The Gobbler’s Banquet Game starts on 1st November 2019 and will run for twelve months. (Edit: After 12 months it was decided to continue the server indefinitely). The game is about production and time management. Players may make a wide variety of buildings and products with metal, rock or wood materials. Players move around the virtual world of the Frenetia server safely. There is no combat. Trading with other players is encouraged. Foraging and botanising has been adjusted upwards to give a high frequency of ingame currency which may be used to purchase deeds. There is no upkeep cost for deeds. If a player does not log in to the game for over 2 months the deed would need to be repurchased.
Most weeks there will be a list of items that the Gobbler wants, published in game, on this site and on the Wurm Unlimited forums. Scoring is per amount and quality of the items that the player makes and donates to the Gobbler. Scoring will recommence each quarter (Set the table, Entree, Main Course and Dessert) giving players the chance to start over. Players’ skills and buildings are retained for the entire twelve months until the next reset.
Players are very welcome to play on the Frenetia server without participating in the Gobbler’s Banquet game. If players do want to have their items for the Gobbler’s Banquet scored they will need to contact us . pam-gobbler@little-possums.net
Players will start randomly at either Willow Heights Village located in the north east of the server or at Olive Heights village located in the south west.
The Gobbler’s Banquet game is being hosted on a Wurm Unlimited server called “Frenetia”. It is available through Steam.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/366220/Wurm_Unlimited/
8 November 2019
A great start has been made. Grand total Gobbler points for week one is 5167.
For the players as a group to win the “Set the Gobbler’s Table” section of the Banquet they will need to reach the target score of 100,000 Gobbler points by 1st Febuary 2020. The rewards for reaching the target score will still be won even if the target is reached later than that date, into the “Entree” section of the banquet. The rewards will be a feasting table (Julbord) placed in all players’ camps, a high quality dye package and an affinity of each players choice.
Participation in the ore challenge is voluntary. After the players complete the delivery of 1000 Q 50 or higher ores of each mineral type, including sandstone, slate and marble to Acacia Pines, the Gobbler will make Q90 rare pickaxes for sale for 5 silvers on merchants at each GM town available to all players.
15 November 2019
This week’s total is 8063 Gobbler points. This brings the ongoing total to 13230. Congratulations to the player who has submitted a set of all the 15 wood types for the round tables and the stools. We have decided to award this special achievement with an extra variety score and incorporate a new category into some of the future the lists “Item type (A set of each material, or as many as can be made of partial sets).
16 November 2019
A public cave of utmost gold is located at the north end of the roses. You will see the cave entrance shortly after turning east at the Lindens. The map below shows other utmost quality public mines.
22 November 2019
The Aladin’s cave project is well under way. We now have gold, silver, tin and zinc Public Utmost Quality mines. Contact Pam or Tam if you want to donate an off-deed utmost deposit of marble, slate, sandstone or one of the other ore types. The map on the Frenetia thread of the Wurm Unlimited forums is being updated as new mines are donated.
This week’s total is 7,894 Gobbler points. The ongoing total is 21,124 / 100,000 to set the table.
23 November 2019
Money does grow on trees.
The Gobbler issues a group Sickle Challenge to the players of Frentia. Participation is voluntary. It requires 1000 of each sprout type and 1000 of each tree and bush harvests. They may be of any quality. They need to be delivered to Acacia Pines. It, the Gobbler is a very patient being. There is no time limit. When the challenge has been completed rare q90 sickles will be placed on merchants at the GM towns selling for 5 silvers each and be available to all players. Now, as well as from foraging and botanising, coins may also be gathered by picking sprouts and harvesting trees and bushes.
29 November 2019
Contact Pam or Tam if you want to purchase a breeding pair of bison. They are selling for one silver and will be delivered to your camp. Make sure you have an enclosure built for them. You don’t have to be online. Leave the coin in a container near your token.
The public utmost quality mines map on this site and on the Wurm Unlimited forum has been updated showing the location of a deposit of utmost quality marble south of the blueberries. Also added to the collection are utmost slate and utmost lead in the north area. Deposits of utmost iron, copper and sandstone are needed to complete the Aladin’s cave project.
This week’s total is 12,184 Gobbler points. The ongoing total is 33,308 / 100,000 to set the table.
5 December 2019
Build your own Aladdin’s cave!
The Aladdin’s project has been completed. The Public utmost quality mines map has been updated to show the locations of each mine. Build your own Aladdin’s cave at your camp. Merchants at the GM towns are selling selling Rods of transmutation for 5 silver coins each. These rods turn a cave wall of rock into an utmost deposit of your choice.
6 December 2019
This weeks total is 7853 Gobbler points. The ongoing total is 41,161 / 100,000 to set the table.
13 December 2019
This week’s total is 7,579 Gobbler points. The ongoing total is 48,740 / 100,000 to set the table.
16 December 2019
Q Fishing has arrived.
Version one allows queuing of fishing actions with some limitations. The client does not draw a fishing line. Make sure you have a tackle box with plenty of bait. You will see a Q Fishing option in the line up on the right click menu. The fishing happens when and where you click, there is no casting wait-time or message. Check in the event window to see it is a valid place to fish and set your queue. Some attention is still required, for example the Q will come to an abrupt halt if the line snaps. Q fishing may be bound to a shortcut key. Fishing is as per usual if Q Fishing is not selected.
21 December 2019
This week’s total is 9,947 Gobbler points. The ongoing total is 58,687 / 100,000 to set the table.
24 December 2019
Treasure Maps
Digging, mining and investigating actions now sometimes give treasure maps. They may be read using a compass and lead to treasure chests which have unusual items and sleep bonus powders.
The timers have been decreased for praying, sacrificing, spell casting and faith regeneration.
Merry Christmas everyone.
25 December 2019
Aren’t the snowman statues great. Please let me know if you would like a HotA statue and if so which one. We haven’t automated it yet so Acacia will be placing it in your cart near your token.
Deliver Santa’s Reindeer to his Island.
This week you will likely find us on Santa’s Reindeer server. This is our new event server of approx 1000 * 1000 tiles, all flat and treeless. The objective is to deliver a reindeer to Santa’s island across a small sea via cart or boat with a creature transporter. Players start with nothing in inventory. There are a few approaches. One is to quickly find treasure maps which have tools and shrub logs. Another is to bootstrap using foraged shards and expose some rock. Mines may be made via cement raised rock. Trees can be planted via foraged sprouts and grown quickly using spells.
Good luck!
26 December 2019
Build your new yacht, the Trip ship.
Enjoy faster travel around Frenetia. Build your new yacht, the Trip ship. The Trip ship looks just like a sailing boat, except that the fancy rigging is of a randomly chosen saturated colour, such as aqua or lime and allows a constant speed of 36 kmh, regardless of the prevailing wind conditions. A special winged keel has been developed which has two adjustable wings to control the water flow, giving the Trip ship stability, even in gales. The capacity of the Trip ship is up to 5 large crates and 2 creature cages, making it a versatile trading vessel.
28 December 2019
This week’s total is 20469 Gobbler points. The ongoing total is 79157 / 100,000 to set the table.
3 January 2020
This week’s total is 18449 Gobbler points. The ongoing total is 97606/100,000 to set the table.
11 January 2020
The Gobbler’s Table is set for the Banquet
Congratulations to the players for winning the “Set the table” quarter of the Gobbler’s Banquet. The ongoing total is 122,082/100,000 Gobbler points. Contact Pam to have your Gobbler’s Table feasting julbord placed in your camp. The high quality dye packages will be available at the end of the month. Lists will continue for players who want to work on their personal scores. The second quarter, “Entree” will commence Friday 7th February.
17 January 2020
The action timer for meditation has been reduced. All time limits for skill gain and ranking up have been removed.
19 January 2020
The Gobbler’s Banquet Game : Entree
During the Entree of the Banquet we are trialing a new style of Gobbler play.
There will be 4 active Gobbler items on the player’s personal Gobbler list at any given time. At the end of each ingame hour the oldest item drops off the list, having been there for four player ingame hours. The other items each age by an hour.
Each hour a new potential Gobbler item appears, broadcast in the new “Gobbler” Chanel. To get the new item on the Player’s personal Gobbler list the player may choose yes or no to that item. (This is not automated yet, so the player needs to do their own recording.)
If the player chooses yes, the chosen item is placed on the personal Gobbbler list and the player has four ingame hours to make and donate what they are able to of that item. If no is chosen the player needs to wait another hour to see what the next published item is. On the third try that item will need to be placed on the personal Gobbler list. If it cannot be done the chain will break and the player needs to start again.
At this stage we don’t have automation. The player needs to keep their own documentation. For us step one is getting the fully automated list broadcasting, so we have a viable solo player game. Time keeping will be personal. At the end of the play session or going away from keyboard, the player needs to record how many minutes are left in the hour after the most recent chosen Gobbler item. They may resume at any time using the minutes left recording. If the player forgets to record, make an estimate of it.
At this stage for item collections and scoring contact Pam. Eventually we will have Gobbler Containers to donate into. The player will be able to teleport the Gobbler Container to their location at any time. These containers will be upgradeable in the future so more complex items can be donated in the second half of the Banquet.
