One thing WurmOnline still has that many other games do not (Vanguard also still has this feature) is corpse retrievals. I’m talking full out when you die you lose everything except your deed and merchant papers retrievals. All your tools, keys, weapons, gear, gone. When you die you also lose skills, a lot of games still have this method of death penalty, where you lose skills or experience or your armor takes some damage. In Wurm it is VERY dangerous to die because half of the time if you’ve been out wandering you have no idea where you are. You also re-spawn at Green Dog if you don’t own a deed, or you can choose to spawn at your deed. If your allies are close by you can also chose to spawn at one of their deeds. I was not so lucky.
It was 1:30am and I was incredibly tired. Arkenor was nice enough to sail be down to the area where I had died, and once I had retrieved my corpse (it was spiders who got me the first time) I decided that to make the trip worth while, I would attempt to charm a raging bear and bring her/him home for the bear breeding program. Now, bears on their own are not too bad. Raging bears, were a mistake.
The bear went into a frenzy on me right away, hit me four times in a row, and down I went like a sack of potatoes. Dead. Again.
Ouch.
Normally death doesn’t bother me, it’s a natural part of this game, losing my items is quite painful these days because they’re high quality. They also include useful items like my Fo statue which I use to cast spells. No statue means no spells. Having no back up weapons was probably also poor thinking on my part. Because I was frustrated I logged off, that’s just the normal thing to do. I came back to the situation this morning with a clear mind (and some sleep) and felt much better. I now had a choice. Do I go after the corpse and risk dying a third time (it was a good 30-45 minute walk through dangerous lands) or do I start from scratch.
I probably wouldn’t have minded starting from scratch except for one thing. My keys. I really didn’t want to leave the keys to my boat and my deed just floating around the lands of wurm. So I grabbed.. well, nothing. I headed out without armor, no compass (I’m getting much better at figuring out where I am without one these days), no creature by my side. I was able to walk without having to regenerate any stamina because I had no weight.
I found my corpse, grabbed all my belongings, bee-lined straight for my boat, and sailed home. Lesson learned, stay away from raging bears. Even if I had of been able to handle a hit or two, there’s no way I would have been able to continue with that as the bear aged and grew in power. Animals hurt more the older they are.
It was still a great adventure.
I remember well the cries of anguish in EQ: “HAS ANYONE HERE SEEN MY CORPSE?!”
I have been wanting to try Wurm, and even paid for a two-month subscription, but the game crashes before I can even get to the character screen, so I gave up. I do enjoy reading about it though.
@Bhagpuss – you can actually use a Vynora priest to locate your corpse, but not all of us are that lucky, hehe.
You can also track it, if you at least know the general location you died.
This is why I have been extremely cautious in Wurm so far. I’m not worried at all about CRs in principle but I have no confidence whatsoever that I would be able to find my way back to wherever the heck it was that I died. Everquest had spells and items that would locate your corpse and Vanguard allows you to cut your losses and summon your corpse to an altar but as far as I can tell in Wurm you walk back or start again.
That said, once I decided I didn’t want to die I haven’t been attacked by anything I couldn’t run away from. The CRs may be harsh but it’s very generous to let me run faster than a bear or a lion.