Wurm Online

The Great Adventure (Part I) #WurmOnline

stargrace March 7, 2012 No Comments

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Arysh looked at Stargrace, wrinkling her nose as she stuffed 10 large nails into a backpack.

“Yes for the millionth time, I am sure!” Stargrace giggled and playfully tapped her sister on the shoulder. The decision had not been an easy one, Stargrace and Arysh had been together for as long as either girl could remember, even if they were not true sisters.

“Explain to me why again. Why on earth would you want to leave what we have here and go wandering through the woods!” It was something Arysh could just not understand. The priest of Fo loved adventure as much as the next wurmian but she also enjoyed her nice comfortable pinewood bed, and a roaring fire in the oven to take the chill out of her bones at the end of the day.

“There’s no adventure here! Come on now, we barely see two young brown bears a day, if we’re lucky a wolf.”

“You know Moumix has seen a troll not far from here….” Arysh shivered.

“He was probably seeing things. You know how he is.” Stargrace grinned. “Anyhow, I shall not be gone long. Warriorheart will keep me company, and I’ll write about my adventures every day.”

“You know I’ll support you what ever you decide to do, but I still think you’re crazy.”

“It’s just something I must do, sister. Trust me I’ll be alright.”

With that, Stargrace strapped on her backpack, and started leading her new foal to whatever adventures awaited her. Getting started would not be easy. She had packed only the basics of survival, a few nails so she could set up a home without having to look for iron right away, a frying pan, two eggs from the hen that had been recently laid, some sheets, and a handful of tools. She also packed away two potatoes and onions, it would do her no good if she wandered off only to starve.

As she walked the well-worn path from Fippy’s Keep she ran into problems almost immediately. The fog was so thick she could barely see three feet in front of her, and Warriorheart stumbled down the cobble road, raising such a clatter that creatures from all around poked their nose out to take a bite. She limped through the woods, using up her meager supply of cotton rags almost right away. Taking refuge in Jesse’s house she planned out her next move which was to climb up a nearby hill and scout along the top. She wasn’t looking for anything in particular, but she would know when she found it.

Rescue Mission #WurmOnline

stargrace March 3, 2012 3 Comments

One thing WurmOnline still has that many other games do not (Vanguard also still has this feature) is corpse retrievals. I’m talking full out when you die you lose everything except your deed and merchant papers retrievals. All your tools, keys, weapons, gear, gone. When you die you also lose skills, a lot of games still have this method of death penalty, where you lose skills or experience or your armor takes some damage. In Wurm it is VERY dangerous to die because half of the time if you’ve been out wandering you have no idea where you are. You also re-spawn at Green Dog if you don’t own a deed, or you can choose to spawn at your deed. If your allies are close by you can also chose to spawn at one of their deeds. I was not so lucky.

It was 1:30am and I was incredibly tired. Arkenor was nice enough to sail be down to the area where I had died, and once I had retrieved my corpse (it was spiders who got me the first time) I decided that to make the trip worth while, I would attempt to charm a raging bear and bring her/him home for the bear breeding program. Now, bears on their own are not too bad. Raging bears, were a mistake.

The bear went into a frenzy on me right away, hit me four times in a row, and down I went like a sack of potatoes. Dead. Again.

Ouch.

Normally death doesn’t bother me, it’s a natural part of this game, losing my items is quite painful these days because they’re high quality. They also include useful items like my Fo statue which I use to cast spells. No statue means no spells. Having no back up weapons was probably also poor thinking on my part. Because I was frustrated I logged off, that’s just the normal thing to do. I came back to the situation this morning with a clear mind (and some sleep) and felt much better. I now had a choice. Do I go after the corpse and risk dying a third time (it was a good 30-45 minute walk through dangerous lands) or do I start from scratch.

I probably wouldn’t have minded starting from scratch except for one thing. My keys. I really didn’t want to leave the keys to my boat and my deed just floating around the lands of wurm. So I grabbed.. well, nothing. I headed out without armor, no compass (I’m getting much better at figuring out where I am without one these days), no creature by my side. I was able to walk without having to regenerate any stamina because I had no weight.

I found my corpse, grabbed all my belongings, bee-lined straight for my boat, and sailed home. Lesson learned, stay away from raging bears. Even if I had of been able to handle a hit or two, there’s no way I would have been able to continue with that as the bear aged and grew in power. Animals hurt more the older they are.