So long as even one item is made and donated the player’s Gobbler chain continues. For a larger score more items and higher quality items will be taken into account. Rarity of item also contributes to the score. The player’s Gobbler level will be calculated using chain lengths and scores.
Entree commences Friday 7 February.
9 May 2020
Hospital Challenge
A virus has been detected on both the Frenetia and SantasReindeer servers. There are estimated to now be approximately one thousand of them spread randomly on each server. Visible at a distance of 16 tiles, they are easily recognizable, being gold in colour and floating above the ground. At this stage it seems likely that it can be contained. The viri do not cause serious illness, however significantly reducing the amount of them will be needed for the players to win the hospital challenge.
As well as plenty of coins, gems and high quality tools, each treasure chest now contains one Antibody starter kit. The crafting window has the recipe to make an antibody. They are expensive to build, requiring many items such as herbs and mushrooms. The antibody does not damage, so they can be used multiple times on a viris reducing trip.
Players may like to be prepared just in case treatment is needed. A special “Hospital bed” can now be built. These beds behave like other beds, allowing sleep bonus to be gained whilst offline. Part of the Hospital bed’s equipment includes an antibody. Building a Hospital bed anywhere on the server will increase the player’s personal experience and contribute points towards the challenge.
To win the challenge each server will also need to build its own Coronia Park 5 bed hospital. HealthElf has made a start on the SantasReindeer Server’s hospital, at the south end of Santa’s island, near the bridge.
6 September 2020
Arboretum
The guard tower is built in the usual fashion with planks, stone bricks and clay. The player activates the berry, nut, fruit or flower sprout in their inventory and clicks on the graphic of any exisiting or new guard tower (which is now called an “Arboretum”) to obtain a menu. As well as retaining the old guard tower functions such as repair, the menu now has another new option to “plant a sprout”. The tower takes the sprout and a 20 minute timer commences. After that the Arboretum may be harvested. With 5 “Guardeners” and good gardening skill 15 to 20 berry, nut, fruit or flowers may be harvested. If the player wants to harvest earlier than 20 minutes the message reports the current waiting time. When no sprout is activated in inventory the menu allows a ‘Guardener’s choice to be planted, with no sprout cost. The message reports what the Guardeners chose. The wait still remains 20 minutes to harvest.
The distance between Arboretums has now been reduced to 25 tiles. The changes mean that instead of traveling near or far to harvest, a modest amount may be done right at camp. The amount of clicking is significantly reduced because the Arboretum has become a production building. At some later stage upgrades may be introduced to make it a more effective production building. For example perhaps some additional piles of dirt may be able to be added to the building to encourage a better yield. It also means a product may be harvested in any season which is relatively important because it allows a response to a Gobbler request in 20 minutes, so long as the sprouts are obtained beforehand.
The smaller sized Arboretum Test server will be running for a few more weeks. A larger sized custom map server called “Arboretum” will be soon be added to the Gobbler’s Banquet server to form a server cluster. Players will be able to travel freely between the two servers. The starting server will be the Gobbler’s Banquet. An existing avatar on the Gobbler’s banquet server or a new one formed there may be taken to the Arboretum server. Avatars formed on the Arboretum test server will be lost.
An important aspect of the Arboretum Challenge is actually locating the server. Exploration of the Gobbler’s Banquet server will be necessary. The Arboretum server provides a more difficult Gobbler requests list. On this server the player needs to plant trees using foraged sprouts to grow forests for lumber. Trees may be grown slowly, or more quickly using the spells available in the game. Both servers have all activities available to priests.
The Arboretum buildings function on both servers.
26 September 2020
The Arboretum test server will be closing on 3 October 2020 at 8 pm Aest (10 am UTC). The Gobbler’s Banquet and new attached Arboretum servers will be running for another 12 months given no unforeseen circumstances .
14 February 2021
Introducing Pottery Tiles and the Integument Challenge
In today’s update we have added the ability to fire pottery tiles on both the Banquet and Arboretum servers.
In the crafting menu there is now the option for the player to build portable tile ovens. There is no limit to the amount of ovens a player may own and operate.
A mapping of 138 colours has been applied to both the servers such that each individual square has its own list of valid colours that the tile oven can fire on that particular square. The list changes smoothly across the server. All the colours are available, theoretically, given sufficient searching, in an approx 500 squares area. The rarest colour is gray.
The tile oven needs to be loaded with some amount of clay chosen by the player (2 kg clay gives 1 pottery tiles). The choose colour action will give a list of colours in a window. After selecting a colour the tile oven needs to be lighted with steel and flint and a kindling. The amount of fuel required is similar to that used for the firing of other pottery items. The pottery tiles take a range of time depending on their position in the list, the max time 15 minutes for ones last on the list. Moving the oven after commencing the firing will cause it to give an error and it will require a new selection of a valid colour for the place it was moved to.
In further updates we will be adjusting the the gobbler list so it will be able to request particular colours of pottery tiles. Special pottery tiles containers will be developed that hold vast amounts of pottery tiles and the ability to bundle pottery tiles will be added.
A new building will be created especially to accept tiles (non-returnable) with the ability to change its displayed colour according to the nearest saturated colour that is the calculated average of all the pottery tiles it contains. A threshold of some amount of pottery tiles will need to be reached to achieve the integument challenge.
21 March 2021
Integument Sculpture
The Integument Sculpture is now ready to build. The materials needed for the building are 2,000 marble bricks, 2,000 clays plus one pottery tile of each available colour, 138 colours total.
After being built the Integument Sculpture will accept pottery tiles. When the building is examined the pottery tiles contents and updated score are reported.
The appearance colour of the Integument Sculpture may be changed at any time by the addition of sufficient pottery tiles of the colour of choice to move the colour. It is determined by the average colour of the total tiles in the building with the nearest saturated colour determined and displayed.
Players may have as many Integument Sculptures as they want to build. Some may choose to build Integument Sculptures to decorate their camps and so the score will not be relevant to them.
To achieve the integument challenge a score of 27,600 points will be required. As it will soon become apparent, this challenge is a longer term project. We hope to introduce clay dredging into the game soon, to make automated digging of clays possible.
It is really important to note that any pottery tiles placed into the Integument Sculpture cannot be removed out of it.
30 March 2021
Clay Dredge and Tile Crate
We are delighted to announce that the remaining features related to the Integument challenge have been introduced onto both the Banquet and Arboretum servers.
The player’s new favourite building, the clay dredge, functions to automate the digging of clay. The quality of the clay it collects depends on the quality of the building, so it is well worth while to try and improve it over time, using a stone chisel and the best rock shards available. At this basic stage (upgrades may become available in the future) the dredge rate also depends on the quality of the building. For example a quality 80 clay dredge will give 80 clays per hour. The maximum clays the clay dredge may contain is 6,400 clays. When it is full the dredging stops, so emptying it frequently is required for bulk amounts of clay. An adjacent bulk storage container near the clay dredge will be very useful.
Whilst the clay dredge looks nice located on a clay area, and is easy to remember where it is, it can actually be built at any location. This is because it has special mechanical properties with drill bit components. Each drill bit requires 25 kg of steel. The clay dredge uses 4 drill bits.
The clay dredge is started with a clay and a stone brick. The materials for the clay dredge are shown in the image below. Of note is that the clay dredge requires an item that cannot be made by a player. This item is a source crystal. These may be obtained from opening random treasure chests, or by trading with other players for something of a similar value that they want.
A player may build as many clay dredges as they want to. Shown below is a completed clay dredge located at the Acacia Pines village.
The tile crate is similar to a large crate in that has 300 item slots. It will hold a total of 300 colours of pottery tiles, which gives scope for future new colours of pottery tiles. At this stage there are 138 colours of pottery tiles. The tile crate loads into a large cart giving the player the ability to transport a large weight of pottery tiles.
Theoretically the tile crate will hold an enormous amount of each colour of pottery tiles. In practice, we haven’t tested that yet. Keeping this in mind and given the very real possibility of accidental overloading, a dialogue box is being developed which gives the player the ability to combine tiles as groups. In the image below the dialogue box shows what to select for the removal of 50 total dark cyan pottery tiles combined as 5 groups of 10 tiles.
13 October 2021
Set the Table
Prepare a Gobbler’s Banquet in exchange for a Julbord feasting table to be placed in your camp.
After deciding to keep the Frenetia server running indefinitely we have found that our original Set the Table challenge, which was envisioned to be held once a year at the start of each server reset, has not catered for newer arriving players. Now, instead of the whole player population reaching a threshold score of banquet items as was originally the case, we are offering a solo, or small group challenge for players to Set the Table.
The Gobbler is a special entity that understands the demands of real life, so will be pleased with what each player wants to offer, be it a tiny or enormous banquet.
The minimum offerings to recieve a Julbord feasting table are:
Wooden table and chair to be placed on a carpet where the player wants
the Julbord feasting table to be sited. Place a knife, fork and spoon on
the table.
Nearby build a large cart, bulk food and bulk storage bins and label
them “Gobbler”. These will not be taken, they may be needed in the
future for challenges or trades. In these containers place banquet
items, which will be taken.
