Another on-and-off Wurm player here.
I've been on and off of Wurm a few times over the last few years, going on adventures, picking a place to settle, then getting bored from the
ludicrous amount of grinding, and being demotivated by the limited number and size of uncivilized spaces in which to build in Independence.
I've really fallen in love with the depth and primal adventure behind Wurm online, but I've never been quite able to successfully get over it's shortcomings enough to enjoy it for more than a week or three at a time.
The biggest thing that probably puts me off from Wurm is the knowledge of the fact that once you have a stable dwelling with a source of food, water, and safety... you don't really have anything else to do or worry about other than mind-numbing levels of maintenance, and paying your monthly dues - both for your character,
AND your property deed.
I've had many similar experiences with quite a few Minecraft and FTB servers as well - albeit with 100% fewer monthly fees.
I'm hoping that LiF will finally break the conventional style of linear "beginning to end" progression with it's new mechanics such as: faster skill leveling with the addition of caps on the amount of high-level skills you can have at any given time. Rather than - for instance - spending 9-12 months in Wurm just grinding *thousands* of trees to get to the point where you can succeed at sawing wooden planks more than 90% of the time, the focus here will hopefully be more on finding and balancing the skills you find most important and useful for your own needs.
Really looking forward to this game as a significant improvement on everything that has come before it.