Black Desert Online

Speaking of Functions..

stargrace November 29, 2021 No Comments

It’s not often I find an amazing in-game function that deserves its own blog post – but I have to say, in Black Desert Online I have come across just such a function.

At first, it seems simple enough. It’s a notepad function, you can shortcut to it or you can find it in a few menus. Every game should have some sort of in-game notepad, where players can type out information they don’t want to forget, or want to have readily available. I adore games that have this function. BDO takes it even further.

You can log to a different character, and the note will stay up.

You can drag said note to a second monitor, OUT of the game window. It will continue to stay up.

You can change the colour

You can change the transparency.

More games need this function! The fact that it persists across relogging characters, and you can put it on a second monitor just absolutely blows my mind. A function that SEEMS simple, and yet it’s obviously not, because if it were more games would have included it (or so I like to think).

Have I mentioned yet how much I (still) love this game? Well, there’s one more reason added to the pile.

Quietly Farming

stargrace November 27, 2021 No Comments

I’ve been trying to spend as many contribution points as I can these days, after all if they’re just sitting there then they are really doing me any favours. I picked up a few workers, and put five farms outside of Heidel in an effort to grow some crafting materials (carrots, now that the Oasis event is over, for starters). I find farming really annoying. In order for your crops to do well they have to be watered, you can shorten the time it takes for them to grow by using fertilizer, you have to pick pests off of them (I use workers for this) and they need other little picky maintenance objectives. Workers are great, but they use a LOT of stamina that needs to be replenished, so you end up feeding them a lot. Using workers also cuts down the experience you would earn in farming on your own character, so instead I’m thinking of just having a ‘farming day’ once or twice a week when I tend to the farms on my own. Then those workers I have can go do other things, or they can wait until I need them again.

I’ve joined all of the nodes I want all across the world, which is where the majority of my CP went – and then I took the remainder of those points and invested it in some storage in Calpheon which is where I’m now holding the majority of my ‘stuff’ with Duvencrune set up for horse training. I cook in Heidel, and I’ve got a comfortable rotation set up now when it comes to crafting. Now that the season is almost over I’m planning what I want to do next, and there’s a world boss event ongoing so I’ve been collecting bits from that. All in all? Things are going pretty well!

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

A High Seas Adventure

stargrace November 26, 2021 No Comments

I had this great idea to unlock two fishing nodes over at Nada island, which is in the far North West of the world, close to Port Ratt. I am not personally a big fan of sailing in Black Desert Online, which is perfectly fine because there are tons of other options and even other methods of getting to these areas (which I didn’t learn about until after we traveled there by boat. Guess what, there’s a ferry).

We took Ogur’s fishing boat and set out to sea. After some time the map drops away just as it does in the desert, and if you’re without a compass you can’t find your way unless you navigate by the stars or familiarize yourself with landmarks.

Little did we know that fishing boats are quite slow, and they’re not made for travelling on the sea, so we were being chased by monsters and then later pirates who came VERY CLOSE to eating us. Ogur said it was a “butt clenching trip” the whole way (he was steering, and I decided to just fish and pretend all was well even though my health as well as the health of the ship was declining).

Eventually we came out the other side at Port Ratt, and I unlocked the nodes I needed. The port itself is awesome, a majestic landscape that grows up against a mountainside and looks as fantastic as it sounds. We spent the night there fishing off of a nearby island (Port Ratt itself offers very little in the way of profit) and then took the ferry home the next day, sending Ogur’s ship ahead of us to Lema, an island very close to Velia. All in all, it was a fun adventure, and reminded me just how incredibly vast this world is. We still haven’t been everywhere yet.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

So Many Characters

stargrace November 24, 2021 No Comments

It is coming to the end of the season in Black Desert Online, and I’m trying to decide who I want to play next. I currently have 8 characters but am in the middle of deleting one (the 49 Shai, more details about that later) and I already have two characters that I enjoy a great amount. They include my 61 Lahn (favourite class by far), and my 57 Shai who dreams of one day being 61. I keep intending on making her my main, but then I get distracted.

I decided to use my time piece on a witch, so I now have a 61 witch, and I also leveled up a 56 archer, a 55 sorcerer, a 56 corsair, and a 54 nova. Next season my intention is to level up a tamer – but the class revamps also happen around December 22nd, so how things play will change. I’m looking forward to these changes because as it turns out not all classes play the same. The guardian that I absolutely loved last season is actually pretty slow in their combat style, and after playing the Lahn I just wasn’t enjoying it. Ideally I’ll have one of everything, and at least two sets of gear that I can pass between everyone as I decide who to play. With the Oasis event ending it means most of my characters are without anything to wear, not necessarily a bad thing but I was really relying on that gear to use those alts to camp world bosses.

I’ll probably graduate early because I don’t really have much left to do this season. I’ve got a set of PEN Naru gear that I’m hoping to exchange for Narchilian gear (yellow gear that you can swap one time) and I’ll exchange my PEN Tuvala gear for boss TET gear – that can be enchanted through a bunch of drops/questing. I haven’t figured out all of the details yet, but it’s something involving reforming stones.

All in all? Things are still going very well in game, and even though Endwalker looms, I’ve yet to feel the pull. For now my feet are firmly planted on the river bank where I spend my time AFK fishing.

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