Wurm Online cover
Wurm Online screenshot
Genre: Role-playing (RPG), Simulator, Adventure, Indie

Wurm Online

Patch Notes: Guidance, Portals, Actions and more!


The update finally arrived! It includes a new tutorial server, portals, a reworked action system, client rendering improvements, quality of life changes and so much more.

All major changes have been grouped into their own lists below for easier reading.

New Server: Guidance

  • Added a special tutorial server for new players to learn the game named Guidance
  • Web shop items can't be bought while on Guidance
  • Mail can't be sent between Guidance and other servers
  • Treasure hunts, rifts, holy sites and the highway system are disabled
  • Many stronger/high-difficulty creatures are prevented from spawning
  • Unique creatures are prevented from spawning
  • Becoming priest is not possible on Guidance, priests travelling there from other servers can't cast spells
  • All skills are limited to 30 while on Guidance
  • Player-owned villages/deeds are disabled on Guidance, use building permissions and the new yard system to protect your property instead
  • Players can only own one building at a time
  • Newbie buffs, including the new item protection buff, have their timer frozen while playing on Guidance, making them effectively permanent until you are leaving the server
  • Wells and fountains are always refilled, no matter what tile they are on

New Feature: Quests

  • Quests given by NPCs have been added to Guidance, to help introducing new players to the gameplay
  • NPCs with quests available have a "!" icon above their head
  • The "Talk" option in the right-click menu of such NPCs opens a dialogue window with all the details
  • An improved "Journal" window was added to the quick bar where you can always track your quest progress
  • Quests can have multiple stages with multiple goals
  • Quests can have rewards for completing or starting them, reward details are displayed in the NPC dialogue or Journal window

New Feature: Yards

  • Added a yard system to Guidance which lets you protect small areas surrounded by fences
  • The "Expand yard" and "Remove yard" options are available in the right-click menu for tiles when a mallet, hammer or trowel is activated
  • Yard tile sections are only protected if connected to a building at some point
  • The building which owns the yard must be entirely surrounded by walls or fences
  • The "View protection" option in the right-click menu lets you view currently protected tiles and tiles which need additional fences for protection to apply
  • Yard tiles can be invalid if not surrounded by fencing, making them removable by any player
  • Yard tiles require the same amount of carpentry skill as adding tiles to a building, minus the skill required for the walls as yard tiles don't have those
  • The total number of yard tiles is limited to the number of actual building tiles, so a 2x2 building for example would allow 4 yard tiles
  • Yard tiles have the same placement restrictions as actual building tiles, which means they can't touch other buildings
  • Items that are not allowed inside buildings are also not allowed inside yard tiles (such as mission structures or guard towers)
  • Yard tiles can protect mine entrances as long as a mine door is present, removing the mine door will also remove the yard tile
  • Yards prevent actions that would invalidate the yard, such as tunneling a cave entrance, unless the player has permission to modify the structure

New Feature: Building packing & deployment

  • Added a building packing mechanic to transfer buildings from Guidance
  • Added "ornate puzzle box" item as quest reward which lets you pack a building into it
  • You must stand outside of a building owned by you on Guidance and activate the ornate puzzle box to get the "Copy building plan" option in the right-click menu
  • This stores the entire building (excluding yard tiles) inside the ornate puzzle box and destroys the structure
  • After moving to another server, the "Preview building" and "Deploy building" options will appear for the filled ornate puzzle box
  • The area needs to be prepared (flat) and you need permissions for it in order to deploy the building from the box
  • After the building is deployed, the ornate puzzle box is destroyed
  • The ornate puzzle box cannot be dropped, traded or lost on death
  • Deploying a packed building is not possible on PvP servers

