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Malena

Things you can do in Wurm but can't do in most other MMOs?

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Hello friends!

 

As we know, Wurm is pretty darned special, allowing us to do things that most other MMOs don't. I would like to make a video showing these miracles to the world!

 

Here's where I would love your input: What things can YOU think of that we can do in Wurm (but can't in most other MMOs)?

 

Personally, I can only compare to the MMOs I've played in the past, but I'm sure there are many of you out there that have played other MMOs I've never tried myself, so with your own experiences put together we can get a broader perspective!

 

Here's what I have in my list so far. Feel free to add more!

Also, if there are things that you feel are quite common in other MMOs, please point that out as well so I can remove them! For instance beekeeping? Maybe you can actually do that in many other MMOs, I don't know!

 

Leaving your mark in the world

- Terraform the shape of the land (Life is Feudal)

- Build bridges

- Build underground cities

- Persistent player affected world. Something someone made/shaped 10 years ago may still be around

- Player made kingdoms that get their own custom designs for wagons, banners etc which remain even after the kingdoms are gone

- Permanency: Items/houses may take months or even years to decay (vs instantly or in a few hours) (seen in few other sandbox MMO's)

- Players can change the biomes of the land (dirt to sand etc) (Haven and Hearth)

- Players can modify the land to change improve (or hinder) accessibility (making a tunnel through a mountain or digging into the water to create a canal) 

 

World & Environment

- Everything ages: animals, plants, trees, guards, items (decay)

- Incorporates all of the following changes: Time of day, Type of weather, Seasons, Direction of wind

 

Land ownership

- Own as much or as little land as you want (few sandbox MMO's have similar terrain ownership system to Wurm)

- Have endless amounts of storage space (few sandbox MMO's have similar storage system)

 

Player Housing

- Build a house wall by wall, floor by floor (Ultima Online)

 

Furniture / Appliances / Devices etc
- Build a chicken coop and keep chickens (Haven and Hearth)


Agriculture

- Plant forests and harvest them for their fruits, nuts and lumber (seen in few other sandbox MMO's)

- Keep bees and collect honey
- Plant and harvest crops (Albion Online) (seen in few other sandbox MMO's)
- Breed and raise animals (Albion Online) (seen in few other sandbox MMO's)

- Bred animal "DNA" with various traits that pass on to offspring


Mounts / Vehicles / Travel / Exploration

- "If you can see it, you can explore it" - no artificial boundaries (Salem)

- Travel to other servers by sailing to them

- An ever-changing world that can be explored and discovered again and again

- Build and sail ships (Black Desert Online) (Archeage)

- Carts, wagons and other transportation vehicles with inventory that animals can be attached to (Few sandbox MMO's have similar system but with much less freedom of choice)

- Transportation devices (cages, carriers etc)

- Players can create highways, creating a vast network of player deeds throughout the world

- The world is so vast and changes, so even if you've played the game for 10 years you can still have the experience of becoming lost

 

Cool skills / abilities / functions

- No artificial skill boundaries (except the priest stuff) - become a master of them all!  (Albion Online)

- Discover who lived on an area of land before through archaeology
- Discover sources of water hidden deep in the ground through water divination, make a well and drink from the water that surfaces into the well  (Haven and Hearth) (Salem)

- Create your own paper from wood pulp and bind a book

- Make a large variety of different kinds of alcoholic beverages, some of which give you skill affinities.

- Gather snow from the ground, make a snowball and hit someone with it
- Bury corpses with a headstone

- Give names to pretty much anything (houses, animals, items)

- Incredibly deep cooking system (Haven and Hearth) (Salem)

- Incredibly deep fishing system (some other games have pretty deep fishing systems as well)

- Hunt for and loot player's old decayed houses and belongings (Ultima Online) (seen in most other sandbox MMO's)

- Forage the grass finding seeds, food and long lost coins worth actual real life money

- Exchanging game money for real life money and vica versa / buying selling items for real money - all legit and allowed to do (unlike most other MMOs)

- The experience of setting out to do one thing leads you down various paths and adventures before you actually reach your goal. This keeps things fresh and exciting because you never know how things will go down.

