How did you get your first break in Wurm? - The secrets of Vet success.

[Muse 2,222]

I hear a few grumbles from newer players about how hard it is to get started in Wurm.  I think we need a thread about how the current Wurm Vets got their first break. 

 

I think you'll find most of them didn't hit the ground running, but clawed their way up doing odd jobs and getting a leg up from friends and village mates.  Their successes were often hard-earned, because back then a 'fast track' was unheard of.

 

From my experience any successes were on a personal level, vast wealth was never expected and high skills were admired but not deemed necessary to have fun.

 

I'll pick just one skill out of the 138 available - animal husbandry:

 

I've always loved horses, and, ever since I first saw the Wurm horses, I guess I fell in love with them.  I was a villager when I got started breeding horses on Pristine, it wasn't my deed, but I was gifted the use of a field to breed some horses, with the condition that I do the horse breeding and would provide good horses for the carts and wagons on deed, but I had a lot of help..

 

I remember an exciting cart journey out to the Steppe, where I was shown where to find wild horses - I could not believe my eyes - lots of grey horses and they were free for the taking.  I grabbed a rope, picked out a few and ran back home behind the cart leading my new horses. Breeding up these horses took time, and it was a joint project, if anyone produced a foal with traits we'd pick the best and breed them to try to get more good traits.  I became stuck at 3 traits for a long while - I was not yet premium, and I did not know my low skill may have been stopping me adding any more traits. My village mate who was premium used to tell me the traits and I'd write them down against each horse name in a notebook.

 

A lady up the road was breeding 5-speeds.  At the time, I had no idea how she was doing it - I thought her AH skill must have been very high.  She put an ad out over the freedom sever "Free 4-speeds to good home!"  We jumped in the cart and set off as fast as our little 3-speeds would take us. As we travelled she typed the traits of the animals into our chat windows - We picked out three straight-4-speed stallions, white and gold.

 

After that I started to breed my first 4-speed filly foals, and in due course I learned how to breed 5-speeds from 4-speeds with all 5 speed traits between them. Eventually I learned how to breed 5-speeds from two 3 speeds, but by then I was selling 5-speeds on Pristine.  All this way before I went premium or got my own deed.  When I went premium this opened a world of new adventures.  It was exciting watching my AH skill rise and being able to see more and more traits.  I got my own deed with lots more space for the horses. This did not happen overnight, it took a long time - then many months to build up a good herd, yet I still have the first named horse I got on Pristine back in 2013.

 

Animal Husbandry is just one skill in Wurm - and it is by no means my main skill - yet all the skills are full of memories like these. 

What I'm trying to say is that success in Wurm does not come handed on a plate - although you will find as I did, that many more-advanced players are generous and eager to help new players get their first break.

I owe a lot to the good people who were there when I started out and many more that I have met along the way.  

 

So calling all vets - how did you get your first break?

 

Edited November 26, 2019 by Muse
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[crimsonearth 477]

I had a very similar intro to Animal Husbandry as you!

 

Not sure what counts as a vet these days, but I started in 2013 and took a couple of longer breaks along the way. Carrying on the theme and picking a different skill, though, Carpentry (and later Masonry): I was first lured into Wurm by some very veteran Indy players with a small underdeveloped deed on the (then quite fresh) newish server, Release. I was shown all this empty deeded land and invited to try all the skills and see what caught my heart. I found most of my now-highest skills in those first few weeks, but when I had a go at building myself a little house - that was it for me; I've been a builder, for the love of building, ever since. I built a farmhouse and a stable and a large inn there first, and after several months I flew the nest to found my own deed with my (now) spouse.

 

We found a perfect spot and spent few weeks each taking it in turns to kite spiders and trolls and hellhounds away (learning to run half naked along lake shores and swimming for long stretches to lose pursuers) often dying horrible deaths in the process) while the other worked on getting the guard tower or the first main building up with still pretty low skills and mats. Then, secure in our hidey houses, he started flourishing in fighting and shipbuilding while I built a whole village worth of houses, with coach houses and lovely docks and community kitchens.

 

We're on our fifth deed on Release now, and I'm still a multiple-specialised-buildings village builder - and as with all our previous, we always build gatehouses that let players pass through freely with unlocked towers they can hide from trolls in, because I was super grateful in my first year or so of Wurm for an open gate when I was (so frequently) running for my life.

Edited November 26, 2019 by crimsonearth

[Steveleeb 1,067]

was invited into the game by Stoneman after being told that there is salvation to be had, following the closure of a minecraft server me he and fablecrafter played on.
Spent some time in Stonebrook on Indy, getting my skills up then i got psychologically lynched by a certain someone for eating Stoneman's rare deer because i was hungry and too shy to type in alliance chat. (stone didn't mind after half a day but the bully was relentless)
having been KoS'd by this bully on more than one deed, i seriously considered quitting, but built a rowboat instead, which took a very long time and alot of determination.
Once built i set off to deli, thinking i need deliverance from hugh so the server should suit me.
It was hard to find coastal real estate back then but after some time i settled on the North East and founded a deed called Indigus.
(renamed it trinsic once i was self sufficient, recently renamed knightshade).
My first break was a rowboat. Once landed I dove head into experimenting with paint and builds till i finally discovered deed planner.
The moment i discovered dp everything was a gleeful, creative haze for 3 years and so trinsic was born.
never really took to farming although i did enough to stock up.
I think the advent of the crafting interface and complimenting the landscape with the right architecture, and all those floorboards and slate slabs i had to make to get rid of the marsh (back when slate slab was the slate brick texture and it took a very long time to make the slabs) was lengthy but fulfilling.
Excluding the rowboat, Deed Planner was my first solo break, that which spun the wheel.
I highly recommend joining an active recruitment deed until you feel like you should sub.
Can't speak for alliances, it took me over 4 years and a move to Exo to find one that i can call family.

