Are the starter towns now just entirely cosmetic?

[Belrindor 663]

So I'm at Blossom on Pristine, and try to mine some ore in what has ALWAYS been the public mine there, and it tells me I can't do that because this tile is 'protected by the gods'. I go to use the forge and there's a bulk storage bin there with something like 500 kindling and 1000 wood scrap but it will not let me take a single one and considers it stealing. This is awfully strange behavior for a starter town that's supposed to exist to help players find their footing.

 

That being said I had to go cut down a random ugly fir tree to make a campfire, to smelt my rock iron in because I can't mine in Blossom or use the forges there. The new foraging system that only lets you forage on specific tiles is kinda cool. Also kinda annoying, when used to the old system, but currently the cool factor outweighs the annoying.

 

My sincere Pseudo-Apologies to whomever it was that complaining in local that I'd cut 'their' fir tree down, (It would have had to be in Perimeter cuz you can't cut stuff down on deeds!), and didn't sprout and replant it with an hour old character, (with no sickle) in the middle of avoiding a scorpion, anaconda, and a Champion wildcat. (Build next to a Starter Deed, then QQ that a tree is cut down... okay...)

 

Coming back to WO I'm shocked at how strangely unaccommodating the 'Starting Town' now is for a new player. Is this supposed to be this way, or is the protection of the facilities an oversight that needs addressed?

 

 

[Atndy 385]

Couple things to note.

 

Trees repopulate themselves. I've made multiple characters and went outside starter deeds to woodcut to pick religions due to accounts usually being sermon alts. 

 

Most starter towns have public mines and usually have signs pointing to them. Sadly people enjoy griefing these areas with drop shafts and mining down the floor, which brings me to my next point of why permissions are the way they are. If you allow people to do as they pleased the starter towns would be cleaned out and people would destroy it just because they can.

 

Lastly you can still use the public forges just have to bring the stuff yourself. Anything you drop or put in a forge allows you to interact with that thing. This is used in impalongs makes it so people cannot complain "my item was stolen." As impers cannot pick up a person's item and only they can. 

[Cista 430]

17 hours ago, Atndy said:

Trees repopulate themselves.

 

Well, a single fir tree does not respawn once you cut it.

 

If you cut down a fir tree inside some kind of forest, a number of things can happen:

a) the tile will be blocked for sprouts because it's next to another tree. That tile will remain grass forever.

b) a fir tree could indeed sprout there again if another fir tree is nearby, or many rather

c) another type of tree or bush will sprout there. Since bushes spread faster, and timber trees the ones that are cut down, we see a lot of bushes covering the outskirts of starter towns. 

 

In summary, when people cut down trees at starter towns, the forest will usually never recover unless replanted.

 

Edited February 17 by Cista

[Votip 1,619]

2 hours ago, Cista said:

In summary, when people cut down trees at starter towns, the forest will usually never recover unless planted.

Maybe thats good? Most of the wurm is forest, which is ugly.

[Finnn 3,321]

never used or planned to use a starting town(similar vibe had GV when I started - all is decorative, gm made, not actual item, all waxed and look don't touch signed), quickly was given the idea you have 0 reason to do any of that or play in such shared environment.. 

- if veins in starting towns were more than decorative - you'd likely not find one.. or find a very big cave with many creatures inside, either way huge cave and a problem how you could move some ore to the forge you wanted to use in the village(you'd need a cart; or be skilled at drag and dropping pile of shards to move 2-3 tiles at a time

- anyone could yoink the kindling if there was any left in shared to anyone container, etc.. same with any item you make in the forge, further bad detail is what you leave and how deed perms are.. if item gets locked to be only picked up by you or villager to cleanup.. or the other side where anyone can take anything and you'd meet a another new player who happens to not feel like mining, but you just mined some shards and it wants you to share, no way to stop it from using the resource which cost you some time to gather and move around

 

wurm does not have helping wheels mode and it's or wasn't meant to be such, you could have 2 troll spawners around the spawn town.. boxing in all new players, biome spawning hell hounds and awful slopes to drain your stamina, perfect new starting town, except escaping it could be a challenge for new player still figuring hatchet is decorative tool, not a weapon, activating/equipping, etc

 

go out of starting town.. try few actions.. yell at players in ca-help.. how crazy teraforming of a tile into flat land seems to be at first, curse the 3x skill lords for slope/digging rules and eventually after few actions.. be able to slay a 20-30 slope to level some ground and start a house, seems like typical new start, bonus.. you're into the wild, nobody loved that one specific fir tree you'll cut down and likely anything having an argument with you.. could be brought for a "fair fight" close to nearest guard tower.. there guards wait for somebody to call them, and meat's back on the table, all you need is land, near by safety, public or your own mine and a fence(last one proves to prevent many body-bagging encounters) 

[SirMuttley 151]

I haven't been to Havens Landing on Independence in about a year, but the last time I was there it was a shadow of it's former glory and actually quite sad in comparison to how it was prior to the Steam launch. Opposite of Blossom, the mine had been cleared out so there was no iron available and the tree farm area was barren. Add to that all the junk scattered around it certainly had the look and feel of a run-down ghost town and new players had to venture out into the wilds to even complete the tutorial. Certainly not a great place to start if one was truly a new player to wurm. Heck, if I had spawned into that back in the day I would have given up after 30 mins and uninstalled. That said, maybe me or my play style isn't the target audience for the game?

