Wurm Online: New land opened, Free to Play tutorial server/sandbox

[Mrbloodworth]

Good luck, MrB!  I'm very close to being almost certain that you'll make it fun!

lol. Thanks guys and gals. And EEK, red name.  

I tried it just now, and the kindly NPC told me to go chop down a tree, which I dutifully set out to do.

Except every tree I tried to chop down, it told me would hurt my karma, and that wasn't allowed on that server.  New land speed record for removing a game from my computer.

Yes, that entire "tutorial" is going to go bye bye, and hopefully replaced by a more focused introduction.

[Draegan]

Good luck, MrB!  I'm very close to being almost certain that you'll make it fun!

He'd probably do very well making Daily Quests.

[Mrbloodworth]

Good luck, MrB!  I'm very close to being almost certain that you'll make it fun!

He'd probably do very well making Daily Quests.

We don't do quests.

[dusematic]

Hopefully one day middleware and software suites will advance to the point where niche games created by small teams are reasonably able to create content that is not only compelling but also inviting.  Then I could stop playing WoW whenever I got the itch to waste my life in front of a computer and start a virtual wilderness survivalist compound.  Dusetown:  where the Kool-Aid is always free!!

[Draegan]

Good luck, MrB!  I'm very close to being almost certain that you'll make it fun!

He'd probably do very well making Daily Quests.

We don't do quests.

I was making a joke.    I should of said repeatable quests.

[Bzalthek]

Trying this out.  While java crashes far too much, I am addicted to pointless terraforming.

[WindupAtheist]

I was making a joke.    I should of said repeatable quests.

I'd ban people for this.

[ezrast]

In fifth grade, my English teacher went to great lengths to stress the impropriety of the "should of" construction. "That's stupid," I thought to myself, "nobody says 'should of', they're saying 'should've', a contraction of 'should have'. Everybody knows that."

Of all the things I've become disillusioned of since I was ten, I think this one bothers me the most. Thanks, f13.

[Bzalthek]

Wait till you find photos of the donkey show in yer mom's closet.  Then you can cry about disillusionment.

[Pennilenko]

I like sharp burning sticks in the eye, I am going to give this a try.

[Bzalthek]

Don't try to fight anything.  It's just not worth it.

Edit:  On another note I'm thinking of going for a subscription but I dunno how big and/or crowded the Freedom server is.  I'd like to go out into the middle of nowhere and dig up my fortress of solitude without some dipshit LOLIMINENEXTOU!

[Pennilenko]

I just played about 25 minutes worth of eye gouging confusion. I'm gonna go back for more tomorrow after work.

[Ghambit]

Are there any plans to update the graphics?
To me, that's the only really glaring fault so far.  It's tough to sit in a world the amount of time this requires when the toons are walking abortions.  I'd rather just have an isometric view or text-based webmmo.

[Mrbloodworth]

Don't try to fight anything.  It's just not worth it.

Edit:  On another note I'm thinking of going for a subscription but I dunno how big and/or crowded the Freedom server is.  I'd like to go out into the middle of nowhere and dig up my fortress of solitude without some dipshit LOLIMINENEXTOU!

There is lots of room,(Older map dump) and a decent player count most times. We also just revamped how deeds work, and how much they cost the player.

Are there any plans to update the graphics?
To me, that's the only really glaring fault so far.  It's tough to sit in a world the amount of time this requires when the toons are walking abortions.  I'd rather just have an isometric view or text-based webmmo.

Most of my time is spent updating graphics, debatable to if I have accomplished that :) However, player models are in the works, but the engine needs some hefty subsystems added before I can really move forward on that.

[Signe]

Are you the only person working on this game?

[Mrbloodworth]

Are you the only person working on this game?

I'm the lead artist now, and I mange the content patches. I have a few contributors, but for the most part, yes I am the only "full time" artiest.

There is one server developer (also the owner), one client programmer (and one or two contributors) and me and a few contributors. Its a very small team, I also have the disadvantage of being on the other side of the world of most of them, so i have limited time windows to be able to talk real time to them.

[NiX]

Just means you have more creative freedom!

[Mrbloodworth]

Just did a patch yesterday, though, the server code needs to catch up. One of the side affects of being on the other side of the world. Sometimes we leapfrog.

[Bzalthek]

With a failure rate to rival eq in it's heyday, and subcombines on par with original eqII, and hours tending that damned campfire, I finally made an iron stone chisel!  Yay!  But I am unable to improve it despite having the iron lump "glowing hot" like it says I need.

I'm probably a masochist.  maybe.

