-What is it? Here is a short teaser, it is very old and outdated though
Haven & Hearth is a free MMORPG made by two swedish students that work on it in their freetime. Its coded in Java and has an open source client. You can play it via the homepage by clicking play at the top http://www.havenandhearth.com/portal/ or download a custom client which has a bigger resolution and other features from this thread http://www.havenandhearth.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=10840&sid=e3ab4da97a7acf3330025775973975eb It's a sandbox games, which means there is no goal to achieve. It has no NPCS beside critters and animals(and some to create your char), so there are no quests, no ingame tutorials or similar. Basically it's about surviving, making friends, starting villages and waging wars. It's still in alpha, so it gets updates from time to time. That also means that there are character and map wipes, however. World 2 and 3 have each lasted about a year. World 4 has started about a week ago.
-How to start? Since there is nothing guiding you, the game is incredibly hard to start. After creating your character you either start in the wild with nothing but a few loafs of bread and two torches or, if you already have friends playing it, start at their camp. To get a few first LP get branches from trees and make fires(and light them). Do this until you can get foraging. With this skill you will be able to see fruits and other things on the ground that you can pickup (and eat). Collect rats if you see them, you can cook and eat them. After that get Lumberjacking so you can craft a stone axe and chop trees. Your first goal should be to build a basic camp where you can sleep (leanto) and cook things.
-Grind? Yes and no. You need to grind a bit at the start, to get LP for the skills in order to build/craft items. The combat system has heavy diminishing returns, so older characters arent overpowered, but newborn alts arent too good as well. You can increase your attributes by eating food which you have cooked.
-PvP System? Basically everyone can kill you. And if you die you are dead. permanently. He can also destroy all you have permanently. Wheres the fun then? Well its risky. You can put a claim on your things with the skill Yeomanry and prevent others from entering the claim. However if they have blackskills they will still be able to enter your claim, but they will leave scents. With this scents, depending on the crime they done, you can track and kill them while theyre offline(upon killing them you will leave scents on your own though). Another way is building walls. Palisades can be torn down with bare hands, but require incredible strength, brickwalls can only be torn down with a ram, which takes 8 hours to build and cant be transported farther than a few tiles.
-Whats the lategame about? Once you have all the skills and a great bunch of attributes AND your camp set up the lategame starts. The lategame is basically enhanching your items and characters by getting better resources (every item has a quality which is determined by the resources its build from and your skills). But the lategame is also about ingame politics, and that is were the fun really starts. You can establish trading between villages, you can plunder them, you can burn them down, but be afraid of retaliation from the villagers or hired mercaneries.
Here are a few examples of great history in H&H. In world 2 the goons (SA members) were feared because they have had a big membership and plundered villages. An opposing force - Xanadu - was established by dedicated members, lead by one of the developers (who didnt cheat, he played full legit of course). A few weeks later they managed to kill the goon leader Delamore, who then quit playing himself, but still was leading the goons. It became quite in the world and people were bored. Thats when the possibly biggest force by that time, all members of ps.com, decided to raid a recently set up village near the starting point. They were allied with the goons and allowed Delamore to take responsibilty for the raid, to fan the flame flames. A topic was created ( http://www.havenandhearth.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=3750&hilit=codexia+raid&sid=269524531f643dcd41c389df523e6206 )and it soon became clear that it werent goons who attacked. Suddenly ps.com Members became hated and few of them died. The atmosphere was very tense, with flame wars every day on the forum. Xanadu was mostly disbanded due to inactivity and some of the members joined up with Codexia members. They created a new village, which the ps.com members soon found and raided multiple times due to a traitor. However, about a month later, after world reset was announced, old Xanadu members finally managed to invade Wayneville and kill most of the ps.com members. When world 3 started, world 2 politics didnt matter anymore, so ps.com members decided to be good people now( http://www.havenandhearth.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=5667&p=64322&hilit=codexia+raid&sid=8fdd99900b7386f299261a555be6291e#p64322 ) and allied with Xanadu/Codexia members, to build the greatest town ever seen. They have built Sodom(scroll down for pictures), which has never been penetrated for the whole year that world 3 lasted.
-Pictures? This is wayneville in world 2. A character is 1x1 tile big, Wayneville was about 150x150 tiles big iirc. sadly i dont have the 1:1 picture anymore. [img]http://img695.imageshack.us/img695/2710/finr.jpg[img]
And this is Sodom in world 3. It is about 4x the size so ill only link it http://pyrofyr.net/Stuff/X/homes/cool/sodomsmall.jpg Each member has his own claim which is 35x35 tiles big, the whole town is surrounded by a brick wall. Later in the map a second town with exactly the same layout was built directly next to it, to offer refuge for people that are allied with Sodom, but not members of it.
Note: Im not playing the game anymore, so i cant offer starting items/camp but i can give hints. I just thought this is a great indy game which is worth to share with you guys
smipth United States. January 19 2011 02:57. Posts 28
i play this game with 4chan's /tg/ board and its a lot of fun. We thought we were being tracked by russians and there was a freakout for a few days.. but i think our camp is safe now. Great game.
