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Bloodreina

[Please close] Wurm, the casual way

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Hi! I started playing Wurm and I have to say I totally love it!

 

My problem though is that, both from what I've heard and from what I've saw myself in my own four eyes, WURM is quite an hardcore game, that requires a certain level of (time) dedication, which I simply don't afford. I mean I can login daily (or at least in the vast majority of days) for one hour, two hours top, but that's it; I definitely can't play more, not even during weekends. Also, while I'm in no hurry to get anywhere and no intention to dibble into the trading (so no need to "compete" with anyone for skills), but just slowly build my own place and live a quite life and I can take my time (think years) to achieve my goals, I do want to be self sufficient and do everything myself, so joining a village or trading are definitely off-table for me.

 

So, I guess the first question is if you think that this (being self sufficient, while still only playing casually) is achievable and then, if the answer is yes, what advises you'd have for me abut how to pull it through.

 

Thanks in advance for each and every answer (if any)!

 

PS: I'm already premium and already have a small deed (since day one).

Edited by Bloodreina
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Depends on what you want to achieve. To be honest you dont need to contest other players by skills or something. You want to build cool settlement? just go for it slowly.

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Absolutely yes! I enjoy playing a "jack of all trades" which means I will never be uber in any particular skill (and I have been here for a long time). But I enjoy the relaxing feeling of self sufficiency and taking care of my homestead, and 1-2 hours a day is plenty fine for that.

 

It is not a race, no matter if others try to make it one for themselves.

 

They like challenges, we like processes.

Edited by Brash_Endeavors
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15 minutes ago, Pankivtanke said:

Depends on what you want to achieve. To be honest you dont need to contest other players by skills or something. You want to build cool settlement? just go for it slowly.

 

As I already said, i have no intention competing with other people or dibbling into the trade, so I have no problem taking it slow.

 

My problem though is that I fear that I'll end up using all my time only on chores / maintenance task, without finding time for any meaningful progress.

 

Like now for example, when I log I forage/botanize for some items, groom and feed my four horses, then make fire and prepare food. Insert a meditation a prayer in between and already 30 minutes are gone. And that's without having too many things to take care of repairing yet!

Edited by Bloodreina
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Sometimes, doing nothing but ones own chores (and caretaking for one's own place, which needs you to keep from falling into disrepair), can in itself give a satisfying sense of purpose. Only you can decide that.

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You can certainly play as you stated you desired, Bloodreina.

 

Just don't grow your deed too big or overextend so you have so many farming fields that tending them becomes repetitive.  You will need to keep your deed maintained so it'll always have at least 30 days' maintenance prepaid, and best to keep your character Premium as well.  The prepaid maintenance insures you don't have to spend wasted time repairing buildings and fences.  The premium insures you'll have good skillgain over 20 skill for when you are taking your limited time to play for all the skills and characteristics you use.

 

Many players enjoy Wurm Online as hermits, with a minimally-sized deed and just a home or two (maybe one used as a home, the other a workshop).

Myself, I don't ever grind and my primary (older) character has been on a deed practically alone for years now.

 

ADDED:

Also, try to have small personal projects you'd like to complete, and aim for those so you're not spending your online time doing only maintenance.

Maybe one like exploring your surroundings in a boat, or aiming to have a beehive with a queen in it producing honey and beeswax.

 

Don't feel any need to create 100 frying pans to grind cooking. Just cook when you need to and enjoy trying out new recipes.  I guess the idea is...don't rush. Enjoy Wurm Online for the community and atmosphere.

Edited by Tristanc
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i would highly suggest joining a village, being a casual player doesnt prevent you from joining a village and doing your own thing and this can remove alot of the mundane tasks (like preparing food, or caring for animals) there are many other casual players and casual player villages

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The best for you would be to join a settlement as a citizen, and get a building lot, because things off-deed decay very fast and can get looted. I am a new player as well, but I picked a few skills I like and I role-play rancher/land shaper/road engineer. It is worth to have a skill or two that you particularly fancy. 

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Just added to the OP (in case it makes any difference): I'm already premium and already have a deed since day one.

Edited by Bloodreina

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If you wait a few months more, you will be able to buy high ql tools and enchants that will greatly speed up building or skilling

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It's very achievable, just takes time and patience :) I mostly play wurm with goal to be selfsustanaible although i put more effort into it than playing 1h a day i certanly don't play Wurm all day, i have very recponsible job and other real life chores. 

Will be hard in the beggining but as time passes it will be easier. My recomendtation is to concentrate on crafting skills you most need, blacksmithing for example along with mining, if you grind even 1h daily relativly soon you will be able to make and imp your own tools, also i would recomend to earn some money early on and invest in LT weapon and some coc skillers(old servers are much better choice for this).

And don't be discouraged by posts who say you need to join village, not everyone is the same, i would probaly quit Wurm after a month if i had to live in someone's deed... Even minimal deed and hour or 2 of daily playing is enough to have blast at Wurm as long as you can compromise that it will take you 4 or 5 years to have very decent account

P.S. Welcome to wurm and enjoy your staying  :)

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If food seems a burden (which at newbie levels, it definitely can be!), can you find a neighbor who likes making food and trade with them?  You give them new foals you breed or food you farmed/foraged, they give you cooked food. Maybe look for a niche to fill (I'm assuming you're on the new cluster, so there's lots of space to grow there). I know it all looks like trade wars and high skilled weaponsmiths (and sometimes, it is) but there's a lot of casual bartering in game outside of trade chat. 

 

 If not, you can go around just eating raw pumpkins or breakfasts forever, if you want. If you can snag a cow or sheep, cheese helps make bigger meals as well, with not too much effort other than the cheese drill. Bigger meals=less cooking. You won't get the skill bonuses, but you won't have to mess around with the oven all day either. Living self sufficiently, while casual is definitely doable! 