Quality of Life & New Player Experience Improvements
  • Fences within buildings (or their yards on Guidance) are now protected against destruction, lock picking or locking/unlocking using the building permissions
  • Iron rocks now yield 2.0kg of iron lump instead of 0.8kg
  • Bashing a fence, bridge or part of a building now always uses the same damage bonus you would get from having the deed permission to destroy structures as long as you are the owner of the structure
    • In other words, bashing your own structures is now as fast as bashing structures as a village mayor
  • Bashing a fence, bridge or part of a building no longer requires 21 body strength if you are the owner of the structure it is part of or if you are the mayor of the village it is in
    • In other circumstances you now require 21 body strength in all cases
  • "Reimbursements" action on settlement tokens is no longer shown when it's irrelevant/doesn't do anything anyway
  • "Manage player payments" action on settlement tokens has been renamed to "Purchase premium time" and was moved out of the "Bank" submenu
  • A new newbie buff has been added, granting item protection on death
  • Changes have been made to action timers:
    • Penalties to action speed caused by hunger, thirst or low stamina have been decreased, with the maximum penalty staying the same but partial penalties being substantially lower
    • Having the water bar above 85% prevents thirst from affecting your action timers at all
    • Most actions have had their maximum timer lengths shortened significantly
    • These changes have the general effect of faster action timers at low skill, low stamina or low tool quality, with far less impact in cases where the timers were close to the fastest possible times already

Change: Action System Rework
  • The whole system handling Actions is now more robust and has a lower impact on server performance
  • Actions converted to the new system can always be bound to keys, be set as default action or are able to use the new toolbelt mechanic
    • Converted actions: Dig, Flatten, Level, Dredge, Mine, Tunnel, Cultivate, Pack, Pave, Sow, Farm, Harvest, Cut down, Chop up, Prune, Pick sprout, Plant sprout, Shear, Tame, Brand, Unbrand, Milk, Groom, Feed, Lead, Stop leading, Climb up/down, Improve, Repair, Create map, Embark/Disembark, Settlement related actions (Add to upkeep, Settlement management, ...)
    • Some converted actions may have minor changes made to their functionality to fix various bugs or to improve their usage
  • Invalid actions are now visible in the right-click menu and show more informationabout what is needed in order to complete them
    • These invalid actions can be enabled and disabled by clicking the [?] icon in the top right-hand corner of the right-click menu
    • This should help new players to understand what to do how, the "Dig" option for example shows up and hints that you need a shovel set as active item
  • Some actions now have embedded options in the right-click menu, indicated by a triple-dot icon on the right edge
    • Right-clicking the triple-dot icon allows you to toggle or select more options related to that action
    • The "Dig to pile" option can be toggled for the "Dig" action that way for example
  • Not all actions are converted to the new system yet, but will slowly be updated over time
    • Converted actions are usually placed on top in the right-click menu, with icons showing their required active item
    • If you run into any issues with actions not performing as they previously did, please create a bug report

New Feature: Action Queue Window

  • The action queue is now visible in its own UI element inside the event window
  • Actions in the queue can now be reordered or canceled in their UI window
  • Holding alt while hovering an action in your queue shows more information about that action
  • The action queue window can be undocked from the event window and moved around on the screen
  • The action queue window can be hidden entirely by right-clicking the top right corner of the event window

Change: Toolbelts

  • The existing toolbelt UI element has been removed, including all its functionality
  • Toolbelts are now containers, holding up to 15 items (2 base, 1 additional for each 10 quality, 1 additional for each rarity level)
  • While a toolbelt is equipped, all items inside are considered activated for actions which have been converted to the new actions system
  • If your actual activated item is not valid for a given action, items inside your toolbelt are checked by the system to see if something from them will work
    • If your actual activated item is valid, it will be used instead and the toolbelt items are ignored
    • Actions which work with multiple items have their own preference list for items, "Cut down" will prefer a hatchet over axes, weapons or a saw for example
    • If multiple items inside your toolbelt have the same preference level, the item with higher quality will be used
  • An icon on the left in the right-click menu indicates what item will be used for the action
  • More details about the action and the used item is available when hovering over the action in the action queue