When your banquet is ready contact Pameow by PM on the Wurm Unlimited forums, or ingame to arrange for Acacia GM to place the Julbord feasting table.
The original lists of items that the Gobbler loves for Banquets are on a different menu on this site . Try to choose some off each list.
17 October 2021
Set the Table update
Thank you Sylver for your Gobbler’s Banquet. With your permission we are posting a screenshot of your Set the Table Tableaux. As the image shows, what a picturesque landscape you have chosen. You have given us food for thought too. If a player wants to keep their Set the Table tableaux they may.
15 November 2021
Set the Table
Freesia has chosen a Gobbler’s Banquet which blends into the beauty of the inner courtyard. Thank you for your permission to post a screenshot of your Set the Table Tableaux.
15 November 2021
Return of the Santa’s Reindeer Challenge.
We are delighted to announce that the Santa’s Reindeer Challenge server is returning. This non-combat, event server is independent of the Frenetia cluster. Players need to log in a new character. The only thing in inventory will be a pelt. It will run from 01 December 2021 to 31 January 2022. A small extension to complete the challenge will be available if requested. The challenge may be as easy or as difficult as the player chooses. For example, foraging gives a high amount of in-game currency, enabling Items such as compass, steel and flints and statuettes to be purchased at Santa’s Island Village. Sprouts are also found from foraging. Wood may be obtained using the wild growth spell. All spells are available.
This year the server has a mountainous Santa’s Island. At the top of the highest peak on the island Santa awaits, with Rudolf, ready to be reunited with the other reindeer. A road up the mountain , or tunnel, will need to be built to bring the reindeer. Anyone may use a road or tunnel once they are built.
There are several mountains where the reindeer like to live on the snowy slopes. This year groups of Dancers, Prancers, Donners and Blitzens live on different mountains. To win this year’s challenge at least one of each type of Santa’s Reindeer needs to be brought to be reunited with Santa, regardless of which player brings them. An individual player needs to bring at least one reindeer to be reunited. They may be brought across a bridge once a bridge is built, or in creature transports on boats.
Rescuing Santa’s Reindeer may be hazardous. We don’t want to lose tools because falls off high mountains are almost inevitable and corpses tend to land in the places that are most inconvenient. Set your tent at the bottom of the slopes you are at and take full advantage of the newly introduced corpse retrieval cost : zero karma.
A prize of a gold reindeer statue will be given for participation in the event, at a camp on the Frenetia cluster if the player wants one. Credit for the event will be given at the (yet to be built!) Frenetia Hall of Fame.
Map of Santa’s Reindeer Server
06 December 2021
We welcome game masters to Santa’s Reindeer server.
We are delighted to welcome Astrid and Sylverstar to be our very first GMs on the Santa’s Reindeer Server. This means that our international players may call for and gain help at more times of the day.
Discord channel.
Thank you Noelle and Sylver for arranging and setting up a player’s Discord channel. It is called Santa’s Reindeer Challenge. Tamutnefret will look in from time to time.
Here is a link to obtain an invitation to join the channel: Santa’s Reindeer Challenge
Ship’s travel speed increase.
Players will notice a very welcome faster journey on each ship type on all the servers. It is particularly noticeable on the knarr ship which used to be painfully slow in most wind conditions. The trip ship has been tweaked to go slightly faster at higher qualities. At Q 90 it now travels as fast as the code supports.
13 January 2022
The Wish-list
The wish-list is as the name suggests, a list of wishes that players mention they would like in the game.
Tamutnefret enjoys coding as his hobby. As time allows, all our server modifications are written by him. They act directly on the server code. How one change interacts with all the other changes already made need to be carefully checked.
There is no order to the implementation of the wishes. Sometimes they might be the result of requiring a small, tiny change to the code, discovered whilst investigating more complex code regarding a different wish.
When a wish is ready, after being run on a test server, it is introduced into the game when the servers are shut down and backed up. Sometimes the change will apply to both the Frenetia: The Gobbler’s Banquet server and to the Arboretum server. At other times the change might be applied to one of them, but not both.
Be they large or small ones, wishes shape the future of the game. The introduction of the automated clay dredge, portable tile baking kiln, pottery tiles, underlying clay colour map and integument sculpture all are the result of the wish-list and have provided a new activity choice for the player. A wish such as having more coin drops for more activities was not so difficult to implement, and has led to the very good effect of establishing a deed more easily, and establishing some very large deeds, if the player so decides.
Trip ships, the popular, high volume, speedy ships with their unique luck-based coloured sail, which allow fast travel to conduct trades between players, grab a meal at a town feasting table, or to harvest bulk fruits, were once a vague idea on the wish-list.
Arboretum are repurposed guardener towers with guardeners. They produce harvests of a chosen or random fruit in 20 minutes, and may be built as close as 25 tiles to each other. They are also the result of the wish-list and will eventually tie into a future wish : The fully functioning Gobbler request game.
No matter how busy he is, Tamutnefret likes to hear about new wishes. You may post a wish on this forum thread, or tell Pameow in game.
We are happy to document here what is currently on the wish-list.
If some of these entries seem vague, that is because at this stage, they are vague. As time goes along some refinement and definition happens and eventually, some wishes do come true 🙂
Best regards from Pam and Tam.
Continue the development of the Gobbler game code.
-The Gobbler wand accepts Gobbler requests.
-The server reliably scores Gobbler donations
-and most importantly the server reliably Remembers players’ Gobbler scores across backup shutdowns.
Other wish-list & stuff
Check Masks in archaeology, also skull bracelet skull shoulder pads.
Introduce a Cicada-like thing (crickets?) where players hide them, and take over ownership when found. Can be picked up. Develop a scoring system for them.
Players can make their own cooking recipes.
Pet bowls for non-grazing pets.
Return the cost of tiles when disbanding a deed (including perimeter).
Uniques shouldn’t die of old age
Taming and breeding dragons
Woads in planters
Add leather items to Gobbler list (level 2)
Rename bred horses etc.
Expand containers with a spell
Once per year, disband deeds that have mayors who have not logged in for 2 years
Portable bed “swag”
Flying skill for players, maybe train by leaping off high places
Flying carpet event removes fall damage when you activate the carpet (like a farwalker)
Magic carpet for players to fly during events.
Only allow owner to put tiles in the sculpture
Different colours of pigs can find new colours when well-fed
Can get a rare integument sculpture with all pig colours
Care for all creatures
Add to online player bank accounts periodically – 15 c per half hour maybe.
Remove kill tasks from journal. Add Gobbler challenges to Journal eg Set the Table!
Add sentence to first page of tutorial saying if you don’t move you will be logged out
Press escape to see menus
Platinum pickaxe, can get 100 ql reliably with 100 skill on 99 ql vein
Mining marble with fantastic pickaxe and Mining 99.9+ shouldn’t max ql at 99.50.
A new hardcore server where you can swim (not boat) over, but inventory is left behind
Birch bark as a product of arboretum from a birch sprout
Fire burn time when examining tile ovens is too high by a factor of 10 or so?
Dioptra allows you to examine a tile/border/corner to get coords and height.
Fantastic items in treasure chests.
Can put items into magic chests to mend them.
Tiles can be taken (Using “Take”) straight from the crate without how many question.
Tile crate question dialog is confusing.
On examine, check whether the integument sculpture has the highest score.
Faster run speed on roads.
Revive dead creatures.
Combine logs, without side effect of using material on failure to create things from them.
Visit statues/Avatar/dig resource types at corners of the map to gather gift fragments.
Maybe gift could be 100ql shovel, visit all public utmost mines for pickaxe?
Navigation challenge for 100ql compass?
Something like a rare bone that add 5 ql or something instead of rarity.
Breed unicorns for colour.
Dye marble bridges.
Cast a spell (or something) on an arboretum to get a transport mission e.g. transport 4 cows to some location. Some sort of adverse condition obstacle to overcome in some cases.
Object in inventory with “roll dice” action, auto-refresh tasks on the board at the board game deed.
NPC Sandcastle barter-trade building.
07 March 2022
Test Server for the Gobbler Game will run till July 2022
A temporary test server will be online and available to interested players until mid July 2022 . It is important to realize that the Gobbler code is still in the development stage, which means that players’ progress may have to be reset to in order to introduce bug fixes and improved code.
For the Open Gobbler game conditions are very difficult. Keeping the Gobbler fed is not trivial, and not always possible. The player starts with a pelt. Clay, sand and moss are only located at the White and Black light altar areas. There are no priest restrictions. There are no iron veins, iron will need to be found via foraging and smelting iron rocks. The treasure chests will have furs and cochineals added to their contents. If the player wants bison they need to terraform to make some steppe for the bison to spawn. There are no trees, eating table, or merchants. Deeds need to be paid for and upkeep is enabled. Skills are set at 5 times gain and action timers.
The players need to build a Gobbler wand. When it is activated items may be selected to feed the Gobbler. Items may also be deselected from the feed list. When the feed button is clicked the items are destroyed and a score allocated. A new Gobbler request appears each 20 minutes. At the end of the 20 minutes the old item will no longer be accepted for feeding.