Edited December 1, 2019 by Steveleeb

[Actuarius 22]

I'm not grumbling   Just theory-crafting.  I see so much potential for a bustling Anarcho-Capitalistic fantasy paradise with a few economic tweaks geared to create more inter-dependency on the in game professions.  Currently, everything is set up for deflationary item pricing with a steady state coin/currency model.  

 

Way too much unemployment on the bottom rung.....  😮    

 

There is absolutely nothing wrong with the in-game community, far from it, probably one of the nicest communities in gaming..  Somewhat odd..  As a matter of fact, I'd like to see more squabble and drama to spice things up!

 

Cheers mate. -- Act.

[Warlander 2,730]

I was playing Wurm on and off for some time before "break" already, but turning point for me was deciding to buy premium for the first time and using portal to the HoTS Wild. One of first thing I saw was emo looking guy standing on a horse, who happily invited me to my first village after a short conversation. I was hooked pretty quickly after this event, and meet some really nice people who helped me to get into the game.

[Actuarius 22]

11 minutes ago, Warlander said:

I was playing Wurm on and off for some time before "break" already, but turning point for me was deciding to buy premium for the first time and using portal to the HoTS Wild. One of first thing I saw was emo looking guy standing on a horse, who happily invited me to my first village after a short conversation. I was hooked pretty quickly after this event, and meet some really nice people who helped me to get into the game.

Ohh..  story time.  do tell more.

Edited November 26, 2019 by Actuarius

[Schiann 994]

I've been playing since 2009, and never really "worked" in Wurm to get silver.  I did sell horses for many years, but that market mostly died after Care For was introduced. Now, I just breed for my own little collection.

 

For me, spending half or more of my gaming time trying to scrape together enough currency to pay for premium just isn't fun, and as such, is a waste of my precious downtime.

 

The Wurm "economy" isn't terribly important to me, as I'm not really driven by any accumulation of wealth. I just like to log in, wander around, make things I need in order to do other things, build stuff, tear stuff down, rebuild, dig holes....  All the things my neighbours IRL would be unhappy with me doing in my garden. 😉

[Actuarius 22]

^^ BTW That's Me Boss-Lady.

[ChampagneDragon 971]

When I started I was with a good friend, Beanbag,  on his deed. He kept telling me about this game Wurm. He'd play for awhile, then take a break. Finally one day I decided to try it. I'm still playing, he logs in occasionally. I dabbled in everything. I made thousands of bricks, and was able to sell them at an absurdly low price, just to get a bit of silver, which I used to buy four good horses to start a breeding program.  I also dug up thousands of sand for someone, expecting payment, (we had agreed to a price prior) but when it came time to get paid he gave me a rare butchering knife and said it was worth more than the digging. I should have said no, but I just took it and sailed on. I also did a massive surface mining project for someone building a road up a mountain. Then I saw a wtb for veggies, and since I had already started a good farm, I went to town farming. Sold a lot of lower quality veggies to someone doing panfilling. Eventually I outgrew our small farm, and moved to where I am now, with a 1000 tile on deed farm, and a second farm deed right next to it with another almost 1000 tiles. 

 

Bottom line, I was not too proud to do whatever I could to earn silvers while my skills grew to do what I really wanted, which was breeding critters and selling veggies.

[lowborn 148]

I first got hooked for good when I was at sea with a merchants' worth of rares just after rares had come out. They had real value to me.

Next thing I know: I saw 6 players in my local window. I thought 6 players on the open ocean?! That was a raiding party. I had never even killed a bear so I tried to take the easy way out and log out asap.

This did not work. The next day I logged back in and I was dead. They had killed me and taken all I had. I was just moving inventory. I wish I had stated online.

 

To me this seemed so real. I was a merchant at sea, unknown and unlocated but pirates had found me and robbed me of all I had. It hurt but hurt is real. 

I am not a video game player. This is a simulation.

 

Ive only had two names in this game.

Edited November 27, 2019 by lowborn
because I can

[NeeNee 855]

I started Wurm while sick in bed in Jan 2014 and spent my first day dying around Blossom and northern Pristine, thinking this was hysterical in my flu state. Finally someone gave me a little "backyard" spot to build my shack and I joined Wurm University Allaince (not PVP!). I moved from the shack into a bigger off deed house in the Blossom suburbs and started collecting pigs.

 

I made my first 1k bricks and drove my wagon like a demon through the mob infested woods of Pristine to the coast to sell it. After a few sales like this, I got my first little deed in the woods. I  bounced around to a few servers until I finally landed on Indy, which I love. I guess I got my first real "break" when the cooking update happened and then archaeology. I love finding recipes and searching for fragments and earned enough to build my current deed on Indy. 

 

I never really played as a freebie and I always paid for my sub, because I hate the grind personally. It seems like the people who find success in Wurm find a niche they really enjoy. 

Edited January 31, 2020 by NeeNee

[Beanbag 239]

I never got a real break in Wurm. 

 

I paid for my subs and deeds the old fashioned way.

 

I built my own things, crafted my own things.

 

I was a crazy old hermit, but I gave a place to start to two others who both became startlingly skilled Wurmians. I am riding the coattails of one, still. 

 

 

Edited January 31, 2020 by Beanbag