Noobs Take On Housing

[Marlon 303]

What is this thread exactly, a suggestion?

If it's just to point out that newbs have it hard, take this into consideration:

When I started playing, there was no iron on the server above 50ql. A 30ql forge would take 45 minutes to heat metal up to glowing. There was no "rummage". There were no large carts or mounts either, all you had to work with was a small cart that held 40 shards. 

Oh yeah, tools came out unfinished, so I had to create 20 iron hammers just so that I could get 1 to finish without the need of a hammer to improve.... so I could improve any other tool i had, including my very crappy sm anvil and my pickaxe.

You guys have it super easy now-a-days.

[Ryshad 26]

Few would argue that Wurm doesn't have a steep learning/difficulty curve that can make the newbie experience a tough one, but I'm not sure adding new systems to circumvent requirements is the way to go. If we add an iron-free house, newbies will pick a spot, build a house, and THEN realise that they need iron to make anvils, tools, carts, storage, locks, weapons, most light sources... so suddenly they have to go in search of a source of iron; we're right back where we started, only now they have to decide whether they want to abandon the house they already built to start over near an iron source, or travel back and forth collecting iron when needed.

 

I think we can all agree that an accessible iron source is almost essential. So whilst it can be frustrating to overcome, the need to locate an iron source BEFORE you build a house pushes you to build that house in a spot that's going to make the rest of your time in Wurm that bit smoother.

[Ayes 3,715]

Sorry, but this is completely wrong. There's nothing tough about finding iron. On the contrary, it's dead easy: find an extended rock surface and you almost certainly have found iron as well.

 

An iron vein is needed to play Wurm. Has little to do with housing. Even if one could make a house without nails iron would still be needed to play Wurm, for your tools and weapons alone.

Eobersig *nailed* it here! There is so much more to needing iron than just building a house. Iron's use in this respect for new players is just a stepping stone introducing them to the concept of obtaining it to then transform it into its many uses within the game. In this respect I see the OP's original post of complaint of little value, since therein is exhibited little understanding of this concept. Not unusual for new players I guess.

 

=Ayes=

[Alesondra 38]

As Gru said to Dr. Nefarious, "Why are you so old?". All these veteran players who grew up on different servers or forgot what it was to be new. Look at the Xanadu map. It is huge. There are large empty places to cross with no rocks covered with trees in the millions. Trees can be used for shelter but I could not use them. That makes no sense. Especially when you are in those millions of trees you can see nothing. Where are the mountains? In what directions did I go. Wait, stop for the compass. RUN A MONSTER! Which way am I going now. Trees, trees, trees. I can not see anything but trees but they cannot be used for anything. Their voices mock me, "ha ha you fool, you cannot hide in us".

 

All I wanted was a safe place to hide from the beasts. The tent does not work for that. All I am saying is that a new player needs security while looking for iron. Trees are the obvious answer. I look at the other server maps. They are so small. I look at Xanadu. It is huge. This is what WURM should be, huge empty roadless vast wilderness. But with a way to use trees without iron for shelter. That is what this thread is about. Call me whining, call me easy button, call me what you want. It makes no sense to have all this material and no way to use it without the magic nails to make shelter from the wild animals. Perhaps saying stupid stupid stupid was not politically correct but it was the truth.

[Eobersig 1,006]

...

 

All I wanted was a safe place to hide from the beasts. ...

[Ryshad 26]

I think you are overlooking the effort required to actually make a shelter. Hypothetically, let's say that "Log Wall" was added to the game, made using only logs and pegs (plus maybe dirt or something as filler). First you need to plan a house...most people get the required carpentry for this by pre-cutting the planks they are going to use for the house walls; you won't need planks so now you have double the work to do in preparation for your build - you'll have to do some busy work to raise your carpentry skill AND gather the logs you'll need. Not forgetting that you get 6 planks from a log, so unless a log wall needs 3 or fewer logs, you'll need more logs overall (my guess would be at least 10 logs for a wall, but that's down to the devs). So now you need to spend extra time, and gather extra materials and THEN build the house. This process takes hours (and probably more than a couple), during which you still have no shelter. When you finally finish your log house, you are back at square one; you still need to go in search of iron, and to do that you need to leave the shelter of your house since you can't take it with you. When you find iron, it'll either be close by in which case you may as well have found it first and built a wooden house, or too far away for it to be practical to commute back and forth between your log house and the iron location whilst you work on your new house, in which case your first log shelter was a wasted effort.

 

I'm not trying to belittle the challenge you face (I faced it too, as did most other players), but I am trying to point out that an iron-free house type isn't going to be the pop-up shelter you desire. If anything, replacing the nails in the crude fence with pegs would seem a better solution. Newbies can quickly and easily throw together a flimsy fence to keep the wildlife at arms length but it's easily bashed at a later date if someone needs to tidy up after them.

 

tl;dr - Log house = too much effort, for little real effect on OP's complaint. Replace nails with pegs in crude fence recipe to provide newbies some basic way to shelter until they source iron.

[Alesondra 38]

That safe place is near a starting point or guard tower (with the starting point the safer option). Awfully sorry, Alesondra, but as new character and new player you will not survive Wurm's wilderness in a region with frequent aggro mobs, no matter whether you have a shed or not.

 

Many, many new players have tried - and also a good number of old players with new characters , few of them made it. Initially Wurm is a survival game, that's right, and part of survival is to know when to head into the wilderness and when it's better to stay close to templars or tower guards.

 

Here is my place OUT IN THE WILDERNESS that I was trying to find when I got lost which is very easy in all of the woods. FYI, I died twice both times from lag. Why are you all so negative about noobs going out into the wilderness? Are you all so afraid that you think it impossible? All we noobs need is a shelter from the beasts, that is all. A log cabin would do that without the worry of nails. My place is about 200 tiles from any road. I have found iron, two veins one tile apart. How is that for stupid luck? @Ryshad. And exactly how long would it take to find rock, find iron, do all the mining, the smelting, the making to get the nails to make the house? You left out a whole lot didn't you? That's what people do when they are negative about an idea. 

 

I am very happy with how this turned out. I did not expect such a beautiful view. I just wanted to be right above the little rock face I could see on the map.

 

[Alesondra 38]

you'll have to do some busy work to raise your carpentry 

 

Yes because a LOG house could not possibly be based on woodcutting skill could it? Cannot cannot cannot. You all say cannot. I say why not?

Edited August 18, 2015 by Alesondra

[spellcast 983]

Yes because a LOG house could not possibly be based on woodcutting skill could it? Cannot cannot cannot. You all say cannot. I say why not?

 

 

planning a structure is based on carpentry skill, at a rate of 1 wall/floor per skill, be it built of wood or stone, or our hypothetical logs.  5 carpentry is the minimum needed to plan a house (4 walls and a floor)

 

Using logs to build the final house would still require carpentry skill to plan the structure. With that said, carpentry is actually quite easy to raise, so this is not a huge impediment.

 

Log houses make sense for areas without a lot of exposed rock, or for players who just want something different aesthetically.  It would be fairly EASY to crank out a couple of locks at a starter town / public mine, then head out into the woods to build a nice little place using no other iron right away. 

 

Variety is a good thing, not a bad one, 

[Ryshad 26]

Yes because a LOG house could not possibly be based on woodcutting skill could it?