Change: Quickbar Improvements

  • Added a new quickbar which combines functionality from the existing quickbar, select bar and toolbelt
  • The quickbar consists of two rows for slots, each slot able to hold an item or a quick bar button
    • You can drag items from your inventory onto quickbar slots
    • You can remove buttons by dragging them off the quickbar
    • Clicking the [+] icon at the top right of the quick bar opens a menu with more buttons which can be dragged onto the quickbar
  • The top row of the quickbar changes its contents based on the selected tab on the quickbar, making large amounts of items and buttons available for it
    • You can create up to 10 tabs by clicking the [+] next to an existing tab
  • The bottom row of the quickbar will not change when selecting a different tab, allowing a static list of commonly used items or buttons
  • Clicking an item on a quickbar slot will activate it
  • Quickbar slots can be bound to a key by hovering the slot with your mouse pointer and holding the key you want to bind it to
  • You can scroll with your mouse wheel to activate items in the top row when hovering your mouse pointer over the quick bar
  • The arrow on the far right corner of the quickbar allows you to toggle the select bar
  • The lock icon on the quick bar locks all slots to prevent accidental changes to them
  • The size of the quickbar can be adjusted by right-clicking it

Change: Default Actions

  • Default actions have been changed from a static list of action combinations to a dynamic, customizable system
    • Default actions must be enabled in the user interface tab in the client settings in order to work
  • When hovering something that has a valid default action, the default action keybind and the name of the action that will be performed are shown
    • If "Repeat action" is bound to a key, the last action performed on that target type is also shown so you can repeat the action with that key
  • The new star button in the top right of the right-click menu can be used to edit your default action configuration for the currently active item and target type
    • When hovering the star button with your mouse, you can hold down a key to change the default action keybind
    • The currently set default action for the given combination is highlighted in the right-click menu
  • Clicking the star button lets you edit your default action for the current combination of the active item and target type
    • Clicking the star button will start the "edit mode", making valid options for the default action begin to flash
    • Clicking a highlighted action (the current default) in edit mode will remove that default rule from your settings
    • Clicking a non-highlighted action while in edit mode will set that as new default for the current combination of active item type and target type
  • Advanced customization for default action rules is available when right-clicking a valid action while in "edit mode"
    • The first option is the rules related to the active item, letting you select any item of the current item type (e.g. any hatchet), just the current item (e.g. a specific hatchet), any item, or any item that match any of the selected categories

    • After selecting the active item rules, you can select the rules relating to the current target of the action

      • Similar to the active item options, these let you choose any of the target type (e.g. any birch tree), just the current target (e.g. a specific birch tree), a broad "any" category (e.g. any tile), or any target that matches any of the selected categories

    • These advanced rules can differentiate between being mounted, not mounted, or both, which can be toggled between by clicking the very bottom option of the target rules before selecting the target rule

    • Once a new default action has been set for the current active item and target pairing, if any other default actions that exist have a higher priority than the newly set rule, they may be removed from your configuration to ensure the new default works

  • The new default action settings are saved in their own configuration file alongside any other settings files the game client creates (e.g. the keybindings file)

    • The client is shipped with a preset file of default actions, allowing you to use many of the new default actions immediately without having to customise anything

New Feature: Portals

  • Added a new portal system, allowing access to all servers with a single character
  • The new portals (big blue crystals) will soon become available in starter towns on PvE servers and Chaos, allowing you to select another starter town on your current server or on another server to teleport to
  • Your current server and the destination server combination will determine what will transfer together with you
    • Travelling between Southern Freedom Isles (SFI) and Nothern Freedom Isles (NFI) transfers everything except items
    • Travelling to a server which is also reachable with a boat transfers everything that would also transfer when you would be travelling with a boat
    • Starter items are an exception and will transfer between Southern Freedom Isles, Nothern Freedom Isles and Guidance
    • Existing transfer rules between Northern Freedom Isles and Defiance are unchanged, use the PvP portal like before to travel between these servers
    • Existing transfer rules between Southern Freedom Isles and Epic are unchanged, use an Epic portal like before to travel between these servers
  • All servers have a direct link to Guidance, where everything except items will transfer to
    • When leaving Guidance, all items you have will transfer together with you (away from Guidance)
    • When travelling to Guidance from another server, you must return to that server first before you can continue travelling to another server
  • The master cape is exempt from item transfer rules and will always follow you to any server
  • There is a 10 minute cooldown for using the portals

