The Wild Boar Inn

Yesterday was a crazy day in Wurm Online. It was patch day! It seems like patches are coming more and more frequently these days, which is a very good thing. In the recent weeks we’ve seen an updated crafting system, new graphics and features, and quality-of-life tweaks; these patches seem to be coming at a lightning-speed rate compared to last year. One of the nifty things that was added yesterday was new crop graphics – now all crops have their own unique looks, and you can actually see the crops change as they go through their life cycles. Cotton is my favorite so far, though I love having strawberry fields now.

So today, as part of Developers Appreciation Week, I’m going to give a shout-out to Rolf and the other developers, artists, and the GM/Community team at Code Club AB. For a very long time, Rolf was the only paid developer for Wurm, but in the past year he’s added a Client Developer (Haradur) and a Lead Art Developer (Wox). There is a team of other volunteer developers, artists and web gurus as well – Dashiva, Budda, Zcul, Cryptik, Wollschaf, Saytheb, Saroman, Kinoss, Egal, and Gurubear – all incredibly talented folks that love the game and provide their services to make the game a better experience for all of us.

I’m still amazed that Wurm Online is largely developed and managed by one person and such a small team. When I first started playing Wurm, coming from the world of AAA MMOs, huge budgets, and enormous development teams, it was easy at first to see all of the faults of a smaller indie MMO. Animations were lacking. The graphics looked like they were stuck in the early 2000s. The UI was really strange and unintuitive at first. But, once I really started playing and discovered that they truly are designing something completely different than your ordinary, run-of-the-mill MMO, it all becomes clear. Sure, animations could use some work (and are being worked on as we speak!), but it’s not about shiny graphics, really. It’s about imagination, cooperative play, and carving out your own little space in the world.

One thing that I love about the Wurm Online dev team is that they really do try to involve the players in the development of the game. New art concepts are posted before they are implemented, to get feedback and suggestions, and yes, some concepts have been changed based on player feedback. New features and system redesigns are often pitched to the players for ideas and suggestions, and those ideas are very often implemented into the final design. The whole process has a bit of a homegrown and grassroots feel to it, and it is a wonderful thing to, as a player, be able to talk directly to the dev team regarding new features. In March, there was a Wurm Meetup in Amsterdam, and Rolf and the team showed up to hang out with the players. Lots of great suggestions were brought up directly to the team during this meetup, the majority of which were implemented in-game about a week after the meeting.

I would be remiss if I did not also mention the Wurm GMs. These volunteers are very passionate about Wurm and the players – they absolutely want everyone to have a wonderful experience in-game and do their best to assist players quickly and efficiently, in what is often a thankless job that requires them to selflessly take time away from their own playtime. These guys and gals are the ones that grease the wheels (so to speak) by taking care of glitches and in-game issues, and Wurm would be a much harsher and more frustrating place if they weren’t there.

So here’s to Rolf and the entire Wurm Online team. Thank you for all the blood, sweat, and tears that you pour into this little online world that we get to explore and inhabit, and thank you for the creativity and for daring to do something completely different than the accepted norm. Thank you also for being so open to the players and taking our feedback into consideration – it IS noticed and appreciated. Cheers!

*In the interest of full disclosure, yes, I am a Community Assistant for Wurm Online, which entails assisting new players and answering questions in the Help channel. These are my sole personal opinions, and not in any way endorsed by Code Club AB.

Yesterday was a good day in Wurm.

Like so many sandbox MMOs, the economy is what in many ways makes Wurm tick. Sure, you can play without making items to barter or sell, but given the huge variety, complexity, and admittedly unforgiving grind of skills in Wurm, most players get a little experience in almost everything but choose to specialize in one or two skills. It works out well for the most part – just like in the real world, people barter or trade for items that they need for convenience.

The Wurm economy tends to fluctuate. Some crafters are steadily busy, others have business that’s more cyclical. Prices too can move up and down depending on the server, what players are playing on each server, how many skilled players are trying to corner the market, and even the time of day. Since Wurm has so many players across the globe, the community members present on any given server may be drastically different between 8pm and 8am. Peak times don’t really exist in Wurm – the population is fairly consistent at all times of day or night, though the players are usually different.

The two skills that I focus primarily on are Animal Husbandry and Tailoring, and the combination of the two works out nicely. AH is a nice “set it and forget it” skill. I groom all of my animals once or twice a day to improve my skill level, check for new foals, and mate any pairs that need mating. The skill itself takes a long time to level, even when using sleep bonus, and it goes through cycles as far as actually selling the offspring. I can go for several weeks without selling any horses – and then suddenly I have a multitude of customers that are buying out the stalls. Of course, AH is a tricky beast as well – if you sell breeding pairs, those customers are likely going to be breeding their own horses from that point forward, so repeat business isn’t all that common.

Tailoring on the other hand is fairly steady. Sheets and sails are consistent sellers, as long as I can keep them on my merchant. My margins are lower on tailoring items, but it’s a nice trickle of income.

Still, there are dry spells, and then there are times when it seems like everybody and his cousin needs items. Last night was the latter. By the time all was said & done, I had sold 10 horses and 4 sails in one night, which is huge and REALLY unusual. I spent most of the night doing deliveries around the server and juggling too many PMs to count, but I also almost made enough in one night to pay the upkeep on our deeds for a month. But more than the monetary gains, it felt really, really good to see these skills that I’ve worked on for so long finally start being useful. I can actually make things that are desired by other players, and while I don’t intend on ever being “rich” in Wurm or setting specific monetary goals, it’s nice to know that I can contribute to the server economy now.