 

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I highly recommend buying weapons instead of skilling up weapon smithing. (if you need to keep monsters off your property)

That skill is way too hard to skill up for casual players.

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It might be a good idea to  buy or trade for mass quantities of food and invest in a small or large magical chest where they can be stored with no decay

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Path of love level 4; refresh.  That one skill will ensure you're always well fed and, as a casual player, you're unlikely to ever drop below 99 nutrition with it.

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Hermits happen.  As long as your deed upkeep is covered, you should be fine, in my opinion. 

 

I am another who is probably considered very slow and casual compared to the average Wurmian.  I went the route of joining a very low-rule village (actually, it's a no-rule village) and just putter as I can.  I still have no skills over 50 after 9 months in, and have no larder yet.  My strength is stubbornly in the 22.something so I can't load - when I can I will recover a discarded larder from a pile in the village.  

 

You can get away with eating raw food, but you get no nutrition from it so you need a fair lot.  You can drink salt water, so shouldn't have problems there.  I am working towards PoL lvl 4, as Etherdrifter describes - but even that I am just pursuing when I feel like it.  You can use refresh once every 18 hours, I think, so you should have no problem there.

 

Just do your own thing and enjoy.  

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12 hours ago, Evilreaper said:

i would highly suggest joining a village, being a casual player doesnt prevent you from joining a village and doing your own thing and this can remove alot of the mundane tasks (like preparing food, or caring for animals) there are many other casual players and casual player villages

Or join an alliance of other casual players (with the odd fanatic/hermit dropped in for good measure).  Trading with allies/neighbours in a friendly and cooperative way is one of the fun things about building friendships in the game, and we spent many happy hours pottering around doing things with friends.  I remember days fishing from ships, or exploring new lands, clearing out mobs or making bricks for a bridge. In an alliance you might find someone else will imp a weapon if you give them a five speed horse or build them a cart/wagon, or they might give you a few cottons if you give them (whatever you like making in the game).  Find and do stuff you like doing, and then trade those things with people who hate doing the things you like doing.  Remember you are part of a little community where others have other interests, and you can trade eggs for tools or cloth for leather or whatever the case may be. 

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I think you will find, as time goes by, that there are a lot of people who play the way you do and that wurm lends itself very well to that playstyle.   In fact I'd hazard a guess that, in spite of how it appears on the forums, the actual in-game numbers are probably a majority. :)   Every now and then, someone makes a thread with ideas for trying to force encourage people to join villages, live closer together, and be more interdependent because that's how they like to play and they feel that the game is intended for that playstyle and that most people want to play that way. I haven't found that to be the case, myself.  I believe wurm was intended to allow both playstyles, that most play your way, and that neither should be trying to get others to change theirs.

 

I don't have much to add to the very good advice of a few of the posters in this thread on how to accomplish that.  The bottom line is, play your way and enjoy.  Your skills in the things you like to do will rise on their own, simply by virtue of being the things you're doing all the time.  The rest are really inconsequential for the most part. As you said, there's no real need to compete.  There may be occasions when you will want to "grind" for a bit on something you don't particularly care for, just to get the skill up to a certain point to complete a particular task you want to do, like adding another floor to your house, or imping your sword a bit higher or whatever, but in my experience (and for my playstyle which is very much like yours), it's not often enough to ruin my enjoyment of the game.

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You can absolutely play like that! As a matter of fact, Wurm lends itself VERY well to casual play as long as you're not trying to race others to the marketplace. If you just want to have a little virtual farm or settlement to putter around in and accomplish things slowly, it's totally doable.

 

My advice would be to keep your deed compact and don't overextend. Don't worry about grinding skills - just do what you enjoy each day, and the skills will come naturally. 

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Without reading any other replies, my answer is absolutely. The point of hardcore grinding is to achieve in a few months what was designed to take years. I would argue that casually is the way the game was meant to be played, and that's exactly how myself and my village mates have done it for several years now, and we're still getting along just fine.

 

Our accounts are just now starting to reach a level close to what I would consider end game, admittedly still with TONS of room for growth and improvement, but I say that to illustrate that casual players end up just as successful as the more hardcore players, perhaps just more slowly. Which I think is fine and welcome.

 

I think trying to play in a "hardcore" style when that isn't your normal playstyle just results in burnout and losing the enjoyment you used to get from the game. Killing the golden goose for a quicker egg type of play.

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They could have made a more casual server that has a different skill gain system.  For example, You can gain skill fast for your first hour each day, and after that it slows down to normal.  This would make it really accessible to a lot of players.

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26 minutes ago, sweatygopher said:

They could have made a more casual server that has a different skill gain system.  For example, You can gain skill fast for your first hour each day, and after that it slows down to normal.  This would make it really accessible to a lot of players.

That's called Wurm Unlimited. 

 

If people can play only an hour a day anyway, there really isn't a lot more they can experience in WO than in WU and it won't really matter to them. 

Edited by atazs

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1 minute ago, atazs said:

That's called Wurm Unlimited. 

They don't have cash shops on wurm unlimited.

 

Also, this is definitely not a popular opinion...  I would have actually liked Eve Online's skill system implemented in wurm (just a dream).

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3 hours ago, sweatygopher said:

They could have made a more casual server that has a different skill gain system.  For example, You can gain skill fast for your first hour each day, and after that it slows down to normal.  This would make it really accessible to a lot of players.

 

You mean something like a "sleep bonus" where while you are away you build up a skill gain bonus that you can use when you next log in?  Yeah, that's a good idea.  I wonder why nobody ever.......  Oh.   Wait.

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