Mystic Worlds

Busy Busy Bee

I haven't abandoned Black Desert Online but I haven't had time to play - anything. I didn't even have time to record fresh footage for the most recent Casual Citizen (Nyx).  Luckily, I had some decent unused footage from a few weeks ago.  Producing Casual Citizen + class and classwork, is consuming the vast majority of my free time.  We're at the point of needing to create weekly samples and I keep trying to find creative ways to doing things I actually want to use in the future. I don't like the idea of creating throw-away content that takes a couple of evenings to produce. :-(

The Masters has arrived in Augusta, GA.  I'm hiding out from the madness.  My subdivision exits on one of the two main thoroughfares to the course parking. UGH!!! Freaking disaster every year.  They opened it up to 4 lanes last year so why are they working on the fucking light at the intersection this week OF ALL WEEKS?!?!  Are you kidding me?  City planning at its best. 

Anywho will probably be back to a bit more SC than BDO since I'm using it for my classwork samples of producing and engineering audio content. Makes sense, right?  Ta-ta. Hope all is well in your world.

Black Desert Online - With a Name like Blood Monastery

Found an XP boost scroll in her cookpot

I should have known with a name like Blood Monastery there’d be heaps of trouble thereabouts. When the image of WOW’s Scarlet Monastery popped into my head, that should have been the first clue.  But it wasn’t. I was doing inventory management while the game auto navigated me to the NPC I needed to meet at the location. A friendly quest NPC that doubled as the Node Manager.  I did not suspect she was on a hill deep inside enemy territory.

By the time I realized the NPCs along the road leading to her location weren’t friendly, my mount and I were being accosted on all sides. I’d have known if I was looking at the mini map but I wasn’t.  And as far as I can tell, you can’t see NPC alignment or their levels by looking at them.  What I did know, is that I was hemorrhaging and pinned in.  Every woman for herself!  It might be a long walk to a stable master if my mount died but better that than me dying too.

I dismounted, activated my shield and teleported forward. Accounting for the fact that instant casts aren’t as instant as they might be in other games, there’s a GCD in between each one, trying to save myself didn’t occur as quickly as the situation demanded. Nevertheless I got free of the pack.

Most of the mobs lurched after me.  I froze the ones closest to me and quickly healed myself. I popped a mana potion and began a reign of destruction - Fireball III... Explosion… Meteor… The ground trembled beneath my feet. I was low on health again, a few of them having reached me in between spells.  

I evaded backward and cast a perfunctory Lightning Strike purely to unleash Residual Thunder. The screen shook and the world around me became blurry, as LS shot lightning through everything around me, rattling the fiber of the earth. Nothing was left standing except me and my horse. I sprinted to her and got the hell out of there. Damn the loot.

I left the dirt-of-death the game wanted to take to reach the quest NPC.  I picked my way through the brush and rocky terrain that ran parallel instead. I arrived at her little encampment toward the top. Typical MMO trope that she could somehow survive up here with her tent and campfire, surrounded by the madness leaching out from the Blood Monastery in the foreground.  Okay, sure. I turned in my quest and picked up a couple more. One required killing NPCs along the road toward the monastery.  The other in the heart of it. Well this was going to be interesting solo.

Down the hill and getting in was difficult but doable. Once inside it was sheer madness. Between the number of mobs and how quickly they spawn, to the cannons atop the ruins shooting poison, to finding what you needed inside and other players running around trying to do the same.  F it, I just started killing anything and everything that was moving. It was that or be killed.  No time to be polite about who tapped the mob first or be specific to your quest. It was start killing things very quickly or be overrun and die!  Battlements, crates and cages exploded.  Cannons toppled down. BDO has destructible environments. It was craziness. Absolute insanity. LOL

I wish I’d have taken video or screenshots but there was no time to think about it. I was too busy evading, shooting magic arrow on the run and finding enough time in between to throw down my big damage AOE spells. Wow. When it was over I scrambled and climbed around the ruined castle to get back to the NPC. I wasn’t up for fighting my way out, down and back up to where she was hiding. WHEW!  That was hands-down the most exhilarating combat I’ve experienced so far in BDO.  It felt like a bad pull in a WOW raid, except it’s operating as intended. smile 

I have a few more quests to return to the heart of darkness but I'll save those for another day. It's time to frolic in the sunshine for a while and do some manual harvesting and takes some pictures.

