Q: How long to wreck a new PvP world? A: 3 days.

Wurm's new PvP server, Challenge, sure went well. It's a new concept they came up with to disguise how stagnant the game has become, which involves a map which is wiped after a month, with ultra-fast levelling up and people starting with skills at 20.

All it took was three days to see why Wurm's concept of PvP is so unpopular that the mass of its players stick to the non-PvP servers.

As usual in that kind of PvP game, there's always a faction getting trounced to the point where, for most players in it, the game is no longer worth playing. (I have a knack for picking that one, and I never regret it.)

Now, the capital of the kingdom I picked (Dim Lake on the map, capital of Jenn-Kellon) was located with a suitable buffer zone around it. But someone immediately bought himself a player-made kingdom (around $240 now) and placed it just south of the capital. Then they set about surrounding our capital with a fence, making it impossible for new players (or undeeded players who respawn there) to move out. As of writing, they surrounded 80% of the capital and may well finish this before long.

Oh, and that's not an exploit. That's fine. And the guys behind the player-made kingdom even came up with a lofty excuse: it was, you see, so that they could prevent those poor hapless Jenn-Kellon noobs from venturing on the lands of their kingdom.

It's apparently also not an exploit when they dig the regular supply points right into the ground where nobody can access them.

But Wurm's designers are insistent that dropping one of their new spiked barriers during PvP to hurt the opponent is an exploit.

Oh, and let me remind you that this game's design is built around the cash shop. Since they were trying things out, they waived the premium time requirement this month (which otherwise prevents levelling up above 20). But the deed system is in place, which means having to buy coins from the cash shop to get one, then for the upkeep required to maintain the deed. Also, the sickening part of this PvP system is that the enemy can drain your deed upkeep if they get access to it, but they only receive half of the amount they drain. The other half? Goes back to the designers.

It doesn't take long to figure out that the designers have a vested financial interest in not fixing their PvP design. On top of that, the game mechanics always involved that if you disbanded your deed, you only received half of the upkeep stored in it. For this map, which is designed to be wiped after a month and where the disband decision is in the end not yours to make, the designers changed -- nothing.

But at least now bridges are in. Haha, just kidding. Of course they're not.