Take a break = Lose. (Wurm Online – 30 mins/day only)

Never take a break from a game? What madness is this?

Well, as always Wurm is a bit different. Personally, and particularly now that subs are unpopular, once suckered into one I’d prefer to pay my dues and come and go as I please. Money or Time, a lock-in of one or the other is just about acceptable. In this case both are required.  Be warned: if you don’t log in to Wurm the penalties begin to accrue immediately and an upaid for deed disbands. The unpaid deed disbanding part would make sense and seem fair, freeing up the land for another player etc,  except that the rest of the penalties make it all high hokum:

Paid up deed or not, if you don’t repair your stuff  it decays unto nothing (on-deed structures only exempt). You can call repairing stuff optional if you want to. We don’t have a good word for “fake choice”. Repaired stuff loses quality by the way. You are hastening decay with the repair action. It is necessary to endlessly improve also even just to stay still. (There is also a checking action required –  repair/improve sufficiently to keep your stuff is a carpal tunnel risk. Your call.)

If you do not log in, your fields also turn into weeds, your animals die and your mine-doorless mines collapse. Trolls knock down your field walls and any remaining livestock promptly wanders off too. Ships sink. BSB’s empty themselves. And the decay rate cranks up the longer you are absent, just by the way. All on a fully paid for deed with enough in the token for more than a month. Not the world’s best deal is it?

Having got that out of the way, I quite like Wurm to be different from what I want, or else it would be called Me, and that would be boring. So until I’m ready to leave completely, I am compromising rather than taking the actual break I would like. It’s nuts though, and a recipe for burnout probably. Add inability to take a break to the reason why people do not stay with Wurm. I’m not the only person to have realised that this degree of stickiness is  ermmm …unattractive.  I’m sure Ganks did a longer post about this but I couldn’t find it and he’ll think I’m stalking him if I crawl over his blog more than I already did this morning. The gist is here in his note on Wurm in this post:

http://gankalicious.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/spring-cleaning-iii.html

Databases is the stock excuse for decay. Well if your game involves making stuff the databases had better be sturdy and fit for purpose. An exit strategy for extra items that doesn’t annoy the paying customer isn’t too hard to create either. Any form of recycling will do it. At the moment I am penalised for databases that can’t cope by having my stuff continually degraded? Guess what, I’ll go along for now, but I’m not overjoyed.  Flavour is another reason given for decay – well nobody sits down to a full meal of salt. A little flavour goes a long way. I won’t go into the “realism” debate. There’s a tranche of players that think it’s a sim, let’s leave them to it while trolls wander through their fields.

So I’ve settled for 30 minutes a day rationing. I do not recommend it, it is not play. But it keeps things ticking over so that if I do feel like actually playing – (ie building ships, making wine, breeding horses, creating houses, smithing etc) I do not have to first break through the equivalent of the Great Wall of China in repairs. By which time the time is gone/I am bored. It is also a good way to skill some things, notably carpentry, fine carpentry and masonry.

Tl:dr – Seeding the big field in Inde takes roughly an hour per week, leaving 2 1/2 hours per week left over for repair/improve and some mining/woodcutting (plus seeding the smaller fields). If I miss a day it’s not too bad. That’s it. Dull as dishwater Wurm 2013. I’ll post if I actually do anything interesting. As item quality improves I intend to cut the time down further. 3 1/2 hours per week is still far too much for make-believe maintenance chores. Meanwhile repair/improve is an ok thing to do last thing at night or while reading the mail. In addition if I’m learning C++ syntax or  something tabbed out I don’t mind mining, so some extra non-play happens that way.

Two more things, I’m now more of a middle player than a noob, meaning when I fix things I can at the same time improve them above middleness in quality which slows decay, (o woopeee – a longer delay before it goes poof). This excercise wouldn’t be great with less skills (which is why I didn’t do it before. Backward diminished returns.) It would either take too long per day or you’d need to curtail your items to very few or kill all your animals. Item curtailment is reasonable up to a point, but bear in mind you will need a whateveritis when you get around to actually playing  – that’s what the item is ostensibly for after all.  Secondly, I have no intention of paying for this kind of thing, so a trader has been set up. I’m a good enough smith for feeding it not to be to onerous and it just about covers deed costs. Premium I pay myself. That might change though. This is after all, not the height of fun. Nor is this a very satisfactory break.

And I do need a break. Not a quit – a break.

The time may come when the stupidness of not being able to take time off whenever I have to/want to gets bigger than the enjoyment I get from being part of the best virtual world out there so far. Retaining skills during a break is only of value if one intends to return, and returning to nothing is very blah. We shall see. Meanwhile, though I don’t have carpal tunnel, my wrists and fingers certainly are feeling quite good and relaxed and unstrained these days.

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How to find the perfect starter village (Wurm 1.0)

There is really only one trick to this, and that’s to match yourself with the right people – it is not too hard. You’ll know what kind of game you prefer to play – fighter, builder, artisan, social climber – whatever. Register a forum account and look for starter villages advertising new players, then use the “members” tab to look for the person who posted the advertisement and have a read of their previous posts. It will give you an idea of what kind of person this is, and you can pretty much wing it from there.

