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.

[url=https://youtu.be/EabgdEkj6bM]Josh Strife Hayes review.[/url] [u][b]Pros:[/b][/u] [list] [*] 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. [/list] All of these main benefits are available through Wurm Unlimited if you are careful about choosing a server to play upon. [u][b]Cons:[/b][/u] [list] [*] 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 [b]R[/b]andom [b]N[/b]umber [b]G[/b]eneration 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. [*] [b]G[/b]ame [b]M[/b]asters (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. [/list] Edit-2 Mar 2022: [quote] - It has also been suspicious, how quickly one group will find the unique monsters for their private slayings.[/quote] 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 [b][u]only[/u] 100 day ban[/b] 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 [url=https://i.imgur.com/rq8WqYV.png]"attacking the staff"[/url]. [i]*Rolls eyes*[/i] 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. [i]*Laughs*[/i] Copied from first reply comment to Retrograde: [quote] 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.[/quote]