Black Desert Online - Casual is Easy

Playing Black Desert Online casually is still working for me. I have too many balls in the air for much more.  In the past, I've tried returning to World of Warcraft casually when I'm in between games but it never lasts more than a couple of months - tops. I'm hoping this will be different.  Until Star Citizen has considerably more game mechanics available, there isn't enough to do on a regular basis without risking burn out.  Right now, I'm having a lot of fun playing the content creation game. I'm learning about planned mechanics, the various ships and more importantly, lots of lore from doing my Casual Citizen series.

Finally put a cheap saddle on my mount

A BDO session during the week is an hour or less.  Often I have to bail at the 30 minute mark.  I like that there are enough activities available that I can achieve something in so short a time.  During my shorter sessions I'll do quest turn-ins, node management, inventory management and put items for sale on the auction house.  I want to add fishing and cooking for those occasions but I haven't had the time to invest in getting started in either yet.

For longer play sessions I explore, grind mobs that drop materials to use or sell and do quests.  I'm still picky with the quests.  If they seem annoying or tedious I don't accept them.  The in-game map + NPC finder + auto travel simplifies pinpointing exactly where you need to go AND it takes you there. This eliminates wasting time when you don't have it to spare or explore.

Stopping to dry fish that dropped from mobs before it spoils (expires)

Since I'm not doing nearly as many quests as the game expects, I don't have many contribution points to spend on nodes.  Consequently, I withdraw them from a zone when I've out leveled it and apply it toward the zones the game is leading me toward. The only reason I care about investing in nodes is that they improve your loot tables when questing in an area and reduce auction house fees.  As a class AOEs like a boss and a player who doesn't mind stopping to grind while out exploring, improved loot tables is great.  As expected, "green" armor and weapons sell very well on the auction house and I feel like I get a fair bit of them.

About to head off before it gets night in-game. I mean it gets DARK.

The BDO map is really amazing. I'm always noticing something new.  I recently noticed that it shows my workers moving and farming!! Initially, I thought they were random animations.  It reminds me of a Kingdom of Keflings. It's also previewing stuff you personally should go do on the map while you're waiting for the game to load.  Cool beans.  I bet the average player doesn't realize it yet because there's so much damn stuff on the map.  It wasn't until I started removing icons less used ones that I finally noticed what was important.  Yep.  Cool beans and TGIF!  

 

Black Desert Online - Multi-Level Terrain is Great for Explorers

I haven't had much gaming time this past week so very little was spent in Black Desert Online. When I did have time to play, I appreciated how easy it was to find something to do! Using the navigation option on the quest tracker, I could see which quests were closest to my current location.  I accepted a Spirit Quest and since it was near two other quests doing, those became the plan of attack.

It took me roaming around the Gish swamp a few minutes to realize that it was a multi-leveled set piece.  Not only could you go inside the structures around the friendly and hostile NPCs, you could climb ladders and scaffolding.  At first I thought the injured soldiers on top of the scaffolding were back drop.  But when I needed a safe place to to interact with the cutscene to complete my Spirit Quest, I tried climbing a ladder to get out of harm's way and it worked.

I ran around the area completing three quests, hid in a tower to manage my inventory and headed back to town when the sun began to set. I only had one oil lantern refill on me.  Having completed the immediate quests I had in the area, it seemed like a good time to call it quits.

Having the multiple levels of structures and elements make exploration that much more exciting and fun.  I still need to investigate fishing.  I saw players fishing off a nearby peer that was being patrolled by NPCs.  It's where I left my mount for safe keeping. Maybe that's what I'll reserve play time for in my next session.

 

 

 

 

Black Desert Online - That's a Finisher!

Another fun and relaxing session in Black Desert Online. I spent some time placing the last of the furniture I own into my house in Hiedel.  I wanted to end the evening asleep in the bed to see if there’s a rest bonus of some sort.

I really like the area for the house I picked.  At the end of a session, it does feel like going home, as I saunter my horse through the town.  I enjoy the convenience of having the Market vendor just around the corner.  And I can empty trash out of my bags at one of the nearby NPCs.

