Work, trade and home life

Everything on this page opens from one menu: Village life, More to do, Work, trade and home life. You can also type /lifework. Each part is also reachable from the place it belongs to: Work and jobs, the bank desk, the Palmera Bay blacksmith, the land menu, your food stand menu and the home menu.

Points paid by town supply contracts, patron commissions and the ranger's bounties share one limit of 1000 points a day. Once it is used up, those still give village standing, titles and trophies. Nothing here ever gives credits.

Your career ladder

Every trade has six ranks, taken from your mastery level in that trade: Apprentice (levels 1 and 2), Journeyman (3 and 4), Craftsman (5 and 6), Expert (7 and 8), Master (9) and Grandmaster (10). All the work you have ever done counts.

Reaching Craftsman gives the title Skilled (trade), for example Skilled Angler; Master gives Master Angler; Grandmaster gives Grandmaster Angler and a medal for your trophy cabinet, and the village hears about it.

Read your ladder from Work and jobs, Your career ladder, or type /career. Your rank is also said at the top of the Work and jobs menu.

Mastery now helps in more trades: miners find rough gems more often (4 in 100 rising to 8.5), farmers get a small extra chance of a choice harvest, beekeepers get beeswax more often (60 in 100 rising to 78), and cooks plate good food more often.

The jeweller trade

A new trade you can take up from Work and jobs. Every rough gem you cut and every gem you set counts; five make a full shift, paid 900 points.

Town supply contracts

Rosa's Kitchen, the Mill Bakery, Hobb's Hunting and Tools, Wren's Tailoring, Marigold the Florist and the Apothecary each post one contract a day, the same for everybody. They want raw goods: fish, grain and crops, ore, hides and leather, flowers, herbs and honey.

Bring the goods and choose the contract; the goods are used up. Pay is 7 to 60 points a piece plus a fifth, and 10 village standing. You can fill each business's contract once a day. Things sold in the points shop are never asked for.

10 contracts give the title Trusted Supplier, 50 a brass plaque, 150 the title Purveyor to the Village and a pair of silver scales. Type /contracts.

Patron commissions

Eight patrons order finished goods: Lady Amelia (jewellery and cut gems), Master Brandt (glass, pots and bars), Captain Hale (fish and bait), Chef Marcel (cooked dishes), Doctor Imogen (salves, remedies and honey), Wren the tailor (hides, leather and jackets), Steward Pell (crops and flowers) and Brother Tomas (honey, wax and grain).

You get three offers a day. Accept one, then deliver everything it asks for within 48 hours. One at a time; giving one up costs nothing. Finer work appears once you are a Journeyman in the patron's trade and pays half as much again.

Pay is up to 900 points, and each commission gives 25 village standing, 40 for fine work. Five commissions for one patron win their seal of favour for your trophy cabinet; fifteen teach you their own gesture, an emote. Ten commissions in all give the title Artisan of the Village, fifty give Master Craftsman of the Realm and a golden chisel. Type /commissions.

The village cooperative

Every Monday the cooperative posts one big order for the whole village: fish, crops, ore, flowers, honey and herbs, or wood, in turn. Anybody can bring any amount; the goods are not given back.

When the order is filled, everybody who brought at least 10 gets 2 points for each piece they brought, at most 300, plus 30 village standing and the Cooperative's brass badge. Whoever brought the most earns the title Pillar of the Cooperative. Helping to fill ten orders gives Heart of the Cooperative. An order not filled by Sunday night pays nothing. Type /coop.

The ranger's bounties and your hunting lodge

Two bounties a day, the same for everybody: cull four pythons, wolves, boars or coyotes, or two lions, bears, leopards or mutated wolves, anywhere. Each finished bounty pays 150 points and 10 village standing. Twenty bounties give the title Friend of the Rangers.

Your hunting lodge counts every wild animal you kill and every catch in your snares. 25 of one kind give the title of its hunter, for example Wolf Hunter; 100 give a mounted trophy. 100 in all give the title the Hunter, 500 Master of the Hunt and a silver horn, 2000 Legend of the Wilds. Type /bounties.

Fishing honours

Specimens: a fish in the top sixth of the weight its kind can reach. Your first specimen of each kind goes into your trophy cabinet with its weight. Five kinds give the title the Specimen Hunter, twelve give Keeper of Giants and a trophy wall.

Records: breaking a server record puts it in your trophy cabinet and gives the title Record Breaker.

The Angler's Almanac: your first fish of every river and lake kind adds a page to this collection. A full almanac gives the title the Complete Angler.

Species cups: every week three kinds of fish have a cup. The heaviest of each kind landed with a rod by Sunday night wins the title of that cup's champion, for example Pike Cup Champion, a cup for the trophy cabinet and 40 village standing. No entry fee.

The fish of the week (Fish of the week, Village life, Fishing) now also gives its winner a trophy and the title Champion of the Waters.

The jeweller's bench, deep seams and geodes

With a jeweller's kit in your bag you can set cut gems in gold: an amethyst ring, ruby ring, sapphire pendant or emerald brooch takes one cut gem of that kind and one gold bar; a diamond tiara takes two cut diamonds, three cut quartz and two gold bars.