Client Graphics Upgrade
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHTorpBUW5w

Change: New Terrain Renderer

  • The terrain renderer has been completely rewritten
  • Added support for mesh tessellation, which adds fine geometric details to tiles depending on their texture
  • Remastered all terrain textures to higher resolution for more details
  • The video memory usage (VRAM/GPU memory) should be lower by a few hundred megabytes now
  • Only available when the modern renderer is selected in the graphics settings

New Feature: Eye Adaptation ("Auto Exposure")
  • The total brightness of displayed objects on screen now affects the scene exposure, preventing overly bright scenes
  • This prevents light sources making snow tiles blindingly white and reduces overall light intensity when many light sources are around
  • Only available when the modern renderer is selected in the graphics settings

Change: Lighting Improvements

  • Added moonlight and moon shadows
  • Fixed sun shining through objects after sunset
  • Updated light rendering formulars to more modern calculations, better incorporating the specular light component
  • Updated ambient lighting (base light independent of light sources) to use hemispheric lighting, which makes objects in low light scenes more detailed
  • Added environment reflections to metallic objects
  • Only available when the modern renderer is selected in the graphics settings

Change: Client Improvements
  • Implemented multiple major performance improvements
    • Some new rendering features might negate these improvements, please report situations with worse performance than before so we can investigate
  • The modern renderer is still disabled on Mac until we can fix the remaining issues on MacOS which emerged during testing

Other: Server Changelog
  • Change: Pushing, placing and dragging other peoples items onto lava is possible again on PvP servers
  • Change: Added the ability for alliance capitols to enable/disable sending alliance messages to Discord
  • Change: Offdeed fences on PvP servers are now 5x easier to bash (with a 5 second bash timer)
  • Bugfix: Vehicles and mounts can now be commanded once reaching the exact required skill instead of requiring skill higher than that value
    • This allows new players to ride donkeys without the need to raise their body control skill at least once
  • Bugfix: Updated text for achievements related to foraging and botanizing
  • Bugfix: Fences can now be constructed on all edges of a village underground
  • Bugfix: "Lore" should work more consistently now on containers with recipe ingredients inside
  • Bugfix: Fixed rare cause of a server crash due to meditating
  • Bugfix: Added creator name to items purchased from the rift store
  • Bugfix: Containers with glow runes applied to them will no longer give a false warning that items placed in or on them might be burned
  • Bugfix: Fixed wrong names of some vehicles in the vehicle management window
  • Bugfix: "Seal" action should now appear properly in the right-click menu for the basins inside alchemist's cupboards

Update release on Monday, June 24th

The release date is set! A big update with the previously announced features is coming on Monday, June 24th, 2024.

As it includes multiple new features and the launch of the new tutorial server, the update process might take longer than usual. The servers will go down at around 16:00 CET on that day and will be unavailable for a few hours.

While the update will ship all new features onto the live servers at once, not all of them will be available instantly. We need some time to set up and verify the new portals and the new tutorial server, and might even have to delay their launch a bit if something unexpected happens during testing.
Everything else will be available right after the servers come back up however. We are doing it this way to keep the server downtime for you as low as possible.

Below you can find a preview of some of the biggest changes. The linked topics are test server announcements or feedback threads, so don't take them as final. We are still tweaking things according to your feedback, and will continue to do so after release. The full patch notes will only be available on launch day.