To get names to check out you could also post that you are looking for a village – do a “hello I’m here” post. People tend to respond kindly to these. Once you’re in, the usual pratty attitude to new players can be found here and there, just move on if you come across one of these fools though, and you’ll be fine. Usually though people are happy to advise starters. Sometimes they might be busy, or indifferent. You should be ok.

And when you find a likely starter village, if thorough, visit first. But only if thorough – travel is difficult in Wurm so your first choice is likely to be the area where you’ll stay for quite some time. With this in mind the established spawn starter villages are probably a good place. The Inner City Orphanage springs to mind and I think there is one called The Sanctuary in Deli.

Pitfalls and types of village

Well noobfarming has been tried and tried again but fails every time. Some brainiac always figures that they can set up a factory with new players working for a pittance and then gets upset when they wander off. Fact is you can go it alone on Wurm and it does not take people long to work that out, or alternatively to find a village that does not require indentured labour in return for learning the ropes. If you like this style of play, factories aren’t too hard to spot – look for the terms “hard workers” in the ad 🙂

There are no game penalties for leaving a village that doesn’t suit – however mayors have been known to nurse grudges for years, attached to their chests like the cadavers of dead infants. When reading posts it’s wise to try and guess if this is that sort of person – talk of “quitters” and other terms of abuse directed at people who dare to leave or posts which personally attack other players should alert you,  I would think. You can survive these nuts anyway though. A good village provides an excellent buffer – in fact so does your own deed.

If trading is your thing, silver-interested individuals will post all about prices and suchlike when you check them out, or gold coins etc. People who arrive and attempt to play Wurm as a trading game pretty soon go mad, is the problem. This lot most likely to froth at the mouth. But it shouldn’t be to hard to find and join a trading village. (They probably also prefer “hard workers”).

Artisans are maybe best off with one of the established starter villages, easily spotted by their altruistic tone. They genuinely want to help, are usually situated near spawn (not always) and you can always forum message the op to see how you get along. It is hard to get materials, tools and a place to work when you first start out – hard but fun. Some people prefer to skip the struggle stage and get going on their craft.

Be wary of bribes, as in life. Something is likely expected back for fine tools and armours etc even if its that you are expected to bumlick and fawn.  Social climbing (/spit) is alive and well in Wurm, if you like that kind of quasi-social life all the usual types are easy to come by and they obey all the usual rules. You might like to know the flags – stone houses not wood, small wooden shacks frowned on, oak trees not fruit, white horses not black or omg brown, a caravel if at all possible, a large deed, and of course desirable ingame items.

Fighting villages – again easy enough to spot. If you are a PvP er you probably know what to look for. It’s on a PvP server? And… the op – posts on PvP matters (endlessly…. hehehe – ok I run now!)

That’s all I can think of really, but it’s quite a diverse world so there’s probably more.

So…

In Wurm the “I Win” button is your own ingenuity and how you make use of what you have. Villages are a great resource and the forums are another great resource. There are loads of different kinds of villages. If you know what you like it shouldn’t be too hard to find one that is looking for new players and has the kind of people that suit you in it, just by hanging on the forums.

Or

You could just pick a direction, walk until something kills you, see what you see, find what you find and meet whom you meet. It never harms to say hello in local. If people are absent or busy they won’t answer and if they are evil you’ve gained some information. If you’re lucky you maybe rescue a troll in distress or a beautiful damsel finds you passed out at the water’s edge – who knows?

Wurm Online Begunner’s Guide (PVE) Safe Spot: Part 4

Oct 27: added some more

Oct something or other 2012:  and will take a long time due to me not having a lot of time – I apologize. As usual I’ll work on it semi-live over some weeks. That way people who agreed to be in it can see what I’ve done with them muhahahaha and squeak if they are not happy.

My thanks to everyone who agreed to appear in this guide
and assurances to the good folk of Deli that when I am done I will destroy any structures I no longer need.
Your server is very pretty!]

So! Between the last part of this and this part of this there have been many changes and developments, which is normal for Wurm. Notably, you can’t build ships in carts anymore (but I wasn’t planning to) and Celebration launched which means Basalt faces a longer swim or journey in her rowboat once it is made. I no longer own the Exodus deed – she’ll have to go further south to Celebration to touch base. Or further north to Independence – maybe I will do a poll for that decision when the time comes 🙂

On with the story then. I already had a wily plan for storing the parts of this rowboat when I stopped writing last time – Keela is a way to safely store things, and, even more advantageously,  she will be able to move items to where I decide to build the rowboat since she has legs. In cute little white tights.

Meet Keela!

Well actually its my good friend the mighty Brynhilde

and some very nice people I spend time with might recognise the setting tooo hehehe

I took that on another server too, what a cheat! But Keela looks like that and I can get away with it because Brynhilde’s astounding armourage doesn’t show in Wurm  – yet. So I’m making the most of that while I can. Basalt and Keela haven’t met yet and can’t take pics of eachother.

