Keeping the game fresh

[Cynicus]

I was wondering what other players do in URW to keep the game "fresh" for themselves. Other than stopping and playing something else for a while. Post your methods here and maybe it'll cure someone's madness.

[Blxz]

Nothing too special normally. Generally though I will play a theme. I enjoy seal-tribe living a semi-nomadic life hunting seals. Sometimes I edit the plant files so that every single herb and plant produces seeds (this is moderately time consuming but not hard) and then make myself a massive farm where I grow every herb and just experiment with various cooking and medicine components.

I remember a while back I kept trying to see if I could eat those poisonous black mushrooms and survive with my special medical herbs.

[Draco18s]

Reminds me of the time the friend of mine who introduced me to URW managed to almost survive the "start in the iron-tribe's camp as a slave."

He managed to get away from the camp without any pursuers (and then bled to death).

[Brygun]

Sometimes I edit the plant files so that every single herb and plant produces seeds (this is moderately time consuming but not hard) and then make myself a massive farm where I grow every herb and just experiment with various cooking and medicine components.

Please make this an available mod!

I've thought about something similar for spicing and medical treatment.

>>>>

As to my own methods:

One part is to have a personal quest. My current favorite is the Smith-of-the-north. Using an iron working mod I go from the Driik (or other more civilized people) to live by the northern people. Personal goal being to find the large inland lake that there always is and set up on north end or north of it. Then iron up the north people. Its like a quest to improve the people sacrificing the loneliness, and danger, of remote living.

[Blxz]

I'm not much of a modder. I don't know how to create this as a separate entity to be applied as a mod. Normally I just overwrite the existing ingame file but this gets wiped every time there is an update.

I suppose next time I get back into the game I could make a backup copy somewhere and post that to the forums.

[davidor]

Sometimes I edit the plant files so that every single herb and plant produces seeds (this is moderately time consuming but not hard) and then make myself a massive farm where I grow every herb and just experiment with various cooking and medicine components.

Please make this an available mod!

I've thought about something similar for spicing and medical treatment.

>>>>

As to my own methods:

One part is to have a personal quest. My current favorite is the Smith-of-the-north. Using an iron working mod I go from the Driik (or other more civilized people) to live by the northern people. Personal goal being to find the large inland lake that there always is and set up on north end or north of it. Then iron up the north people. Its like a quest to improve the people sacrificing the loneliness, and danger, of remote living.

Try this little tool:
http://z3.invisionfree.com/UrW_forum/index.php?showtopic=4908
Or:
http://z3.invisionfree.com/UrW_forum/index.php?showtopic=7677

[Brygun]

Another thought on this is to that as I get hopes/plans for camping/hiking I watch youtube channels like Survival Lilly and Far North Buschcraft and Survival. Those get me thinking of getting out. When I can't get out of the elevated concrete cave that is my city apartment I can put myself 'in the mindset' by playing Unreal World.

Also,

There have been some tragic moments in my life where the survival mindset has helped me make it through far better than many others in similar situations. "What do you need? What do you have?" and "The forest will provide" mental repeats encouraging my mind to think of solutions to overcome a problem rather than that there is nothing possible.

PS... dear Saami, thanks for that.

[DfDevadander]

Nothing too special normally. Generally though I will play a theme. I enjoy seal-tribe living a semi-nomadic life hunting seals. Sometimes I edit the plant files so that every single herb and plant produces seeds (this is moderately time consuming but not hard) and then make myself a massive farm where I grow every herb and just experiment with various cooking and medicine components.

I remember a while back I kept trying to see if I could eat those poisonous black mushrooms and survive with my special medical herbs.

That is a pretty good idea; I use herbal medicines in the real world instead of pharmaceutical products (we've got some nasty "medicines" here in the US that shouldn't be in production) so I've always had a love for the in-game ability to harvest and use herbs and other plants for medicine, I just had never thought to mod them so that I could cultivate them instead of wild harvesting!

Also, how did your experiment with the mushrooms turn out? I tend to stay away from the in-game and real world mushrooms (bad experiences in both settings have fostered that caution) but I'm curious to know whether or not you managed to survive a lethally poisonous fungus

[Labtop 215]

I always try to play a likeness of myself, and then basically roleplay as myself.  Basically, would you do something in the game that you wouldn't do in real life?