At this early stage the scoring has not been finalised. For purposes of testing most items are allocated the same basic score for an item, modified by the quality of the item, and with diminishing returns for the amount of the item fed. A report is given of the items fed to the Gobbler and the score. Still to be coded will be players’ allocation of levels after threshold Gobbler scores have been reached. Players will compete in their own levels, or near their own levels.
On the Open Gobbler Server it is envisaged that everything will be reset each 12 months, in the July birthday month. This will include scores, levels, skills and server buildings.
There are currently no changes on Frenetia and Arboretum. These two servers will not be connected to the Open Gobbler Server. Gobbler game code will be introduced to Frenetia and Arboretum in July. Only Gobbler scores will reset on these two servers each year. Gobbler levels and buildings and skills will be retained. Scores here will reflect the less difficult conditions of the servers and ongoing advancement of levels and skills.
Players may choose to completely ignore the Gobbler game and continue playing in the sandbox. However, the Gobbler game may set up some new trading potentials that they may choose to participate in.
09 March 2022
Gobbler Levels and Player Rankings
The player’s levels will be calculated internally from their scores.
The formula for the Test Open Gobbler server is
Score = 200 x square of level.
This formula may be changed for the July reset.
Here is a table which shows given the level, what score would be required to get that level.
Level Score
0 0
1 200
2 800
3 1800
4 3200
5 5000
6 7200
8 12800
9 16200
10 20000
The formulae for scoring will take into account aspects of each item type such as scarcity, amount of attachments required, quality and crafting. This means that as the player’s skills go up, so will the scores of items. Another aspect is that the items will be subject to diminishing returns. The first item scores more than 10th item, the 10 item scores more than the 100th item, etc. As the amount of score for a level accelerates, in theory, so does the scoring itself accelerate. We will be closely monitoring the scoring as we go along, assessing if it is behaving reasonably.
The players’ individual level, score and ranking will be shown in the Gobbler Feed window.
A new button will be placed on the Gobbler Feed window [Show Rankings]. It will list all players’ levels and rankings.
We are hoping that all or most of this new code will be able to be introduced at tonight’s backup.
15 March 2022
Gobbler Scores Update
Code is being added tonight which applies the correct formulae to most Gobbler items. The new amount of points reflect the quality, scarcity and amount of effort required to obtain/build the items. Diminishing returns for the amount of items fed per request still applies. A place holder score remains in place for cooking items.
18 March 2022
Snacks
Snacks are now available on the Test Open Gobbler server at the rate of one snack per server start-up. This is usually at 8 pm Australian time each day. A snacks may be collected at anytime of the day. If eaten the snack has the same effect as eating at a julboard table. Alternatively, snacks will give a handsome amount of points if they are fed to the Gobbler. Snacks will likely be a valuable trade item. There are fourteen types of snacks to be collected ranging from the most common, “Salad snack” to the least common, “Choc coated candy snack”.
Analysing without a compass.
Starting with nothing but a pelt on the treeless Test Open Gobbler server, it will come as no surprise that the statuette, which is used to grow trees faster by casting spells, is a highly prized tool. To add to the difficulty, the server has very few hills with many exposed rock tiles to assist guide the player to the location of the silver or gold deposit.
The usual method of digging dirt to expose rock tiles to assist the search is slow and frustrating, using foraged branches and rock shards to make crude shovels which break quickly. Rather than trust to guessing and risk having to mine many of the rock tiles, using crude pick axes which break equally as quickly, a new method of analysing rock shards has been developed, which does not require a compass. After reaching prospecting skill 20.01 analysing information is given about deposits relative to the direction the player is facing.
24 March 22
Building Tile Ovens
The tile oven is difficult to build, ideally masonry 70 skill would be desirable. This is because it is the most valuable tool in the Gobbler game. Pottery tiles are on the Gobbler’s feed list about 10% of the time. After it is built, small amounts of tiles may be fired with shovel dug clay whilst players are preparing for automated clay production using the incredibly expensive, incredibly wonderful clay dredge.
Here is what I have found out about how to build the tile oven on the 5/5 Open Gobbler test server as a solo player with it being my highest priority. It took a bit over 48 play hours to build it.
It is a good idea to use sleep bonus to assist increase masonry skill, even if there is a need to interupt the building of the arborteum to locate treasure chests, with their sleep bonus powders and other goodies. I had no luck getting furs for a bed, but one may hope. Eating a snack so the sleep bonus lasts longer is also useful.
Two quality 23 bricks and masonary skill 51 are enough to start a tile oven. This will give 8 % chance to build. Clays of about quality 20 take so much damage it seems unlikely they will attach.
Building another arboretum, was my choice to continue gaining skill in masonry because they are also useful to harvest fruit and nuts out of season. This resulted in digging skill about 50. Keep aside 100 of the best quality clays while digging clay for the second arboretum to use attaching on the tile oven. The second arboretum gives greater than 60 masonry skill and is not as difficult to build as the first one, taking less time. It is a good idea to harvest sprouts nearby while building the arboretum, namely raspberry, blueberry and oak. They will be used to harvest the raspberries, blueberries and acorns at the two arboretum. Harvesting sprouts also gives coins to assist with deed upkeep. Even with the higher skill masonry after the second arboretum is built there will still be high losses of the berries, etc because they are quite low quality early game. Expect some pig foods landing at one’s feet.
Two quality 37 stone bricks and masonry skill 63 give 20% chance to build the tile oven. I settled for those odds. I used separated clays due to high damage severely destroying one large lump in a few disastrous non-attachments.
Part time players on the test server will likely prefer their limited time to be spent exploring the server. Anyone who would like to try out a tile oven, to learn about how it fires pottery tiles, and how the underlying clay-colour map works contact me in game playing either as Koala or Kangaroo, or send Pameow a message on the forums. I will be happy to make tile ovens for anyone who wants one.
PS The Gobbler does not like pig foods at this stage. However, if a reliable method may be devised so that anyone may make them at any time, not only just when they are aspirant masons causing exploding raspberries to fly around, it may change its mind and request them.
26 March 22
Cooking Scores Update
The Gobbler feed list now consists only of requests that have their correct scores coded. This includes most cooking recipes.
It turns out that The Gobbler has not learnt to be a gourmet diner as yet. Where there is a choice of ingredients to make a recipe, always try to choose the cheapest option, because that is what the points given are based upon.
An example of this is “Stew”. The Gobbler is non-specific, it requests “Stew”. Any type of the many stew recipes, such as meat, fish or vegetable stew may be fed. However, the score will be the points based upon the cheapest ingredient of all the stews, which is vegetable. “Cake” is another example. Some of the many cake types are carrot, chocolate and plain sponge. The Gobbler likes any cake it is fed, and gives the least amount of points, as if it were fed plain sponge cake.
In the future it is hoped that the cooking recipes requests may be expressed as any, or specifics so it would read like most other items in the form of Stew (any) or Stew (meat), stew (fish) or stew (vegetable). This has been placed on the wish-list.
28 March 22
News
In tonight’s update the transmutation function which turns terrain into and from clay will be disabled on the Test Open Gobbler server to reflect the difficult conditions of the Open Gobbler Server. There will be no change to the Frenetia and Arboretum servers. The other transmutation liquids will function on all three servers, allowing players a choice to locate peat and tar in their camps. There is now a choice to use copper or iron in the transmutation liquid recipe to create tar.
The clay dredge misbehaviour has been fixed on the Test Open Gobbler Server. This fix will be attended to on the Frenetia and Arboretum servers in July when the two steams of code we have now will be merged again.
Snacks may now be collected one per Steam acccount, per server, per server restart (usually daily).
Start Date for “The Gobbler’s First Tasting”
We have set the launch of the Gobbler Game to Saturday 2 July 2022 at 16:00 UTC. This will be Sunday the third of July 2022, at 2 am, Eastern Australian time. There will be three servers with Gobbler Game code, each with different difficulty of Gobbler feed lists, facilities, resources and conditions. All servers are non-combat.
The Frenetia server has grown in beauty over the three continuous years it has been running. Here you will find established forests, rolling mountains, many potential camp areas and five established GM villages each with merchants and many community facilities built by player and GM Freesia. There are dedicated public deeds for utmost mines of each ore type. There is a dedicated deed for all the 138 pottery tile colours, with pathways, bridges, and 25 arboretums and clay dredges which may be used by all. The skill gain and action timers are set to be quite fast at 10/10. Players may quickly skill up, suiting new players and persons with limited play hours. Coin drops are quite frequent and large deeds without upkeep are posssible. This server has the least difficulty of the Gobbler feed lists.
The Arboretum server is attached to the Frenetia server on one edge. Here there are very few forests, and less waterways. There is one GM village located at approximately the centre of the map. It has a bank and feasting table. There are no merchants or other community facilities. This server has a moderate difficulty Gobbler feed list. Players start on the Frenetia server. Two way travel and trading between the Frenetia and Arboretum servers is posssible via swimming (no drowning) or by boat. Inter-server transport and trades of resources may occur. Players may choose to make Gobbler feeds on both servers, using either, or both Gobbler feed lists. Players may choose to ignore the Gobbler’s requests and play in sandbox conditions.
