Benie's Games Blog

As I stated in my nearly-begging response in the Wurm forum, clay tiles have been a thorn in my side longer than the dreaded “You hit rock.” Well, rock can be dealt with… clay cannot.

It makes me wonder if this place I saw was alittle TOO perfect. Seeing the humongous clay deposit (and lack of iron ore in the mine) should had told me to keep looking. Yet it seemed to call to me. And I stupidly made that pier, even knowing I couldn’t dig it back down. In ways I feel like kicking myself in the ass.

However, there just might be a way to actually, finally REMOVE a clay tile. Turn it into something else; like rock. As my thread is progressing, there seems to be hope for just that. The thing is, it (if it’s even possible) can only be done by a priest.
Angry sent his Vyrona priest alt over and tried to freeze a clay tile when I was in bed yesterday, and failed. I tried to tell him before that he couldn’t do it.
The thread seems to be focused on Fo. Fo is the god of all things that live in or on the ground. I used to call him a treehugger in the past (sometimes still do).
Claims that there’s this spell called “Dirt”, that..well, not remove the Clay tile but ‘dig’ it down. This won’t help me with the pier, but it will in other places.

Now angry has shifted to telling me that all I would need is a Magranon follower (not a priest), who’s also on the Path of Power. S/he can turn the clay tile into a lava tile, and then freeze it into a Rock tile where it can be mined down or dirt can be dropped on it.
Well, whatever happens and if it’s truly possible, this will not be easy on my pocketbook.

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In other news… after much thinking, I decided to scrub the idea of a secondary mine, and turn the secondary path into a useful one, by connecting it to the pier. Doing this will allow quicker access into my settlement.
Unfortunately, I made this decision a ‘little’ too late. 3/4 of the dirt/sand I dug up from the site has decayed.

Still, I’m a resourceful floating dragon head. I know where to replace all the dirt that decayed. To do this requires scrubbing the farm all together (made a decision to keep making Stew), and what appears to be a raised flat area behind it that the former villagers were working on… something there. I don’t really give a shit. Dirt is dirt, right? Right.

Thinking Hero had a surplus of dirt over at his place, I asked him if he had any. Turns out he needs all the dirt he can get.
Angry is the same way. After the founding of a new port, west on the island, he also needs all the dirt he can get.
This means I’m SOL of any extra dirt. But like I said, I got my own dirt. I just have to dig it up.

I feel like kicking my ass donating my alt’s rowboat, and so I’m working on another. I rather go try to see the cyclops again, but I got to get this done.

As I was imping the oars for the rowboat, a person named Kardesh entered my local and asked where is Oceanside Retreat. Told him you’re right here and I’m the owner of it.
He told me he’s a friend of Gumbo who was over at my place yesterday, and thinking about slapping down a deed at where New BroVegas was. I kinda hesitated thinking “Oh god. That means my peace and quiet will be ruined forever.” But I showed him around the place.
When he got done he came up with the conclusion that he didn’t want it. It is a nice place, but ATM I do not want neighbors.. or ever.

I didn’t expect someone that knows Gumbo to want to move into the place. New BroVegas should remain a landmark. An untouched (except for the mine) landmark. Let it slowly decay away.

Maybe in the future when I finally get everything done here and settle down, I may get a few people to see if they want to move in to where New BroVegas was. But, not right now. I don’t like the idea my pier would be used by them.

What I need to do is, make a road going south from New BroVegas, and somehow connect it to the pier south of me. That way they can have their own spot, and not use mine. According to the map there used to be a road going south to the shore south of me. Where that road is, is a mystery to me. Maybe this place has more history I need to uncover.

There’s two other things I would like to have done;
1. A road going north from my place, connecting to Fairwind and Falcon Point. This will allow me to go up and access that once cave canal by cart instead of by boat.
2. A cave canal south of my place that would connect to Reborn, which would make getting to Samling faster. But due to seeing how vast New BroVegas’ mine is, this could be complicated.

I login, still at New Galway, and noticed the wind is now a gale. Except it’s now going the wrong fucking way (Northwest instead of Southwest). Funny thing about this is I actually had a dream of this.

