2016

Charming Wolves in the Wilderness

stargrace April 11, 2016 0Comment

Some players have been making note of a lack of mobs in the northern areas of the map, so they went down south to where everything has apparently been spawning together in clumps. Mizova and a few friends took down 600+ mobs according to them and it actually did make a difference because when I logged in this morning there were wolves, wild cats, and other critters all over the place. Everyone mentioned that they too had seen a sudden increase in the spawns around their areas – now that less mobs were hanging out together all in one place.

As luck would have it I stumbled across a champion wolf. I charmed it with my Fo priest, found a male wolf, and in 7 days I should have a little baby wolf wandering around the pen. I’ll need the Fo priest to reach 60 faith so that she’s not aggro to the animals, for now it’s not exactly safe to be around them. They do look awesome though. I’m hoping to capture two brown bears in the future to breed, you can hitch young and adolescent brown bears to your cart. Having some with a few speed stats would be ideal.

We’ll see how that goes.

Moumix, Maya, and I have also planted a community deed for the three of us down in the south. It’s enormous, we pooled our earnings together so that we could get it as large as possible. There’s lots of free room down there so we’re not intruding on anyone and we’re away from the hustle and bustle. In the mean time, I continue to work on my skills, I’ve been trying to get a few points in each skill each day. They raise pretty nicely so even though I’m doing a bit of grinding each day, it doesn’t necessarily feel like it.

I created a leather hat and some gear for myself, improved it to 35-40ql so it’s better than the beginner gear. I also improved all of my tools to 50ql, a great start. I’m hoping to be around 60ql before too long. Moumix is also constructing a corbita to move goods from the central deed down south. Ideally I’d love a knarr, but I don’t have the skills quite yet to craft one, I need tailoring and rope making for the sails and other components. I’m pretty excited about moving down south – it’s a coastal deed so it’ll be fun to make a big grand waterfront for boats.

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

Docks, Boats, (more) Buildings, and Even Some Pens

stargrace April 10, 2016 0Comment

I live beside a very tiny lake and even though it’s very tiny I decided that my house needed a little dock to spruce it up, along with a building that could act as a shipyard, and yes, a little boat. The boat (a rowboat pictured above) is intentional, I needed to do some dredging and that’s the simplest way so that you can still see the corners of the tiles as you lower them. Everything built up pretty quickly, and the dock looks great.

In the meantime I noticed that my horses were stomping all over the farm fields I had planted, wrecking the plants and smashing them to bits. I decided that instead of re-planting all of the crops they kept stumbling over, I would build new pens to the side of the property. This required me to expand a few tiles (no big deal) and then I flattened the area and created some iron fences. I also made a few lights to help the property at night. I quite like how it all turned out. I don’t have a lot of room for animals, but that’s OK, this round it’s taking a back seat to other skills I’m working up.

Moumix came over and improved my mallet to 61ql, which I really appreciate. I in turn improved his metal tools to 50ql. I’m not quite at the point where I can make 60ql, but I’ll get there. I’ll need to raise my mining a bit so that I can keep the ore I need in stock. Since there’s always so much to do, it just hasn’t been a main focus (yet). We’ll see how that goes throughout the week.

Another happy day on Sklotopolis, in Wurm Unlimited!

And Down Comes Kyklops, Rare Bone and All

stargrace April 9, 2016 0Comment

We gathered at noon PST, setting up our tents, riding our carts. A few wagons parked back at the camp so it wasn’t too crowded. In total over 33 unique individuals took part in the slaying of the Ancient Starving Kyklops. It was a long fight and there was a moment or two when I didn’t think we were going to make it. Both of my characters took 70% dmg from a single AoE hit. I backed off with the alt afterward and watched from the sidelines so that the stronger fighters could take part in the defeat.

In the end, the massive creature did fall. We all earned titles, and blood that can be used for leatherworking potions. There was loot to be rolled on, including a rare bone. RNG was not on my side (when is it ever) but I did congratulate those who won, and I did have an amazing time at my first server event. Everyone listened (fairly) well to the instructions from our fearless leaders and there was zero drama – all the more reason why I’m playing on this particular server. I think everyone had a great time, and I look forward to our next event like this. Dragons and other uniques can respawn on the server, but I would imagine it will be a while before that happens. Wouldn’t want too many rare items floating around, makes things a bit redundant otherwise.