New tutorial server: "Guidance"


We are launching a new server aimed at new players together with this update. It has some special features and restrictions, and should make learning how to play Wurm a lot easier.
It will feature a new quest system and some other special changes such as no deeds, a skill limit of 30, no strong dangerous creatures, and infinite newbie buffs.
Please check out its announcement post for more details: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1179680/view/5998312279131303318

New portal system


We are finally linking Southern Freedom Isles and Norther Freedom Isles together through a portal system, allowing you to play with any of your characters on any server, including the new tutorial server.
While there are some restrictions for item transfers and such between some clusters, you'll finally be able to move your character to any server.
Please check out its announcement post for more details: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1179680/view/5998312279131231252

Rework of the action system


The whole action system has been reworked, and a few changes to existing features were made.
Your action queue will be visible in the user interface now, the way toolbelts work was changed and a quick bar was added to the UI. You'll also be able to set default action behaviours for specific item combinations and keybinds for almost any action. For more details about these changes, please check out the public testing announcement of this feature: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1179680/view/4196868529812485777

Client renderer improvements


The client received some major rendering changes, which are available on the test server for a while already.
New features include a new terrain renderer with terrain tessellation, better lighting and environment reflections, eye adaptation, improved compatibility for MacOS and a better rendering performance in general.
Fore more details about these changes, please check out the public testing announcement of this feature: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1179680/view/4156338308018336474

Introducing Guidance



Guidance is a new 2048x2048 server, aimed to host more of a controlled learning experience for people first starting to play Wurm.

Playing on Guidance will differ significantly from the regular Wurm experience.
Here is a list of the more important differences:

  • No deeds - players will instead use the new enclosure mechanics, which will allow them to protect a fenced area around their house, where the building’s permissions will be enforced. This will also prevent the fences that make the enclosure from being bashed by other players. To prevent abuse, the maximum size of the enclosure will depend on both the Carpentry skill and the size of the building
  • Players will only be able to own a single house on the entire server
  • House packing - players will be able to move their house to a regular server of their choice, packing it into an inventory item.
  • Skill limit - players will only be able to reach 30 skill, and accounts that transfer there will be capped to 30 skill (non-premium accounts are still limited to 20 skill)
  • No priests - players cannot become priests, and current priests will not have their priest abilities on this server
  • Limited creature type spawns - more dangerous creatures will not spawn on Guidance, so there’ll be no trolls or hell hounds chasing newbies there
  • No rifts, holy sites, uniques
  • Quests - inside the starter village, you will be able to find an NPC giving introductory tasks to anyone that wishes to do it. These will touch on multiple subjects that you need to learn to get started in the game, with new, more complex quests unlocking when you finish the simpler ones. Players can get some small rewards by finishing the quests, to help them on their way and motivate them further
  • Newbie buffs will not run out while the player is on Guidance

Some smaller QoL changes will make their way into the game when this releases as well, including:

  • New players that still have the newbie buff will no longer drop items on death - so on Guidance, new players will never lose items when dying
  • Scavenged iron rocks will give more iron
  • Players will be able to bash their own structures without 21 Body Strength (so also without premium)
  • Bashing bonus normally applied only while bashing structures on deeds, will now apply to all situations where an owner is bashing a structure, both on or off deed
  • Many actions will have their duration reduced, and low stamina will increase the action time less than before. This will affect low skill action timers the most.

More details of the changes will be in the changelog released on update day.

We’re also planning to launch a staff led village, as an exception to the no deed rule, to further assist newbies in learning the game. Having staff members around new players should also help us learn more about the pain points they encounter so that we may tweak the experience further.

Players will be able to use a portal to exit or come back to Guidance at any time. Items will only leave that server, but may not be brought back there.

We don’t want to prevent people from playing with their friends if they want to learn the game on Guidance, so we allow everyone to use the portal to get there. However, it is not a regular playing server, so we do not recommend anyone to move there full-time. You can also expect moderation to be much more strict on the new server, so any intentional disruption to the actual new player learning experience won't be accepted there.

Since it’s a lot of fresh concepts that’ll make their way into the game with this, we will likely tweak it significantly after release according to feedback and how player retention looks after it goes live.

