I have played this game for over 1000 days worth of in-game playtime (24,000 hours) on the Non-Steam (Java) version. Take advice from someone who has seen the highs and lows of this game, and hear me when I say the highs are a thing long in the past.

This is going to be extremely long winded, but I'm hoping to provide as much context and supportive evidence as I can in this review so that people who don't know what they're getting into can understand the game at the finer level that I understand it and its community, having played Wurm for over 11 years.

My first experience logging into this game was simply magically intoxicating. I have no other words to describe it. Digital avatars bustling up and down the streets of what was then just called "Freedom" but would later be renamed to "Independence". People selling things, buying things, transporting things/animals, people building things... 5 minutes into this game and I was hooked. It was more alive than any other game I had ever seen, with a very close and tightknit community. Deeds were scattered just about everywhere, all along the highways, and in the forests.. ALL of them were populated, no village was empty. Very rare was it to find a deed where just a single person lived, because they were costly enough that people usually had to pool their efforts to get one. This was 2009.

Fast forward 11 years to 2021. You could put yourself basically anywhere on any server, choose a former metropolis even if you'd like - You'll not find a single soul in your local for many miles. The game world feels empty, and abandoned. Peak population is less than half what it used to be. The people that still care, all live at deeds by themselves, since a deed is so cheap now that anyone can have 10 if they want. Good luck finding a spot where you have some friendly neighbors, either. The game's culture itself has taken a turn for the worse and settling within local of someone else's middle-of-nowhere-deed will usually net you a hostile response from said individual.

What I am trying to get across here is that the Developers over the past 5 or 6 years, have been consciously making choices which have been driving players away from their game, new and old alike. The game has their own official forum, there is a section called "Suggestions and Ideas" - inside that subforum there are 298,446 posts, of which many have been liked by the community countless times and advocated for. Of those nearly 300,000 posts, there are maybe about 50 suggested features that have made it into the game. It's not because there haven't been any quality suggestions, or things that the community has really gotten behind. No, the Developers of this game simply do not care about providing quality content. They do not care about the community behind the game, or those that pay them money. The game has not seen a significant content update in... years.

The last piece of endgame content the game had added to it was Rifts (some 3 years ago now) and they are complete and utter trash. No one in their right mind would ever spend 5 to 6 hours staring at their screen while their equipment takes absurd amount of damage... all for... what's the reward? Oh, right lol. There really isnt one. Nothing that a Rift could provide you would ever be useful to you once you're strong enough to actually participate in one.

Then there was Jackal. Jackal was the new content after that. Basically you got to start over (uhm, thanks?) from nothing and try to gain skills on this weird alien planet, with the promise that some of the skill you gained on Jackal would transfer to your original character. Well, what they forgot to mention to any of us was that the amount of skill that would transfer was so low it was virtually nonexistant. Most people who skilled up to 70 in something on jackal gained maybe 0.3 of a skillpoint if they were below 90. If you were already above 90 you just didnt gain anything. 10 of 10 ENDGAME CONTENT

As if you needed any more reasons to avoid this game, there are in fact more. There are numerous well-documented cases of nepotism and favoritism amongst the development and GM teams within Wurm. You have to keep in mind that all the Devs and GM's of this game, are players too. There is a special select group of "Golden Bois" whom you cannot question or speak contrary to in this game. Doing so results in a permanent ban from the game and all traces of your existence permanently deleted. Doesnt matter whether you've been a paying subscriber for 5 or 8 or 10 years.

On the PVP server Chaos, our main enemy was predominantly the GM/Developer teams. The weapons and armour our faction used were nerfed when we started winning fights.. funnily enough med mauls (the weapon our enemy mainly used) got a 45% damage buff. At one instance a number of our players had their main weapons Removed from their hands, BY THE HEAD GM because they were bugged weapons that we had obtained FROM THE ENEMY FACTION. Enemy faction was told they were allowed to make/use said weapons with impunity. Soon as we got hold of them, they were taken from us.

