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Help Topics

Otherworld takes place in the distant past, where bedsprings and spinning wheels are considered high tech. Everyone makes their own iron and steel, producing items such as tools, boats, and horse carts. No one has ever heard of such modern inventions as firearms, plastic, flying machines, or electricity. It's mostly a peaceful world – even though you might get mauled by a bear if you're unlucky. Otherworld contains some supernatural elements, such as wandering lost souls, and a mysterious creature called the wraith.
A unit is a flexible measurement of mass. It generally means the smallest meaningful amount of a resource that you can use. Splitting it into smaller parts would not serve a meaning anymore. For example, a unit of water is comparable to a small cup. The size of a unit can vary greatly between different resources. For salt, it's as small as 0.05, which corresponds to about a teaspoon, while for wood, it's 0.4, and for most hand tools, 2 units of wood is what is needed to make a handle. For berries, it's a handful. The largest amount of resources needed for an individual project is 10000 units. For resources other than stone or wood, it's generally not required to gather several thousand units, because in most cases, the amounts needed for a project never have more than two digits.
Characters can have a first name and last name, or just one name. It should not be a screenname. When creating a new character, you can generate a random name or come up with your own. If you play a child character, then your parent generally comes up with your name and you can change it as you mature.
When creating a new character (excluding guest accounts), you have access to a random description generator. Feel free to write your own description from scratch, or modify a random description. The developer prefers all characters to be human, but in practice this isn't being enforced, so there have been other species occasionally. You won't be punished for having an unrealistic description, but your description may be edited or blanked out without a prior warning if it breaks the immersion.
You gain XP for any action that uses AP or timers, and also for resolving random encounters and defeating people in combat, (as long as they weren't already Defeated). Once you gain enough XP, you level up and unlock new craftable items (up to level 17). Towards the end, the XP needed to level up grows exponentially, so it gets gradually harder to gain levels. Once you reach level 17, you will have unlocked all the content in the game. Any levels gained after that are purely cosmetic and do not grant extra benefits.
AP stands for action points. You can roughly assume that 5 AP corresponds to 1 minute of game time. When you do things that cost AP, in most cases, the results appear immediately. (Demolishing is an exception, as it requires both a timer and an initial setup cost.)
You recover 300 AP every hour as long as you have less than 300. Also once a day, you can collect 1000 bonus AP from the Messages page, as long as you have been playing for at least one day and did not just come out of vacation mode on the same day. You can also rest to gain AP as long as you're not starving or wounded.
Vacation mode means effectively removing your character from the flow of the game. You can enter vacation mode from your Profile page. While a character is in vacation mode, they do not generate bonus AP, they cannot see anything, cannot be played and are invisible to others. Characters maintain their inventory while in vacation mode. You can choose to return at any time. Inactive characters will automatically enter vacation mode if the player hasn't checked them in 8 days.
You can rest by selecting Rest from the Actions section in the side panel. Resting generates hunger. If your hunger is maxed out, you can no longer rest because your stomach is rumbling too bad. If you are wounded, resting is used to heal. If your health is maxed out, you start gaining AP as long as your AP is less than 300.
Character and animals gain hunger once a day. Additionally, characters gain hunger when they work on projects and while traveling. You can see your hunger status in the side panel (the stomach icon). If your hunger goes to 0, you start losing health. If an animal's hunger meter goes to 0, it can be taken into custody by an animal welfare agent, but this doesn't happen immediately, so you might still be able to rescue it by feeding it.
Characters and animals gain thirst when they travel. Water is used as 'fuel' for traveling. It's still possible to travel even if you have no water, but if your thirst meter reaches 0, you start losing health. If you have a waterskin, water inside will be consumed automatically when you travel. Nowadays, you will also drink out of cups or even directly out of your inventory. Domesticated animals use a travel bowl in a similar manner.
If you are traveling in a horsecart or a boat and there is a barrel on board, all characters inside will automatically consume water from the barrel (provided that there's any left). Also if you arrive in a town that has a barrel and you are thirsty, you will automatically drink from the barrel.
All human characters have 1000 HP by default. The blood drop indicator in the side panel shows how much health you have left. It's also possible to see a separate health bar when resting to regain health, or while in combat. You lose health if you are hit by people or animals, or if you are starving or fully thirsty. Animals can have varying amounts of max HP. If your health goes below the weakness limit (50 HP), you get Defeated, which means that for 20 minutes, anybody can steal items from your inventory. Previously, characters couldn't die at all, but now a player can optionally let their character die if the character is gravely injured.