Favorite Players: Forgg, Savior, Stork, Bisu
plated.rawr Norway. January 19 2011 03:03. Posts 1387
It seems really interesting, although I'm having much trouble finding bones to further my crafting and advancement. Getting the skillpoints is easy enough, but there doesnt seem to be much creatures for me to kill for the bones, so yea.
By the way, the standalone client seems to be bugged with the current version, and isn't working. The official site still works just fine.
Played this about a year ago, but fell out of it once the people I started playing with stopped. Was pretty boring playing alone. I'll play if there's a TL guild.
Drium United States. January 19 2011 11:50. Posts 752
I started it and it was pretty dull at first just chopping trees and making fires and stuff. Eventually I went looking for food and almost got killed by an ant, but fortunately it lost interest in my unconscious body shortly before it would have finished me off.
After that though I found some places where other people had set up their camps and I just stole whatever food I could find from them which was pretty fun. Managed to get full again and then I jacked someone's boat and started cruising around looking for more stuff to take. I also found someone's runestone that they had built but not engraved so I engraved it with "u gotta skate".
Last edit: 2011-01-19 11:55:58
KwanROLLLLLLLED
plated.rawr Norway. January 19 2011 12:09. Posts 1387
Finally found a rabbit. Snuck up behind it, grabbed it by its ears and wrung its tiny neck. I then proceeded to enthusiastically flay its skin from is bones, indifferently tossing aside chunks of meat and tufts of fuzzy fur - finally what I needed for a bone saw!
I found a decent location at the bend of a river where I set my new hearth fire and prepare a more permanent camp than the previous one. With the bone saw in hand and planks now available thanks to it, I built a plough at the area, setting up a nice square spot to prepare foundation. After filling the turned dirt with stone, I then started gathering planks, logs and boughs. The house needed a ton of materials, and the runs were getting longer for each tree I felled, but eventually, all I lacked, was the last set of logs.
Looking around, I saw a log that had fallen into the river, which I finally could reach thanks to recently trained Swimming. Figuring it looked odd there in the middle of the river and figuring it should let me gather the last bits faster than running across the open plains now sprawling out ahead of my camp, I swam out and started sawing the trunk into logs.
Then my stamina ran out.
:<
Still, this hasn't disencouraged me. I'm liking this game. Let me know if anyone wants to start up a tiny village or something together, I'm all up for it.
Outdated Java? The game is pretty sloppy coded so it does not like older pcs.
On January 19 2011 03:03 plated.rawr wrote: This sounds pretty interesting. Ill start a toon on world4 named onnings. If you see me and kill me, I will cry manly tears. ;_;
Edit: I didnt get a choice between worlds. Maybe its only one world for hte browser-based?
Yes, the worlds are getting reset about once a year. So this is the 4th world already, they dont coexist
And yeah, dont ever swim, it even says so when you get the skill. You need at least 50 constution to be able to swim for 10 seconds. Build a boat! You can get bones from rabbits and chickens at the beginning. All other creatures need a bit of combat experience. It recommend you build a chicken farm asap, to get a steady food and bone supply, but i think those need straw which is kinda hard to get at the beginning, because the seeds you get from www are random.
plated.rawr Norway. January 19 2011 13:34. Posts 1387
Advice appreciated - I'll get to look for a chicken farm as soon as I get my new house up. Got lucky when I logged on just now - I camped out after having explored for a bit with a new character (Meowcakes II, if anyone meets me), and lo and behold, what do I see - a bunny.
Still havent seen any chickens in the wild though. Maybe I'm looking the wrong places? So far, I've only seen deep pine forest, open apple tree etc fields and swamps.
Btw, people dont see your character name until you friend them, like in real world You can however set a hearth secret so people can friend you remotely.
plated.rawr Norway. January 19 2011 13:41. Posts 1387
How do you set the hearth secret? I'm guessing typing in a person's hearth secret at the character generation room teleports you to their hearth, but I havent really looked for a way to set my own secret.
Hm, started playing for a bit. It's pretty cool but I can't find any fir trees Also, I'm on an island or at least a peninsula. So far, I've yet to see any animals.
On January 19 2011 13:41 plated.rawr wrote: How do you set the hearth secret? I'm guessing typing in a person's hearth secret at the character generation room teleports you to their hearth, but I havent really looked for a way to set my own secret.
Theres a Heart on the bottom menu bar. Thats your friendslist and all.
plated.rawr Norway. January 19 2011 14:06. Posts 1387
I played this game a long while ago, but stopped thinking I would get back to it when it is in open beta... It's the type of game I wouldn't wanna play and then have the world wiped when it enters open beta / release.
It was fun tho.
Drium United States. January 19 2011 18:15. Posts 752
On January 19 2011 17:42 Lucumo wrote: What is the fastest way to increase your learning points?
Best way I've found:
Equip a saw and an axe Cut down trees Make the logs into boards make buckets
If you don't have a saw yet just wander around until you find a rabbit, then walk up right next to it and right click on it to catch it. Butcher it and use the bone to make a saw.
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