It is important to note that both the Frenetia and Arboretum servers will remain continuous, with all the player’s skills, inventory, deeds, deed buildings and terraforming being kept. This will suit many players who may enjoy the competition of the Gobbler Game Tastings without having to start again each year.
What will change is that the servers’ Gobbler winners will be declared each July and all the players will start again in the next Gobbler’s Tasting with Zero score and levels. A player may choose to have their previous best tasting level to be displayed as a title.
Here is an example. Player one reaches level 6 in their first Gobbler’s Tasting, their title is a level 6 player. In some following Gobbler’s Tasting they reach level 12, so they are now entitled to be known as a level 12 player. Player two reaches level 11 in their first Gobbler’s Tasting, their title is a level 11 player. In some following Gobbler’s Tasting they reach level 5. They are still entitled to be known as a level 11 player.
In this way it is possible for each player to monitor their own progress. It also enables newer players to make more accurate relative comparisons with other players, when they see previous best levels on the rankings table.
The third server, the “Open Gobbler Server” provides the most challenging Gobbler feed list. The server conditions are difficult. Products such as nails score high amounts of points because there are no iron ore veins. Treasure chests provide some animal products items, as well as a few deceased creatures. There are no trees. Players need to grow them naturally, or use a statuette. Clay is only located at two places, the white and black lights. Deeds require upkeep. The skill gain and action timers are set to 5/5. Players cannot use their Frenetia characters on the Open Gobbler server, they need to start a new one.
Each July an Open Gobbler winner will be announced and the Open Gobbler server will be reset. Characters need to start again with no skills, belongings or terraforming. New maps may be introduced so that new map knowlege will become a part of the experience.
We are testing the Gobbler Game code on the “Test Open Gobbler Server” until June 30 2022. Everyone is welcome to visit.
31 March 2022
Gobbler Wand Remote Banking
Coins do not have to be deposited directly into bank accounts at a village token now. Activate the Gobbler wand and then right click the coins to be placed in the bank account to bring up the menu. Click “deposit to bank”. There will be a message about the amount deposited and the new balance.
Foraging Baskets
Foraging baskets allow storage of any items that can be found by foraging or botanising. Some examples of multiple source items are cotton, berries and basils. The baskets will still store these items if they were obtained by harvesting crops, bushes or planters. The baskets are a portable container, weighing 2.5 kg empty. The amount of items stored depends on volume. They will be particularly useful for cottons, holding about 90, and for berries holding 100. There are three colours of foraging baskets, depending if woad (Blue), pea pod (Green) or raspberry (Red) was used to build them along with with 5 wemp fibres. They may be dropped on the ground and as well as being decorative, will assist players to reduce early camp chaos. The baskets are non-improvable, repairable and on the Gobbler’s feed list.
18 April 2022
Luck Matters
There are some situations where luck matters. Four failures in a row to make a plank when it is supposed to succeed half of the time is not one of them. That situation will be unlikely to induce too much annoyance. However, when ten percent material is lost on each failure, bad luck and extreme bad luck quickly become an issue.
Each of the four drill bits for the clay dredge require 25 kg of steel. Each failure means 2.5 kg of steel is lost. On the Open Gobbler server where steel making is a challenge, using foraged iron and spell cast trees to obtain logs, some bad luck is one thing. Extreme bad luck is quite another thing. After preparation, training blacksmithing to improve the chances of success, including improving the large anvil, the numbers in the crafting window suggest that with low quality steel the chances to make a drill bit may be near 40%. That is not high, but at least it is twice as high as the actual amount of successes will be, if extreme bad luck occurs. Each ten fails means a whole drill bit has been lost into the ether.
The Gobbler game is all about decision making, such as whether to build a clay dredge as early as possible, because the automated clay supply will be considered to be worth the effort. It is not about making extra materials to compensate for extreme bad luck. We cannot solve all the problems with the random numbers generator. However, in this particular instance we can bypass it. Changes have been made so that zero material is lost when making steel drill bits.
Two other activities have been found to be subject to bad, and extreme bad luck. They are foraging for specific sprouts, and finding treasure chests with furs.
There is not a lot we can do about sprouts, there is a chance per forage to get one, and then on top of that, a one in 25 chance to get a specific sprout type. Our solution for this form of extreme bad luck will be to make full high quality sprouts sets available as a reward for achieving Gobbler level two. This may, or may not arrive at a similar time as does foraging skill 30, which is more than enough foraging to have, frustratingly, not found the full set.
With the 5/5 skill gain and timers settings on the Open Gobbler server, obtaining sleep bonus by building and logging off in a bed is quite likely to be an early Gobbler game goal for most players. Thanks to Koala’s adventures we do not need to imagine locating many, many treasure chests and still not getting three furs to make a bed, because this is not going to happen to anyone else. This form of extreme bad luck is quite unnecessary and has been addressed by making one fur likely in two out of each three chests located. Another change to treasure chests is that whilst some chests will have up to five hides, every chest will contain at least one hide.
6 May 2022
Metal Matters
The Gobbler has become more distinguishing about metals. It now makes feed requests of metal items made of (any) metal or alternatively, metal items made of (a specific metal type). Only items made of the correct metal type will be accepted. This has the effect of needing to find deposits of most, if not all of the metal types, and as early as is practicable, for overall improved Gobbler scores, adding to the challenge.
At this stage the old scores remain in place, for example a large anvil of gold would be scored as if it were made of a less expensive metal with less mining required such as copper metal. We anticipate the new scores will be ready quite soon.
16 May 2022
Gobbler Level Rewards
Tonight’s backup and restart includes code to place rewards into the player’s inventory for each Gobbler level achieved. Players who already have some levels may collect their rewards, they will be placed near deed tokens.
A Rod of transmutation will be earned for every level (except level zero). Caves may be improved with utmost deposits of all the minerals, excepting iron. Tar and peat tokens work on the central corner of four packed dirts. The timer is 30 seconds which allows time to stop if their is any doubt about the placement.
The rewards are:
Level 1 Tar token, Valentines pottery
Level 2 Peat token, Sprout pack
Level 3 Q99 Backpack
Level 4 Q99 Tile oven
Level 5 4 Q99 steel drill bits
Level 6 Fantastic strange bone
Level 1, 2,3, …, n will each earn a rod of transmutation. Other rewards may be developed at a later date.
24 May 2022
Launch of Gobbler Game : First Tasting coming soon.
Make a note in your diary for the launch of the First Tasting of the Gobbler Game. We are still on track for Saturday 2 July 2022 at 16:00 UTC.(Sunday the third of July 2022, at 2 am, Eastern Australian time).
The scores of Gobbler request items have now all been adjusted to more accurately reflect the efforts of growing fruit trees, finding bush logs in treasure chests, and making alloys.
A bug that prevented fountains with water in them to be donated to the Gobbler has been fixed. If the player has permissions, fountains may now have their water drained.
In the next few weeks we will be setting up the Open Gobbler: First Tasting server. Initially we will be testing the code with a view to using an 8K map (8192 tiles across * 8192 tiles down).
We also will be working on introducing a live Gobbler Feed (yes, pun intended!) from the game server to our dedicated website so players may easily inspect if any items they have been working on are requested, without the fuss of needing to log into the game specifically to find out. If some item has been requested by the Gobbler that the player has not prepared for, or is not keen to make, perhaps some time may be better spent on real life activities, having a walk, or doing dishes, etc. A more informed choice will be possible.
27 May 2022
Small Barrels Collection
Gobbler levels will now give unique colours of small barrels. The colours repeat after level 14. Players who collect the barrels on the Open Gobbler server may transfer their collection if they have an account on the Frenetia server.
1 lemonwood
2 cherrywood
3 applewood
4 orangewood
5 olivewood
6 blueberrywood
7 cameliawood
8 lavenderwood
9 rosewood
10 grapewood
11 raspberrywood
12 oleanderwood
13 hazelnutwood
14 lingonberrywood
16 June 2022
Creatures on Frenetia server.
In three years many, many trees have grown on the Frenetia server. This has had the side effect of growing many, many spiders. We have come up with a useful way to control them. All the 4,000 huge spiders have been turned into cows and sheep! All the 500 champion huge spiders and spiders with attributes such as greenish, have been turned into bison.
An interesting side effect of this procedure on the latter group is that they have a larger sized model. Players may want to care for and relocate some of these to deeds.
If any player had spiders on their deed that they would have preferred to remain as spiders please let me know, we can spawn some new spiders in such cases.
19 June 2022
Magical Sack
Along with their pelt, each player on the Open Gobbler Server will be issued with a magical sack in their inventory.
This special sack is magical because it is one that holds a surprisingly large amount and will also fit on a saddle. It will allow the horse to effortlessly carry heavy treasure chest items such as logs and ores.
Horses need to be tamed to fit the magical sack to the saddle, and to use it. Tamed horses may be set to go offline when the player does. This is recommended if the horse is not on a deed, or hitched to a cart.
20 June 2022
Strategy and the use of Alternate Characters
The main goal of the Gobbler Game is enjoyment of time. With this in mind we are organising the Gobbler level rewards to better all players’ chances to obtain the full collection of uniquely coloured small barrels, over time, regardless of how much playtime they have available.
