2013

Secure Your Deed #WurmOnline

stargrace January 2, 2013 6Comments

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.