Graveyard – 3 Wood, 8 Stone
The graveyard is where a player will respawn if he is killed. The size and level of the graveyard will determine the bonuses or penalties that a player will receive due to their death.
Please note: More buildings may become available as they are researched or constructed through sheer dominance of will.
It all seemed so basic to me as a gamer – nothing that I wouldn’t have expected and nothing particularly out of the ordinary. The standard technology tree as it were.
Something clicked in my mind as I thought about the offerings from the construction yard – I was a gamer. I hadn’t really thought about who else was playing Freedom Online, as I was caught up in my own goings on, but really who were my enemies here? The richest of the rich didn’t play video games, did they? My mind seized the implied advantage that I was forming. I was a gamer, this was my world, not theirs and to borrow a totally overused cliché, I wasn’t stuck in here with them, they were stuck in here with me.
Up until now, I’d been playing, although somewhat unconsciously, as though Freedom Online was a real-time strategy game, making my settlement, creating trade routes (even though it was now lost) et cetera, but what I should really have been doing was playing as though it was an MMO, an online role-playing game. My stats were pitiful in that respect – if any of my former friends and clanmates could have seen me now I think they’d laugh me out of my own camp. No, I hadn’t been playing right and it was time to change that.
My normal approach to RPG’s was to level as quickly as possible, holding attribute points back until I’d gotten a feel for the game and my character so I would know where best to spend them. I usually favoured a ranged profession, either an elf-like archer or a magic caster. It had always worked for me because I had a team, we always had four players, a tank to absorb most of the damage and keep the attention of the enemies, a ranged attacker, me, a close range quick attacker, like an assassin or a rogue, and a healer to make sure we were kept at full health for as long as possible. I couldn’t say I’d invented the idea of this kind of team allocation – as I’d spent many hours trying to create a solution that would work across many games with the same team of people who were trained to do the same task every time, but it always seemed to work so well. I doubted that the hoy palloy whom I’d seem storming the city in the most primitive of fashions would know about these tactics. Of course, I really had nothing to base these assumptions on, but when we had attacked that city, we were arranged like a real-life medieval army, not an RPG army.
My attention returned to the list of buildings that I now had available to me, each one of them useful to me and an absolute necessity. One stood out amongst the rest though, I needed to be able to change my respawn point so if the worst did happen then I’d be able to return to my people as quickly as possible – that meant the graveyard was top of the to-do list.
I instructed Rok to get constructing with a yawn, the day’s lumberjacking had really taken it out of me again and I couldn’t help just resting my eyes for just one second.
When I awoke it was sunny again, my internal virtual alarm clock having carried out its duties impeccably. Most of my goblin clan were already busying themselves with the day’s work – stomachs full and eager to get a move on. ‘Please don’t make me eat any more of that beetle meat’ my inner child cooed in my ear while I made my way over to the fire, but right now we didn’t really have any other choice. As I ate my breakfast – beetle meat wasn’t really breakfast food but you must live to your means – I promised myself that at the earliest opportunity I would try to introduce some variety into our diets.
As I ate, I noticed that Grish was loitering around by the longhouse, seemingly having nothing to do to occupy his time. I called him over to me.
“Um, what are you doing?” I asked as though he was a naughty child. He looked at me as though id just slapped him across the face.
“I warrior.” He announced.
“Of course.” I agreed.
Silence.
“So what are you doing?” I repeated my question.
“I warrior,” He repeated, but then added, “You no have barracks.”
‘Ah, the old ‘I can’t work under these conditions’ gambit’ I thought. This was getting a little old.
“Well can’t you do anything?” I asked, throwing my hands in the air theatrically. “How about hunting, or fishing?”
“I no fish. I warrior.” He repeated. It was like talking to a green brick wall with this one.
I thought for a moment before an idea popped into my head. “How would you like to get some crocodile’s teeth?” I said with a smirk.
If Grish had beamed any bigger he would have been a lighthouse – there’d be no need for Sano and Theodore to come and look for us because Grish’s appreciation for the idea would have been seen from miles away.
“I’ll make you a deal. For every three teeth you collect, ill give you one in return for yourself, sound good?” Grish’s smile waned slightly as he remembered that he was both in a new clan, of which he wasn’t the leader and therefore rightful owner of any new goods he found, and also that his clan had perished under his command. I didn’t want to make a habit of bribing my guys for work, but I didn’t think it was going to be a regular occurrence.
I made a mental note to add the barracks to the construction queue as soon as the graveyard was complete, it wouldn’t take Grish too long to figure out that killing crocodiles involved a hell of a lot of waiting for very little reward but for now I thought it would get him out of my hair.
I had enough food surplus for two new ‘ten goblins’ as my mind dubbed them, so I raised a new worker to help Rok, as I knew he was going to be a very busy goblin in the coming days, and another feeder in order to keep the food production levels to a maximum. As they emerged from the breeding hut together, I didn’t bother to analyse them as I knew how each of them would have started life. I pointed the new worker towards Rok, who was busy ‘building’ a big hole in the ground, and I told my new feeder to do what he could to try to catch as many fish as he could each day and bring them directly to me. I knew that it would only contribute a fraction of what my beetle ranchers could bring in in a day, but variety was the spice of life, and I wanted that spice badly.