Our kingdom's chancellor was a GM, who had played the game basically since its inception. One day he was randomly stripped of his GM powers and within 2 hours of this happening, his deed is "raided" and hundreds of EUR worth of ingame assets were stolen from him. This was done through the use of an exploit which allowed a group of "Golden Bois" to basically walk through the mine defences as if they weren't there. None of the players involved in the exploit, were ever banned. They all still play the game to this very day. None of the items were ever found or returned. They possess the power to retrieve it all and give it all back to him in the blink of an eye - but they won't because of an ingame factional line. They treat us as second rate players when all we've ever done is pay them money to try and enjoy their game.

The reality is, at this point, there is no way to ever "redeem" or "save" Wurm. No amount of doing it right could ever repair the damage all the corruption, apathy, and ingenuity have done to your game title over the last decade. You simply waited far too long. Eventually your players get fed up with your inactivity and decide to seek better pastures. This is what has happened to Wurm, en masse. I was told by the CEO that there was potential they might do something to address the "dwindling community" aspect of the game, after steam. Alas, here we are, a year after steam. Nothing has changed, even in the slightest.

Please try to understand my reasoning for the above negative comments. I have invested a decade into this game only to watch it be ruined. That said, Wurm has some incredible potential - even though nearly all of it has long since been squandered away by an incompetent dev team. Here are the notable highlights, before I run out of characters:

Non-XP-based skillsystem, skills feel natural and good to grind. Every action makes you better at what you do.
Items all feel much more real and tangible than those in other games, enchant system and mod system a major plus.
Everything you see was made by a player. Anything you see can be destroyed.
Game has no embedded lore - the history of the player's actions becomes the lore and stories retold.
True freedom in a sandbox fantasy RPG-type environment.
Incredible level of fidelity and miniscule detail to the environment.
Game used to have really strong community interactions and a great neighborhood-vibe to it. Not anymore sadly.
No class system, train any combination of skills to any level you desire.
More than 200 skills! Seriously, if you like grinding you will never run out of stuff to do in this game.

EpicPhail (Felinas)

Josh Strife Hayes review.

Pros:

• The game can be very relaxing if you do not get caught up in grinding.
  
• There are quite a few activities to do when muddling around on a PVE server.
  
• The above can attract some very chilled and pleasant people to the community, who can be very helpful.

All of these main benefits are available through Wurm Unlimited if you are careful about choosing a server to play upon.

Cons:

• Unless you are selling items of a high quality, there is very little benefit to raising your skills or items very much over 70 and it can be gruelling to hit 90+ if you are grinding skills.
  
• The combat system is similar to Progress Quest, it is not very interactive and you basically just wait for an outcome.
  
• The Random Number Generation system can be very frustrating, even with very high skills, you will still produce the same quantity of trash items, which require a lot of improving to make them useful. You will feel that you lost out on your chance of a rare item when you get a drum roll with its chance of a rare occurrence but are doing something like raking a field to no result.
  
• Game Masters (moderators) and developers play on the live servers, they are actively playing against other players via PVP, market trading, pushing land borders and competing for unique monsters that drop rare loot. As a result you might feel there is a conflict of interest and that arbitration is biased.
  
• You might feel that you are paying for some very strange development changes. They added complex systems, such as the cooking, archaeology and fishing ones that can be frustrating and do not add much more depth to the game, while core mechanics such as, the above mentioned combat, RNG and movement systems, remain lacklustre for more than a decade.

Edit-2 Mar 2022:

- It has also been suspicious, how quickly one group will find the unique monsters for their private slayings.

The group suspected of using GM powers to locate unique monsters, in order to get their loot drops (some of the most valuable resources in the game) received a only 100 day ban from the game. Took them multiple years to catch the cheaters and reporting it obviously hit a wall of GMs denying that it was happening.
Then they gave them a slap on the wrist, very light punishment for the damage the cheaters did to the reputation and player base of the game.