The starting capacity is 40, which is very low. You can use containers to increase your capacity up to 300. Only the best 4 containers contribute to your carrying capacity. The weight of a container counts towards your inventory limit, so while it's possible to lift for example a large barrel while having increased capacity from other containers, in reality, you're better off using a backpack because it has a higher capacity to weight ratio.
You can harvest resources on the Gather page.
In the beginning of the game, all outdoors locations have resource deposits. Resource deposits are depletable, so once characters gather enough, the deposit is depleted and disappears from sight. Characters with a high enough level can look for lost resource deposits at the bottom of the page. If the key resource deposits are depleted in the early zones, you should use communal resources on the ground or trade with other characters until you level enough to search for lost deposits.
Mine tunnels can be used to introduce new resource deposits.
The harvestable icons can be found on the Gather page while outdoors. They are location- and character-specific and they are regenerated 6 times a day (but not at even intervals, so there can be longer stretches of time during which they are not renewed). The variety of resources depends on the location type. You can find wood, berries, mushrooms, seeds, bird eggs, water, or rotting material. It's also possible to draw a blank if you're unlucky. If you travel to a different location, new icons will be generated.
Leading can be used to take characters and animals to other locations, including buildings. Currently leading doesn't require the person's consent, so there's no way to stop it from happening. (It's completely based on an honor system.) However, if a character doesn't have drinking water, they will refuse to follow.
When traveling in groups, leading can be used as a means to conserve AP because only the leader spends AP, while the person being lead travels free (they do gain hunger and thirst). The person lead must fill the travel requirements for the location, but they can be lead into zones that they haven't unlocked yet.
Each zone has different unlock requirements, which must be filled in order to unlock it. The zones don't have to be unlocked in order, but you can only scout in the current zone and locations that have a connection to your current location, so even if you unlocked a distant zone, it remains unaccessible unless another character leads you there.
Scouting reveals locations in a random order. It's possible to fail at scouting if you're unlucky. Then the chances of finding a location are increased for subsequent attempts.
Scouting reveals the travel requirements for a particular location. Once you have filled the travel requirements, you can travel to that location. The first time you travel to a location, exploration AP is added to the cost. After that, you can travel to it at any time as long as you continue to have the required equipment.
If you are for example at a swamp and someone steals your wading boots, you can still travel away from there even without filling the requirements because it only checks the requirements for moving to a location, not moving away from it, but you can't go back unless you acquire new equipment. The exception is islands, which now require a boat or a raft to leave. This was changed to make it impossible to accidentally walk away from an island and leave your boat behind. If you are marooned on an island, you can always get wood through the random finds icons and eventually construct a raft, which is cheaper than a boat.
Cooked foods are more efficient at satisfying hunger than raw foods. When you view the contents of a pot or an oven, it includes a collapsible list of cookable or bakable items. Most vegetables and meat can be cooked as is, but more complicated recipes require Mixing.
Mixing is done in a pot or a mixing bowl. You need a minimum of 3 units of valid resources. In the past, the cooking recipes used to be a secret, but nowadays, you can view the mixing cookbook when viewing the contents of any mixing container. Additionally, if you defeat a Crazy Cook in combat, he will drop a page from a cookbook that describes a mixing recipe.
Mixing resources are divided into categories, such as vegetables, flour, etc. All resources within a category are interchangable and count towards the same quota. The result depends on the ratio between different categories. Common ratios are for example 1:1:1, 9:5:1, 8:1, 6:3:3. If a recipe is not recognized, it makes slop, which can be cooked to increase its nutritional value.
From the game's point of view, cooking and baking are two separate things, so you cannot for example make soup in an oven, or bread in a pot. Cooking uses wood from the ground, but currently baking in an oven requires putting the firewood inside the oven. If you fail to do so, the game will tell you what to do. All cooking and baking projects require 40 units of wood, regardless of how many things you are cooking.
Herbs can be used in the mixing process to add flavor to a recipe.
The optimal amount of herbs is 1 unit to every 3-6 units of other ingredients. If you exceed 1:3, the recipe will taste bad if mixed, but you can still save it by removing the excess herbs before clicking the mix button.
Different zones have a different selection of herbs. Herbs can be found by clicking the foraging icons on the Gather page.
You can access the craft menu through the Work page. On this page, you can also see all the uncompleted projects for that location. You can work on other people's projects. If the project has coins attached to it, you will be paid automatically upon completion. The results will go in the starter's inventory, provided that there's enough room.
Jobs can be offered by anyone level 14 or higher, who has enough what it takes to pay. Jobs have presets with their set wages. Most jobs pay with coins but there are a couple of exceptions that pay with food.