I sidled up to Durr and exchanged a single nod with my lumberjack friend. Picking up my axe from the ground where I’d left it, we swung in tandem on neighbouring trees, matching our rhythms perfectly. It felt so good. That first contact from blade to tree, the sound of the thud, the…
Your skill, Lumberjack has now reached Level 2
With this skill, you will find it much easier to cut down trees to use on your construction projects.
Level 2
At Level 2 of the basic skill sets in Freedom Online, the user will experience increased euphoria for carrying out that action as encouragement.
For each level increased in this skill, the user will gain an additional +1 to the gathered resource and a 10% increase to their gathering speed.
Current Bonus:
+1 Gathered Wood
+10% Increased gathering speed
If I thought that simply chopping down wood was addictive, levelling up in the skill was like taking the first sip out of a newly opened glass bottle of coke. As soon as the feeling had dwindled, I wanted to experience it again right away and I wondered if this was how junkies felt when they finally got their long-awaited fix of the good stuff.
With nothing else for it, I dutifully swung my axe at the tree before me. It felt a little more balanced in my hands, swung through the air a little easier, and made a slightly deeper cut in the tree I was working on. I could definitely see where the ten percent efficiency bonus was going. No matter how hard he tried, Durr simply couldn’t match my pace any more.
When my tree fell, a little while before Durr’s it must be noted, I quickly checked my inventory to see that I had indeed managed to gather two trees instead of the usual
one – this was going to speed up my work to no end. I wondered if this bonus applied to every skill that each of my goblins had, not just the feeders who I knew were already benefitting from increased yields, but how would that translate to Rok and his construction skill, or Grish as a warrior – there was no need to rush though, I had all the time in the world to find out. That was until Theodore and Sano made it their mission to wipe us all out, if they hadn’t done already.
I swung my axe again but stopped mid swing as a thought occurred to me. If I had no limit to the skills I could learn, then how did the game attribute the desire to complete these skills? I moved to ask Durr but stopped when I remembered that NPC’s could only learn one skill until their master rank in order to keep them focussed on their given tasks. I thought about how people in the real world dealt with addiction and how they would usually only focus on one at a time, and an addictive personality usually meant that the individual upon giving up one addiction, would move onto another. I was sure though, that no matter how these euphoric tasks arranged themselves before me, I’d have a lot of fun finding out which ones I liked the best. At some point, I’d have to see if I could gain another skill. I almost had to stop myself from salivating.
As the sun set and I’d completed my daily work, gathering a staggering six trees, I stood before the completed graveyard. Rok stood beside me awaiting my praise while I scanned the six stone headstones, surrounded by a rickety wooden fence and covered by a low-lying fog that seemed to emanate from nowhere in particular.
“Rok, this is amazing! How did you do it so fast?” I asked to satiate his need for affirmation.
“Have two workers now. Construction much faster! Also, just a graveyard. Not complicated.” I could see that although he was being actively very coy, his stifled smile let me know that I’d said the right thing.
“Well do you want something a little more prestigious to build?” I asked. I could already see he did, the fire that sparked in his eyes told me that somewhere along the lines of making these new constructions, he was getting a good old injection of euphoria for his troubles.
“I need a barracks,” I announced before he could answer. “Just ask Grish what he wants and he’ll fill in the details, OK?”
Rok didn’t even take a moment to respond, rather he bounced away from me like a rabbit in the height of spring – presumably to find Grish and get started on his next creation right away.
I took the time to examine the new graveyard to ensure that I wasn’t missing anything important.
Graveyard – Level 1
The graveyard is where a player will respawn if he is killed. The size and level of the graveyard will determine the bonuses or penalties that a player will receive due to their death.
Level 1
At level 1, the graveyard will resurrect you with the following multipliers:
Respawn Time: Level/10 x 1 hour
Respawn Invincibility: 30 seconds
XP Penalty: None Under Level 5. -1 Level Over Level 5
NPC Resurrection: Not Available
Gear Penalties: +50% Chance to drop each item in your inventory at the site of your death
This graveyard is not currently set as your active respawn point. Would you like to make this graveyard your active respawn point? Yes/No
‘Holy shit!’ I thought. Those penalties were seriously severe. Although I knew I didn’t really have anything in my inventory right now, and I was still under level five so managed to miss out on the level penalty, I knew that as I grew into the game, these penalties could stand to be a serious handicap. I made a mental note to get Rok increase the level of the graveyard as I increased myself, so that I could reduce these multipliers. I clicked the ‘yes’ button, although it took me a long time to weigh the pros and cons of simply leaving my respawn point on the other side of the city – but I felt as though this would need to be done eventually. I changed the respawn point to my graveyard and closed the window. I can’t say why but it felt as though a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders.