Additionally, a staff member might have been quietly demoted / removed. It is rumoured that they used GM powers to give their e-girl-friend rare items (obvious because they were all exactly the same quality, which isn't possible with the RNG in Wurm) and they were allegedly using an exploit to duplicate dyes (tedious grind to get high volumes of material to paint large objects and it requires a skill few can bother raising, making dyes valuable).

Meanwhile, the developers continue to add gaudy cosmetic items without addressing and improving the weakness of the core game.

Edit-1 Aug 2020:
What with so many of the reviews indicating GM and developer abuse, I got banned for pointing out that Retrograde might be fuelling the fire. This was seen as "attacking the staff"[i.imgur.com]. *Rolls eyes*
He then went on to delete every post I had made on the forums, even the ones where I was being helpful to new players. I am giggling at how petty it was.
(Delete, confirm, yes, delete confirm, yes, over and over ...) so when he isn't giving you status updates or helping you with your questions, besides streaming or undercutting players on the markets, this is one of the things he gets up to doing. *Laughs*

Copied from first reply comment to Retrograde:

Then maybe issue from the correct post? Additionally, you had kept deleting his posts, so I was informing him of what recourse he had and to try and clarify his grievance.

You could then try and address these issues, rather than just deleting and banning.

Wurm Online has had a lot of promise for its entire existence. At its core is a lovely, fun game with a lot of longevity. However, I would recommend that you stay away if you value your time, effort and sanity.

I have played for years through the standalone launcher, and when it comes to Wurm Online, one thing has been consistent: you can and likely will eventually be banned for some length of time. This ban will quite possibly be for something that isn't actually against the rules. And nothing will come of it if you complain, other than your loss of paid subscription time.

This outcome is essentially guaranteed if you criticise the game's staff or how it is ran, because you will then have a target on your back. The reason for this is because the game's staff doesn't serve the terms of use, but their own interests. There is rampant nepotism where current lesser members of staff will have only gained that status by being involved with senior members of staff beforehand. These senior members of staff will do things like spawning endgame items for themselves and lying about it, abusing an exploit for years before quietly fixing it once they are done, and even committing theft against players, either by themselves personally on their own accounts or through the use of proxies. Any attempt at holding them accountable leads to a permanent ban on the official forums, and everything swept under the rug.

Last but not least: you're not safe, even if you get promoted to GM and work for them, if you're not in their inner circle. These are two videos showing what happens when a member of the inner circle decides they want something:

https://youtu.be/KTcabAslWZI
https://youtu.be/dYUwF0jX2X0

These are players who exploited their way into a then ex-GM's secured area in PvP immediately after he was removed from staff for being "inactive," despite him going on vacation for a week and giving warning beforehand. There was no punishment for these players who were in the same PvP kingdom as all of the other members of the GM team. Despite this being repeatedly brought to the attention of staff, even years after the fact, there was no punishment, and the excuse given was that "the video proof happened after the fact", and they "wouldn't punish them in hindsight.

Reports are that current players who have left negative reviews like this have been banned specifically for doing so. I expect to be among them after this. If you're curious about playing, decide wisely.

If you ever think to yourself that all the people cursing about 'Dev' and 'Staff' abuse here are lying... well, no, they are not.

I was playing Wurm Online religiously. Every single day. 5+ hours a day, on a PVP server.
Now, there were only 2 actual kingdoms (groups of people ,think "guilds" or "clans" ). Us : "Wurm University" and
the enemy "The Crusaders".
One day, we went over to their Island Village to attack it. We were there with 14-15 people. Now, we've done most of
what could be done on that particular day, it was getting late, and, me and the other europeans have gone to sleep for the most part. Only 3-4 people remained on the enemy island village to grief it.

