Wurm Online

Saturday: Video Game Roundup

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I’m not playing nearly as many games at once as I used to play, but I still manage to keep pretty busy. I decided to do a weekly roundup of the games I’m playing with a little bit of a blurb about each one. I don’t really know anyone who plays only one game these days – so if you do, let me know! I’ve always been envious of those who were able to commit to just one game at a time. First up!

WildStar

My alt leveling has been put on hold while a friend of mine returns to the game. Right now they’re making their way through Whitevale and I’ve been having a blast mentoring them. I’ve found soldier holdouts that I missed when I was passing through along with other collectibles. I’ve mentioned this a few times now, but I’m very happy that WildStar has a mentor system, and I think all games (I’m looking at you WoW) need this sort of system. It encourages me to play with friends and motivates me to explore zones I’ve already been through. I always found it sad when games give you zero reason to revisit an area after the developers put all that work into it. When a new expansion releases if you travel to the older zones they’re always empty. It just seems like a waste.

Diablo 3

Not exactly an MMO, but I’ve been playing this on the PS4 (my PSN is Stargrace if you’re looking to add me) and I’m having a lot of fun. Unlike on the PC, my hand never gets sore from holding the controller buttons down while I attack. I purchased the game some time ago but today was the first day I actually spent any time playing. I’m level 20 now, and I also had a mailbox full of legendary items for me to open. One really neat thing about Diablo 3 is that when you’re playing it you’ll occasionally get items to drop that get sent to your friends. They’re great ways to motivate them to log in! I had to be level 11 before I could wear the items but once I did mobs just melted away. I’m still trying to get a hang of the controls, but I’m not doing too bad. Since I haven’t actually completed the game on the PS4 before, I can’t play at a very high difficulty, but I’m hoping to ‘beat’ the base game and unlock the other modes. One thing that frustrates me is that this game is not cross platform, so even though I can play on the PC and on the PS4, my accounts don’t really interact together and my PC characters don’t show up on my PS4 or vice versa. I wish it were more like FFXIV in that regard.

EQ2

I heard that crafting writs won’t be fixed until Tuesday and that has slowed my progression down a bit. My coercer is still sitting at level 28, and I’m not sure if I’ll be able to get 29 today or not. I think I’ll attempt it, but I’m taking a much more casual approach now, so we’ll see how it goes. I did manage to level up a few of my other alts to 10 since there’s no writs to do, but I’ll hold off before getting them above 15. I may take them to Halas to do the crafting quest chain that’s available there (it gives a nice selection of rares, and the ability to purchase the 10-19 advanced books). I’m still having fun playing, and that’s what really matters.

Wurm Online

I’ve been logging my priests in to get their max allotment of prayers each day, but I haven’t done a lot else besides that lately. My Najho priests are just over 42 skill, and it’s not until 70 skill that they’ll really open up as a priest. Then I’ll be able to cast strongwall along with genesis, two skills I’m really eager for. Once I’m able to strongwall I can fix the mine that I broke over at my main deed. I ended up mining straight and creating a drop shaft instead of mining up. An easy fix, once I get the proper faith to be able to cast the spell. I’ve also been working on my animal husbandry and breeding horses / sheep / cows / bison. I’m trying to get a few 5 speeds, but since my skill is only 50 at this time (on both Stargrace and Maivis, my Vynora priest) I typically end up with 4 speeds + one extra useless trait. I know it takes time, and I have the patience to see it through.

Other

Besides the big names at the top, I’ve also spent some time playing Tropico 5 on steam (I’m Stargrace there, too, if you want to add me). The humor just fits with my mood perfectly, and it’s very relaxed and casual. I’ve also spent some time playing Terraria, working on my home and building up a supply of components for future projects. I think I would still rather play Minecraft but since I reformatted my machine not too long ago I also forgot to save my Minecraft world, along with the castle I had built, and that really deterred me from starting all over again. I’ll probably create another world before too long just because the game is so dang fun.