If there are jobs available, anyone can work on them and get paid for finishing them. They are primarily geared towards low level characters as a means of earning pocket money.
There are a couple of official trader characters, which have brown labels on the Interact page. Regular characters can gain Trader status by crafting and equipping a Trader badge (unlocks at level 16). Traders can be automatically traded with through the Interact page. Items have hardcoded prices. Traders apply a markup to their prices. Traders cannot refuse to buy or sell any items to anybody as long as they have a set price. The only exception is that you cannot buy items that are currently equipped by the trader.
Trader storage: Traders can set a storage, which can be any building (but preferably one with a lock that they have a key to). If the storage doesn't have a lock, anyone can just walk in and take things without paying. Any item sold will go in the set storage instead of the trader's inventory. If an official trader doesn't have a set storage and their inventory is full, they still accept to buy items but the item will be deleted, so be cautious when selling items that you intend to buy back later. Official traders can generate coins from thin air, whereas Player Traders have to acquire coins through other means (such as selling items, completing jobs or leading lost souls).
Currently there is just one livestock merchant. They sell domesticated animals, such as cows, chickens, and sheep. The animals are generated at the moment of buying and they have random names. You can rename them after buying.
Currently the ownership of livestock isn't hardcoded, so it's based on a verbal agreement between characters. Technically anyone can lead a domesticated animal or butcher them, but considering you can't permanently evade other people, it's better to stay in good terms with everyone.
Domesticated animals can be harvested for resources, such as milk, eggs, wool, and lard (pigs). Harvesting pigs for lard doesn't kill the animal (it is implied that you are making use of piglets and keeping the sow alive for breeding).
Domesticated animals have different food preferences depending on type. The easiest way to feed them is to put the food in the trough and click Feed on the Animals page. If you don't have a trough, you can just put food in the individual animal's inventory, but this requires a lot of micromanagement, especially with chickens, so a trough is recommended for anyone who keeps livestock longterm.
Horses can be purchased from the Livestock Merchant. Horses can pull a horse cart (unlocks at level 12). If the cart is too full of people or items, one horse can't get the job done and you have to hitch multiple horses or unload some of the weight. The percentage of capacity filled can be seen while inside the cart. Horses cannot be technically ridden, but feel free to RP doing so. When traveling with a horse, simply start leading it and it will follow you everywhere. You can also steer a horse cart from the inside.
Horses can carry a lot of stuff on their backs, so you can use a horse to carry stuff even if you don't have a horse cart. The downside is you can't lock a horse, so anyone can steal the items (or the horse itself).
Tags are visible in characters' profiles and also during combat. Currently, the possible tags are: Scarred, Defeated, Evil, and Alert. There used to be a Surrendered tag but it got turned off, because everyone deserves a chance to fight back.
You gain Scarred status if your HP goes below 50. It has a very long duration, so you can consider it practically permanent.
You gain Defeated status if your HP goes below 50 while in combat or due to being attacked by an animal. Defeated status lasts 20 minutes. During that time, anyone can steal items from your inventory.
Characters gain Evil status if they attack someone who is already Defeated, because there's no point in beating someone who is already down. Evil status is effectively permanent.
Characters gain Alert status if they are attacked by another person. While a character is Alert, they are 10% more likely to dodge or parry any subsequent attacks on them until the effect wears out. Alert doesn't protect you if you're the aggressor, only if you're the defender.
Characters become Distracted if the player hasn't logged in in 5 days and the character is not in vacation mode. When distracted, others can see the contents of your inventory.
Animal encounters can have the tag Resolved. It either means the animal got killed or ran away (it doesn't differentiate between them).
Combat is a work in progress, so it can still be changed until we find a version that works. All fights are 1-on-1.- You can initiate combat from the Interact menu. When you first click on it, you see which weapon you and the opponent are using and current HP for both. Characters automatically use the best weapon in their inventory, regardless of what is equipped. This is because defenders can disarm the attacker if the attacker rolls a fumble, and use the weapon against them in future rounds of combat.
There's a cooldown of 60 minutes, during which you cannot attack the same target (but others can still attack them).
Characters that are hiding cannot participate in combat. Defenders will automatically attempt to flee in the beginning of combat if the attacker has a higher intimidation than them, and at the end of the round if the defender has less HP left than the attacker. So the best strategy for keeping a defender from running is to let them believe they are winning - which can be hard as either party can potentially miss, so the tables can turn quickly.
If you manage to defeat your opponent, you can confiscate items from their inventory.