In each tasting the rewards for Gobbler levels will have a different order of unique colours. The Higher level ones in this tasting will appear at lower levels in the second tasting. If a player stays on for some tastings, the entire collection may be obtained at a slower pace without any need to get high Gobbler scores.
Players may have as many alternate characters (alts) as they choose, and on any server in the Gobbler Game. Strategy decisions need to be made about how much time is given to each of them, because the score and skills of the main character will be effected. There are many variations.
One strategy may be to allow alts to get early levels and rewards so that the main character makes an excellent cave using the transmutation rods and then continues on to higher levels with better resources. This is important on the Open Gobbler Server, less so on the other servers because transmutation rods are sold at the GM towns.
A player may have their alts play roughly equal amounts of time, competing against each other, taking no notice of other player’s scores. Set some guidelines to make it relatively fair for each alt. I personally like this idea and have set some guidelines for myself which I do hope I will follow. I have a different approach for each server.
On the Frenetia server my alts (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Mayor Daisy) are all sharing the resources, farms, mines, arboreum, etc. of one deed, “Harmony”. Each alt has their own area on the deed to keep their treasures and buildings. Only the correctly named day may feed the Gobbler (or Daisy). Only one may do a request, so I have to choose who as fairly as I am able to. Apart from making their tool kits this week they are all new accounts.
On the Open Gobbler server a different set of alts (Kangaroo, Koala, Wombat, Platypus, Possum, Thylacine and Wallaby) will be playing a very different style of solo play, each building an independent camp. Their hours played will be kept similar to each other. Some players met them on the test server where they had a race to build a clay dredge. I found no great difference between any of them.
Best wishes from Pam
22 June 2022
Using the Gobbler wand
The Gobbler wand is built using a shaft and a carving knife or crude knife. It may be improved. If the gobbler wand is selected fires may be fuelled with them, either intentionally or accidentally.
To feed the Gobbler activate the Gobbler wand, select the items for donation by clicking on them, then click on the wand again and select “Feed the Gobbler”. This gives a confirmation dialogue window. Items may be deselected for feeding in this window or, at the bottom of the window, click the “Feed” button. If in doubt close the window. Gobbler scores are immediate. At the end of the 20 minute request time a score update will be given, in green text in the Gobbler channel.
The Gobbler wand may also be used to send coins to the bank account from the location of the player, ceasing the need to travel to the bank account token. The coins need to be in the player’s inventory.
The Gobbler wand also has a menu to allow the player to collect a snack each day, ceasing the need to travel to an Arboretum.
29 June 2022
Tents may now be placed on deeds.
When players log in the event channel now states the fruits, berries and nuts which may be harvested.
02 July 2022
Preparations
There will be 6 hours of downtime today for the Frenetia/Arboretum servers. The server will be stopped and backed up as is usual at 10:00 UTC. Following that it will remain offline until the commencement of the Gobbler Game. This time will be used to introduce the Gobbler Game code into all three servers, namely the existing Frenetia and Arboretum servers and into the new Open Gobbler Server.
We would like to thank everyone for helping us to test the code, and mentioning aspects to make the game a more enjoyable experience.
There will be two login entries on the Wurm Unlimited server list
Frenetia: The Gobbler’s Banquet: noncombat, production, 10x/10x
Open Gobbler – First Tasting: noncombat, 5x/5x
While the setup is happening they will have passwords which will be removed at 16:00 UTC.
Looking forward to seeing you in the Gobbler Game.
Best wishes from Pam and Tam.
14 July 2022
Clay map and Portable tile ovens
The underlying clay-colour map to fire pottery tiles repeats itself in grids of 125*125 tiles. Every part of the map has an associated colour spectrum. To view a spectrum click “choose tile colour” on the portable tile oven and the spectrum of where the oven is dropped will show.
The centre of each grid is in the grey spectrum and has the coords of 125 plus 62. The corners and edges are multiples of 125. The corners have spectrum of red, blue, green and yellow. Edges have spectrums lying between the corners. To view coords use a dioptra and click the corner of 4 tiles.
Here is an example of what is in my camp. 937 is the east/west coordinate.
5187,937 gray; 5156,937 Dark Sea Green; 5125,937 Chartruse.
More north of chartruse will be yellowish going towards the yellow corner and more south of chartruse will be greenish going towards the green corner. Far out of sight way over past gray will be the red and blue corners.
The Gobbler requests pottery tiles frequently so becoming familiar with the map is a good idea. Portable ovens may be dropped and fired under the lakes and sea. Also a good idea is to label portable ovens in case they are mislaid, they show up more easily in the database for retrieval.
Players may request a visit from Data to relocate arboretum. They make great signposts for coloured corners. After a relocation there is a need to log in and out again because as far as the client is concerned arboretums are not supposed to move. If the arboretum is relocated its menu will not be available until the next server restart.
17 July 2022
Addition to Gobbler Level 6 reward
The Gobbler Level 6 reward now includes a magical sack containing 100 high q iron rocks.
21 July 2022
Addition to Gobbler Level 7 reward
The Gobbler Level 7 reward now includes a q 99.99 compass.
24 July 2022
Happy Birthday!
The very first test Gobbler server is three years old.
There were two birthday cake recipe entries. Both of them have been incorporated into the cooking recipes. All cooking recipes are now displayed in the cooking menu, found in the HUD menus. The font changes from pink to green after they have been cooked. Birthday cake recipe mementoes are being placed in treasure chests in tonight’s update.
Also being placed in treasure chests are “Scrolls of Improvement.” As the name suggests they improve items by three quality, celebrating three years of Gobbler game development. A scroll of improvement has been added to the Gobbler level 8 reward and into each successive level reward.
We thank you for your continued interest and hope to see you ingame soon.
Best wishes from Pam and Tam.
31 July 2022
Addition to Gobbler Levels 9 and 10 rewards
A decorative gnome model holding a shovel and a q 99 shovel has been added to the Gobbler Level 9 reward.
A decorative gnome model holding a scythe and a q 99 scythe has been added to the Gobbler Level 10 reward.
06 August 2022
Furs
An important strategy in the Gobbler Game is to make a bed, as promptly as is possible, in order to accrue sleep bonus. This is particularly desirable when players have less play time and are located on the Open Gobbler server where the skill gain is slower, compared to the Frenetia server, distance between treasure locations is greater, and there are no fur sales.
The Treasure Hunter achievement has been changed to occur on successfully digging for a treasure chest for the first time. This will cause three furs to be included in the first chest. Otherwise there is no change to the treasure chest code. This change has been made to give certainty in such an important matter as finding bed furs.
Players on the Open Gobbler server who have already received the Treasure Hunter achievement have had three furs placed at their village token, regardless of what luck they experienced. We had hoped to place them directly into the inventory, however that is not possible right now. The new code is also being placed into the Frenetia servers, for players new to treasure hunting. No placement of furs at tokens has been done on these servers because furs are available for sale at the GM towns.
14 August 2022
Addition to Gobbler level 11 Reward
The adamantine tool collection is continued with the addition of a Q99 adamantine rake to the Gobbler level 11 reward. One each of q 99 green, red and blue foraging baskets has also been added.
Player determined use of Sleep Bonus
A change to the code has been made to allow sleep bonus to be turned on and off at any time.
Milk request now specified.
The Gobbler now requests “Cow milk” instead of “Milk”. There is no change for the already specified Bison milk and Sheep milk.
20 August 2022
Addition to Gobbler level 12 Reward
The adamantine tool collection is continued with the addition of a Q99 adamantine sickle to the Gobbler level 12 reward. Three q99 pottery bowls each containing 100 q99 assorted flowers contained in a magical sack have also been added.
We apologise for a discrepancy which has occurred regarding potions of armour smithing and fletching. They are not located in treasure chests. The Gobbler now no longer requests them.
The Gobbler has upwards increased the score of items such as masts made of felled trees.
The dimensional expansion spell on carts has now been placed on the wish list. It will not be soon because it requires a careful investigation of the code. “Odd things happen when containers which have been dimensionally expanded are placed into containers which have been dimensionally expanded,” Tamutnefret has commented.
We have noticed a data base entry bug. A coal pile made by Thyme was not saved. She did not imagine making it because she had accrued some initial charcoal making skill which was saved. Thankfully these sort of incidents are not frequent. If it happens to you we will do our best to make compensation.
22 August 2022
Charcoal piles
We have gained more knowledge about charcoal piles. Thankfully, the problem about the disappearance of the unlit charcoal pile was not caused by a data base entry bug. Rather, it was caused by unlit charcoal piles being subject to aggressive decay rates, even on deeds. Thyme’s unlit charcoal pile was very low quality which made it particularly likely to disintegrate in less than 24 hours. The code has been changed so that will be zero decay rate for unlit charcoal piles in the next update.
28 August 2022
Gobbling Arboretum and Collosus
A new check for permission to feed an arboretum or collosus to the Gobbler is being introduced in tonight’s update. The player must be the builder in order to sucessfully select these items for gobbling. There is no change to existing deed permissions.
