Gameplay

The user interface is very simple:

1. You move around with the WASD keys.
2. If you right-click on things a menu will pop up with various actions you can perform.
3. If you press F3 you will see your inventory.
4. If you double-click on an item in your inventory you select that item (a). Then when you right-click on something else (b) you attempt to use a on
5. There are NPC (Non-Player character) Guides near where you log in that will help you get started

Those are the basics you need to start playing. The rest will come over time.

What makes Wurm Online special?

For Wurm Online (henceforth called Wurm) to be something special and not just another 3D fantasy massively multiplayer game, we realised that we had to actually implement the features that you, the players have demanded since the dawn of these types of games. Wurm is built on technology that can make these features work well.

The first technological advantage of Wurm is, it's done in Java. This means that the game can be accessed on operating systems that usually have few if any of these types of games to play. We also consider Wurm to be the first 3D Java game that actually looks good graphically and feels immersive.

The second advantage is that Wurm is tile-based. This means first and foremost three things:

* We have more manageable data structures
* We may stream terrain
* Line of sight in the client can be set outrageously far

These two technologies are the foundation that the game rests upon. They give us enough control of the data structures that we are able to calculate and stream information real-time to your computer, giving us the ability to have millions of actively changing tiles on each map.
For example, streaming the terrain lets you:
* watch trees and plants grow over time
* cut down trees
* plant new trees
* literally change the shape of the terrain with a shovel.
* pave roads where they want them
* watch grass and other types of vegetation compete to be predominant
* mine out your own caves in the mountains
* convert terrain to farmland to grow crops of various kinds

Other features

Home and wild servers

A Wurm server is one of two types, a home or wild map. A home map belongs to one kingdom, and nobody from a competing kingdom may enter that map. The focus is on building rather than war. Wild maps have no initial kingdom, the players compete for territory to found villages or build guard towers to increase the boundaries of their kingdom.

Community

One of the things we mention most when we talk about Wurm is the community-building possibilities. Since almost everything is player made, players (normally) have to cooperate in order to achieve the highest possible quality level of the things for which they strive. Whilst it is possible to succeed in this game by going it alone, most players have the best success when they work as a team, pooling their skills and resources. The base of this community is a village, which is an area that players purchase and have control over. A village also has NPC guards that protect structures, creatures (players) and items within. Villages form kingdoms, and kingdoms fight each other out on wild maps. Combined with the religion system this makes for a large scale epic scenario with real heroes and myths.

Full player-versus-player combat (pvp)

We believe that Wurm requires full pvp. The regulations around pvp and lawlessness are very intricate in Wurm. There are reputation systems and also religion that keeps bearing of your actions. The possibility to react to grief is crucial in order to maintain balance. Conflicts over resources are also driving the action forward, so settlements can declare war upon each other. There are restrictions on when you may attack without penalties, and in general it is very costly to attack someone whom the game does not consider an enemy. But it is and must be possible in Wurm.

When you fight an enemy from another kingdom you will receive, or lose, battle points. These are calculated by an Elo ranking system (similar to the one used in chess but multiplayer) to keep track of who is the most renowned warrior in the world.

Another feature of Wurm is that it is possible to steal from other players. If items are locked up inside a house with a good lock, and the house is protected by guards it is virtually impossible to steal. It is also much harder on home servers. However, an unprotected chest in the wilderness may be breached by a skilled thief who does not care about his reputation.

Skills

When you start the game you have very few skills. As soon as you start creating items or foraging for food you will receive new skills. These increase over time as you use them.
All tasks in Wurm has a difficulty. When you succeed with a task you gain skill, unless the task is too easy and you succeed by far too much. When you perform a task, more than one skill may be involved so you may gain knowledge in all those skills. Wurm contains more than one hundred different skills to excel in. You can become proficient in many different skills in only a few days or weeks, but to become a master in one skill can take months. Thus it could take a lifetime to master all skills. The skill tree has been designed in such a way that most players only ever master a few skills and are proficient in most. This is one of the ways that the game is community centric. The smith relies on the miner for the metals needed to create the tools for the miner to mine the metals.

Items

Wurm has very advanced item management. Almost all items are player made from raw materials gathered or extracted from the surrounding nature or creatures. Every item has weight, damage, quality level, size, temperature, possible enchantments, a custom description, and other types of data that can make every item very unique and almost seem alive.

Structures

You can use items to build structures like houses, watch towers and roads. For some extra protection of you and your house, you can found a settlement. Settlements cover set areas of different size and spawn guards that will hunt enemies and protect you from the surrounding wildlife.

Natural resources

There are many different natural resources spread out on a server. Some of these resources are regional and make for local conflicts. Some resources, mainly various metals, clay, tar, and peat, but also different wood types or even a particularly flat area can be considered valuable and worth fighting or bargaining over. Metals on the wild servers have a higher maximum quality level and associated value than on the home servers.