 

In contrast, I've played several WU servers that have awesome starting towns with the basic amenities so one can get the nails for a house/cart, some available trees, and farming plots. Some even allow joining the start town and having a house on the deed until an adventurer has enough skill or materials to venture out. Definitely a different experience and one that I appreciate.

[slon 14]

I go to Haven's Landing on Independence from time to time, mostly for treasure hunts, and a majority of the time I still get lost trying to find my way out to the main roads. The design of it is beautiful for sure, but I don't know how practical it is for new players. And yes, without any players there it very much resembles a ghost town, which isn't very inviting.

 

I think back to Newtown on the Home Server when I started (and ended up settling down right next to for a long time), and I remember these things:

• The starting town wasn't very big, so you could get out of it easily.
• There were basic resources and mostly touched land easily accessible to it.
• The whole place was flat, so it was easy to get in and out and find main access roads.
• There were people living nearby - both new players and experienced residents - who could help or just talk.

When I look at what new players would be spawning into now, I don't think they'd get that same easy-to-use, welcoming feel from their starting town - even though it's by all metrics an outstanding feat of player work and one of those landmarks you love to see in Wurm as you explore the map.

[Zachariah 736]

On 2/16/2024 at 9:16 AM, Finnn said:

all is decorative, gm made, not actual item, all waxed and look don't touch signed), quickly was given the idea you have 0 reason to do any of that or play in such shared environment.. 

That’s actually not 100% true. Being part of the team that helped design and rebuild The Howl on Independence many years ago when we did the starter deed redesign contest, if everyone remember that. The materials were spawned in for us but everything was truly built by hand. Even the forged and bsb’s. I believe the only things that where spawned in was the boat art instillation. 
 

I think the idea of starter towns is very interesting. While I do think there should be a way to stop players from destroying the deed, I believe when the starter towns where redesigned we designed them in such a way that shouldn’t be cut down or dug up. I can’t remember which one but there’s a starter deed on Xanadu that is entirely lawn which prohibits trees even growing on the deed so the player would be forced to go off deed anyways.
 

So I can totally see how the way it is currently is good enough. Allowing permissions on deed would end up a mess I think. Like it was pointed out, the public forges are still accessible. Which are a good way for newer players to go mine their own materials, in any of the many mines around a starter town, and craft their own tools. 

[Finnn 3,321]

7 hours ago, Zachariah said:

That’s actually not 100% true. Being part of the team that helped design and rebuild The Howl on Independence many years ago when we did the starter deed redesign contest, if everyone remember that. The materials were spawned in for us but everything was truly built by hand. Even the forged and bsb’s. I believe the only things that where spawned in was the boat art instillation. 
 

I think the idea of starter towns is very interesting. While I do think there should be a way to stop players from destroying the deed, I believe when the starter towns where redesigned we designed them in such a way that shouldn’t be cut down or dug up. I can’t remember which one but there’s a starter deed on Xanadu that is entirely lawn which prohibits trees even growing on the deed so the player would be forced to go off deed anyways.
 

So I can totally see how the way it is currently is good enough. Allowing permissions on deed would end up a mess I think. Like it was pointed out, the public forges are still accessible. Which are a good way for newer players to go mine their own materials, in any of the many mines around a starter town, and craft their own tools. 

I wrote about GV starting town, there existed models which were not in the game in any way as normal items, purely decorative items.. no decay and all that kind of stuff.. it was a very good tip to look dont touch, carry on... read signs to learn or jump into the game, it's was a perfect tutorial - go trough/skip, entirely up to you.

[TheTrickster 2,290]

I started as a newb in Haven's Landing in 2019 (I think) - and was already a kind of mixed bag.  There was a forest for the woodcutting part of the tutorial, which had a very rapid self-replant. 

I can't remember if the mine was the same - but I think it would be a good idea to have a couple of low QL iron veins with unlimited resources.  There were "public" garden plots for wemp etc, but no obvious (to a newb) instruction about replanting, so I am sure I picked a bunch of stuff I couldn't yet use and left bare dirt.  As to infrastructure, there was almost nothing in town that I could use outside of the tutorial area (which was thoroughly littered with abandoned carts) so I basically wandered off looking to find somewhere to at least temporarily settle while I figured things out.  I can't say much about other starter towns, except Sloping Sands seemed to me to be similar - not quite merely decorative but not much more than a spawn point. 

NFI starter towns were I think more basic but also a bit more novice friendly.  

I think starter towns almost need two distinct "districts" (or maybe completing the tutorial before selecting a server sorts this out).  One for the very very basics of the tutorial, the other for early development and getting the hang of it in relative safety and abundance.