by bitza » Tue Dec 14, 2010 12:06 am i decided to start a new character with a true wilderness spawn (no supplies from my main account, no spawning in a known location, or other forms of 'cheating' i guess you could call it) and went from having literally nothing to having a well developed character with all the metal i needed and good gear. my purpose of this 'experiment' if you will, was to see just how difficult it would be for a solo player joining now to get access to higher tier stuff.
the very first thing i did, after grinding up the basic skills (hunting foraging stoneworking etc) was look for a decent cave away from bodies of water. after verifying the cave only had one exit, i set up camp there. after building a house and organizing my taproots and rabbit skins, i explored the area pretty thoroughly. found a clay spot, collected a full set of crops from abandoned unclaimed settlements in the area (and found a few other cool items along the way) and found an active village with access to metal (i'll leave the name and location of that village anonymous, since they seemed to be folks who wanted to keep a low profile)
it took a couple of trips to that village, pacing around the walls yelling "hello, anyone home" in area chat before i met someone. they were a bit standoffish at first, even to a guy with a spruce cap and fishing pole, but i was able to convince them that i wanted to trade for metal and asked what they needed. the first item i bought from them was a scythe, purchased with chants and blueberries. i then headed home to set up a hemp farm, where i could use my new scythe to effeciently make linen cloth. with a field yielding about 25-30 linen per harvest, i was able to not only earn a lot of lp, but also bought a meat grinder, pickaxe, q200ish sling and a pair of glasses in a reasonably short period of time.
with the sling and meatgrinder, i was able to make lamb sausages to supplement my diet of carrots, put the lp into exploration, and along with my pair of glasses was able to see cavebulbs before too long. with this valuable trade item i was able to get a pretty good bronze helm and armor, a metal cauldron, and had no problems keeping my metal plow repaired.
i eventually needed that character as a lawspeaker to hold a property, but had i continued with it, the plan would have been able to buy enough metal to brickwall my camp.
some people might say i had extremely good luck in making all of this happen, but i like to think that luck is created
my point in telling this story is, that if you can't find a mine, find a trade partner. anything is possible in this game if you're not a lazy ass
jk