It was still a great adventure.

Glorious Days #WurmOnline

stargrace March 1, 2012 No Comments

One of my favorite spells as a priest of Fo is charm. It works as a tame spell, giving the exact same levels of loyalty. Since I reached 40 faith (and thus 40 favor) I’ve been trying to find exotic animals to tame and bring back to my deed. I was looking in specific for unicorns, they’re not very handy creatures but what girl doesn’t like a unicorn. Yesterday, finally, my wishes were answered. It was unicorn day in Wurm, or at least that’s what it seemed like. They were everywhere. I ended up with four of them, a hardened, slow, and two sly. They brighten up my deed quite a bit (the slow is a very bright blue colour, the sly are green).

I purchased 500 bricks from a player who was offering to sell them for 1s and that included delivery. Bricks are really annoying to make, especially since I had already made 300 and still had 500 to go. I have no issue purchasing bulk goods or rare goods from players, especially when I have a budget of 10s a month to help invest in the market. The bricks were delivered without incident (highly recommend the folks who did so) and I was able to finally complete the walls of my 2nd deed, Fippy Keep.

Now that the walls are done I can take my time working on the areas that I want to improve, piece by piece. I want to join the animal pens together between the two deeds since their perimeters join, and create a very large pen. Animals only require one tile to live healthy lives, but I’m really more fond of giving them more space.

I would still like to find a champion unicorn, as well as a raging one. I’m also still on the look for eggs / hens / alert dogs, and added to that list are cave bugs. I think it would be a neat endeavor to breed cave bugs. I doubt I could give you a proper answer why, I just think they’re interesting and it would be nice to have a supply of dye-making bugs.

I found a water tile on the Keep deed yesterday and built my first fountain. It’s in a fantastic location that is close to all of my buildings, and it looks pretty neat. Hopefully now that those pesky walls are up I can spend some time making the place look good, and do a lot of replanting. I want to surround the outside with trees so that the keep blends into the forest. As soon as it’s looking a bit better I’ll post some videos of the place, as well as more screen shots.

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

A Screenshot of a Horse That Has Nothing To Do With This Story #WurmOnline

stargrace February 29, 2012 No Comments

Yesterday was a day for grand adventures in WurmOnline. It started with me charming bears so that Arkenor can begin his bear breeding program (they are wonderful creatures, especially for pulling carts and combat against other creatures). I tried to pass the bear to another (you can give pets as gifts) but alas the bear had a different idea and instead decided to try to eat all of us. Thanks to the powers of Fo (I can’t stress enough how much I love being a priest) I was able to re-charm the creature. Arkenor was the brave soul who stood in front of the bear and danced around distracting it so that I was able to cast the spell.

Later on in the day I decided to hunt for hens (again). I wandered North, and spotted a mine on my neighbours land. Being the curious sort that I am, I entered the mine. In front of me almost directly was a sign that said “danger” and then a very sharp drop. I didn’t realize just how close to the edge of that drop I was, and I fell. Onto an adolescent starving scorpion. I then spent the next 3 minutes running back and forth along the hallway I found myself trapped in, screaming about a scorpion trying to kill me.

It didn’t end well for either of us.

I died, wandered back to my corpse, and noticed that the scorpion was so incredibly determined to eat me that he had scaled the walls of the mine and was sitting at the entrance. I lured him out with the scent of flesh, and then backed around. Toggling ‘climb’ on I was able to lower myself far enough down to grab my corpse and run (slowly, corpses are heavy) back out of the mine. Later on in the day as I was praying I noticed a shadow cross over me.

The scorpion was back, and he wanted revenge.

Thankfully, I was on my own deed and it was just a matter of bringing the creature over to the guard tower and screaming in local for help. Two guards rushed over – one died in the battle. I butchered the kill, but didn’t get any of the bits that are used to make red dye (shame). So why is there a screen shot of a horse directly in my face above? Well. I THOUGHT I was taking screen shots of my glorious battles, but it turns out that I completely forgot the command for in-game screen shots (it’s F11 I believe, not print screen!) and so that was the result of my endevour.

It was a great day for adventures, that’s for sure. As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!