Well, no one ever said Wurm Online was an easy game, but that doesn't mean you need to feel completely lost and abandoned in the first day! Generally, we mostly we give the following advice:

• Read the Wiki
• Do the guide missions
• Talk to players in chat
• Read the forums

Great advice! Except, if you anything like me you just want to get playing! So you sign up, down load the client and packs while pacing up and down, log in to find your self in the middle of the Wurm night, wander off into a dark forest and get eaten by a bear.

Well, that was challenging!

And probably a bit of a downer too. But Wurm can do that if you don't keep your wits about you and gain some basic knowledge in a bit of a hurry. So what I am going to do is give you a very basic list of stuff you need to know to get you going. You can get more details on all this from the Wiki and some bits in the forums - try this article a player is currently writing.

Okay, here goes:

Slow Down!

When you first log in to Wurm, you will arrive in a settlement of some sort. This is an area owned by a mayor and protected by guards. You will be standing next to the settlement Token (look down!) which you can right click to find out bits about the town and also has a helpful compass on top.

While you are within the boarders of this settlement you are very unlikely to get eaten by something, so this is a good place to get your bearings!

There is a very good chance you are in Newtown on the Jenn Kellon server. This is popular because you can play for free on this server. The down side is that Newtown is stuffed full of traders and players (lots of them brand new) and can get laggy! Be patient, we will try and get you going and out of there.

Tools

Being nice people, we have given you a basic set of tools in your inventory. Your inventory is what you carry on your person. It is quite big and as you get stronger in the months to come you will find you can carry quite a weight - though the more you carry the slower you move. Think about that when you get chased by something!

Open your inventory by pressing F3

You will see a pretty ordinary folder tree divided into body and inventory. The body part allows you to put armour etcetera on to various body parts by moving them from your inventory to your body. But you don't have any armour yet, so don't worry.

Your inventory has some very basic tools in it. DON'T LOSE THEM!

Activate/Equip. You activate something like a hatchet by double clicking on it. You can then use it on a tree by right clicking the tree. You equip something like a sword by moving it into your hand. If you want to fight something with your sword you need to have it in your hand - activating it wont work. Remember this bit, it confuses the hell out of people!

The Guide

Just a few tiles from the token is the guide. She can take you through a few easy missions to help you get orientated - these are optional but recommended! It is things like chopping down a tree, lighting a fire, foraging for basic food, etc. Warning - some of the missions, like chopping down a tree, require you to leave the settlement to find a tree. Try and do these in DAYLIGHT!

If you have trouble with the missions, do ask other people in chat.

Chatting

The chat window in your client probably shows two tabs - local and what is called Kingdom Chat (the latter is shown as Mol Rehan, Jenn Kellon or Hots, depending upon what you have signed up for.)

Local is all the people in your local vicinity - though it is a wider area than it would be in real life! The actual people are listed on the right hand side.

Kingdom chat is everyone in your kingdom (or at least those posting to kingdom chat - no list of people). If it is not showing type /kchat into your message field and it will show up as a tab.

Private Chat is a one to one chat, obviously. Type the command /t followed by the players name to open a seperate tab to that person.

You can also put a call out to the Game Masters and Moderators by typing /dev followed by your message. DO NOT use this for general information like "how do I chop down a tree" - ask other players for that sort of thing. /dev is for when you have got stuck in a mine or somewhere, or have major headaches.

A full list of chat commands are here.

Skills

Doing things in Wurm is skill based - the higher your skills the more you can do and to a higher quality. You can check your measly skills by pressing F2. The list will be rather short - more skills will get added as you start doing stuff. Some things are limited by skill - you can't build the walls of a stone house till your masonry skill is over 30, for instance, and you cannot knock down your misplaced wall till your strength is over 20. Your skills start at 1.00 and go to 100 (that takes forever!)

Generally, people getting above 30 are doing well, and you will start getting titles when a skill gets to 50. Although some players work hard to build a particular skill and will grind repetitively to get there, many just enjoy the skill gain from doing productive work like finding their carpentry skill has increased following fencing in their farm.

I've done the missions, what now?

Good question! Trouble with Wurm is that what happens next is totally up to you. That is the whole beauty of this MMO - you get to set the agenda, not us. But we are also aware that it can leave a new player floundering. Generally speaking, the players that survive best are not the ones that are super clever, great fighters, or have some sort of second sight, but are the ones that started working and getting on with other players as early as possible.

Wurm is NOT Second Life. Building your own home immediately is not your major priority. Finding friends is! Many players will recommend that you try and join a village. This is a very good strategy, but not aways practical. Go and look in the Recruitment section of our forums and see who is recruiting, or even put a post that you are looking for a village.

However, even if you don't join a village as a citizen, there are plenty of villages and players that will help you get going with advice, finding a good location, etc.

Etiquette

Ask and ye shall receive - or at least reduce the chance of getting a thick ear! On the Home Servers, stealing and fighting are banned, and you could get banned for trying! Trying to do things like building a house on your own is hard work - especially when you first start out - so getting on with people is vital to your success. Just because you can do anything and go anywhere on Wurm, don't assume that people will be happy for you to just turn up and camp on their doorstep. Talk to the locals, ask for help rather than demand attention, be willing to learn and help out and your will find Wurm ten times easier.

And when you do get the hang of this game, you can then help those that are where you are at now!

Getting Lost

Wurm is BIG. The forests in particular can start looking pretty similar, especially at night, and it is very easy to get lost and eaten. Stick to the roads that the players have built, make friends and travel together, ask for directions and generally try and keep some sense of where you are. On Wurm the sun rises in the NORTH! I didn't know that when I first started and it confused the hell out of me.

Hunger, Thirst and Stamina

The bars at the top left of your screen show the following:

• Green is your stamina  - it will go down as you do things and recover when you rest
• Blues is your thirst
• Brown is your hunger.

Anything Else?

Oh, loads! But you are bored of reading and want to play - and many things are best found out by just playing. Do use the Wurmpedia; our Wiki. It tells you how to make things (and some objects are pretty complicated) and has some guides to building your first house, feeding yourself, and other useful bits and pieces.

Also, do check out the various rules about chatting, using the forums and generally playing the game. This is our way of trying to keep the game balanced and equal for all players, so it is worth your time to get it right. Wurm is played by a very wide range of ages, by people from all different cultures, backgrounds, countries and so on - it works best when people get on and don't offend each other - er, just like the rest of life, really! The Game Masters keep all the rules up to date in the forums here.

Enjoy the game - if you get stuck, just come and ask!