Speaking of rares! While working on a sword (to join my large maul in my weapon collection) I managed to turn the item rare. I was very happy about that because as my luck would have it just earlier in the day I tried to cast a spell on my rare small anvil, and instead I shattered the damn thing, which destroys it. Sigh.

I’ll work my alignment and channeling up quite a bit further before I attempt any more casts on rare items I own, that’s for sure.

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

Altars, Fences, and Disbands – Oh My!

stargrace April 8, 2016 0Comment

Another day, another round of Wurm Unlimited. After having spent most of the previous day mining, and uncovering zero useful ores in my mine I decided that the best thing to do would be to disband the deed and just leave a mine door up for the off chance that I wanted to return (for iron, or low quality copper, the two ore I managed to find). This would free up my alt to find a better place if I happened to stumble into one. For now both characters reside at my main deed, Quail Ridge.

I also stopped procrastinating on that wooden fence that needed replacing, and I knocked it down without too much trouble. I crafted a few 40 ql large mauls which means things take time, but it’s not too bad. Replaced the fence with iron instead of wood and as you can tell by the screenshot above, it’s much improved. I also knocked down my stone altar and replaced it with two gold altars. One for Fo, and one for Vynora. It’s hard to see, but there’s a meditation rug under them too. My Vynora just hit 55.5 faith, and the Fo is at 38.9. I’m eager for the Fo to reach 60 faith.

On a whim I had my Fo cast courier on my mailbox – and she actually succeeded in improving the 30 cast that was already there to 45. The better cast you have on your mailbox, the faster your mail will be delivered. I attempted a few more casts after to see if I could raise it even further – but I think that first cast may have just been luck, I failed channeling both times. I haven’t been grinding channeling, just casting the odd spell here and there, so that’s something I’ll want to work on eventually.

Saturday marks the Kyklops slaying! I’ll be bringing both my characters over to take part, hopefully I’m able to get a hit in on the mob. I know it tends to get crowded pretty quickly so we’ll just have to see how that goes. I’m very excited in any case.

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

Then There Were Two

stargrace April 7, 2016 0Comment

I buckled down yesterday and completed the second house on my deed, otherwise known as  my storage building. I figure I’ll stock bulk items into this building so that they’re not taking up room in the main crafting building, and I can easily load and unload items into a cart or eventually a wagon. It’s nothing fancy, just a plain stone house with a slate roof, but I think it suits the area.

The building marks the lats major item of construction required for my main deed. I like that it’s quite small, and won’t require a lot of upkeep to keep things looking tidy. I do want to complete a dock area and the land does need more lights, but that will come with time. I also still need to replace the wooden fence with an iron one, it looks pretty rugged this way. There is a server event happening on Saturday that I’m pretty excited about and I’ll be sure to make a post (or two) about it as we get closer.

GL-Freedom brought about a bit of an argument (again) last night, this time from a player who was frustrated over “abandoned” deeds. Because deeds here have no upkeep disbanding abandoned places requires a player to report the abandoned place on the forums. After a given amount of time, if the owner has not been seen and there is no progress on the deed, and no one has replied to the forum post (it takes about 4-8 weeks) the GMs will disband it. The person in channel last night was complaining that it takes time to report these places, and that people who are leaving or going on a break should report that they’re leaving first.

Unfortunately real life isn’t always something we can plan for. If an emergency happens, someone loses their internet, an accident takes place or what have you, the last thing on their mind is going to be logging into a forum so they can announce that they’re leaving the game for xyz amount of time. It’s much easier for those who are actively playing to report a deed, stating they haven’t seen anyone around for the past 4 weeks or that they haven’t seen any progress being made on the deed. As a player I don’t find this inconvenient and I’m glad there’s a method that both allows for the ability to free up land and takes care to protect those who may have to step away for a length of time. Completed and finished deeds are given much more time before they’re considered abandoned, obviously whoever lives there put a lot of time into their place. Still, things happen over time and I think we need to be mindful of that.

I’m coming up on 50 faith with my Vynora priest, just over 36 with the Fo. I worked channeling a bit between other tasks and I’m really pleased with how nicely the skill raises – especially if you have any sleep bonus. I used up my sleep bonus making coal piles so I could get ash to make lye for leather and I’ve been debating donating to the server (again) so that I can get 10 sleep powders. It’s certainly not required but it does make things a bit faster.

I also reached 30 mind logic which means I can queue 4 actions instead of three. How I missed having this! Over all things are going pretty well, and now that most of the deed work is done I can focus on working up some skills. I just have to decide which one…