Around Midnight tomorrow CET, the first Wurm Hunt of the Ancients will begin. Apart from being pretty obvious when it comes to the inspiration of the name, The Hunt of the Ancients is a contest invented by the deities in order to reward bravery and strengthen the soul of humans by luring them into danger.

The HotA takes place in special zones called Hota zones. One has been created on the Chaos server and one on the Elevation Epic server. They are 400×400 tiles big.

When the Hunt begins, ten pillars and a few speed shrines will be created in the zone. The village or alliance that conquers four pillars win. The prize is a very special statue filled with glittering items. Prizes change a bit the more times you win and you will also gain special titles the more times you win the Hota.

A HotA round finishes when someone has conquered 4 pillars, and then after 36 hours another begins. You can be inside our outside the zone as you wish when the hunt starts.

The location of the Epic Hota zone is dead center so you can’t miss it, but the Chaos zone is in the SouthEast. You can compare the following image with the official Chaos map release:

There is a newly founded starter settlement on the west border of the zone. It’s called Hunter’s Lodge, and I recommend that you start out there.

I wish you a good hunt!

When the Epic servers were released a lot of players on wild went there to try it out. This left the wild server somewhat out in the cold, with a dwindling population.

Since we want to let people keep playing on wild we decided to try and help invigorate it and formed a “Chaos Council” that started to discuss how best to attract new players.

The best way forward was – a bit surprisingly – to add it to the non-PvP cluster and turn everyone into the peaceful kingdom of Freedom Isles. With free to play and some limited version of PvP both old and new Freedom players could come visit and try out a light version of Wurm PvP without having to go the full route on Epic.

Right now the server allows for PvP but usually with a severe reputation hit. This means that unless you’re in a village at war or have become an outlaw you should be pretty safe travelling around on the server visiting the old battle fields or the famous majestic fortified cities.

There are suggestions for some alliance system which will work like a lightweight version of the player made kingdoms available on Epic. This will be combined with some sort of incentives such as different objectives to fight over.

While Wild (now renamed Chaos) is reinvigorated it will still take some time for the Chaos Council to decide the way forward. Meanwhile the lion part of my efforts will go into sorting out some issues with Epic and start work on multi storey buildings next.

This saturday I suddenly realized that the day before, on the Friday, I reached a big big milestone in Wurm.

On the friday I debugged and verified that you can become immortal and join the other deities on Valrei. Since this is one of the more prominent goals you may strive for in Wurm and pretty much is the finest and most rare prize on Epic, this rounds up the Epic coding. I changed it so that you’ll keep your name by the way.

It was the last thing I had to debug so I was done with Epic. On 11-11-11. And I didn’t realize it. So to me I finished my job on version 1 of Wurm on that day. However, we still need Haradur and Wox to get the new animations and customization going before I’ll call it that.

Now for the first time in over a year I feel I can pick and choose a bit what to do. Yesterday I took time to order a new computer instead of my old dual core. While I’ll fix the bugs that always trickle in I’m considering to start adding those extra layers on the server in order to prepare for multi story buildings and bridges.

At least I think that’s what’s going to happen. In any case I already feel a lot more relaxed. The feeling that I can start coding things that takes days or weeks instead of a year to show up is great.

Today I updated the servers with quite a few improvements to missions and they work properly now. This means I need to take some time to explain the Game Board a bit more.

First though, read the Epic faq in case you haven’t already.

This is a very early version of the game board provided by Gaeron: http://hom.creative-realms.net/valrei/

We haven’t produced any graphics yet since we just released this information and our artists are working with 3D models at the moment. We also thought some of you might like to be creative. If you feel like making a better looking version or provide graphics, please post in this forum thread.

Deities:

On the Game Board you see some things you recognize, and some things you don’t. Most players will recognize the names Fo, Vynora, Magranon and Libila since they are the deities that players pray to.

Moving around

Deities move around the board looking for collectibles, usually taking one step every three real life days unless they receive help from the spirits since some of the spirits can travel between Valrei and the game world. The spirits in turn need the players to help them in various ways.

