Brash_Endeavors

yo off I go to check it out ...

Lol -- I knew you lived on top of the nearby mountain with a fantastic view, but never realized how far you actually could see -- that's my house waaaaaaaay down there!!! See me waving my rake at the camera?

I am so excited about all these upcoming improvements!! First, I will be perfectly content if we just "pop" onto the horse's back, it's an immense improvement over standing If you are still looking for "inspiration" for mounted rider animations, you might look at this gentlean;s work (which I believe he also sells to gaming companies as an animation kit): I am pretty sure Wurm staff can do their own and probably already have all this covered. The separate horse and rider walking animations that you've already shown us look terrific. Very exciting times ahead for Wurm!

Woot!

I assume also this is on Epic or Chaos as I don't think it is possible to lockpick boats on the PvE Freedoom servers. On the PvE servers its also "illegal" to steal a boat, though usually you are expected to secure it to be covered, and if it is "lost" you can post a notice in the lost/found boat section. Boats that are not locked *and* moored can be salvaged by other players although they have to give 60 days public notice for the original owners to reclaim them first. (again that is only PvE servers I think). You can "drag" a boat through a door of a boathouse for safekeeping but I think the house must be only 3-4 dirt max above the waterline. So maybe try to terraform a land tile that is * barely* above water level though I think on epic/chaose they can also lockpick houses anyway .. ? So I am not sure if that is any more secure anyway.

Actually he left out a couple of his career milestones: Jan. 19 2010: I’m about to become a distributor for some Sexual Enhancement pills that work like crazy! (filed under "I Just Have Hobbies...") http://web.archive.o...on.com/?paged=2 Jan 2011 I’ve decided that I’d like to run for Governor of Ohio http://www.jasonappleton.com/?p=434

Wonderful site!! I am really looking forward to seeing how the video livecasts progress!

Currently not able to accept any new residents as my ability to be ingame this next month is severely limited (ie, almost non existent) Hopefully will reopen to new residents well before Wurm 1.0 and everyone currently there can count on staying there as long as they like though you may need to PM me through the forum if you are having any issues.

