Benie's Games Blog

Apparently, I lucked out.. big time, of these apparent serious issues that affected Steam yesterday. I logged in without issue today.
I don’t see ANY changes to my Steam page. The wallet balance is the same. It’s pointing to the correct account. The email is the same. The phone number on file is the same. And I’m still using Steam Guard.
Going over my Library, there’s nothing that’s catching my eye of being different.

However, I still can’t view my Profile, or the Community page. I also can’t even view my wishlist (though it has the same number of games in it than before). They all show a black screen.

Also, there’s a clearer idea of who the assholes were that did the hacking; a group called “SkidNP”. And the reason, they say, is to reveal the weaknesses of Steam’s servers to the world. They also attacked Mojang’s servers, Microsoft’s servers, and Playstation’s servers. I do remember Tulsi telling me yesterday how Minecraft’s session servers were down.
And also, a week ago this same group was promising to do this thing. I never payed attention to the news. 😛

Steam is denying the hacking attempt, saying it was a “glitch in their system” that caused the outage. Yet they haven’t explained why half of their services are still down. This is a ‘*popcorn*’ moment right here.
However, they have stated the problem has been “fixed” (as in, no longer are people able to log into other people’s accounts).

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On a side-note (as to make this post longer), I logged on the MRT today and went over to where the tree is now. It’s a bit of ways East of my island. I checked every present, and shockingly.. not one of them said “To Benie” on them.
I had to get one of the mods to help me look, and it seems I’m as blind as a bat. There were four gifts with my name on it, this year.
One from Mike(a “Thank you, you’re awesome” book), one from _Kastle(Something about a “marked road” to my town), one from QueenSmae(Erm… no comment), and the last one from Skele(A ‘Rocking Chair’ stair. This was cute).

Tulsi however, was pissed he didn’t receive any gift and was about to cause mass chaos (and possibly get himself banned). Watching the chat while also reading the Wurm Online forum), one of them said “Didn’t Benie get you a present?”.. I’m like “OSHI–!!”(I’ve been busy on Wurm. Give me a break)
Thinking quickly, I scrambled and made a quick gift and a message for him, then said “Tulsi, I think there’s a gift here for you”.
Phew… he was ‘ok’ with it, but believes now that no one but myself is his friend (the fact no one but myself gave him a gift). But at least I calmed him down.
That is, hopefully he doesn’t read this part down here. 😛

Christmas Day in Wurm
The plan continued exactly as planned. The only change was… I couldn’t even get to 27 Strength. However, I got two rare and a supreme rock shard. Those are going to go into future projects back home (if I can think of them).
At the Impalong, the lamps I made the day before were slowly getting imped. While that was happening, B2 started suddenly hearing the sounds of spiders close by. One of the people there reacted. Upon closer inspection, there were a shitload more than just one spider. It was the 12 Mobs of Christmas.
There were bears, cave bugs, wolves, spiders, lava fiends, crocodiles, rats, trolls, goblins.. all sorts of baddies. Each one was named after one of the 12 Days of Christmas. Obviously, this had to have been spawned in by a GM. And it wasn’t any GM; it was the head GM, Enki. It was NUTS!! I loved it! This brings back memories of “Happy holidays hug zombie” in 2010.
This is the list of what they were called, based from the song;
1. Black wolf = “partridge in a pear tree”
2. Greenish wolf = “turtle doves”
3. Champ Troll = “french hens”
4. Lava fiend = “calling birds”
5. Champ Goblin = “golden rings”
6. Champ Large rat = “geese a laying”
7. ??? = “swans a swimming” (never saw the mob. I would assume it would be a hell hound)
8. Champ Huge spider = “maids a milking”
9. Champ Cave bug = “ladies dancing”
10. Crocodile = “lords a leaping”
11. Anaconda = “pipers piping”
12. Bear (“angry” trait) = “drummers drumming”

It took about 30-45 minutes until all the mobs were dead. Suffered a few player casualties. B2 tried to get a closer look (using my large cart) as the chaos was starting to slow down. Got attacked by one of the crocks out of nowhere. He survived with only two Light wounds, thankfully.
After the chaos ended and the hilariously-named mob corpses were butchered/buried, Perodin (one of the Chat Moderators) started offering her services of making any statue (out of marble) as something to take home. Had B2 ask for a ‘statue of horse’ (as I could plant it right in the middle of the farm back home).

