January 2013

To Spirit Templar or Not #WurmOnline

stargrace January 9, 2013 1 Comment

My deed on Pristine is really coming along. I’ve got a tannery, a smithy, my house, a kitchen, and I’ve gained some really helpful abilities, like 21 body strength which means I can bash down useless walls. The wooden fence that used to be at the front of the property is removed, and in its place I’m planning a shipyard. My hours in-game lately have been spent working on my guard tower. To build it requires 100 planks, 500 bricks, and 500 clay. I spent the first day digging up 500 clay and placing it into backpacks in my row boat. See, the cargo hold of a row boat is tiny and items only stack in piles of 100. So instead of filling my boat with 100 clay, I filled my boat with 10 backpacks, and then filled each backpack with 75 clay. Needless to say I shouldn’t need any clay for a while. Or at least until I decide to convert all of my wooden buildings to stone. I haven’t done that yet because you need 30 masonry to create stone houses, and so far I’m only at 28 (and most of that is because of working on the guard tower).

There’s a lot of debate going on in the forums about Spirit Templars, basically what it comes down to is that players can spend an extra 1s a month per guard, and these guards will kill anything aggressive that wanders through your deed (or attempt to kill, they are not immune to damage). Some people are upset at this because it can essentially make your deed a ‘meat farm’ where you don’t have to do any work but get all of this wonderful meat “for free”. Others are upset because players crossing your deed are able to butcher the dead animals with their low quality tools, and are not able to take the meat. So if you’re looking to raise your own butchering skill, they’ve ruined that for you.

Personally speaking, I don’t really care if someone hires a spirit templar or two and then butchers their own meat. I don’t butcher on someone else’ deed, it’s just impolite. I also don’t have my own spirit templar. I’ve never been a fan of these ghost guards, and I find the extra 2s to hire them + 1s a month not worth their value. That’s why I’m building a guard tower. In the end it’s your own personal choice, and what someone else does with their deed or how they handle their deed has very little impact on my play style.

[11:26:49] You see a guard tower under construction. Ql: 2.9443426, Dam: 0.0. The guard tower needs 389 clay, and 397 stone brick, and 100 plank to be finished.

I’ll get there. Eventually.

Blesse’s First Rowing Boat

stargrace January 7, 2013 No Comments

I’ve been having a lot of fun on my ‘escape’ character over on the Pristine server. The deed is pretty much formed (although yesterday I ripped up a bunch of it to create a new farm) and I’ve been working away on my first boat.

Making a boat is a monumental task for a new player, not only does it require a lot of pieces but the skills needed to attach those pieces to the boat can be a pain.

• 2x Oar
• 1x Mooring rope
• 70x Peg (20x for stern)
• 60x Tenon (10x for stern)
• 61x Hull plank (11x for stern)
• 10x Tar
• 4x Seat
• 3x Keel section

Above is the total required pieces – and don’t forget that in order to properly secure your boat you’re going to need both a lock and a mooring anchor. Boats can be salvaged by other players if you’re missing one or both of these items. Without a lock your boat can be driven by other players. Without a mooring anchor your boat can be dragged away by other players (unless it’s on your deed, then players are unable to drag it).

So far I’m working on the locks and I have all of the components made. Most of them attached. I’ve got 50 tenons and 50 hull planks left to attach, and I have an anchor waiting for me in the mail to turn into a mooring anchor.

Owning a boat will be a huge bonus to me on Pristine, especially since pretty much all of the land around my deed is mountains. It will allow me to go collect clay and bring it back to my deed in what I hope is a painless manor. There’s tar close by to my deed but there’s no clay within sight and that’s a problem. I need 500 for a guard tower I’m creating, and I also want to build a second (or even third) forge, one in my mine and one for cooling things off. Not to mention one day I may want stone houses, and I’ll need clay for mortar.

I’m also creating a small tree farm on my deed so that when I continue to build boats I have a choice of wood to use. I have all tree types so far except lemon, and being able to sail around looking for lemon trees will make that job a lot easier.

I’m excited about my first boat trip, hopefully it goes well. First, I need to make this dang key and attach the rest of those parts.

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

Secure Your Deed #WurmOnline

stargrace January 2, 2013 6 Comments

I’ve had a lot of Wurm drama the last week and I’m a bit tired of my usual posts so I decided I’d write about it (pictured above, my deed on the Independence server).

In Wurm Online there are very specific rules players have to follow to keep stuff safe. Number one, try to own a deed. You have special rights that way. Number two. Lock things up. Number three, don’t let things decay to the point where they crumble and just allow anyone in.

So I find a deed that’s got an unlocked gate and crumbled walls – and the owner has decided not to build anything on the actual deed itself (aside from their house) but to stretch their fences onto the perimeter, which technically players don’t “own”. You CAN secure these areas, but again you have to follow the rules. Since the gate wasn’t locked, it was already free game.

People who know me outside of a video game situation (and even in) know I’m a pretty nice person. I typically help out, and am quite generous. However. If you don’t take the time to secure your things, in a sandbox game like Wurm, I WILL come by and salvage what I can. I also don’t feel bad about it because it is the players responsibility to keep their stuff secured.

Now. Does this make me a bad person? That could be debated.

The person whose items I took absolutely freaked out over it. Part of it was my fault because I openly admitted that I took items from the perimeter she had failed to secure. I also showed them where their unlocked gate was, and explained to them about how to secure everything for the future. They decided to get a GM involved, but since I had not broken any rules (I’m very aware of the rules of the game) nothing could be done. Then said player decided to tell everyone in general chat about what a horrible person I was for taking their unsecured items, and told everyone that it was not her fault that she had unsecured items and didn’t know the rules, because she was disabled.

Wow.

Whether or not that’s true doesn’t matter. What matters is that you can’t claim you’re immune to the rules because you’re disabled. In the help channel this is what she said:

“Note to game moderators: Advertizing this game, it should be advised that this game is not appropriate for the disabled as it is monies falsely accrued.”

Through all of this I said not a word, I actually put the player on ignore, but the ignore function does not work when dealing with the CA help channel. The next day the drama mounted. She decided to tell everyone in any channel she could that I had been bashing her walls down. Now, I admit outright that I WILL pillage and salvage – but I always do this within the rules. Even though the rules say players CAN bash an unsecured fence – I’ve never done it. I just don’t see the reason to, there are loads of falling down places that have access already there without me having to bash stuff.

So this time I sent in a  support ticket, asking for someone to come check her deed and confirm that I had not been bashing her walls and give her some peace of mind. The CA who tried to deal with the case was not helpful at all and never forwarded it to a GM which was my request, but at least now things have died down. I hope.

There are consequences to salvaging items that belong to players. You have to be prepared to deal with that sort of drama and be 100% certain that you’re not breaking any rules. Whether or not it’s “right” to take items from players is something we each have to deal with individually.