Stargrace

Lets Build a Tunnel #WurmOnline

Yesterday was an incredibly busy day in Wurm Online, though the screenshot above doesn’t exactly do it much justice. It has been one of my goals on Pristine to create a tunnel that goes from the front of my property (along the shore) to the top of the mountain that I live on. This serves a few purposes, but the biggest is just that it’s a quick way to get down to my boat or the mines from within my property. First I had to mine the tunnel upwards until I got a message that if I were to mine any further, I would be buried alive. This tells me that I’m at the surface but that the surface tile is not rock.

Next was to dig down on the surface (after counting tiles to make sure I was lining up) and then to tunnel and open an entrance. If everything went as it should, I would have a mine entrance. It did work out except for one small issue. The entrance is on quite a slope which prevents people from walking normally. I can enter the mine with a large cart drawn by horses but for some reason I can’t exit said mine. It is perplexing. Thankfully my neighbour Naitey offered to help me out with the entire project, so he busied himself helping me dig and helping me mine and then applying concrete to the tiles we need to fix the slope of. It’s not completely fixed yet but it will be eventually and in the mean time I do have a tunnel and a way down.

Aside from my glorious tunnel I’ve been working on my craft building. The second floor has been started, though I need to get more clay and make more bricks to finish it off. I also built a little horse pen attached to the building so that my cart pulling animals are within reach. The rest of my pens are down a ways, a good place for the Fo priest to go for animal husbandry but not really practical for when you want to quickly hitch a cart. I also removed one of the walls from the building and added another double door so the cart and horses can pass easily. Once the building is done I’ll post a bunch of screenshots with my progress.

All in all, a great weekend building some really neat stuff. As always, happy gaming no matter where you find yourself!

Sometimes the Loot Gods Smile #WoW

Every so often the loot gods smile down on me and I win something I can actually use. It’s rare, there’s no way I should let that one piece of gear entice me to thinking that I will constantly get something I want and can use, but it’s just enough of a tease that I keep coming back for more.

Yesterday I was headed off to the Timeless Isle in order to do my daily and as chance would have it there was a flex raid going on for the celestials. I’ve talked about them before, four giant creatures that roam around a center arena. You get an achievement for defeating all four but you only qualify for loot from one kill per week. Not per encounter either, just one total. It makes sense really. The loot that drops also comes from regular raids (there’s also PvP gear) and if players could attempt it every week on multiple encounters what would be the point in raiding.

I try to defeat at least one celestial a week but it doesn’t always work out that way as I’m spending less and less time on the island. Yesterday when I arrived I saw that a celestial was almost dead, and as luck would have it the group stuck around to take down a second one. I stayed outside of the raid but still contributed and decided on a whim to use my seal for an extra loot roll.

That’s when the loot gods smiled at me for a brief moment, and I won a pair of ilevel 553 pve gloves. Sure, they’re for my DPS priest spec and I spend most of my time healing unless I’m out and about on my own (I keep forgetting that I can designate loot to go towards any of my specs) but they were still an enormous upgrade and I’m really glad I won them. They’re my 2nd BiS (best in slot) and I couldn’t be more pleased.

I may spend an enormous amount of time working on pet battles, collecting silly mounts, and working on pointless factions, but I also enjoy being good at my class and one of the measures of being ‘good’ in world of warcraft, is gear. That doesn’t mean you can’t still be good without, but the game IS very gear driven (after all, you can’t even queue for some LFR without having a specific ilevel first, no matter how good a player you are). Is it the only qualification? Of course not, you can have the best ilevel ever and still be a really shoddy player. It just happens to be one more thing in an ever growing list of things that I enjoy working on while I play.

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

Fo Priest Reaches 90 Faith (and Construction Continues) #WurmOnline

You have just received the title ‘Enlightened’!

My Fo priest finally reached 90 faith, which I am very happy about. Nothing especially fancy happens with that much faith aside from the fact that she gained a new title and has more mana to play with, but it’s still a goal none the less.

Construction on the deed is going well. I’ve finished the main floor to the crafters hall and have been working on the second level which will be for storage. Once that is complete I want to spend some time working on my fine carpentry, I owe my neighbour Naitey some signs for his deed and I have a few beds that I need to improve as well as other odds and ends.

In the mornings when I log in I have my priest do her ‘chores’ which consist of tending the fields, grooming the animals, praying 5x (that’s the max a day without sermons or server resets), checking the tree farm for sprouts, and feeding the hen. Once those general chores are done whatever else I want to do can follow my whims for the day. I like the order that Wurm Online provides, and while the game is certainly not for everyone, it still remains one of my absolutely favorite sandboxes.

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

Factions and Busy Work #WoW

In pretty much every MMO I have ever played, there is ‘busy work’ to keep you logging in. A few years ago it became dailies and with Pandaria (at release) pretty much ALL busy work was dailies. It became a boring grind for me and was one of the main reasons I quit. Logging in to complete 20-30 dailies was just not my idea of fun. These days there is a lot more to do – but I regret not doing those dailies back when they were relatively fresh.

There are a few factions I really need. One is Shado-Pan. I need this to purchase a few enchanting recipes, like the weapon ones I want. This faction isn’t too bad because I only need revered not exalted – but the dailies themselves are annoying.

Another faction I need is August Celestials, and that one is also for some recipes.

I have also never finished faction for the Anglers, nor for the folks that sell serpent riding (Order of the Cloud Serpent). That’s right, NONE of my characters, even my main, have this skill. The problem is I still hate dailies, especially when it comes to completing them on multiple characters. It’s a bother for me to remember to do my crafting dailies, let alone the multiples that are involved in farming and every other faction under the sun. While it may be a successful method in getting players to log in daily, it is one of my least favorite things to do in game. How about you, do you enjoy logging in for dailies, or are they something you could do without? Let me know in comments!

It’s the Simple Things #WurmOnline

Last week during a server glitch I lost two new animals that I had brought home. Animals update on the server much later than things like skills do, and so when we crashed they reverted to their positions before I captured them and brought them home. Thankfully I had branded both animals right away, so when they were released back to the wild, they kept their brands. Branding animals means you can lead them off of any deeds they may have wandered onto.

I looked for my hen for hours, and could not find her. Then a few days later while visiting a neighbour I spotted her in the brush! Hens don’t exactly serve a purpose in game – but they CAN lay eggs. You can also name those eggs so the chicks that hatch are named when they are born. Not all eggs will hatch into chicks, but I’m hoping at least one out of my batch does. In order for an egg to hatch it has to decay, hence the pile of named eggs in the screenshot above.

I’ve been working on completing my houses before I get too much further in skills. Last week I built a workshop along with a villa and a shipyard, but so far the buildings have sat as plans and I had not actually completed any of them. The workshop is first on my list and I purchased a rare forge that was up for auction at a reasonable price. I’d love a loom, but for now I’m happy with the one I’ve created.

All in all, the new deed is going very well. It will be nice to have completed with the base buildings so I can continue the skills I want to work up (fine carpentry being one of them).

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