User:Mollsmolyneux/Sandbox/Wurmonline
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Wurm Online | |
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| Developer(s) | Mojang Specifications, Sunsplash Creations |
| Designer(s) | Rolf Jansson, Markus Persson |
| Platform(s) | Java |
| Release date | June 6, 2006 |
| Genre(s) | MMORPG, MMOFS |
| Mode(s) | Multiplayer |
| Media | Online Distribution |
| System requirements | Java (1.4.2_06 or later), Java Web Start, 512MB of RAM (1024MB recommended), 1Ghz CPU or higher, Graphics card with 32MB of Video RAM (128MB recommended) and OpenGL |
Wurm Online is a community-centric fantasy MMOFS developed in Java and OpenGL that strives to emulate real life in a fantasy medieval setting.
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[edit] History and Development
Wurm Online beta was lauched in 2003 by Mojang Specifications, and after many map changes and updates the game went Gold on June 6, 2006Wurm Online first started in the beta stage in 2003 and continued in this stage for many years, changing the maps, on which the game is based, frequently. The game offically went Gold on June 6, 2006.
However, in April, 2007, the Wurm Online home server crashed and wouldn't come back online, Mojang decided that a complete reset would be done, changing the map and everyone's skills and items. After a false start the server went back up on May 10, 2007 with no problems. To prevent another reset the system was upgraded with another back up system and a separate log in server.
Players start out in Newtown on an island full of forests, lakes and mountains. The players can create buildings, towns and items of the world. Wurm Online features a fully deformable landscape. Trees can be cut and planted, dirt can be moved to create pits and hills, and rock faces can be mined to create underground caverns or tunnels. Wurm Online has neither classes, levels nor hit points. Instead, characters have a set of skills that define them, and a list of any unhealed wounds they have.
Wurm Online can be difficult to play on your own, so players tend to gather together and form villages and towns. Players are able to purchase village and homestead deeds with in-game money. Deeded towns provide NPC guards to protect against wild animals and other players. The people and items inside the village remain safe unless the guards are killed. Outside the towns, however, they can do anything they want, but performing illegal activities will lower their status in the nearby villages.
There are two types of servers in Wurm Online. The Home server consists of a single kingdom where PVP and theft is very limited. On the Wild server, the two different kingdoms (eventually three) are at war with each other and are able to fight and raid each others towns. There are currently 2 servers, one home and one wild. Each server contains 256 square kilometers of land.
thumb|220px|left|A player created village in a small harbor. New players start out in 'Newtown' on the Home server or 'The Landing' on the Wild server. From there, they can spread out and create their own place or join an existing town. It can be difficult for new players to know what to do because there is no in-game tutorial although extensive information is available through the player-maintained Wiki.
Almost all items and structures are player made from raw materials gathered or extracted from the surrounding nature or creatures. Every item has weight, damage, quality level, size, possible enchantments, and a custom description. While it is quite easy to create a low quality version of most items, it takes more time, resource and tools to improve the quality of the item to make it truly powerful. Skills are improved faster by improving items other than by initially creating them to discourage the mass production of items for skill.
[edit] Graphics
Wurm Online is developed in OpenGL and can be rendered using either JOGL or LWJGL. The game has some advanced terrain, sky, and weather effects. Some animations have been implemented for player and creatures models. The JOGL renderer for the game does not work very well with some ATI video cards, but works better if the LWJGL renderer is used.
[edit] Development history
Wurm Online has been in development since mid 2003. It has a small team of developers all of whom work part time on the project. The game was in open Beta for several years before it officially went gold on June 6, 2006. There are both premium accounts and basic accounts. Basic accounts are limited by a skill cap. Premium accounts cost 5€ a month and in-game money can be purchased (but not sold back) at 1€ for 1 silver coin. In spring of 2007, the main client developer quit working on the game, but the main server developer started to work on the game full-time instead of part-time. The client development has since been given out to a group of trusted players.