Here are some pictures of the new quest UI and the new journal window (work in progress), which should become even more of a guide for the early game experience.




We're also ready to unveil the details of the new portal system. For more information, see the separate post here: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1179680/view/5998312279131231252

We're not ready to give you a release date for Guidance and the other projects, but we intend to post a separate announcement with the release date in the upcoming days

Portals incoming!



Hey everyone!
The release of the previously announced server portals is just around the corner. Therefor we'd like to give you an overview of the details, so you can prepare yourself accordingly. (We will reveal the release date of this and other already shown off projects in the upcoming days)
In short: you will be able to play with any character on any server, as the portals will allow you to travel between Northern Freedom Isles (NFI) and Southern Freedom Isles (SFI), making them no longer separated.

How will it work?

  • A blue portal crystal will appear in every starter town on PvE servers and on Chaos
  • Using it allows you to teleport to any starter town that has a portal in place
  • This also includes Guidance, the new starter/tutorial server
  • The portals allow you to teleport between SFI and NFI servers/starter towns, no more separation
  • You can use any Epic portal on SFI to play on Epic
  • You can use any PvP portal on NFI to play on Defiance
  • Skills, affinities and tome effects will transfer between NFI/SFI
  • Your bank money and premium time will transfer between all servers
  • Item transfer restrictions may apply

Item transfer restrictions

  • Items won't transfer through the portals, unless it's on the same cluster and already transferable by boat (NFI/SFI)
  • On Guidance (the new tutorial server) items will transfer, but only into one direction: off the server when leaving it
  • No-drop items or other special items on the same cluster will transfer the same way they would when crossing the server border with a boat
  • The master cape will always transfer between all servers

Epic

  • Epic transfer mechanics stay unchanged
  • You can use any epic portal on SFI servers to get there as usual
  • If you are on NFI, teleport to SFI first using the new portal system, then use any Epic portal
  • The current Home Server<->Elevation portal mechanic for starter towns stays in place

Defiance

  • Defiance transfer mechanics stay unchanged
  • You can use any PvP portal on NFI servers to get there as usual
  • If you are on SFI, teleport to NFI first using the new portal system, then use any PvP portal

Chaos

  • Freedom starter towns are connected to the portal network
  • Player made kingdoms will receive a special mechanic which won't make it into initial release

Selection UI Preview
To make everything clear and easy to understand for (new) players, the server transfer portals will receive their own user interface. Below is a work-in-progress preview from the test server.

It lets you cycle through all available destination servers and shows some basic information about them, with an option to hide PvP servers.

After selecting a server, more details will appear. It shows all available portals on the destination server and lets you select one.

The UI clearly states what's tranferred and what's left behind, so there should be no surprises.

The portals will launch together with the new tutorial server (Guidance), which is explained in detail in a separate announcement:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1179680/view/5998312279131303318

Client Upgrade Overview



The previously announced client changes are now on the test client, and we’d like to invite all of you to check it out and help us iron out the quirks.
All features and most optimization work mentioned here is limited to the modern (default) renderer, as that’s where we focus our efforts with most of the improvements.

New terrain renderer


The terrain renderer was completely rewritten, mainly in order to make it use significantly less graphics card memory and to allow us to add more features there easily.
You should encounter less pop-in as terrain gets less detailed in the distance, as that’s handled in a way that should do it further away from you, and with some transition animations

Terrain tile textures have been remastered to double the resolution, and we have added dynamic mesh tessellation, which adds small geometric details on every tile near you. This is currently limited to the high Terrain Detail setting, but so far, it didn’t seem to affect performance that much, for how large of a visual improvement it is.

For future improvements, this will also allow us to make distant terrain more detailed quite easily, but it isn’t in scope for the initial release.



Eye adaptation


Right now, the level of light that’s received by the player’s eyes remains a sum of the light in the scene, similar to having a real world camera set to a constant exposure, so at some point if the lighting is too intensive, it completely washes out the details as the intensity of the colors to be rendered goes beyond what your monitor can show you.