Basically...

- Are you really a god of combat, stealth, and a master hide-worker?  Specifically?
- Would you deliberately hunt down and kill somebody to take their stuff?
- For that matter, would you really seek out warriors from another culture to fight?
- Would you really gather a whole bunch of people from different villages, arm them with weapons and armor, and go destroy other camps?
- Would you really subsist on a mono-diet knowing how bad for you health that is in real life?  Like mono-dried meat or mono fish, or mono milk?
- For that matter, what kind of allergies do you have in the real world?
- Would you really feed your dogs spoilt meat?  Or try and sell that to others (not sure if you can still do this or not.)
- Would you really build a cabin, by yourself?  Would you really cut down 300 tree's, put them all on a raft secured only with small pieces of cloth you cut from your underwear, and paddle upstream, to a building site so close to the river that it could potentially be flooded?
- Would you really build a trap-fence 10 km long?
- Would you really work your character so hard that they are constantly on the verge of fainting?
- Use the "Oath of Iron" ritual on throwaway weapons?
- Ect, ect.  You get the point.

Basically there's a ton of things you end up doing in the game because they are incredibly favorable or they take out some of the tedium, but they totally wreck the intended balance of the game.  Now, of course, being to strict with those ideas can also lead to a boring or frustrating game, so you should have some leeway if you choose to re-imagine yourself.  Perhaps you from 1,000 years ago would be very talented in something.  You would have to be, or you wouldn't last very long. 

[JEB Davis]

I always try to play a likeness of myself, and then basically roleplay as myself.  Basically, would you do something in the game that you wouldn't do in real life?

Basically...

- Are you really a god of combat, stealth, and a master hide-worker?  Specifically?
- Would you deliberately hunt down and kill somebody to take their stuff?
- For that matter, would you really seek out warriors from another culture to fight?
- Would you really gather a whole bunch of people from different villages, arm them with weapons and armor, and go destroy other camps?
- Would you really subsist on a mono-diet knowing how bad for you health that is in real life?  Like mono-dried meat or mono fish, or mono milk?
- For that matter, what kind of allergies do you have in the real world?
- Would you really feed your dogs spoilt meat?  Or try and sell that to others (not sure if you can still do this or not.)
- Would you really build a cabin, by yourself?  Would you really cut down 300 tree's, put them all on a raft secured only with small pieces of cloth you cut from your underwear, and paddle upstream, to a building site so close to the river that it could potentially be flooded?
- Would you really build a trap-fence 10 km long?
- Would you really work your character so hard that they are constantly on the verge of fainting?
- Use the "Oath of Iron" ritual on throwaway weapons?
- Ect, ect.  You get the point.

Basically there's a ton of things you end up doing in the game because they are incredibly favorable or they take out some of the tedium, but they totally wreck the intended balance of the game.  Now, of course, being to strict with those ideas can also lead to a boring or frustrating game, so you should have some leeway if you choose to re-imagine yourself.  Perhaps you from 1,000 years ago would be very talented in something.  You would have to be, or you wouldn't last very long.

Very well said 

[Dungeon Smash]

i find starting up an industry to be satisfying and a good way to make the in-game days pass quickly and without tedium.  For this, I rely on mods.  Ironworking is my favorite, and weaving is also very fun. 

One survival maxim is to improve your situation at least a little, every day.  With this mindset, you can usually think of something to do.  Why not expand your home, build an addition or a new shed to store things?  Dig a well, or gather the materials for a kota.  Create a large farm, with many animals, many plots of crops and a large herb garden. 

