As we mentioned in a previous edition, our item shop has been given a make-over, not just in terms of appearance, but also in the increased selection of fun things that our players will soon be able to choose from. Coming soon, for example, you will find a new ‘Pets’ section and a ‘Toys’ section.

What kinds of pets? All kinds! Want your own Bog Frog or Shadow Ux to follow you around? How about your own personal Dragon or a Sinistisha? Or even the quartet of dreaded gargoyle Elder Bosses: Jadister, Ignim, Novacore, and Obsidion. Companion pets brighten the world, and our players will soon have a good many to choose from!

And just wait till you get a load of the toy section! Fireworks of all colors can now be purchased, which give off a dazzling display of light and sound. Players can celebrate whenever and wherever they want. And we know how much you all love to dance, which is why we’ve also created a special ‘Clockwork Dancebot’ for any who feel like throwing an all-out boogie party. Get ready for a world of fun!

Our incredibly talented community, create, not just works of art, but also invaluable web sites which are of tremendous benefit to the players of Villagers & Heroes. Recently, members of the DE server have devoted their energies into creating a German Wiki, while the US 1 guild, ‘Legends Reborn’ has built an equally informative site. Both are wonderful resources for the game, and we encourage you all to utilize the wealth of knowledge presented in them!

Here from the DE server, is HolyTony to describe the German Wiki in greater detail:

After introducing the Reborn patch a couple of months ago things quieted down a bit when the mods on the German server reminded us of the Wiki that had been lying dormant for quite some time. Everybody can access this database and it is a great opportunity for all players to pass on their knowledge about Villagers & Heroes, so that other players can use their tips and tricks in the game.
For new players, the Wiki offers a wealth of useful information about everything they need to know about the Seven Realms. Experienced players can on the one hand pass on what they know, and on the other hand, they can refresh their memories and check out information, e.g. during Reborn. They can read about quests they have to complete, which may have been changed since the last time or which they last did months or even years ago.
It took a group of very dedicated people only a month to increase the number of pages in the Wiki from 56 to over 1200 – and there is no end in sight.
I want to thank each and every one of them for their hard work – You are great!
And now it is time to show you some examples of what we have achieved so far:

Moreover, players from the German community support our efforts by sending me emails. They take screenshots of Zingaras or interesting, funny or pleasant events which we try to integrate into the Wiki. We even have some new “editors” who add new information.

The cover page is a perfect example for what the Wiki can offer. Apart from a list of all zones, pictures, npcs, bounties, crafting sites and gathering sites, there are Wiki pages for all classes, pages about crafting, gardening and farming as well as information about quests, outfits, house perks and so much more. The Ardent ledger inspired us to add gifs that give visitors a good impression of what to expect in Villagers and Heroes-Wikia

Integrated into the Wiki is a live chat that can be accessed via computer or cellphone. We have a “mob of the day”, we can do polls, there is a quick link to the forum and new information is added regularly. Due to the search option it is easy to find out more about e.g. Valuna’s quest, charters and all kinds of stuff.

The game changed and got more complicated over the last years and hopefully there is more to come. Therefore we plan to update and expand the Wiki as necessary. We hope to increase our knowledge bit by bit and look forward to further help in our endeavor from the community. Just one example what we want to add is a complete list of all active guilds, and a chance for them to introduce themselves to new and old players.
Everything I wrote surely shows that the German Wiki is not a solitary project but comes to life only because WE work together.
So there are plenty of reasons to check out the German Villagers & Heroes Wiki.
We hope to see you soon and that you enjoy what we created so far.

–Tony

And here from US 1, is Armageddon to provide more details about the web site, “Villagers and Heroes Guide.” at uaguide.webs.com:

This website was founded for the sole purpose of assisting the community by providing relevant information in an organized manner. Legends Reborn (formally United Arms) and I began production of the website in May. It’s been a long and difficult journey with plenty of lapses without updates, but the end result, we believe, has been worth the wait.

So far we’ve been able to add in a variety of tips ranging from Skill charts to Leveling Guides, all of which can be seen from the home page. The creative process is simple, we garner some ideas for a new Project, we collect the data and information through polls or spreadsheets and then I add everything onto the website and change things around according to feedback from Guild members and friends. We hope that the community of this terrific game can find a use for whatever information is presented on the Website, as that has been our goal from day 1.

Any feedback from viewers is encouraged as we do take suggestions and corrections to heart in order to supply the best resource we possibly can. Since being released publicly on the forums the website has tallied many more views than I ever expected: from 237 total views throughout July (before public reveal) to 916 views so far in August (after the reveal). It’s great to see our investment has paid off, and we’re planning to continue to expand and update the website in conjunction with the game’s patches.
–Armageddon

Name: Majenta
Position: Moderator on EU 1 and forums

How is it that you became a game moderator, and what made you want to do it in the first place? I really enjoy the game, and when it launched on Steam, there was a post on the forums asking experienced players to log onto the new US2 server to help new players. I wasn’t working at the time, so I created a char called Tindal on US2 and stood around in Oak Valley answering questions. The first night there was a glitch that meant the sheep in Oak didn’t give any fleece, so I spent the time making fleece from wool and giving it out to chars who couldn’t complete the quest from Laurken.

In time I joined a guild (Neverwinter) and it was fun being able to help the new players – my guildies even nicknamed me “Wiki-Tin.” I wasn’t really bothered about levelling, so mostly I hung around Ardent answering questions. I guess it seemed like I knew the game really well, but actually it was just that I had done most of the quests quite recently (all three of my chars on EU were around lvl 30 to 40). Either way, the existing moderators noticed me, and when Mad Otter decided to recruit moderators for all the servers, including the EU1 server where I normally play, they suggested I should apply. I did, and here I am.

