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GarrySwamley

Review of Wurm Online

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10 minutes ago, Chakron said:

I've been playing Wurm Online for 9 years and so far, I hate it. I'm going to give it a try for another 9 years. Will update you then.

 

This deserves an award for the most Wurmian thing ever.

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Other people took all the good answers, all I have this stupid reply and a t-shirt that says "Other people took the good answers before I could post."

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Points might be valid, but this isn't a review in any sense.

 

MY RATING OF THIS REVIEW: 0/10

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I've been playing wurm for over a year now, I have over 100 games on my steam library, a ton of  games on my external,  I would probably played the anno series, close to my time in wurm (I've got over 3000 hours in wurm, so it's safe to say i'm definitely a fan). closest game in reference to hours played would be farming sim 2015, I've played over 600 hours I think in that,

 

i'm not really a fan of war games, or shootem ups, however I do have halo, and a few of those old side scrollers like Halloween harry and such, I am a big fan of city builders, and tycoon games, so I've got those in there as well. I am bit of a petrol head and have done a lot of car mods over the years...

 

but since discovering wurm in feb 2016, I've been playing that more than anything else, I like to create stuff, that's why I prefer wurm over them any time, and when i'm not on my pc, i'm usually down in the garage painting up models, and if it's too cold, then i'm working one of my tapestries, I finished this a couple of years ago, and haven't done a lot since then.

now I hear you say what does this have to do with wurm, well i'll tell you, it's because of WURM that I haven't done a lot, this game is just that damned good, and yes at times it frustrates the hell out of me, it's still one of the best games I've ever played, and to rate it 4/10 is the stupidest thing I've heard of,

image.jpg

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People shoudnt be able to create threads untill they have, I dont know, 100 posts count?  Otherwise you get this kind of drivel spewed all over.

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6 hours ago, Keenan said:

 

This deserves an award for the most Wurmian thing ever.

pssht, there are loading screen quotes ;D

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Let's be honest, this isn't a review. It's attempts at debunking several "myths" with some added comments about pvp and history thrown in. If I had never played Wurm before then this "review" would be completely useless as it doesn't tell me anything useful about the game. The attempt to debunk the first myth also contain logical fallacies. Let's take a look at the first Myth, instead of bringing facts you refer to your friends and use that as fact. That's what we call confirmation bias. You assume that since something is the case for all your friends, it must be the case for everybody else as well. That's not how it works.

Arguing whether this myth is true or false isn't even possible if you don't first define "many", as without defining "many" you can't possibly argue that many people know about the game. I could define "many" as five or more. So since six of my friends know about this game clearly many people know about Wurm... Or we could say many is at least equal to the amount of sold copies of GTA 5, so any less would be defined as not many. Then I wish you good luck proving that many people know about Wurm.

 

As for the P2W part:

From my PvE point of view I'm just spending money to skip some of the grind and use my limited free time to do things in game which I enjoy. I don't even care if that's P2W or not. For example I simply don't want to have to spend a ton of time to dig up 100k dirt for my terraforming projects, I'd rather just buy that from somebody else. I also don't want to earn the silver for that in game either as that takes ages and my available free time is limited due to my full time job, so I'd also rather buy the silver directly from the store. You can tell me that's P2W and I'll just say: So what? I don't see P2W as an issue in a PvE game, but I do agree that it's a big problem in a PvP game. Perhaps it's indeed one of the reasons that PvP is doing so badly, perhaps it's also a reason why PvE is doing so well in comparison.

 

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I think the term pay to win is thrown around to casually as of late. Originally it refered to content that was only available by paying real money and that provided a noticeable performance advantage.  Paying for a subscription, or paying for someone to "work/play" for you (buying accounts, tools, materials) shouldnt fall under the pay to win cathegory, since its content available to the whole premium playerbase.

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What I have to talk about, has to do with the people who DON'T play Wurm Online, and why they don't play.