So anyway I go for it. Enter the Cave Canal. No issues. I turn the corner to the Freedom Market end of the canal and the boat stops at the entrance. I disembark and attempt to drag it through the entrance. There’s no Drag option. Nor is there an Embark option.
I try logging, thinking by logging it should fix itself. Instead, my boat disappears! I of course panic, but hope to find my boat somewhere in the canal, and begin to walk the walkable part of the canal. I also lighted all the lamps with my flint and steel. Alas, I couldn’t find my Corbita. So I knew I would be forced to call for a GM, and did.

Had to wait 10 minutes until a GM finally showed up. When she did, said the boat is still there, but it was “halfway up the mountain” and managed to drag it out easily. I thanked her and continued on my way.

Soon, I finally made it back home. I wanted to hang up my pictures of Erik the Red on my house’s walls, but it’s not possible. Also, time to get back to work.

First thing I needed to do was make 15 bricks. So I grabbed what I needed from the coffin and made my way down into my only mine. A second after I entered my mine I heard the “URRGG” sound (enemy hurting me) and made me jump, and quickly ran out. Checked the flashing Combat tab and noticed the name of my attacker. ‘Young cave bug’. The irony stings. Cave bug in a cave.

I was about ready to tell kchat but I decided to yell “guards!”, and my guards actually responded. It took them about 20 seconds to run down to me and they actually entered my mine and started attacking the cave bug.
I heard that guards will not go into mines; for they are too scared. This blows that saying out of the fucking water!
So I’m all “Yeah! Yeah! Kill it!” and join in. Then see another cave bug next to it who starts attacking me. I panic and run out.

So the first cave bug is dead, I yell “guards!” again. This time they aren’t responding. It turns out you got to stand outside of the cave. All has to do with the fact caves are 2D.
So by standing outside, I yell again and the guards immediately move in on the second cave bug and begin attacking. Soon it’s dead. So I check the rest of the mine and see a third cave bug, target it and call the guards. Again. No response. At the time I didn’t know you had to stay outside of the mine for the guards to respond.

So the third one is now dead. I again check the mine for any more bugs, and it looked clear. I also noticed a cave wall near the forge caved in, and took this as a way to start mining for my 15 bricks.

When I finished, a person in kchat asked if someone could pick them up from Samling and take them to Reborn. Seeing how no one else responded, I volunteered to take the person. But time (and the wind) wasn’t on my side.
The person ‘sweetened’ the deal by offering meals as payment. 65+ QL meals. I freaked and was all like “LOL, OK!!”. You give me meals and I’ll take you around the fucking server.
So in the middle of night I set sail for Samling, while preparing my RL dinner. Finally got there, picked the person up and got them to Reborn, where I was given 16 meals. All high QL… but, low in weight. Still, that’s good enough.

Now I just need to get back home and make those bricks. Angry claims he may know a way to remove clay tiles.

I still can’t believe I didn’t die from driving right into a fucking bearshark I didn’t see back there.

Anyway last night I finally attached the last piece to my Corbita and christened it the ‘Dragon’s Head II’, to replace the Corbita I lost in the demise of JK-H.

Imped it today to 23 QL. Wish I had higher QL logs, but it’s good enough. So I took it on its maiden voyage to the other side of the server, to check out the two accessible uniques.
I decided to take a pit stop by checking out Volcano Forest. Nearing the island, the wonderful gale from the southwest began to die out.

Anayy finished his Knarr too. Finished it this weekend. It’s named the ‘PatienceOfAnayyatta’. The rest of the village doesn’t look any different. Angry can’t get his main on because it’s out of prem.

As I was leaving, I noticed a Young wild boar. It’s been a year since I’ve seen one. Last time I saw a boar was back in the days of Bennie Bay.
When I got back to my boat and checked the wind, it was a breeze. And heading down the east coast it weakened to a light breeze and stayed light for a good long time.

On top of it, night was falling, and to add insult to injury, fog. Fortunately the fog didn’t get really thick.
So I’m approaching this house on a small hill, named ‘Fort Karhula Trading Post’ with a shore road leading to it. Saw a guy in local and decided to dock and hopefully rest and wait for the fucking troll wind to become a gale again.
On the edge I noticed Cobblestone before clay, and wondered if it was possible to pave over clay tiles, but I seriously doubt you can.