Back in the public mine outside of FM, I was getting fed up of not getting Strength up. I’m not saying I’m giving up, I’m saying it’s just not that important (and it really isn’t). So I took the valuable rare/supreme shards with me, back to the boat and set sail back to the Impalong. The wind wasn’t in my favor, in any direction(light breeze from the east). But I got to see the speed of a Knarr without wind for the first time. It’s not anywhere as bad as a Cog with no wind. I really didn’t have that many complaints, mainly the fact I can row the boat while dealing with winds like this.

Back at the Impalong (micro-freezing all the way), I had B2 ready the large cart and get it over to the statues. But when I tried to load it.. “This will be very bad for your karma and is disallowed on this server.” *facepalm*
I had to get William, the host of this thing (and thankfully also the deed owner) to help me and B2. Instead of giving me temp perms, he loads the statue into his cart and takes it to my boat.. making me question why I even brought the cart.
Anyway, I managed to load it into my Knarr with no problem.

After that, I told B2 to go to FM and eat at the buffet; felt he deserved it and he did. A bit halfway, he had to come back as more lamps that he placed in, only he could get out due to permissions. He came back and grabbed them. I took over after that and he went back out to sea and made it to FM.
Some time later, one of the two remaining lamps was imped as high as they’ll allow it. I took it out (as I put them in, so there wasn’t a problem this time). I decided it was time to give them the gem I mined from my mine a few months ago.
I told William where I could place it. He’s all “you should keep it”. I said that I insisted, and he said it’s because there’s no enchanters at the moment, and he would have no need.
Then he starts asking me if I received a “Goody Bag”. I told him no, and that I never heard of it. So he gives me one, and I gave him the gem as he finally realized I wasn’t going to take “no” as an answer. It was for the Impalong as a ‘thank you’ from me and B2.
I received a cauldron. Inside was an assortment of stuff; a hammer, a gem(wow…), some cotton, and a hefty lump of rare iron ore. The rare lump I can definitely use back home. It would only be for imping, though. Good QL too.
Anyway, it also had a key. He said that it could unlock a box that has a ‘grand prize’ inside. Sadly, the key didn’t work for me. Debating if I should just throw it away or keep it as a memento.

Before it turned 6pm, I had my alt come back to the Impalong and have him watch over the remaining lamp as they’re taking their sweet time imping it. 😛
The plan was to take my large cart up to FM, load up of all the shards I mined and then head home, leaving B2 there at the Impalong until he got the lamp and then headed home himself.
But I didn’t do that plan. I just couldn’t do that to him. Instead, I decided to stay and told B2 to go home with the remaining lamps. Screw the shards. If I need shards, I got my own mine to get them from. Though they also have Marble cave walls in the public mine, which I could use…

It’s a good thing I did. Enki struck again, releasing an “Aged champion teaser”; a champ wild cat. William pwn’d it all by himself. Here I felt ready to take on anything (being on horseback and having gear). Yet William warned me that Enki would see it as a challenge…. I stopped talking after that. :/
As I waited for my final lamp to very.. very slowly imp, someone nudged me in the elbow and said how my armor is driving her insane that they can’t imp it. I’m thinking “Uhh.. what? You really want to imp my gear? Uhh, OK, sure!” and took off all my armor, then went to the area where leather imping was and placed it in one of the coffins there.
Told the person where I dropped it, and she was thrilled and ran over to get to work. She wants to imp my armor? Be my guest! 🙂

10 minutes later, Round 2 of Enki’s spawning madness began. I was only armed with my sword and shield (and my horse). I felt like “bring it on!” and ran into the battlefield.. though I wish I didn’t. Hoards of lava fiends!
The battle went on for 20 minutes. About 3-4 times I had to run back to the imping area and heal as I was critically injured (8% health at times). There was even this one time where I thought I was fucked. Suddenly, all of my wounds disappeared.
At the end of the battle, Enki spawned roosters. For the love of GOD, Enki.. have you lost your MIND?! 😀
They were roosters that don’t attack you, but you can attack them (and they’re even more pitiful in fighting than I am).