Economy

Purchasing and maintaining a 'settlement deed' costs money. You can earn in-game money and use it to purchase such a deed, but the quick way is to buy some silver coins in the online web shop. These will end up in your in-game bank account that is reachable from any settlement token. Almost all money in Wurm is purchased from the online web shop so as soon as you sell something to the traders you earn money that another player has purchased in the online web shop. This is why we call it a real-world economy. The real value connection on in-game money encourages trade and gives a sense of meaningfulness to your wealth and influence.

Durability

Wurm is supposed to last. We are expecting it to last for at least 10 years. This means that there can be no hard caps on levels. Progress and improvements must always be possible. Therefore all skills and quality levels become logarithmically harder to improve and never naturally reaches 100, which is the maximum. Everything also slowly decays, but more linearly, so unless you repair things or practice your skills these numbers will slowly go down.

The effect of the logarithmic increase and the more linear decay is that new players have an easier task of reaching competitive levels, while hardcore players can still keep a small edge. If it takes 1 year to get to skill 90 in something, someone who has played 5 years can have skill 93. The difference is not that big but it still makes for a higher price on merchandise.

Size

One server is 16x16 kilometres, consisting of millions of tiles. Every server has a unique map, and we can link 256 servers to each other. Once all servers are up Wurm will have a world size of about 68000 square kilometres and be inhabited by a few hundred thousand players, and you will be able to terraform every part of it.

Now, size alone only makes for boring vastness, which is why we will not start new servers until there is player base for it.

The current method of transportation between servers is swimming, but we boats are planned. Passing from one server to another takes a few seconds, so it is practically seamless.

Anti-cheating

The possibility to cheat in online games is detrimental and quickly makes the game pointless. We have had security in mind from the beginning and tested various ways of detecting and countering cheating.
The current system handles movement cheats, item duplication, command flooding, command constructions, and macroing. The right-click and select method during fighting is specifically intended to make it impossible to defeat an opponent by performing perfect mouse moves calculated by some client software.
Since we stream the terrain from the server you can not explore the map in offline mode.

Statistics and history

Major events like the founding of new villages or the slaying of dragons are recorded in the area log that is accessible from settlement tokens. Every settlement also has a log that records the important events in that settlement. This means that the players literally write history with their actions. You can also receive special titles when you reach a certain degree of skill or perform a particularly unusual task.

We are looking at ways to display top skills and battle ranks on our website.

Religion

In Wurm there are four deities. You can decide to follow a deity, and if you have enough faith then you will gain bonuses in that deities 'domain'. When you build an altar dedicated to your deity you will strengthen the influence that deity has over the area. That influence is called a deities 'domain'. Your devotion to your deity is measured in 'faith'. You gain faith by praying periodically. After a while you gain no more faith unless you decide to become a priest. A priest in Wurm is very limited when it comes to performing mundane and physical tasks, but they can instead cast rare, powerful spells.

Champions and Realdeath

There is a remote possibility to achieve the status of champion of a deity in order to perform some kind of heroic task. To become a champion you first must become a priest for a while in order to prove yourself worthy. Upon becoming a champion you will receive permanent bonuses in various skills. You will however also have 'realdeath'. In Wurm this means that you may die only three more times. The fourth time it is game over for that character. The history log will note your death for everyone to see, you will be logged off and may not log on with that character again.

Goals, quests and objectives

Wurm does not have static quests à la 'get me the Ring of Power and I give you the spell lightning bolt', aside from the optional guide's quests which are purely a method of teaching a newcomer the basics of the game. We believe that it destroys the immersion when everyone does the same quests over and over. People have lots to do anyway and need help from each other instead.

What higher goals are there to strive for in this world then?

As with all of this kind of game and world, you set these goals yourself. Creating the largest village, building the largest structure, mining the longest tunnel, becoming a champion or a world-renowned weapon smith or the player with most battle points can be such goals.

The game does have a back story. It revolves around two conflicts: The first is the conflict between the kingdom of Jenn-Kellon and the kingdom of Mol-Rehan. The other conflict is between the followers of the deity Libila and the followers of the other three deities. These conflicts are primarily played out on the wild servers, making those servers a more dangerous place. Players have a direct influence over these conflicts, and can discover artefacts that can tip the scale in favour of their deity or kingdom. Over time, more and more possibilities for single as well as groups of players to have a real effect on the story will be available.

Maybe you are the kind of player who likes staying at home tending your crops and livestock, watch the pretty sunsets and chat to the neighbour about the weather. Maybe you have the urge to turn to the dark side and pillage and plunder, and maybe you desire to drive the forces of evil back to their holes, writing your name in history.
Whatever it is, we will try to make Wurm the place for you.

And whatever you choose, one day you can be the one who decide the fate of Wurm!

Welcome!