What happened after that? One of the 3-4 people that remained there supposedly abused a glitch. It was an odd glitch that was able to let you bypass through cave walls and get inside enemy stashes. This particular glitch was used by 1, at most 2 people at my 3-4AM. I have been asleep, and my character had been logged off for more than 2 hours.

I turn on my PC the next day. I, instinctively start up Wurm, try to login. I am greeted by a Ban Hammer warning.
I was banned. Me. For something that was done by 1-2 other guys.
Not only that. ALL THE 14-15 ACCOUNTS THAT HAVE BEEN PRESENT HOURS BEFORE THE GLITCH WERE BANNED.

This is not all. The enemies? They knew. Here's the thing, the Crusaders had developers in their ranks. Literal developers were playing on a PVP server. so... they knew exactly who and how many of us were banned. What happened after that you might ask? WE GOT ATTACKED. WE HAD TO DEFEND WITH LEVEL ONE ACCOUNTS FOR ONE FULL WEEK.

It gets better. After investigation, Staff has deemed the fact that that glitch is not actually a bannable offence. So.... they reverted all the bans. BUT WAIT, remember reading through the ratings here that this game has a subscription? Me, and 14 other people could not login to their characters for a full week. Do you think we got that gametime reimbursed or anything? NOPE. Do you think the damage that the enemy had done to us during that week of daily sieges has been reverted back ONE BIT? Nope.

Please dont ever touch this. This game's team don't deserve your money. Or anyone else's.
If you really want to play this game, get Wurm Unlimited, you can find it on steam as well, buy it on sale, it goes for like 5 bucks. That one is a dedicated server version of Wurm, you have no subscription, own your own server, can apply your own settings, and are your own master.

I have Played this game basically since its inception. When Notch was still on board and just before the forum flame wars where everyone who defied rolf after notch left was banned.

Here are the cold hard truths of this game:

THIS GAME IS NOT FREE TO PLAY, the games own mechanics make this obvious.
If no one were to ever buy prem or silver for real money, the kingdoms would never be funded. if kingdoms are not funded you cannot gain coin in any of the F2P mechanics. Thus the game is NOT F2P and never was. the toon to 20 skill is just meant to trick you into thinking otherwise. its like world of warcraft playing free until 20, then you have to sub, same concept.

The Devs/Staff in general are horrible:
they are abusive and face no consequences. they don't adhere to rules that are stated and do whatever they want. If you challenge them, they try to publicly shame you(personal rep matters in this game as its has a very small player base). we are talking LEAD GM's... watched an entire situation play out in a public chat in game. the GM is still a Lead GM/position. They do not take any suggestions from player, even ones like map making, a requested feature for 12 years now. They also refuse to make actual changes to bring the game into current gaming standards even Runescape has more quality of life patches.

You CANNOT play with only one account or SOLO the game:
without having played for years or buying a substantial amount of silver to pay players that have.

Whats the real truth?:
Well that's the thing the devs refuse to tell anyone anything definitively. The wiki is wrong about 60% of the time, which leads to fighting amoungst the players. People are either lied to or misinformed and they will fight you tooth and nail because the wiki says so. Outside a Wurm Unlimited data dump, NOTHING is 100% sure, even that isn't reliable anymore as the devs have abandoned WU to fend for itself as well as the code has changed. I think thats the way the devs like it too.

The graphics are Terrible:
no other way to put it, they are from 1996 at best. You have like 5 "custom" choices for avatars creation. The animation are sad at best.

Fighting:
Well this is in an of itself a sad thing. You start the game with zero knowledge of what can and cannot be fought without 100% death garenteed. See that seal, looks so weak and easy to kill, nope...it will murder your noob ass. But that wolf over there you can most likely kill in starter gear. There is no bars or indications that fighting this mob might be a bad idea...you just get crushed...and if you collected anything well its on your now corpse and you have to find it....which as a noob wont happen. This is ALL BEFORE the simple truth that fighting is boring as all get out. you literally interact with it every 30 seconds if that. To add to that, there are some hard coded things in the game that effect fighting people dont get told. Fighting on a horse is good, so shouldn't fighting on a cart or wagon or even better? well no...actually fighting on a cart or wagon is coded to give a hard debuff...that ISN'T displayed anywhere. so something you could normally kill is now owning your face hard.