Enki showed up shortly after. We all thanked him for the fun. He left us a few “parting gifts” before he left; a pair of black bears that were quickly killed off.
After that, I decided to let them imp my sword and shield (since I’m here). Also I found out tomorrow’s the last day of the Impalong. However, William feels it’ll be a slow day due to people able to get out of the house and shop again.

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Overall, as messed up as my plan was (due to my own laziness, and not monitoring the weather forecast)… I actually enjoyed Impalong/Wurmxmas 2015. Christmas Day was probably better than Christmas Eve. Because now I feel I have a new respect for these impers. I originally saw them as nothing but “WOOT! Free imps!”, but they’re actually there for themselves; to help eachother level up their skills.
Because of this, I really want to actually contribute to next year’s Impalong, instead of being someone waiting for their stuff to be imped; actually HELP with the imping for once.
With my mining skill almost 50, in the future I could possibly help to give them 70QL lumps. I want to no longer be a burden, but an asset to future Impalongs. I want to be a someone in Wurm, and actually be called “DH” instead of “dragon”.

As to what I’m going to do after all of this is over, and January 2016 arrives? I still want to explore the other servers. But I also need to focus on getting my fight skill up. I got to be able to defend myself in lands unknown to me.
I actually do hope I run into angry one of these days, while in my travels. Just to let him know I still care about this game. It was the memories, back in 2010 and years past that brought me back. And hopefully, new memories (exploring new worlds and fighting mobs like MD did) will keep me here.

The only thing I didn’t like about the Impalong, was the insane micro-freezing. Maybe I really do need more RAM. I noticed the same issue with Space Engineers. Yet this was also coupled with low framerate.
My computer doesn’t like me being able to run two instances of Wurm Online, in that area. At home, it’s perfectly fine. Sailing around, it’s perfectly fine. It was only in that one area. Yet…, no one was complaining. That really disturbed me. That proves it’s my computer and not the game.

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Steam HACKED?!?! :O
On the flip-side of this active day, bad things were happening on Steam (that still aren’t explained exactly what happened). Somehow, hackers managed to get in Steam and were able to switch the account names of people with other accounts.
Some say there was no “hack”; that Steam just got DDoS’d. Others have proof that Steam was hacked. Yet it still isn’t clear what they were after. Passwords? Credit card info?
What the scary thing is, I’ve been logged into Steam all day and haven’t noticed a problem. I didn’t go anywhere on it. Yet I also cannot login to my info page. Claims the servers are having issues.
I’ve decided to log out of Steam for the time being, hoping they fix whatever the hell happened (and also explain it). Though I am worried that when I boot my computer up tomorrow, I might not be able to login. That’s when I’m really going to start panicking.

Merry Christmas Eve.. morning, everyone! I’m waiting for morning in Wurm to do my normal maintenance at the farm (tending to the crops and then the livestock).
Yesterday, I was going to do the 10 lamps and buy a bed, both would be in prepare for the Indy Impalong.
Unfortunately, the fear of strong tornadoes IRL, going through my house…. ruined that plan. Seeing how I’m not typing this using my phone, my house is still here and thankfully so am I. I unfortunately can’t say the same for people in Mississippi (especially in a town called Holly Springs, where they lost three people… the youngest being a 7 year old).

Do pray for everyone affected by yesterday’s severe weather on this Christmas Eve. No family should be apart.
Anyway, going back to the point of this thread, it seems the devs want to simulate global warming and keep it Summer. Bleh! I expected snow on the ground, and the air to feel festive. The wind isn’t even in my favor today(strong breeze from the south). I think this is the same exact wind I got, Wurmxmas 2012.

