longer length of time is to generally explore and/or kill monsters I see. I enjoy that and can do for hours.

Edited by Lightonfoot

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I think Wurm Online is just unpopular mostly because it's not quest-centered and very detail-oriented. Like Shiraek or others here have said, a quest interface to introduce players to the most important craftables would be very nice.

 

Long ago when new players lived on Golden Valley it had a sort of quest system. There were NPC's in the starter Villages that gave you some chores to do, cut trees, start a campfire and such and you would earn a few iron coins when returning to them. Then click again for the next "quest". Not very interesting to me really and I was soon back to establishing my own little homestead there.

 

=Ayes=

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Long ago when new players lived on Golden Valley it had a sort of quest system. There were NPC's in the starter Villages that gave you some chores to do, cut trees, start a campfire and such and you would earn a few iron coins when returning to them. Then click again for the next "quest". Not very interesting to me really and I was soon back to establishing my own little homestead there.

 

=Ayes=

Right, quests without lore would just be tedious. In themepark games quests are tied to the overarching lore, e.g. a village and its lands has been scorched by the "evil" ork race that is an enemy of your race, and you help by healing the survivors, or kill wandering orks, or you must bring an important letter to your king.

 

It would not fit in with Wurm at all. First of all, we have no npc villagers, farmers or citizens that could give us quests. Also, we have no enemy races in our lore, and our leaders (in PvP) are all players.

Edited by Cista

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+1 on fixing (or as I understand, reverting) the tutorial. New players are first frustrated by not understanding how to implement the tasks they read in the tutorial. To add to that, the few who do end up asking some basic questions most often are ridiculed by some player in chat, (I'd be surprised to not see this At Least once a day) essentially sealing their fate.

First impressions are everything, let's try to improve that and move forward from there. :)

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What keeps people from playing this game is:


- compatibility issues (for example I can't play on full screen, or I get weird graphical artifacts / glitches in game),


- poor / lack of animations (but it's better than it used to be),


- since forever, lights and shadows in games have been putting the most strain on hardware, and it's logical that lamps (light sources) tend to be in groups, so I'd keep that in mind if I was designing the performance in a game - maybe simply adding extra options to decrease lights and shadows quality/set their maximum visible number/distance that computer has to draw would do,


- tutorial doesn't show how you get hurt, and how to heal wounds (it's a surival game, so you'd think wound treatment should be the priority): where to get cotton and healing covers from?, how to apply them on wounds?, which wounds to cure and which ones can be left untreated?, how to call guards for help? a few drowning scenarios? etc.


 


I would see actual scenarios of it, not just a text windows describing it (because, again, it's a survival game so that part is pretty darn important). EG. player actually fights an animal and gets hurt/dies until winning the fight, and then the hands-on wound treatment with explanation. Find a field of cotton and harvest it / botanize for it on a grass tile, use first aid and put healing covers on your wounds to complete the tutorial.


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I found Wurmpedia and the in-game help system ('find on Wurmpedia' / 'H' key) to be perfectly adequate. Anyone without the time (patience?) to read some words will not last long here in Wurm.


 


Nowadays, there is no excuse for inability to locate existing answers from ready sources; they are obviously capable of operating a computer.....


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So, I would be lazy to ask in chat some basic questions about building a house Meldichoir?

My personal experience settling my first deed had a champ troll wandering about while I worked. Server was new, so leading to a tower was out, as well as good armour or weps. Stopping to read a dozen wiki pages to locate one sentence on "how to perform this function"? No thanks, since my dev team failed to teach me that simple answer, I'd prefer to spend all of 5 seconds typing my query into chat, and using the remaining un-wasted time hitting my goal.

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So, I would be lazy to ask in chat some basic questions about building a house Meldichoir?

 

There is a Community Assistance (/CA) chat tab, which is yet another "in-game help system" that is already present. You can't miss it; is enabled by default.

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Yes, I realize this. You imply that we should be reading the wiki instead. Sure wiki and wurmpedia are great... After you grasp the basics. What is largely under fire here is the basic starting elements not being clear in any of the help texts or tutorial.

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Yes, I realize this. You imply that we should be reading the wiki instead. Sure wiki and wurmpedia are great... After you grasp the basics. What is largely under fire here is the basic starting elements not being clear in any of the help texts or tutorial.

 

When you run the Wurm Online game launcher you can find a link to Wurmpedia directly under the Wurm logo on the top of the window, either on the [default] 'News' tab or the 'Welcome' tab. That would be your very first "starting element" when you begin to play.

 

If by "wiki" you are referring to the in-game help texts, then realize that that is actually Wurmpedia as well.

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How many successful (on a big scale) games require the players to read a wiki in the first 5 minutes after starting the game? 


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How many successful (on a big scale) games require the players to read a wiki in the first 5 minutes after starting the game? 

I would say that no game or product actually requires that you read the instructions, but you will find much more success when you do so.

 

As soon as you remove the requirement for people to help themselves and help each other, then you will have removed real community bonds which exist everywhere where we have built our own world. If anyone finds Wurmpedia to be lacking in info, then it is your option/obligation to make your world the way you feel it must be.

 

Everything starts as a vast wilderness; it is up to we pioneers to shape this frontier. That is my Sandbox Expectation.

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