Interesting you should ask that because the answer is : actually yes -- well, let me qualify that -- ok not really, but at least more than you. I dabbled a little into Perl programming -- enough to soon realize I just wasn't very talented at programming, but one actual "finished project" was back in the late 1990s when I designed and ran the first private image hosting service for eBay (started as Auction Web.) This was long long before free image hosts were a dime a dozen on the internet, and long before eBay was actually a big deal, back when the fanbase and the paid staff tended to draw from the same pool. Based on my image hosting service and volunteer work with sellers, they even hired me at one stage to work for them. The one thing I learned was really what an amateur I was compared to real professionals. Anyway that was enough to cure me of the idea I could get away with calling myself a "programmer," even in InternetLand where everyone and their brother calls themselves "programmers" and "developers" based on their make believe play games with learning cool stuff. Oh but that's not gaming, hmm. Well, I put together the original Petopia website for WoW hunters (currently taken over by a friend of mine who is much more dedicated and talented than me, though you can still find credits to me in the "About Petopia" links there). Also did an extensive amount of game modding in the Morrowind/Oblivion elder scrolls gaming community, learning how to work with various game editors and modelling programs and writing scripting and questlines. Thats the type of thing all those experts on the Unity board were trying to steer you towards, as a way to get some "hands-on experience" before plunging into a real RPG game. I did about 15 mods for Morrowind and 3-4 for Oblivion. Been a few years since my last one. But like you, like most of your current staff, I was so thrilled by the idea of creating actual virtual worlds that I soon ignored all the sensible advice I was given, and couldn't resist for long the idea of making a real entire standalone game (!!!) from the morrowind engine, which really was never designed for making standalone games. There wasn't any guides or directions back then, because that was never the intent of the editors they released. But all of the fans were very super excited at all the potential that we could all make game content now. I did a small amount of modeling with Blender and 3DSMax (not very well), a medium amount of scripting and questline work (again, not very well), and a whole lot of world terrain design (always the easiest and funnest for rank amateur enthusiasts, eh?) Had some help from other fans who were better than me at things like designing and animating custom models, since I always sucked at that part, but 90 percent of it was all just me, working way into the wee hours in a dark messy bedroom to the glow of a computer monitor. No office, not even a chair. Lots of coffee. It never looked as slick and "professional" as your screenshots, but hey it was a decade ago with an engine never intended for such, and was an unabashed amateur enthusiasts "work of love" (ie, what you call it when no one actually gets paid for anything). I had NPCs with names and backstories (ingame, not just in my head) , dialogues and quests, a story arc, custom-made models (in many cases made by other gamers exclusively for my project), and a WHOLE lot of world landscaping and "regional terrains" since that was the part I found the most fun personally. Man, it was gunna be a huge huge HUGE world. Mermaid empires under the sea, flying dragons and ice crystal palaces, obscure reptilian races in desolate desert wastelands. Jungles and forestlands -- everything I could think of, I stuffed in there gleefully. Considering the very limited tools I was working with, it's not anything I am all that ashamed of even more than a decade later: Ok -- yes its amateur stuff, even back in those days. I was of course wildly over ambitious, wildly over excitable, and definitely bit off way way more than I could chew -- I had a world landmass designed larger than the orginal game territory, I had a working "beta" that several hundred people downloaded and tried out, but even after several years of working, I never got even remotely close to completing it all. Finally after several years, it slowly faded into unfinished obscurity, like 99% of over-excited fan projects do. But -- it was one of my favorite "moments in time", very exciting, learned a WHOLE lot of things. Even if I ultimately learned only that I ultimately sucked at everything related to game development, I never regrertted a moment of it. I had tons of fun. Discovered many personal things about myself. Including probably that I really did not have the stamina, discipline or even talent for true game development. Which is probably just as well that I got all that out of my system before discovering pretty-instant-candy-toys like Unity3D, which would probably have consumed my very soul back in those excitable days. Anyway, now you got me rambling like some oldie in a senior home. (Which is not far off these days). Crankily waving my cane at all the new kids playing games on the lawn, which is probably all I am now. Anyway I *DO* understand and recognize the excitment and eagerness you probably feel. It's like seeing a mirror of my younger self, ten years or fifteen years ago (I started late; heck I was old enough to be your mom before I even picked up my first computer RPG game in the early 90s). The main difference of course, was that I KNEW from the start I was nothing but an over-enthused amateur fan running amock with excitment and ideas, and as a result I never expected nor took a penny for any of my "learning experiences." And by the way, I did research as well most of the people you have listed as "staff" (though you don't actually PAY them, and exaggerate/inflate in many cases their actual working experience, including listing amateur "messing around stuff" as if it were actual professional grade job experience). I didn't go into detail on this however, because frankly the people trying to help you do deserve better respect -- they mean well even when some lack experience or talent (and by the way, yes they DO have more talent and experience than me or you combined, but still not as much as the people working for some of the more professional kickstarter projects). They are not the ones over selling themselves, asking for money upfront, palming off amateur work as professional grade accomplishments. Only you went that far, which is why you are the only individual I intended to actually question. Because it is your boat, and it all floats or sinks with you. A captain with no actual experience with boats. Or even with water, really. And the money you are spending, is so far not going to the "people" you supposedly "hired" (all of whom have been promised some payment at some future date based on "milestones reached", the dandy thing being of course if the project doesn't succeed, as it probably won't, you never have to pay them anything at all.) The money also probably won't last too long anyway, since a lot of it is going into poorly researched purchases that will end up mostly getting discarded in facor of other equally poorly researched decisions, before a nickel goes to the people doing the actual grunt-work on your team. Anyway the one thing I guess you and I can agree on about Greed Monger is -- only time will tell. But I do wish you would be more upfront and candid about the backgrounds and professional experiences of the people on your team and its finished work, instead of putting together pretty screenshot pictures of premade gameshop assets, and playing magical make believe that you are all professional-grade game developers who have been doing this for decades, and that taking $60,000-plus from the gaming community based on your fantasy daydreams, is an actual reasonable thing to do. Because I foresee a whole of of pitchforks and angry mobs in your future a year down the road. Anyway. Yeah. Time will tell. And hey -- good luck. I would be REALLY happy if you were right and I was waaaay offbase on everything. If there is one thing I would sincerely love to see, it is more indie developed sandbox crafting games (Smedley's vast promises doesn't get any more respect from me either, if that makes you any happier). Most of the really successful ones, of course, started very very very small by people who were actual programmers (Dwarf Fortress, Minecraft, Wurm, Unreal World), and only gradually matured over the years. Instead of trying to skip all the starting steps, and start with a huge budget and then figure out what to do with all the money. Sorry for the wall of text. Just THINKING about how excitable people can get thinking about making virtual worlds, gets me all .. well, excitable again Best. Advice. Ever. Though of course we all know it will be completely ignored. p.s. -- too bad he deleted his original personal website and replaced it with something tamer and with older posts, as the original lead off with a thought provoking essay about how selling a mortgage refinance loan (J.A.'s current real-world job) is just like trying to get laid, (his words not mine) including how its all about trying to convince people with hype that you got something they want till they get all hot and excited and start throwing money at you. Which I thought was actually pretty "on topic" for his current project. But I guess that's also why it got hastily deleted after I linked to it....