I do have a pre-plan to start my initial plan for today;
-Buy the bed first. This is the first priority.
-Get home with it, put it in my house using my large cart (thankfully, beds can be loaded into a large cart).
-Go to sleep in the bed until my sleep bonus goes back up. This is about 3 hours of not playing Wurm.
-Get back on three hours later and make the 10 lamps. Imp them to as high as I can (make it look like “at least I tried to imp them on my own”).
-Do the plan I mentioned earlier this month, with my alt, my large cart and horses.

Oh yeah. A few days ago, one of my horses finally gave birth to a gray horse, called “Quicksilver”. It’s a female, but hopefully it’s a 5-speed horse once it grows up to be ridable. I also managed to pregnant the horse that Cybaru gave me (the one with the single bad trait). Surely her offspring won’t have this same trait.
The offspring will be born in four days from now(or maybe sooner than that).

EDIT: Morning has arrived in Wurm. I did my farm maintenance. When I asked for a bed, Reaping popped up and offered to give me one. To do so, I had to take a few short cuts instead of sail south and meeting him at the south side of the Crystal Canal.
Sadly, the shortcuts have gotten me lost a few times, and I can feel Reaping facepalming at me for not knowing the layout of these servers.
I decided to fuck it and went back to Indy. When I crossed the server border… somehow I actually found myself in south central Indy. Exactly where I needed to be!

I used my knowledge of Indy to guide my Knarr towards the Crystal Canal. I found Reaping’s place; “Fortress of Death”, just West after going through the Crystal Canal. He gave me a 26QL bed for free (as a Christmas present). As I pushed the bed over to my Knarr, he asked if I wanted some meals for my return trip. I debated, since I was going to eat at the buffet in FM later on, but decided to take them as he was offering. Said he can only make 31QL meals. That’s fine. The weight of them was similar to what B2 could cook (0.40).
Yet I’ve been told that it’s not the weight that matters, it’s the QL.

I entered his village. Going up a ramp, I saw something I’ve never saw in my Wurm life; the corpse of a “aged blue whale”.. apparently they added whales into Wurm! 😮
Reaping told me that they’re “somewhat common” on the north shores of Deliverance. Said that the whale was a “mean mofo” to kill.

He showed me where one of his villagers were trying to keep the whale; in a fountain. Yeah. That’s going to work. Just like a dragon in a birdcage. He also showed me the interior of his Crafting Hall, adding this is where new players go to learn. And before you guys say something… no, I’m not going to stick Tulsi in there. 😛

Before I left, I noticed he had a Christmas Tree here. I checked for a gift, and shockingly, I actually got something from Wurm Santa(a dragon in a Santa disguise)! Back in 2012, I had to wait ’till Christmas Day to get it. But I’m actually going to wait ’till tomorrow before I unwrap it (just incase it’s a… *flashback of 2012’s “shit gift” of Fireworks*).. ugh. But even if it is, I know it came from the heart.

Anyway, time to go home. I asked for a quick way to get back. He said to go south and plot a course for Exo, then turn around and to go to Deli, then sail West and plot a course for Indy (once I reach the Southwest side of Deli).
When reaching Exo, I couldn’t see the front of my boat. The fog, was insane on that server! I thought any time, a fog spider was going to attempt to board my boat and attack me. I turned around and got to Deli… much better. I have unlimited visibility.
When I was past the Southwest coast of Deli, I turned south to Indy and found myself exactly on the Northwest coast of Indy. But when I did, I noticed fog was developing (and still is). Now I can’t see the shoreline anymore.