 

That’s it! Those are the games I’m currently playing and what I’ve been up to. I hope everyone is having an amazing weekend so far, and that you find yourself with at least a little time to play a game or two that you adore. As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

 

Xanadu’s Problem with Spawns

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I own two deeds, one in the South Eastern section of Xanadu, and the second is North Central. Each deed is completely unique from the other, and I use them for different things. The Northern one is for my priests to hang out at, it has a large area for animals, fields for farming, a robust kitchen, and the deed is completed so the priests need to only be concerned with repairing things and making sure there’s 30 days of upkeep stashed aside.

The Southern deed is still a work in progress. This deed is constantly changing and I haven’t decided what I actually want to do with it yet. It has the larger mine, is closer to my alliance members, and functions very nicely.

That being said, there is one distinctive characteristic that the Northern deed has that the Southern one lacks, and that is aggressive creatures. In fact when I used my ‘get info’ skill to tell me about the aggressive creatures in the area, the Southern deed showed absolutely ZERO aggressive mobs. Meanwhile, my second deed displayed 239 mobs on track, and that was after a handful of players had been hunting in the area. The lower portion of Xanadu has been well known for the lack of aggressive creatures while they seem to swarm the further North you go. There’s a seven paged thread on it active on the forums, but no word about whether or not this issue will ever actually be fixed. It has been a problem since Xanadu opened.

I find it frustrating that in order to get any hunting done you need to either attack the non-aggressive creatures that are around, or you need to own a hunting lodge (or completely move) to the Northern parts of the server. If neither of those options suit you, you can always go hunting on another server, but of course that takes up even more precious time.

It shouldn’t be this difficult to get aggressive creatures spread throughout the server and I really hope one day we see a solution. In the meantime, I’m thankful I have two deeds.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

Even When You’re Experienced, It’s Dangerous

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Oh Wurm. I decided I’d go out hunting for a bit. I wanted to re-stock some natural substance supplies and so I decided to take a large cart so that I could fill it with corpses. My character has over 70 fight skill, drake armor, and a weapon that has great enchants but could use some improving to take it to a higher level (hence why I’m working up my weapon smithing). Problem is I completely forgot that carts move much slower than just plain riding a horse. That, and I didn’t have my best speed horses attached to it. So when I was tired of beating up critters I decided that I would just “run away” from anything that was following me. Nope. That most certainly did not work.

What I ended up with instead was over 6 trolls chasing me, along with their friends which included various spiders, hellhounds, crocodiles, bears, wildcats, and scorpions. I decided I would just stay on the road I was traveling and that hopefully I would run into a settlement that either had a gate, a guard tower, or a templar, but no, the entire road that went on forever was devoid of any of these things. As you travel on an incline you also move even slower, so eventually I just gave up and let the inevitable happen. I just could not shake the creatures that were tailing me.

Once I died and revived myself back at home (minus all gear, horses and cart) I decided to go back, and this time I’d take my fastest horse. I didn’t bother with any gear, this time I knew I’d be able to out run anything that was coming after me. Since I had pretty much already cleared the path, it wasn’t too hard. It did take me a good 20 minutes to run back out to where I had died, but in the grand scheme of things I didn’t mind. Sure, I could have summoned my corpse back using karma – but then I would have lost the horses. What I decided to do instead of taking the very slow cart all the way back home was to unhitch my two horses, and lead them while riding my fastest. This allowed me to gather up all of my belongings, and leave behind a mystery cart for someone else to find (and it’s packed with corpses but nothing else). I simply did not want to risk dying again. Each time you die you lose a bit of skill, and I had had enough.

After a long adventure with nothing at all to show for it aside from my bumps, bruises, and lost skill, I made it back to my deed. Needless to say I’ll be sticking closer to home in the future, and I’ll kill as I go instead of trying to out run all the things around my place.

