Wurm Online F2P vs Wurm UL?

[Wulf]

Does anybody have any input on what Wurm Online is like, and the differences between their pay and Free2Play status?

I think I'd like to give it a shot but I'm almost completely turned off of the concept of F2P since every other time I've tried a F2P game it's been anything but free, and always trying to nickel and dime you or even just break immersion by always reminding you.

Even if I get over the F2P status, what are the communities like? Is it a 10 hour hike from a starting position past the forgotten remains of people's ghost towns before I can find an empty spot to stake a claim? Will I be violated by hordes of naked bandits attempting to teabag my corpse and calling me a newb?

Does a community exist that's worth being part of, and is it the norm or the exception?

[Wulf]

And as a secondary question, how are the PvP servers?

I doubt I'll have the time/skill/group of friends required to take PvP seriously, but I enjoy the threat/ability of anybody being able to walk up to anybody and bop them in the nose if they're being a dill-hole.

Would I be happy playing PvE-style on a PvP server? Or will it be constant harassment with no way to defend myself unless I join a bigger gang?

[bob_2059]

and the differences between their pay and Free2Play status?

Free- skills capped at 20, and all the restrictions that go along with this.

I think I'd like to give it a shot but I'm almost completely turned off of the concept of F2P since every other time I've tried a F2P game it's been anything but free, and always trying to nickel and dime you or even just break immersion by always reminding you.

That's usually the case. I only know of one exception, where paying doesn't give a huge advantage, but only allows you to buy extra visual effects. (Major kudos to the guys at GGG for pulling that off and still remaining financially viable as a company!)

Even if I get over the F2P status, what are the communities like?...
...Will I be violated by hordes of naked bandits attempting to teabag my corpse and calling me a newb?

Depends on server type[www.wurmpedia.com]. If you play on a PvP server, that might happen. On a PvE server, even if the other players aren't friendly they at least shouldn't be openly hostile.

[Flotch]

Wurm Unlimited is basically Wurm Online if you had a lifetime subscription.

A F2P account on WO is severely limited. Skills and characteristics can't go above 20, so you can't do a LOT of pretty important stuff. You can't ride on a large cart, you can't build a big house, you can't make crates, you can't make or ride wagons or ships. You also can't ride most animals, and you can't destroy any buildings at all. These limitations are designed mainly to annoy people into paying a subscription.

This isn't the only problem with Wurm Online though. There's also the issue of deeds and their upkeep. You basically need to pay MORE real money ON TOP OF your subscription in order to afford to own your own deed. Silver, the in-game currency, can pretty much only be acquired by paying real money, or trading with someone who has.

After experiencing these issues, and the severe grind, I stopped playing Wurm Online after just a couple of months. During that time, I met a few people, and befriended them. I'd describe the WO community as (paradoxically) both friendly and distrustful. Many experienced players have been scammed, harassed, or griefed by newer players. Some actually hated noobs because they asked so many questions, wanted so many handouts, and couldn't really give anything in return.

Joining a village was not something you could not just do on a whim. Deed owners, since they paid real money for their deeds, ended up treating village members more like glorified slaves, putting them to work crafting thousands of bricks/mortar/etc just for the "privilege" of remaining in the village.

I'd have to agree with the "10 hour hike" comment you make. On the server I joined, there were deeds littering the area around spawn, and it took a 10-minute walk to get to anywhere that would be suitable for a decrepit noob shack. There were also veritable mazes of stone walls, confusing and chaotic player-made road systems, and intentionally griefed terrain. There's not PvP on most servers at least, so you won't be attacked by bandits or whatever. You're more likely to get chased down by crocodiles, trolls, or scorpions (all of which will absolutely destroy a new player).

Basically, Wurm Online is a huge pain to deal with. The community is...interesting, I guess, but it takes a special kind of person to stay there when Wurm Unlimited exists. Personally I'd say don't bother, either buy Wurm Unlimited or don't play Wurm at all. You can always just make a free account and try it out if you *really* want to, I suppose.

[Flotch]

Originally posted by Wulf:

And as a secondary question, how are the PvP servers?

I doubt I'll have the time/skill/group of friends required to take PvP seriously, but I enjoy the threat/ability of anybody being able to walk up to anybody and bop them in the nose if they're being a dill-hole.

Would I be happy playing PvE-style on a PvP server? Or will it be constant harassment with no way to defend myself unless I join a bigger gang?

PvP in Wurm Online is basically a mess as far as I can tell. It's not a game that lends itself well to a PvP environment, and combat is basically about who has the most gear/numbers. It's absolutely about faction vs faction combat. Chaos (the server with free for all PvP) is entirely dead and nobody plays on it.

That being said, Wurm Online DOES still have a small but dedicated PvP community. The same can't really be said for Wurm Unlimited...most pure PvP servers are fully dead and empty all the time. There's still unique ways servers go about this, like making a dangerous but rewarding PvP area on an otherwise PvE server.

[Arch]

Wurm Online is a subscription based game, so it's not one thats chock full of microtransactions thrown down your throat lik other f2p games.