The point is I can use a number of alts to store ship parts. If you were mad, you could probably even have enough alts to build a caravel. I don’t know if that’s possible, and I don’t think I want to ever try it.  Storage-alts would be my solo plan for building a boat if I was playing solo, and for this post it’s my backup plan, which is why she is created already, and will be moved about some as required. For a start she can travel to Basalt and get that mooring anchor.

Until such time as people can store things safely and without decay, storage alts will be used, but though not game-illegal I couldn’t tell you if this sort of use of extra alts “intended” or will be squished at some point. Extra alts are used for a lot of things that game design doesn’t address. For example Wurm is very bad for people who want or need to take a break from it – everything you built up decays and is destroyed which is a huge barrier to coming back. What you can do if you have to leave for a prolonged time is sell your belongings, store some on alts and leave some silver in-game on alts, (which have been premium at least once so they are not deleted.). It’s not a great solution, just as Keela isn’t a great solution to the problem of where to safely build a boat when you are a relatively new player.

For this guide  I’m not playing solo, so I’m going to avail myself of something more conventional and see if I can find a good starting out community, like a starting out person might. I personally don’t find this a great solution either to be honest because I’m against forced grouping and one of the reasons I play Wurm is exactly that (dragon killing apart), you can do your own thing and be as good as the next Wurm.

But joining or approaching a community is another way of doing things and here’s a good place to explore it. I have been on the forums and contacted one of the many starter communities advertised. They were very nice, and if all goes well, I will send Basalt to them. I don’t know anyone on Deli, I don’t think – which is why I chose it for this, so I’m going in blind. Or partially sighted – I do know the game a bit which is going to make things easier for me.

Keela to Basalt to get the mooring anchor (and take it back to Tap Dance, a central place with a Templar and water), and Basalt goes to the starter community.  Travelling with new alts, no weapons, no fighting skills, just their wits and the road. Yeah! (or Eeek! depends how you like to play).

Those are my plans, but this is Wurm.

Green Dawg at Dawn….(soulful bluesy guitar music)

So now I’m Keela, Keela the Mule I guess.

A mooring anchor is a weighty thing especially for a new alt with no body stats, so the first thing to do is to divest myself of excess baggage. One other storage option we do have, though it is dreadfully limited, is the bank, so I go find the deed token for Green Dog. Right-clicking the token brings up a screen called (bank) “manage” and asks if I want to set my bank account at Green Dog. On this occasion I do, but normally I wouldn’t. It takes 24 hours to move your account, so usually I would wait and set it where I plan to live. So for me its “yes” and that’s my account at Green Dog, “send”. When I click again there is a huge empty space under ‘manage’ into which I can put 5!!! woohoo count ’em – yes, all of 5 items for safekeeping. Er hem. I think Keela is something of a grumpy alt. Can’t blame her since her entire purpose is to be walking storage – but maybe she’ll cheer up when she hits the open road.

My four heaviest things go in there, and also my pottery bowl. I will want that later, and the starter bowl annoyingly disappears when you die if you cant reach your corpse to retrieve it. I cant remember what else is not no-drop, but that’s the one that’s always irritated me so although it’s light, in it goes!

Next is to arm – sword in right hand, shield on arm (not in hand), then a quick visit to the Bartender for free food and drink since Keela is brand new, and finally a look at the map http://minersahoy.com/Wurm%20Maps/Recent%20Map%20%28Low%20Res%29.png. The maps for the servers are player-made (labours of love) – there are no maps ingame. You can have a lot of fun not using the playermade maps, which can be found on the forums – ok ok don’t throw things at me. Yes, you can survive without a map – hehe, well you can!

Essentially I go south, and from the map there do appear to be roads although Basalt went cross country when she headed for the coast (i.e. got lost).

Keela will use roads, it’s a little safer and she will be moving slowly once she has her load. Right now she is carrying only 4.8kg and is as nippy as a bug on skates.

And off we go, same direction as the screen shot is facing, leaning right along that mountainside. There is a road at the bottom there I think…. ohhh…. it’s getting foggy….Wow

A lot of effort has been put into this part of the starting area – it’s really nicely done. I think these are public forges. That will all have been voluntary. Really nice! And it looks pretty too. Last time I was here it was far bleaker (on Basalt) – just a road. Gosh it has signposts too – Route South 🙂 whee – I’m on my way!

That picture was just outside the Sanctuary. Nobody was online, unfortunately. I’d have liked to ask who did all that work. I think the Sanctuary takes in starting out players – I seem to remember seeing that somewhere, but can’t confirm. Maybe next time I come through someone will be around. Anyway on I go… past some public mines. I am not taking pictures because :

Luckily (with such poor visibility) the way south is very straighforward. I go through Silverton – it’s a lovely big straight road and the only live wildlife I see are these guys.

Hi guys!

