May 2012

Time for Celebration #WurmOnline

stargrace May 31, 2012 No Comments

In a very surprise announcement yesterday, Rolf told players that a new freedom server would be joining the cluster, called ‘Celebration’. This land mass is located (for the time being at least) South of Exodus, and is rumored to be a PvE server (the email didn’t really clarify whether it would be PvP or PvE but for now we’ll just figure it’s a PvE server).

Along with this new land, achievements are coming to game. You’ll be able to access them from the main tab, and despite the fact that a lot of players (from multiple games) abhor achievement systems, I’ve always looked at them as neat little accomplishments for players to work on when they don’t really know what else to do. In a sandbox game this can be a very good thing, giving players a sense of direction and “something to do” when they’re not sure what they want to be working on.

Of course, a new server brings up all sorts of comments. Can we handle yet another server, the population is already so thin, etc. To these opinions I’ve had basically one line of thought. It is the players choices to move, and the players who spread themselves thin (if one is of the opinion that it is spread too thin, I don’t necessarily agree for Freedom servers). I hear every day about how new players want fresh open land that isn’t covered in ruins, they want uniques (which typically get killed), and a handful of other “not close to my neighbour but I want a full server” complaints. In a sandbox MMO there are so many opinions from so many different players that it’s all but impossible to keep everyone happy.

Personally, I sailed an alt out to the south of Exodus yesterday with an unused deed form. We’ll see what happens from there.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Reeds, and Pens, and Papyrus, Oh My! #WurmOnline

stargrace May 30, 2012 1 Comment

The reed farm is coming along well, I’ve harvested my first crops, and was going to make a press and turn them into paper when servers came down this morning for an update, so at least it’s giving me some time to post, hehe. Reed is used to turn into paper with a press, or you can turn it into a pen and fill it with ink. Then you can write letters and mail them, or leave them around the lands of wurm for players to find in some sort of neat treasure hunt.

Making pens uses the carpentry skill. You use a carving knife on a reed plant, and create a container for ink.

Making paper uses a new skill called ‘papyrusmaking’ – you activate a press, right click a reed fibre, and select it from the misc menu. You can’t improve either of these items, so making high quality can be quite difficult and will take some time.

I’m looking forward to being able to (eventually) make books, write guides, and even sell them on merchants to players. First I’ll have to actually level up my skills, which in Wurm, is always a slow process (but very rewarding).

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Renovations To Thorin’s Bay #WurmOnline

stargrace May 28, 2012 No Comments

Thorin’s Bay is located on the South Coast of Deliverance, and has been where I’ve been spending most of my in-game time. It’s a beautiful deed, but I’ve still found lots of little changes I’ve wanted to do to make it represent ‘me’ a bit more. One of the first things that was done was ripping out some of the horse pens and adding guest houses as well as an extra storage house. There are still some pens, but not nearly as many as there were before.

Moumix also added an amazing reed farm to the deed along the dock area, so I’m now growing reed in addition to my corn fields. One of the larger houses has been given double doors along with indoor walls, separating rooms and creating a hallway. I’ve attempted to make a path of love section with a 3×3 area of flowers on the lower dock, but so far have been unsuccessful at it. For now I take my path of love characters over to Darkpaw to use the tile there. I’ve also tried creating a path of knowledge tile on the sand just outside of my perimeter, but haven’t had any luck with that (again I take Stargrace over to Darkpaw to use the knowledge tile there too).

I’ve also removed a few of the slabs from the upper level and planted some flowers, and created a few statues and added some flags and banners to the area. The fountain was added along with a bench or two and some practice dolls for fighting skills. Over all, it’s coming along.

Moumix was kind enough to map out the entire deed as well as a lot of the mine, which has been a huge blessing because now I know what nodes are where. I reached 50 mining, which means I can finally give up mining rock and move on to something else. Not that I mind rock, but I’ve done a LOT of rock mining during my stay in Wurm Online so far.

I’m really excited to see what comes next. Moumix has been working on creating some boats (I believe his current is a corbita) to sell, and we’re slowly working through the bulk storage bins we have filled with logs. Very slowly, might I add. There are still thousands.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Breeding Horses – An Artform #WurmOnline

stargrace May 27, 2012 1 Comment

One of the great things about Wurm Online is that not only can you breed animals, they will develop traits when they’re born, based on the traits of their parents. It is quite profitable to sell 5-trait speed horses to other players, as well as combat horses these days. My Fo priest breeds horses for my characters (mostly because she has 42 animal husbandry, which means she can see each trait when she examines an animal) and above is an example of the document I’ve been using in order to keep everything straight.

See, if you inbreed your animals you have a high chance of them developing negative traits, and while a Fo priest CAN remove these negative traits with a genesis cast of theirs, it’s much easier to just not inbreed to begin with. I’ve been keeping track of my horses for quite some time now, and I’ve got a few very nice ones that I’m proud of. Moumix also purchased some speed horses that I’ve been breeding with our regular stock, trying to get specific colours.

There are grey, white, black, brown, and yellow horses in game. A lot of players seem to prefer the black coloured ones, but I actually like the yellow and white ones best. Yellow is by far my rarest colour, something I hope to fix further down the road.

It’s always a really difficult choice when it comes to cutting down on how many horses I have, too. A lot of players would simply kill them because they provide healing cover materials as well as hides, but I prefer to let them go out in the wild for another player to find. Regular wild horses have been rare on Deliverance for a few months now, so the best way to obtain one is usually from another player.

I’ve also been trying my hand at breeding hell horses. These are naturally aggressive horses, but not to Fo priests with 65 faith and 30 favor. They make the perfect ride for those characters. Sadly you also need 30(31?) body control to ride one, so it will be a long time before I’m ever able to. They’re still pretty, and make for fun breeding. I have three named hell horses so far, although none of them have speed traits (yet). I’m hoping I have better luck next round. Hell horse pregnancies seem to always take quite a long time, my average so far has been 9-11 days.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Weapon of Choice #WurmOnline

stargrace May 26, 2012 No Comments

Now that I’ve reached 50 fight skill, it’s time to work on getting to 70. Mobs give me a lot less skill than they once gave, so there’s two ways I can go about this. I can work on fighting specific encounters that give me the most FS (champs, are a good way to get FS for example) or I can just continue to battle everything that moves, and disregard how much skill I actually get per kill. This later method is my preferred choice.

Everyone has their own preference when it comes to weapons, and so far to get to 50 FS I’ve used the good reliable ‘sword and board’ – that is a longsword and a shield. I use ‘normal’ fighting, and once I hit 40 FS or so I turned off auto fight and started taking part (what little interaction there is) in the battles.

Now that I’m a bit ‘tougher’ I’m thinking of switching it up a bit. I’m quite fond of the large maul for attacking, and aggressive as a fight method. This is mostly because two of my characters wear drake gear, which is quite strong and able to stand up to me getting hit a time or two while I wait for my next swing. I have a very nice 80 QL large maul with lifetransfer on it (a Fo spell, when you hit a mob it has a chance to heal your wounds) that is perfect for this type of combat.

I’ve still also never dabbled with range fighting at all, which seems odd for me to say because in every other game I’ve ever played I’ve always been the ranged attacker trying to hit things from as far away as I can possibly be. Perhaps making bows and arrows is in my future.

There’s a lot of possibilities in any case. There’s also two handed weapons that I’ve never tried, there’s axes, and I’m sure there are a few others I’ve forgotten to mention. It’s just a matter of what YOU personally prefer, when it comes to combat in Wurm Online. There’s no real ‘better than’ weapon, it’s based on what you’d rather use and on your combat preferences. That’s something I absolutely love, if I don’t want to use X weapon any more, I’ll just switch to Y for a bit. Sure, I’ll have to work up my skills again in that newly chosen weapon but at least I have the ability to switch. Games that limit this sort of game play are really frustrating.

As always, happy gaming no matter where you find yourself!