Wurm Online also has the Epic cluster, which will be getting the Wurm Unlimited skilling system and is a group of four pvp servers that all connect, with one main pvp server and 3 home servers for the default kingdoms, which operate fairly close to the way you mentioned, relative safety but still some threat of raids and the like.

So it addresses the issues of being too grindy, as it works exactly like wurm unlimited, with faster actions and skillgain, and deeds are very welcoming in PvP servers because of the need to stick together, I haven't seen any cases of deed owners treating villagers like slaves, but a group that works together.

Playing for free forever does come with some setbacks, skills being limited at 20 means you won't really be able to do much pvp wise, but you can earn premium time via ingame work and silver so it's possible you can cover your premium without ever having to pay if you choose not to.

[Wulf]

Heya Retrograde. I saw a sign with your name on it in the WO tutorial.

You're famous.

I picked up two months of premium last night and some silver to pay for a deed. (Note: Having 2 silver and being told that your settlement will cost 1 silver is a kick in the pants when you then find out you need to have 4 silver.)

So that's my WO investment. It was a bit pricey, so hopefully it's enough to get me started and coasting by on some in-game currency as I won't be doing that every month.

Made my start on Elevation, so also hope I won't regret that.

[Silyo]

Your post sums up the absurd position where the devs have placed this game into.

Who knows, maybe one day they will let us know what was the master plan behind the introduction of WU. (Apart from the bs thing that after playing WU, players will say: 'nice game, Im now moving to WO and spend a few hundred euros so I can do the same thing there'.

Unless you have years invested in WO and plenty of cash to spare (deeds, alts, subs...), the best thing you can do is play Wurm Unlimited. It is a no-brainer.

On the + side, WO must have one of the best communities out there. You have to be made of some special stuff to go on paying a sub, after the kick in the ass they received with WU.

[Flotch]

Originally posted by Silyo:

Your post sums up the absurd position where the devs have placed this game into.

Who knows, maybe one day they will let us know what was the master plan behind the introduction of WU.

I think the idea was that WU would be a good cash-grab to bring back people who played WO but didn't have the patience/money, or to bring in new people the original game did not interest. Most people truly invested in WO are going to stay there and pay their subscription. The primary audience for WU is not those people, but rather new players or players returning after a long hiatus.

Ultimately, the main benefit of this is that Wurm will never die. Wurm Online servers might shut down in the future, but private servers will always at least have the option of staying up...it's at the discretion of those who run them.

After seeing a lot of MMOs dying, and their dedicated fans desperately trying to reverse-engineer the game and make buggy or unstable servers of their own, I'm glad that this game won't have those issues. Perhaps that was the main motivation behind Wurm Unlimited's creation.

[LokitheWeaver]

Originally posted by Flotch:

Originally posted by Silyo:

Your post sums up the absurd position where the devs have placed this game into.

Who knows, maybe one day they will let us know what was the master plan behind the introduction of WU.

I think the idea was that WU would be a good cash-grab to bring back people who played WO but didn't have the patience/money, or to bring in new people the original game did not interest. Most people truly invested in WO are going to stay there and pay their subscription. The primary audience for WU is not those people, but rather new players or players returning after a long hiatus.

Ultimately, the main benefit of this is that Wurm will never die. Wurm Online servers might shut down in the future, but private servers will always at least have the option of staying up...it's at the discretion of those who run them.

After seeing a lot of MMOs dying, and their dedicated fans desperately trying to reverse-engineer the game and make buggy or unstable servers of their own, I'm glad that this game won't have those issues. Perhaps that was the main motivation behind Wurm Unlimited's creation.

Actually I think it is brilliant. I have seen the situation you suggest and it was not what Wurm is doing (cough, cough, Life is Feudal, where the game was "released" as a stand alone game, even advertised as a SP / off-line game, when the real idea was to fund / test the actual game - a Massive Multi-Player.)

Wurm On-line is the favored child and the testing ground. Which means when we get stuff, it works. But some people have "real life" situations which make WO unusable - I live in an off-grid cabin, with no internet access. I cannot play a game that requires me to be on-line.

WU allows me to experience a lot of what Wurm has to offer. No, I don't have a bunch of other players running around offering to give me stuff, or punch me in the nose, just because they can. But I can spend hundreds of enjoyable hours making my way through the game world, exploring, crafting, hunting / fishing. And I can do it on my schedule. I am a teacher, so duing the school year I don't get much time to "play". But in a week, I will have finished giving my last final exam, and submitted grades and I have four weeks to hang out in my cabin, drinking hot chocolate, playing Wurm, by the glow from the fire in my woodstove.

Life does not get much better than that.

Well, except for the fact that I am a teacher. And Wurm Unlimited is giving me the tools I need to create virtual worlds for education. Because I can create a discrete world / scenario for a small group of students to explore, working together or individually to learn tasks and accomplish goals I set. I can manipulate almost everything about that virtual world but the incredible attention to various details makes a rich world, where logic prevails over "push a button and magically all your problems are solved."

Cheers.