And only one person online, with whom I exchanged a brief greeting at Silverton. A very peaceful journey indeed.

As the fog lifts though, I realise that I want to take pictures. The good people in this area of Deliverance seem to have an eye for what suits the Wurmscape. The deeds really do look great.Nothing butts at your eyes. The deeds seem open, clear, very in keeping with what the game gives us. I will take pictures as I travel back or when Basalt makes her journey. This is a beautiful server – or at least this part is. (I haven’t seen the rest.)

… and that’s me safely arrived.

I have no idea where I left Basalt…ooops.

[Basalt’s journey next]

Wurm Online handy settings guide

which I keep losing so I’m putting it here. Using these settings the game looks good and runs well. I fiddle with my settings quite often because things so do change a lot in Wurm Online. I’m going to rather cheekily categorise it under “guides” so anyone can find it when they need it.

http://forum.wurmonline.com/index.php?/topic/63471-configuring-the-client-looking-nice-while-running-on-low-settings/

Wurm Online Begunner’s Guide (PVE) Safe Spot: Part 3

POST COMPLETED (April 4)
comments on the “in progress” post are to be found at the placeholder (Wurm Online Begunner’s Guide (PVE) Safe Spot: Part 3 wuz ere)

For the part where you find yourself turning up there every day and begin thinking “this is serious!”

My thanks to everyone who agreed to appear in this guide
and assurances to the good folk of Deli that when I am done I will destroy any structures I no longer need.
Your server is very pretty!

Real life gets busy and its a while before I’m Basalt again – but here I am! While my poll is open, the plan is to meander around, noting resources, meeting people – seeking out good places to log out and begin gaining some skill.  It’s lovely doing this – one of my favourite things. It’s also very necessary. Situational awareness is a very good tool in Wurm. I haven’t pvped a lot here, but I am told that knowing what is where is one of the keys to success in that too. And as I look at things in relation to each other, I’ll be forming, rejecting and reforming a plans of action. Everything takes a long time here – it is well worthwhile (for me) to be planning things in a sequence. Though, must be said – you can also just go for it and see what happens 🙂 Since my playtime is limited I’ll stick with the old fart method. Just going for it can create very long, long windy diversions, or it might be quicker. Depends if you have the time to gamble with.

It’s looking as if the boat is going to be the choice for a safe place. How cool! Never tried that! And oh dear… boat…. Meanwhile:

Tadah dah dah !
(heh no it’s not mine – Dadadah finished his boat a whiley back. gzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!)

While I was working on this post, Alphawolfen also contacted me – offering a lift to Exodus – how kind! I’ve yet to meet him ingame, but I’m sure that will happen soon. Yesterday I met Mclight and Cijifan who showed me where they lived and kept me company while I blundered about. Mclight asked where I was when we first said hi, and it turned out I was standing near a shallow cave with a dead scorpion in it – the same scorpion that had killed him- awwww. And I had the pleasure of meeting Crustyfoot – more about that later. And that’s today’s juicy gossip. I have met others, but I like to ask before I put them in here, tis only polite and some people value privacy even in this day and age. In fact it’s never been lonely. The kind of grouping I most enjoy, natural, spontaneous – and totally part of the gameplay.

-0-

I had a notion that a boat would be the choice delivered by the poll – had to be – the hardest and most time consuming one – thanks guys! (on the other hand, it’s the fun choice too)  So… I’m not shy as I travel – I ask people if they know of any paid work that I could do because I want to earn a mooring anchor. I think telling people your aims is helpful in Wurm. For more than one reason, really. Firstly being clear about what you want when dealing with other people helps you arrive more quickly at your destination and flushes out those who like to demotivate other people – (make mental note not to get involved with such). Basically if you say what you want other people can help or advise, or not, which has the dignity of being a choice for them rather than a reaction to your mighty actions after the fact. Secondly, people can place you and it’s reassuring to know why you’re there in their neighbourhood and what you might do. Thirdly … aw you get the message. Some people will help, some won’t, nobody gets bothered. (Thirdly enthusiasm is attractive :))

* Tell people what you’re aiming to do as you travel in Wurm – they often help or give good advice, and they often like to tell you some of their story and hear a fragment of yours. At the very least it lets them know you are probably not a Wurmian Axe Murderer.

Using the old fart method of getting things done, I have determined that a mooring anchor is quite tricky – I don’t have the time to skill up mining to mine lead for an anchor and I don’t know where to find any yet either, I don’t have  a field to grow wemp for a mooring rope. The two are also great fun to attach to eachother (not).  Options would be to buy one, or earn one – I’d like to earn one because that way I would get skill in something too. If I was going to buy one… well let me introduce you to our lovely forums, where there are convenient sections for buying things, selling things, and joining villages. Sometimes there are also adverts for work needing done. The forums are a huge source for current information and (for a change in the MMOsphere) are quite lively, and well moderated. It’s where I go for all the latest scuttlebut, the best pics, and invaluable info about patches. Since the official notes are not in much detail, players try stuff out and report. I have to direct you to this post which has nothing to do with this topic – because it made us all laugh. (Err… a child about the place likes me to read the Wurm posts in funny voices…. sorry Wurmians.) http://wurmonline.com/forum/index.php?topic=72172.0

