Valheim - a viking multiplayer exploration and survival game by Coffee Stain

My DM gifted me and rest of his players this game. What is the best way to play together? (dedicated server but barring that)

Just have someone spin up a world and join them? Does that world only exist on the hosts machine there-after?

the best is is someone has a machine that they can set as a dedicated host/server - this way the server is always there anytime anyone wants to play. You can play without a dedicated host by joining a person, but you wont be able to play when they’re offline.

You can probably find other servers out there you can use - there’s likely thousands of scantly populated ones available, but you’ll be subject to these just going offline one day and taking your collective world with them.

If no one has a host they can use, you could probably pick one up somewhere pretty cheap

lol, i just did a search and Free Valheim Server Hosting - ScalaCube is offering free hosting. No idea if it’s any good or not, but the price cant be argued with…

I am running a paid server on Scalacube. The free server is just one player.

Scalacube seems to be fine except for one thing. I accidently misspelled my email address and when I couldn’t get on the sever for a password issue I had no way to contact the company as you have to be logged in to email them.

I had to create a free account and then was able to contact them and they moved my server to the new account.

Huh. What is the point of a server of one player?

I think they do that as a trial of the service and you could then upgrade the server.

So it turns out this game runs like ass on my machine. I tried turning down all the graphics settings but performance didn’t really improve all that much at all so I am wondering if it is something else?

Anyway my D&D group (5 of us) had our first session in Valheim last night. We built a house and explored most of the meadows sapping it much of its natural resources and wildlife. Found a snow area and the Black Forest zone along with a ruined village with 5+ houses and farming plots. One of us already killed a troll and another “caught a boar” trapping it in a holding pen. My characters progression seems a lot slower in comparison but getting a bow ASAP seems like a good idea for being able to more easily hunt deer and even kite/kill a troll using fire arrows. One player found a crypt / dungeon with skeletons?

One issue is our house is pathetically small for 5 players and it was very easy to run into the fire pit or push some else into hit causing a lot of damage. Another issue I had was I built up one of the ruined houses as a waystation southbound but I couldn’t get it to work well. The fire pit kept going out making it difficult to sleep there.

There’s definitely a learning curve in this game, but it’s fun for being a drop-in/drop-out game.

Things I wish I knew when starting out:

Learn to use the shield. It is by far the most effective weapon in the game. I’ve played with some guys who get hung up on getting the best armor, which is dumb - a good shield is a lot more important.

Set up your main base in meadows (relatively) close to black forest + ocean. Ideally close to both a river/stream and ocean. Even better if close to a boar spawn.

River/stream is great for easy access to flint + plentiful necks. One of the easiest good food combination you can get early on is meat + neck tail + berry.

You want to be close to the black forest for easy access to copper and tin. Because metals are so heavy, you’re going to need a lot of roundtrips. You want them as short as possible.

Ocean access is critical for later, when you need to go further afield. Although you can of course always build a new base in another place. Actually, you often want to build a small outpost.

Beat the Elk god as soon as possible, so you can get the pick axe (+ his power). All you need is a shield, really.

You destroy beehives using bow and arrow. Not very intuitive, but that’s how it works. You want to get the queens to build your own for the honey. Just make sure to protect them from mobs.

Me and a few work colleagues play this. We found a dedicated server best, because this is really - IMO - an excellent drop-in/drop-out game, and it works best if you can do that whenever you want.

If you have a dedicated server, you should be able to download the world later, if you want to. It’s basically a savegame that you need to download from the server. You can also upload a savegame (world) from your own machine to a dedicated server - at least you can with the vendor we’re using.

I definitely had some issues with a horrible frame rate at first. I followed some of the suggestions and I believe some form of full screen change made it work well finally. I don’t have the exact things I did handy here, though.

EDIT:

I found what I had posted above. Hope it helps!

Some beginning tips without spoiling anything:

  • Harvest every resource possible (including killing wildlife). Every new recipe and item in the game is uncovered by harvesting a resource used to make it, picking up something that you have never picked up before, or killing something new. This applies at all levels of the game.

  • RESTED is the most important word in the game. Seriously, never leave your house or compound without having the Rested status active. You regain health and stamina faster when rested, and literally every action in the game works better when you are rested.

  • Utilize existing buildings as waypoints. You don’t have to completely restore a busted up old shack or a ruined tower to reap the benefits of its shelter. Simply carry a small supply of wood with you at all times and you can quickly place a couple of wall and roof pieces to create a makeshift shelter (with a campfire) that will give you Rested : 3 (10 minutes) status. This becomes especially handy later on when you start mining metals and exploring more dangerous areas, as it gives you a quick spot to pop back to for Rested status, cooking some more food or just dropping off inventory items.

The fire in your outpost may be going out because it isn’t covered. Try sticking a 32 degree roof piece about two wall pieces above the fire, and make sure the fire is protected from winds on the 3 sides that don’t face you (half or full height wood walls are perfect for this).

Good advice there.

Unfornately the people I am playing with are progressing through the game at a pace that is just too damn fast for me. They already have a full forge and are crafting broze items while I just killed my first troll with a flint spear and crude bow.

Jumping up in technology while skipping the natural progession feels wrong in survival games. I want to see how the progression is tied to the exploration and interaction with the world. So I spent like 4 hours in my solo world trying to progress to bronze items to catch up. It took a while but I finally got a smelter, kiln, and forge and created exactly 1 bronze ingot.

As a side note my solo world is completly different from the multiplayer one. It is just a mostly inland island mass with a river valley cutting through it with steep hills on each side, while the multiplayer one is this island with lots of narrow strips of peninsula spaghetti jetting outward.

Yay? that explains nothing. I wonder how much money they spent on that video.

If there’s one thing they’re not short on, it’s money…

Why does that matter?

I am curious? Is that ok with you?

It does explain one important thing - the release date!
September 16.

Sure - I am also just curious why it matters, enough to make a point of it.

Cool animated video, but I would have preferred a sneak peek at some of the new stuff that’s coming, especially since it’s so close to release.

That said, you can get a glimpse of some of the things coming in Hearth & Home such as the new food system, shields and blocking, and health/stamina, with presumably more to come, on the Iron Gate Youtube channel.