I stumbled upon this game a few years ago, and now I'm 7K hours in and still really enjoying it. It's old school so no super flashy graphics and it's not about killing things. The crafting is where it shines as well as the ability to modify the world - both above and below ground.

The community has people who have played since 2017 or so, and still have not maxed out on skills. The XP gain is painfully slow, we're talking skill gain ticks (rng applied) which you may or may not get and which become painfully small the higher your skill (like 0.00001, yeah, that small, out of 100).

There is a thriving commerce and trade and people are valued for their ability to make high quality, highly enchanted items. Gold, Silver, Copper and Iron - You can buy Silver from the game store, or grind it in game to pay for monthly premium dues, and to also pay for your monthly land stake claim (deeds). Playing while non-premium is not recommended so if you are poor or do not have lots of time to invest in grinding in game for silver, I don't recommend it. HOWEVER, if you have disposable income AND you have time, this game is amazingly addictive and rewarding.

There are entire 'maps' set aside for PvP. I don't PvP so can't speak to it but those that engage it are obsessed. There are Player Made Kingdoms and their merchandise sells to the PvE community for lots of in-game-silver (which is how they fund their wars from what I understand).

Travel across maps is accomplished via sailing. It's a clever, if not always reliable, way to jump from one map *read, jump to another server*, to another. The sailing experience is pretty well done, although the design of the biggest ship, the caravel, is kinda stupid in my opinion because the view is blocked for the captain and the devs really want you to have a 'lookout' up top in the crows nest. But really, we know most players play solo so you just get used to not seeing where your damn ship is going or, you sail a knarr, which has excellent forward visability (though much less cargo room).

The crafting... Oh my. I can't speak highly enough about the complexity of the crafting. Things take time, Lots of time and require skill and good materials to make. If you need instant rewards, you will hate it. If, on the other hand, you just enjoy gathering and crafting and cooking then this is your nirvana.

Religion and Gods are here too. As a priest your character is not allowed to do certain crafts but you can enchant items and use spells for healing, combat and even mining. The gods walk the maps and offer missions for non-priests who just want to become sorcerers to use 'spell tomes' fueled by karma doled out by completing the missions of the Gods.

Farming is a thing as well. Quality crops are in demand and food cooking, beverage making and alcoholic beverage making are highly marketable skills. Being drunk is a thing as is gaining affinities for certain things thru the ingestion of certain foods and/or beverage consumption. It's all quite clever really.

Animal husbandry is super disappointing though. And animals do die in child birth if not cared for properly. Having pets is not really a thing and having fighting pets is not really implemented in a way that makes it viable. Yes, you can summon a zombie if you are a priest, and it will fight for you. But, if you have a pet fight for you it can turn against you if it gets injured during the fight. It's a nice start but the devs never went further with it so it's not really that enjoyable to do.

There is so much complexity in the game mechanics that even after 7k hours in, I still consider myself a noob.

Oh, everything decays. Yup... everything. So with very few exceptions you need to get used to that idea. This is why alts are real thing. You can have up to 5 attached to your email address and they can be useful to store things and care for animals so that they have less of a chance of dying.

I highly recommend this game, in spite of some of the stupid decisions made by the developers, and the typical bs that happens when a bunch of people are involved (silly politics and grudges etc). Overall the community is quite generous and welcoming and I've not regretted a penny of the hundreds of real life dollars I've spent to play Wurm Online.

If you have questions or want to give it a try, feel free to ping me and I'd be happy to help you get started.