BDO: Just Sandboxing and Learning

Though I spent a few more hours in BDO last night, most of it was slowly learning the sandboxy elements like gathering, processing and fishing. A lot of it was me wandering around not quite sure where I need to go for everything still.

The game doesn’t hold your hand, so it’s easy to get lost and overwhelmed, even when you’re trying to be careful. Thankfully, I read the tips in the first Desert Nomad column, which did a lot to set me on the right path. Check that post out for a lot of useful information.

I didn’t realize the game only had the combat quests displayed by default. So, I tapped “O” and set my quest preference to “All.” Suddenly, I had a bunch of gathering and processing quests that I didn’t even see before! Yes! This was what I have been looking for!

Leveling has slowed down. Or maybe it’s because I have been focusing on gathering rather than combat quests. But I only reached level 12 last night. I’m in no rush to level faster, though, as I have no interest at all in the PvP elements of the game.

Adventures in Gathering

Another thing the article encouraged me to do was to use up my energy points. After ArcheAge, where labor points were precious, it was first nature to try to conserve my energy. Instead, I purchased some gathering tools and started using energy on skinning wolves (after I killed them, of course), mining, lumbering and gathering plants. The tools were low-level crappy, so they wore out quickly, but I was pleased as I gained both knowledge and experience in gathering.

Mining copper ore.

I’m happy to say that the energy system didn’t keep me from doing the things I wanted to do, and that was with me spending my points liberally. In ArcheAge, each time you mined a node, it’d deplete you something ridiculous, and it took forever to replenish those points. In BDO, it takes one point per action, and I found it replenished every three minutes, on top of quests that replenished energy upon completion.

Overall, this is a much better system!

Processing is interesting. It seems you don’t need to go to a crafting station to do it (so far). I could dry jerky or fish anywhere at any time… as long as it wasn’t raining! I could also make leather and fur from hides and melt down metals. I still have a lot to learn about this system, but it’s pretty painless overall.

Inventory Woes

The first limiting factor I ran across was the lack of inventory, especially after I started gathering. When I went to vendor things, the game actually warned me that I could get a lot more for the items on the Marketplace. But I had no idea how to do that.

Though I still had some quests to complete in the guard camp, I noticed this larger settlement off in the distance on the map, and headed towards it. This turned out to be the city of Velia. It also turned out to be where everyone was currently located, because it was super busy!

So many people fishing!!

Maybe it was my fault for jumping ahead and looking for the Marketplace, but I ran across a lot of NPCs I couldn’t talk to yet until I talked to NPCs in a certain order. I still don’t know what that order was, but I guess maybe I needed to talk to the town’s Chief first before other things would unlock.

I think I put some things up on the Marketplace to sell. I’m not really sure… it was somewhat confusing. Again, probably my fault for jumping ahead.

I did find the Trade Manager, who bought the one green item I looted, as well as the fish I fished up once I figured out how fishing worked. I really do need some more time to figure this out.

I plan to go back to the quests I left behind at the guard camp and do things in the right order now that I have a little more open space in my inventory!

Amity

I’m not sure what increasing amity with NPCs actually does, but I started doing it anyway. I must have unlocked enough knowledge and NPCs in the area to finally hold conversations with NPCs. Conversations are actually little mini-games where you gossip about discuss other local NPCs in a certain order.

I recognized the shapes of the minigame as the horoscope signs you chose from the beginning during character creation. The knowledge you place in those shapes either elicits a reaction of interest or disinterest in the NPC you’re talking to. You’ll have different goals for each conversation – usually to earn interest, but sometimes to earn disinterest. And if you meet that goal, you earn amity. You can also go for another round of conversation without using any energy up… but if you fail, I think you loose all the amity you earned previously.

I’m not sure of the randomness of the NPC reactions, or if there’s some way to know the best order… Or if it has anything to do with that NPC’s relationship to other. I just sorta messed around with it and earned amity where I could.

Some Cons

I spent a lot of time in my last article talking about things I liked. Here’s some small annoyances I’ve found.

Auto-Run Issues

One issue I’ve found with the auto-run feature: it doesn’t always seem to update itself properly, and can often send you back to where you were on a previous step.

For example, I needed to harvest meat from wolves and dry it to make jerky for a soldier in the camp. So, I went out and killed the wolves, harvested the meat, and made the jerky. The quest recognized I had jerky in my inventory, but when I went to use the auto-run to find the soldier, the auto-run kept running me out into the field where the wolves were! (But I’ve already done this!!)

I did find the guard, eventually, but this is an issue I’ve had with more than one quest. So, just because you have an auto-run feature doesn’t mean it always knows where you need to go. 🙁

Naming

We may have picked a family name, but it isn’t considered a last name in this game. It seems all names need to be original. So there can’t be another “Aywren” on the server.

I discovered this after painstakingly creating a specific look for a certain character of mine, only to find the name was taken. So family names aren’t last names. :/

Parking

On one hand, it’s kinda neat that horses and donkeys don’t just vanish into your inventory when you dismount. On the other hand, all the parked horses in Velia made it nearly impossible to see NPCs. This will clear out eventually, but it is quite a clutter.

Also “Parking” your horse? Is that a thing? I laughed the first time I saw a “Parking” sign over a horse.

Oh wait. Nevermind. Apparently that is a proper term. You learn something new everyday, I guess.

Inventory Space

Yeah. It’s an issue in the beginning. But I do like how some quests give you an extra inventory slot here or there.

Rolling Alts 

This is usually not an issue for me. Some of it’s due to the gender locking and some of its due to the inability to change specific character styles, but I’m having a hard time rolling an alt in this game.

The Tamer is the class I want to play at the moment. I watched videos on the other classes, but none of them really interested me, except for the Blader class… and it’s not available yet. Why? 

When I roll alts in MMOs, it’s usually to recreate characters I write in my fantasy fiction. However, the limitations of this game prevent me from doing this. For example, the Wizard can only be an old man. I can’t have a middle aged man? A younger man? Nope and nope. So, there’s no way I can make a Wizard that even comes close to looking like any of my magic using characters. Meh.

 

None of the above are game breaking to me, and I’m still having a great time exploring and learning about the game. I’m really looking forward to earning enough Contribution points to get a house. Now that I’ve found the big city in this first area, I’m ready to explore that part of the game!

I’ll post more once I get some more playtime in tonight! Until then, please feel free to send a friend invite to Aywren Sojourn on the Orwen server! 😀

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