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Posts
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Polar Bear
Posts: 49So I’ve been around for a few months now. It’s a very cool game with big potential, and I deeply respect the dev team for making such progress. And I wish them to keep their motivation and move the game forward.
But my personal experience became too much of a frustration rather than fun, and it is time to say goodbye. Here is my story, all names real.
I started playing 4 months ago, and was very excited about the game. Sandbox freedom, persistent world in which you can build whatever you like, semi-afkable grind, challenging boss and, for a new player, underworld, ongoing development and updates. So I’ve set up my base and started training and accumulating resources. The euphoria lasted for about a month, and then one night my afking character was killed by Naruto, all golden doors broken, all animals killed and all wealth looted. Naruto was a strange low level character who constantly looted wherever he could break in, and I rarely saw him online. There was also another similar “hero”, Nodo. I heard of a few players who got raided by either of the two, and it was very upsetting.
After I lost everything, I was quite mad and frustrated. The most disappointing part was that it was so easy for a low level noob (he was level 30 or something) to break into my base. But I still liked the game and wanted to stay, so I decided to start again with more precautions. There was an option to rent a shed in market square, but first, I wanted a bigger place where I could design my training grounds and build a farm, and second, I did not want to be chained to gold mining just to pay the rent. So I moved to a new spot, collected about 8k stone and made 2-layer walls. I also decided to make a vault alt, knowing how easy it was to break in. So all my valuables were now stored cheaply and securely, in a walking chest of sorts, despite some inconvenience of having to log in and out and to exchange stuff between characters. It felt like a wonderful setup: two layers should make it a bit harder to break in, and should be not worth it since there was not much left inside.
Except for my animals, my afking character and golden doors. I can’t remember if it was Nodo or Naruto, he broke my gates, murdered my character and slaughtered my animals. You did not lose much, I said to myself, nothing to worry about, right? Maybe, but it still felt pretty bad. My next doors were cheap silver ones, to limit the loss next time they are broken.
Soon after happened the Puff tribe wipeout. What used to be the fanciest fortress in game, became an empty floor wasteland in one day. Some members of the 3rd biggest tribe quit, including rather active Russian and EmanResu, some keep playing. I had a few friends in Puff, and they seemed like nice and friendly fellows. They let me borrow some iron tools after I lost everything, so I could recover faster. I knew that they have just finished a new circle of towers, as somebody was trying to break in. I was pleased to see the announcement of Nodo being killed by Puff towers. But a few minutes later he murdered some sleeping Puff members. I was not much of a fighter, reincarnation path takes a long time to become relevant, but I still decided to go and take a look.
I did not see Nodo, but I was surprised to find Merry Men’s Tux bashing Puff towers. I take a few screenshots, pick up one tower’s materials after it collapsed, as Tux was probably semi-afking, he notices and kills me. I am very mad to see that all happening. To me it looked as a joint Nodo/Merry Men raid affair, and I express my disgust to Tux in private. He respons that he actually came to help. Why was he destroying towers one after another instead of looking for Nodo? Oh, because towers kill noobs. Sure, makes perfect sense. Why did he kill me on sight? I don’t know, we never met or talked before. Then Puff’s leader, Russian, got slain a few more times by Tux, Tee and Chaos. From what I’ve heard, members of glorious Tea Connoisseurs, game’s top tribe, joined the party and helped to loot Puff vaults. Some time later Tux killed me again inside my walls.
Some more details of the annihilation are here. Politics is a murky water, and I don’t know why it all happened. Tux said he just came to help Puff. Then he posted that it was because Russian had robbed Quiet. Somebody else told me that Puff was actually planning to raid Merry Men, and they decided to carry out a preventive strike. And who is this Nodo after all? I think that simply a few bored veteran players decided to have some fun.
But my personal story continued. I was not as active as before, but made another alt to try non-reincarnation gameplay. With reincarnations, it really sucks to have your vital and hard to train skills such as construction, repairing or hunting, to constantly fall down to your 0-1-2 blue stars. I’ve built an extra layer of walls to protect my training dummies and small supply of daily used materials.
What puzzled me was that all my animals were disappearing every night. Almost always the walls and gates were untouched. Animals were on small islands, so it could not be a random wolf and hornet spawn. It must have been players. I knew that griefers could easily escape-rope from the underground into my grass-tiled farm. Later I learned that they could also wall-jump by logging out near wall, standing on and surrounded by non-spawning tiles such as deep water and floors, and logging in a few minutes later. I still wanted to know, who it was. I was suspecting Tux, Nodo or Naruto, my old friends. So I made yet another disposable alt, left him permanently logged in in the middle of my base, and wrote a script that would log names and levels of any player who comes close. That’s how learned the name of my new personal griefer, Mesa, level 17-18 tribeless char. Every day, about 30-60 minutes after I logged off for the night, he showed up and chopped all my animals. I even stopped luring animals into my base or arranging them in breeding islands, since I knew that next morning everything would be gone. I think he did not bother to even leave my place, simply logged out and logged in for his daily routine. So I now had a character who’s only purpose was to annoy me and to ruin my life.