When I closed the interface I made sure to scan my settlement, as the bustling of activity seemed to give me a great sense of pride and achievement. Everyone just seemed so happy, getting on with whatever they’d been told, or otherwise programmed to do. When my eyes fell upon Snafu however, I noticed that she must have been stealing food because she looked distinctly rounder than I’d remembered. ‘Wait, was she rounder or did she look…you know…’ I’d been told once to never ask a woman if she was pregnant, just in case she wasn’t, but…
“Snafu! What’s happened here?” I announced loudly as she waddled over to me. I definitely shouldn’t have leapt to such conclusions, but I wasn’t sure that simply being ‘fat’ mattered all that much to a goblin anyway – perhaps it could even have been a coompliment.
“Have baby,” she announced gruffly, affirming my assumption.
I didn’t quite know how to deal with this development. I knew that there were goblin children, but I thought that they were simply generated by my own influence, coupled with the breeding hut.
“That’s amazing!” I said happily. “When’s it due?”
“Few days,” Snafu replied nonchalantly.
A few days? That meant I could get goblins for free if I was just willing to wait for them to happen naturally. Right now, it wasn’t the best solution, as I needed as many people as I could get my hands on as quickly as possible, but it opened so many doors that my head was spinning with all the possibilities.
I started to mentally attribute tasks to all of the little goblin babies that I planned to add to my clan as soon as possible. I’d arrived at such a high number though, that I felt like Snafu wouldn’t much like that I was effectively pimping her out to grow the clan. I also didn’t know for sure but made my assumptions, that the gene pool within Freedom Online wouldn’t throw me any curveballs.
My mind worked in overdrive, I quickly checked on the breeding hut’s control panel. My heart sank as I recalled that with the extra week or so for gestation, to get a new goblin adult through pregnancy would probably take a month. Unless I had an army of females all ready to drop, this revelation probably wouldn’t do me any good.
While I was there though, it seemed like a good idea to test out how babies worked within Freedom online, especially if in the long run I was going to look at creating a more self-sustaining economy. Perhaps I was getting ahead of myself with dreams of grandeur, but I always thought that good information led to solid foundations. I ordered up three baby goblins – my thought process was that three babies cost as much as one adult, so why not go all out? I had ample food surplus, with over thirty now being unallocated even after splurging on breakfast and dinner for the camp.
The all too familiar photocopy light washed over the Breeding Hut and dissipated into an eerie silence. Few of my goblins stopped what they were doing to check to see what was going on but quickly busied themselves with their work when they realised that it was ‘just another goblin emergence’.
This time something was different though, nothing was happening. No goblins were coming out of the hut, ready and eager to work.
‘They’re babies!’ Something in my mind screamed, which caused me to walk over to the hut all the while thinking ‘who the hell is going to look after them?’, open the door and peer inside, where a single bassinet held three of the tiniest goblins that you could have imagined. I could’ve picked them all up in one arm, but decided to carry the entire basket out through the open door and out into my campsite.
The moment I placed them onto the ground in the outskirts of the warming radius from the fire, I couldn’t help but think that I’d made a huge mistake. My preparations had supposed to have been for war, not to start a day-care centre.
I checked on my food numbers again, to see what kind of a dent that the baby goblins would make on them, but to my surprise they didn’t seem to make any difference at all.
Current Food Available: 21
Curr
ent Maintenance Level: 30
Current Food Generation: 41 Units / Day
My slow but steady approach to the growth of my settlement had seemed to be working so well that I could have almost forgotten how unbalanced my economy-to-military ratio was. The sad fact of the matter was that no matter how many times I told myself that slow and steady would win the race, against people who can cheat without comeuppance, it would never do.
I made a mental note in bold, red letters that simply stated, ‘military growth’ and circled it three times.
I’d always loved movies about war and hardship, but had no real practical experience, so you can imagine that when I say I’d like to think I could do well as the leader of a huge army, the statement is based in absolutely no fact whatsoever. With that in mind, I started to think about how the underdogs always seemed to come up trumps. Of course there were the few examples where an extreme amount of luck came into play, a few where unrealistic superpowers came to the rescue, but I needed to be able to defend my camp and my people with just a lot of hard work and perseverance.
As much as I wanted to put the lessons learned by watching ‘300’ over and over to good use, I didn’t think that I’d be able to conjure up huge mountain pass to hide behind, no I needed something a little more tactile. It did seem like a good plan though, to try to funnel the enemy into a narrow space so that their numerical advantages would be weakened.
Every strategy game I’d ever played had always started in the same way, build a big wall all the way around the area that I wanted to live in, so why should this be any different and why hand I thought about it already? I didn’t need to make a huge stone wall like at the city – but even then the attackers had gone for the gate as it had seemed like the easier option. I started making designs in my mind for the easiest way to make a wall that would focus attacks onto a single point.
The Copper Rose Page 14