Items can be confiscated by anybody if a character is Defeated. If they are Intimidated by someone, the intimidating character can also confiscate items. Every time you confiscate an item, the target character has a 10% chance of running and hiding. The option will appear in the Interact menu and in the character profile if the conditions are met. In the past, it was possible to confiscate items from Distracted characters, but now you can only view what they are carrying, while removing items is unavailable.
Buildings, carts, boats and certain containers can have locks. Locks come with an associated key, that can be copied if desired. When a lock is locked, the building cannot be entered or exited (excluding the keyholder) and containers cannot be looted or looked inside.
Building locks cannot be broken from the outside, so currently the only way to gain access to inside is to either be locked up by the keyholder or defeating the keyholder in combat and taking the key.
Nowadays, if you have a key to a building, you can walk through the lock, even if it's locked. (It is assumed that you unlock it just long enough to pass through.) You can also lead others through a locked door, and leave them locked inside if you want.
If you are locked inside a building, cart, or boat, you can attack ("bash") the lock. This will cause you some damage from recoil but eventually, the lock will pop open and you walk free. The lock can be repaired to restore it's lockability, but if it's not repaired within a reasonable time, it will be purged from the game.
When a person builds a sublocation (house, horse cart, boat, raft...), they automatically become the owner of it. If the project starter and the person who finishes the project are two different people, the project starter will become the owner if present. If not, the person who finishes the project will become the owner.
The owner can appoint a heir and one or more guests. The heir and guests can enter and exit the sublocation even when it's locked, as long as the owner is in possession of the key.
The owner can revoke or alter heir or guest status at any point.
If the owner enters vacation mode (or dies) without having a heir, the property will effectively enter vacation mode and become inaccessible. If there is at least one heir, who is not in vacation mode or dead, they will inherit ownership. If the previous owner is holding a key to the sublocation, it will be passed to the first eligible heir. If there are multiple copies of the key, they will be handed out to heirs one at a time as long as supplies last.
If the old owner returns from vacation mode, the sublocation will be restored to its original location.
The owner can give anyone in town any status, including owner and no access. While multiple people can have owner status at the same time, nothing stops one of them from booting the others.
In the new system, a player who would like to play a child places a request. There is a link in the hub, only visible to players with a confirmed email address.
Existing characters can go to the adoption page through a button in their profile (located above the go on vacation button). You must be level 14 or higher to become a parent but even lower level characters can see how many requests are pending. Anyone regardless of gender can become a parent, as long as their level is high enough. Select a pending request, give the child a name and a baby will be generated. The baby will go in your inventory if there is enough room. Otherwise, they land on the ground.
The baby loses health when you travel, gather resources or craft while carrying them. Their object name will reflect their health level. There is a care button that when clicked, restores the baby's health to 100% at no cost. You can also place the baby on the ground or inside a container, but it may be kidnapped or harmed by bad people, so the safest option is to keep them in your inventory.
The child's player is sent an email informing them that the child has been born. The player has up to 7 days to claim the character. On the 6th day, they are sent a reminder if still unclaimed. On the 7th day, the baby dies. The player still has to dismiss the expired request before they can try again.
Demolishing ground items unlocks at level 10 and demolishing sublocations at level 16. You get back 80% of resources that were used to manufacture the item. If the item is not in the craft menu, it currently cannot be demolished. (This might change later.) Also, stackable resources and components are immune to demolishing. Demolishing takes both AP and time. If the item costs 600 or more AP to demolish, it costs 40 seconds per AP to demolish. If it costs more than 200 AP, it costs 10 seconds per AP, if more than 100 AP, it costs 5 seconds per AP. Anything less costs 2.5 seconds per AP. It gets rounded upwards to the nearest 10 seconds.
If a building is unlocked when you begin demolishing, but locked when you finish, the demolition will fail. To save yourself from disappointments, it's recommended that you bash the lock before attempting to demolish a building, even if it's unlocked. And while it's possible to pause demolishing, you can't leave the location or the progress is lost.
The intimidation system has gone through many rewrites over the course of the game. In the original form, anyone could attempt to intimidate anybody and if successful, access their inventory and command them to gather resources. This was removed very early on. Characters can still see their intimidation score in their profile, and they can still attempt to intimidate animals. Things like masks and weapons increase your intimidation score.
There is a special character called the wraith that can automatically teleport to the location of a recently created character and intimidate another character in the same location who has been inactive the longest. Currently, this system is turned off, but characters still feel cold shivers when they would have otherwise triggered the wraith.
In the new child character system, parents start off with dominance over the child character, allowing them to access the child's inventory, dress them up and have them gather resources. The child can attempt to claim independence. Once successful, the parent cannot restablish dominance. The parent can choose to break dominance early if they consider the child independent enough not to require management.