Thankfully I didn’t have to wait long for the fog to thin enough, to get my bearings. Due to the wind in my face, I had to swing around the western-most island and head home. B2 was able to get the large cart ready for my arrival. Got the bed in it and up to the house, and placed it down.
Seeing how he and I had a sleep powder, he gave me his and I was able to get up four hours of my 5 hour max. Here I went right to work making the lamps.
I also fucked up after creating the lamp heads, thinking to imp them will set the QL of the lamp… it didn’t. So much unnecessary work. 😛

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Due to RL issues, I was forced to forfeit a lot of time to making the lamps. I should had made the damn things sooner. When I got them done, I only had a few hours to get them up to the Impalong before 12am rolled around. Still did the plan as I planned, except B2 was forced to stay there while I went to FM (due to being close to 12am).
I also forgot to bring one of my horses for the trip up the ramp to FM.

When I arrived at FM, it was so much quieter than it was back in 2012. Only one guy in my local. No one actually in FM. But I was able to meet Wurm Santa. As much as I wanted to see him in his dragon form, he refused. You can’t trust a floating dragon head?
Anyway, was able to eat at the buffet. Once again it helped to get everything at 99%. All I need to do is find the public mine.
Speaking of getting my strength up, Reaping had told me I’d be wasting my time going for that; as a Knarr has a shallow bottom. I told him that the Clay I have around my area, my Knarr gets stuck in it. He said that I can try to “wiggle” myself out from being stuck by using my arrow keys.

Well, this may be my only choice if I can’t get it up with this plan. To be honest, dragging my Knarr isn’t really a high priority; getting the lamps imped, is.
Tomorrow, once all the lamps are imped to as high as they’re allowed (70QL), we’ll go home and open up our gifts from Wurm Santa.

On the MRT today, was supposed to be “Winterfest 2015”. I’ve never attended a Winterfest. Started two months ago. Tulsi paid for my ticket. We were going to get the best seats of the show.
The time and date stated it would happen today, December 19th 2015, at 2 to 2:45pm EST.

For reasons unknown to Tulsi, myself, and several other members I spoke to in Mumble… the event has been rescheduled to January of next year. No known date. As I said in the title, there were no emails. No notifications. No anything. To us, everything was going as planned. And today we find out it’s rescheduled.

Tulsi is pretty pissed (and is understandable), due to having to cancel a Christmas Party for this. Me? A bit pissed we weren’t informed. But overall, I don’t really care to see it in the first place. The only reason I decided to is because Tulsi was going to pay for my ticket, and I like free things (as long as they’re also nice).
To be honest, I could hear it in the voices of other members that they too didn’t really care.

I dunno if I’m going to attend the new January Winterfest. What’s the point, when it won’t be related to Christmas anymore? I bet it’ll probably be something like “Look at the pretty snow! La la-la la-la!! It’s so pretty! Hey, anyone in the audience.. do you want to build a snowman?!” with most people screaming “NOOO!!!”… I’ll pass (and I think my eyes and ears will as well).

A day ago, I said how I was getting bored with Wurm. Well, due to the many.. major changes to Space Engineers, it was calling me back.
A lot of people are having issues with the game, such as crashing and low framerate. The main blame is of course, the new Planets that have been added. Me? The only problems I have is if I set my settings too high and it causes my entire computer to freeze, forcing me to do an emergency shutdown (hitting the power button on the back).

The other issue, is when the game suddenly stops…. then continues again(sometimes not continuing for a good 10 seconds); a good sign to save my game.

So why has Space Engineers, a game that has crushed my plans in the past, now my new favorite game? Duh.. Planets! To actually have a purpose to explore things is what I wanted from this game. And Keen Software House has really outdone themselves, from what the game was in the past (a voxel destruction simulator).

Now I’ve been playing this game before this post was made. Had an issue with my old save becoming corrupted. Thankfully I was able to use a tool called ‘SE Toolbox’ to copy my ship over and bring it to me. After several attempts of trying to learn the controls, I finally had it.
I then proceeded to land it on the Earth-like planet infront of me, and couldn’t. The ship wouldn’t even lift off the ground. Unfortunately, Wurm was calling and I never had time to figure out what’s going on (why my ship was so heavy).
Now that I’m technically done with Wurm, I was able to go back to Space Engineers and was able to fix my problem (by using a mod that allows Hydrogen Thrusters to work in creative mode(without requiring fuel)), and added more thrusters on the bottom. And man, what a change that made.