So basically I got very curious and put together a timeline on Greed Monger's game development history: Septermber 9 2012: Jason Appleton discovers Unity game engine, discovers a new mission in life -- he is going to make a really cool RPG game! Although he's never actually done any coding or stuff. But he's done, like, some HTML. Experienced Unity developers try (unsuccessfully) to try to talk him into starting small, and actually learning about how to use the program and starting on smaller more attainable projects first, rather than make a huge RPG his very first project. September 10, 2012: Unity is just so cool!!! September 10, 2012: Jason Appleton decides to put together a team of people who understand maybe a bit better than him, how to actually make a game. Gets a little antsy when Unity moderators stall on posting his thread, as they explain "it comes off as the typical 'I'm the ideas guy and need a team to do the actual work for me'. These types of threads are rarely approved these days." But they approve it anyway. He actually posts a lot of these threads, because this is all so exciting.... September 13, 2012: Jason Appleton continues his quest of actually finding someone who can make his game for him in Unity. October 14, 2012: Despite the advice not to start buying lots of assets for some future game when he doesn't really understand how to program in Unity yet, Jason Appleton starts buying art assets (but has problems importing them into his Unity program). Oh help! October 14, 2012: Jason Appleton decides he probably better hire someone else to make his Kickstarter demo video for him, as he is still struggling with how to make all this stuff really look like an actual game. He states at that stage he has a potential investor, not a gamer but an old guy "worth millions" and "like a father to me" so he is not the least bit worried about getting his dream funded, he just needs someone who can make his ideas look like ... you know .... an actual project. So he can then sell his ideas to the people who actually have money. And, um, talent. October 23, 2012: Jason Appleton types up a REAL PRESS RELEASE announcing his new Kickstarter promotion for his new groundbreaking online MMORPG! It will be JUST LIKE Ultima Online! (Except that was of course designed by real game developers). He sidesteps questions from more experienced Unity developers, on whether he's actually found a way to cut down trees (apparently Unity isn't very friendly about stuff like that.) November 12, 2012: Oh -- it would probably help if he could find an actual World Builder for his open world RPG.... don't worry, he is sure to find someone. November 13, 2012: Flush with victory from an early KS success (which some notice, attracts an unusual number of backers making $2000 pledges right off the bat, leading some to question whether this is similar to his buying up Facebook likes in bulk only to have them all vanish a week later; ie will all those big pledges really be there at the end or are they promotional gimmicks to look like the project is a solidly backed one?), Jason Appleton announces he is going to be buying up A LOT!!! more premade generic medieval game assets, so anyone he hasn't yet bought from, should start adding them to the asset store, as he now has money to burn... November 18, 2012: oh but maybe he should suddenly switch his game engine? Does this other one maybe look even better? Go go Jason Appleton! More about him on his personal website and Who Is Jason Appleton.

