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Wurm Online answers your Epic questions
Are you a Wurm Online player looking for a sense of purpose? Well, look no further than the game's Epic servers, which went live today. Not sure what Wurm Epic is? Well, you're in luck once more because over at the game's official site, Code Club CEO Rolf Jansson has posted an FAQ that covers everything you need to know about the new game type. The basic concept is this: Players both new and old can take a portal from the main game world to the Epic servers. From there, they will be stripped of all their items and skills, though they will retain all gold in their banks. After that, it's the duty of the players to build and defend kingdoms, which in turn further the goals of their gods on the moon of Valrei. Gods, in turn, have the ability to "reshape the world or spawn creature invasions as a result of how well they achieve their goals." For the full, detailed FAQ, head on over to the game's official site.
One Shots: Be it ever so humble...
Today's One Shots house comes to us from our very own Editor-in-Chief Shawn, who shows off the fun of player housing in Wurm Online. Player housing in this game might not be as flashy or shiny as in some other games, but there's a lot to be said for creating your character's home piece by piece from the ground up: It might not look like much, but this is my humble deed in Wurm Online. While most players build in the middle of a lush forest, I started my homestead on an empty, jagged mountain cliff. After terraforming and flattening the land with shipped-in dirt from another island and then planting trees for wood and gardens for food, I built my small stone house and fencing for my new animals. There's also an extensive system of mines within the mountain, complete with two forges, an oven, storage crates, and barrels galore. This week on One Shots is all about giving you a chance to show off your character's home, so send us a screenshot at oneshots@massively.com along with your name and the name of the game. Tell us anything you like about the decor, memorabilia, trophies, and so on, and we'll show it off here on One Shots so everyone can admire your digs! Want to get a head start on future One Shots themes? We'll be featuring awesome mounts next week, and then weird foes. Do you have a great shot of a dancing Abaddon in Guild Wars or a nose-picking foe from Gates of Andaron? Send those in too and we'll feature them on One Shots! %Gallery-112285%
Free for All: A week of scheduled playtimes
After a loose week of playing scheduled games, I can say that I have a lot of work to do to perfect my system. Once again, Tim and Jon from the Van Hemlock podcast are my inspiration. They are both dedicated to the art of playing games, to "finishing" games, almost to the point of obsession. It's certainly not for everyone, but they seem to maintain a real balance while skipping around. Perhaps the podcast they host helps them with this balance? I've hosted several podcasts over the years, so maybe putting my weekly gaming thoughts into audio form is necessary to keeping my sanity? In reality, what I need to do is just stick it out and stay the course. I am not sure of many things in this world, but I am positive that repetition and scheduling are more powerful than almost any plan. Humans are habitual creatures, even with their gaming. Especially with their gaming. Over this last week, I started to settle into the role of a scheduled player and even looked forward to it each night. Click past the cut and I'll let you know how it went.
Around the world in eight days: A journey in Wurm Online, part one
Wurm Online is a unique MMO. I can't think of many other games that allow the freedom of Wurm, which may be why I still consider it my favorite online game to this date. For anyone who hasn't tried the game or heard me yammer on about it on the Massively Speaking podcast, I'll explain the basics. Wurm Online is a sandbox game created to allow players unbelievable freedom. If you've played Minecraft, you have the basic premise of Wurm, but multiply that experience by about 100. In fact, Markus "Notch" Persson was the co-founder and co-creator of Wurm before moving on to Minecraft and world fame. Wurm Online starts you off as a fairly inanimate and uncustomizable character whose goal is to simply build. Find a spot of unclaimed land, throw down a settlement token, and build to your heart's content. You cut down trees for wood, mine stone for ore, forage and fish for food, and use it all to create the world that lives within your imagination.
Free for All: The healing ability of instant access
Recently I received a diagnosis from my doctor that did not make me happy. While it was far from a death sentence, it was still pretty heavy news. Immediately I went into information-gathering mode, scouring the internet for other people's stories and possible outcomes. If any of you have gone through this sort of thing before, you know how this type of research can actually have the opposite effect on you, only making you feel worse. So, I decided to stop it. I had my medicine, I knew what I had to do, and I decided to concentrate on ending the speculative thinking. Worse case scenarios are just that, and life is filled with them. Worrying about what might happen in 40, 20 or even five years is sort of a waste of time. Yes, you must be prepared and need to make plans to cover any possibilities, but thinking about all those possibilities can cause stresses of their own, making the situation worse. I had enough of it pretty quickly. I'm not a down person most of the time. I wanted to forget about it for a while, so I sat down and loaded up a game that I had been missing lately. Click past the cut and see what I discovered.
Free for All: How much for a ten-spot?
In this week's Free for All, I decided to check out some cash-shop games to see what I might get for 10 U.S. dollars. For the record, some games can be subscription-based and still have cash shops, and some games can have cash shops that have been redesigned and tweaked so that they do not fit into the same old "cash-shop" model. For clarity, I stuck to cash shops that normally pop up while you're in-game -- usually inside their own window. Sometimes, though, the cash shops might be accessed or found on the games' main websites, as well. It was hard to choose, being that I generally don't buy from cash shops any more. It takes a very special product (like Wurm Online's currency) to get me to pay, namely because I do not spend as much time in a single game as I used to. Actually, let me rephrase that before someone starts to write a comment based on that statement: I still spend a lot of time in certain games, like anyone else, but my pace has slowed. Most of the cash-shop items out there are convenience items -- simply time-travel devices that allow the player to speed up his experience. Since I have all the time in the world because of the free nature of these games, speeding up is not something I am interested in. So, let's look at a few cash shops to see what piqued my interest!
