2016

Deciding Which Package to Buy

stargrace March 17, 2016 1Comment

The time had come, I had used my 7 day guest pass to completion, and it was time to decide whether I wanted to spend $29.99 USD or $49.99 USD on the game – or just bypass it all together. Decisions like this are compounded by the fact that I live in Canada. It’s not a matter of spending $29.99 or even $49.99 – but instead we’re spending $39 and $67 (roughly, I rounded up based on today’s exchange rate). Bigger numbers tend to be harder to swallow, and it was one more thing to take into consideration as I debated which package to purchase.

Looking at the packages, they’re very similar.

• Base game (both packages)
• 1 guest pass (2 guest passes)
• 3 housing decor coupons (5 coupons)
• 3 unknown dye boxes (5 boxes)
• appearance change coupon (both packages)
• 3 partial skill resets (5 partial skill resets)
• Steel toolset package (both packages)
• tier 3 horse (explorer’s package only)
• Horse flute (explorer’s package only)
• Pet of choice (explorer’s package only)

There are only two ways (that I know of) to get a pet in-game. One is the in-game shop (the one that would cost real money), and the second is a reward at around 200 days logged in. Was I willing to wait that long for a pet? Also, I know you can buy horses as well as catch wild ones in-game, but wouldn’t it be nice to have one right away? The big winners for me (besides the pet) are also the housing decor coupons. Those I know I’ll make great use out of. Guest passes are always nice, as well as dye. Having more is better, right?

In the end I decided to support the game, get a few extras, and went with the $49.99 package. Is it worth it? I think for me, personally, yes. I love supporting the games I’m playing. Is it necessary to have any of those extras? I think absolutely not. You can easily get by without a pet, free horse, or the extra items you would receive. I like that none of the extras are ‘pay to win’ or game breaking in any way. They’re just a few little tidbits for people who want to support the game.

If you happen to be playing you can find me on Orwen, Calpheon 02 channel. My family name is Reveurs, so be sure to add me to your friends list. Remember that there’s a bit of a bug in the UI, if you’re adding a family name to friends you actually need to uncheck the ‘use family name’ option. I know, a bit weird, but that’s how it goes (unless of course it has been fixed at the time of this post).

Now it’s time to go play! As always, happy gaming no matter where you find yourself.

Lets Do a bit of Leveling!

stargrace March 15, 2016 1Comment

After spending most of the weekend running trade goods from one trade manager to another, and doing some sporadic fishing in between that, I decided that I wanted to at least make an attempt at leveling up and completing some of the combat quests I had on me (which honestly is not that many, I think I have 2 combat quests out of the 13 that I am currently working on).

One of my main quests was to summon a sort of mini-boss on a beach. The quest was marked as co-op, and level 13. I decided that it was probably more of a recommendation than a hard rule, and I was instantly thankful for the 105 health potions I had on my hot bars. The cool down timer on those is relatively short and were very handy during this battle. It wasn’t difficult per say, but until you learn some knowledge about the creature you’re fighting, you can’t see their health bars so you’re not really sure how combat is going. I just continued to cast my spells and down my health potions all the while hoping that I was making progress in the fight. Eventually I won, and I earned myself a neat little chest filled with goodies, including a new weapon and an item to expand my inventory by one. I also managed to get a nice chunk of experience.

My second combat quest sent me further away from Velia than I had ever traveled before and even though there’s no ‘fast travel’ option in game what they do allow you to do is auto run to the quest locations (in most cases, not all). I absolutely love this feature, it allows me to not get completely lost while still taking in the sights and exploring. If I want to stop to investigate something I happen to be running past, I can.

My quest wanted me to defeat 100 goblins, and then I also picked up a sub-quest that wanted 50 of those goblins to be fighters. Out of all of the systems I’ve been exploring and learning about, combat is probably the most boring. Looting items is also quite a drag, unless there’s a better method that I haven’t found yet, you need to go to each body / object and spam R to loot. I miss AOE looting, and I’m not sure why in some instances it doesn’t register that I’ve hit the R key and I have to hit it a few more times in order to pick up the object.

It’s not that combat is boring per say, it’s just not where this games forte lies (IMO, everyone is of course going to have a difference of opinion on this). I’d rather be gathering, crafting, fishing, or doing trade runs. Thankfully all of those other systems also give you experience, just not quite as much as combat seems to give. That’s fine, it’s a nice change of pace even if it’s not my favourite thing to do. There are so many options that combat doesn’t have to be the one thing that decides whether or not I’m going to play.

I picked off the goblins one by one (and sometimes it was a fight of three or four against me) and found myself sitting at level 15 with almost 20 hours played. I can hardly believe it. Sure, some of those hours are from AFK fishing while I tried to catch an elusive sardine, and others are just from me going AFK to deal with real life, but the majority of my time in game has been spent actually playing it – and it’s a wonderful feeling.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Wagon?! WAGON!

stargrace March 14, 2016 4Comments

Adventures in Black Desert Online continued throughout the weekend while I picked up a bit more insight on the various systems. I still don’t know quite what I’m doing when it comes to nodes, but I’ve managed to complete various quests explaining the systems and whether or not I can replicate those actions is another story all together. I’ve still been spending most of my time in Velia, but I’ve also adventured to the west and south a bit in order to link nodes and to complete other types of quests. One of those types that I came across early on was trade routes. They seem to work a bit like ArcheAge, where you bring heavy packages of goods from one Trade Manager to another, and then sell them. The further away the goods come from, the more money you (typically) get. You have to decide how much time vs. money you get and figure out which routes to take.