I have been watching this project for a bit. My main concern is that so far all they have shown is some standard landscaping in the Unity3D game engine, and some art assets that they purchased form the unity3D store. Even their logo art and npc models are simply generic store assets, which they seem to be showcasing on various sites are "their" level of graphic detail. Here is where they actually got all those assets in their pictures: http://u3d.as/conten...val-citizen/2Ez http://u3d.as/conten...eval-farmer/2qZ http://forum.unity3d...gon-Model/page2 http://u3d.as/conten...ruction-kit/1CN />http://www.the3dstudio.com/product_details.aspx?id_product=279850 The same person who challenged them on these art assets, also found some bizarre changes in their facebook likes (they used to have like 3000 more than they currently have) , and the devs admitted that they had purchased packages to temporarily up the count of their facebook followers, by thousands. To me, that demonstrates a team going through the motions of "looking like the big boys". Also, you don't actually "build" a house the way you do in wurm, wall by wall and actually designing it yourself -- they just plop down a static model that again is a standard generic store asset. You don't even get to chose the location of "your" land. In addition, the land plots are quite small, the largest you can purchase as a player is four units that combined, will cost $80 and be smaller than the smallest Wurm deed: http://www.kickstart...pg/posts/341649 Some of their ideas are good (heck I'll kickstart almost anything using the words "open world crafting sandbox") but others are frankly bordering on bizarre: "Ages Of Time and Technology will evolve with Population and Economic Growth (Into Space age - Different Planet)" Really? Spaceships too? Now they have all genres covered. Now, this would be a great project if it actually all comes together, but so far they have not shown any real programming abilities, beyond some fantastic PR skills and an ability to make some nice videos using the basics Unity3D game engine and some purchased generic models. Some nice ideas but they have not yet demonstrated any real ability to actually DO any of those nice ideas. I see some young guys with big ideas and a pretty presentation, but not any demonstration of skill beyond what anyone could do with the Unity3D engine. If they have the skills to pull this entire thing off, they have not yet demonstrated those. He had to hire someone to make the demo video for them (they couldn't even do that part themselves) and although he says he already has a team fully assembled and "most of the work done," as of yesterday he is still trying to hire people competent to do the actual programming for crafting, skill progression, UI, combat, world design, housing, and all the most basic of the game features, as all they can actually do themselves at this stage in time is make a staged scene for the videos using Unity3D + generic assets. Why does he need to hire people who can actually program if they already have most of the work already completed?

I need to recheck something, however I don't think Care For grants total immunity to death from old age, just a greatly extended lifespan. Also,I can vouch that Nikkunukki and her mom Lizabeth are expereienced enough in animal care, to know how to keep a pig from starving.

they are both transparent + flashing on and off for me. Its very disconcerting

Nice work!!!

Alternate suggestion -- give Mag priests a spell where once every 7 days they can turn a tile of rock into crappy grade iron. That should make it possible somehow to work out an arrangement to get the same result, by hiring a mag priest, and lord knows Mag priests can probably use the buff.

But I can buy for 2s, 2000 lumps of low grade 20Q iron that have already been mined by someone else and smelted by someone else and even delivered by someone else to my door.Why would I spend 5X as much as I would for the final finished good? And for the 10s rod, why would I get only 2k of very bad iron (worth 2s) when for the 50s rod I can get 10K of ultra-grade 99Q precious metal that is worth way over 5g? it would make zero economic sense. That would be the same cost per unit for the absolute worst metal in the game, as for the absolute best metal in the game. .

Ah I see, because someone could collapse a rock tile and turn it to iron ore which would make it a royal pain to remove, thus act as a blockage? I can see that. But how would this differ from someone using a support beam or strongwall cast on a tile when it is not their own land, which can then also create an even more permanent blockage? Wouldn't that be an even easier/cheaper way to do that sort of "griefing"? And on deeded land, I guess I was assuming if you don't already have permission for mining type actions, you wouldn't have the ability to make changes to the deed using a rod either. However I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to it being usable only ondeed and only by by the deed's mayor or designated parties, as I predict there are players out there willing to pickup the cost of deeding a public mine area just to make it available to new players. So I think it could still work even if limited to deed mayors/permitted parties. I am just not sure how it makes griefing any different than the current "free" mechanism works.