[Hellinar]

I've played WURM several times over the years. I think its an amazing accomplishment for an indie game, and I'm glad to see Mr. Bloodworth improving the graphics, and the tutorial.

I think its biggest problem is that is that Rolf, the creator, isn't letting his creation go where it clearly wants to go. He keeps trying, and failing, to steer it back to his original concept.

He wanted to create a Medieval war simulator, and tacked on a gathering and building simulator to give people something to fight over. The snag is, the war simulation is not very good, but the frontier land simulator is about the best around at the moment. So he has attracted a bunch of crafters and explorers, but keeps driving them away by by pushing them toward his combat world.

[waffel]

Does this game have a high potential for greifing?

I'm not asking because I want to grief in it... I'm... just wondering because it sounds really interesting!  

Fuck I must be bored (and unemployed) because I'm about to play. I picture myself as Les Stroud ala Survivorman, running around the wilderness trying to survive.

[Mrbloodworth]

With a failure rate to rival eq in it's heyday, and subcombines on par with original eqII, and hours tending that damned campfire, I finally made an iron stone chisel!  Yay!  But I am unable to improve it despite having the iron lump "glowing hot" like it says I need.

I'm probably a masochist.  maybe.

Like I said before, it may be best to start the fire, and find some other things to do. Also, burn a log, many things are governed by wight in this game, and I think the max you can put on a single fire is a 24lb log, that should last a few hours, depending on the quality level of the fire. As far as smelting ore to lumps, of course a forge is more effective than a fire, but you do have to start somewhere. I think you may find other players are quite open to letting others use things like forges, especially if you exchange the helping hand. (Can I use your forge? Ill get you some wood?) Your lump issue may be weight of the lump in questions, OR the lumps quality level is less than that of the item you are trying to improve (Needs to be higher). It should tell you this in chat spam. "Examine" items to find out the quality levels and damage of it as well as description.

As far as Hellinars comments, I can't really speak to that, most is before my time. However I have added quite a few items and systems with Rolfs help that are untypically casual in comparison to other parts of the game (Shop signs, gift boxes, snow men, X-mass tree), as well as improving things like names on items on hover or in lists (IE: "Lamp", is now "Copper hanging Lamp" ETC..). All for the better I think.

I also happen to feel that as we add more items to make, the ramp on time/effort may be decreased, "Grind" wider instead of steeper.

Does this game have a high potential for greifing?

4Chan has been an invaluable tool in testing this regard (   ), and we do have a permanent Bro population. Over the years, Bros have indirectly "tested" avenues for grief and most, have been addressed.  There are still some creative ones out there on our Non-pvp servers but for the most part it is safe, and we do have GM's for the extreme cases.

However on PvP (Server name "wild"), stealing, lock picking, killing, raids, and destruction of land and goods is game play. You should see some of the fortifications players have come up with there.

[Demonix]

With a failure rate to rival eq in it's heyday, and subcombines on par with original eqII, and hours tending that damned campfire, I finally made an iron stone chisel!  Yay!  But I am unable to improve it despite having the iron lump "glowing hot" like it says I need.

I'm probably a masochist.  maybe.

If you are near a starting area, there are probably public facilities you can use (forge, mine).  Smelting ore and forging from a campfire is terribly inefficient time and fuel wise.

A fire can hold a max of 20 kg of material, whether it is log, wood scrap, or peat.  generally when you start a fire, you should probably add 18-20 kg of material, then when you get the 'wild flames' message when you examine the fire, add another 10.

In order to improve a metal tool, both the tool and the iron lump must be glowing from heat.

As Mr. Bloodworth says, multitasking is key;  if you are waiting for something, why not work on something else you need to do for a bit?  Carve a few shafts or saw a few planks, save your woodscrap, combine em into 20 and 10kg packages, and start a fire/light a forge/smelt iron/mine iron.

Just a warning though;  you need several tools for imping and finishing, and the most annoying thing about imping/finishing blacksmithing and carpentry items is having to possess an animal pelt for polishing.  These are harvested off of various wild animals using butchering skill...but you dont start with a butchering knife.  You may be able to get a low (20) QL one for free, or luck into one.

Two other things:

The wiki can be an incredible resource to answer questions
Keybindings were added fairly recently...use them and save your wrist the pain (check wiki for setup instructions).

[Bzalthek]

Some good to know info there.  I built myself a forge yesterday, so I'm out of the campfire hustle for now (just have to find where I set up camp as a champ goblina dn champ wolf have been farming me and I really don't know my way back well)  I do multitask though.  While tending to the campfire I was mining and digging and basically completely destroying a small section of terrain "re-ordering" it.  And yes, key binding is worth its weight in gold.