The players help the spirits by performing the in-game missions that now have started appearing. When the required number of missions have been done for a deity he or she is considered to have received help. This usually means that the minimum time the deity stays in the square is 12 hours unless it’s stuck in a labyrinth square where the minimum time is longer. It will move immediately if it has already stayed the minimum time.

The required number of missions in order to help your deity move is one per wild server and one per home server belonging to your kingdom template. Only missions completed on the Epic servers count – missions on Freedom servers are for fun only and don’t contribute.

When a deity takes a step he or she conveys the favor of the spirits who helped it to its followers. When this is active you will see it in the spell effect window.

Immortals:
There are actually quite a lot of other creatures on Valrei. The ones beside the deities that you see on the board are immortal for various reasons. They could be called demigods but they can never become true deities and have no religions. They always stay in their square.

Below is a short reference for the other immortals:

Nogump the Dirty, a fairly friendly giant whose stupidity makes him a bit dangerous. Friend of Vynora.

Jackal is the ally of Magranon. He’s a trickster and apparently looks quite a bit like a Jackal. Jackal is also a moon you can see from ingame.

The Deathcrawler is an undead creature who looks like a giant crayfish with a mummified human-like head.

The Dirtmaw Giant is a slobbering, aggressive giant whos main goal in life is to trample things and keep his plains flat.

Walnut is also called the Treekeeper. His home holds a cherrytree whose berries give the power of immortality, which is what gives him his nickname.

Pharmakos, aka The Expelled, is the ally of Libila. He is a tall, pale creature with parchment-like skin who spends his time with alchemy and mystical experiments.

The Scavenger is a black beast who roams the Wintertree Hills, searching for and devouring any sort of living or dead meat that enters the region.

When a deity enters their square these immortals will attack unless it’s their ally. The Immortal who survives gains all the tokens on the square. The other one respawns at his start square when it is empty. A deity may sometimes take control of another deity’s ally at the end of a scenario.

Tokens

There are also some items on the board, or tokens. These are the things that the deities hunt for.

Collectibles are the items that the scenario is about. When one deity has collected the amount required and returned to the target square with them the scenario ends. The winner gains bonuses or may even punish the other side, for instance with some terraforming event. When a scenario ends everyone respawns in their home squares and new collectibles are generated.

Source tokens give a bonus to their carriers attack roll when fighting with other immortals. If something on the map is called “Source feather” or “Source harp” it’s a source token and not a collectible.

Other markers

It’s possible that new markers may appear. Who knows what will pop up?

Player immortality

When a deity wins a scenario there’s a chance that he receives cherries that the spirits have stolen from the Treekeeper. This means that a player may receive the possibility to become immortal.

First the player becomes a demigod. He will become an ally to his deity and protect a random square.

If the demigod survives long enough for the same deity to win again and have the luck to receive more cherries, he will become a full deity with a religion of his own for other players to join. The religion receives a totally random set of spells from the existing ones. Also, when that happens the deity will start moving around freely on Valrei in the hunt for collectibles.

Phew!

The first hours of a release is usually pretty scary and this was no exception. Some of the portals didn’t work and it took some time to figure out why. At least there was no data loss which is the main thing you worry about.

Since then I’ve been busy fixing bugs and now there are no really bad ones remaining. Some bugs with the Epic missions appeared and when it went live but they are slowly being sorted.

All in all it’s a big success. Everyone seems very happy, we’ve gained a lot of new customers and no innocent creatures were harmed in the process!

Here are some answers to some of the most asked questions regarding Epic.

Q: What is Epic?

A: It’s a new set of connected Wurm Servers (we call it a cluster) where everyone starts from scratch. As a player you may help your god in ways that help them achieve their goals in their home on the moon Valrei. There is special code on Epic where the gods may reshape the world or spawn creature invasions as a result of how well they achieve their goals.

Q: Why do we need Epic?

A: Because it may give a greater sense of purpose to your game play. There will be a natural need of your services, and actions you take may have  large impact on the progress of your faction and your gods.

Fighting for your kingdom is fun but having a good reason for it makes it more compelling. Having direct impact on the gods takes it to the next level and gives another reason to gain territory. The war demands goods and services and a skilled craftsman may turn the tide.