 

Weapons and Gear

- Decide exactly which stats and enhancements they have (very common)

- Have the crafters signature on the item (Ultima Online) (seen in few other MMO's)

- Lifelong items: Improve, enchant, repair and maintain your gear eternally and building sentimental value (vs replacing them with better and newer versions as you progress)

 

Game mechanics

- Community Assistance chat tab devoted to helping players around the clock (thank you all you CA volunteers <3)

- Extremely versatile ways to die, resurrect and handle our corpses (see Muses post)

- Goals are not set by the game, instead players are free to choose their own goals and use the game mechanics to reach them 

- No "end game" - no-one could possibly reach "max level" in Wurm

Edited by Malena
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You can build and maintain your own equipment, rather than it dropping into your hands from thin air. Instead of random stats that you decide are just right for now but don't care about them otherwise, they have your or someone else's signature who actually spend time making it, runing and enchanting it, perhaps you want to give it a name. Every item is like a personal artifact, even if it's "worthless" on the grand scale.

I still have the "Aegis of Windspears", a 22QL large metal shield made of steel, gathering dust in a chest because I figured out shortly after that they're kinda moot in PvE and choosing steel was kind of a hassle anyway (not sure if shields could be made of iron back then). But it fondly reminds me of the times I started Wurm and didn't even know yet what I want to do in the game except explore its possibilities.

 

Yes, you can craft your own items in other games, but it's nowhere near as involved as in Wurm, because you don't discard them with the next tier, but rather as your skill rises keep improving the same old butchering knife you gave a silly name when you first made it with 3 whooping QL to grow with you. Every other MMO forces you to treat your items and equipment as something that must be replaced eventually, but here they are allowed to gain at least some form of sentimental value.

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I would say no artificial skill boundaries is the big one. Many MMO's - even when they offer extensive crafting/sandbox options - tend to limit you to mastering only few professions on a single character, while in Wurm you can become master in all of them.

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21 minutes ago, Warlander said:

I would say no artificial skill boundaries is the big one. Many MMO's - even when they offer extensive crafting/sandbox options - tend to limit you to mastering only few professions on a single character, while in Wurm you can become master in all of them.

This is the main thing that got me to stick to Wurm. Also persistent world that lasts over a decade, things someone made ten years ago might still be there (wheater it's wagon, ship, pickaxe, armour, sword), thats something.

 

You mentioned it partialy with booze but it's not just booze, Wurm have very in depth cooking system (useless or not, nvm) that allows us to discover cooking recepies by our self (very large number of different ones)

Player made kingdoms with custom design for wagons, banners etc. that lasts ingame even after kingdom is long gone.

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5 hours ago, Malena said:

- Plant and harvest crops - Farming is pretty common in MMOs tbh - Albion for example
- Breed and raise animals - Same with Breedign - Albion for example
- Make your own booze - Booze is usually with cooking in alot of MMOs



 

 

52 minutes ago, Warlander said:

I would say no artificial skill boundaries is the big one. Many MMO's - even when they offer extensive crafting/sandbox options - tend to limit you to mastering only few professions on a single character, while in Wurm you can become master in all of them.

Again albion online, master of everything if you want. 

 

This is when we are trying to stay in the boundries of what can Wurm do and others cant. 

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persistency of what players build/how they changed the world is what I would find is most unique.
Due to wurms slow nature it's not just taking time to do things, but it also takes time for them to go away, ruins, items, containers etc. as well as changed landscape from past and present players can be found in a lot of places and it makes each player having an actual impact on the world itself. Especially now with archaeology it has added even another layer of permanency.
I could even say that the decay in this game is vastly different to other games, it rewards those with high skills to be present longer and due to resources being spread far and wide, there is no real need for competition, allowing players to wander into whatever corners of the world they wish to, leaving behind legacies in maybe unexpected places ;)

I find it soothing that things don't just vanish as the one controlling steps down and replaces with someone new....and that with the addition of the players creativities, how in a way, the game, for explorers, stays exciting :)
 

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6 hours ago, Malena said:

- Terraform the shape of the land

 

And change the type of land. Clay, tar, sand, dirt, grass, tundra, steppe, etc.