As we know, traders sell for 50s a Rod of Transmutation, that turns a normal rock vein into 10000 uses of up to 99Q of any metal, common or rare: iron, tin, lead, silver gold etc. What I propose is a "Cracked (aka Crummy) Rod of transmutation" that instead produces junk quality iron only (20Q capped) and only 2000 uses, for a discounted price of 2s. The main purpose would be to allow veteran players as a volunteer public service to repopulate newbie starter public mines that have been dried out, so that newbies can still make the nails and other essential starter blacksmith iron goods they need. It's not really an economical benefit since you can actually buy 2k poor grade iron lumps for the same 2s, but this allows new players to learn to "work for it" themselves and veteran players can instead be invisible guardian angels that make it possible for them to acquire their essential starter materials on their own -- we already can populate tree farms for them but there is no way to do the same with iron, as most centrally located public iron mines have been long exhausted and are now riddled with deathtrap dropshafts etc. While players can rummage for rock iron, most central areas are too heavily scavenged for there to exist any rummaged surface rock iron. This would allow the community to help new players get a start in the game, but by working for their own resources independently and not just handed pre-smelted iron lumps.

I just had yet another mine entrance collapse with server restart. This doesn't seem to be "random chance" at all. I am not digging any more entrances back out till they figure what's going on.

cursed cheese sandwich tree is good eatin:

got them set up now

Why not instead just let people perimeter over buildings AND allow repairs in perimeter (by the writholder only) That way, you can expand if the area really isn't going to be used by anyone. But if it is actively used, they get to stay as long as they are making use of the property (and keeping it in good shape) In effect, it "grandfathers in" anyone living in an area whenever a perimeter is expanded. For as long as they want to stay there, for years if they want. Meantime the expansion-minded deed can go ahead with their progress on other parts of the expanded area knowing it's 'safe' and that no one else can get the property out from under them. If someone REALLY wants to use the so-called 'contested' perimeter areas asap, they can make an offer to the homesteader to buy their writ. Which might give free players a chance to get a first month sub or use towards an actual deed. As it stands now, since you cannot perimeter at all, you risk someone else beating you to your intended expansion area (thru deed, counter perimeter, or just yet-another new shack) while you wait for a shack to fall/decay/people to quit. This way you call "first dibs" (and pay for the dibs) by expanding perimeter but no one gets evicted or loses their farms. In most cases, the new F2P player will either eventually quit the game in a month or two, or get premium and want a paid deed (which they will have to relocate as they cannot deed in the perimetered area.) The subbed player still has a waiting game, but waiting games always in the long run favor the veterans. Obviously there are still cases where no one is happy with the way it turns out, players will still have conflicts over land, but the long range effect is to reduce most conflicts that seem to be overly unfair to one side or the other. Which is maybe the best we can do anyway. . .

Metis, chickens are super evil creatures that will quickly eat you and your friends out of house and home, as they eat far more than a new player can farm (unless you have a very large farm dedicated just to dfeeding those chickens). You'll harvest as a starting player 2 crop per tile (which will take you about 6 days to grow), and one of those seeds you'll need for replanting, so 1 yield every six days per tile. Chickens eat about 10 veggies per day each. So you do the math of how many tiles of farm you'll need to keep 1-4 chickens fed. Subtract of course the food you'll need for easting yourself, and any crops like cotton or wemp that you need to keep for crafting purposes. I can give you guys some baby cows and horses though, which are tons easier for new players to care for. You won't be able to actually "use" horses till you are premium and have 20.10 Mind Logic (driving cart) or 21 body control (riding), but that will give you some time to work on skills and discuss whether you intend to go premium.

They are really nice indeed

Weird, I also just had a mine entrance collapse with the update but there wasn't currently a door there (used to be one, I never replaced it). I had not heard about others losing mine entrances so just assumed it was a normal random tile collapse that happened to be right at the entrance, and happened to occur on the day of the update. I wonder if they have anything else in common (like direction or slope amt) as my other mines all seemed ok.