New Fountains and Other Goodies #WurmOnline

wurm.20130206.2313We got some brand new fountain graphics last week, with actual moving water. There are two designs, this one and one that is mostly a tier of bowls upon one another. Same sleek design and same actual spouting water graphic. It’s pretty but there have also been some reports of it slowing down FPS, so if you’re having issues you may want to enable frame limits of 30.

Last week added a lot of unintended bugs, most of them seem to have been ironed out by now thankfully. I have been working diligently on my three deeds. First there’s Les Reveur. This is a very neglected mountain top deed. There’s a trader, and a lot of silver veins. The deed has only two horses and no fields or other animals as it’s more of a pit-stop for when I go exploring or mining. My character Faralithe owns this deed, and I’ve been paying for her account with in-game silver rather than cash. If for some reason I don’t have the in-game silver, I leave her as a freemium.

I also own Mystic Cove, which is a coastal deed south of Les. I’ve decided not to breed so many animals there so I bashed down an entire center area that used to be pens. I’ve decided I’d like a hedge maze there, in the center an area with the fountain posted above. Each hedge uses 5 sprouts of the same type, and I haven’t been out collecting them yet but soon. I am not sure if I want to design the maze first on paper or just wing it. I suppose we’ll see! Mystic Cove also has a trader.

Finally I own Le Cirque des Reves which is in between the two deeds. Another trader (I know, I own three, that’s probably far too many) is there, and it’s a mountain top deed. There’s a large area for breeding horses, and two enormous fields plus a gigantic mine and a number of buildings. I also created a little garden with some benches and statues, lined by maple trees. My Vynora priest stays there since the deed is completed and is perfect for her to work her skills up at. I am thinking I may eventually turn one of the fields into an area for grapes, for wine making.

This weekend I set up a second merchant in a Northern marketplace. So far I haven’t gotten any sales yet, but maybe with time. Sales on Deliverance in general are a bit slow.

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

Farms of Marseille Joins the Alliance #WurmOnline

wurm.20130125.0829Marseille is looking pretty nice these days from the water. I was graciously given some 50 ql lamps, and I can see my way around the village at night without any issue. The shipyard is completed, and I’ve started building a sailboat as well as a corbita.

Because the town is nestled into the mountainside I found that I had very little room for growing crops. These are important as a ship builder, I need wemp for rope and I need cotton for sails. Plus those crops I did grow were being eaten by the small handful of horses and deer I’ve got. So the best solution for me was to deed a second place in behind Marseille, in the wooded area. I’ve been working at flattening the Farms of Marseille for a little while now, and I’ve created a 2×2 farm house in the area too. For now the area has a guard as it’s pretty dangerous back there still, but I’m hoping to be able to remove the guard eventually. Setting up a second deed means that I had to create another character, one that could start out as premium and then drop it if I wanted. I’ve begun working her as a Vynora priest. Whether or not I’ll actively keep the character I’ve not decided. I still have two characters (and two deeds) over on Deliverance, and having four characters and four places to run (even when they are all in close proximity) is a bit of a hassle. For now she has one month of premium, and we’ll see how that goes. In the mean time I’m quite happy with how all the deeds are coming along. Moumix has been gone for the month for work, so it’s been a little lonely, but Kasul gave me a fantastic gift of a brand new brass compass -which I will go into more details about shortly. Especially the reason of why a good compass is important.

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

Playing a Priest #WurmOnline

wurm.20130102.1923_1One of the more ‘unique’ aspects to wurm online is the ability for a character to become a priest. There are currently four in-game (although if you’re on a freedom server you’ll only have the choice of three). I currently have one of each priest, and I absolutely adore playing them, each for their own reasons.

Vynora – I personally feel this priest has a bit of an advantage over all other priests. It’s the ‘most used’ on the freedom servers because it’s the one priest that enchants tools, weapons, and armor. Their most popular spells include Circle of Cunning which increases the experience gain from crafting, and Wind of Ages which increases the speed at which a tool works. Vynora priests are able to chop down trees which is quite handy, but like other priest penalties they can’t dig, mine, or build things that have more than one component like houses or walls (or mailboxes, etc). Vynora are great but they’re pretty much your run of the mill priest.

Magnaron – The second most popular priest (in my opinion). This priest focuses on rocks and mines. Their more popular spells include strongwall which collapses a tile in a tunnel (or reinforces it) and an armor spell that Vynora also has. Magnaron priests are able to mine, so they’re typically locked away from prying eyes, hunched over their pickaxes, squinting when they do finally see the light of day.

Fo – Personally my favorite priest, these are the under dogs. They enchant mailboxes, and they have spells that work on crops and animals that I find incredibly handy. They are also able to charm which is just plain fun. Fo priests are able to dig, along with the other priest penalties like not continuing items with more than one component.

Playing a priest is exciting, and if I were a member of a larger village I would probably play them as my main. As it is, it’s not really a viable thing to do on your own since they’re not able to construct buildings or properly build up a deed. For those playing in larger villages or as an alt, these characters are perfect.

Have you got a priest in Wurm? What’s your favorite?

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

Getting Creative with Multi-Story #WurmOnline

wurm.20130111.0034I 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.

To Spirit Templar or Not #WurmOnline

wurm.20130109.1944

 

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.