Yet I wasn’t exactly happy (I never am). I wanted to be able to make a large ship with a shuttle bay, and that shuttle would be used to head down to the planet surface. But to do such an idea with my very limited creativity, is next to impossible. I don’t even know where to start.
I had thought of re-creating the ship I made from Gmod in Space Engineers, but doing so is rather hard. Mainly because… PHX Ship Building Modules =/= Space Engineers’ blocks.
There are no ‘flat bottom’ or ‘hull is thin’ options in Space Engineers. However, at least with Space Engineers, I won’t have to worry about parts in the ship colliding with eachother/spazzing out the ship in a hilarious (yet also frustrating) way. Nor do I have to worry about wiring thrusters and other shit (as the game does it for me in its coding).

And another ‘Gmod VS Space Engineers’ thing, space is actually infinite (and planets can actually be landed on anywhere(instead of their poles in Gmod)).

Anyway… I tried looking on the Workshop. My options were pretty limited. Though I did see this image when looking through the plethora of screenshots that people have taken. That picture would be my only option; to recreate it.. in a way (as it’s not on the Workshop.. yet(the author told me that they’re working on adding “useful things” to it(probably to make it Survival-ready) and “will be up at some point”. He also sent me a friend invite for some odd reason. But now that I think about it, it was probably a way to notify me that he uploaded it. :/
However, him uploading it “at some point” is good, because I would be able to take a peek and see how he did his shuttle bay. But as I said, I used this image… to make my own version.

What I did was save my game, then ripped off the back of my ship and removed the old engine room. I then extended it very, very far. And after much screaming at certain blocks that wouldn’t fit, I finally had … well, somewhat of a winner. At least I got the shuttle bay.. even though it’s not long enough to support a rover as well. But with a few modifications, it will. The way I designed the stairs to the new, larger engine room (that has two Jump Drives), and the Jetpack Elevator.. all I have to do is move the elevator back some to warrant more room.

I barely have an idea for a rover. And I also heard they can be a bitch to build (due to the wheels). And I’ll also need to fit it to where it will land on the planet surface (like the Mako MK1 in Mass Effect 1), and also to be able to get off the planet and head back to the ship.
Not to mention, I need to have room in my ship’s shuttle bay for both my fighter/recon ship and the rover. It will not be easy.

Three days until the Indy Impalong and I’ve completed nearly everything I need to do to restore the deed back the way I had it. The house is done, the paths have all been paved, the pine sprouts have all been planted. And the main road is fixed (and the ground next to it has also been fixed).

The only things remaining are the fence gates, and doing the lamps and getting them to the Impalong. But back to the fences. I’m debating if I should make them out of iron or wood.
Iron is more demanding (as it requires fence bars), but looks really pretty as a fence. And wood is easy to work with, but looks n00bish. Stone is in the middle. Sadly there’s no ‘Stone fence gate’ option.
Due to an update I was never around for, there are more options for fences.. but very few for fence gates.

But when I eventually pick something I would like, and build it(and also get the lamps done as I mentioned earlier), that’s it. That’s all there is to do on the deed. It would be completed.
Knowing this… I am starting to get bored already. Yet it’s mainly because I can’t take my horses cross-server.
I mean, sure. It’s fun to explore the servers by boat. But the real heart of what the community has built, is inside the server. Yet… so are all the mobs. I’ve been told (in the past) that if you pack light, you can outrun any mob. That was before hellhounds were introduced… who can outrun you.

My only option is to relax, and train to be as good of a fighter as MD was. This way, the mobs will fear me (instead of the other way around). But the path of a Wurm Dragon Warrior is long, and also a bit confusing.
-I’ve been told to whack trees with my sword to get my Longsword skill to 20, yet my sword can fell several trees before I even get a 0.000001 in that skill.
-The second thing is to practice with a training dummy, using a shaft. Yet I’ve been told that it takes a very, very long time. Plus I have to repair the damned thing and also improve it constantly.
-The 3rd thing, is fighting “low level” mobs on a horse. Since I played Wurm, I wanted a list of mob levels and never got one. I know I can take on wolves and wildcats. But bears, scorps, and spiders? No. They make me hurt hard before they start hurting.