Back to old fart boat-building. In the event I don’t need any of the options I outlined above because Deli smiles yet again and I meet Crustyfoot after having a look at the steppe and being chased by an anaconda. In fact I whizz past him without even noticing he is doing things in his paddock. I’m never sure about anacondas. They are hard to see and follow you for a fair while before giving up, and sometimes spirit guards don’t attack them. So best thing is to run very thoroughly. For ages. Then stop and see if the darned thing pops up again. After losing said anaconda by running west along the beach for an hour or so (it kept on coming), I do make my way back again. In the prolonged, hasty flight I saw a cliff face with a gentle slope – rummaging potential thar, if I don’t find a convenient mine.

And so it is that I meet Crustyfoot. Upon hearing my tale he offers to give me a mooring anchor.

Well, knock me down with a chicken.

I tell him I’d prefer to work for it and we do a deal. Soon I am standing in safety of his deed grounds happily creating bricks with a borrowed chisel, and chatting. If the anaconda turns up again, I comfort myself, at least I’m not alone. Another nice person met, another problem solved.

And another problem gained! My precious new mooring anchor is heavy. I have no place to store it, and I have yet to make the other metal parts (boat lock)  for the boat which means I’ll need a large anvil and a small anvil too –  all way to heavy. And boat keels – heaviest of them all. Oh my! What shall I dooooooooooooo. Ask someone for a place to build? It’s a possibility – I’ve certainly made enough contacts and someone might not mind. Make a cart first? Hmm would need to store the cart somewhere and after a while the little boat would get quite heavy. I might be able to put my mooring anchor in the bank – I don’t know. It would be an ok solution, I’m not going to need it until near the end of the building  … stay tuned for part 4 though, I have a plan ….

Wurm Online Begunner’s Guide (PVE) wuz ere

post placeholder retained for the comments that were posted.

Whee this fun – ok, here’s a poll!

Updated March 28 – closing this poll on the weekend (31 March)

Updated April 3 – poll closed – many thanks to the voters! (ooo it would be a boat – you lot are mean!)

Wurm Online Begunner’s Guide (PVE) Safe Spot: Part 2

For the part where you find yourself turning up there every day and begin thinking “this is serious!”

My thanks to everyone who agreed to appear in this guide
and assurances to the good folk of Deli that when I am done  with this guide I will destroy any structures I no longer need.
Your server is very pretty!

Time to be Basalt  … and I’m at the beach still where I found the blessed log. People are online, yay – I say hi! with some enthusiasm, and am greeted back – it is the owner of that wonderful log – he is called Dadadah. I apologise for using some of his log – he says its ok – we’re good.

After some chat where I explain what I’m doing and he explains what he’s doing we share a breakfast of mostly fish (and the wolf Dadadah killed) by his campfire. Silvertown Harbour is in being rebuilt, it turns out, and Dadadah is a part of that. His aim is to build a rowboat here too. After a while Festecles (as in Hercules) arrives, more introductions 🙂

I’m planning to spend time foraging and exploring and wander off, to be reduced in seconds to 5% health by a bear I came across o this is more like the Wurm I know! Dada patches me up – what a sweetie – luckily I myself have some healing covers from yesterday too and no lasting damage is done. It’s nice to be in the area while they go about their business, talking about their project – which is pretty big from what I’ve seen. There is the usual “aaargh” etc  from Dada as he fails to attach things to his sailboat.  Shipbuilders on Wurm sound the same everywhere – I feel totally at home.

About the bear… I didn’t actually see it with my hicky ui, but once I knew it was after me I ran to a nearby guard tower and yelled for help – I was already pretty damaged when the guards engaged it & realised theres some stuff should go in here. I survived, the bear died and Dadadah gave me some cotton in exchange for the meat and two strawberries hahahaha. (tx for cotton Dada!)

* Kiting to guards: Once they respond, keep moving – the mob will still have you targetted and you need to shift it around near the engaged guards until it drops you (trial and error). Or die. Alternatively you can run through the guards’ territory, out the other side, turn, run back – yelling help now and again. That works quite well and is very amusing for everyone to watch.

* One big advantage of guard towers vs templars for a new player/traveller is that the guards do not only kill on-deed. In other words if you can kite your mob to within guard range but off-deed the meat will be accessible to you.

Later I also walked the edges of the tower guards’ range so I’d know where to bring things that were about to kill me.

The Dashing Dadadah

who tangled with a spider soon after that. Festecles joined in! woohoo fighty fighty

 Dashing Dadadah and the Mighty Festecles prevail!

Yere i just had a thought…

and now there’s a poll 🙂  This isn’t a solo guide – just a what-you-might-do-after-the starty-bit guide, remember. I will be asking for help if/when I need it, just as a new (ish) player would.