Some players will strive to become gods themselves, reaching a level of “uniqueness” that is very rare in online games.

You may also create kingdoms of your own on Epic, which has been a very requested feature.

Q: How do I join?

A:  There will also be Epic portals created for new players on the Golden Valley server at the end of the tutorial. If you are an existing player and feel like adventuring a while you can pop over to Epic and check it out with no risk to your existing character. When you come back you are back at the place you left with all your skills and equipment. All you have to do is to build an Epic Portal using a few stone bricks and logs.

Q: What do I bring with me through the portal?

A: Your account information such as name, email, premium time and money in the bank. Also ban records and mutes. But no items or skills.

Q: How many servers will there be?

A: Initially there are three Home servers around a central Wild server. Whenif more are required we’ll add them, creating a cross shaped pattern of interconnected Home servers around the Wild battlegrounds.

Q: Can we go to Valrei?

A: It’s just a game board for the gods at the moment. You will be able to watch the pieces move around and see the effect of your actions. If one day we get a lot of resources we may create a special Valrei server for those players who have become Demigods and Gods but right now we have higher priorities.

Q: How do the missions and scenarios work?

A: On Valrei, the gods usually hunt for a number of rare items. One such hunt is a scenario. In order to find these items the gods will have to visit the various locations on Valrei. Moving around takes time and is exhausting. Usually one step takes a few days but some regions will take real weeks to traverse. By performing missions that aid your god you give him or her strength to move faster. One such mission may be to slay a number of creatures, build something or perform a ritual somewhere.

The missions are designed to be performed by a number of players based on the current active “base kingdom”  (HOTS, MR and JK as template) population on a server in order to succeed. Sometimes the task will be too hard though, and sometimes it will require only one player to perform something simple on a remote location.

When enough missions have succeeded, the deity moves. The number of missions required are one per home server and one per wild server per base kingdom. When the deity has found the number of items required to win the scenario and brought them to the target location, the scenario is won and ends.

When your deity moves, your god becomes favored by certain spirits who aid both you and your god. When a whole scenario ends, your god may decide to give your side bonuses, or create terraforming events in enemy territory. The gods themselves may also gain permanent characteristic bonuses, or the ability to spawn creatures in your enemy territory.

Also: Read the blog post explaining the Game Board!

Q: Ok, ok, wow calm down. How many do you have to be to create a custom kingdom?

A: 50 players located in the same village

Q: How much does a declaration of independence  cost?

A: 1 gold

Q: Will the servers be F2P?

A: The home servers will be F2P. To join Wild or the HOTS Home server you have to be premium.

Q: Will we be able to join the Wild server instantly?

A: If you are a premium player.

Q: Will we be able to join HOTS instantly on Epic?

A: Yes. Unless there is something we’ve overlooked.

Q: Will we be able to join custom kingdoms instantly?

A: These will only exist on the premium servers, and there is a setting to allow people to join via the portals. If they do, they will be open to spies but their growth rate may increase.

Q: Will there be faster skillgain?

A: Yes, about twice as fast. There is also the effect of the “curve formula” which puts skill level 50 at 70% actual efficiency. At skill 70 you are at 90% efficiency which hopefully will be enough even for the most grind-minded players. On the current servers, skill 50 equals 50% efficiency.

Q: Will we be able to play on different accounts at the same time?

A: Yes, but in order to limit spy accounts there will be a restriction that you can’t play in different kingdoms at the same time from the same IP address. There will also be a ten minute grace period for switching between kingdoms.

Q: Can I bring settlement forms to Epic?

A: No. You have to purchase them once you have passed through the portal. Your money will be available in the bank.

Q: What is the cost of guards and how many can I hire?

A: On Epic the cost will be 3 silver per month, and you can hire 20.

Q: Will dragon armour change?

A: Yes less dragon armour will be available because butchering will yield less hide and scale.

Q: Will uniques respawn?

A: Yes in some forms. We will have more time to create interesting unique creatures after Epic is released.

Q: Will there be Farwalker Amulets or Bags of Keeping?

A: No.

Q: When on the 28th of October will you open the servers?

A: We aim to open them at 18.00 hrs CET (Stockholm time).