We haven't even gotten to skilling up.....and i can go on. Don't play this game, move on to one thats coming out that is basically this game but with better...well everything. The community is shrinking back to what it was pre-steam launch and it'll go back to what it was, a dying game with a hard core community.

Really thinking about it, players like myself and a few others are probably the biggest problem for the game....we give new players hope, so they stay, stay and spend money IRL. I think for new players i will act like most of the community and be an very rude and remove hope so this game on life support can finally die the death its been begging for, for the last 10 years....


*****
Update: Retrograde just confirm the following info.(2/2/2021) in WO discord. If you are a "new player" you are required to pay the "discounted" price of 8 silver.....1 second after you can pay the 8 silver you can buy the 5 silver for 15 days... i have multiple accounts on 1 email a few prem'ed...and they STILL want to gouge me a non new player for whatever they can get.. what do you think they'll do to you?..retro even directed me to purchase prem time for IRL money first (not questionable at all)...if that doesn't show how well...you know... the situation is with this company.....retro did ultimately say i could forage for coins to cover the difference (honesty sad considering he didn't start there, but considering what i said before about the game not being free).......


I was hoping the new acquisition of WO would bring change...it has not, rolf still runs things days to day. GM's and Dev's that should have been fired for cause, are still employed.

SS provide upon PM

****************************
Update: The game has hit a new low, whales (players who spend vast sums of money irl on the game) are now totally exempt from punishment for griefing. As the game has less than 500 active players (not including alts) on old and new servers. The GM's cannot punish the cash cows that are keeping the game afloat without risking the loss in revenue. Driving away new and old players alike. This has become more and more common in this game as the player base shrinks to what can only be called dismal levels.

Fighting has gotten an update, You can see a tag for the danger of mobs now(this feature does not work at this time, so its useless). You now interact with fighting more often by having to choose a way to defend yourself. They also increased mobs fight skill levels and never mentioned it to anyone. So the stuff you use to kill with 75 fight skill easily now almost kill you. However, you can avoid all of this by automatically fighting but you get debuffs as well for being lazy basically.

They added some great quality of life items but then completely destroyed animal breeding and on some servers people have so many horses that none can spawn in game so you are required to either head to a different server that still spawns them spending hours to get there and back, or pay extreme amounts for animals. They also added donkeys and mules but didn't raise the cap on wild horses. they also added new traits to animals and rare traits as well and traits that a animal can have but will never pass onto the next generation. Also inbreeding now seems to have a obvious penalty. though im sure a spell will be added to remove that specific negative trait of parentage eventually.

They also added hay and pitchfork to make and tend hay. My guess is they will soon make it so winter doesn't allow grazing animals to graze and you will be required to feed your animals hay during that time. its makes things more realistic but more of a busy work situation but in a way i suppose its a good thing as most of the animals on dead deeds will die off allowing people to once again catch wild horses. It will also make it a hassle for people to maintain 500 horses at a time anymore, which imo is a good thing.

overall still stay away from the game, play new world when it finally gets released or maybe a rogue lite anything but this game.

If you’re looking for an honest and experienced recommendation. This is it. To give context and strength to my recommendation, I played Wurm Online over the course of 15 years, 12 years was pretty consistent and my return has been after a 3-year absence.

I will breakdown this game to support my recommendation, this recommendation is to not buy or support this game.

Major flaws

1. One account is not enough

If you are going to play wurm and attempt to be self-sufficient or competitive in the economy on PvE or in combat in PVP. You will need at least 2 accounts, often more as can be seen by those who lead the market or solo dragons.