So I stop the boat, moor and get off and walk over to the house. Turn the corner and I see a crock and a wild cat. Behind me in the water is a bearshark. And to make matters worse, I couldn’t enter the house.

Decided to talk to the guy in my local who wasn’t in visual, but I heard him fighting something. He told me to head back up north if I wanted a place to rest and wait.
So I got back in my Corbita and turned around, going 2.45km/h.. unacceptable! Was forced to drag my boat over to the village (since the speed of dragging is actually faster than the speed I was going).

As I approached, I noticed wolves. LOTS of wolves. At least 8+ wolves. And they were hanging all around the village of ‘Haitabu-hedeby’. Seeing the potential possibility for substantial pain of 8+ wolves nomming on my flesh, I’ve decided to abort docking and moor off the coast, and wait for sunrise.

Finally sunrise came and the wind increased a smidge to a breeze, and I took advantage of it.
Later on I reached my first destination, Royston Vassey. Was preparing to dock at the pier but I had to deal with a shitload of bearsharks, and wolves. When I finally docked a local happened to log in at that same time. Though he couldn’t help me reach the Cyclops (says he died and lost all his crap), he allowed me access to the village. Good thing too due to a wolf sitting there next to my boat.

Entering his village, he gave me directions to see the Cyclops, and I started on my trek up the road to do that. I first noticed how beautiful the landscape was. The tundra actually looks like snow.
I made it safely to Crouching Crow Hidden Mine. A rather awkward village. I also saw something I have wanted to see since JK-H, a gorilla. Was a young one but hell, it was alive! Last time I saw one was back at Roadside, but someone had killed it.

Continued on, heading into a forested area, and stopped short in the row of oak trees when I saw a scorp on one side of the road, and a wild cat on the other side. Not to mention the dead scorps in the road. Decided to just fuck seeing the cyclops.

I should had brought my alt, but I didn’t think I would run into so many hostiles. My alt could’ve been the bait while I followed him. Going in myself would be too risky. If I died I would had been teleported back to my village, without my Corbita. And since my alt can’t drive anything bigger than a Rowboat, he wouldn’t of been able to drive the boat me and him would take to get there to retrieve my Corbita (and my crap).

Later on, I made it to the base of Erik the Red (aka the red dragon), which is in the village of Elysian Heights. Slowly walked up the switchback road to Megas Volar. Surprisingly I only had one near encounter with a hostile.
Had to lure a scorp by the road leading further up the mountain to the village (which has a tower). Called for the guards several times, and the guards never responded. Even brought the scorp right infront of two of them and they acted like they were blind. Managed to get away from the scorp and continued up the road to Elysian Heights.

Near the top is a house named ‘EH Tunnel Access’. It was surprisingly unlocked and I went through it, and then went in a tunnel, continuing to go up, supported by reinforced cave walls.
Coming out at the top, is a forest area with a final switchback. And then you finally enter the village, and a sign with “Viewing platform, open 6am-midnight” on it. Going past this gate and up a path, and then you see him. ‘The venerable starving red dragon’ (aka Erik the Red). He’s a beaut. I took as many pictures as I could, though I wish I had some closeup shots.

I also got the view of a lifetime. A 180* view of the north side of the server. I swear I could almost see my house from there. But I knew it was time to go back to my boat, and so I did. Now I can say I met the red dragon and lived to tell the tale.

Next stop was Free Bears. Since they listed they have merchants, I decided to check them out. Unfortunately they aren’t set up yet.
Noticed a sailboat in the bay named ‘The Ferret Mobile’, belonging to the one and only Baileytheferret. Never found her house at Free Bears, but I noticed most of their houses have shop signs infront of them.

And the last stop before heading home, New Galway. Had to drag my boat ALL the way from Free Bears, there. Thanks to that delightful, pain in the ass light breeze. Now I’m stuck here until I get at least a breeze.

Not much has been happening, but I feel like I should explain what has been happening.

