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Could easily become the ultimate medieval sandbox, but...
RedRocket
Member CommonPosts: 154
..it just doesn't look like it's going to get the neccessary social tools. I respect Rolf for what he's done but if he ever had a vision, it seems he lost it.
Wurm could be totally awesome. The terraforming is the best on the market (mine tunnels, terrain flattening/raising, roads, huge mountains, forests can be chopped away entirely). The crafting is very advanced (boats, houses, tables, fences,..).
The graphics are decent (yes, lack of animations and customizations, but decent fog, wind, water, beautiful celestial bodies, the forests have that certain feeling of danger when you start).
Sadly, that's where it stops. After so many years and the implementation of the Epic (fail 
) server, in order to become a real sandbox, Wurm is still lacking:
A proper economy. Traders are completely broken. There's no flow of currency. (See also: Point 3)
A proper political system (Rolf doesn't understand social dynamics. He repeatedly expressed his fear of the implementation of playermade kingdoms because he was afraid that everyone would simply have his own kingdom. Rolf should play a real sandbox some time. In Eve, corporations cost almost nothing to make. And still there are alliances of thousands of players.
Yes, I know about the Epic server. I also know that it still takes 50 people to create a kingdom. That's like what, a fourth of the population?
Something to fight for that encourages players to group up. Atm, everyone can produce everything at all times because all resources are everywhere. It's not exactly rocket science to figure out why this hinders the development of an economy. There's no need to interact on a financial basis. If resources were scarce, grouping up would actually have a use other than the petty RP drama on the forums.
The courage to get rid off that inner circle that influences every single one of Rolf's design decisions. For years, if you wanted to join the pvp server, you had to join one of the three cookie-cutter kingdoms. And each of them had a ruling elite with a king and special titles that gave a boost on certain skills.
And guess what, each of those people were Rolf's friends and constantly cried to him about nerfs and whatnot. And Rolf nerfed the hell out of everything. One of his inner circle friends dies, Rolf reverts his death. The usual kinda-private-server bullcrap that no real player wants to engage in, let alone pay for.
The Wurm community as a whole just screams "we don't want you here!".
Anyone agree that this is somewhat painful to watch? Rolf may have had a plan at the beginning, now it's just trial and error. Epic will be Wild 2.0 soon as well, with exactly the same history as Wild and the same crybabies, and Rolf is already nerfing stuff again, depending on who cries the loudest.
In-game socially, he doesn't want things to go their way, he wants things to go his way. Just wait for him to remove the newest MR Chancellor on Epic because his inner circle is crying. I'm out of popcorn to watch this spectacle.
PS: Also, Wurm is still a giant grind-fest: The main difficulty should be wilderness survival, organising things, socialising with your neighbours - instead it's buying a new mouse every 3 months, bearing the carpal tunnel syndrome and not falling asleep while watching endless timers.
Click click click click click. You almost made it, but your character is useless and you throw it away. (Shame, at least twice per month I consider to start playing Wurm again.)
Comments
I can't say I would particularly want your "sandboxy" scenario, as I've seen all too often what that leads to, but I entirely agree on how needlessly grindy it all is; not just that everything takes time to do, but that you can fail at it and have to start over. When I used to play this game, I was usually pushing the window to one side to watch YouTube stuff at the same time. And I won't even discuss the maintenance you need to do to keep the stuff that you have. The result is that the servers are filled with decaying structures, and if you're looking for a pristine location, especially close to water, all the good spots are already taken. Earlier this month, I was trying Exodus, the latest PvE server, which was launched in October. Guess what, it's already looking like all the other Wurm servers, namely, Post-Apocalyptic Medieval Suburbia Online, and nobody was thinking about an integrated development plan either. If everyone plays it out like the tragedy of the commons, abetted by the game design itself (if everyone is complaining about the lack of trees, why not include a sickle as part of the newbie starter kit?), you might as well have Rolf's friends in key positions; what's strange is that their role seems more political than administrative.
Back then, I used to play on Golden Valley, the free server with skill caps. Leaving a month and returning to find out that my house was gone -- not just the walls, but undeeded by the powers-that-be, and my flat spot taken over by someone else like I had never existed was the last straw. Or next-to-last straw; the last straw was when I spent two weeks digging a road through rock, only to find that a wiseguy had decided to make it a personal driveway to his hilltop house. I can't avoid it: when I read the word "sandbox", I always think not of endless possibilities, but of something my cat uses.
About the economy, I've always been sceptical of that too, especially the not-so-subtle dual-currency model where you pay for a subscription but are then encouraged to buy silver coins, which you might need in addition to the subscription. I was thinking of returning, but I decided against it -- all that grind, for nothing.
I disagree with 1 and 3. Perhaps it is because you only played on GV and the PvP servers (at least that was my impression from the OP) but on the PvE servers the economy is fine. I believe the reason the economy is fine on the PvE servers is twofold.
Firstly, because skills are slow to raise it is impractical to raise them all to a good level and so people are forced to look to other people to fulfill some of their needs.
Secondly because there is no threat of being raided more of the players on the PvE servers live in small villages or on their own therefore instead of having a large pool of villagers to barter labour for labour with they are forced to buy and sell in the wider economy to get what they are looking for.
With regard to traders, the traders near me regularly recieve coin but you have to manage their trading ratios to keep them active.
I agree with what you say on 2 and 4. If it is not a fact then there is certainly the impression that a small group of players have Rolf's ear and can influence what he does and Rolf should make it a priority to dispell this perception as it has, does and will put people off playing.
From my experience, it seems that part of the reason why the success of Epic has stalled is because the same group of veteran players that controlled wild are calling most of the shots on Epic and rather than being welcomed the newbies are faced with the same mistrust and/or indifference that new players on wild were given (everyone they've never heard of is a spy alt, right?).
I made a few alts and explored the new servers and if the attitude of some of the vets on the kingdom chat channels was anything to go by then it was no surprise why many of the new players didn't stick around. A server of player made kingdoms would diminish the effect of this snobbery.
In my opinion, I think Rolf has made the best medieval PvE sandbox in the current MMO market, the only troulbe is that he wants to code a great PvP sandbox and so he is too busy chasing that dream to see the merits of the game he has actually created. However, it is his game and he is free to continue with his vision for it. I'm happy to play Wurm as it is because there is so little competition in its niche and, currently, Wurm does it best.
@grindfest post script - The fails are annoying until you start getting some skill, however wurm isn't an instant gratification game and that is part of the appeal in my opinion.
@vetarnias - I've never had to buy currency but at five euros a month, wurm isn't an expensive game. Also, plenty of players are happy to pay newbies for work until they can start producing goods to fund themselves.