This can be seen most intensely in PVP where you now NEED to be a priest or fight at an absurdly large disadvantage. Of course, you cannot craft as a priest so you will need a crafter or hope someone else makes the slog to do that work for you.

2. Crafting

While One of wurms strengths is the 0-100 crafting system, it is often a “hurry up and wait” feeling. you rush to 50 masonry to build your first smelter and find it still takes you 3+hours to assemble it or the boat you want to build takes you 7 days of failing to attach objects.

Want to build a stone house? Mine out the rock, chisel the bricks, dig the sand, dig the clay, mix the mortar and eventually build each wall 1 action at a time.

3.Skilling

All of this skilling is done by watching a timed bar with each action increasing in time before the last. With some actions, you sit watching this bar for 30seconds a time only to not gain a skill tick as your outside the optimal gain or just simply didn’t get a “tick”. Using a 3RD party site you can do the math to get the best chance to get a skill tick depending on your action often landing at 50ish%. Of course, neither the game or the wiki will teach you any of this.

4.misinformation or just lies?

Due to the lack of information provided in any official capacity, you are often left at the whims of the community to teach you, people, who have also been taught wrong or lied to over their learning experience. An example of this lie/misinformation is “Low quality” and “High CoC” being the best for skilling up. This of courses is lacking a volume of information but to simplify, higher your skill the higher you’ll aim to improve to so higher ql tools and higher coc is actually several x better for any action for improvement. You also want to add in WOA to speed up the actions as you’ll gain more chances to gain skills via more timers being completed.

5. Support/staffing

This area is something you will read a lot about, the abuse the give etc I will avoid repeating this recurring issue and will instead turn to my current staffing experience.


This event occurred on the PvE server, something that occurs a lot apparently. I was out chopping trees grinding skill. Someone came along and lost their ♥♥♥♥, resulting in them calling me names, griefer and that they would report me for it etc. I shrugged this off mostly, till another village mate said that, the other person had broken rules and had just harassed and that I should report it. At this point the person had added me to their deed guards KOS system, meaning I would be attacked by his or kingdom guards from near his deed.

So I looked on the forums and found the rule and it reads that he had broken the rules and I feared I was not the first or last person this player would/has effected. So I used the ingame /support function.

This function deals with all exploits, bug reports, harassment claims, payment issue. In general, it would be seen as a customer service tool, I of courses got a response by a Chat moderator (not directly staff but a representative of wurm) who in simple terms, had no idea or had decided the person had not broken any rules or that /support was any form of customer support service and resorted to accosting me for the report basically. I saw this was going nowhere so i requested he forward me to a GM (actual staff) and that we no longer discuss this further as it seems we had clashed. He refused, berated me more and then closed the support ticket. I have since sent this all the Head GM and after 72 hours still await any response.

Having waited so long and my current experience with staff professionalism now utterly without expectation i have used the /support system for a full refund to the game (having been advised they give NO REFUNDS EVER).

I can only say that they are the most unprofessional staff I have dealt with in ay video game.

6. Community

The community is a rather fragile thing to describe, toxic in many regards lovely in many many others. While the games heydays are long gone and the community continues to shrink, the people playing the game are all formidable in their commitment to the game. So much so that they prevent any real changed needed to save it or to improve it.

They do not wish to see anything to lessen the brutality that is the skill grind or to anything that might increase the relative speed/pacing of the game. They like it slow, uncertain and hard. Of course, this has its merits. Much of wurms reward is watching the numbers climb higher and higher and eventually your at the top with your 90 skill.

7. Macroing

Rife within the community, although it is against the rules. I personally have witnessed and been present during a conversation about macroing in the game. I actually reported a macroer previously before my return. This was a GM, with video evidence, i was banned on the forums and the report was ignored, they are still a GM today. Since then i have not and will not report any players.