At first I was running these trade missions on foot, because I had no mount. REALLY slow, but I didn’t get attacked by anything (thankfully). Along the way I was offered a quest for a wagon license! YAY! I registered my mount at the stable, it came with a horse. This wagon is probably the most awkward vehicle I’ve ever driven in any game, but it was awesome to be able to do my trades mounted instead of taking forever by foot. I was proud of my wagon even in all of its awkward glory.

I’m almost level 13, but I’ve not done any adventuring for quite some time. There’s just too many other things to do and explore. It certainly doesn’t hurt that the game is just so beautiful.

Inventory continues to be an issue and I know there are guides out there on how to expand by doing quests, but I haven’t actually taken a look at them yet. For now I try to sell off anything that isn’t a raw resource, and things that are raw resources I keep in my warehouse for my workers to use. I do have a quest to construct a raft, but I haven’t purchased the required buildings for it. I also haven’t figured out how to obtain more lodging for workers. I have one, but when I tried to activate a second one it said I didn’t have lodging. I’m not sure if that’s a category in a house or what. I purchased a few extra houses but none of them qualified. For now I’m limited to just the one worker (who I have out gathering potatoes for me).

I checked my character window and so far I have over 15 hours played on my one character. It has been a while since an MMO captured my attention with such intensity, and I’m happy about that. After some debate (which wasn’t really much of a debate to be honest) I’ve decided to purchase the $50 package when I upgrade. This package comes with a mount and a pet, two things that I know I’d be buying in-game eventually anyway. Plus it comes with housing tokens, and if the pictures have shown me anything it’s that our houses are very dark and require lights. Free lights would be even better.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Look Ma! A Fishing Rod!

stargrace March 13, 2016 1Comment

While working on my fishing quests I was lead by breadcrumbs to a crafting quest that would involve numerous systems like workers, housing, warehouses, and that just opened up a whole can of worms of things to learn. First thing first. I wanted to learn how to make a fishing rod. The step by step seemed easy enough – I should have known better.

The quest tells me to purchase a house that can be used as a tool workshop. It even lists the house. I found it, bought it, played around with the UI for it, and noted that it was (at that time) residential. All of my attempts to change the house from residential to a tool workshop failed, and I couldn’t understand why. A bit of googling told me that houses are linked, just like nodes (which I still haven’t explored yet) so before I could use house 3-2 1st floor, I would have to purchase house 3-1. I did, and turned that one into storage. This increased my warehouse slots. I can’t enter the building, and once I obtained a tool workshop I was no longer able to enter that place either. Instead I only get the ‘visit so and so’ options. I assume that’s the way it’s supposed to work.

I put some wood in my warehouse, headed to Santo Manzi to hire a worker, found a human worker, hired him, then opened the main map and selected manage crafting. I put my worker to work (har har) annnd in 41 minutes I’m supposed to pick up a fishing rod “from somewhere”. I have no idea where. I’m guessing from the warehouse. We’ll see whether or not that’s true.

I don’t know much about workers yet. I don’t know if you keep them even if they’re not on a job or if you have to hire someone new. I don’t know if they’re designated to specific things or if they can set off to do whatever it is you need them to do. I did find that Dulfy has some guides written up which I hope to read and learn about in more depth tomorrow. I used Dulfy many times while I was playing GuildWars 2 because of the clarity in which the guides are written, and I assume that the same can be said for their BDO guides. I still haven’t figured out nodes or trade yet, but spent a lot of the afternoon crafting simple items (alchemy and simple cooking) which was a lot of fun. Of course I’m also running out of inventory space, but such is the way of every game, ever. I did get a few items that expanded my inventory which was nice, but it’s too easy to fill up on crafting components.

I still haven’t purchased the game yet, but I think it’s safe to say by now that I’m hooked and should at least get $30 worth out of playing it should I choose to purchase it. There are still so many game systems to learn, after all!

Starting Small – Getting the Hang of Fishing

stargrace March 12, 2016 0Comment

I mentioned in my first post about Black Desert Online that there were many different systems within the game that I would have to learn, and I’m slowly trying to get the hang of each one. Combat was simple enough, I’ve had no issues figuring out how to perform my combos or defeating creatures. Next up I decided to learn fishing, which is pretty simple.

I’m in Velia, bought a rod from Crio, and picked up two fishing quests from him. Went and found some water – there’s a ton of people gathered around but since I’m fishing while I write this post, I don’t mind if it takes a bit of time to catch anything. I equipped my rod, faced the water, and hit the space bar. After some time you’ll get a message: “Something is biting. Press the ‘Space’ to start.” – if you hit space you’ll launch into a little mini game. If you don’t hit space, you’ll have a three minute wait and then auto fish. You’ll cast your line out again after those three minutes are up, too.

The mini games caught me off guard at first, but thanks to this video by Pvt Wiggles it made sense really quickly. Hit space when the moving bar is in the blue, and you’ll move on to the second part of the mini game which is a repetition of wasd in various patterns. I managed to catch a Starfish, which was required by one quest, but I’m still working on the Mudskipper.

Your rod takes damage as you fish, and you can’t repair rods (according to the flashing message I see that tells me I need to repair) so I suppose I’ll need a better rod. If you’re going to fish AFK keeping a few rods in your inventory is a good idea (or so I’ve heard).

Sure, this is just one system out of many that I’ll need to learn, and yes, it’s one of the easier ones to pick up, but I really enjoy the complexity of the game, and learning how these systems interact with one another is fascinating. Once you’ve caught your fish, you’ll want to head to a Trade Manager to sell. If you’re not sure where that NPC is you can click on the NPC button on the top left side of your mini map and track them down.

Next up? Uhh. I haven’t really thought about it. Maybe I’ll learn how nodes work, or maybe I’ll figure out how to join the rest of my friends in-game. I know I play on the same server / channel as them, but no idea how to see about getting a guild invite. Having people to talk to would certainly be nice.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!