First of all, construction of the Corbita has been moving slow yet steadily. I believe I’m around 60-70% completed with it (all it needs is six things). Completing and attaching the rigs was the difficult part of the construction progress. Second hardest will be the hull planks, oars, and deck boards. since they consume alot of a single log.
I’m already thinking of the future when I take this baby out for a spin.

I’m already wondering how I could make this place better, though. I still need to get that secondary mine going, and the farm.
Thought about taking down all the walls and lowering the top tier to hopefully (by knowledge) close to the same height as the one at Dragon Haven. But what would that accomplish? Maybe it taking less time of going up it. But it would affect the road that goes to Reborn.

Also thought of expanding my deed and covering everything I own (farm included) to stop decay on all walls. It would cost me a whopping 19s to do it. I’ll pass… I really, REALLY wish Rolf would make it where one can expand one’s deed in one direction, instead of both.
However for 2s I can cover all walls around my deed (excluding the farm).
Why do I want to pay anything? It’s a little thing called “I don’t like the fact when I repair a wall and it gets damaged the next day because it’s not on-deed”.

Also it gets annoying that my off-deed iron lamps I pain-stakenly made in my forge will not light automatically at night, due to the fact they’re not in a deed. But if I set the deed to cover them only, it won’t look right. Due to the lamps are in the middle of the road, and you walking up the path, you would enter, then exit the deed while going up.

I believe I’m now half completed with my Corbita. Last night I created both of the rigs needed for the ship.

Anyway, I went on kchat asking if I can get the rigs into my large cart (had them by the ship, forgot I needed to finish them). My question wasn’t answered but they started talking about the change to mining and forges.
Rolf released a series of updates these two weeks. Lots of fixes and simpler ways of doing things. Such as forges/stoves heat up faster and it now takes shorter to do a single mining action.

But the veterans whine about this. I actually want to laugh at their whining. They whine about that noobs are getting off easy, yet they had to go through hell. And how there’s no challenge.
I’m a vet, but I actually like the changes. I despise challenges. So if Rolf wants to make Wurm easier, I’m all for it.

I’m already seeing the curse of helping what were the nomads. Helped them alot (which I now regret) and they think I’m their best friend. What they fail to understand is friendship needs space once and awhile, otherwise, one may find the other too.. clingy.

Anyway, I’m back to work on my Corbita. I asked kchat a question about where I could buy salt. Since getting it yourself is rare (requires mining).
I wanted to question the theory I heard of putting salt and water in a container, it will slow decay on meals. Found out this isn’t true. What you can do is you put salt in the meal and it will lower decay.
You really think Rolf would allow something like putting a few things in a barrel will slow meal decay? Anything that involves time-consuming work, he only supports.

Three minutes later, Kibblesandbits and Rulerofwax (two of the past nomads) yell out “DRAGON!” in kchat, and beg me to join their teamspeak server. I do my best to ignore this as I have Pandora playing good music in the background and I rather hear that instead of them.
But they keep doing it. And I knew the only way to stop them from embarrassing themselves (and myself to not make a scene or to look like an unfriendly person) is to go on and join their damn server.

I want to listen to Pandora ffs, but I don’t want them to think I hate them. I could still do it, but there’s always the chance they would ask for me and I won’t be able to hear them.

I’ve been busy making alot of things out of iron. Not one of my favorite things to do, but it has to be done.
I finally made that lantern I needed to replace the iron metal torch I lost, and imped it to 26 QL. I also imped my alt’s lantern.

After that I started to make exceptionally-hard to make lamp heads, to have six lamps and plant them along the path down to the pier.

As I was working, I was in Starhero’s teamspeak. One of his low-ranking village members (and is sort of a pain in the ass to me and them) got one of his friends from Steam to join the channel. His friend loves survival games and Hero needs the help.
I would be down there to help them, but I have my own jobs to do.

Anyway, the guy is going to be getting the game sometime this week. If I’m on (and not busy), I’m going to boat him from Samling to New Galway.