This change will allow the safe building of expensive items off deed, be it adjacent or nearby, in order to contain the cost of deed upkeep, or be it far from the deed, as a navigational assistant.
03 September 2022
Introducing Mining and Forest Gnomes
Camp beauty is wonderfully enhanced by gnomes (unless, perchance they are considered to be less than beautiful, in which case they may be safely left hidden away in a cupboard). These two taller gnomes will be available to all players at Christmas time. They have also been incorporated into Gobbler level rewards.
The Gobbler Level 13 reward has been updated to give an Adamantine pick axe (q 99), a Mining Gnome and a magical sack containing 50 iron ores of q 100.
The Gobbler Level 14 reward has been updated to give an Adamantine hatchet (q 99), a Forest Gnome and a Magical sack containing one of each bush type log q 100.
11 September 2022
Addition to Gobbler level 15 reward
The Gobbler level 15 reward now contains the following additions:
Pottery Valentines.
Adamantine q 99 needle and adamantine q 99 scissors.
q 99 pottery bowl containing 50*q100 squares of cloth and 50* q100 strings of cloth.
q 99 pottery bowl containing 50*q100 wool cloths and 50*q100 yarns.
Some bug fixes
Players may now build all four types of collosus. This removes the situation where the Gobbler was requesting collosus types that only players who were followers were allowed to build.
The amount of burning time per fuel item in a portable tile oven has been increased. Inspection of the portable tile oven now accurately reports the time remaining to burn.
The Gobbler score for keyforms has been increased.
16 September 2022
Possible longer down time for tonight’s backup.
With tonight’s backup we are installing a new UPS (Uninteruptible Power Supply). These are rather wonderful technology that BEEP rather loudly if the power to the building is disconnected, allowing us time to shutdown the server with backup, instead of the otherwise abrupt termination with potential database problems.
We anticipate that the installation of the new UPS will go smoothly, and take minimal time. However, it is always unwise to do too much anticipating…
Some more bug fixes
Clams: The Gobbler was not accepting clams because it was looking for a minimal weight of 2 KG, the weight of combined clams when they are removed from a bulk storage bin as an individual clam. In this update the Gobbler will cease checking for the minimal weight of clams. For now bulk storage bins will not store clams.
Cocoa: Food storage bins will now store cocoa.
Fragments: The Gobbler will cease checking for the minimal weight of fragments. At this stage, fragments that have been combined will only score as one fragment.
20 September 2022
Additions to Gobbler levels 16, 17 and 18
A Q99 Adamantine carving knife, file and saw have been added to Gobbler levels 16, 17 and 18 respectively, each accompanied by a magical sack of Q100 Bush logs.
27 September 2022
Scheduled Downtime of Internet Connection
There will be a scheduled down time of our internet connection from 0:0 (Midnight) Monday October 3 Australian Eastern Standard time, till 7 am Monday October 3 Australian Eastern Daylight Savings time. (Sunday October 2 at 2 pm till Sunday October 2 at 8 pm UTC).
This time span is the expected maximum. The servers may be available to log in to earlier, depending on the actual amount of time the internet connection is down.
27 September 2022
Creature care in Captivity and Butchering
Animal products are relatively scarce on our non-combat servers. They are found in treasure chests, obtained by trading or from butchering creatures. The Gobbler gives higher scores to reflect this scarcity, taking into account variables such as distance between treasure maps.
With this update we are introducing a new relationship between creature care in captivity and butchering. Creatures that have had a pleasant life in captivity will give animal products after their death. This is defined by brushing.
Creatures which have been led, are bred, or die on a deed are subject to a new check: Have they been brushed in the last 50 hours? Butchering will only give animal products if this test is passed.
26 November 2022
Introducing Platinum Tools.
The first platinum tool is the pickaxe, platinum. It will be available to all players with existing or new accounts who log into the Frenetia, Arboretum and Open Gobbler servers between 11 December 2022 and 8 January 2023. Each alternate account can receive one.
It is special because it has built-in bonuses of maximum rarity, runity and potion power. It allows players with low mining skill to mine ores which may be be up to quality 10 greater than that which the basic pickaxe would allow. When the player’s mining skill reaches 80 a small amount of ores of quality 100 will be possible. As mining skill further increases the frequency of quality 100 ores will also increase.
Players who have only played on the Open Gobbler server which will be concluding in July 2023, may also like to log into the ongoing Frenetia server during the Christmas season to secure a more lasting pickaxe, platinum.
We anticipate that some Gobbler tasks may have platinum tool rewards in the future so that the Christmas season will not be the only pathway to obtaining a pickaxe, platinum.
As time allows, a longer term plan will be to develop platinum ores and the ability to craft platinum tools and other items.
Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New year,
Best wishes from Pam and Tam.
24 December 2022
Ask the Gobbler Feature
Players may now ask the Gobbler for a pottery tile or healing cover request. The Gobbler wand menu has a new option “Ask for request”. If there has not been that type of request in the previous three hours, the player’s Gobbler request will be the next Gobbler request. A confirmation message appears in the Gobbler channel.
Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New year,
Best wishes from Pam and Tam.
Santa’s Reindeer 3 : Event Server
This event server is online from Midnight Christmas eve until 8 January 2023.
Santa left the South Pole Toy Storage Depot with his well laden sleigh. During a rest on Santa’s Island, north of the Sea of Rejoicing, the reindeer flew over the water to the mountainous mainland and went treasure hunting! They quickly became frightened, disoriented, and forgot how to fly. The goal of this event server is to reunite Santa and his reindeer so that they may continue their journey.
Players are issued with a magical sack, a pelt and a platinum pickaxe, which on this server only, has the additional feature of mining on treasure maps, suggesting the location of a reindeer on rock. A compass will still be needed to read the treasure maps. Cotton seed oil may be used to make compasses in any season. A boat (may be shared) or community bridge will be required to lead the reindeer because they are unable to swim.
There are very few navigational landmarks on this event server. Some of the lakes and seas have their names as named zones. A dioptra may be used to read the coordinates on the corner of the tile where the player is standing. A list of the waterways coordinates is as follows:
Lake Rudolph: W 400, E 560, N 330, S 450.
Jingle Lake: W 280, E 460, N 550, S 670.
North Bell Lake: W 600, E 680, N 500, S 580.
South Bell Lake: W 590, E 730, N 580, S 680.
Sea of Regeneration: W 480, E 760, N 690, S 890.
Sea of Rejoicing: W 100, E 260, N 280, S 560.
A map is attached at the bottom of this post.
There are colour bubble lights where Santa is located. There are no white or black lights on this server, so not only is there less directional aid from the lights, there are no spells such as cure injuries and extend stamina. Sandwiches may be used to aid with climbing. On the steep slopes the zero karma cost of corpse retrieval may be particularly useful. The landscape has some trees. Sprouts are available via foraging. However, trees have the usual growth times (no wild growth spell).
A feasting table is located at Santa’s Island. A snack each day per Steam account is available using the Gobbler wand enabling easier survival away from the island.
Good Luck!
31 December 2022
Player Determined Gobbler Requests.
Today’s backup includes new code to support player determined Gobbler requests. We are starting with Treasure maps.
A treasure map may now be fed to the Gobbler at any time. To do this activate the Gobbler wand and right click on the treasure map. An option to feed the Gobbler will appear. The Gobbler will add 50 points to the player’s score.
If it is preferred to use the treasure map to locate treasures, 200 Gobbler points will be credited to the player each time a treasure chest is dug up.
We hope that 2023 brings happiness and good fortune to all,
Best wishes from Pam and Tam.
25 January 2023
Goals for 2023
We have the situation where inactive players have large deeds. We are going to introduce deed maintenance costs. If this causes a problem for regular players we may be able to make personalised arrangements. This change will be implemented on 25th March update.
We have decided to run one Gobbler Server commencing in July. This will be the original Frenetia server. The Arboretum and Open Gobbler servers will be saved and archived. The Gobbler Game will have the current request list.
Climate Extinction Event
A Climate Extinction Event will result in some changes to the Frenetia Server leading to a new version of the Gobbler Game.
This multi-faceted event will be held at various times in the lead up to the end of June, 2023. It will consist of :
(1) Fires.
Due to increased storm activity it is predicted that there will be inevitable, devastating fires on all the Gobbler servers. Every tree will burn in the great fires of ’23. All items made of wood such as in inventory, storage containers, contents of piles are burnt. The only exception will be the Gobbler rewards won in the first tasting, which will be found in a “time capsule” during the second tasting. The Gobbler will be promoting new tree growth in the second tasting by paying Gobbler points for planting each tree and subtracting points for each tree cut down.
(2) Earthquakes and Volcanoes.
Deep in the underground there will be increased tectonic activity. The amounts of earthquakes will be much greater. Deep trenches will develop in the landscape. Buildings will shatter and turn into rubble, excepting on maintained deeds (which have in-built reinforcement). Lava will appear in random spots. Caution will be needed moving around to avoid danger or death. However, lava may be turned into stone using the attributes of the Power path of meditation. Metal veins will melt away. A new Stone age will be inevitable. There will need to be a serverwide gobbler score in the second tasting, some amount yet to be determined, to reintroduce metals usage, only available via use of transmutation rods.