Wurm Online Begunner’s Guide (PVE) Safe Spot: Part I

For the part where you find yourself turning up there every day and begin thinking “this is serious!”

Where Basalt was headed

I have a little alt that got stranded in Deli, I started two when the servers opened. One in Exodus (she deeded) and one in Deliverance (she didn’t). The Deli alt still has her mysterious noob beginner night light awwwwwwwwww :). She is bound for the Exodus deed above, a trading deed to be, a long term project that I don’t hurry with.

Her name is Basalt. She’s made it from Green Dog (where you spawn) to the coast at the south, intending to swim (yep) to the other server, she never found undeeded clay along the way and has no means of carrying water yet (hence at coast). She could start the swim to Exodus now. However, I stopped the beginner’s guide at finding a safe place. I think it might be good to work through safe spot options with Basalt. I’ve been playing long enough to know I can do whatever I set out to, one way or another. Basalt will divert for a while, create or find a safe place and leave some ‘stuff’ there maybe for another new player to find one day.

Perhaps the swim across shark infested waters will not happen, but thats ok. It will be a story, and I don’t know the end.

-0-

It’s something of a tangle right enough. For a safe place, nails and a lock are going to be needed. For nails and lock, a small anvil is required. Anvils, even small ones,  are heavy. I cannot run from anything scary with an anvil, and running is my top survival strategy! I can’t leave it lying about, or it will be looted. I need an anvil to create a safe place to store my anvil. Here is what I can see:

That’s a sly unicorn (even prettier than the white ones) – a lot of unicorns here in many colors. I am at a village called Faydark (!) and safe for the moment I think. I head carefully for the coast (ahead) and then turn left. I know I shall find either villagers (possible safety) clay (can go more inland once I have made a jar or two) or a rock face where I can begin rummaging for iron. Along the way I need to find cotton and wood to make a fishing rod. I pass a starving dog – I might be able to kill it but it would yield no meat (starving animals don’t give meat when butchered) and I would sustain injuries. Someone is in local, and I say hello, a new person like me I think – they need a hammer. I’m not that far along yet 🙂

* Bolded stuff is what I have decided I’m needing at any point. I’m not going to write up stuff that’s in the wiki, I began doing that and it quickly got wordy and tedious. (Exit chat (enter), Press H, little box = wiki, type keyword.)

* Coastal journeys are good for finding first resources when you start. Ufortunately the spawn never is at the coast that I know of. The search for a safe spot to keep your things begins with some exploration, either for clay or for a road, or for … well anything useful.

I reach the coast and turn left, foraging as I go and soon reaching a village called Silverton Harbour. Just outside there is a log!

Treasure treasure, but not as it is (too heavy). I spend a pleasant half hour carving a spindle, some fishing hooks and two shafts. Will be a shame if I die and lose them, but thats Wurm.

At Silverton Harbour I see dead animals (which I cannot get meat from since they are on deed). Thats good news, it means a spirit guard is active. I could stop here for the night, but I’d like to adventure a little further first. I mark it in my mind to come back to if need be. The dead animals give me information too. The wolves are young, newly spawned and though I couldn’t kill one, it would have meat on it if I did. There is a scorpion – deadly to me, but they cannot swim – and a crocodile. The crocodile is bad news. And there are bears. Bears can swim. I have an idea of what the local wildlife is like now.

* Dead animals at the edge of a deed are a good sign that a spirit guard is present and active – that means a safe place for yourself to pause or heal or log out. If you drop something here you may pick your own item up. So can the villagers of that deed. And their allies. A village you do not belong to is not a good safe spot for keeping things. (But it’s quite a good place for staying alive!)

Between Silverton Harbour and Thorins Bay I find clay. Being this lucky isn’t really good for the guide, but it happened. A quiet half hour ensues. I make bowls and jars. The log I found earlier serves me well again, I make a campfire and fire what I made. At the clay there is a pile, well decayed, from which I take one flask. I’ll need it eventually. I could take more things, but I’d prefer to just make stuff. I could make a flask, but this time I take one – for luck! My first casserole, (strawberries basil and parsley) lowers my nutrition. Hopefully as I get more skilled that won’t happen. Food is complex on Wurm – I don’t understand it, but I know I’m fat enough to survive my own cooking for a while :). Beyond Thorins bay is a cliff face, where I could probably rummage. However my casserole reminded me that I’d better find something more substantial than foragings to eat. Tomorrow the hunt is on for cotton. I see no dead animals at Thorins Bay and return to Silverton Harbour for the night.

-0-

This is a good place and I could survive in this area off the land indefinitely, even on my ghastly casseroles, carrying little, but I have a mission now to make things and find a place to put them. To free myself from constant foraging, I  need that rod, so for now travelling is more a case of exploring nearby and forage, forage, forage. And botanise. Foodstuffs I cook for skill, healing herbs I mix to make healing covers.