 

Build carts & wagons that you can hitch animals to, ride on, and load with stuff.

 

Build carriers to move ships over land & cages to transport animals.

 

Also, I don't know if any other game has this but you can go literally anywhere.  If you can see it, you can get there, even if some places are difficult like tops of mountains. No artificial boundaries with painted backdrops like other games.

Edited by Amadee
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Thank you SO much guys, great great additions! I've added or else fused most of the stuff and now organized it into categories, also adding other MMOs we may know of that can do the same thing. Let's keep this going!

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Nobody likes to die do they? but in Wurm the flexibility and choice over how, where and when you decide to re-spawn after death is very useful. Perfect for that strategic comeback! :) 

 

I can't speak for all other MMOs, but in Wurm we can re-spawn at our own deeds, any nearby alliance deeds, starter deeds and tents.  We can mail our inventories to ourselves, suicide to any spawn point, spend karma to summon our corpses back to us, and use priests to summon other players back to our location...meanwhile the Death Tab happily announces our demise to everyone on the server.

 

I don't think many games embrace the inevitable nature of death in quite the same way! :P We are spoiled really! ;) 

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25 minutes ago, Muse said:

Nobody likes to die do they? but in Wurm the flexibility and choice over how, where and when you decide to re-spawn after death is very useful. Perfect for that strategic comeback! :) 

 

I can't speak for all other MMOs, but in Wurm we can re-spawn at our own deeds, any nearby alliance deeds, starter deeds and tents.  We can mail our inventories to ourselves, suicide to any spawn point, spend karma to summon our corpses back to us, and use priests to summon other players back to our location...meanwhile the Death Tab happily announces our demise to everyone on the server.

 

I don't think many games embrace the inevitable nature of death in quite the same way! :P We are spoiled really! ;) 

 

GOOD ONE Muse! Added that, linking to your post under a new sub section called "Game mechanics". Also added our beloved CA help channel there too. Don't know of any other MMO that has something like that!

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 The ability to ignore the beast directly attacking me, while I keep focused on the one I passed an hour earlier...

 

Unjumping.  Jumping can be dangerous.

 

Level vehicles - never worry about spilling your beer on a Wurm cart.

 

No pesky web based account management.  Since we spend 24/7 ingame skilling up, it is much easier to do all account management within the client.

 

No email spam, telling us to add to deed upkeep or that our free alts are about to get deleted.  I love making new deeds and alts.  Everyone knows this. I'm not joking here, I really do!  I have something like 15 active deeds and 70 alts.

 

No other MMO I know of has these unique features.  But kidding aside, most of what is mentioned above is what keeps me coming back, year after year.  Owning land, items, vehicles and animals... Nothing really beats it.  Making changes to the landscape, building roads that last years.  Canals that dramatically improve travel, opening up new lands to settle - how can you beat that feeling?

 

Playing a game to reach max level and win the game for yourself just has no appeal anymore.  Having a permanent, positive influence that effect many players for many years is the best gaming experience I could ask for.

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I think seasons is a big thing :D I know it's already mentioned...but how many games have season based game elements (mostly in regards to crops and harvesting seasons, but also snow etc.) and seasons that are also visual in general?

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Get stung and bitten by dozens of scorpions and spiders resulting in cuts and puncture wounds..... then getting poisoned by a shark while fishing ^_^

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Make a road in the wilderness and see it is still there years later on mapdumps.

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  • Perform 10 actions and not gain a single skill tick (prayer ftl).
  • Go out looking for herbs, and come back with a coin worth real currency.
  • Get lost (seriously, wurm is one of the only games I have ever played where it is possible to get lost after years).
  • Be able to plant hedges on one part of a tile, but not another.
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Buy and sell items and account for real money on the forums of that game.

 

Also land terraforming is available in Life is Fuedal. 

Edited by FranktheTank
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Fail to make kindling.  Repeatedly. 

 

For me, the draw is the variety and range of stuff to do, where it all feels a little different.  Too many MMOs everything feels basically the same, just different pictures.