Your chance of a clean setting is 70 per cent plus 3 for every jeweller mastery level, at most 97. A slip cracks only the gems to dust; the gold is kept. Using a piece of jewellery shows it off to everybody within 12 steps. Making all five pieces gives the title the Goldsmith.

Ore dug below ground level, in the deep galleries of the crystal caves, gives rough gems three times as often, and 3 times in 100 a geode. Use a geode with a hammer in your bag to crack it: 1 to 3 rough gems, and 4 times in 100 a star ruby for your collection.

The Jeweller's Case collection: your first cut quartz, amethyst, emerald, sapphire, ruby and diamond, and the star ruby. The full case gives the title the Gem Keeper and a velvet case.

The big furnace

At the Palmera Bay blacksmith's counter: smelt iron, copper, tin or gold ore into bars in bulk, up to 20 bars at a time and 100 a day. Two ore make one bar, no firewood needed. The fee is 15 points a bar, 40 for gold. Your chance for each bar is 75 per cent plus 2 for every smithing mastery level, at most 95; a failed bar loses its ore as slag. Every good bar counts as smithing work.

New crops and the seasons

Four new crops: potatoes, rice, sugar cane and tomatoes. Their seeds are in the points shop. Potatoes and rice are harvested once and give two seeds back; sugar cane and tomatoes grow back.

The seasons follow the real calendar. A crop in its own season grows a fifth faster. Spring: potatoes, strawberries, tulips, lavender, red and white roses. Summer: tomatoes, watermelons, sunflowers, peaches, berries, yellow roses. Autumn: apples, grapes, wheat, rice, oranges, saplings. Winter: sugar cane, coconuts, mangoes, grafted saplings. The season almanac is in the Work, trade and home life menu.

New recipes: three potatoes with a skillet and sunflower oil over a fire make french fries; two potatoes in a pot over a fire make roast potatoes; three rice in a pot over a fire make steamed rice; two steamed rice with a skillet and an egg over a fire make fried rice; four sugar cane in a pot over a fire make sugar; four tomatoes in a pot over a fire make tomato soup; fresh pasta with two tomatoes over a fire makes pasta with tomato sauce; milk with a jar of honey makes two honey milks.

Animals and the barn

One bottle of animal medicine now cures every sick animal in your household, yours and your partner's, not just one.

When one of your animals falls sick, gets hungry or leaves, you are told wherever you are; if you are away, it waits for you when you log in, and your partner is told too.

Household bills and direct debit

When a day's bill arrives while you play, you get a letter with the amounts and what that home owes. The login summary says what each home owes.

Direct debit pays your bills from the points you carry as they come, when you log in and every hour while you play, including the fee to reconnect a cut line. Nothing is paid if you do not have enough; you are told instead. Switch it on in Bills, power and water in your home, at the bank desk, or in the Work, trade and home life menu.

Home ratings and the home of the week

Inside somebody else's home, press shift and enter and choose Rate this home: one to five stars, once a week for each home. Every Monday the home with the best average from at least three visitors becomes home of the week: a trophy, the title Keeper of a Beloved Home and 50 village standing. Owners can hear this week's average from their home menu.

Land improvements

For land claimed with a land deed, or your own private field; your partner's land counts. Each is bought once and lasts.

Hive terraces, 12000 points: keep five beehives instead of three, as long as the fourth and fifth stand on your own land or in your own field.

Wildflower meadow, 8000 points: your hives on your own land or in your own field always work as fast as hives among wild flowers.

Open them from the land menu or the Work, trade and home life menu.

Market stalls and food stands

When you put something up at your market stall, every item in the list now says what it has sold for lately and the most you may ask.

Walk-in customers: while you stand within 8 steps of your own food stand, a customer comes every four to eight minutes and buys something from your board that you have in your bag, paying your price less the town's tenth. Customers have a budget, so very dear dishes do not sell, and they will not pay more than half the shop price for anything the shop sells. Walk-in takings stop at 600 points a day. Every 25 walk-ins add a star to your stand, up to five, and more stars bring richer customers. 100 walk-ins give the title Favourite of the Street, 500 a painted sign.

The charity chest

At the bank desk. Put in a lot of up to 50 of one thing; anybody can take one lot a day, but never their own, and the giver is told. Givers earn the title Kind Heart at 10 lots and Pillar of Charity with a ribbon at 50. Type /charity.

Where my money went

At the bank desk or in the Work, trade and home life menu: your money book for the last seven days, grouped into wages, contracts, trading, bills, travel, games, gifts, the bank, fines and rewards, with the totals in and out. Type /moneybook.

Alerts

Work and home alerts, in the Work, trade and home life menu: a chime when you can take another express parcel, a reminder at ten at night if you have not drawn your wage (it lapses at midnight), a note when a new work board notice wants something you carry (off at first; also switchable on the work board), and a letter for every new household bill.

The ore detector now has four sounds: far, near, very near, and right on a vein.

Commands

/lifework opens the whole menu. /career, /contracts, /commissions, /coop, /bounties, /charity and /moneybook open their parts directly.