* You can forage and botanise the same tile. Mixed grass cannot be eaten. I think. The creation of a fishing rod is quadruple rng with finding the cotton being the hardest part, many, many, many fails. Making a string from the cotton can fail (keep the rags), making a fishing line from hook and string can fail, and making the final rod from fishing line and shaft can fail. Relax, cook what you can, make healing covers and trust that at some point you will succeed. Or ask someone for help.

Sometime late on the second day, I find cotton. It could have happened much sooner, or taken far longer. After that the rng is good to me and within minutes I have a fishing rod. Those hooks and shafts I made before came in very handy. As people appear in local I say hello. Most are polite enough to return the greeting, but disinclined to chat – I don’t mind. Since I will be hanging around until I move on, I’d rather be known to be approachable, polite and friendly.

I take a little time to improve my wooden items (mallet, spindle and rod) as far as I can without a file or pelt. To reduce decay(ugh) on them, however little the reduction,  and to begin gaining some woodie type skills. Also so the fishing rod doesn’t snap suddenly. I don’t get them improved far, but still. Then its off to find a fishable spot!

As the light fades, there I am, fishing, it feels good to have achieved this much. Now time to consider options, I think, so that next time I play Basalt I have a direction if not a plan. Options for safe places to store things that is. Here are the ones I know: a field, a building, a rowboat, a large cart, a mine. The field is easiest, but not that safe at all. It can be bashed and lockpicked if not attached to a finished building. Even if attached to a finished building, people can bash the fences (making sure nobody is about – so like real life). A building, a cart, a mine are both next hard. The building is the safest, the cart is safe in itself – it cannot be lockpicked. But the whole cart can be stolen, reinforced mine with a door on is safe except to mine-denizens, ermmm meaning not that safe for me but ok for goods unless someone bashes the door in.  A boat is the hardest to do and very safe once complete. It requires appreciatable amounts of lead, wemp, cotton, wood, and a safe place to construct it too. It’s not beyond me, but might take a long time.  All offdeed and non premium options these, as behooves someone who having started is finding their feet. Also a possibility is to deed somewhere, but thats quite a big subject and I want to put it aside for now. Same with joining a village, completely solves the problem, but a big subject.

I would normally go for a building, since it really is the safest place, but in the interests of blogness, I intend to travel around and see if maybe in some situations one of the others becomes more suitable. If I find a lot of felled wood near some iron perhaps a cart. If I find a small abandoned cavelet, maybe I’ll stay in that. It should be interesting!

* Before a safe place to store stuff is found, there are still 2 options that allow you to log off keeping a limited amount of goods safe. One is the bank, accessible through a token – very few things can be stored there. The other is to carry everything you value on your person when logging. Be aware that meals and foodstuffs will decay fast if you keep them in your inventory when logging out. Best eat it.

I’ve been very lucky so far, but I know well it’s not always like that. Tomorrow, I may lose everything. Except the skills I gained.

(Don’t drop your anchor!)

srs dps maximising

Forgive me, its Monday.

tldr:
1) here’s how to do it
2) it’s not fair play
3) fairness is an annoying, persistent nuisance to number ridden idiots in all spheres of life
Actually I don’t take dps seriously, here’s all why and how to fix it as a side dish.

Economy consists of demand, supply and unfair advantage. Someone else probably said it better before, but I came to that conclusion while wondering why in this era we are obsessed with measuring things – via a long windy thought process while attempting to make salmon pate (with the obligatory side wander into male obsessions, but I’ve given up teasing men.)(For now.)(no, I have. It’s fun I know I shouldn’t.)(srsly.)

Dps is pretty much the same – the numbers are a limited tool – mostly diagnostic, but in the intersphere they are what people use to convince other people that they are skilled. Speaking as a leader, I can tell you skill = (mostly) doing the right thing at the right time and is built up through experience. Most people “kinda recognise” it when they see it – you can’t measure it though, o dear. And actually I’m speaking as a happy ex-leader now, but that goes in some other post.

Dps and skill are not the same, but you can kiddie on they are, and what’s more most people will fall for it. So to increase your dps might be a worthy goal. After all half the fun in the game is bragging…. hahaha – (errr, gives away a big weakness but that goes in a pvp post sometime).

Very similar to my patent and food based economic model, Your Real DPS = (some measurement-or-other/time) + unfair advantage.

Measurement/time can be maximised in just about every game by judicious application of ye google. Do the homework, find out the gear, stats, spec, gem, rotation, glyphs, whatever for your avatar. Applying this tediously gained knowledge gets you just past halfway and (bewilderingly) not one bit further. Where you get to stand out is all in the second bit.

For unfair advantage, only a little thought is required. Is the game company selling a new expansion and a new class? Pick that class. Does there seem to be an obsession with buffing one class (koff *mages in some game* koff) – pick that class. If you type well, keybind and watch others gasp as you effortlessly pull everything in the room before anyone else even moved. If you are going in that direction (not advised) you can also hog the healer, never change targets and move as little as possible. That increases dps too, briefly – before you get kicked (but you never know the group might impressed with your greatness and not know these little tricks).  There are usually more little clevernesses if you get to know the mechanics – but a pretty good example is indeed that if moving decreases dps, don’t move. (mind to scream at the healer so nobody notices what you did thar.)

