Apprenticeship And Opportunity For New Players

[Garis 210]

You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do. --Henry Ford

I hear quite often new players dispairing over the high barrier to entry for craftsmenship. It sounds like this:

I would say probably a majority quit wurm before they even get skilled enough to create anything people want to buy.

This notion is inaccurate, and new players need to be creative and think about what other people need. Not everyone in the game is out looking for a q90 enchanted longsword, and you don't need to have 80 in a skill to turn a profit in Wurm, certainly not on a young server like Celebration, which is still in the midst of a dynamic building boom.

I paid a new player in my neck of the woods for unfinished floorboards, frying pans, and lots of low quality stuff that is easy to make but takes a long time, so that I can focus on building things and landscaping. Right now she's agreed to make me a bunch of unfinished barrels, weapon racks, armor racks, bow racks, etc. Since they can't be moved once they're completed, I can't go buy the finished product at some market and push it home. Hiring a master fine carpenter to come out and build me unfinished barrels is probably never going to happen, because they have better work to do.

It's a perfect job for her right now, and I'm happy to pay her to do it.

I had another friend who specialized in making low quality (around q20) tools made out of steel. Low quality steel is very easy to make, and since it adds durability over iron, these make excellent skilling tools. Low quality tools have longer timers, and as you get to have around 90 digging, your timers are so short that it contributes to very very small amounts of skill gain with each digging action. Therefore, having low quality tools helps lengthen your timers and lets you gain skill faster. Making the tools out of steel gives them a longer working life and makes them more appealing to high end players.

Support your local priests! Find a local priest of Vynora and bring them a cart full of q20-30 tools to grind enchanting on, and they'll probably look out for you and see to it that some good tools and armor find their way to your inventory.

Mass produce unfinished floorboards and unfinished small rafts. You can put a LOT of unfinished small rafts in a small raft, and sell them to merchants and ship owners (who often have coin to spare) for a tidy profit, and get valuable skill while you're doing so.

Some skills let you make high quality items even if you have low skill, as long as your raw materials are good. Find out what those skills are, and get to work on gathering! Get a high quality carving knife a high quality sickle, and a high quality small bucket, and use these to gather hides, healing mats, forage, botanize, and to gather fruit and sap. Wrap the high quality hides and sell them to local leatherworkers.

Find a shieldsmith / weaponsmith / armorsmith and offer to imp their low quality, freshly made items up to q20 or q30 for them as their apprentice. Offer to help them build an apprentice shop on their perimeter where they can leave things for you to work on, so they don't have to give you permissions on their deed. They might pay you with high quality tools, weapons, armor, or coins. They often won't buy your low quality goods, because craftsmen like to have their own name on things. By working on bringing up hundreds of items to q30, you gain a lot more skill in the lower tiers than they would in the higher tiers, you'd be helping them churn out more high quality product, and you'd get a lot of skill, experience, and access to high quality raw materials to work with. Plus, you'd be helping them instead of playing alone.

Are you training a priest? Find a local up-and-coming armorer or weaponsmith and offer to enchant their q20-q30 tools, weapons, and armor for them in order to improve your channeling. Maybe you break 8 out of 10 items, but if they get to keep the 2 that you don't break it is probably worth their time, and they can sell the low quality enchanted items to craftsmen capable of improving them further.

Don't like physical grunt labor? Be a planner. Find out if any villages are trying to expand and would like to hire you to help them plan that expansion. A friend of mine recently made a nice bit of coin by using the Wurm Mapping tool to survey the lands surrounding a settlement and sell the map back to the mayor, who used it in planning his village expansion.

The Wurm economy has opportunities for every player, at every level. This is especially true on Celebration, which has a young player base and is in need of so much. If you want to be a crafter, you can do it and make coin at every step along the way. And when the time comes for you to start selling q50 and higher items, people will remember your early days, clawing your way up by helping other people.

[ReaverKane 363]

I'd like to add, that nothing is truly free, if you want to prosper in wurm without paying monthly, which is quite possible, you need to work hard, not expect stuff to fall in your lap. Expect to work in bulk. Digging jobs are also a nice way to get money. Also, farming, hunting, minning, woodcutting, just about any action you do in wurm can be worth silver, if you do it often enough.

That planner thing, well, don't expect to make a lot of money out of it, but hey, there's always a few players with more money than time, that pay for just about anything.

My favourite money maker:

Bricks and mortar, mortar is hard, bricks can be done easily, and usually people don't fuss much about ql either, if they're paying, they have a deed, so they don't really care for ql (also a ql 20 stone house will last months).

I used to sell 1k each for 5silver + delivery if it was far away enough. With 2k you can pay one month premium, or buy a referral or 2.

Edited October 3, 2012 by ReaverKane

[Darkmalice 242]

Expect to work in bulk.

Seriously, you can make a TON of money in-game doing bulk. Ask Banshee, I think I've paid that guy like 5g in the last few months for bricks, ribbons, slabs, floorboards, mortar and junk. I know there are a lot of ppl out there always looking for dirt and bricks, most willing to pay that bit extra for the speed and reliability of a good supplier.

It's dull, yeah, but it isn't difficult.

[Ayes 3,715]

Garis,

You have made a very good outline for new players who may be wishing to make coins in game. Also an important point you have made is that this will help them to establish a positive reputation within the community. Then there are also the beinfits that they can learn the game in a more protected environment within the vicinity of the deed they are providing the materials to. I can see your post to be a valuable one to have within the new player section of the forums as well. Good tips there for those who are wanting the more sociable aspects of interaction with other players through providing wanted services to them while building their own skills as well.

=Ayes=

[Mallaboro 42]

Logs for Armour. Even trade.

[alaskanbob 225]

+1 for everything said

I'd push for this to be stickied as more people add tips.

[Hussars 511]

Can also try an old marketing trick.. pay attention to what others are selling and what they are charging.

Long time crafters have found balance points between the value of their time/resource and sale price. If you want to get into "their" market, remember, they charge what they do for a reason, and it is not always to make as much coin as possible on every sale, but usually long term gains as well.

As an added benefit, I know several folks who will refer you to someone else if they cannot make what you want, or can make it but are back logged or not crafting currently. So learning from them can also put your name on their lips when they need to farm work out.

You don't have the be the best crafter to make money, you just have to be able to deliver on your word.

[Guest TineenAlexi]

Excellent posts here, and cele isn't alone in rewarding new players. Personally I've always prefered smithing for making cash, even at low skills (making 50ql chain/tools) you can easily sell goods and earn a reputation and reputation is the most important element of running a shop.

Always aim to do something you enjoy doing as well, bulk turns a profit but can be tedious for some, keeping an eye on chat and seeing what gaps their are in the market and then focusing on what you want to do is an excellent way of starting yourself up

[rosedragon 2,282]

good idea but I think this topic is better on the new players forum than celebration. These kind of things can be done in any server imo.

Also adding a possible source of revenue: delivery service.

Many people turns down a deal because they have to pick up on faraway land. These could took hours or even a day to deliver and go back to your place but a single delivery service might give you 1-2s depends on range and generousity of the buyer/seller. If it short distance it might worth less but it will took less of your time. This also good to know lands around your server, where to hunt certain mobs, met more people on local, or even scavenge the ruins.

The downside is unless you get horse that at least can run 20kmph on straight road and decent armor, it might be a suicide run if the place is too far.

[Mypoppy 57]

Amazing! ;D