One of these three(or all three), has to get my skill up. My other option (which won’t always work) is to get into archery, and take potshots at mobs from a distance. The thing is, you may not always see them before they see you.
I also made a thread about this. The responses so far have varied from “get your FS up with a 2H sword -or- 2H axe” to “screw the horses and pack as light as possible. Don’t even bring cotton”. Though most of them also agree to “bring a tent as it will act like a spawn point for you”.
I still have the military tent that Ghost gave me, so that’s good. Plus it has a lock, so no one but myself can take it.

All I can do is practice with a target dummy with a shaft (use my remaining Sleep Bonus), then repair and imp when required. Maybe that’s how MD got his fight skill up from when he started. He also PvP’d, though. I bet he’s somewhere on the Epic Cluster.
Haven’t seen him (or even Drago) since I came back to Wurm, and he won’t be helping at Impalong this year (according to the list on the forum thread).

There’s also another reason I’m bored. For years, a certain unique creature has eluded me. Unfortunately… that creature passed away from starvation last week. That creature was the White Dragon.
I never figured out how to get up the mountain to get to it. But after careful looking of the map dump, I think I found a way up there. But now it’s dead… what’s the point?
I’ve also been told that uniques do respawn. Yet, no one told me if they spawn in the same place. I remember Reaping asking everyone “have you seen the white dragon yet?”. For what I know, they seem to spawn miles away from any settlement (why I never ran into one near my deed).

Today, finally done with those two videos, I was able to focus all of my attention on fixing the main road and raise back up the second half of the two-wide road.
Where I get the dirt from is a flatraised area, just on the other side of the side road. It’s in my deed’s perimeter, so I have the right to dig it up. I even made three large crates to do it (which is the limit for a large cart). That’s 900 units of dirt (300 per crate). 9 large cartloads.

Anyway, I think I know what the previous owners of my place were doing; they were trying to make a canal or something of the sort, or perhaps another mine. There’s a one wide trench that’s pretty low down. Doesn’t exactly go to the water level, but it could.
So I’ve been dropping dirt in this trench, trying to fill it up. But having to drop off the three crates, fill up on two 20’s of dirt and then go back up once all the 900 was unloaded, was tedious and boring. Plus I ran into a roadblock, with the trench meeting with this lowered part that was at an angle, going down to the water level. I knew I needed help, to get this job done correctly.
Looked through my friends list, and saw Ivan and Reaping were on. Asked Ivan if he’s good at terraforming. He said “I think so”. But what he did more than proved he was good.

Asked him if he could come over and take a look. He said he was trying to find a drop shaft in his mine and then would come over. This took a half an hour until he arrived (didn’t even see him show up for a bit) in one of his sailboats.
I showed him my crates, where I was digging, and what I have to deal with. He said “ok brb” and went back to his sailboat. I asked him what he was getting. He said he would get about 2k dirt, and “you can pay me back”. Uhhhh… I never agreed to any payment?
Before I could say it, Ivan left my local and headed back to his island. I told him in PM, that I just wanted advice, not dirt. And that I have plenty of dirt to dig right here. Yet he told me (in this translated version); “I’m going to send some crates over. Just use the dirt there. Once done, fill them back up and send them my way.” And that seemed fair to me.

Another half an hour passed, and he showed up in a Knarr (kind of going the wrong way. Heading for my old Corbita), and then parked near me. I had my large cart ready to load up his crates (had 20) and get them to where he wanted them. And he did all the work for me. All I did was unload the crates where he wanted them. Really wish I could make a wagon, though. That way I could haul even more stuff.
What he did was flatraised the second part of the road, then just dig away the excess. And now the road is the way it was before… minus the majority now packed dirt tiles (due to him having to destroy the pavement). But I can easily re-pave, no problem.
I also gave him a 85 WoA shovel I ordered from a player, because I don’t feel like going to FM… just for a shovel. And Dragon Fang Mountain? Meh. I’ve seen the summit. It isn’t that amazing up there, to be honest. I expected to get to the very top of it. Most of the mountains, as I had said before, are even taller than where I was standing on. Though it was nice to have somewhat of a 360* view of the server.

