Salem vs Spore
Salem
Salem is an old-school and somewhat obscure (but fun) sandbox MMORPG that unlike Wurm Online has a stronger emphasis on its in-depth crafting system and survival aspect rather than building.Similar to Wurm Online though, Salem is not a voxel-based game, but you are still able to mold the game environment through resource gathering, mining and digging in a way that reminds me of the currently-shelved MMORPG, EverQuest Next: Landmark. Of course, although not exactly the focus of the game, you can still build your homestead and the process is quite similar to Wurm Online except that it occurs at a much higher speed.
Not to mention, the game world in Salem is simply humongous to the point where it feels like an actual world. Salem also borrowed some features from ArcheAge where open-world PvP is the norm, so you'll need to be vigilant at all times, but players who kill and steal for no reason will be labelled as criminals and can be punished.
However, as good as it is despite being an indie MMO and all, Salem does have its fair share of flaws due to its low development budget. So, we'd recommend you to take a look at Salem without carrying along any high expectations. It's a pretty good MMORPG like Minecraft, but if you're expecting a Minecraft clone, you may end up disappointing yourself.
Spore
Spore is a pretty unique and addictively fun god-mode-like sandbox game where you get to create a whole new world and fill it with your living creations. As a "god", you can play around with the game's five evolutionary stages, from Cell to Space, and grow an entire space-faring civilization from its very simple beginnings as a single-cell organism. Of course, to develop a civlization, you'll need plenty of tools to help them along and Spore gives all of that to you in an easy-to-use format. You can literally customize everything you like in the game ranging from vehicles that your creations will drive or even buildings that your organisms will live in.Although Spore is essentially a single player game - after all, there can only be one almighty god... and that's you! - the world you've created is shared with other players in the game, so your creations can actually explore new planets and maybe even bump into a hostile race which will force them to make the preparations needed to go to war.
Overall, Spore is an amazingly detailed, civilization-building, sandbox game that allows you to micromanange almost everything if you choose to do so, or you could lay down the groundwork and let things unfold by themselves. Best yet, there is no limit as to how many worlds you can create, so unleash your creativity and your godly powers and develop the ultimate civilization today!