Some other nights Nodo showed up too, so those two must be different people. Once my gates were again broken. But the most wonderful thing happened when two days ago I was suggested to build arrow towers to protect my chickens. After I learned that towers did not target animals, it sounded like a great way to get rid of my low-level nemesis. Especially after recent tower buff and reduced cost. I am glad I did not build more than one tower for my first test. Because it did not work. And it had no chance to. After Mesa logged in and saw my gift, he happily called his friend (main?) Tee, top player of the top tribe. Before logging out, I repaired everything to full. I don’t know Tee’s stats, but I wonder, did it take him more or less than one hour to break 2 doors and a tower?
Perhaps these people do it because it is their way of having fun. There is no other value in coming every night just to check if new cows have spawned in my yard and to slaughter them. I should probably be grateful that they never bothered to break into my single layer walled inner “vault” that housed 3 training dummies, knitting tools and a few old potatoes.
I am a patient person, but I am fed up with it now. Games are supposed to be fun, aren’t they?
Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it.
Sincerely yours, Tiri.
I’m sorry to hear about the break ins and animal slaughtering, Tirioll 🙁
We appreciate you sharing your experience. It will help others as a warning, and hopefully someday people will have some success fighting back against the griefers. From our end we will keep working on solutions to balance the sandbox world for peaceful players.
Hope to see you back sometime, thanks for your patience with everything.Shame to see you go but if you’re not having fun you’re not having fun.
Polar Bear
Posts: 49Sorry, one inaccuracy. Tee did not break my doors, he only broke the tower. Probably escape-roped in and wall-jumped out.
Penguin
Posts: 3Killing animals in a nature area is not even griefing. The game mechanics allow for easy access to nature areas, so you can’t expect to be able to protect these areas. There are limits to how many animals can spawn in the world. When a few players have these animal farms, they hoard all the animals. New players have a hard time finding these animals for their own needs. This is very unfair, because players like tirioll are only hoarding these animals so they can AFK farm myst. How is this fair to other players that they are allowed to do this? It is not fair, so it is only fair that others can come into your area and kill these animals.
Killing animals in a nature area is not even griefing. The game mechanics allow for easy access to nature areas, so you can’t expect to be able to protect these areas. There are limits to how many animals can spawn in the world. When a few players have these animal farms, they hoard all the animals. New players have a hard time finding these animals for their own needs. This is very unfair, because players like tirioll are only hoarding these animals so they can AFK farm myst. How is this fair to other players that they are allowed to do this? It is not fair, so it is only fair that others can come into your area and kill these animals.
It seems you are laboring under some handy misconceptions, or I am.
Penguin
Posts: 3It seems you are laboring under some handy misconceptions, or I am.
Please clarify what you’re speaking about.
Please clarify what you’re speaking about.
I’m not sure which of us is correct, so we should probably ask the dev. What we do know is only chickens have a max world population, so however many sheep or cows are penned up they don’t count against any kind of cap. It might be that if more are penned up, less will spawn in the wild, but if so it’s the first I’ve heard of it. We’d have to ask the dev to know for sure.
But from my own experience I can say that even when there aren’t any farms at all, it’s impossible to find enough sheep outside. It’s not a situation of ‘we break all the farms and now everyone’s happy.’ If you want any amount of wool, farms are a necessity. Breaking farms just means now there’s no wool for anyone since sheep will rarely (basically, only by accident) breed in the wild.
This is because breeding spawns only happen when the sheep are forced close together, which rarely happens with random pathing animal behavior. The reason you see farms crammed with sheep is because they’re artificially set up to trigger these spawning rules. Nobody corrals dozens of sheep out of the wild, they work very hard to catch 2 and start a flock from there.
But if there aren’t enough sheep, this is a beta–we should report it to the dev and see if spawn rates can be increased or some other fix implemented. We shouldn’t be taking it out on other players by breaking their farms; we both know it’s legit work finding any sheep to start one, and the farms take consistent maintenance after that as well since sheep die of old age every 2-3 days.
We’re supposed to make farms, that’s how sheep and cows especially have been designed. If there’s a problem it’s up to us as beta testers to let the dev know so the design can be improved. Vandalism helps nobody.
Penguin
Posts: 3Increased the population and breeding limits of all NPCs in the overworld and underworld. Also increased population of berry bushes and sped up their regrowth.
When there are no animal farms, you can find animals in the world. You’ve always had animal farms, so you didn’t notice the way others did.
Increased the population and breeding limits of all NPCs in the overworld and underworld. Also increased population of berry bushes and sped up their regrowth.
When there are no animal farms, you can find animals in the world. You’ve always had animal farms, so you didn’t notice the way others did.
This is news to me. /scratches head
I do want to correct though that I have not always had a sheep farm, you can find posts of mine where I complain bitterly about how “impossible” I found knitting to be when you could hike for hours without finding any sheep.
And I confess myself curious about when there were no farms. I’ve never seen the wild sheep population thick enough to be a sufficient supply, animals in general have always been too sparse for that. So I’m not sure what you mean.