Adventures with Nahjo

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People on Xanadu have taken to calling one of the latest religions Nacho, when referring to Nahjo, and I can understand why. Make it much easier to remember and say! In my post yesterday I mentioned that I was contemplating swapping my Fo priests over to this new religion. The most important thing is that this re-sets your faith (favor, mana) and you have to start over again. First you have to become a follower and raise it to 30, then you can be converted to a priest and continue raising it from there. That’s where I’m at now. I found a priest not too far away from home and sailed over last night. They converted me without too many issues, and I headed back home.

Actually the hardest problem with being a follower of Nahjo was creating an altar. I can’t create a metal one because those require blessing (which requires a priest), and the stone altars can only be created in an area that doesn’t already have a priest ‘domain’ in play. I eventually settled on an area inside my mine. Above and below ground counts as two different areas, so you can place an altar in each. Since neither character is a priest it means I can do the mundane things that priests are unable to do (like continue items) at least for the next few weeks. By the end of the day my faith was sitting at 7, a nice start.

Magnaron statues are the statue of choice for Nahjo followers, so I created a few of those and handed them out to my characters as well. Aside from standing around making sure I get my prayers in, there’s not a lot for these characters to do *yet) so I swapped back to my main character and began working on my natural substance.

I created 300 healing covers and raised my skill from 32 to 37, and am looking forward to reaching 50 eventually. The skill levels up pretty easily so far, but I expect that will slow down. It’s a great use of the few thousand animal bits I have in a bulk storage bin on deed though, and I’m hoping to make some really awesome dye over time. That does mean that my support beam project is slightly on hold for a bit, but I’m still hoping to create the side materials used for it. No matter how ‘done’ I ever think I am in game, there are always so many things to do. That’s one of the great things about Wurm Online.

Not a Game for the Impatient

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I have some goals in Wurm that I’ve been trying to accomplish, and because I am a naturally impatient person, I’m finding them more and more difficult. For example, I made the decision to swap my Fo priests over to one of the newer religions, Nahjo (or Nacho, as they’re calling the deity on Xanadu). Nahjo priests can cast strongwall as well as genisis and courier. That means that if I could eventually level up my faith (and thus favor) I wouldn’t need all three of the base priests to do what I want to do, I could just keep my Vynora along with a Nahjo (or two, for linking). The problem is that in order to swap my character’s religion, I need to find an actual follower and have them convert me. Then I need to have a priest convert me when I hit 30 faith (in a month or so). Finding people who are in proximity to my priests and who are on at the same time as me is a daunting task, especially when I want things done yesterday.

Skills are another thing that raise incredibly slow – which is one of the reasons I love Wurm but also tests my patience. The game is certainly not for everyone. For those who are willing to put in the time, the rewards are fantastic (IMO, as someone who enjoys the game of course).

Speaking of yesterday, my main character (Stargrace) is in a bit of a bind, which should get sorted out by the end of today hopefully. I recently made a friend 11 sets of tools for alts, joined his village and used my karma to port there to deliver them. Then there’s a 24h waiting period before you can join another village, so I’m waiting for that to pass so I can port myself back home. I really should raise my meditation skill high enough so that I can port myself every 12 hours without using karma (path of knowledge). It will take me quite some time to get it that high, but had I been doing it all the time that I played Wurm I’d be there already. I just dislike having to meditate, for whatever reason. Most of my characters stop when they’re on rank 7.

Once Stargrace is safe and sound back home, it’s back to working on support beams to reinforce the mine that links my deed with those of my main alliance team. We have an enormous tunnel that links our deeds (though it is not yet completed) and portions of it keep collapsing, so I’d like to get that fixed before too long. Aside from that, it’s just general skill leveling going on while I wait for the impalong to begin. I haven’t decided if I’m going to bring any raw materials yet, but I’ll probably donate some depending on what they need.

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

Nomadic Gamer