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Wurm have that unique feature... where you want to do one thing today.. but to get that done.. you also need to get not two but three to four other things done properly.. to even start the first the way you want to...

 

In that regard, you could start the day with one idea in mind and go through a week long adventure until reaching your goal or barely start working on it(now prepared to face it, well.. you think you are).

 

Even when it all goes as planned, there's something to surprise you at the end of the day or the journey.

Edited by Finnn
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4 minutes ago, Finnn said:

Wurm have that unique feature... where you want to do one thing today.. but to get that done.. you also need to get not two but three to four other things done properly.. to even start the first the way you want to...

 

In that regard, you could start the day with one idea in mind and go through a week long adventure until reading your goal or barely start working on it(now prepared to face it, well.. you think you are).

 

Even when it all goes as planned, there's something to surprise you at the end of the day or the journey.

 

I feel this so much. I have been playing my current WU world for over a month now and I have a Knarr but still no bed because I can't focus lol

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2 hours ago, FranktheTank said:

Buy and sell items and account for real money on the forums of that game.

 

Also land terraforming is available in Life is Fuedal. 

 

This. 10 years ago wurm was certainly ahead of its time but sandbox games have really had a spike. Wurm will always have its niche but the golden era of the 2d game has passed. 

 

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It's probably better to rephrase the question to be "what is the draw of Wurm" instead. When you open up a question like this, you can probably check the box for absolutely everything being available in other games. Most of the concepts that exist in gaming are not unique, even among the most successful games. Minecraft alone would probably check the box for about half of what's listed. You can obviously argue something along the lines of "Minecraft is not an MMO" which would simply lead into an argument about the definition of an MMO.

 

My answer to the question of "what is the draw of Wurm" is choice of goal. In most games, you're tasked with some goal you're aiming towards completing. Some of them are very direct, like how EVE has a singular goal of obtaining ISK. Some are more indirect, like World of Warcraft and obtaining better gear. These aren't the only goals available in the game, but they're the "directed" ones so to speak, where the game is designed around allowing players to progress towards those goals.

 

In Wurm Online, there isn't any real goal set for the player at all, and nothing guiding the player towards doing anything in particular. There's very little enticing someone to build a village, train a skill, or slay a certain creature. You are placed into the world and left to your own devices. You figure out how the game works and set your own goals.

 

It's a shame that the very thing which was so interesting about Wurm is slowly being drained away. The old personal goals and new journal run in direct opposition to the idea of giving the player free choice. There is an arbitrary set of tasks laid out that players are encouraged to perform. This starts dictating the way players behave instead of allowing them to form their gameplay goals naturally. I'm curious how many new guard towers have been built specifically to satisfy the journal goal which requires it, instead of for the purpose of actually having a guard tower.

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1 hour ago, Sindusk said:

It's a shame that the very thing which was so interesting about Wurm is slowly being drained away. The old personal goals and new journal run in direct opposition to the idea of giving the player free choice. There is an arbitrary set of tasks laid out that players are encouraged to perform. This starts dictating the way players behave instead of allowing them to form their gameplay goals naturally. I'm curious how many new guard towers have been built specifically to satisfy the journal goal which requires it, instead of for the purpose of actually having a guard tower.

 

While I agree that what attracted me was the lack of external direction, i.e. choose your own stuff, many people find the completely open world off-putting.  I've seen brand new players in chat asking, "but what do I do?" so many times.  While some of the journal goals could use some polishing, the broad thrust is good, as it's a middle ground between being told exactly what to do all the time and no direction at all: most of the goals are things you'd probably do anyway (to some degree, at least), and they do encourage you to try bits of the game you haven't before.  I'd done only a little fishing before journal goals, probably wouldn't have bothered to try the new fishing without the nudge; I found I really like the new system, which I guess is the intention (or part of it, anyway).

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On 9/3/2019 at 8:03 AM, Malena said:

Make your own booze (Commonly found in other MMOs as part of cooking)

...

- Incredibly deep cooking system

- Make a variety of alcoholic beverages, some of which give you skill affinities.

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