[CharlieMopps]

I have to say, of all the mmos out there Wurm has the most potential to really change things IMO

the game has 2 major problems:
1. The animations/graphics have to get finished. Seriously, sliding around like that is a joke. I know its a lot of work, but snap to it.

2. Your deed system is your primary source of real money. Yet, in order to buy a deed I have to circumnavigate the globe to some far away vendor. When my deed expired while I was in africa I was done. You need to fix this. You should be willing to take my money and give me a deed no matter where I am in the world.

and a 3rd thing that would really help but is not required: make the whole underground thing better. I should be able to build rooms, dungeons, even monster spawns to protect my resources.

[Mrbloodworth]

I have to say, of all the mmos out there Wurm has the most potential to really change things IMO

the game has 2 major problems:
1. The animations/graphics have to get finished. Seriously, sliding around like that is a joke. I know its a lot of work, but snap to it.

2. Your deed system is your primary source of real money. Yet, in order to buy a deed I have to circumnavigate the globe to some far away vendor. When my deed expired while I was in africa I was done. You need to fix this. You should be willing to take my money and give me a deed no matter where I am in the world.

and a 3rd thing that would really help but is not required: make the whole underground thing better. I should be able to build rooms, dungeons, even monster spawns to protect my resources.

If it is any consolation, I have passed on your feedback. I think you make a great point with #2. Number 3 is something I have thought about for a while.

#1, technically we have animations, though, not many, and they are not the best. Your settings may have them turned off however. Its more of a tech limitation than a lack of want. One of the reasons we want to move to COLLADA.

[NiX]

Have they thought about actually running through the common complaints and giving the reasons for why they exist or how they can be remedied by COLLADA? They may still hate it, but at least they understand why now.

[Mrbloodworth]

Have they thought about actually running through the common complaints and giving the reasons for why they exist or how they can be remedied by COLLADA? They may still hate it, but at least they understand why now.

Yep. We want to make the switch, but we need someone to code the loader (with the necessary features) and make changes to the render. As I have said, this is paid work. So, its a matter of time, and getting someone with the skills to do the gutting and implementation. Not a small task.

Keep in mind, this is a home brew engine, its raw openGL within java using an dotXSI loader (Even this is minimal in feature support) and such, also a commercial endeavor, so a good deal of the open utility's we could leverage are not compatible legal wise. The original creator of the engine is has gone on to do the minecraft project.

Its not a willingness issue anymore, it's a resources. I already made the winning argument :)

[Ghambit]

minecraft project.

 

[Bzalthek]

I haven't built a house yet, but I've almost terraformed half a mountain.  Digging, mining, paving, building fences.  Love it.  Combat sucks.  Foraging/Botanizing and then trying to get meat to cook also sucks, but at least it gives me several fastings once I've gone through that bullshit.  Kinda wish there was a stone tool option.  I don't see why I couldn't cut up an animal with a flint knife, or find some obsidian where lava meets water (hell I'll drag some barrels to dump on the lava if need be.)  And farm/grinding to make a fishing line seems a little extreme.  Making primitive fishing tools isn't hard.  Spears, snares, even a simple horsehair line on a stick can keep a person fed.

Oh yeah, pelts are suck to get.  Most of the items I've crafted are stuck needing a pelt.   

[Bzalthek]

Not too sure what happened, but I logged on this morning dead, and spawned on the Freedom server.  Everything is gone. =p

[Mrbloodworth]

Not too sure what happened, but I logged on this morning dead, and spawned on the Freedom server.  Everything is gone. =p

We had a database hiccup yesterday. I am not really in a position to detail what happened, its outside my knowledge. GMs and such are working to help people that were affected. We even had some players spawn as zombies, it was amusing. Also the starter town on GV is getting a revamp as well.


Oh, as a side note, we may have new animations coming, so make sure you turn those on.

[Nebu]

Let's just say that it's Bloodworth's fault.  It's more fun that way.   

[Bzalthek]

My main question is if this is temporary and we'll be going back to GV world (I'm still not completely done terraforming that mountain dammit) or if I need to start over and look for a new place to set up shop.

[Mrbloodworth]

My main question is if this is temporary and we'll be going back to GV world (I'm still not completely done terraforming that mountain dammit) or if I need to start over and look for a new place to set up shop.

Are you sure you are on freedom? Because as a side affect, we took the opportunity to make all players on golden valley part of the "Freedom" faction (instead of any of the three factions). Most data was restored, I think terrain data is just fine. You just may not be where you thought you were.