Wait...so your rating has to do with what the game DOESN'T have compared to what it DOES have?  Off to a great start in your review business... lol

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There's a lot of reasons people don't play Wurm for long, the ability to buy a res stone probably ranks around #1034 on the list.

 

The number one reason is that Wurm caters to people enjoy a long slow paced directionless game with fairly intangible rewards.  That's a very minor subset of the gaming population, so folks outside that population try it, don't like it and quit.  

 

It's not a huge mystery.

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Myth: The game isn't popular, because not many people know about it.

 

This is pure falseness in its falsest form. Pretty much everyone on my steam friends list knows this game exists, and most have even tried it at one point. The problem with Wurm, is not that most people don't know about it, the problem with Wurm is that most people don't LIKE it, so they leave after a week or so of playing. Pretty much everyone who plays Wurm has experienced this at least once: you make a cool new friend who just started playing the game, you play with this person for a few days, then they randomly disapear never to be seen again. Either people who play Wurm are getting kidnapped for some reason, or they quit. This happens for more than half of the people who try this game, because it is simply not for them. Maybe its the grind, maybe its how expensive premium can be. Maybe they just don't like the feel of it. Whatever the reason, Wurm's community has never grown to be very large due to most people not staying very long.

 

I have a second myth I would like to debunk. This myth, is largely believed by people who stay in Wurm, and when people realize this myth is false, they leave.

Your reason for the debunk is because the people you know on steam know about the game... not very scientific. I can do the same thing, out of the 7 other people that are currently on my raid team for FFXIV 7 have never have heard of Wurm Online. Out of those 7 people only 1 person has shown interest. However, like most close knit raid teams they play games together and 5/7 are currently playing Blade and Soul while we are on break til the new FFXIV expansion.  Out of the 20 or so people I play with on a regular basis on Steam 3/20 know about Wurm Online. Out of those 3 on Steam 2 of them were told about Wurm Online by me and 1 of those 2 people have found the motivation to try Wurm Online. For myself I only found out about Wurm about 4months ago? My raid team had FFXIV content on farm for awhile and I was horrendously bored so I tried Black Desert Online (BDO). BDO combat was fun and the grind wasn't that bad but they market it as a sandbox but it really wasn't so I looked for a NEW modded minecraft server to join. Not able to find one that wasn't just a cookie cutter of every other modpack I continued to play BDO. It wasn't until I was looking at videos to make my Musa stronger that I followed the white rabbit down his hole and found videos about a game called Wurm Online. I have been a big MMO player since Ever Quest and I have never heard about Wurm Online til that point.

 

I am not trying to attack you or say Wurm is prefect you have no idea what you are talking about! But you are only 1 sample, claiming that the myth has been debunked make 0 sense. If you use my experience and those of the 27 or so people I interact with... it would prove the myth isn't a myth but in fact a valid reason why Wurm is not popular.

 

I also want to touch on one other thing. You say, "how expensive premium can be." Premium is a little over $11 and for FFXIV I pay $15s or so for my base sub. I think it is 13$ if you do 1 character and 2 more dollars if you unlock 8 characters. Then you get 2 retainers (retainers give you more storage slots and a few other features) for free but you can unlock up to 8. With each extra retainer being 2$ a piece. So I think I pay around 27$ a month for my subscription for FFXIV. From my experience FFXIV model for subscriptions is pretty standard. So I am not sure if 11$ a month is really expensive or not.

 

Knowing the little bit of what I know now (4 or so months of playing) I would have to agree with proph and say Wurm is a 6/10 for me (at this current point). I am only 4months in and I still do not know a lot. I personally give FFXIV 5/10 and I have been playing it constantly for 2years since AAR launched (yes I even played 1.0 on and off) so think that says a lot of my current opinion of the game LOL.

Edited by Launcelot
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17 hours ago, GarrySwamley said:

Warning: This is a heavily controversial topic in this community. If you continue to read this post, you may or may not explode in a fit of rage about what I am about to say. But please, mind your manners, and reply as politely as you can. I am only trying to provide constructive criticism about what I feel is the ultimate failure of Wurm Online.