In situations where there’s a lot of light in the scene, white objects get washed out completely and turn into a white, blinding blob. You’ve definitely seen this happen with snow, marble items and other bright colored objects, as those will reflect most light.

Test client has a new feature that automatically adjusts the exposure, it's always enabled on the modern renderer. In simple terms, this reduces the overall brightness of the scene if it detects too much light, and increases it slightly if it’s too dark, just as your eyes do. This has a bottom limit so you will still need lamps and lanterns at night or in caves.



Lighting and environment reflections


Shaders that apply lighting to the world have been changed to use some more modern formulas, to a bit more closely resemble reality. It's now much closer to how most newer games do lighting.

This mostly affected metallic objects, which will now show more complex specular highlights and reflect the environment around them. Those reflections include only terrain and the sky, to avoid impacting the client performance negatively, but that’s enough for things to actually start looking like metal.

Intensity of reflections may have to be tweaked on a case by case basis, as retrofitting such changes to existing assets means it won’t look immediately perfect on everything. Expect some things looking too shiny, or too dull - please report it on the forum (here) so we’ll know to tweak it.





World Lighting changes


You may have noticed sunlight still affecting the world during the Wurm night, hitting the objects from odd angles without casting any shadows, often giving everything around you a yellow hue at certain times of night.

This was fixed, and in the phantom sunlight’s place, moons now emit light and cast shadows just like the sun does.

Multiple moons cannot cast shadows simultaneously, as that would be very bad for performance, so the game decides which of the currently visible moons is active based on their size and how high up in the sky they currently are.




MacOS compatibility


Modern renderer will now finally be available on MacOS, along with all of the improvements mentioned here. So far, there’s only one feature that isn’t working the same as on other systems, and might not make it there any time soon - MacOS cannot use an OpenGL version higher than 4.1, and that blocks us from being able to enable our rendering depth precision improvements.

That normally reduces or even completely removes Z-fighting in the distance, the issue where objects flicker as if unsure which one should be rendered first, due to computers not being great with large floating point numbers.

We’re unclear at this point about the performance of the modern renderer on newer Mac devices - it shouldn’t differ much from Windows, but older Macbooks with weaker GPUs may struggle. I was only able to test it on a 2015 Macbook Pro so far, but it’s a rather slow machine by today's standards so the performance was poor as well.

I’d like to hear from any of you that play on Macs about the performance and whether you encounter any graphical glitches or crashes.

General performance


Other than the terrain changes improving the performance, the client update includes many smaller optimizations that should lead to overall better performance, and even less VRAM (graphics card memory) being used. We hope that allows you to either run the game with better settings, or just to run more clients at once without having to resort to the legacy renderer.

Our ambient occlusion effect, generally a very demanding setting, should now have improved performance everywhere, but especially when combined with a high display resolution, where it used to kill the framerate the most.

Testing feedback


All of the changes mentioned above are now on the test server, and will soon also arrive on live servers. If you get a chance to test it, please let us know here if you encounter any issues, client crashes or poor performance compared to the regular client.
The screenshots here are only a limited overview of the changes. When you post feedback, please base it on what you encounter on the test client.

With any issues, the console.log file generated during the same client session is key to us working on fixing those. That means you have to copy it over before running the client the next time. You can find it in your Wurm data directory, named console.Username.log

Don't only post the error part of the log, if you find one in there, as the log file also contains your client settings which are usually needed for us to reproduce the issue to be able to fix it sooner.

If the reported issue is only regarding materials of certain items becoming too shiny, or too bland, please post it in the following thread: https://forum.wurmonline.com/index.php?/topic/202062-material-issues-after-client-rendering-update/


Coming soon after


There are certain things that won’t make it to the launch of this client update, but will follow soon as a part of smaller updates.