Anyway, back to the job at hand. As I said, Ivan did all the work. Unfortunately, I forgot to ask for my shovel back of when he was done. He did offer to take away those fireplaces that have been there since I first visited this place.
As I was helping to load his crates back and unload to where he can put them back in his Knarr, he said that he had to go to Blackrock Isle to pick up his “MR tower tonight”, and said the wind was perfect for both ways.

So, he still has my 85WoA shovel. He said that he’ll come back “one say soon” and give it back to me.

.
But the job isn’t done yet. Though I never told him (since he worked so hard and I never had the heart), I still need to raise up the left side of where the “pier” crosses by the water (that leads to the clay). I need to smooth all of that out. Only then will I feel all the damage that they did has been reversed.
Also, Impalong is only five days away now. I really need to make those lamps and soon. We were politely reminded by ‘Williamweird’, the guy who made the thread in the forum about Indy’s Impalong.
I also found out that it’s location is a LOT closer than I thought. It’s literally a hike away from home. Soon as you leave the Darkenstone Canal, go due East and you’re there. That’s too much of a gap distance from FM (where Santa will be when Christmas Eve gets here). I still need to get there, and eat from the buffet to get all of my needs at 99%. But so does my alt.
Because of it, I was thinking of just not going up (and pay someone to imp my lamps instead).

Another reason, is in the thread; how it states to be “responsible and reasonable” of the number of things you want imped.
So I spoke to William and told him I was planning to make 10 lamps, and if it’s OK to leave them there. He said “it’d be polite to try to throw in only a few at a time”. Meh. With how heavy they are…
With this said, I have to come up with a plan to kill two 2D birds who are able to fly through mountains, with one rock shard. Meaning, being able to give them “a few at a time” of lamps, while also being outside of FM, trying to grind my Body Strength to 29, so I can drag my Knarr.

And this is what I came up with. It went through a few revisions, but I feel I have a winning plan here. The only downsides are server/client stability, wind speed/direction, and of course… Real Life (weather and what not).
So anyway, here’s the plan. Starting December 24th;
-Load up my large cart into my Knarr.
-Take my horses.
-Have B2 come on and grab the lamps, and throw them in his sailboat.
-Leave, with B2 following me in his sailboat.
-We arrive at the Impalong. I re-assemble my cart and horses to be usable.
-B2 gets lamps out of his sailboat and puts them in my cart. I head to where they show that carts can be stored.
-B2 grabs “a few at a time” of the lamps and gives them to the impers.
-We leave the cart there. He follows me to the dock, gets back in his sailboat and we head to FM.
-We reach the docks (maybe have to deal with the GM’s silliness (like the “Happy holidays hug zombie”)), head up the ramp to FM.
-We chow down at the buffet.
-B2 leaves FM and gets back in his sailboat, and heads back to the Impalong. From there, he stays with the cart until they imp all of the lamps.
-I leave FM, find the public mine, activate Sleep Bonus, activate my pickaxe and grind Body Strength to 29.

Then on Christmas Day (when hopefully I reach my goal), I head back to the Impalong, and we reverse the process since reaching the Impalong; taking the imped lamps, the cart, and horses back home with B2 following me in his sailboat.
B2’s sailboat is the key element in this plan. Without it, I would be forced to just ignore Impalong this year. I had thought of taking one of my horses and heading to FM, then B2 could ride that horse back to the Impalong instead of taking his sailboat. But he needs 21.00 Body Control, and it’s leveled best by fighting.

Screw that. I don’t have the time nor the patience to make him some gear. He’s only my alt, nothing more.