In real life, you are a teacher. What subject(s) do you teach, and do your students have any idea that you are an avid gamer? Have you ever bumped into a student in the game? My main subject is Physics, but I also teach Maths and even some Chemistry. For about 25 years I taught in a Secondary school (ages 11 -18) in Scotland, but now I mainly do private tutoring.

Do my pupils know I am a gamer? Yes, many of them do. In fact, at one stage I gained minor cult status since (I believe) I was the first person in the school to complete Final Fantasy 8, and for a while I had kids regularly coming up to my room to ask how to get past a particular boss. As a teacher I have always found that shared interests in things like computer games are a huge boost, especially with boys, and many times I found it useful to be able to chat to kids on their level about something they were good at and interested in. That said, when kids asked to know my gamertag on Xbox I always refused. Prior to playing Villagers and Heroes I mostly played single player games anyway. I have met one of my students in V and H, but I don’t think he is still playing.

As a moderator who frequently assists new players, you are probably asked a lot of the same questions. In your opinion, what are the top two or three questions that you hear most often from new players? There are a few here. Most experienced players will recognize them. One of the most common is “How do I gain Scruffles trust?” usually followed by “Where is Greenhaven?” Variations on “What are zogs for?” “Where is the zog redeemer?” and “ How do I get to trader’s refuge?” are also common. “Where do I get/buy potatoes?” is another common one. Since Reborn, two other often heard questions are “Does anyone know where to find Arcadius’ pickaxe?” and “How do I get to my house?”

What aspects about Villagers & Heroes first drew you to the game, and what is it that keeps you playing? OK, so the thing you have to remember here is I’m Scottish, so this is not as bad as it sounds – we Scots are careful about spending money (that’s how we like to describe it – others usually just say mean). The truly honest answer about what first drew me to the game is the words “Free to Play,” and funnily enough the description of the game as “casual.” Once I started playing, I knew almost immediately that this was a game I was prepared to spend money in, and that I would be playing a lot, not just as a casual player. There were so many funny, quirky touches to it. I still remember laughing out loud the first time I collected eggs from my chicken Hortense and she gave this horrified cluck and sped across the pen with feathers flying.

There are really two sides to what keeps me in the game. I love the fact that I can log in and just do whatever I want, whether that is crafting, gathering, exploring, hunting or just chatting and joking with guildies. I’m not into power levelling – quite the reverse, in fact, but I love that I can always be doing something that gets me further into the game. I love that I can play solo sometimes, or party up and have a blast running zones with friends. And when I’m tired, I can just spend an hour or so fishing or collecting wood etc. The second thing that keeps me playing is, of course, the community. I have made so many real friends in the game that I would hate to leave.

In addition to being a moderator, you are also a tester for the game. What is testing like? Do you enjoy it? Testing is obviously a different sort of challenge. You aren’t playing the game, you’re trying to break it (Well, find bugs that break it). Sometimes it can be frustrating, but at least you know that every bug that is found in testing is one less problem that players will have when the build goes live. Plus I’m one of those (sad) people who actually likes accumulating lots of data and analyzing it, and I even enjoy number crunching, so I enjoy the testing.

Do you have a favorite class of character to play, and, if so, what aspects do you find most appealing about it? I play all four classes across the various different servers, and I enjoy playing all of them. It really just depends on my mood which one I will play on any particular day. Sometimes I feel like getting right into the middle of the mobs slugging it out with my warrior, whilst on other days I like to freeze foes with my ice spells, but I still think of my priest as my “main” character. She is built as a pure holy priest, and can solo well above level (though boy is it slow) but by far the most fun I have had in the game has been hunting with her in a party.

I love the fact that she can strengthen a party, even when the other chars are well above her level, or can escort a lower level through zones they would find difficult to survive otherwise. The other really cool thing about a priest has got to be divine hammer. You gotta love the hammer. It still makes me smile every time I use it. I also like to think she is quite a good priest. Sadly, although I do enjoy playing a hunter as well, I have to admit I don’t think I’m such a good hunter, and my hunter is my most neglected character.

When you’re not teaching or playing V&H, what other activities do you enjoy? I play (field) hockey, though not so much now since the effect of the heavy impact running on Astro turf pitches is beginning to tell on my knees, and I go hill walking when I can. I also read a lot, and I have always had a fascination for History – one consequence of which is that the names of all my characters in V and H are in some way or other related to Napoleon or his sister Pauline.

Your Skype picture is of a rather elegant looking dog. Please tell us a little about him/her. That’s Brucie, who was my family’s dog when I was growing up. He was a total mongrel – his mother was a collie, and from his colouring his father was most likely a Jack Russell – but a he was an ideal pet for a family.

What feature would you most like to see added to Villagers & Heroes? I’d like to be able to go into your house, and decorate it with items you’d gained, hang armour and weapons on the walls, have chests etc to place items …

What is one of the most memorable (i.e amusing, bizarre, etc.) experiences that you’ve had in V&H? One slightly strange experience was when a fellow guildie asked if any of the guild were good at Physics. He had some homework to do. What made it more peculiar was that he isn’t an English speaker, so he was having to translate the questions using Google Translate, which of course wasn’t really much good for what was essentially technical vocabulary, and I was also having to try to work out what level of study he was doing so I didn’t get him in trouble by giving him a solution he hadn’t been taught. Still, when I started playing I never thought I‘d be helping guildies with their Physics homework. He never asked me again, so I’ve always been a little worried that I got it wrong anyway!

Everyone has a favorite quote, be it from a book, movie, writer, historical figure, etc. What is yours? Just one? That’s hard. I could give dozens, but I’ll settle for this one, mainly because it sort of fits with moderating as well.

“To teach is to learn twice over”

Joseph Joubert