One lifestyle I've never managed to actually get off the ground is travelling kota-dwelling nomad, using a reindeer (or 2 or 3) to carry my supplies and the materials for my kota, and travelling light with just my bow and a few dogs.  I think it would be pretty cool, but somehow my nomads always end up dying before i get to that point.

also, I want to mirror others in saying that I find UnReal world to be a very effective pastime for when I cannot get out in the real woods.  It really does an effective job in cultivating the exact "mindset" of real wilderness living.  In fact, sometimes even when I am in the woods, I play Unreal World when it's too rainy to do much outside!  my unreal world character really is like a "second me", a persona that I can use to explore options and life-paths that would be too difficult or dangerous to do in real life.  Of course, I would love it if I could make a 4 km trap fence and funnel all the life of the woods into my dinner-pot, but that is illegal pretty much everywhere  .  I tend to grow very attached to my Unreal World characters, and I am proud to watch them grow and thrive.  With this in mind, I generally try to treat them like real people, and ensure that they get enough sleep, enjoy some variation in their diet, and sometimes do things just for fun or to make their life more comfortable.  I find it makes the game much more satisfying to play.  I suppose some might find it odd that I lavish such care on a little pile of pixels and numbers, but this is my hobby, and I enjoy it. I also find that it has some level of cross-over to real life situations - when I've been playing unreal world as opposed to other games, I find my mind much more readily adapts to wilderness living.  I am able to plan out my actions intelligently by simply thinking, "Hm, what would I do in Unreal World?"

I'm not trying to say that Unreal World is adequate training for a survival situation, real life is far more complex and you also have to actually chop down all those trees yourself, not just watch a little animation!  but, when played mindfully, it can help your brain stay in the correct mentality.

[shorun]

I always try to play a likeness of myself, and then basically roleplay as myself.  Basically, would you do something in the game that you wouldn't do in real life?

Basically...

- Are you really a god of combat, stealth, and a master hide-worker?  Specifically?
- Would you deliberately hunt down and kill somebody to take their stuff?
- For that matter, would you really seek out warriors from another culture to fight?
- Would you really gather a whole bunch of people from different villages, arm them with weapons and armor, and go destroy other camps?
- Would you really subsist on a mono-diet knowing how bad for you health that is in real life?  Like mono-dried meat or mono fish, or mono milk?
- For that matter, what kind of allergies do you have in the real world?
- Would you really feed your dogs spoilt meat?  Or try and sell that to others (not sure if you can still do this or not.)
- Would you really build a cabin, by yourself?  Would you really cut down 300 tree's, put them all on a raft secured only with small pieces of cloth you cut from your underwear, and paddle upstream, to a building site so close to the river that it could potentially be flooded?
- Would you really build a trap-fence 10 km long?
- Would you really work your character so hard that they are constantly on the verge of fainting?
- Use the "Oath of Iron" ritual on throwaway weapons?
- Ect, ect.  You get the point.

Basically there's a ton of things you end up doing in the game because they are incredibly favorable or they take out some of the tedium, but they totally wreck the intended balance of the game.  Now, of course, being to strict with those ideas can also lead to a boring or frustrating game, so you should have some leeway if you choose to re-imagine yourself.  Perhaps you from 1,000 years ago would be very talented in something.  You would have to be, or you wouldn't last very long.

Very well said 

- no, neither is my char. i enter combat only when i already know i'll win.
- i dont even do that in the game...
- no, but if they come to close to something i need to survive i will stop them, if i can. irl and ingame
- if i was in a situation like in urw, no police and 6 tribes being harrased by 1 other tribe, AND i can get people to actually follow me, i'd gather an army of volunteers from all over and wage a terrible war against those njerps. i'd prefer to deal with it quickly then have to suffer them constantly raiding everywhere. in real life this would have already happend.
- i dont do that ingame or irl, i might actually do it more irl then ingame.
- nothing serious
- if they would eat it, yes. if it's harmless i would. other then that i only do it ingame because they prefer it over cooked food!
- if i had to, yes. i also built a wall around my little farm (that actually DOES take 300 trees) over a course of a year. on average less then 1 tree/day. i can do that.
- given enough time, the need for it and if it was legal, i might consider it. ingame i dont, it's "to easy"
- i dont do that ingame, it's to dangerous. other then that i have terrible insomnia so i basicly treat my char like i treat myself. i do shit till i drop.
- if i believed it worked i would to it on ANY weapon that i plan to actually use. ingame i dont use it at all (i forget...)
- etc etc, you can perfectly live ingame in a way you would irl, and yes there are things you can exploit that wont ever be true irl but most of the things you mentioned are not that strange at all.

and you didnt had to be all that talented back then, you just needed a good community -OR- be very talented. that's the whole reason people live in villages/communities, because people tend to specialize.