November 2015

It Takes a Community to down a Dragon

stargrace November 15, 2015 1Comment

[19/50] Wurm Online has these massive battles (basically raids) where players go and kill “uniques” on each server. There are rewards for anyone hanging out in the general vicinity of the fight, then there are rewards for all players who land a hit on the unique, and then there are treasures on the corpse that are handled by the organizer of the event. In yesterday’s case, the organizer decided that all loot would be rolled on by those who participated. The crowd gathered at Summerholdt market, and wow, was there ever a crowd.

[20 / 50] In total there were 50 players not counting alts who showed up. People started showing up the night before, but when I got there at 4am PST the crowd was already bustling. Once we gathered at the market we moved to the staging area of the event, which was about 5 minutes away by horse. People generously offered up mounts, along with wagons for those who had come by foot. No one was going to be left behind.

[21/50] These events are a bit more complicated than just going out and killing one of these uniques. Wurm Online has a code built into the system that only allows for a certain amount of people to be actively hitting the target at once. That means in order for everyone to get credit for the kill players are required to take a swing, and then back off to allow for others to take their swing. It’s a fight that requires coordination and cooperation more than it requires anything else. For this fight in specific, there were absolutely no issues, everyone got their hit and moved away. We waited for the all clear, and then swooped in again.

[22/50] GM Renegade even showed up ahead of time while we were staging to chat with players and see how we were all doing. It was a nice little touch. Once the dragon was killed, Booskii generously offered to create potions from the blood we all received. In order to create the potion you need a source salt and you combine it with the blood. For this particular white dragon hatchling we received a potion of frost. This imbues weapons with frost. I was thankful she offered since I didn’t have any source salt on me.

After the kill we all went back home, whatever way we had gotten there to begin with. I was contemplating gating, but I had sailed up in a boat, and I didn’t want to just leave it behind. Thankfully it was a pretty fast trip back home, the entire East Coast is easy for me to travel these days since I can just cut across to Release and travel up that much smaller coastline – then head back to Xanadu, and have traveled the majority of the way. A 1h trip is much preferred over a 8 hour one depending on winds.

I also just want to wave and give a shout out to Kohle who sent me a PM in game mentioning they just recently started reading this blog. It makes me smile when I get these little messages, as most of you know I’ve been playing Wurm Online for over 6 years now, and the community still surprises me almost every day. They’re wonderful people, and it’s a major reason as to why I keep playing. Thank you for that!

Once I made it back to my deeds, it was time to get back to work on the market. The canal dredging is coming along nicely, and I have started my very first bridge. That will be in tomorrow’s post. It’s brick, and it looks stunning.

I also purchased a few more rare tools yesterday, trying to grow my collection (especially blacksmithing). I now own a rare carving knife, small anvil, hatchet, and saw. My priest Maivis owns a rare rope tool and spindle. Unfortunately a purchase I made from the Wurm Online web site didn’t go through, so I’m missing 10 silver, but I’ve put in a ticket and hopefully this week someone can help me out.

In the meantime, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Deed Pictures

stargrace November 8, 2015 1Comment

Some very lovely screenshots from my latest deed acquisition (see previous post for details) I love that it’s already completed, so it needs very little maintenance.

[12/50] Looking towards the market, the archway welcomes merchants.

[13/50] The rare guard tower is surrounded by a stronghold building.

[14/50] This building is the kitchens and an inn for people to rest at.

[15/50] Side view of the temple where sermons take place.

[16/50] The temple, filled with preachers and sermons taking place. Enough altars for everyone.

The Kindness of Strangers

stargrace November 7, 2015 0Comment

[11/50]

For a few weekends now I’ve been taking my two priests (Oshi, Maivis) over to F26 on the Xanadu map for sermons. I leave them up for the entire weekend, and when it’s my turn, I run a sermon. If we have enough players (7 total, all have to be premium) my prayers get re-set from the 5-a-day limit, and I’m able to earn a bit more faith for the day. Otherwise, I just wait the 3h timer to sermon again. In order for sermons to work “properly” everyone should leave their characters online even when they have to go AFK. The characters don’t need to do anything, they just need to stand around. Unfortunately there are always a few who tend to log out right after their sermons. When you do that, it means the rest of the preachers (you can only preach every 30 minutes due to alignment gains) won’t get the gains from having you around.

When the sermons dipped below the .120 required for prayer re-sets, I sent them back home. On the forums the next day I received a message from the owner of the sermon deed, and she had an interesting proposition for me. She mentioned that her time in Wurm as of late has been strained, and that she was longing for other games. She didn’t want to see her two deeds fall into disuse (and thus become disbanded properties) so she was offering me two deeds completely free of charge, so long as I agreed to keep them running for as long as possible. One deed is the area where sermons have been held and there’s also a market in the same place, and the second deed is a maze that players can adventure through. Each place costs a few silver a month in upkeep, but are lovely locations that have a lot of history for the area.

I already own two of my own deeds, but I really dislike it when people leave (for whatever reason) and then seeing their deeds become disbanded. I get that it’s the nature of the game, but it still makes me sad. So, I agreed.

Maivis (my priest) would take over the sermon / market deed, and the mayor came with the deed to the maze, so there was nothing for me to do in that regard except make sure that there was enough upkeep paid to keep it running. No problem there. While I had three of my characters settled at the sermon location, a few more stopped by – enough for us to run weekend sermons with prayer resets.

Perfect!

It was completely unexpected, and I had no inclination that I’d be taking over these deeds. I’m thankful that the owner trusted me enough with her hard work, both places are beautiful. She also included a few champion pets, such as the wolf pictured above – I know it currently looks like a zombie, but that’s a left over effect from Halloween, and is actually a wolf.

The community is just part of the reason I love Wurm Online, and one of the major reasons I continue to play, even 6 years later.