Category: Gaming

I do a lot of traveling in Wurm Online, not only on my home server (which I consider to be Deliverance) but also to other servers. I currently own two deeds, one on Deliverance, and a second one on Pristine. After working on my deed for a while I get restless feet, and decide to go poking around and see what everyone else is up to.

Yesterday as I was wandering back to my boat on the Independence server I came across the magnificent castle pictured above. Not only was it one of the largest and best planned multi-story houses I’ve seen, they also had a really unique chess board created in the lawn outside out of statuettes. I know I’ve seen chess boards created in other games (EQ, EQ2, Rift) but it still makes me smile and almost giddy to see this type of creativity.

One neat thing to note here, is that this castle is done in stone, which is a lot of work. The majority of the multi story buildings I have seen are done in wood because they take the least amount of effort. For stone houses you need to mine rock shards. Turn those shards into bricks. Dig clay, dig sand, combine clay and sand to make mortar. Each wall is 20 mortar + 20 bricks. For a wooden house you need 1 large nail and 20 planks per wall.

There’s really no question, the stone houses look amazing for the work involved.

 

My deed on Pristine is really coming along. I’ve got a tannery, a smithy, my house, a kitchen, and I’ve gained some really helpful abilities, like 21 body strength which means I can bash down useless walls. The wooden fence that used to be at the front of the property is removed, and in its place I’m planning a shipyard. My hours in-game lately have been spent working on my guard tower. To build it requires 100 planks, 500 bricks, and 500 clay. I spent the first day digging up 500 clay and placing it into backpacks in my row boat. See, the cargo hold of a row boat is tiny and items only stack in piles of 100. So instead of filling my boat with 100 clay, I filled my boat with 10 backpacks, and then filled each backpack with 75 clay. Needless to say I shouldn’t need any clay for a while. Or at least until I decide to convert all of my wooden buildings to stone. I haven’t done that yet because you need 30 masonry to create stone houses, and so far I’m only at 28 (and most of that is because of working on the guard tower).

There’s a lot of debate going on in the forums about Spirit Templars, basically what it comes down to is that players can spend an extra 1s a month per guard, and these guards will kill anything aggressive that wanders through your deed (or attempt to kill, they are not immune to damage). Some people are upset at this because it can essentially make your deed a ‘meat farm’ where you don’t have to do any work but get all of this wonderful meat “for free”. Others are upset because players crossing your deed are able to butcher the dead animals with their low quality tools, and are not able to take the meat. So if you’re looking to raise your own butchering skill, they’ve ruined that for you.

Personally speaking, I don’t really care if someone hires a spirit templar or two and then butchers their own meat. I don’t butcher on someone else’ deed, it’s just impolite. I also don’t have my own spirit templar. I’ve never been a fan of these ghost guards, and I find the extra 2s to hire them + 1s a month not worth their value. That’s why I’m building a guard tower. In the end it’s your own personal choice, and what someone else does with their deed or how they handle their deed has very little impact on my play style.

[11:26:49] You see a guard tower under construction. Ql: 2.9443426, Dam: 0.0. The guard tower needs 389 clay, and 397 stone brick, and 100 plank to be finished.

I’ll get there. Eventually.

I’ve been having a lot of fun on my ‘escape’ character over on the Pristine server. The deed is pretty much formed (although yesterday I ripped up a bunch of it to create a new farm) and I’ve been working away on my first boat.

Making a boat is a monumental task for a new player, not only does it require a lot of pieces but the skills needed to attach those pieces to the boat can be a pain.

• 2x Oar
• 1x Mooring rope
• 70x Peg (20x for stern)
• 60x Tenon (10x for stern)
• 61x Hull plank (11x for stern)
• 10x Tar
• 4x Seat
• 3x Keel section

Above is the total required pieces – and don’t forget that in order to properly secure your boat you’re going to need both a lock and a mooring anchor. Boats can be salvaged by other players if you’re missing one or both of these items. Without a lock your boat can be driven by other players. Without a mooring anchor your boat can be dragged away by other players (unless it’s on your deed, then players are unable to drag it).

So far I’m working on the locks and I have all of the components made. Most of them attached. I’ve got 50 tenons and 50 hull planks left to attach, and I have an anchor waiting for me in the mail to turn into a mooring anchor.

Owning a boat will be a huge bonus to me on Pristine, especially since pretty much all of the land around my deed is mountains. It will allow me to go collect clay and bring it back to my deed in what I hope is a painless manor. There’s tar close by to my deed but there’s no clay within sight and that’s a problem. I need 500 for a guard tower I’m creating, and I also want to build a second (or even third) forge, one in my mine and one for cooling things off. Not to mention one day I may want stone houses, and I’ll need clay for mortar.

I’m also creating a small tree farm on my deed so that when I continue to build boats I have a choice of wood to use. I have all tree types so far except lemon, and being able to sail around looking for lemon trees will make that job a lot easier.

I’m excited about my first boat trip, hopefully it goes well. First, I need to make this dang key and attach the rest of those parts.

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