(3) Contamination of water.
The inland waterways and underground aquifers will become contaminated. Drinking water will need to be treated with water purification tablets. Crops are more difficult to grow and take longer to mature. The Gobbler will make available plans for a very expensive, water decontamination building in the second tasting.
(4) Pestilence.
The amount of viri in the landscape is exponentially growing. Touching one will result in influenza- like symptoms which need to be treated to regain health. The antibody building will become useful to carry in inventory to reduce the local viri.
(5) Loss of knowlege.
In all the upheaval of the new, harsher environment there will be erosion of knowlege, resulting in reducing skill levels. By the start of the second tasting skills will be reduced by half.
19 March 2023
Refunds for Downsizing Deeds
Tonight’s restart includes the ability to downsize deeds and receive a refund. The one exception is the initial, minimal founding size of the deed (11*11 tiles) will not be refunded. Only the Mayor may perform this action using the Village resize menu. The refunded coins go automatically into the bank account of the Mayor.
Each deed on the Frenetia and Arboretum servers has had five weeks of upkeep placed into the deed’s funds to assist players in the transition to paying Deed upkeep, commencing on the 25 March.
08 April 2023
Introducing “Mystery Portals”
Eight travellers’ mystery portals have been located on the Frenetia Server at useful locations, including the Black and White Lights. The Portals allow instant travel from one portal to another, at a different location in a random manner. Sometimes the portal itself may be the random destination. Eventually, with a sufficient amount of trips it will be possible to return to the starting portal. About 30 seconds may be needed between trips to allow dizziness reduction (and graphics recovery time!). The mystery portals will be permanent.
The following message appears when a portal is examined, “This magical portal shows rapid glimpses to other lands. It allows instant travel to a random portal.”
As well as being of practical advantage allowing easier movement around the server, the mystery portals have been coded to deliver event prizes. Over the Easter season one of the portals gives a picnic basket with eggs and Easter eggs. There is no limitation on accounts, one prize per account. Tour around the portals to to find the portal with the Easter Bunny’s basket.
Happy Easter to all.
25 July 2023
Open Gobbler Server Closing
This first version of the Open Gobbler Server will be closing on 26 August 2023. Thanks to all who participated. It will be saved and kept, perhaps used in events.
In the future we may run an Open Gobbler server with a few modifications, namely a different map, probably smaller in area and having a run time of 6 months rather than a year.
We have decided to leave the other two servers, Arboretum and Frenetia as they are, joined together as a cluster and by request, unchanged geographically. I certainly agree that there are very few maps which are as beautiful as the Frenetia map.
Any climate change code would be better suited to an Open Gobbler server. However, for now, real life has been busy and our attention has been captured as players, saving Eco worlds from meteors.
14 May 2024
Frenetia Server Reset 28th July 2024
On or near 28 July 2024 the Frenetia Server will be completely reset to support a second iteration of the Gobbler game which will last for 12 months.
Players who participate will be starting with nothing except a pelt. Player’s skills and Gobbler scores will be zero. The beautiful landcape will be much easier to see because this time, at the start there will be no trees.
Pre-existing deeds (including public areas), portals, mines, roads, bridges, and arboretum be all deleted. Our apologies go to old players who may be upset to hear that this is going to happen because their work will be lost, and I am one of those. However, since there have been zero log ins for a long time now, we believe this is an opportunity, the time is right to start again.
25 July 2024
Frenetia Reset 12:00 Midday UTC Saturday 27th July 2024
This second iteration of the Gobbler’s Banquet will run for 12 months. Gobbler scores are reset to zero. There are 17 levels of Gobbler rewards including high quality tools and small barrels with unique colours. After that the rewards repeat.
The server has zero combat. A dedicated channel announces what the Gobbler wants each 20 minutes. The challenge is to make donations to the Gobbler, within that 20 minutes, for which scores are given. Skills are set to 10/10. As a camp is established and skills develop there are more options to keep the Gobbler fed.
Players start with one quality 90 pelt in their inventory. Pelts are extremely rare, occasionally obtained from a successful butchering. Starting from crude tools everything can be made, or found in treasure chests.
A gift may be requested from the Santa Statue at the starting spot which is located at the south west corner of the map. When it is unwrapped the snowman gift weighs 10kg, so it may be better to leave it wrapped until later. The Santa bubble lights are useful for navigation.
Clay spots on this map have been removed. A clay token has been included in the Gobbler level three reward. When placing the token pack four dirts and transform the corner in the middle of them. Tar, peat and moss tokens are also included in early Gobbler level rewards.
Forestry needs to be managed by the player. Sprouts are found via foraging. They may be planted to grow at natural speed or quickly using the Wild growth spell. All white spells may be performed regardless of which white light priest is chosen. For Navigation the white light is centre North, and the black light centre South.
Deeds need to be bought and upkeep is enabled. The treasure chests have a good amount of coins in them. Foraging and harvesting plants also gives coins. A compass may be made from cotton or corn oil, so will be available to make early game.
Good Luck!
17 August 2024
Tall Gnomes and Seryll Tools
The Gobbler levels reward code has been extended.
Unique colourful small barrels continue to repeat in sequence and each includes a rod of transmutation. Many of the earlier level rewards are now coded to repeat. For example, another tar token will be included in the level 15 reward, another clay token in the level 16 reward etc. Useful fantastic bones will reappear each six levels. Bush logs will also appear more frequently, as well as resources such as high quality cotton and wool cloths. The magical sacks they are contained in are particularly useful too, in camp or as high weight-containing saddle bags, on a treasure hunting trip.
Two new item types have been coded. “Tall” gnomes first appear at level 20, making a set of three sizes of gnomes to collect. Also new is the high-quality Seryll tools series, the first appearing at level 19. These tools have the strong advantage of not shattering when a spell is cast on them. They are coded to keep repeating.
Since the Gobbler score takes into consideration the quality, scarcity and amount of request received, older rewards may be kept, or be used to meet Gobbler requests.
25 August 2024
Fireproofing Solution
Who has accidentally fueled a forge, portable tile oven, camp fire or oven with a high quality wooden tool, not realising that it was selected? Now this may be prevented.
A new product called “Fireproofing solution” can be crafted using tannin (1 kg) and a bronze lump (0.1 kg or less). Select the fireproofing solution and apply it to any cloth or wooden item. The effect is to prevent using the item as fuel.
At this stage there is no method to prevent wooden or cloth items, even ones with the Fireproofing solution applied to them, from taking damage and quickly burning away inside the forge or other burning containers, so caution is still needed in this respect.
30 August 2024
Electricity Matters
We apologise for the server downtime. Unfortunately it happened while we were asleep, and we were only alerted to it at all by the UPS “battery is dead” alarm beeper. The computer hosting the server had shut down abruptly, without any save.
Thankfully we have our daily backup, made at 8 pm local time, and have restored the server from that. It does mean that anyone who logged in after time that will lose that progress. On the weekend Tam will code up a compensation for us all. It will be a quality 99 bronze hanging lamp, available to all who log in in the month of September. If more than one is wanted make some alt accounts.
This beautiful, bright camp illumination will have the property to remind us that electricity matters.
31 August 2024
Groundhog Day
The story of the gale strength winds continues. Of considerable importance, we are thankful that our roof stayed secured to the house. Alas, the same thing cannot be said for the Frenetia server data.
According to the computer logs over night our electric supply blinked off momentarily, and then back on again. Four times. For each of these four times, because of the compromised UPS battery, the computer turned itself off and then back on again. Consequently the server abruptly turned itself off, and then back on again, four times. The sad truth is that we have no idea if the data saved correctly on any, or on all four of these times. Thus we have taken the unpalatable, but sensible approach to restore the server from the daily back up, which we know is safe data.
And so for the third time activities which we thought to be done originally and then done again the following evening after the first restore from daily backup need to be done yet again. Not just one but now two evening’s play time has been lost. Salt has mined out his 12 squares of cave, three times now. Pepper has picked up the same 600 snows three times. It is almost absurdly amusing. Other players (those who have stayed) will have their own Groundhog activities.
We cannot retrieve the lost time and skill gain. All we can do is apologise, learn and attempt to compensate. The UPS has been swapped to one with a newer battery and the code to receive the high quality bronze hanging lamps (now plural!) will be included in tonight’s backup.
Unfortunately the wild weather conditions are forecast to last for at least another day. As the moderns say, “It is what it is”.
19 October 2024
Trip Ship Sail Colour Changes
Building a Trip ship takes too much effort to result in an unpleasing sail colour. Today’s daily backup is having new code added to enable choice of sail colour.
A new menu is placed on Trip ships called “Sail colour”. A sub menu is called “Randomise”. Using the randomise menu gives a new sail colour.
A message will appear in the events chanel, “The Trip ship sails have changed colour but the dye will not set for 10 minutes. You may swap between the new and previous colours during this time.”
After using the submenu called “Swap”, a new message in the events chanel will read, “The Trip ship sail colour has been swapped and will become permanent after (some amount of) minutes.”
The process to initiate a different sail colour change may be started after the dye has set.