With one week left, it’s about time that I give some feedback on the progress on the Epic release.

I’ve been busy coding portals with which you can travel between the current Freedom cluster or the Wild server to the Epic cluster and back. It’s a bit of a hassle sorting things out like selecting kingdoms and properly returning you to your previous position.

Basically you’ll be able to build these portals from a few stone bricks and logs next week. Once Epic opens you’ll be able to pass through from your own village. I had this idea that you should be able to use your own body which could be handy but it could be annoying to have that option all the time if you never plan to change. The model will probably look like an existing stone portal but will be updated asap.

Also we may release voice chat on Monday in the “unstable” client version. The unstable client is a beta version where we test new things before making it final and using it on the web front page. It would be interesting if automatic proximity voice chat worked next friday.

A lot still remains to do. I’m confident everything will be in place next friday but don’t expect me to communicate a lot this upcoming week. It’s usually better to spend the last week communicating but that’s for companies with resources. We just have to push things out the door and hope someone catches it. We need to release and improve over time with increasing resources instead. I will however make some blog posts explaining more about the mechanics.

I thought I’d calm some of you who think Epic will be all fire and floods. The image below shows one of the terraforming events that may happen at the end of a scenario. The winning god decided to create a plateau. This one isn’t the largest possible but even those won’t be all that bad. The chance that this hits your village is pretty slim, especially since these events happens maybe once or twice per month and there are a multitude of variations. And of course, if you make sure to let your deity win, this event will not hit your kingdom.

Now, of course there are also things like volcanoes and large ravines but I’m sure it will be interesting to see those appear once or twice per year.

I’ve composed a press release that starts like this:

Wurm Online to open the Epic Cluster on 28th Oct

The Swedish developer Onetoofree announces that their MMO Wurm Online will open the new Epic Cluster on October 28th 2011.

“The Epic code is something I’ve been working on for several years, and it feels really good to finally release it” says Rolf Jansson who is the main server developer and CEO of the company.

According to Rolf, the idea behind the Epic code is to provide the players with a full circle of purpose and something really big to strive for. Even if they don’t care about it, every player will be part of a chain of dependencies and every action they perform will be important in the long run.

If all you do is farm all the time on a remote settlement, someone some day will come by and ask for food, water or healing and maybe you help a hero in the making. Everybody affects the story in some way in Wurm.

“This is particularly true on Epic, where the gods battle on the moon of Valrei. You may aid your gods by participating in global missions that require the players to perform rituals on remote holy places or build religious sites. When a mission has been completed the deity and its faction receive various bonuses“

Multiple missions comprise a scenario, and when a scenario ends lots of other dramatic things may happen. Fantastic terraforming events such as a volcano appearing may take place or someone from your faction may get the chance to be elevated to demigod. If that demigod survives long enough he or she may rise to become a full deity with its own religion and join the battle.

When you accept, a demigod with your name and some of your characteristics will appear on the Valrei game table. You’ll keep playing the character but the skills on the Epic cluster will be reset and your character will be renamed on all servers.

…

It goes on a bit more but you get the idea. I interview myself. It’s one of those jokes every serious small business has to pull now and then. The press release should start appearing in about two weeks.

Now, here’s something for you – rough maps of Valrei! Somehow I’ll make it possible to stay updated on the positions of the deities as they move around.

I made one map displaying the area names and a better looking map made from the map editor of Battle for Wesnoth:

The chasm is really supposed to be a volcano as visible in the map below but the Wesnoth map editor doesn’t have a volcano.

You can join the Epic cluster on Friday the 28th by using portals that will be available on all the existing servers.

Since the early beginning of Wurm we’ve had issues with lighting. The specification for OpenGL says that there is only support for 8 lights. One of those is the sun, normally, and one is reserved for yourself.

These limitations used to be very apparent while walking around in caves since the client tried to figure out which lights were closest to you and it often caused flickering or total darkness around you.

Today as I log on to Deliverance I see this beautifully lit road. More than 30 light sources. Apparently we do some smart stuff with pre-lighting terrain but it shouldn’t affect structures or objects such as the Colossus. To me it looks as though every light source works properly and lights up objects around them. In any case it looks real neat: