2012

Breeding Horses – An Artform #WurmOnline

stargrace May 27, 2012 1Comment

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 0Comment

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!

Flag Purchases and Other Tales #WurmOnline

stargrace May 25, 2012 0Comment

My apologies for the lack of posts lately, but these things happen I suppose. I’m going to try to post date the days I forgot to write on and catch up. Not that I really have anything exciting to say, but I’m sure I can come up with something.

I bought some flags off of Rudie (who is leaving the game apparently) that you can no longer get on Deliverance (or any of the Freedom servers). They look nice and hopefully (since I can not repair them) they take their time in decaying. I bought three in total, two more are at my deed Thorin’s Bay, sitting on the docks. I wish there were more decorative items available in Wurm Online, there are a few, but not enough to really personalize an area. Sure you can terraform an area to personalize it, but working the land is not really my thing (which is why I bought Thorin’s to begin with, it was already mostly ‘completed’ and then I could work on adding my own personal touches).

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately on what I’d like to do with Les Reveurs. The deed currently has three houses, and a nice fenced area for horses. That’s about it. Well, a fountain too and an extensive mine area. I don’t want fields or animals kept on the deed because it’s my ‘get away from it all’ deed where I quietly work on skills and some times I don’t visit it for a week or two – it would be no good to return only to see all of my crops (or animals) dead.

The area with the houses and fences are not exactly flat, I’ve left the land as ‘natural’ as possible that still enabled me to build on it – which means the over all effect is a bit wonky when you first look at it, but then it sort of grows on you (at least it does on me). It has ‘country charm’ which I really like, surrounded by massive trees on the top of a mountain (also makes it difficult to get to which I enjoy for privacy sake). It does require a few more double doors I suppose. My main craft building is still made of single doors, where as my ‘warehouse’ has double. I wish we had the ability to create lakes on mountains, but digging down to the water line would take forever, and create nothing but an ugly pit in the middle of the hill. Ah well.

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

Caught In A Web #WurmOnline

stargrace May 24, 2012 3Comments

Wurm Online has been going through a lot of pretty neat changes lately. Due to a hacking incident the forums and web site have been revamped, and the wiki is now back up and running. Everything is smooth on those fronts at least. Kelp, reed, and papyrus sheets were added, along with ink and octopus to make it. Bison, hell hounds, hell horses, and hell scorpion were added, along with inner walls and new graphics for stone houses.

One of the latest additions to the unstable client (you must have experimental packs enabled) has been spiders. Now, as a gamer I am pretty oblivious to most types of creatures – but this updated spider graphic is actually causing a lot of stress for some players. Those with arachnophobia, in specific.

There have been forum posts made by these players, requesting some other method of enjoying the game that doesn’t involve looking at these incredibly well detailed (with amazing animation might I add) critters. If they can not find a way to play the game without avoiding these creatures, a handful are threatening to quit and leave the game for good.

Thoughts?

Well. I haven’t really decided. I think it’s a bit much to change graphics based on a few peoples fears. On the other hand, these graphics were not in the game when these players started, and if they were, they probably wouldn’t have started or stuck with the game. Alienating players is never a good thing. Is there an issue with graphics being TOO realistic? Just some of the thoughts in my head. I’m staying out of the debate aside from making it known that there IS a debate, simply because it is something that I can’t really form an opinion on.

If you’re not afraid of spiders, I highly suggest you download the unstable client and make sure experimental packs are selected and take a look at them. The way they approach during combat just makes my skin crawl (not a bad thing) and I personally applaud the developers for such fantastic work.

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

They Call Me A Soldier (and a Caterer) #WurmOnline

stargrace May 23, 2012 1Comment

Determined to reach 50 fighting skill, I set off with Stargrace to find some creatures. I took my trusted steed, which ended up being a mistake (and was very amusing the first time, no so much the second time). The first mishap occurred when I was wandering into a cave. Normally I can see what I’m fighting, but this time things were dark and I wasn’t really paying attention. I killed a mountain lion that was lurking down at the bottom and then clicked around some. I heard my horse being attacked by something and figured another creature must be hiding so I left the cave. When no creature followed me out I was a bit surprised but things still didn’t register. Finally when my horse hit the ground dead I realized that it had been me who was attacking the poor animal the entire time. Whewps.

The second time was also my fault and it could have easily been avoided. See, when you have an animal tamed, mobs tend to hit them first and they also help you out in combat. With a horse this is very dangerous, as soon as they get wounds to their legs they start walking incredibly slow. I had tamed a horse in order to add some gear to the animal (the only way you can equip it) and forgot to tame something else after so that the horse would wear the gear and not follow any of the tame rules. I ended up getting attacked by a few spiders, and I stopped for a moment to regain my stamina – the horse quickly fell.

Despite the fact that it was a bad week for my horses (and they were 5-speed horses too, yikes) I did manage to inch my way to 50 fight skill, which I’m very pleased about. It came with a new title, ‘soldier’ and while it’s not THAT impressive, I’m still proud.

Speaking of titles, I also managed to reach 50 hot food cooking on my Vynora priest, which granted him a title of ‘Caterer’ and he now supplies delicious meals to my characters who reside at Thorin’s Bay. Not bad for a long weekend!

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