So, as I was making the lamps, I asked Hero about these Wishing Wells. To me they seemed like a way Rolf gets more money.
Hero actually had me understand what Rolf’s real intentions about those wishing wells were, by looking into the eyes of a developer.
Yes, what Rolf did to JK-H was bad and pissed alot of people off. But Hero claims what Rolf was actually doing was trying to see if people wanted a challenge. He never snapped and just did it for no reason. He says when Wurm was created, Rolf wanted a PvP-only server. But he saw that people also want a peaceful server where they can live, and work on their skills.

So that’s why he created JK-H. He wants his customers to be happy, like any honest retailer/developer. And that’s also why he created Independence (aka the Freedom Isles). And that also might be why he’s making this Epic server.

From what I understand about the Epic server, it’s unlike anything ever done in Wurm. There’s going to be challenges and other stuff to keep the game alive.

And as for me (and almost everyone) thinking all Rolf thinks about is how fat his bank account gets, it’s not true. What I have failed to understand for years, is how much he has to pay to keep those servers up 24/7/365. What he gets from us is just a drop in the bucket. This is why he wants you to buy money. Hell, even selling your account or selling silver is perfectly legal. No other game allows the buying and selling of ingame currency but Wurm Online.

If only angry explained this to me instead of Starhero. Then I could really see why these two care about Wurm so much. I’ve been such a fool to not think like a developer.

Alot has been happening since my last entry. So to spare you all the nitty-gritty..

First thing, I came back to their teamspeak server. I found out that I’m OK from spending time there. Later on that day I found out they went through the Crystal Canal and followed the coast towards The Valley of The Bears of Wurm. Soon Starhero saw a perfect place that has peat, tar, iron ore, wood, and clay. Every resource. Right there.

As they were trying to figure out where to slap the token down, I was back in my place trying to attach two keel sections to finally make that Corbita (by the way, that guard tower is finally completed) and failed twice, and was shocked to see I didn’t lose the other keel.
I also got this strange message in my Event window when I failed the second time; “Too many problems solved in the wrong way makes the corbita useless.” When I posted this in kchat, it’s like everyone took pitty in me.
Zuperman actually wanted to help me out by doing the most difficult part of making one (attaching the two keels). All I would have to do is run down to Phoenix Enterprises and grab it, for free. And of course I did.

When I finally got down there, grabbed it and put it in my boat, and then headed away from PE, the deed was dropped and finally they have a place to live. It’s called ‘New Galway’.
I congratulated them and decided to head their way to check out the place.

Getting there, hero and another were gone but Koi lit a bunch of campfires for me to find. I followed them up and saw the token. Now IMO I can’t say it’s a nice spot, and it’s going to need ALOT of digging and flatraising. It’s high up on a hill.

I stayed there until I realized it was 5 in the fucking morning, and quickly went to bed.

The next day, I saw they all were gone and took this as a signal to get outa here and get home, but what I was going to do was just go home, drop off the Corbita, grab their crap out of the cart, grab my tools, and head back down and help them in anyway I can.

And that’s what I’ve been doing. Sorta. They seemed like they didn’t really need my help. But if I wanted to help, I could.
While I was over there, kchat started becoming active mentioning about a Deed Disbanding bug. A more serious one than the one back on JK-H. This seems to remove your settlement paper when you login and you don’t get your money back.
This seriously causes a concern for me. Due to the Corbita being outside of my house. If I lose the deed, there’s a chance someone’s going to try to bash down my walls and steal it. And steal my large cart (and the horses).
But if I do lose my deed, I will be fully compensated for my loss. In a way this is also a good thing. If my token disappears and the only way to get it back is to replant, I need to move it one tile backwards to cover the entire top tier, and I don’t have the money to pay to expand it Eastward/Westward.

How nice. First minute I’m attaching clay. Next minute I begin to lag… badly. When I just sat there lagging for a good minute, I logged out and it worked.

When I tried to get back in, it’s stuck at “Connecting to server”. I went to the forums since it’s the only place to go when this happens, and already people were wondering what the hell happened.

Three hours passed and the server finally went back up. No explanation why. But no one’s going to complain about the lost time though, since everyone now has five hours of sleep bonus.
You know what’s funny, though? I’ve played 74 hours (plus the time as Benie in the past) and I forgot what sleep bonus does!

But at least the server is back up. And I’m almost done with the tower.