8. RMT

With the launch to steam, wurm changes to the RMT policy to not allowed and a bannable offence, within 30 minutes of my joining the game i was offered to buy an account or gold. I personally have no issues with RMT in video games and personally am saddened by the change of policy. It is still here anyway.

9. Bugs/exploits

In this game bugs can be Huge, you might be able to benefit massively as many players have over the years. Bugs have no correlated response, some are ok to use i.e. old fountain pains. Others are ignored and the few that are fixed are never really fixed.

Reporting a bug while is good for the game does not me it will be fixed, often it leads to it becoming public and eventually abused by the masses. The devs are slow to fix anything.

They also offer no incentive to hand in a bug other than a title “clairvoyant” so if some finds a bug that allows them to achieve results and compete faster, often handing it in will both punish your gains, earnings and friends.

10. Animals

So let us say you have decided to try this game and your planning to breed animals. Well 2 issues, one you’ll need to find wild ones to bring back (almost impossible) and then you’ll need a deed with space to breed them. Wait for up to 10 rl days to hopefully have a horse give birth if there is space left on the creature cap.

11. Server release after server release

Wurm has a problem of keeping players, getting new players etc. Their solution is to just release a new server or new cluster. A fresh start, fresh skills and everyone one is on a levelling playing field again.

This last for all of 1 week, the guys with alts, bugs and knowledge spiral ahead and eventually when they hit the point of the old servers or cluster, they open them up and mix the servers again. Rinse and repeat. Ingame rare goods, gold always ends up in the same player’s hands as they have had years to gain wealth and accumulate skills.

Even with the new cluster, the separation of silver and accounts has to lead to the same players doing the same with, getting to the top sucking dry the community and the RMTing the profits (now on the downlow).

I think this is enough but there is far more reason to not play this game, ofc i do want to state this game is not all bad. It has had fun to it and many of the core features are really good, but it’s a

I have spent a considerable amount of time, 1855 hours to be exact, playing Wurm Online. The game initially captured my interest with its exploration, intricate systems, and the thrill of building a home from scratch. However, as I delved deeper into the game, I found that the time investment required to progress was not worth the payoff.

One of the major drawbacks of Wurm Online is its currency system, where players use silver to pay for territories to build their homes. While it is possible to earn this currency in-game by creating and selling items, the low player count makes it nearly impossible to compete with veteran players who have amassed vast amounts of materials over the years. This often leaves newer players with no choice but to buy silver with real money to maintain their deeds, resulting in significant expenses.

Furthermore, the lack of new content in the game is disappointing. Despite the developers teasing features like goblin camps, these additions have yet to materialize. Instead, the game seems to focus on releasing cosmetic skins every month to generate more revenue from players.

Additionally, it is worth noting that the developers have been known to ban players for speaking negatively about the game. This censorship of critical feedback raises concerns about the transparency and integrity of the developers.

In conclusion, my experience with Wurm Online has been mixed. While I enjoyed certain aspects of the game, the steep financial investment required, lack of substantial new content, and potential censorship of player opinions make it difficult to wholeheartedly recommend. For those interested in exploring the world of Wurm, I would suggest trying Wurm Unlimited, a free alternative that offers similar gameplay without the drawbacks found in Wurm Online.

My experience in Wurm So far:

So you want to make a bow? Well get ready mother ♥♥♥♥♥♥, because not only are you going to have to cut a tree, but you'll then have to turn that ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ into a log. From there, it just goes without saying that you'll need to turn that log into some planks and some shafts, so you can make a rope making tool. But, obviously, you'll also need some nails to complete the construction of your rope tool, so find yourself some iron and a way to smelt it, and bang that heated up ore into some nails. With those nails you can actually finish your rope tool, so you can find some hemp plants, grind the hemp into fiber, and use the tools to craft a bow string. Done? Great! Now you can chop down another tree and make a bow.