Much to my shock, I hit level 24 last night. I wasn’t watching my level. I don’t know how or if you can see the level of the mobs in this game.  I rode around opening up the map of the area and found that the marshy spot I’d recorded video in before seemed to have the best concentration of mobs. Having decided on my combos and rotations I wanted to spend some time killing mobs consecutively to start committing more to muscle memory.

I was out there undisturbed and doing my thing when one ding happened. I was all like “oh, cool” and kept going.  I wandered up and down the lake exploring and killing packs of mobs. I leveled again and noticed I could purchase new spells. Although I had enough for the the tanking ball that lasts 15 seconds, I stuck to my plan and acquired level 2 in a primary spell instead.

I still had leftover skill points that I was going to keep until I noticed that one of the new spells was merely a right click combo after casting the primary spell, one I did use often. *shrug*  I decided to get it and oh my am I glad.  Meteor Shower is an opening move or second if you have a AOE freeze. Enhanced Lightening is a finisher and oh what a finisher it is! It electrocutes everything a short distance in front of me.  What survives is stunned.  But mostly everything dies after that move.  

 

Along the way to level 24 I figured out how to replenish my lantern, dry the stack of fish I collected from killing in the marsh and only connect the nodes which are meaningful to you at the time.  That’s it for me in BDO for the week. I have a class tonight.  The rest of the week’s free time is reserved for Casual Citizen.  I prefer working on that in the latter part of the week because my day’s are less stressful at work, which means I have more energy and am less drained at the end of the day.  Here’s hoping that whatever you’re playing is blissfully entertaining.

Drying the fish I looted while killing in the marshes

 

My ever present chatty neighbors outside my house

 

Started decorating the bedroom to see if beds give a rest bonus

Black Desert Online - Nodes and Witch Spells

I was able to spend some time last Sunday playing Black Desert Online.  Instead of leveling, I wanted to investigate spells for the Witch, connecting Nodes and player housing. I’m happy to report that I accomplished all three. I’ve already posted about my first encounter with BDO player housing here. On to the other two.

Connecting Nodes

Nodes are an important element in BDO.  In addition to gating your ability to send workers to gather resources in an area, they’re necessary for establishing trade routes, impact the mob loot tables AND reduce the fees you pay to use the auction house.  With out the exploration node invested in for that area, your listing price for items you sell is on the auction house is reduced by 33%.  OUCH!!  Consequently, even if you’re not going to participate in trade runs or crafting, you want nodes established to maximize your loot drops.  Here’s the guide that finally made sense of it for me and explained why I couldn’t connect nodes even though I was desperately trying.

 

Once I fixed one problematic node, the information being displayed in the game was much clearer.  They’re trying to tell you the missing requirement but it’s not at all clear. The node manager's name displayed above the error “must connect preceding node” is the missing node you need to proceed. With that knowledge in hand, I traveled around connecting nodes from previous questing zones.

I consumed my available contribution points to connect the earlier zones I’d played through and moved on to level appropriate areas.  It was then that I noticed an icon upper left with an  red X across it, indicating that I was playing in a zone/node I hadn’t connected.  Oh well, I didn’t have any points available but at least the interface was starting to make more sense. The one downside I've now encountered related to my decision not to quest as much is that quests reward the contribution points you need for nodes and housing.  Grrr! I'm going to have to find a compromise level I can deal with and still enjoy the game.

Conquering Witch Spell Combinations

This is the first game I’ve played where spells are blocked from being placed on your hotbar by design.  There’s only one hotbar allowed and the game has predetermined which skills can be placed there.  This means that the vast majority of your spells as key combinations must be memorized.

My go-to Witch Spells For Now

 

 

Black Desert Online - Player Housing

I really enjoy player housing in MMOs. I especially enjoy it when you can craft from your home.  Long time readers may recall occasions when I’ve turned a character’s house into a crafting workshop for guild members in Runes of Magic and a business/store in EverQuest 2.  In EQ2 I went a step further, creating a few guides on how to construct custom objects.  I had a ball doing things like that in a virtual world. I enjoy sharing knowledge that might enhance someone else’s gaming experience. Heck, I’m doing the same thing with Star Citizen, except that I’ve evolved to doing videos with voice over narration.

Here's a quick tour of my house right after I purchased it.

