Guides:House Planning Guide

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So you’ve seen all the cool houses people in Wurm Online have and you want to build your own? Great idea but before you do that STOP! Consider the points below and it will make your efforts much more worthwhile in the long run, less frustrating, and less likely to cause you do have to abandon and re-build later.

Don’t be in a rush to build your first house.

If you place it wrong or build it wrong many mistakes like these can not be fixed and you will have wasted a lot of effort.

• If you are in the mood to build something that will have permanence and will benefit you in the long-run, and will allow you to store items you find securely then consider first building a large cart. Large carts can hold a lot of stuff, can be dragged around and relocated, can be securely locked if you make a large padlock for it (don’t forget to do this), and you will eventually want one anyway so will be useful for the rest of the game. Think of them like a mobile home. Small carts do not provide these security advantages so be aware if you build one of these.

• Next get your carpentry to level 8 minimum before you even think about building. Carpentry level 8 will allow you to build a 2x1 size house. Too many people rush at carpentry 5 to build a house and end with a 1x1 shack that is just too small to be useful. If you need to raise carpentry try building the large cart first and/or build wood items like a clay shaper, and improve them. You can even wait longer and get to carpentry 12 to make a 2x2 house.

• First, before you choose a location, are you interested in joining an existing settlement? If so ask some people there or ask in general chat if any settlements are looking for new recruits. This can make a lot of location problems a non-issue since you will already be settling on an established deed. If you will not be settling on an established deed then read on!

Be aware the risks of building on a non-deeded area. Hint: you could basically lose everything.

Most people build their first house on a non-deeded area. This is understandable since most people start the game as F2p. Additionally most players will respect other players houses and not deed too close but this isn't always true. In some cases the other player may simply think your house is abandoned, or he may have been scouting that area for a long time and feels justified deeding it. Either way it is important to understand what this means. While it is not possible for a player to deed an area over an existing player's house, it is possible for them to deed an area close by, and have their perimeter run right up to your house. Then after they have settled, they can expand their perimeter over your place. Again they can never actually expand their village border over your house and claim it, but once they have expanded their perimeter over your place, this causes a very increased decay rate of your house to a point where it will be very difficult for you to maintain it.

Once someone has expanded their perimeter over your house, it is pretty much over for your dwelling at that point, though you do have some options. One would be to simply ask the player to join his deed thus making you better off than you were before assuming they are friendly and reasonable. The other is to politely ask them to re-size and pull their perimeter back. This will cost them silver to do though and will cost them the wasted silver they used expanding it in the first place, so it should not be expected that they would do this. You can always try to take your matter to a GM but it is unclear how they will handle this. It will likely depend what server you are on, and what the intentions of the deed owners were.

In summary, be aware the risks involved of building on an non-deeded area. My advice is to simply make your first house small, away from others, and don't get too attached to it. That way you can later deed it if you want, but won't be devastated if the worse-case scenario happens.

Location, location, location!

With this I mean analyze your location before plunking down. A common mistake newbies make is building too close to someone else’s house, or perimeter. If you do that you will never be able make a deed later on to encapsulate your house and you may upset your neighbors in the event they had expansion plans. Additionally you run the risk of them expanding their perimeter over your place as mentioned above. I did this with my first house and it was frustrating because I put a lot of time and pride into that first house and later realized it could never be deeded on a settlement of my own since I built it too close to both another house and another settlement’s perimeter. Double click on the ground to see if it is in someone else’s territory then start counting from there how many tiles away you want it.

• Make sure any house tile of yours is at least 10 tiles between your house and: 1) any other settlement’s perimeter; and 2) anyone else’s house. That way you can claim the area later with your deed if you wish. 10 is the bare minimum though and that is cutting it close. You may want to go further out just in case they expand their territory. And if your hope is that one day your new house might be the exact center of your own settlement then you will want to build even further away. If you do eventually plop down a settlement token it will be a minimum 5 tiles deeded in every direction, and an additional 5 for the perimeter . So Including your center tile this will result in an area of 10 tiles out from the center of your settlement which needs to be free in order to make it your own claimed territory.

• Consider what you are looking for in a location. Do you want a mine but don’t want to dig a huge hole in the ground looking for rock? Then build by one of the public mines or areas with exposed rock. Like fishing and boating? Then look by the water, etc. Take your time and find a good dream location. You can’t undo the location of your house once you place it down. But you can modify the terrain any way you wish given enough time. Don’t worry about building near water for drinking purposes. Later on you can build a well or fountain on your own place.

• Don’t rule out abandoned places. A lot of areas have been settled and then abandoned long ago leaving large areas of nicely terraformed land. If their buildings and deeds are gone you can move in. While this takes some of the thrill out of terraforming the place from scratch, it will most likely already have plenty of flat land which makes it much easier if you are new and want to build. You can then terraform it later and radically redesign it in your own image.

Plan your fencing correctly, or you will get locked out of your house.

Don’t make the mistake I did when I first built and have an enclosed fence that surrounds your house. Because if you die and are unable to retrieve your body and lose the key to your gate fence, you cannot get back in to your house since you can’t get past the locked gate! You also won’t be able to knock the fence down either if you are new or f2p since you need a body strength of 21 to knock down fences or walls.

• If you are not on a deed either make a separate enclosed gated area where you can farm etc, or ideally make a front and back door on your house. Then have your house be the “gate” to the enclosed fence area that is connected to it. That way you can always get in and out of both your house since you don't need a key for that in a worst case scenario where you die and lose everything and can't retrieve your corpse.

• If you have access to copper then you can always copy your keys and put the spares in a bank to address this issue also.

• If you are the mayor of your own deed this isn't an issue since you can always get past locked gets on your own territory.

Plan your house correctly, or you will waste a lot of time and effort.

Once you build your house, that's it... You cannot move it or knock down a wall and expand it (though I heard house expansion will possibly be a future option). So really take time and think about what size you want, how doors you want, how many windows, what material etc.

• You can later knock down individual walls with body strength 21, but only to replace them with another wall.

• Another thing you don't realize when you are new is that you don't necessarily need to rush to build a roof. If you leave the roof off you can later build additional floors on top of it as your carpentry rises. Though having a roofless house does make it not so homely.

• A good strategy is to first build a small starter house on your optimal location. Then after you deed it work on your dream mansion, and have both.

Now on to the building.

Ok now that you have all this planning done, time to build! For that you can consult other articles on here on the process of actually building, such as this one: House Building Guide. Good luck!