If you have a good computer, increase your considerable advantage by playing without addons & with all background processes terminated, and low settings if need be. Tweak your computer for performance if you know how to. It’s not supposed to matter but guess what – hardware and client performance affect dps. Increase your bandwidth if you can, might as well. E-Sports are not run on anything slow or low end, I am ….reasonably sure of that 🙂

Gear has a very noticeable effect on dps. Most games attempt to limit the acquisition of good gear for reasons worthy of a whole debate which I dont want to insert just here. So… know all the sources for your gear and make good use of them. Ingame currency to buy stuff? Earning it becomes important then. Random git-groups? Grit teeth & do them. Pay to win – well obviously. If it’s part of the game it’s unfair, but not game-illegal. The devs are having trouble balancing pvp? Woohoo paydirt!!!!! – they are going to overcompensate someone in their flailing efforts to keep things on an even keel. Build up a stable so you can hop about from advantaged avatar to advantaged avatar.

In short, once the basic homework is done, unfair advantage is what gets you to the top. Find it and use it if you are so inclined. People often have a unique thing they can do quite well – situational awareness maybe, or ferret reflexes, or good strategic sense. If it’s strategy, for example, go watch videos & plan your positioning and shots using the information gained thusly. I get more fun from trying to match the game’s limits to my strengths than I ever do from number comparing. It’s a personal preference but it will up my dps too if I need it to. A lot of discovering advantage is thinking outside the game and doing some legwork. Not hard, time consuming yes, but not hard.

“Unfair” is definitely what I’m talking about by the way, not “illegal”. Apart from being wrong  (if you don’t know what “wrong” is it’s time you sat down & worked out who you want to be and why), going beyond the law isn’t really necessary. There’s plenty of unfairness around to take advantage of – an unlimited supply. (Unfair is you are pretty and I am ugly – illegal is if you steal my kidney too.)

I am also, deliberately, not using the neutral term “inequitable” because I want to go back to economics to wind up this post up. Demand, supply and unfair advantage. Demand & supply left to themselves in a vaccuum will indeed self-regulate. The big problems come from that annoying bit of my equation which you cannot measure. O woe, what shall we do? No nice reliable numbers for unfair advantages! Heheh, and so under the numerical radar, evolved cartels, wars, monopolies, locusting, bad work practices, undercutting…. Time to put the ruler away methinks, and get to looking at how and why things happen the way they do without that crutch, and thats a job not just for me but for all of us. This over-reliance on measuring stuff is a big big big big big mistake.

And that all came from listening to Radio Gore at 4.30 am. It’s time for the annual checkup. This morning – I measure around one hour (5.16) before the first detailed torture description. It’s turned off. I have a school run to attend to and a solid week to commence – I am (over) informed and have instinctively responded with a sense of abhorrence and outrage.

This ties it all up with a neat bow. We are born with a sense of fairness fully formed, and a drive toward goodness also (who knows why) – with the exception of some few individuals (psychopaths).  However much this is subverted, repressed and diverted it absolutely remains with us, is universal and does not go away no matter what pretty stories we tell ourselves as we cheat, lie, kill or whatever the poison is.

A universal sense of fairness is the (non-measurable) string which can also be effectively pulled to untie even the most mighty economic knot. The single moment in which you realise someone is manipulating you for gain, as with dps or Radio 4, is the moment their motives become transparent.

It’s totally up to the individual how or why they unfairly raise their dps, how much money they unfairly take from others, and (not letting Radio 4 off the hook) how much torture they pepper their broadcasts with hoping to raise their ratings, or cred, or whatever else it is they need to retain funding.  They are of course using the unfortunate individuals they purportedly inform us about to further their own agenda. See, pull the string & all is clear.

It’s up to us collectively how much unfairness is tolerable. We recognise it instinctively, and it offends some part of us, so that part is less of a problem than anyone arguing definitions will ever admit. Violations of fairness cannot be hidden very well or for long either. Our nose for unfairness is pretty accurate and comes along in the package of being intrinsically moral beings. Unfairnesses can be prettied up, talked around, excused or justified, but they sit there, often for all to see, or come to light unexpectedly despite much careful burying. And of course they register internally.

Normalising greed and lauding predatory behaviour is beneficial to the greedy and predatory. Once you see that trick, it’s all over. Suddenly half the things people do make a different sense and a jackasses sitting on more than they could ever possibly need or consume, having destroyed whole environments and all living beings within them to get to that pinnacle – can be correctly discerned as mentally unbalanced.

So take heed young dps er before you should succumb
to horrid moral turpitude while chasing rules of thumb.

I said I would give up poetry…. I lied!

I suppose some silly sausage will come along and argue that humans are intrinsically amoral (fancy version) or immoral (self-serving version) – not much I can do about that. Some things you just need to figure out for and within yourself.