  

How it Works

The other evening I took the plunge and purchased my first house in BDO.  As far as I’m aware, there’s no limit on how many homes you can own.  The housing systems is a combination of how EQ2 homes are instanced + WOW garrison phasing technology + ArcheAge’s external visibility from within the house.  Hands-down, I prefer AA’s non-instanced housing. However, I’ve seen the ugly side effect when a majority of players who want a home can’t find space for it.  As such, I think BDO’s is a nice compromise.

Even though housing is instanced, each home can only be owned a limited number of times.  This may have to do with supporting the phasing technology? No idea why but it just is. And there aren’t a massive amount of available homes where I’ve checked but always at least something.

Displaying the map in any city, small town or outpost will show if housing is supported in that location. Locations colored blue are available for purchase.  The options range from buying a room in an Inn ala EQ2 new player options, to multi-room multi-story dwellings.  To purchase the home you click the blue house and a dialog appears with the cost and other options.

Housing serves multiple purposes in BDO.  You must decide that purpose during the purchase.  If you’re going to have workers, you must provide their housing.  You can use it purely as a warehouse facility - your inventory has weight.  Or it can be a home for your character, where you can keep furniture that provides buffs, crafting stations, trophies and/or establish a working storefront.  I decided on a house where I can craft for my own use - for now. *Smile*

Black Desert Online - Short Witch Video

A few minutes of video from Black Desert Online.  I was completing a quest and doing some free roaming combat the other night. There are gorgeous locations off the questing trail.  I enjoy exploring the locations around the quest hubs.  When a game adds life into those in between pockets, it makes the game feel more like a virtual world.  Every time I've peaked behind the curtain so far, there's been something interesting to see or fight. Smile

I have a long way to go in memorizing all the spell combinations.  This is the first game I've played where a majority of them are not allowed on your hotbar.  Hell I don't remember that I have some of them, let alone remember the combos.  I need to practice/remember that I have an evade spell.  It lets me evade in any direction, which is important as a squishy class. BDO definitely falls into the "easy to learn but hard to master" category.

I don't expect to play BDO this weekend. I wasn't able to accomplish as much of the Casual Citizen pre-work as I would have liked. In order to meet my new goal of at least one episode per week, I'll have to dedicate most of my free time this weekend to getting the show released.  Luckily, that's not a sacrifice.  I enjoy producing the show.  Time to get to it!

 

 

Black Desert Online: Oh No He Didn't!!!

All I've done so far in Black Desert Online is quest and explore.  I'm playing very short sessions during the week due to other obligations.  So far it's proven to be a nice way to unwind after dinner before I get back to working on other projects.  

Over the weekend I need to figure out several mechanics so  I can mix them into my routine.  I'm pretty sure one of my Star Citizen org mates, BelGeode, probably has video on them. I just haven't had the time during the week to look.  But over the weekend I want to learn how to:

• Unlock nodes - you have to unlock the subsections of a zone to enable harvesting resources from them
• Connect nodes - this is necessary to do trade runs
• Get a small farm - I like farming
• Acquire workers - you use this mechanic to do mass harvesting and production
• House required workers - necessary to maintain workers
• Unlock fishing
• Unlock alchemy and cooking - no healing class means that you use potions and food. It would be good to make my own

With the above in my repertoire, I'll have more flexibility in deciding what to do during a given play session.

He Did What??

I've mentioned and shown video of the co-op bosses you summon for spirit quests.  They're all labeled co-op quests but thus far, I hadn't seen people doing them in groups when I go to the location to spawn the boss. So I've been doing mine solo too.  Well last night I ran into a really mean mo-fo that yes, should have been done with multiple players.  Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures or video since I wasn't planning to play very long and certainly didn't expect any surprises.

An Evening Chillin' in Black Desert Online

This evening I spent an hour questing and exploring in BDO.  It was way more relaxing than I imagined it would be.  It took me right back to casual time spent farming and transporting trade packs in ArcheAge even thought that's not at all what I was doing.  

I suppose it's the similar art style, lovely scenery and how active the routes through the questing areas are with players and NPCs milling around.  I know that enjoying the super casual me thing I do, when I'm not overly fond of the questing system in a MMO doesn't last every long but it doesn't hurt to give it a try.  I need to work out how to get started with housing for workers and fishing.