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Mining in Valheim genuinely scares meAn absolute oredeal
An absolute oredeal
Yes, viking survival simValheimis supposedly about being ferried to purgatory, but it’s actually quite a relaxing place. My friends and I still get together every week, not only to ensure that thebees are still happy, or check if we canfinally grow carrots, but to kick back and catch up in its peaceful world.
In our most recent adventures, however we discovered how to mine ore; a huge moment for the clan. It promised new, exotic riches: bronze helmets, a bronze dagger, a bronze sword! How innocent we were, revelling in our new found power. Little did we know that mining would be fraught with so many terrors.
Valheim Early Access Date Reveal TrailerWatch on YouTube
Valheim Early Access Date Reveal Trailer
Mining is different in different games. I’ve been playing a bit ofFinal Fantasy XVof late. It’s a JRPG in which you go on a road trip with some fashionable chums. Quite different from Valheim, then. But just like in Viking-land, I can wander up to rocks, press buttons, and ore will appear in my inventory.
In FFXV my character does that anime “yuh”, or, like, over-excited “huh, what’s this?” as they engage the collect_resource_ animation.exe file, stoop down, and swipe the air with their hands. There is no pickaxe needed; this gentle motion of arm through breeze is enough to part mineral from stone.
There are other games where mining might require an actual tool, but the physical act of hammering pick on stone would rather you not be involved. It’s like, “hey, could you, like, do something else while I do this, yeah?”. InRuneScapeyou press right click and are actively encouraged to leave your PC running while you go outside to feed flocks of geese with bread crumbs, or draw funny shapes in the condensation on your window. Once you’ve completed these real life activities, you return to game X, stare at the piles of ore you’ve gathered, mindlessly sweep them into your bag, then repeat the process. This time, there will be fewer geese, and less space in which to write “your mum” backwards.
Ragnar and I doing a spot of mining. We are both afraid.
In Valheim, the process doesn’t only actively involve you, it’s downright terrifying. Once our viking clan had finally got hold of some pickaxes, we’d trudged into the Black Forest in search of ore deposits. In this dark, foreboding place, we were in search of big, bulbous orbs that jutted from the earth, and were ripe for popping. But to burst them, we couldn’t just press right click and switch off, we had to repeatedly clatter our picks into them.
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