I like that you know what you're in for, and understand why you might choose an anonymous handle to post under (if that is actually the case).  The fact that you've chosen an anonymous handle also means I'm not going in ready to agree or disagree, which has its advantages for the sake of discussion.

17 hours ago, GarrySwamley said:

Myth: The game isn't popular, because not many people know about it.

 

Spoiler

This is pure falseness in its falsest form. Pretty much everyone on my steam friends list knows this game exists, and most have even tried it at one point. The problem with Wurm, is not that most people don't know about it, the problem with Wurm is that most people don't LIKE it, so they leave after a week or so of playing. Pretty much everyone who plays Wurm has experienced this at least once: you make a cool new friend who just started playing the game, you play with this person for a few days, then they randomly disapear never to be seen again. Either people who play Wurm are getting kidnapped for some reason, or they quit. This happens for more than half of the people who try this game, because it is simply not for them. Maybe its the grind, maybe its how expensive premium can be. Maybe they just don't like the feel of it. Whatever the reason, Wurm's community has never grown to be very large due to most people not staying very long.

I'm sure being on Steam has increased the number of people who know of Wurm.  I see a lot of games scroll by.  Some I look a bit more deeply into.  Some I actually buy and try... I know Wurm by virtue of having played it a long time.  Most games that I've played, I wouldn't really say I know.  I just don't have enough experience with them to make that kind of statement. 

I know of Darkfall.  I also know I wouldn't like it.  That doesn't mean there is anything intrinsically wrong with Darkfall.

 

The kidnapping of Wurm players is something we should really be looking into though.  Lock your windows at night and change-up your routines once in a while people!

17 hours ago, GarrySwamley said:

Myth: The game is not Pay To Win, its Pay To Play.

 

Spoiler

Again, this is false. In no other game I know about, can you buy as much power as in Wurm Online. The most disgusting and obvious example of this, is the Res Stone, which I believe is one of the main reasons people don't PvP anymore. Another reason, is simply because its annoying to compete against people who buy accounts, and get craptons of skill without putting any effort into the game. The final, and main reason that PvP is dead however, is that since EVERYTHING (land, items, gear, weapons, animals, skill, time) in this game costs serious real world money, most people steer clear, and play newer games where money isn't such a big factor.

Honestly, if you're playing Wurm for the PvP, then you really like the PvE side of Wurm but with the extra challenge a human opponent brings to the table. 

There are far more compelling PvP oriented games out there, if pvp is the primary draw. 

There is a financial component.  Dragon based armor can certainly bring in some cash.  Other things too, I'm sure.

However, every character bought has been built by a player at some point.  It's not paying the company for a special starter kit that puts you at 50 skill across the board immediately, tiered up to 70, 90, etc.

The person behind the character always matters, but the character's existence would be there either way.  You'd have to fight it whether Joe the Plumber is playing it, or Hillary the Server Admin bought it.

One could argue that having the character played by Hillary even after Joe has long quit the game actually helps keep developed, mature, challenging characters in the game that otherwise wouldn't be able to provide that challenge.

 

17 hours ago, GarrySwamley said:
  1. The community. In no other game have I ever meet such welcoming, amazing people.
  2. The History. The world of Wurm is full of history, just talk to someone who has played it a long time, and they can tell you a story or two. Chaos especially, has quite a few legends, some of which I hope people would write down more about. You could literally write a thousand novels on the history of what happens in this game world.
  3. The sandbox. Yes, many games are doing this nowadays, but few do it like Wurm Online. The persistence of the sandbox means that sometimes, you will see structures from over a decade ago! I mean, in freedom market, there is a sign "This mine used to have iron" has been there for a super long time, please mention bellow if you know what i'm talking about.

 

I think you may be underestimating the value of these three things, at least to the kind of player that does enjoy Wurm, and that Wurm can retain.