But either way, I still think you must agree that this is a necessary feedback issue, not a sheep farmers are villains issue. If sheep farms are a detriment to other players that calls for balance changes, not anarchy.
The perfect solution to your immediate problem of course would be an open/public sheep farm that everyone can share, but let me tell you that was a pain in the ass. Players broke it repeatedly and repairs took hours.
I don’t think they were malicious either, just impatient/clueless.
Skeleton
Posts: 119If I recall correctly, when sheep breeding was (re-?)implemented people were already used to have chicken farms, and they probably built sheep farms as soon as possible.
If I recall correctly, the chicken spawn limits are not world-wise but zone-wise. I ignore the extension and position of said zones.
Goblin
Posts: 69Another victim of mysterious griefers. And only dev can tell who is standing for all this crimes, that must be funny to watch how childrens play 😉 Very intresting, thank you for sharing Tir!
Polar Bear
Posts: 44jeez.
sandbox worlds could be so much fun and opening possibilities for constructive gameplay, if there only were not people involved 😉I am pretty new here and did not _yet_ have any negative experiences with anyone here other than notorious firenerd aka chronodoggy who either can´t forgive me my yawning about his (admittedly boring) your-mom-jokes or does not like to be on an ignore list or has some other issue – all I can say is dude behaves a bit like that moskito in your room – you constantly should have your flyswatter around you. or rather in this case: to constantly craft and build those flyswatters.
sometimes I can´t help but wonder what causes people to choose a destructive gameplay.
most assume it´s frustration with own life and they need a vent.
maybe.
but this is a view that focuses on someone’s personality only, a personalised attempt at rationalisation, while I prefer to see whether there might be other things involved.
imagine someone left school too early and did still not realise that a society where education is a business, where top 1% gets huge tax cuts while it “can´t afford” free education up to master for its citizens is an aggressive society.
you find yourself in front of a computer months or years later and watch yourself break into people’s bases as if you were that grumpy 5-years-old stomping on other kids’ sandcastles.
just musing whether some of that venting their own frustration might have a broader background, whether some of these actions might be shadows of the outcome of the society people live in. and whether their way of unprovoked destruction and attacks against particular players might be their way of saying they don´t know who to blame for their situation.
some of you will sure say I am “interpreting too much” into it.
maybe.
and maybe not.
Polar Bear
Posts: 44lol…
short lesson how to recognize someone who never ever had a farm.
quote Handyman,
written on September 8, 2017 at 9:07 am“Killing animals in a nature area is not even griefing. The game mechanics allow for easy access to nature areas, so you can’t expect to be able to protect these areas. There are limits to how many animals can spawn in the world. When a few players have these animal farms, they hoard all the animals. New players have a hard time finding these animals for their own needs. This is very unfair, because players like tirioll are only hoarding these animals so they can AFK farm myst. How is this fair to other players that they are allowed to do this? It is not fair, so it is only fair that others can come into your area and kill these animals.”
fun read, only that none of this is true.
please let me help you with a few misconceptions. no one blames you for not ever having had a farm here yet, but this way you are spreading incorrect “info” and that´s where serious trouble can start if ppl read it and think you write something you know something about. which is obviouly not the case and here is why:
when your place your avatar even in a densely polulated farm (say, owner off for a day and they procreated in the meanwhile) all what happens is exactly ZERO.
niente.
nihilo ultimatoto.farm animals are inagressive animals. so when you place yourself in a farm and do nothing, that will be the exact outcome a few minues, hours later or if you would leave your computer on for a day.
zero is what you will have.
they give this “myst” only when you kill them and to have a fight with them, you have to start it.and the owner of the farm would also have nothing of letting it alone too long… sheep packed too dense in a small area use the grass up that they need to give wool so when s/he comes back, none of them will have wool to give.
capice?
second misconcenption is the spawn density.
honey I am regularly on hunting trips around the whole map and I can assure you that my farms change nothing. I have 2 farms (one own one and one shared, i.e. tribe) and I still get what I need from the animals mostly on my wanderings. I like having a farm but it´s mostly for fun.
and there is lots to carry back home from hunting trips, so… maybe stop spreading such stuff.
I understand someone trying to explain how it was possible to happen after the fact (given that I live apparently on the ground of where all that happened… you can treat me as the wandering ghost of the Russian guy you mobbed away) but in cases where ppl develop suspicions and atmosphere starts getting dense, that is not how you solve it.
that is what diplomacy is for.
you start discussions in chat and then go forum.
if there is really no way to solve a dispute, controvery or conflict peacefully (such issues actually don´t exist but if two groups develop a feeling something can´t be solved peacefully via negotiation), then you declare a war first.
in the forum.
you give people – the entire community – time and options to discuss. maybe non-tribe members want to join one of the involved parties (in talks first in the forum), so it is necessary to first declare your reasons – both sides – and see what ppl answer.
I understand there are many USA based players here and the rest of the world knows fairly well that you are used to say “pfff” and think United Nations is nothing of your concern, but that´s not how it works.
Polar Bear
Posts: 44lol…
:-]starting countdown until first reader of the above decides to go make himself a wolf farm for afking…
3….2…..
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