Homestead Secrets

[YoukaiMori]

So, from what I gathered, you can only use a guide a single time to try to get to a friend's homestead.

From what I experienced, after trying to use the guide, I ended up having to cycle through 5 random places (presumably places with the same homestead secret), and after 5 tries, I was **** out of luck, I get no other chance.

So, is the ONLY WAY I can get another chance at joining my friend, to create a brand new character and abandon the 10 or so hours playtime I had on my other character all because of this awful system?

[dmdisco]

uhm if i understod you correct then yes, when you have used your free teleport you cant use it again and have to make a new char if you want another.

[Sachaztan]

You could of course walk to his homestead

[CockyBastard]

You could of course walk to his homestead

Haha, it would probably take 10 hours, don't worry - transfer your loot, you haven't missed out on much. You keep this char as a nice 10hours alt.

[Bait]

So, from what I gathered, you can only use a guide a single time to try to get to a friend's homestead.

From what I experienced, after trying to use the guide, I ended up having to cycle through 5 random places (presumably places with the same homestead secret), and after 5 tries, I was **** out of luck, I get no other chance.

So, is the ONLY WAY I can get another chance at joining my friend, to create a brand new character and abandon the 10 or so hours playtime I had on my other character all because of this awful system?

If he gives you 5 different places, you did it wrong.

Talk to guide -> type HS in to the bottom box -> hit enter -> click button that replaces that box.



To be honest, your first 10 hours of your first char, is probably doable in an hour, on a second one. You could always just walk to your friend, and study **** on the way though.

Good luck.

[fabbra1975]

I don't understand why new players are so reluctant to walk to their friends. I mean, with a new charachter there is not so many useful things to do than walking, foraging, hunting stumps for hides, collecting savage charms .... Walking is the only way to go, and you need some distance to make foraging effective ...

[MagicManICT]

The problem with walking is that the other person needs to be online to find the exact spot, otherwise if one isn't an experienced "wilderness roamer", they could easily get lost. Add in some of the mountains and such and you could be looking at a day or two of nothing but walking.

If you're worried about nobody being online and losing your way, make a second account, make an alt, join your friend with that alt, and then use your alt as a beacon.

Odds of why it didn't work are either the player input the homestead secret wrong (forgot to push the Enter key after typing the pass) or the friend with the homestead doesn't actually have a claim set as their homestead. To note, if done right, you will be transported there or get an error message--"Secret does not exist;" "Not a valid homestead" (or something like that if they only have a lean-to); or "not enough room" and you can try again (the random spot was occupied).

Will it take 10 hours? Not unless you make it 10 hours. I don't think it takes 10 hours to walk from Boston to the edge of the map (might take 15-20 if you have to go around large terrain features). Most people are within a couple hours walk of the starting city from a wilderness spawn.

To be quite honest, I have usually used the first 4-10 hours of a new character (after server resets during beta) to just wander the wilderness, as there's no reason to be in one location. I'd usually go on a long walk and find what I could. When I finally got enough skills to need to start building permanent structures and capped out easy humors from foraged foods, I'd finally use my wilderness teleport. I'd then walk some more because that spot was rarely ideal. (This has changed now. Best to just use the wilderness transport and then wander looking for the ideal place to settle.)

[Yourgrandmother]

My first 6 hours of Salem involved me porting to my wilderness leanto on a giant mountain. My friend then invited me to his party and told me to 'follow the arrow.' Several days and 6 hours of combined playtime and it seemed that I had gone nowhere, sometimes walking east in one direction for over an hour before I could find a climbable ridge to advance a couple minimap tiles in my friends direction. I lived like a nomad foraging as I went, making rock moraccas and strawmen. Life was hard and brutal and I longed for my friend company. Eventually I gave up and ported to Roanoke only to continue my journey to my friend as the 'mountain of doom' was near impassable for me. Several hours of adventure, building leanto's along the route and I had arrived at my friends camp. A sawbuck, a fire pit a couple of boxes and a whitler's bench.

Thus began my Salem life.

[MagicManICT]

Bleh!! What a horrid start! A lesser man--heck, a sane man!--would have left after that frustration. (I'm still here and we've had the discussion about my sanity before if anyone has the inclination to feel insulted.)

[qbradq]

Walking for hours is something you're going to do in Salem. Just do it

If you use a wilderness port and set up shop there chances are you're going to move sooner rather than later. Once you understand the resource needs of the game better it will become clear to you. I personally spent 8 hours over two days walking around in one giant circle looking for greener pastures, and eventually settled not a 30 minute walk from where the wilderness guide ported me. But that experience learned me a great many things, most of which are hard to teach.

Consider hours of wandering the wilds as a sot of progression in and of itself.