Where are all the Animals?

Xanadu has been a fun new server for Wurm Online. Things have quieted down since I established my deed, but I have not spent much time prettying it up so far. I found an iron vein and have been mining it to update my gear, but I think I am going to start enhancing my house.

Right now, my house is a simple one room deal with a small yard outside for my horse. Sadly, I haven't spent enough time working on my body control so far, so I can't ride her. I looked today and saw that I was only at 20.49 and I need to get up to 21 to ride. At this rate, I'm afraid my horse will die before I can ride her, and that is something that has me concerned about Xanadu – there are not many animals around.

On Release, I would roll out of bed and have to worry about being attacked by something. My deed guard killed so many creatures, I didn't have time to skin and butcher them every day – I felt very wasteful. Eventually, I built a guard tower to attract a second and third guard to handle all the critters. I had plenty of food to cook, lots of fur for beds and pelts for improving things. On Xanadu, there is barely any of that. I expected to have my guard kill off a few hostile animals so I could make a bed, but i have had No animals come on my deed in the time I've had it, and it's been months.

I think I am going to have to focus on getting my body control up so I can go out and explore to find animals. Once I can ride my horse, I can go out and expand my radius of exploration. Hopefully I can get things going this week and I can start to see what the animal situation is like out in the larger world. On Release, I had a kennel of dogs along with 4 horses, 2 bulls, and 4 cows. I had a regular farm going, but I don't think I've seen that many animals on Xanadu – not even when I started out and was fearful of getting attacked all the time.

Sadly, that for me was part of the flavor of Wurm. The fear of hostile animal attacking. You had to always work to remember where you were because there were no maps, and if you died, you had to find your body. On Release, I died many times and a few times I lost my body, but that was part of the fun. In Xanadu, I haven't even been attacked yet – knock on wood.

I am hoping I can find some animals to make pets on this server. I'm sure they are out there, but with how big the map,is, they are hard to find. In the meantime, I'll work on my body control by honing my archery and building up my house. Carpentry seems to help skill up BC, so that's what I'll try.

September Featured Link

Belghast over at Tales of the Aggronaut has a post about Game Servers that goes into the troubles of new games and startup servers. He puts forth some interesting ideas for possible solutions, and as he mentions, I hope some game company comes up with the perfect solution. I think we have yet to see something that works for everyone. Go take a look at his post as I think he covers the issue pretty well.