But wait! Now you want to use that bow to shoot a fool. A word of warning: If you try to use that bow on someone without first having crafted a quiver and filled it with arrows (which require you to craft shafts to convert to arrow shafts, as well as heated iron forged into arrow heads), you will simply throw your bow at the creature instead of firing it, like the ignorant simp peasant you actually are.

A+ experience so far, would gladly throw my bow at a crocodile again.

I like the game. I was hoping to invest many hours and develop my plot of land to something spectacular. But the game unfortunately follows the Free to Play formula all too well.

First you need to pay for premium to play the game. Yes, you can play up to skill level 20 for free, but I ran into that limit after only a few days. So I bought a package deal and got premium plus a bit of silver..... warning bells.

Yes, you can pay real money for an online currency that becomes necessary to play the game for most people. You need a deed, and a deed has a silver payment due each month, and you can buy silver. Pay to Win.

Personally I was going to continue to play and let my deed, which I bought with the bit of silver I got from the package expire. I was out in the boonies, and really did not have a way to make silver so the choice was either to let the deed expire or start paying real money in addition to the premium cost. OK, I'll do without the deed.... nope.

I was starting animal breeding, and I had a cow, a few bulls and a calf I found wandering. A great start for an eventual herd to give me milk, leather and meat. Or so I thought. I bred the cow. It took some work to convince the animals to "get it on", but I was excited to finally see my herd pregnant. One problem. My deed was minimal size, and my pastures were outside of the deed.

Next day I signed on and my cow was dead from complications of a miscarriage. ??? I checked Wurmpedia and found that outside of a deed, animals will frequently have miscarriages. What does a piece of paper have to do with breeding? Essentially after asking around, I found out it is essentially impossible to do Animal Husbandry off of a deed. More investigation and I found that trying to survive without a deed has many many disadvantages.

So like most pay to play games, this was a pay to win model. You needed not only to pay for premium, which I would have gladly done, but also pay for silver to keep your deed going (and expand it to cover a reasonable territory). So the hidden cost of free to play games rears its ugly head.

People may comment that you can make enough silver in the game to pay for your deed, and I'm sure this is true for some people. If I would have joined a town near the spawn point, and followed instructions of more knowledgeable players, I might never have needed to pay anything after my first deed payment. However, I preferred to leave civilization and figure out the game on my own terms. It would have taken me years to figure out everything I'm sure, and I would have had fun doing it. But to play that way, I need to pay more. No thanks.

Awesome concept and interesting systems. Dated graphics aren't even an issue here. There's a complex crafting system that is actually really awesome.

The game isn't really free to play though. Bare minimum you need 3~ silver coins to secure a base location. 100 iron coins= 1 copper coin. 100 copper = 1 Silver coin. You can sell to NPC's but according to the wiki they will only pay you up to 5 CP/hr that's if you have things to sell them. Just from a selling standpoint not gathering whatever you're selling that'd be 60 hrs of game play minimum if somehow you *can sell* that much. After about 20 hrs of game play I have roughly 50 copper which is half of what you could get from selling in that time in theory. So if it takes twice that it's likely that it would take 120 hrs to get to the 3 SP to secure a building location. In addition the location needs 1 SP in upkeep each month.

Free to play account skills/attributes have a max value of 20. Some skills seem to be locked as the pre-requisite skills to unlock them are above 20. Oh and driving a large cart takes 20.1 in the skill required. You can unlock premium game time aka subscription time if you spend 8 SP in game.

Again a cool concept with intricate crafting. If you have a group of friends you could grind coin faster and share a base between ya'll as they can get massive but as a solo definitely not worth the time. Note: I was lucky with the amount of coin I got. My coin mainly came from RNG(?) of botanizing/foraging. You also don't need to build on deeded land but, that leave you open to griefing. With the grind as heavy as it is for skills, mats, and just moving around the idea of sinking more time here and losing it all to a higher skilled griefer isn't appealing. Pass on this.