Community:

Black Desert Online had some really cool facets to it, but the community really turned me off to it.  Xsyon was cool in its own right, but a handful of community members drove it into the ground.  Having like minded players is a big deal to a game, imho.  It can really help keep it on track.  It can form the fabric strong enough to keep a critical mass of players.

History:

Longevity, persistence, a sense that you're joining something that has been living a long time, that has had time to mature... One does not simply create that.  A game can inherit it from a movie or book series/comics, but in Wurm's case, it is player made.  I think that's really unique in this day when many studios build for short-term profit-->scale down to skeleton crew-->hype and sell next short-term profit generator.

Sandbox:

Huge.  The landscape, the history, the mix of skills which can be raised in any combination you like, the crafting system's depth... The players Wurm can and will retain are in it for the sandbox.

 

My own rating... currently 10/10.  I'm in love.  Most other times, 8.99/10 (repeating of course)

 

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14 hours ago, Keenan said:

"hey, I'm a game developer" and they ask "oh? which game?" - I always get "Oh, never heard of it.". It's hard to maintain an ego when it's constantly crushed like this!


ha! good.
keeps you fresh. :P

intriguing `review` 
how long have you played?

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I'll tell you what OP i'll give the game a 4/10 now after this change.

 

 

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23 hours ago, ozmods said:

closest game in reference to hours played would be farming sim 2015, I've played over 600 hours I think in that,

I had 52 hours in that and wondered what kind of a crazy person I was, but you, you sir are just flat out insane...

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pvp is pay to win if you think otherwise you either are new, grinded really really hardcore and are brainwashed or you paid to win

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PvP has so many issues that pay to win really doesn't feature.  We're a tiny percentage of the population anyway, despite probably paying in a larger amount per player, that we probably don't really register.  Who cares if people pay €300 for scale sets on PvE - it's really just cosmetics over there.

 

€8 per month seems pretty reasonable - DDO is still $10-$15 / month, unless you buy a year at a go, so it's pretty comparable.  You could argue the multiple character thing, but really, nobody absolutely needs a second character, some people just choose to have one.

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You really should identify yourself and have the courage to stand behind your claims when making somewhat controversial claims such as in your OP. Perhaps you have been banned from these forums so that wouldn't get you very far? Without knowing the reality of your Wurm experiences, this topic is one that in general has been commented upon frequently in the past and even reminds me somewhat of a more recent one, so....

 

=Ayes=

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5 hours ago, Shrimpiie said:

I had 52 hours in that and wondered what kind of a crazy person I was, but you, you sir are just flat out insane...

Hey im defended by that comment.. NOT. LOL...

 

i love games now, that are NOT 'build it and they will come' ie simcity etc,... Games where you are actually required to do something more than just watch the screen, hnce why i love wurm, the char relies on you to make him do something. 

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I would say the op rating is not far off.. I give wurm a 5.5/10 

 

No doubt the content is there but that Balance is way way way off. And the team ha I won't bother to make any further comment. 

 

The pay to win part of the game could easily be taken care of by balancing the game.

 

Population is a problem and the lack of creativity and fun natured events along with the starting difficulties simply keep retaining players at the lowest possible. On top of that wrongful bannings or just any bannings because the team is unable to comprehend the need for a well thought out punishment system. 

 

Well I can go on but my lack of care these days grows more and more. LIF has recently been pretty fun for the limited time I've been able to play and the demo for COE looks like they are making good progress. Wurm will probably only ever remain a niche game. 

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People who read these forums love wurm... lolwat. Only thing ill say is the game is bad for different reasons then you say.

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1 hour ago, warrior said:

People who read these forums love wurm... lolwat. Only thing ill say is the game is bad for different reasons then you say.

"I know something but I won't tell. Please beg me to tell, then I will enlighten you all."

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See this is what quality story telling does!

 

Brings people together, starts discussion, makes you think about concepts and realities.

 

Seriously this guy should write more stuff. How about a negative review of the cooking system? I bet that would spark a lot of discussion.

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