  • Java runtime upgrade - we aren’t able to proceed with this until we get a new code signing certificate, to sign an updated version of the launcher with, which we have had some issues with acquiring as the process for that has become more complicated in the last couple of years. We are in the middle of getting that certificate, but it may still take some time as a lot of verification is involved.
  • Lamp shadows - this is something we’ve shown off a few months ago. Lamps and other small light sources will finally cast shadows, rather than lighting up areas behind obstacles like walls, however it needs more optimization work to limit the performance impact in scenarios where there are a lot of light sources around a small area.


You can find a guide for joining the test server here.
For direct test related feedback, please use the forum thread: https://forum.wurmonline.com/index.php?/topic/202063-client-upgrade-overview/

May's Monthly Skin



Say hello to the "Regal Bed", the cozy answer to unrestful sleep! It is rumored that it helps against back pain too...

This bed skin is now available in the Marks Shop at any settlement token through May/June.



"Regal Bed - Snoozing the night away in this comfy bed - absolute bliss"

Actions Rework Public Testing


The new action system is available on the public test server now!
We invite all players to join the public test to provide feedback. Numerous changes to the action mechanics and the game UI have been implemented on the test server.

Changes include a visual component for your action queue, a new quickbar for easy access to various functions, a default action keybind system and a rework of the underlying action system in general.

You can find more information about the test (and a guide for joining the test server) on the official Wurm Online forums: https://forum.wurmonline.com/index.php?/topic/201776-actions-rework-public-testing/

Please also use that thread to provide your findings and feedback. It's closely monitored by our development team, so try to stay on topic when possible.

April's Monthly Skin



Meet your new feathered friends: 2 little birds, who set up their nest on top of your hat! Maybe you've spent too much time sitting still and watching flowers?

This skin for the green common wool hat is now available in the Marks Shop at any settlement token through April.



"Companion Bird Hat - Aah, spring is in the air! Some birdies seem to have found a new home and you certainly wouldn't want to disturb them."

Patch Notes 16-April-2024

Server Changelog



  • New: Various banners can now be placed on walls.
  • Change: Placing or resizing a deed is no longer possible within 40 tiles of a server border.
  • Change: Boats should now only appear on water tiles after crossing a server border.
  • Change: Added a warning messsage when placing burnable rare/supreme/fantastic items, non-bulk items or undiscardable bulk items into a furnace.
  • Change: Added a warning message for the driver/commander when disembarking a vehicle that has no lock attached.
  • Change: Added a warning message when removing a lock from a vehicle.
  • Change: It now is no longer possible to push, pull, drag or place items onto lava tiles.

    • This doesn’t apply to items which are already on lava.
    • This doesn’t apply if you are the owner of the item, the last player who dropped it or if you have permission to bash the item.

  • Bugfix: Unbinding arrow bundles will now ignore sleep powders and coins for the 100 items limit in inventory.
  • Bugfix: Aggressive creatures will now no longer ignore passengers on mounts running past.
  • Bugfix: Old copper needles created prior to the metal properties update can now be improved again.

Client Changelog



  • Bugfix: Fixed client crashing when tabbing out while still in loading screen.

Easter Event 2024


"A big orange Easter egg? Looks like I took a wrong turn..."

The Easter bunny is back, hiding eggs and other treasures in the lands of Wurm!
We invite you to participate in the Easter event from Sunday, March 31st 2024 10:00 CEST until Monday, April 8th 2024 10:00 CEST. Use your chance to find some unique rewards!

The process is simple:

  • Forage or botanize through resource nodes to find a basket containing a treasure map
  • Start your treasure hunt using the map
  • Receive rewards for completing the treasure hunt

Besides the usual decorative eggs you'll be able to find on your journeys, you'll be rewarded with 2 new items for completing your treasure hunt.

Easter Basket
This basket can be used to store your decorative eggs. Its visual model changes when there is nothing inside.



"A small woven basket with something inside it."

Bouquet of Easter flowers
These decorative flowers can be equipped in your backpack or hip/quiver slot.


"A refreshing assortment of spring flowers which can be worn merrily on the hip or back."

We wish you an exciting treasure hunt. Happy Easter from the Wurm Online team!