Wurm Online: Terraforming Territory
The college term is over, and I have enough spare brain to write some blog entries again. The only game I've been playing for the past couple of months has been Wurm Online, mostly because it works very well as a background game. I click a few times to set some activity going, I do something else for a few minutes, and then I click things again. If I'm on my deed, it's a very rare thing to need to react to anything.
Indeed, in this case, where I remain on or near my deed most of the time, all the action in Wurm happens in my head, and often in the future as well. It's a game that rewards long-term thinking, and I've been working gradually toward a few goals.
First, I've been terraforming my deed. Mostly this consists of flattening it, and laying in some paths. I've also started to work down the hill to the west a bit, in terraces (well, so far, terrace). There's a deed south and west of me that will likely disband soon, and when it does, I'll expand my deed down the hill to the coast, and those terraces will then become part of the deed rather than the perimeter. At the same time, geometry of other deeds permitting, I might extend it back a bit, to lay claim to an area of woodland that lies to the east, and which would do very nicely for ongoing wood production.
I've also gained a few animals, though the generosity of neighbours. I have three horses, and four cattle. Domestic animals can be bred, and I've started that with the cattle. Two of the horses are too young still, so that will need to wait. In the meantime, all the beasts get groomed daily, and I make sure that the pens they're in have sufficient food. I'm developing the food production skills at the same slow and steady pace, and considering which crafts I'll take up in the long run.
I do like the terraforming, but taking it up as a long term skill requires a good bit of marketing in the game, and a lot of being away from my own deed. The option, of course, is to spend time developing good, solid deeds, with farmland, trees, and so on, and then sell them, and that's a tempting way to go.
The more conventional crafts of smithing and boatbuilding are also possibilities, and carpentry as well. I'm inclined in those areas to choose one that can have its products sold via merchants, rather than things where I need to negotiate the sale myself in person. Having carpentry and masonry at high levels would also be useful for when the fabled second-story houses come in. And it does occur to me that if a second story can be coded, there's no reason a third or more could not also be managed; someone with high carpentry or masonry might become a specialised builder of towers. I did mention the long-term thing.
I also want to do some exploration, after I make or buy myself some better armour. As it is, my only real option with most aggressive creatures is to flee as quickly as possible. I'm aware of some interesting looking areas up toward the mountains, though, where it looks as though there were once deeds, and no longer are. Those areas often contain treasure - that is, stuff left behind by previous players - or areas in which nice new deeds could easily be placed. Indeed, I'd like to travel to the Independence server as well, because I hear tales of large areas of unoccupied land, treasure left, right and centre, and more abandoned deeds than you can shake a stick at. A huge cotton-growing operation on an alt, say, could be very profitable.
It's a big game, and there's more to it all the time - reeds to make papyrus to write stuff down on have only recently been added, for example, and given the amount of material already in the game, I don't think I can go fast enough to try everything.
Posted by Drew Shiel at May 14, 2012 4:54 PM
